The Erection Set

II

The law offices of Leyland Ross Hunter occupied an entire floor of the Empire State Building, a private world hundreds of feet above the concrete and asphalt surface of the city, existing in the almost-stunned hush of a library where even the whisper of feet shrouded in thick pile carpets was a minor commotion. Supposedly silent typewriters were touched with timid apprehension as though the operators were waiting to be castigated for every tiny click. It should have smelled of old leather and old people, but modern air conditioning and artificial atmosphere gave it the lewd tang of incense inhaled.

Behind the antique desk the maiden secretary peered at me over her gold-rimmed, flat-plate glasses, thought she bought me with an invisible peripheral glance and said, “Yes, Mr. Kelly, do you have an appointment?”

I said, “No, ma’am.”

“You’ll really have to call for an appointment.”

“Why?”

Her smile was very condescending. “Mr. Kelly, please, Mr. Hunter is...”

“A very busy man,” I interrupted.

“Quite.”

“What do you bet he sees me?” I lit a cigarette and grinned a little bit.

The vox populi had to be kept in its place. She took off the glasses with a ladylike gesture and smiled back indulgently. “Mr. Kelly...”

“When I was ten I took a picture of him skinny-dipping with Miss Erticia Dubro, who, at that time, was common nanny to our clan.” I took another drag on the butt and blew the smoke over her head. “Miss Dubro was forty-some and fat and was the first broad I had ever seen with hair on her chest. I think old Hunter had a thing for hairy-chested ladies because he let me drive his car that weekend around the estate in exchange for the film.”

“Mr. Kelly!”

“Just tell him Dog is here and mention Miss Dubro. Please?”

She was funny. The indignation was real, but so was the curiosity, and with me standing there speaking too quietly to be anything but real too, she flushed, turned a pair of toggle switches off on her intercom and sniffed up out of her chair into the office behind her.

And when I heard the high cackle of laughter come through the locked doors I was ready for her red face and wide eyes, with that total expression of disbelief that comes from living too long in a commercial nunnery.

“Mr. Hunter will see you now,” she said.

I stuffed the butt out in her paper clip bowl and nodded. “I figured he would.”

“Twenty years,” the old man said.

“Thirty.” I sat down. “You were a horny old bastard even then.”

“I wish you worked for me so I could fire you.”

“Balls.”

“You’re right. I’d give you a raise for reminding me I used to be a real he-goat. Now word’ll go around I’m an old roué and maybe some of those young squirts will give me a little respect. Good to see you, Dog.”

“Same here, old man.”

“You got a.copy of that picture of me and Dubro?”

“Hell no. You got the film before I even developed it.”

“Shit, I wish I had a copy. I’d have it enlarged and hung over the front entrance. I could use a taste of those days.”

“Don’t tell me you had your prostitute gland removed.”

“Only massaged, Dog. That’s not even fun when a doctor does it.”

“Why not try a lady doctor?”

“Who the hell you think I went to?” He sat back and roared, a wizened old guy with a face like a shaved pixie in a leprechaun body. You could see why he could still make it in a courtroom against the young ones and when the chips were down you’d have to guess where he got the single cauliflower ear that looked so ridiculous stuck there on the side of his head.

“I should have gotten that film developed,” he said.

“Look, if it worries you, I’ll set you up for another one. I know some dolls...”

“Ah, me. It sounds so good, but let me live with my memories. I’m too old to be embittered or flattered. It’s just nice to be reminded.” He handed me a silver and walnut humidor. “Cigar?”

I shook my head.

“You got my letter, naturally. I had a dickens of a time locating you.”

“No sweat. I jump around a lot.”

For a few seconds he looked at me, then sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “There’s something peculiar about you, Dog.”

“I’m older.”

“Not that.”

“Wiser?”

“Don’t we all get that way?”

This time it was my turn to wait. “Not everybody.”

His smile was impish, his eyes twinkling. “Too bad the old man didn’t like you.”

“Why should he? All he wanted was a legitimate heir. My mother got knocked up by an itinerant bartender and I was locked in under the bar sinister to preserve family pride.”

“Did you ever know your mother married your father?”

“Sure. I still got a copy of the wedding certificate. She made sure I knew about it.”

“Why didn’t she mention it?”

“Maybe she had her pride too.”

Leyland Hunter unlocked his arms and leaned on the desk. “If the old man had known, things would have been different.”

I tapped another cigarette out of the pack and lit it. “Who gives a damn? All I want is my ten grand. It was standard practice in the family ever since they had slaves and servant girls. They buy you off, kick you out and the foul deed is forgotten.”

“Speculate further,” Hunter said.

“Why not? If the perpetuator was a male, it was laughed off as a boyish prank. If the recipient of the seed was a female claimant to the family name, she was buried under the cloak of shame.”

“You should have been a lawyer.”

I grinned at him again. “Let’s say I’m a philosopher.”

“No hard feelings?”

“What for?”

“All the others take ownership of Barrin Industries. Cousins Alfred and Dennison are president and chairman of the board, respectively, Veda, Pam and Lucella own a majority of the stock, your uncles and aunts sit back and direct operations from the big houses at Mondo Beach and Grand Sita, arranging debutante balls and marriages that highlight all the celebrity columns.”

“Sounds pretty dull.”

“And now you’re back.”

“I promise not to spoil their fun. All I want is my ten grand.”

“The will was very specific. If there’s one hint of immorality in your past...”

“I killed a few people, remember.”

“That was wartime. You were decorated for it.”

“So I’ve had a few dames in the hay too.”

“Even that was anticipated. Boys are prone to experiment.”

“I’m not a boy.”

“Exactly.”

“Then get to the point.”

“Is there any possibility that any, er, woman, could ever substantiate that you and she... er, had... let’s say, an illicit relationship?”

“Now I know you’re a lawyer.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

I sucked in on the butt and leaned back, grinning. “Old friend, I’m not exactly abnormal. I’ve had me broads and I’m damn glad to admit it. In fact, I’m damn glad to hear them admit it. I come with a pretty good set of references.”

The laugh lines creased his face and he snuggled back in his chair again. “Dog, you’re still a puppy. Talk like that and you’ll wipe out that inheritance sure as hell. Why can’t you fib a little?”

“I’m not an expert at it like the family is. I always get caught. Hell, even when I told the truth I got nailed for lying, so where’s the percentage? All I want is my ten grand.”

On the wall, the old-fashioned windup clock ticked ominously. I looked at the family solicitor sitting there, knowing he was feeling for words he didn’t want to say, and just waited. It was an old story; I just wanted to hear it again to make sure nothing had changed.

Finally: “Nobody even wants to let you have that.”

“A small price to pay out of all those millions. Why rattle skeletons in the closet?”

“You ever read stock market reports, Dog?”

I shrugged again. “Sometimes. They fluctuate. I hate to gamble.”

“Barrin Industries is shaky.”

“Ten thousand bucks can break them?”

“Not exactly. The old man’s will had to conform to his father’s will and if you have a copy of your mother’s original wedding certificate you can take over as the first male heir.”

“It’s only a photographic copy made a long time ago. I guess you know the courthouse it was filed in burned down and the preacher and the witnesses are dead?”

“Yes, I know that. How did you find out?”

“I wanted to make sure.” I squeezed out the hot tip of the cigarette and dropped it in the ashtray on the desk. “No ten grand, then, I suppose?”

“No nothing, Dog. I’m sorry.”

I stood up and stretched. Outside it was a nice day and despite the smog I was going to enjoy myself. “Want to bet?” I asked him.

“Not with you,” he said. “Of all the family, you got your grandfather’s mouth, his hair, even the way he held his jaw.”

“Look at my eyes,” I said. “Whose are they?”

“I don’t know, Dog. They aren’t your mother’s.”

“They were my dad’s. That guy must have been a terror. Let’s go have a beer. You probably haven’t been in a saloon for ten years.”

“Make it fifteen and I’ll go with you,” Hunter told me.

She said her name was Charmaine, but only a Polack knows how to smell a kielbasa to make sure it’s real and slip it inside a hunk of doughbread she whipped up out of natural ingredients from a delicatessen at one o’clock in the morning, and when she came out of the bedroom wrapped in a bath towel, all peasant legs and cow-busted with a lovely people grin showing through teeth that tore the sandwich apart, I laughed and turned the Beethoven down on the record player and poured the rest of my beer in the glass.

“That old man’s pretty hot stuff,” Charmaine told me.

“Big?”

“Nope, just talented. Kind of like surprised me.” She tore the sandwich in half and paused a moment. “Hey, Dog, he ain’t...”

“No relation,” I said. “It would be a hell of a thing for a kid to buy his old man a piece, wouldn’t it?”

“Guess so. Didn’t they used to do it the other way around?”

“That’s what I heard. They gave him a year to get some hair around his gizmo and the kid got treated to a whorehouse job on his birthday. Poor slob, he probably sweated, couldn’t get it up, tipped the dame a bundle to lie to his old man and went home bragging about the experience.”

“You do it that way?” she asked me.

“Sugar, I was an old pro by the time I was twenty.”

“How about twelve?”

“I was an old amateur,” I said. “Hunter treat you kindly?”

“A dream. I think maybe I’ll specialize in old men.” She bit into the sandwich and sat down opposite me, the towel falling open before she rearranged it. Then she leaned back and propped her feet on the glass-topped coffee table.

“Will you cross your legs or something,” I said.

“Uh-huh.” She finished the sandwich and licked her fingers. “Do I embarrass you?”

“No, but you get me horny and I’m tired.”

“You got Marcia all pooped out. You like my room-mate?”

“Good kid.”

“A crazy kook. She was an acid head until I straightened her out. Always giving it away. Now she meets the right people. She thinks you’re out of sight. What’d you do to her?”

“She needed loving. Incidentally, I’m sending her to an old buddy of mine tomorrow. She’s going to get a job.”

“She told me. One-fifty a week taking dictation. What a way to ruin a good hooker.”

“Sorry about that.”

“I’m not. She graduated from Pembroke, y’know. Me, I barely made Erasmus High in Brooklyn. I wish somebody had done that for me.”

“Come on, Charmaine, you like it this way.”

“Only because I’m a nympho. I only know two other girls who really get their rocks off when they’re making it for pay with a guy. Maybe I’m the total professional. How’d you ever find me anyway?”

“Joe Allen in Belgium. Remember?”

“Ho, old Joe. He wanted me to get tattooed.” She smiled at me and looked for more crumbs on her palm to lick. “He ’told me about you too. I didn’t believe it.” Her eyes flicked toward the other closed door. “Marcia says old Joe was not lying, repeat, not lying.”

“I try harder,” I said.

“That’s what Marcia says. Why ring the old man in too?”

“Just to make sure he doesn’t have to lie when he kills me.”

“That’s about that ten grand, isn’t it?”

“Even great lawyers will tell a prostie anything, won’t they?”

“Look at Mata Hari,” she said.

“And look what happened to her. She got banged the real hard way.”

“You guys are nuts,” Charmaine said.

“All nuts,” I repeated.

“Balls,” she laughed.

“That’s what I said.”

We sat in the Chock Full o’ Nuts mopping up the plate of eggs with crisp toast, two guys watching the early shift of New York go to work before seven in the morning. Leyland Hunter’s cauliflower ear was redder than the day he got it and his suit was a mess, but there was a James Cagney twitch in his shoulders that was a suppressed laugh at himself and me at the same time.

“You’re dead now, Dog. You proved your point,” he said.

“I just wanted you to be sure.”

He tucked the last piece of toast in his mouth and sat back, happy and satisfied. “I never thought an old fart like me could get laid anymore.”

“When was the last time?”

“I forget.”

“Charmaine thought you were pretty damn good.”

“Lovely of her. She’ll never be forgotten. Ah, the feel of silky flesh unmarred by wrinkles is something to be remembered. What annoys me is that I never thought of the alternative. Never again will I be so devoted to my work. By the way, I understand you footed the bill. What do I owe you?”

“My treat. I always felt guilty about spying on you and old Dubro.” I laughed again. “How did you make out in the end?”

“A brush-off. I understand she married the gardener a year later. In those days a skinny-dip was a real orgy.”

“Man, have you got a lot to learn.”

“Unfortunately, no. I’ll get all my kicks from pornography collected during the censorship trials or wait for those rare, exotic visits from distant friends. Now let’s get back to you. I’m not quite stupid, you know.”

“I didn’t want you to have to lie, friend.”

“There are some lengths you don’t have to go to.”

“Why not?” I asked him.

“Because I could have told. You’re not the same Dog they used to kick around.”

I finished my coffee and picked up the bill. “Isn’t it going to be a ball when everybody finds that out?” I said.

This time Leyland Hunter wasn’t smiling. With a studied, serious look, he scanned my face and nodded solemnly. “I’m going to be afraid to look,” he said. “Do you hold still for advice these days?”

“Depends on the source. From you, yes. What pearls of wisdom have you got for me?”

Hunter took out a gold ball-point pen and fiddled idly with the calibrated rings that made it a slide rule. “Remember, Dog, I’ve been close to the Barrin family all my life. It was your great-grandfather that made sure my education was attended to and who established a business for me. All that because he and my father were friends, old prospecting buddies, and my father was killed before he ever saw me. Like it or not, I have a moral obligation to be of service.”

“You paid off any debt a long time ago, Counselor. It was your business acumen that saved the Barrin corporation during the Depression, your foresight that built them into millionaire war profiteers and your ingenuity that kept them rolling ever since.”

His fingers kept working at the dials, arranging them into precise figures. “That was while your grandfather was alive and active. Unfortunately, the generation gap isn’t a new thing at all. When Cameron Barrin began to decline, the family was quick to introduce a new regime... their own. I was one of the old guard and my opinions were merely tolerated, not accepted.”

“Then why sweat it, mighty Hunter? You’ve made it big on your own. Today you’re handling conglomerates that make Barrin Industries look like a toy. Oh, a damn big toy, but that’s all.”

“I told you,” he said. “I feel the obligation.”

“Good for you, but I’m still waiting for the advice.” I signaled the waitress for some more coffee. It looked like it was going to be a long lecture.

“Remember when your cousin Alfred had that accident with his new roadster?”

I let the sugar lumps drop in my coffee with soft plops. Somehow they had the faraway sounds of bones breaking. I said, “There was no accident. The little bastard ran me down deliberately. He got a roadster and I got a used bicycle. He went off the road to get me and if I hadn’t jumped for it there would have been more than a broken leg.”

“He said he lost control in the gravel drive.”

“Balls. You know better.” I stirred the coffee and tasted it. Now it was too sweet. “Funny, but I was more pissed off about my first bike being wrecked than getting the leg busted.”

“Remember what you did to Alfred when you got out of the hospital?”

My mouth was working to suppress a laugh. I had swiped a short-fused aerial bomb from the July Fourth fireworks display in town and rigged it under his car. It blew right through the seat of Alfred’s roadster and they picked star-dust out of his ass for a month. “How did you know about that?”

“Being of a legal, inquisitive mind, I surmised it, then made inquiries until I located a few witnesses. Tying in a boy with missing pyrotechnics wasn’t too difficult.”

“You could have burned my hide, buddy.”

“Why?” His eyes twinkled. “Frankly, I thought Alfred deserved it and it was an original form of revenge. I don’t think he ever molested you again, did he?”

“Not physically. There were other ways.”

“Except they never really bothered you.”

“What I didn’t have, he couldn’t steal. Alf had more to lose than I did.”

“That brings us up to Dennison.”

“He’s a prick,” I grinned. “I suppose you’re referring to the time that little town twist said she was knocked up and the old man paid off for an abortion?”

Hunter nodded and waited.

“She was an uninvited guest at the picnic. We were all playing in the same area out of sight. I never touched the dame. It was Dennie who took her into the bushes, but he blamed me for it and paid her a hundred bucks to point the finger my way.”

“I understand you were rather severely reprimanded, weren’t you?”

The laugh came out and I nodded. “With a stick. I was in bed for a week, all privileges revoked and before I was on my feet they had even disposed of the dog I had adopted.” I laughed again and sipped at my coffee.

Leyland Hunter frowned again, watching me curiously. “Was it all that funny?”

“In a way,” I told him. “Now it seems even funnier. You see, I was the only one who ever really knew the kid, being the only one who ever managed to slip out into town. She was a smart little slob, a whore at fifteen who used to make it on pay nights with the factory crowd. She was no more knocked up than you were, but she saw money in the deal and pulled the act on Dennie. It scared him shitless, especially since it was his first piece. The old lady everybody thought was her mother actually was Lucy Longstreet who ran a sleazy bordello on Third Street.”

“I still don’t see the humor in it, Dog.”

“Ah,” I said. “It’s there. Dennie boy got the damndest dose of gonorrhea you ever saw. I used to enjoy watching him hang from the overhead pipes in the garage toilet and scream while he tried to piss. His treatment was a closely guarded family secret. I used to take great pleasure in hiding his medication.”

Hunter’s slow smile turned into a silent guffaw. “You know, I wondered what that was all about. There were some dealings with the public health service when the doctor turned in his report. It took some doing to keep it quiet. Small Connecticut towns can make a big to-do about the scion of its leading family getting a dose from a local wench. I don’t suppose there was any attempt to mollify your indignity at having been made a patsy?”

“You’re slipping, Counselor. That’s when the old man made me a present of a new car and told me I could pick my own college. That trust fund didn’t come from the goodness of his heart.”

He picked up his coffee cup and held it in front of his mouth. Over the rim his eyes were birdlike, with a strange intensity. “I think maybe it did, now that I know the whole story. Your grandfather had his own peculiar code. You were the sucker, you could have blown the whistle on his scurrilous nephew and made the family a laughingstock and have been justified in doing so. On your own volition you chose not to. That was when he began to like you. I think it was a great misfortune that you saw little of him from that time on. Does anyone else know about this?”

“Sure. My mother before she died. She thought it was kind of funny. And there was the gardener your skinny-dipping Dubro finally married. You see, he knew me better. The real funny part was that at that time when Dennie was ripping off his first piece, I had been through a dozen women. I was far from a virgin. There wasn’t even a chance of me hitting that little twist because I knew damn well she had the clap. All I did was stand back, take my lumps and wait for the pee pains to hit Dennie. It was worth the wait.”

I waited while Leyland Hunter finished his coffee and set the cup down. Finally he said, “Then I take it that going back is not a personal vendetta?”

“All I want is my ten grand,” I told him. “That is, if I can get past the morals clause.”

“By your own admission, an impossibility.”

“Yeah, but if there’s one for me, there must be one for the others too, isn’t there?”

“An astute observation. However, their lives have always been under careful and constant scrutiny. They have a proven, up-to-date record that will stand the cold light of investigation.”

I laid a five-dollar bill down on top of the check and stood up. “Hunter, my friend, you are old enough to be my grandfather, but there are still some things you have to learn. Everybody’s got something to hide.”

“Even you, Dog?”

“When I bury my bone,” I said, “I bury it deep.”

“Nobody can dig it up?”

“They have to fight me first.”

“All this for ten thousand dollars?”

I shrugged and lit a butt.

We walked across town and back to Hunter’s office in the tower on Thirty-fourth Street. From the elevator starter to the receptionist on his floor, we got the same looks, some bemused, some incredulous. Leyland Hunter never wore the same suit twice in any month, and here he was showing up disheveled and happy along with another randy mutt and there wasn’t any doubt about where we had been or what we had done. The maiden lady behind her desk whipped off her glasses, dropped them in her confusion, tried to hide her embarrassment in a stuttering “good morning” and when we were inside the old man said in a low growl, “She don’t know it, but what I got is just what she needs.”

“Hell, friend, I didn’t mean to turn you into a lecher type.”

“You didn’t. I’m beginning to think I always was. I just never had time to perfect the art.”

“Never too late,” I said.

His eyes twinkled as he eased into his big chair behind the desk. “Well spoken, Dog. Now I’ll quit giving to those damn high-handed charities and put my excess money into hands that can truly justify their existence. Incidentally... what was her name?”

“Charmaine.”

“Lovely creature. Would I need your, er — endorsement for another engagement?”

I grinned at him and he grinned back. “Now, what’s on your mind, Counselor?”

Leyland Hunter leaned back in his chair, tugged his tie open a little bit farther and let the air of his profession seep back into his face. “Do you know how often I tried to locate you, Dog?”

“Nope.”

“At least every year,” he said.

“Why bother?”

“Because certain business matters were entrusted to me and I intend to fulfill my obligations. You didn’t make it easy for me at all. You took your Army discharge in Europe and promptly dropped out of sight. I went to every extent possible to find you, ran down every lead, none of which ever panned out, and frankly, Dog, I was beginning to believe you were dead. It wouldn’t have been unusual at all. Army Intelligence, Interpol and the police departments of every country had all too many cases of ex-soldiers heavy with discharge pay suddenly being found dead or not found at all.”

“I had no trouble.”

“Why, Dog?”

“Counselor,” I said, “there was nothing for me back here except aggravation. I was twenty when I left and twenty-four when I got out. I wanted to see things and do things without the entire Barrin family breathing down my neck. And don’t tell me they weren’t happy about my decision. I was their skeleton in the closet, but I rattled a little too loudly when I was home and they didn’t like to be reminded of my mother’s indiscretion that brought everlasting shame upon the great family standards. The entire clan was a pain in the ass and I was glad to be rid of them. When my mother died there were no ties left, so this Dog snapped his leash.” I stopped and tapped another cigarette from my pack and lit it. “Funny, but I sort of miss the old gent. Gramps was just at the age where I could get him all shook up with my oddball behavior. I used to play games with him and he took the bait every time.”

“Maybe you weren’t really fooling him,” Leyland said. “He was pretty cagey.”

“Ever hear him fart he got so mad?” I let out a little laugh, remembering. “The day I beat hell out of that snotty Webster kid and his old man wouldn’t sell the acreage Gramps wanted on the south side of Mondo Beach, the old boy almost blew the seat out of his pants yelling at me.”

“I know.” Leyland smiled. “And you told him to go to hell and joined the Air Force the next day.”

“I was going to anyway. I had my two years of college and wanted to fly.”

“You made quite a record. Old Cameron was rather proud of you.”

“Balls,” I said.

“True, however. It was something he only mentioned to me. In a way you reminded him of his own youth. Your main fault was never aspiring to greatness. You know how he was about wanting a direct male heir.”

“Come off it, Hunter buddy. As far as he was concerned I was a plain old bastard in the true sense. Even when my mother married my father, it was too late to lift the stigma. At least his brother’s one kid left enough progeny around before he kicked off so he had plenty of blood relatives to leave his money to. Barrin Industries fell into well-trained hands. My ten-grand inheritance was only a token gesture, but I want it.”

“Oh, it’s there all right. Cameron’s instructions were to deliver to you stocks whose total worth was ten thousand dollars within a certain period after I contacted you. Provided you met the requirements, of course. Had you returned home in forty-six, you would have received five thousand shares. They had quite a market value in those days. However, the situation has changed. Wall Street is wallowing in an all-time low. Ten thousands dollars now represents twenty thousand shares. The remaining five will be split equally between Alfred and Dennison. It was a rather strange provision in Cameron’s will and he certainly didn’t foresee the drop in the economy or the current inflation. The only reason he held back those shares of stock from Alfred and Dennison was to let them mature further before handling a greater interest in the business.”

“But it’s still only ten grand,” I said.

“There’s a little more.”

“Oh?”

Hunter spun around in his chair, pulled a file drawer open and extracted a stiff yellow folder. He handed the contents across the desk to me. “Nothing much, but part of my obligation. Your grandfather once purchased a large tract of land in New Mexico, speculating that a government irrigation project would be instituted in the area. The bill never passed Congress and the land is still there... beautiful, rocky and arid. It’s a snake collector’s paradise and tourists take pictures of it. He left it to your mother and now it’s yours.” He tapped the paper in front of me and handed me a pen. “If you can find a sucker you might get him to take it off your hands at a quarter an acre. That would net you an even thousand dollars. At least it’s something. Taxes are negligible and paid to date.”

I scratched my name on the papers and shoved them back to him. “Thanks a lot,” I said. “Now how about my ten grand?”

“You just signed a notification of availability for it. Delivery may take place to you, Alfred and Dennison simultaneously at a formal meeting at Grand Sita, your former palatial residence. Let’s say day after tomorrow?”

I scowled in disgust. “Do I have to?”

Leyland nodded. “I’m afraid so. Besides, think of the reunion you’ll have.”

“Like meeting a pack of cobras,” I said.

A ghost of a smile crossed the old man’s face, but I didn’t catch what he said. I asked, “What?”

He shook his head and smiled. “The day after tomorrow. We’ll leave from here. Four P.M.”

REFLECTIONS: LEYLAND HUNTER

“Like meeting a pack of cobras,” Dog had said, and didn’t hear me when I answered, “But who’s the mongoose?”

Dogeron Kelly, the kid they could never figure out or pin down. He didn’t give a damn for anything then and he sure doesn’t now. Anybody else would take him for just another big guy who had been around the world and had seen and done as he damn well pleased, a guy who wasn’t anything and didn’t want anything.

But me, I’m old in the trade. Too damn many court-rooms. Too damn many times looking through wire screens at clients and watching their minds work. There are types and types, but they all fall either on one side of the fence or the other. Dogeron Kelly was walking around behind a disguise. He was a predator in camouflage, always stalking, but so much at home in whatever world he lived in he was completely at ease.

Idly, I wondered how many men he had killed. The ones he didn’t get medals for killing. Once Interpol had queried me about a possible identification of a man whose description answered his, a man who had hijacked a shipment of stolen Nazi gold destined for Moscow. The picture was indistinct, Moscow denied the incident, and, upon further investigation, the man was reported supposedly dead or missing. I still had the photo in my desk drawer. I took it out and looked at it for the hundredth Time. It was still indistinct. It could and could not be Dogeron Kelly. Or anybody else for that matter.

Who are you really, Dog? That look that comes from the back of your eyes isn’t new to me at all. It has violence in it and something I can’t pin down at all, something that doesn’t belong there.

I glanced at the calendar and wondered how much longer it would be before the explosion went off.

You’re a bomb, Dog, a damned walking bomb, but I like you anyway. You bring excitement into an old man’s life.