The World in My Pocket

One of them was wearing the uniform of an Army major; the other wore a cheap, ready-made suit with a pork-pie hat set squarely on his head. The major was a small, fair man with a military moustache and a brown, lean face. His blue eyes were hard and direct. His companion was tall and bulky. His red, weather-beaten face was coarse featured, and Bradford guessed he was a police officer in plain clothes.

‘Mr. Bradford?’ the major asked, coming to rest in front of the sitting man.

‘Why, sure,’ Bradford said, getting to his feet. ‘You want me?’

‘Fred Bradford, junior?’ the major asked.

Bradford stared at him.

‘Why, no. That’s my son.’ He folded the newspaper nervously and dropped it into his chair. ‘What do you want with him?’

‘I’m Major Delaney, Field Security,’ the major said and waving his hand to his companion, ‘this is Lieutenant Cooper, City Police.’

Bradford looked uneasily at the two men.

‘I’m glad to know you gentlemen.’ He paused, then went on, ‘You don’t want my boy, do you?’

‘Where is he?’ Cooper asked.

‘He’s down by the lake with his mother,’ Bradford said. ‘What is this all about?’

‘We would like to talk to him, Mr. Bradford,’ Delaney said. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’

At this moment, Fred Bradford, junior, came wandering up the path, whistling shrilly. He stopped whistling when he saw the two men, and he approached more slowly, a sudden wary expression on his face.

‘Here he is now,’ Bradford said. Turning to his son, he said, ‘Hey, junior, come here. Where’s your mother?’

‘She’s fooling down by the lake,’ the boy said, a scornful note in his voice.

‘Are you Fred Bradford, junior?’ Delaney asked.

‘That’s right,’ the boy said, looking up at the two men.

‘Did you write this?’ Delaney asked, taking an envelope from his pocket and extracting a sheet of notepaper.

Bradford recognized his son’s sprawling handwriting that covered the paper.

‘That’s right,’ the boy said.

He squatted down on his haunches, took off his battered straw hat and began to fill it with grass.

Bradford said blankly, ‘My son wrote to you?’

‘He wrote to police headquarters,’ Delaney said. ‘He claims to know where this missing truck is.’

Bradford gaped at his son.

‘Junior! What have you been doing? You know you don’t know where it is!’

The boy looked up at his father scornfully, then went on filling his hat with grass. When he had filled the hat, he bent forward and dipped his head into the hat, pulled the hat on and then straightened up.

‘I have to do it that way,’ he said to no one in particular, ‘otherwise the grass falls out. It keeps my head cool. It’s my own invention.’

Delaney and Cooper exchanged glances, then Delaney said kindly, ‘Where is the truck, son?’

The boy sat down and crossed his legs. He adjusted his hat, pulling it more firmly down on his head.

‘I know where it is,’ he announced solemnly.

‘Well, that’s fine,’ Delaney said, restraining his impatience with an effort. ‘Where is it?’

‘How about the reward?’ the boy asked, looking up sharply; his eyes fixed disconcertingly on the major’s face.

‘Look, junior,’ Bradford said, sweating with embarrassment, ‘you know you don’t know where the truck is. You’ll get into serious trouble wasting these gentlemen’s time.’

‘I know where it is all right,’ the boy said calmly, ‘but I’m not telling until I get the reward.’

‘Come on, son,’ Delaney said, his voice sharpening. ‘If you know something, trot it out. Your father’s right: you could get into serious trouble if you’re wasting our time.’

‘The truck’s hidden in a caravan,’ the boy said.

‘Now look,’ Bradford said, ‘we’ve been over all that. You know as well as I do.’

‘Just a moment, Mr. Bradford,’ Delaney broke in, ‘I’ll do the talking, if you please.’ He turned to the boy. ‘What makes you think the truck is in a caravan, son?’

‘I’ve seen it,’ the boy said. ‘They have two big steel girders bolted to the bottom of the caravan so the truck can’t fall through.’

‘They? Who do you mean?’

‘The guys who stole the truck, of course.’

Delaney and Cooper looked at each other. Delaney was faintly excited.

‘You’ve actually seen the truck?’

The boy nodded, then, frowning, he took off his hat.

‘It’s cool enough when I first put it on,’ he said seriously, ‘but after a while, the grass seems to heat up.’ He emptied the grass out of his hat. ‘I guess I’ll have to keep putting fresh grass in if it’s going to work at all.’

He began to fill the hat with grass again.

‘Where did you see the truck?’ Delaney asked, his voice thin with exasperation.

The boy continued to tear up handfuls of grass which he dropped into the hat.

‘Did you hear what I said?’ Delaney barked.

‘What was that?’ the boy asked, pausing for a moment to look up at Delaney.

‘I asked you where the truck is,’ Delaney said.

The boy began to put more grass into his hat.

‘My father says the police wouldn’t give me the reward,’ he said. ‘He says they’ll keep it for themselves.’

Bradford shifted uneasily.

‘I never said any such thing!’ he said angrily. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself talking that way.’