Manhunt. Volume 14, Number 1, February/March, 1966

I slam down the accelerator and the car hops across the highway, jumping the curb of Jim Parrish’s place, and landing in the parking lot. “Keep going!” Klegman says. “Over to that door.” I wheel around fast in a big, skidding circle and hit the brakes. Klegman leaps out before the car stops, runs in jerky little steps, and falls to his knees. But he is up again. A big floodlight washes over him, and the last I see of him are those white eyes of his and those little sharp teeth.

There’s a riot of noise and dirt kicks up little puffs all over the bright circle he’s standing in. Suddenly, he lifts his arm straight out toward me. I see the gun, and I sprawl down on the seat cushion, half on the floor of the car. The windshield splits like ice in a bowl. I wait a second or two and look out. Klegman is down on his hands and knees, dragging himself out of the floodlight’s glare. Wild noises now, screams. I twist my head around and see the carhops, streaming out the front door of the restaurant, clutching at each other, yelling, their legs churning. They run over to the floodlight where the police are standing.

“All right, Klegman, you’re through!” A voice trumpets through a P.A. system. Silence. “O.K. boys. Lay it on.” All hell breaks loose and my heart is banging like a soup spoon on a kettle. Then, there’s a bigger sound. Not gunfire. But another sound, a great muffled “BOOM!” Like dynamite in a canyon. I rub my eyes with my sleeve. Everything is spinning again, and I roll over on my back trying to force the screwy jigsaw night into the right places between the looming shapes that must be tree-tops. Other shapes are running and yelling and scrambling for cover... police. I wonder at the vivid orange that splatters out of the windows then turns to wild jets of red and yellow. The whole thing is a nightmare of noise and color... I try slapping reason into my head with my hands. I seem to be sliding down into a pool of flickering lights. Then suddenly, everything is clear, as if someone had just wiped a pair of dirty spectacles clean. The “Drivers’ Dream” is belching smoke and flames, sirens are blaring on all sides, and a stampede of people is surging past my Ford toward the blazing building. I watch spellbound, like a kid at his first circus. Then I start slipping back again into that deep pool of flashing colors. Stop!

Well, there it is. I just wanted to get it down in writing. Purging the conscience, that’s all. Confession is supposed to be good for the soul, and damned if I don’t feel better already.

Jim Parrish’s place went up like a dry leaf that night, and with it went the competition that had loused me up so long. The cops said that a stray bullet may have hit the gas line, but there are people like me who believe Klegman set that place blazing himself. Going out the big way, I guess.

I’d be nuts to go to Florida now. With the “Drivers’ Dream” a heap of ashes, the whole strip from here to Monroe is mine. I put the reward money into the “Trolley Lunch”... all five G’s... renovated the whole shebang: formica counter and tables, knotty pine paneling, stainless steel fixtures, the works. I added a wing and put in a slot machines and a big flashing juke box. Jim Parrish’ll think twice before he builds again. It’s like I always say, all it takes to knock out competition is money!

The newspapers made me a public hero, going in after that gunman myself. You know the pitch: the ordinary little citizen taking the law into his own hands, dishing out instant justice. Corny, but it brings in business, and how I love to hear that cash register jingle! You know, some people come in just to stare at the scars on my face and the little stump of an ear I have left: They’re like trophies! One of the Detroit papers wrote a big story about me and called it “Counterman Courage”. I got one of those display houses to blow up the story, mural-size, and set it into the front wall.

I guess a woman’s intuition saved my life. Mary Ellen knew I was up to something that night, shooing her out on a date with Stan. I never forced her to go out with anyone before. Halfway through that basketball game, she told Stan the whole story, before she blew up with suspense or excitement or worry or whatever it was she felt for me. They called the state cops and you know the rest of the story.

Speaking of Mary Ellen, I think something happened to her that night that blew away the daydreams and Hollywood notions... and set her thinking straight for the first time in her life. I think she grew up in those few hours. She’s seeing much more of Stan Clark than she used to. Nothing like being scared to bring people together.

Just one thing I hate remembering: all that dough Klegman hauled away that night went up in smoke. Twelve thousand dollars! All that money! But what the hell. You can’t win them all.