The train whistle sounded again. Of course, only I could hear. Would the Express leave without me?
“Isn’t that correct, Judge?” My tone was sharp. I was desperate to depart.
His sandy lashes blinked, then he responded firmly, “That’s right.” He looked at his wife. “There is no doubt this evidence would be presented and accepted at the hearing where you would be arraigned.”
I nodded approval. “In that event, I will proceed to file my report, and a summons will be issued.” I had no idea as to police procedure at this level. Certainly Brad, as a judge, would know, but I was counting on him to remember that I wasn’t here. Was he clever enough to understand?
Did I smell coal smoke?
“Officer, I might be willing to drop the matter.”
I frowned. “Your Honor, a crime has been committed. Extortion, as I don’t need to remind you, is a felony.”
“However”-he spoke quietly-“it is my prerogative to settle the matter without the filing of charges.” He turned toward his wife. “Eleanor, it’s up to you.”
I folded my arms and looked as menacing as a five-foot-five-inch redhead can manage.
“You got me, didn’t you? I never expected you to be clever, Brad.” She stared at him as if he were a stranger. “What do you want?”
“First, call Joan. You are to sound cheerful and upbeat. Here’s what I want you to tell her…”
The Rescue Express wailed, the high, wavering cry much nearer.
In a moment, Eleanor was on the telephone. “Joan,” she sounded at ease, “I’m afraid I gave you a wrong impression tonight… That bruise had nothing to do with Brad. I got whacked by that automatic door at the grocery. You know the one I mean. You take your life in your hands when you go through that door. Tonight I was upset because I knew I was going to ask Brad for a divorce… Actually, it isn’t because of him. I’ve met a guy, and I was worried about how Brad would take it, but he’s being the perfect gentlemen.” Her eyes burned as she looked toward him.
Brad gave a thumbs-up.
The whistle sounded overhead.
“Anyway, it always helps to talk things out. I’m off to Dallas tonight. Everything’s working out… Right… I’ll keep in touch.” She clicked off the phone. “Satisfied?”
“Yes. In exchange, I’ll make a fair settlement with you. Now. Pack a suitcase and go.”
She flicked a furious look at the video cam in my hand. “What will happen to the video?”
“It is police property. It will be in my custody.”
She looked sick. Obviously, if the camera was at the police station, there was no way she could ever hope to be free of the threat of exposure.
She whirled and ran to the hall and pounded up the stairs.
Quick as a flash, I darted to Brad, thrust the camera at him. “She can’t be trusted. Put this in a vault. Sorry, I have to go.”
With that, I disappeared and zoomed out of the house and up into the sky and there, almost beyond my grasp, was the rail to the caboose.
Oh. And oh. I couldn’t quite reach it!
What would happen to a missing emissary? Would I be adrift, become one of those ghosts aimlessly walking about in their haunts of old?
“Here we go.” Wiggins’s shout was robust, and there he was, reaching out from the red caboose, his strong hand grabbing mine and pulling me aboard.
When I stood beside him, breathing in gasps, he turned to me and folded his arms in mock disapproval, but his eyes were twinkling almost as bright as the stars we passed.
“That was a near thing, Bailey Ruth. You cut it rather fine. However, your mission was flawlessly executed.” He smiled in approval. “As for your delay in coming aboard”-his tone was casual-“that’s neither here nor there. Sometimes, as far as official reports go and your status as an emissary, least said, soonest mended.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful.”
“However-”
I should have known I wasn’t quite home free.
“I have a question.”
I steeled myself.
His ruddy face folded in puzzlement. “BOOMS?”
I laughed in relief. “Things have changed on earth, Wiggins. Young people send each other text messages on their cell phones, and they use a great many abbreviations. BOOMS means bored out of my skull.”
“BOOMS,” he repeated with delight. “I’ll remember that. BOOMS! Not”-and his tone was kindly-“a state you were long willing to endure. Bully for you, Bailey Ruth.”
Bully for me. Ah, every age has its style.
“Thank you, Wiggins.” I almost told him what a fine fellow he was, then decided that might be presumptuous. But I was too ebullient not to celebrate. “Wiggins, we have a bit of time before we get to Heaven.” I reached out and took his hand. “Have you ever cha-chaed?”
Grave Matter – A Mike Hammer Story by Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane
AUTHOR’S NOTE: In the early 1990s, Mickey Spillane and I created a science-fiction variation on his Mike Danger character for comic books. (The Danger character had been developed for comics by Mickey just before World War Two, and he attempted to market it after the war, as well, without success. In 1947, he decided to change “Danger” to “Hammer” and I, the Jury was the result.) At some point, the comic book company asked Mickey and me to develop a prose short story for a market that fell through. Mickey approved this story and gave me notes but did not do any of the writing, which explains the unusual byline above (with me getting top billing). Later, I recycled this idea for a third-person short story that used a different lead character, but this represents the first appearance of the story in its original, intended form… although for various reasons, I have changed “Danger” back to “Hammer.” The tale takes place in the early 1950s.
If I hadn’t been angry, I wouldn’t have been driving so damn fast, and if I hadn’t been driving so damn fast, in a lashing rain, on a night so dark closing your eyes made no difference, my high beams a pitiful pair of flashlights trying to guide the way in the vast cavern of the night, illuminating only slashes of storm, I would have had time to brake properly when I came down over the hill and saw, in a sudden white strobe of electricity, that the bridge was gone, or anyway out of sight, somewhere down there under the rush of rain-raised river. When the brakes didn’t take, I yanked the wheel around, and my heap was sideways in a flooded ditch, wheels spinning. Like my head.
I got out on the driver’s side, because otherwise I would have had to swim underwater. From my sideways-tipped car, I leapt to the slick highway as rain pelted me mercilessly, and did a fancy slip-slide dance, keeping my footing. Then I snugged the wings of the trench coat collar up around my face and began to walk back the way I’d come. If rain was God’s tears, the Old Boy sure was bawling about something tonight.
I knew how he felt. I’d spent the afternoon in the upstate burg of Hopeful, only there was nothing hopeful about the sorry little hamlet. All I’d wanted was a few answers to a few questions. Like how a guy who won a Silver Star charging up a beachhead could wind up a crushed corpse in a public park, a crumpled piece of discarded human refuse.
Bill Reynolds had had his problems. Before the war he’d been an auto mechanic in Hopeful. A good-looking, dark-haired bruiser who’d have landed a football scholarship if the war hadn’t gotten in the way, Bill married his high school sweetheart before he shipped out, only when he came back missing an arm and a leg, he found his girl wasn’t interested in what was left of him. Even though he was good with his prosthetic arm and leg, he couldn’t get his job back at the garage, either.
But the last time I’d spoken to Bill, when he came in to New York to catch Marciano and Jersey Joe at Madison Square Garden, he’d said things were looking up. He said he had a handyman job lined up, and that it was going to pay better than his old job at the garage.
“Besides which,” he said, between rounds, “you oughta see my boss. You’d do overtime yourself.”