The Erection Set

“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.

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