Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 46, No. 11, November 1982

“There’s a chemical shop built onto the back of this restaurant,” DuBose said. “An whenever I want t’test somebody I just ask Albert here t’go an git me m’testin tool.”

Pointing to the beaker, he said with deliberate, almost preternatural, calmness, “This here’s filled with molten lead.”

I did not say a word. I found it actually physically difficult to take my eyes away from the beaker and glance over at Landry. He was sitting staring at the beaker as though incapable of speech. What in the name of God, I wondered, is going through his head at this moment? The only thing I could think was. Let’s pack up and get the hell out of this place right now.

But Landry showed no signs of wanting to leave. He looked up from the beaker and said to DuBose, “What do you want me to do?”

The Texan smiled his crooked smile and said, “I want y’to prove t’me yer a man with the stuff. I want y’to earn those ten Gs.” Then, softly: “I want you t’put yer right index finger into that lead all the way up to the knuckle.”

I gasped. It was the natural reaction of one who has had as much of an emotional strain as he can stand.

J.J. DuBose glanced over at me and drawled, “You kin leave if you’ve a mind to, Mr. Gardner, though I’d think a man like Mr. Landry here’d want his friend t’stay with im when he does this.”

Landry had apparently not been fazed by the request. He abruptly asked, “If I do, what’s going to happen to me afterwards? I’ll need a doctor.”

J.J. DuBose smiled again. “Albert here’s had three years in the medical department at the University of Texas. I know, cause I paid for em. He’ll know what t’do; he’ll bandage you up as good as a hospital’d do, mebbe better. He’s been on hand ever time I get a volunteer. But we ain’t had need o’his services yet.” Again the wide crooked smile.

Landry glanced over at me. Our eyes met for just a second, and I gave him an impassioned look that I hoped said exactly what I was thinking: Let’s go, let’s get away.

Instead, he turned back to face J.J. DuBose and said, “Write out the check.”

It was clearly the moment the Texan had been waiting for. With a chuckle he slid a checkbook out of his coat pocket, laid it on the table in front of him, then produced a gold-plated fountain pen. With it he inscribed Landry’s name on the topmost check and, below it, the amount: TEN THOUSAND AND NO CENTS.

I stood up. “Maybe everyone around here is crazy but me,” I said, “but if you think I’m going to—”

“Sit down,” said Landry.

I glared at him. I wondered if he could feel the anger, and even the hatred, I felt for him at that moment for playing along with the old Texan, for playing the part in the old man’s fantasy that every other applicant had turned down before.

DuBose finished signing the check, tore it out of the checkbook, and held it up for Landry’s approval. “There. All signed and legal-like. Good in any bank in this state. If yuh like yuh kin phone the bank — any bank — an ask if J.J. DuBose’s credit is good. Yuh won’t find anyone that’ll turn y’down.”

“I don’t need to call the bank,” Landry said. He was still staring at DuBose. Now his eyes fell away from him and settled on the beaker. “That’s all I have to do — stick my finger in up to the knuckle, and the ten thousand’s mine?”

The Texan smiled. “That’s all, honey.”

Landry began nodding. It was the kind of unconscious head movement I have witnessed divers in Acapulco make just before launching themselves from the steepest cliffs into the waters far, far below.

Landry cleared his throat, and the sound echoed throughout the room, empty but for the four of us. He flexed his hand and clenched it in a fist, then unclenched it.

I held my breath and waited.

The hand arced slowly toward the beaker and then stopped, poised above it. With what seemed to me intolerable slowness it clenched once more into a fist, all the fingers but one. The right index finger.

J.J. DuBose leaned forward. He was making an unconscious noise somewhere deep in his throat, and his teeth were bared, as if he were a large animal about to pounce on one smaller.

Landry’s finger descended slowly, slowly, towards the bluish-gray liquid inside the beaker. The finger stopped abruptly, as if it had reached an impassable barrier.

Landry flinched.

And then the barrier was suddenly lifted, and he plunged his finger into the liquid.

I stood up, all my senses tingling, my nerves frayed to the breaking point. I was waiting for the inevitable scream of agony Landry was about the emit. No man, no matter how nerveless, could withstand having his finger burned to the bone without screaming himself hoarse and collapsing.

Yet Landry had done it. He did not even open his mouth, nor did his face register pain or shock or even discomfort. His only expression was one of mild surprise.

He raised his finger from the liquid. It was dripping wet, but was its normal pinkish hue. It was no more burned or singed than if he had dipped it in a glass of tap water.