Free Power, The by Frank M. Robinson

want to talk to you, I don’t even want to be seen with you. You’re a dead man, Tanner—and there’s nothing that you or I or anybody else can do about it.”
    Tanner watched him get into his car and start off with a roar, the wheels throwing gravel. DeFalco wasn’t a coward. Sunday night he had been full of hatred and willing to eat fire.
    But something had gotten to him.
     
     
    He was driving the rented car back from the cemetery when he became gradually aware of somebody standing beneath an awning along the side of the street. He almost recognized the figure, yet couldn’t place him. Somewhere, some place …
    He just barely saw the little girl. He had a brief glimpse that for a moment froze the entire scene. The man beneath the awning of the florist shop, the few people standing in front of the stores, the flag in front of the post office hanging limply in the dampness, the police car double-parked halfway up the block.
    And the five-year-old in the bright yellow dress dashing out in front of his car.
    He slammed on the brakes and twisted frantically at the wheel. Then there was a sudden silence and the smell of scorched rubber and the cold feeling of sweat trickling down the nape of his neck. A second later he was out in the street, kneeling by a little girl who was miraculously unhurt, the tears of fright just beginning to well in her eyes. A crowd quickly gathered and then parted to let two policemen through.
    “I wasn’t going very fast, I was …”
    They looked at him coldly.
    “We hear that all the time, Mac. You guys drive through here like a bat out of hell and when somebody gets hurt—no, you weren’t going fast! Me, I’m getting damn’ sick and tired of it.”
    The other policeman turned to the little girl and bent down. “Were you hurt, Mary Anne? Did the car knock you down?”
    She shook her head and started to cry. “I want my ball! I was p-playing and it b-bounced away and …”
    The policeman made a face and put away his traffic book. “You’re real lucky. If anything had happened to her we would have gotten your hide and tacked it to the stop light. Now take off and take it easy.”
    Tanner got back in his car and drove around the block and parked. He leaned his head on the wheel. He was still shaky, still confused as to what had happened. He had been driving down the street and the little girl had run out in front of his car. If he hadn’t been lucky, and if he hadn’t had quick reflexes …
    But there was something more to it than that.
    The man who had been standing beneath the florist-shop awning. A belted raincoat and a hat pulled low over his eyes so his face was in shadow. The same man who had been standing at the end of the pier when he had almost gone off?
    Probably.
    And the florist’s little girl who had been playing out in front. Playing out of doors on a cold, raw day. And then she had had a sudden desire to run out into the middle of the street because she thought her ball had gone out there. And if he had been a shade of a second slower, she would have been dead.
    And it was a near certainty that he would’ve ended up in jail, to rot there the rest of his life because release papers would be lost and people would have forgotten all about one William Tanner. They would have forgotten that he had ever existed.
    One thing he was sure of. Little girls ordinarily didn’t play outdoors on cold, raw days. And she hadn’t run out into the street because her ball had actually gone out there. She had run out at the volition of … something … that had been standing beneath the awning, watching her and watching the street and waiting.
    But it doesn’t have to be any particular street, he thought. It could be a different street on another day. Maybe an old lady would wander out in front of his car, or a boy on a bicycle. The end result would be the same. The courts would do the dirty work and pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the Enemy.
    He was being hunted and so far