The Last Stand E-Book

Mickey Spillane

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

ON MICKEY SPILLANE'S 100TH BIRTHDAY – A BRAND-NEW NOVEL FROM THE MASTERWhen legendary mystery writer Mickey Spillane died in 2006, he left behind the manuscript of one last novel he'd just completed: THE LAST STAND. He asked his friend and colleague (and fellow Mystery Writers of America Grand Master) Max Allan Collins to take responsibility for finding the right time and place to publish this final book. Now, on the hundredth anniversary of Spillane's birth, his millions of fans will at last get to read THE LAST STAND, together with a second never-before-published work, this one from early in Spillane's career: the feverish crime novella A BULLET FOR SATISFACTION.A tarnished former cop goes on a crusade to find a politician's killer and avoid the .45-caliber slug with his name on it. A pilot forced to make an emergency landing in the desert finds himself at the center of a struggle between FBI agents, unsavory fortune hunters, and members of the local Indian tribe to control a mysterious find that could mean wealth and power – or death. Two substantial new works filled with Spillane's muscular prose and the gorgeous women and two-fisted action the author was famous for, topped off by an introduction from Max Allan Collins describing the history of these lost manuscripts and his long relationship with the writer who was his mentor, his hero, and for much of the last century the bestselling author in the world.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

A Bullet for Satisfaction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

The Last Stand

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Also Available from Titan Books

Acclaim for the Legendary MICKEY SPILLANE!

“Spillane is a master in compelling you to always turn the next page.”

—New York Times

“There’s a kind of power about Mickey Spillane that no other writer can imitate.”

—Miami Herald

“Satisfying…its blithe lack of concern with present-day political correctness gives it a rough-hewn charm that’s as refreshing as it is rare.”

—Entertainment Weekly

“A superb writer. Spillane is one of this century’s bestselling authors.”

—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Spillane’s books…redefined the detective story.”

—Wallace Stroby

“A wonderfully guilty pleasure.”

—Tim McLoughlin, The Brooklyn Rail

“A fun, fast read…from one of the all-time greats.”

—Denver Rocky Mountain News

“Spillane…presents nothing save visual facts; but he selects only those facts, only those eloquent details, which convey the visual reality of the scene and create a mood of desolate loneliness.”

—Ayn Rand

“A writer who revolutionized a genre [with] heavy doses of testosterone, fast action, brutality and sensuality.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Sexy and frantically paced.”

—Chicago American

“Salty and satisfying…will hit like a slug of Old Crow from the bottom-drawer bottle.”

—Buffalo News

“Machine gun pace…good writing…fascinating tale.”

—Charlotte Observer

“Simple, brutal, and sexy.”

—Kansas City Star

“If you think he has lost his touch or drained the well, read this one…the new one is better than ever. If you are a Spillane fan you will enjoy this one more than anything done before. It is fast-moving, easy reading, and has the greatest shocker of an ending.”

—Albuquerque Tribune

“The socko ending is Mickey Spillane’s stock in trade, and never has he done it with greater effect…Sensational.”

—Buffalo News

“A swift-paced, pulsating yarn…which very definitely shows that Mr. Spillane still has control of his fast ball, plus a few sneaky slow ones for the change-up.”

—Springfield Daily News

“Need we say more than—the Mick is back.”

—Hammond Times



The only thing I heard was the night sounds. It was still the same old night for me—nothing had changed. You had to walk the streets to really know what the city was all about, though what you learned would probably make you sick.

And I was learning that I wasn’t alone.

I’d heard the strange noise, like muffled clicking of heels, behind me. I thought nothing of it at first, then it got louder. I walked faster and the noise ceased.

But when I slowed down, I heard it again—real close. On a stretch where the streetlamp was out, I came to a complete stop, spun around, and met him face to face.

In the night I saw the flicker of the blade…

OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS BY MICKEY SPILLANE:

DEAD STREET

THE CONSUMMATA (with Max Allan Collins)

OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS BY MAX ALLAN COLLINS:

QUARRY

QUARRY’S LIST

QUARRY’S DEAL

QUARRY’S CUT

QUARRY’S VOTE

THE LAST QUARRY

THE FIRST QUARRY

QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE

QUARRY’S EX

THE WRONG QUARRY

QUARRY’S CHOICE

QUARRY IN THE BLACK

QUARRY’S CLIMAX

DEADLY BELOVED

SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT

TWO FOR THE MONEY

The LAST STAND

byMickey Spillane

PREPARED FOR PUBLICATION AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MAX ALLAN COLLINS

A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

(HCC-133)

First Hard Case Crime edition: March 2018

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street

London SE1 0UP

in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

Copyright © 2018 by Mickey Spillane Publishing LLC

Cover painting copyright © 2018 by Laurel Blechman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Print edition ISBN 978-1-78565-686-6 E-book ISBN 978-1-78565-687-3

Design direction by Max Phillipswww.maxphillips.net

Typeset by Swordsmith Productions

The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com

For the Spillane “satellite” writers—Earle Basinsky Dave Geritty Joe Gill Charlie Wells

THE LAST STAND

MICKEY SPILLANE AT 100 an introduction by Max Allan Collins

In July of 2006, at the age of 88, the last major mystery writer of the twentieth century left the building. Only a handful of writers in the genre—Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler among them—achieved such superstar status.

Spillane’s position, however, is unique—reviled by many mainstream critics, despised and envied by a number of his contemporaries in the very field he revitalized, the creator of Mike Hammer had an impact not just on mystery and suspense fiction but popular culture in general.

The success of the paperback reprint editions of his startlingly violent and sexy novels—tens of millions of copies sold—jump-started the explosion of so-called “paperback originals,” for the next quarter-century the home of countless Spillane imitators, and his redefinition of the action hero as a tough guy who mercilessly executed villains and slept with beautiful, willing women remains influential (Sin City is Frank Miller’s homage).

When Spillane published I, the Jury in 1947, he introduced in Mike Hammer one of the most famous of all fictional private eyes, and one unlike any P.I. readers had met before. Hammer swears vengeance over the corpse of an army buddy who lost an arm in the Pacific, saving the detective’s life. No matter who the villain turns out to be, Hammer will not just find him, but kill him—even if it’s a her.

Revenge was a constant theme in Mike Hammer’s world—Vengeance Is Mine! among his titles—with the detective rarely taking a paying client. Getting even was the motivation for this hard-boiled hero.

This was something entirely new in mystery fiction, and Spillane quickly became the most popular—and controversial—mystery writer of the mid-twentieth century. In addition to creating an eye-for-an-eye hero, the writer brought a new level of sex and violence to the genre. He was called a fascist by left-leaning critics and a libertine by right-leaning ones. In between were millions of readers who turned Spillane’s first six Hammer novels into the bestselling private eye novels of all time.

Since then, Hammer has been the subject of a radio show, a comic strip, and several television series, starring Darren McGavin in the 1950s and Stacy Keach in the ’80s and ’90s. Numerous gritty movies have been made from Spillane novels, notably director Robert Aldrich’s seminal film noir, Kiss Me Deadly (1955).

As success raged around him, Mickey Spillane proved himself a showman and a marketing genius; he became as famous as his creation, appearing on book jackets with gun in hand and fedora on head. His image became synonymous with Hammer’s, more so even than any of the actors who portrayed the private eye, including McGavin and Keach.

For eighteen years, well past the peak of his publishing success, Spillane appeared as himself (and basically as Hammer) in the wildly successful Miller Lite commercials, alongside his “Doll” (Lee Meredith of The Producers fame) and overshadowing countless former pro athletes.

Alone among mystery writers, he appeared as his own famous detective in a movie, The Girl Hunters (1963). Critics at the time viewed his performance as Hammer favorably, and today many viewers of the quirky, made-in-England film still do. Virtually an amateur, Spillane is in nearly every frame, his natural charisma and wry humor holding him in good stead beside the professional likes of Lloyd Nolan (Michael Shayne of the 1940s Fox movie series) and Shirley Eaton (the “golden girl” of Goldfinger).

The Girl Hunters wasn’t Spillane’s first feature film—it wasn’t even his first leading role in one. In 1954, John Wayne hired Spillane to star with Pat O’Brien and lion-tamer Clyde Beatty in Ring of Fear, a film Mickey co-scripted without credit, receiving a white Jaguar (the car, not the cat) as a gift from producer Wayne.

Mike Hammer paved the way for James Bond and every tough P.I., cop, lone avenger and government agent who followed, from Shaft to Billy Jack, from Dirty Harry to Jack Bauer. The latest Hammer-style heroes include an unlikely one—the vengeance-driven Girl of Dragon Tattoo fame—as well as a more obvious descendent, Lee Child’s Jack Reacher.

Now, on the occasion of Spillane’s centenary—he was born March 9, 1918—I am pleased to team up with Hard Case Crime to present readers with a very special birthday present: two previously unpublished works, one from near the start of his mystery writing career, the other the very last novel he wrote, finished within weeks of his passing.

* * *

The manuscript of A Bullet for Satisfaction that I found in Mickey’s files is somewhat mysterious. Typewritten on his distinctive yellow paper—like almost everything among the unpublished, unfinished material—a section of the short novel is similarly familiar in being typed in Mickey’s usual single-spaced format (it saved paper and “looked more like a book”).

Two other sections, however, are double-spaced. A number of partial Spillane novel manuscripts were indeed double-spaced but on white paper, presumably prepared by a typist to be sent in to Mickey’s publisher to indicate that contracted-for work was underway. Satisfaction was the only example in the files that appeared to be rough-draft material, typed on the yellow paper Mickey preferred (he found it easy on the eye and immediately identified a manuscript as unfinished), but partly utilizing double-spacing.

And although the short novel had a beginning, middle and end, it lacked Spillane’s usual edits. Mickey liked to claim he never rewrote, but that was an exaggeration—he typically tweaked word choice in pen and replaced paragraphs or even sections with typewritten inserts. A number of the later Hammer novels I wound up finishing gave me alternate versions of entire chapters—The Goliath Bone (2008) had a dizzying number of first chapters for me to choose from and eventually combine. The lack of edits on A Bullet for Satisfaction suggests it was set aside early in the writing process—and yet was a more or less complete draft. So why was it abandoned?

Of course, it’s not automatically mysterious to find unfinished but substantial material in Spillane’s files. Over the past decade-plus since Mickey’s passing, I have completed six Hammer novels working from 100-page beginnings and other materials (characterization and plot notes, sometimes roughed-out endings), and another six from shorter fragments (usually around 30 or 40 pages, again sometimes with other materials).

In addition, I’ve completed Dead Street (all but the final three chapters by Mickey) and The Consummata (again from a 100-page start). Also, a number of Hammer short stories, gathered in the collection A Long Time Dead (2016), have been developed from smaller fragments.

Mickey frequently walked away from an in-progress novel when another project took over his interest. In the last years of his life, he frequently moved from one novel manuscript to another (Goliath Bone and The Last Stand being his final projects, though he also considered Dead Street active). He often had a different novel going in each of his three home offices.

As you will see, A Bullet for Satisfaction, written in tough-guy first-person, has the themes, plotting techniques, melodramatic characterization, hard-breathing sex, and violent action so characteristic of Mickey’s earliest work. Obviously written no later than the mid-’50s, Satisfaction seems almost a compendium of Gold Medal Books-era noir—a rogue cop, a corrupt town, sleazy bars and night spots, crooked politicians, a good girl or two, a bad girl or two, a friendship damaged by betrayal, and Spillane’s trademark vengeance theme.

The existing draft had a number of inconsistencies and rough patches, as well as a risible subplot about Communism that required me to go beyond simple editing into Spillane/Collins collaborative mode. But Satisfaction was certainly something that with a bit of work Mickey could easily have sold to one of his regular magazine markets, Manhunt or Cavalier. So why didn’t he?

One possible clue is that the manuscript may date to the period around 1952 when Spillane was dealing with his religious conversion to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The only Hammer novel he published around then was Kiss Me, Deadly (1952), which finds the writer struggling with the sex and violence elements expected of him. He may have shelved Satisfaction because it would have gotten him in trouble with his newly adopted church.

It’s also possible that he was working on it with one of his group of satellite writers, ex-military buddies who gathered around their successful friend in the fifties. Charlie Wells, Earle Basinsky and Dave Geritty all wrote and published crime novels with Spillane’s help, both as a mentor and as a conduit to such publishers as Gold Medal, Dutton and Signet—Spillane provided cover blurbs for all three writers. Another satellite writer, Joe Gill, a pal of Mickey’s from comic-book days, became a prolific magazine contributor and comics scripter, including the very Hammer-like 1960s P.I. feature, Sarge Steel.

Wells and Basinsky published a pair of novels each—the former, Let the Night Cry (1953) and The Last Kill (1955); the latter The Big Steal (1955) and Death Is a Cold, Keen Edge (1956). But only Geritty had a substantial career, publishing eight novels under assorted bylines (“Garrity,” “Dave J. Garrity,” “David J. Gerrity”) and ghosting two celebrity autobiographies. In Geritty’s sole private eye novel, Dragon Hunt (1967), Spillane loaned out Mike Hammer for several cameos and let his friend re-use the basic plot of the final daily continuity of the comic strip From the Files of…Mike Hammer (1953−1954), which Mickey, Joe Gill and artist Ed Robbins had written.

Of the satellite writers, Geritty seems the most likely to have had a hand in A Bullet for Satisfaction. But the manuscript clearly is a child of the early ’50s, and Geritty did not get a book published till 1960 (Cry Me a Killer, Gold Medal). It seems more likely Mickey censored himself for religious reasons, and put the novella aside.

But for the purposes of this volume, A Bullet for Satisfaction provides a sharp, revealing contrast with Mickey’s final completed novel, The Last Stand. Together these companion pieces bookend Mickey’s extraordinary career.

* * *

A month or so before his passing in the summer of 2006, Mickey sent me The Last Stand.

We spoke on the phone and I told him what a kick I’d gotten out of it. He was happy with the book—happy to have finished it, under the circumstances, but overall pleased, though he told me of a few things he’d like to touch up “if he had the time.” (My contribution to the novel has largely been carrying out Mickey’s instructions.) He then turned his attention to his final Hammer novel-in-progress, The Goliath Bone, calling me days before his death and asking me to complete it for him, if necessary.

Around this time, he also told his wife Jane that there would be a “treasure hunt” after he was gone, and to “give everything to Max—he’ll know what to do.” Jane reminded him that I was not a Jehovah’s Witness, and Mickey said he understood—I would not be bound to leave out things that might displease his church.

My wife Barb (with whom I write the Antiques mystery series) and I joined Jane in the treasure hunt that took us to all three of Mickey’s offices in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. The files were extensive, as I’ve indicated. We sat in the Spillane dining room with a feast of manuscripts before us, each of us combing through our stacks of pages, occasionally one of us crying out, “Here’s a Hammer!”

Included, of course, was Mickey’s final completed manuscript—The Last Stand, not a Mike Hammer. After much thought, and some input from Hard Case Crime editor Charles Ardai, I decided to put it aside, with the centenary in mind. My immediate priority was to get the unpublished Mike Hammer material out there—Mickey had only published thirteen Hammer novels in his lifetime—as well as the two other substantial unfinished crime novels, Dead Street and The Consummata. My current Spillane project is completing the earliest manuscript in the files, Killing Town (Titan Books, forthcoming 2018), the first Mike Hammer novel, preceding even I, The Jury.

The Last Stand represents the culmination of the final phase of Mickey’s writing life, in which he was more interested in adventure than mystery—although from the beginning, Spillane heroes had been two-fisted adventurers, and all of his work contains elements of mystery and crime fiction. His two published books for pre-adolescents—The Day the Sea Rolled Back (1979) and The Ship That Never Was (1982)—reflect that bent toward adventure, and his love of the sea. His final published novel, Something’s Down There (2003), similarly reflects his enthusiasm for boating and deep-sea fishing, with Mike Hammer replaced by the evocatively (and similarly) named Mako Hooker.

The Last Stand is a wonderful chance to spend some time with one of twentieth century America’s greatest storytellers in the mellow twilight of his life. In it, he celebrates his love of flying, much as Something’s Down There celebrates the sea; he allows his imagination to soar, as well, while keeping it grounded in the reality of the down-to-earth story he’s telling.

Mickey’s final novel provides a coda to his larger body of work, and is at once atypical and typical. His hero, Joe Gillian (named for satellite writer Joe Gill) is a tough, confident man, very much in the tradition of Hammer, Tiger Mann and other Spillane protagonists. His story, however, is told in the third person, where the Hammer canon (and the vast majority of the writer’s fiction) is in vivid first person. Here the prose is spare but occasionally poetic, and dialogue drives the narrative.

In these pages, Spillane returns to his recurring themes of male friendship and male/female companionship. It is easy (as someone once said) to see Hammer’s friend Pat Chambers in Gillian’s friend Pete, and Hammer’s life partner Velda in the lovely Running Fox. The bad rap Spillane gets as a supposed misogynist overlooks the obvious: the women in his fiction are usually strong, powerful and smart, every bit the hero’s equal.

That Joe Gillian bonds easily with the Indians of an unspecified “rez” is no surprise, either, as Mike Hammer’s friends were often among the outsiders of society. Nor is the modern-day Western aspect of the novel inconsistent with Mickey’s view of Mike Hammer as an urban gunslinger. The Mick’s interest in Westerns is also evident in the unproduced screenplay he wrote for his friend John Wayne, which has led to the posthumous novel The Legend of Caleb York (Kensington Books, 2015) and several sequels.

Also present, not surprisingly, is the dominant theme of Spillane’s fiction—vengeance. But in The Last Stand, it’s the brute called Big Arms who craves revenge, not hero Gillian, who is a man of a certain age at peace with himself, looking for neither trouble nor riches, though the love of a good woman does hold appeal. Crime-fighting and mystery seem almost to have to seek Gillian out, though seek him out they do.

Gillian’s very masculine but non-aggressive view on life reflects Spillane in his final years. The Hammer of Black Alley (1996) is definitely a laid-back version of the character, which pleases readers who have followed Hammer’s journey over the decades, but can confuse those who only know the hate-filled young investigator of I, the Jury. Like Black Alley, The Last Stand is a barely concealed rumination on coming to terms with aging.

Not long after his home was destroyed by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, Mickey and I sat one evening in the makeshift tiki bar he’d built in his backyard. Mickey spoke of his anger at those who had looted his home in the aftermath of the storm. I saw in his eyes the burning rage of Mike Hammer and he held his hands in front of him, squeezing them into fists. He told me what he would like to do to the thieves, then his fists became fingers again, and he said, “But I’m not like that anymore. I don’t do that now.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, when I spoke to him about The Last Stand on the phone, he said to me, “You know, I really like that Big Arms.” If a voice can have a twinkle in it, his did. With that big-kid quality he often got when he spoke of work he’d done that had pleased him, he said, “I really like that character.” Not Joe Gillian, but Big Arms, who haunts the good-natured pages of The Last Stand like Mike Hammer’s ghost.

Max Allan Collins May 28, 2017

A BULLET for SATISFACTION

byMickey SpillaneandMax Allan Collins

CHAPTER 1

The Belmont Hotel was really jumping. Everything had happened so fast. How could just one death raise such a commotion? Maybe it was just this mid-size city. Maybe it was the way people reacted to these things. Or maybe he was just a damn big man, so that any way you looked at it, something big had happened, and big things have to be handled in a big way.

We pushed our way through the mob. The reporters didn’t waste any time making the scene, looking like flies seeking a dead animal to light on as they headed for the stairs. A couple of uniformed police were having a hell of a time keeping the press boys back.

I walked up to the policeman in charge. “Where?”

“Upstairs, Captain Dexter. Second floor, room 224.”

After answering me, he removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead. I motioned for one of the detectives with me to take over, to give the guy a break.

We skipped the elevator and took the stairs. When I opened the door of room 224, my partner Fred Jenkins was already there handling things. He walked up to me and gave me a tired smile.

“How’s it coming?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Not much to go on yet, Captain. It’ll be a tough one. The guy had his share of enemies. Any of them could’ve taken him down. He was a big one, all right.”

He’d said a mouthful. Mayes Rogers was a big name in politics around here—he’d made it to the top, and on the way ruined quite a few. A lot of people would have liked to see him put underground, and maybe they had good reasons.

I pulled out a cigarette, stuck the flame of my lighter to it, and drew in the smoke. For a minute I watched some of the boys make an inspection of the room and then motioned for Fred to come back over.

“What you got so far?” I asked, as I pushed a chair over for him.

“Just that our local representative was found with a bullet in his head,” Fred said. “Chairs were overturned and things scattered all over. It could’ve been a fight. Looked like there was a party going on, because there’s a record player over there and there’s crumbs and empty whiskey bottles on the floor. No one downstairs knew of a party, though. In fact, they didn’t know Rogers was in his room—they thought he was out.”

I walked over to the bed. Rogers was lying several feet from it, blood on the lower half of the bed and on the pillow on the floor. The rug was bloody, too, which made it look as if he’d tried to run. Or maybe been dragged.

The medical examiner came in and began his job without even giving us a glance. I looked over to where a man was sitting with a blank expression glued to his face.

Fred said, “That’s Bob Bacon. He’s the one who found Rogers.”

Our eyes met. He glanced at me, barely nodded, and then away. We had exchanged nods before, at the courthouse, but that was about all.

I went over to him. “Captain Dexter, Homicide. What time did you find the body?”

“I went out with some of the boys. Mayes was supposed to go with us, but decided to stay in his room at the last minute. Said he was tired. We came in around nine and I went back up. That’s when I found him.”

“By the looks of things,” I said, gesturing around, “it seems he had a party. You didn’t know anything about one?”

He shook his head and ran his fingers through what was left of his thinning hair. “No. Like I said, he was going out with us but changed his mind.”

“Was he alone in the room when you last saw him?”

He nodded.

“Was anything bothering him? Did he give an explanation why he didn’t want to go?”

“He didn’t seem bothered. He just said he was tired and decided to turn in early.”

I glanced over at Fred. “You said no one downstairs knew he was in the room. Somebody knew he was in this room and blew his brains out. Did you talk with the elevator operator?”

“Yeah,” Fred said. “Took an elderly couple to the second floor. That’s all. We checked them out. Nothing there.”

The room was hot and sticky and I could use some fresh air. I went to an open window and stared out at the lights breaking up the darkness—cars, buildings, streetlamps. After I’d filled my lungs with the night, I said to Fred, “Fingerprint boys finished?”

“Yup.”

Fred had just got the word out when the medical examiner came over with his usual twisted expression that might have meant the victim was killed with an axe or maybe just died in his sleep. He held up a crumpled piece of metal.

“A .45, Captain. One bullet in him, one in the wall.”

A .45 makes the kind of noise not easily ignored—even a silencer has trouble keeping it down. Fred knew what I was going to ask him. “Anybody hear a shot?”

He shook his head slowly. “We checked all the rooms in possible hearing distance. No one heard a damn thing.”

“Rogers has a wife, right?”

“Yeah. His second. First wife and two kids were killed in a car accident shortly after he was elected.”

“He won twice, so someone must’ve liked him.” I turned away without giving Fred time to comment. When I got to the door, the flash cameras went off and I took one last look at the corpse without a face. Then I closed it behind me.

Daybreak found me in my office—a kill like this doesn’t allow you time to sleep. The report of the murder was on my desk and reading it took no time at all. When I finished, I tossed it over to the sleepy-eyed younger detective sitting across from me. Fred read it as quickly as I had.

“Well?” I asked.

He threw me a puzzled look and shrugged.

I said, “Someone had a beef with Rogers and settled up, which doesn’t narrow it down for crap. This whole damn thing points to nothing.”

“So where do we start?”

Now I shrugged. “I didn’t get enough from Bob Bacon last night. Maybe he wasn’t in the best mood to spit out the answers I wanted to hear. Must be quite a shock to see a good friend stretched out on the floor with a slug in the face.”

“You know where to reach him?”

“I’ll find him,” I said.

* * *

Bacon was a politically active attorney I’d seen a few times in court. He was fairly new in town and until now I’d no reason to talk with him.

He was sitting at his desk, fumbling through papers, when he saw me walk in. “Find anything yet, Captain?” he snapped before I even shut the door.

“That’s why I’m here, Bob. Trying to get a start.”

I dropped my weight into one of his chairs while he stuffed his papers into a drawer.

Bacon was going to let me speak first. He sat there wearing a flat look that was hard to read. He was barely middle-aged, but his nearly bald head and serious face made him appear older.

I asked, “How close were you to Rogers?”

A bittersweet smile erased the blankness. “I’d say I was his closest friend. I backed him in the elections, and I’ve been at his side ever since.”

“Then you’d know if anyone had anything against him.”

The smile vanished and a shrug preceded his reply. “You got me there, Captain. Mayes was a popular guy. That’s why this is such a big shock to me.”

“You can expect a man in his position to have people who didn’t like him. Who even hated him. He was a public figure, and a powerful one.”

“Like I said, Captain, I don’t know anyone, offhand, with that kind of grudge against him. If so, I was unaware of it. And Mayes would surely have told me.”

I sat there quietly while my eyes picked up on a slight tremble of the chin. Bacon wanted to say something, but couldn’t get it out.

Finally he blurted, “Mayes has a wife. Had a wife. She lives outside a small community called Drake, not far from here. Know it?”

I nodded.

He said, “She might know something Mayes never told me about. Wives know things.”

“Yes they do.” I filed that in the back of my mind and said, “What was Rogers doing in a hotel, with a wife in Drake?”

Another shrug. “We had a meeting there, some of his staff and me, and it ran late, so he decided to stay over.” He paused for a second. “After the meet, some of the boys decided to go out for a late supper. He was going to come along, like I said, but he changed his mind. Said he’d had a long day.”

“Did you stay in the hotel?”

“No.”

“What made you come back?”

He paused again. “I went upstairs with some of the other boys, and just stopped at his room to say good night.”

“Who was in the lobby when you and your friends came in?”

He thought that over, then said, “To tell you the truth, I don’t believe I saw anyone. Not even anybody at the desk.”

“There were bottles and food on the floor. Mayes never mentioned a party?”

“Never. If he was throwing one, I didn’t know about it. He just said he was going to bed.”

“Maybe he had a circle of friends outside of work he liked to party with.”

“If so, I couldn’t tell you who that’d be.”

“Well, someone knew he was in his room—someone with a .45. I guess you know they don’t make a small bang. Somebody should’ve heard it—there were two shots.”

His eyes narrowed. “The room next to his and several on down the hall belonged to some of the men at the meeting. I guess most of ’em were out.”

I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lit one up. “About his wife.”

“Like I said, she lives in Drake.”

A small farm community ten miles from here.

“You told me that much,” I said.

“I really know very little about her. Only met her a few times. At political meetings mostly. Occasionally I’d see her when I stopped by his house.”

“Anybody live there but Mayes and his wife?”

“No. But I understand her sister has come to stay with her for the funeral and all.”

“How did Rogers and the sister get along?”

He blinked at my left-field question. “Normal relationship, I guess. Sister visited them off and on. Sometimes stayed with Mrs. Rogers when Mayes was on a prolonged business trip. Not too much difference in their ages, the sisters.”

Suddenly his expression shifted.

“I just remembered something,” he said, sitting forward. “There is a guy who had something against Mayes. Arnold Moore. His brother, George, was after the nomination in Mayes’s first election. George dropped out of the running. Arnold accused Mayes of pressuring his brother out and said, and did, some crazy things.”

“Interesting. Know anything else about him?”

“He’s a mechanic at Anderson’s Garage. A bachelor, lives with his mother. That’s all I know about the guy, except that he’s got a hair-trigger temper.”

“I’ll have a talk with him. But the widow first.”

“I for one would love to see you find the son of a bitch who did this.”

I stood up and so did he and we shook hands. He added, “If I can be of any more service to you, drop by.”

I thanked him and left.

* * *