Five minutes later, Hardesty found a dismembered arm. It was already frozen with the cold and seemed more like wax than flesh. The arm was too muscular to have belonged to a woman. The man had worn a ring and a gold-plated wristwatch which, between them, might bring eighty or ninety million dollars on the black market. Hardesty got the watch loose and was working the ring off the frozen fingers when the block captain spotted him.
"I saw that," he said. He had a big beefy face with eyes so close together they seemed to be forever staring at the tip of his nose. "You think you're in business for yourself?"
"I'm sorry," Hardesty said lamely. "Habit. I'm a scavenger by occupation. Here. Here's the ring."
The beefy-faced man scrutinized the ring and pocketed it. "The wristwatch," he said,
"There must be some mistake."
"I saw you put it in your pocket."
"No, you must have been imagining things." What would it bring on the black market? Fifty million dollars in a quick sale? Decent living for a month. Hardesty was damned if the block captain would get it.
"Fork it over, wise guy."
The other diggers had stopped their work to watch Hardesty's growing—and now perilous—discomfort. "Let's just get on with the work," Hardesty suggested. He had placed the sawed-off shotgun down near the curb when he started digging. He saw it there now, with one of the Red Cross teen-agers staring at it covetously. He wondered if he could reach it in time and blast the beefy block captain's face in. He decided the shovel would be quicker and every bit as effective.