Going to spill some guts,
Someone’s name is mud.
Before the gang chief could make another accusation of ventriloquism, the block began to rock back and forth like a gigantic Mexican jumping bean. Then, as Cosmo watched wide-eyed, there was a splitting, sound and a large fissure opened. A scrabbling sound came from inside and then slowly a hand appeared, a hand with swollen purple fingers that plucked at the edges of the split as if they were trying to force it open wider.
Cosmo had long prided himself on being a man of action. Now, if ever, action was called for.
“I’m getting out of here,” he said.
“Not yet, my friend.”
A soft voice from inside the block of cement froze him in his tracks. As he stood paralyzed, there was a sudden splintering crash and the whole block disintegrated into a pile of jagged shards.
Something moved in the debris, moved and then slowly squirmed out toward the shaking gangster. It was a man, a long dead man with his hands and feet wired together.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Cosmo,” it croaked. “I’ve been waiting for you a long, long time.”
Cosmo tried to raise the .45 that his reflexes had pulled out of its shoulder holster, but it hung limply from nerveless fingers.
“I’ve been wanting to ask you why you went and did it, pal. Me that gave you your start and was like a father to you. It weren’t friendly-like to sap an old pal and put him in a box of wet concrete while he was still alive and then toss him in the bay. It weren’t friendly-like at all. That’s why I’ve come to take you back with me.”
The bloated fingers curled around the gangster’s ankles. He tried to raise his automatic again but it slipped from his fingers and went crashing to the floor. Then something snapped inside him. He let out a high-pitched scream and, kicking loose the clutching hands, dashed whimpering out of the room.
The swollen-faced man looked up at Albert and grinned.
Albert pointedly looked the other way.
“If you don’t mind,” he said. “Your Bosworth was bad enough, but this one—ugh!”
“All clear,” said Sir Whooping Water Gawain.
Albert turned and greeted the sight of the little brown Indian with a sigh of relief.
“Thanks a million!”
“Really wasn’t anything, old man,” said Whooping Water with a depreciating gesture. “What time is it?”
Albert glanced at his watch. “Two forty-five. We made it with three minutes to spare.”
“It’s later than I thought,” said the other. “Now that I’ve got all your troubles straightened out, I guess I might as well toddle on back. I’m due to go off shift at three.”
Albert’s momentary feeling of elation vanished. “What do you mean, ‘all straightened out’? I’m no better off than I was this morning.” Unable to restrain himself, he launched into a long narration of his woes.
“I don’t get it,” said Whooping Water when he had finally finished. “You let those thugs beat you unconscious rather than give up, but over at the University you let everybody and his brother shove you around.”
“I just can’t help it,” said Albert miserably. “It’s not that I’m a coward. It’s just the way my glands work. Every time I start to stand up for myself, something triggers them off and they all let loose at once. I get so much adrenalin in my blood that all I can do is stand there and shake. And so I’m losing my girl and there isn’t anything I can do about it.”
Whooping Water looked dreamily at the ceiling. “You know,” he said at last, “Mike Hammer’s glands let loose too, but he knows how to use them. And against a couple of amateurs…”
Albert let out a sudden squawk of protest but he was too late. Two fat green sparks came arcing across and caught him square in the middle of the forehead…
For some strange reason Priscilla wasn’t so thrilled at being rescued as might have been expected. The look of eager anticipation that was on her face as the door opened was replaced by one of annoyance when she saw who had opened it.
“It took you long enough,” she snapped pettishly as Albert undid the ropes that bound her to the chair. The old Albert would have quailed and began to stutter apologies, but this wasn’t the old Albert.
When he dropped her off at her home she was breathing hard and there was a strange new look in her eyes.
“Won’t you come up?” she whispered. “There’s nobody home.”
Albert wanted to but Hammer wouldn’t let him.
“Got a couple of rats to take care of first,” he growled. “After that…” He ran his hand up and down her back and she melted against him. He gave her a sudden shove.
“Beat it, kid. I got work to do…
When Albert swaggered into his office, Lippencott was in the middle of the fifteenth reading of his latest essay in TENSION, A Quarterly Journal of New Criticism.
“Easy does it, old man,” he said lazily as the door crashed shut. “I take it that Dr. Quimbat finally broke the news to you about the switch in courses.”
“What switch?” growled Albert.
“Next fall I’ll be giving a seminar in the New Criticism and a graduate course in James. I’m afraid that means that you are going to have to take over my two sections of Freshman English. Tough luck, old man, but I know that when you think it over you’ll realize that it’s for the good of the department. And now if you’ll excuse me. I’d better be taking off. Priscilla and I are going out tonight and I have a bit of work at home I want to get out of the way first.”
“Not just yet, junior.” Albert turned and clicked the lock on the door behind him. “You and I got a little talking to do first. For one thing, I ain’t giving up my seminar or my Chaucer course for you or nobody else. And for another, you go woofing around the department head any more, sticking knives in my back, and you’re going to find out all of a sudden your ears ain’t mates!”
Lippencott grinned and blew a puff of tobacco smoke in Albert’s face.
“Anything more, little man?”
“Yeah,” said Albert in a soft voice. “I got Priscilla staked out. You come poaching and you’re going to end up minus a head, not that you’d miss it none.”
Lippencott stood up and flexed his muscles. “Albert,” he said, “I’ve been wanting to paste you for a long time. But my conscience wouldn’t let me because you were too little and too weak. But now I can do it with no regrets.”
Proudly conscious of his beautifully muscled body, he stalked toward Albert.
“Put ’em up,” he said, assuming the stance that had made him runner-up for the base middleweight
