Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 100, Nos. 4 & 5. Whole Nos. 603 & 604, October 1992

I stared at the buck and thought of what a dollar could buy. A cup of coffee or a cheap hamburger, a two- or three-minute sit in a warm taxi, maybe two long cups of coffee in a warm cafe, like the all-night cafe a few blocks from the rails. I could see Caspar’s mind was ahead of me.

“I’ll drink,” he said, “you sit.”

“You’ve got a deal. I could use some real heat.” I stood up and bowed slightly after rubbing my cold-dry hands: “After you.”

Caspar led the way across the moonlit rails, the crushed bedding rock complaining under our feet. We slipped into the leafless brush at the bottom of the hill. Above us was a veterans cemetery and a small park with a gun from the battleship Maine, a war steamer deep-sixed in Havana’s harbor a century ago. We curved around the belly of Promenade Hill. The path was foot-smooth, clear of snow, with an occasional icy ledge for a wall.

I was thinking about the warm cafe and how maybe I could still hitch a lift to Florida, when I bumped into the back of Caspar. He was staring at something off the path. After a second or two he pushed his way through the branches, gesturing for me to follow. Within a few feet of the trail I could see what he saw. A skinny old bum, frozen stiff, white with frost. Caspar bent down next to the body.

“Stripping a bum is bad luck,” I warned.

Caspar ignored me and patted him down.

“Our lucky day,” he said, reaching into one pocket and pulling out a handful of change. While I stepped back, Caspar rummaged some more. The right wrist carried a watch, an old wind-up with a leather strap. Caspar unbuckled it and slipped it into his jacket. Another pocket produced what looked like a cracked, faded driver’s license, most of it washed out, including the photo. Caspar pocketed the old ID. Finished with the clothes, he eyed the old man’s well-shod feet, then looked at my ventilated shoes.

“They’ll fit you, and they’re in better condition.”

“I don’t want ’em. That’s borrowing bad luck.”

“Don’t be superstitious. You could lose your feet this winter.”

I knew he was right, and my feet were damned cold. I tugged the shoes off the old man’s frozen toes and tried them on. They felt like they fit, but I didn’t know, my feet were too numb to tell. Maybe after sitting in the cafe I’d know for sure. I tightened the laces and stood up. Caspar was back on the path again, the dead man’s single winter luxury, a scarf, wrapped around his neck.

“Shouldn’t we tell the police?” I asked, as I trailed behind him. “He could have been killed.”

“You want them to think you did it?” Caspar snapped. “Don’t you know dead men tell no tales?” Caspar looked over his shoulder at me. My face must have carried a lot of doubt. “And the dead don’t come back to haunt you,” he added as he turned back to the trail.

I shut up. We came out of the brush, in the tent of a streetlight, less than a block from the cafe. Caspar pulled up his jacket sleeve and strapped the watch to his wrist.

“What time is it?” he asked, as if I would know. I humped my shoulders. In the lamplight I could see the hands of the watch said it was close to midnight, though I didn’t think it was that late. The 11:15 hadn’t rolled through yet.

“Just wind it, then set it in the cafe,” I said, not too interested. Caspar nodded and the delicate ratcheting of the stem and spring mingled with our footsteps as we shuffled towards the cafe.

Caspar led the way in. Never had heat felt so good. It pampered my stubbly face, licked my hands, seeped through the holes in my jacket and bathed my feet. I looked around. There were no surprised eyebrows at the sight of us, no thwing of dropping fork or thunk of spoon — a rail-side cafe accustomed to bums.

“Got to order something, fellahs,” said a pasty guy in a stained apron behind the counter.

“Two large coffees,” replied Caspar, surprising me. Easy to be generous with a dead man’s money.

“Cream and sugar in mine,” I said, wanting to get the most for the coin.

“Make mine super hot and black,” ordered Caspar.

The coffees slid across the counter. I warmed my hand on the mug. Caspar glanced at the wall clock. It was only a few minutes after nine. He set the watch and followed the sweep of the second hand for maybe a minute.

“Good as new,” he pronounced, turning his attention to the coffee. While we sat someone put a meal’s worth of change in the jukebox and punched up a lot of songs. One was about the wreck of the ship the something-or-other Fitzgerald, about sinking on a cold winter’s night in a frigid wind. As it played, I happened to glance at Caspar’s new watch. It said 11:56. I tapped him on the arm and pointed to the watch.