The Erection Set

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.

III

LEE SHAY ... REFLECTIONS

Oh, boy, when I buy trouble I buy it in big, fat bundles wrapped in FBI WANTED posters smelling of cordite and burning rubber. Already I could hear the hum of the spectators as the jury filed in and the rap of the judge’s gavel and the clanging of steel bars. How the hell does it feel to have your hands braceleted behind your back with nickel-chrome cuffs? The only guy I ever knew who spent time in the pen said the food was lousy, the guards sadistic and the queers a menace.

And here I sit like a big idiot in front of an old open suitcase carefully counting out the bills. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they had been all old or all new, but they were mixed, and by the time I reached two million five I was in a sweat, my hands shaking and the pain in my gut wasn’t to be believed. The crazy green stuff was all over like grass thrown from a mower and more was still in the bag.

Where did it come from?

How the hell did he get it through Customs?

Whose was it?

That wild loon of a Dog didn’t even give a shit about leaving it here, and me with a single lock on the door and not a gun in the place. I kept looking around wondering where I could stash the stuff, but modern apartments didn’t come with hidden panels and there wasn’t enough room in the closets to take care of an extra shoebox.