Hammered: Big City, Dark Nights

When she was finished, I do believe I was every bit as hard as I'd been before our first time. To my additional surprise, she was rolling another of those mysteriously appearing rubbers down my length and, in a matter of seconds, we were starting all over again.

***

Using a payphone a few blocks from our squalid hotel, I called Lieutenant Stevens the next morning, a rather intense conversation in which he spent the first half of the discussion using every curse word in the book to tell me what he was going to do to me when he caught me while informing me of what they'd been able to keep out of the newspapers due to the sensitivity of the Red Hornady case.

Chip Guadanni, guarding the front door at the time, had been killed in the initial assault, taking a shotgun blast to the chest.

Rhett Bhutel had been shot with a.38 revolver and was still in the hospital, and Joey Maroni had taken refuge in one of the bedrooms and exchanged a number of rounds with the invaders while luckily suffering only a graze wound, some splinters, and temporary deafness.

"I swear, Pardee, your miserable goat-fucker, when I catch you, I'm going to carve your fucking ass into—

I didn't hear the rest because Dinah pulled the phone away from where we were both listening in and put it tight to her ear.

"Jack? Jack, listen. It's Dinah. Please, listen to me." She paused for several seconds. "No, Jack. Les didn't have anything to do with it. He was with me when they broke in and he rescued me or I'd be dead now. We've been on the run ever since and this is the first time we've felt safe enough to call."

She was nodding then, several times. "Yes, Les is a great officer and has been exemplary in doing his duty to keep me safe so I'll be able to testify, do you hear me? Yes, I'm still going to testify."

More nodding followed before she looked at me. "Les, pen?"

She held the phone out where I could hear Lieutenant Stevens read an address, a date, and a time. Dinah repeated it back to him as I held up the paper I'd written it on. She concluded by saying, "Les will keep me safe and we'll be there. I'll be there, and I'll testify and put the sonuvabitch away, you can count on it."

A brief pause and then she said, "You, too," and hung up before I could say grab the receiver.

"He says for you to keep me safe and to mail a note to him at the station if we have any trouble. Mark it from 'William Tell'—"

"Huh?"

"You know, the Swiss crossbow guy? As in Dinah 'will tell' everything."

I chuckled, wondering how the L-T had come up with that on the spur of the moment or if he was a Lone Ranger fan on the radio or TV. I couldn't get that damn William Tell Overture out of my mind for the rest of the day.

"Oh, he said if we do send a note to not include the real address where we're staying since there's apparently a leak somewhere, either in the police department or maybe the tax office, or they'd have never figured out where we were."

We returned to the flophouse that evening, slipping in late to try to avoid anyone in the lobby. The guy at the desk glanced up but then back down at his newspaper as we passed.

It was a couple of hours later when I heard the sound of a key in the lock. Dinah, sleeping nude following our lovemaking, didn't hear as I rose from the bed, drew my revolver, and stepped behind the door.

The only light in the room was through the window from the building sign and maybe some streetlights nearby, but I could see the glint off of the revolver as it came through the opening. Not sure if it was one guy or ten, I readied my gun for a shot to the back of the first one's head and hoped I'd be able to finish off the rest before any could get to Dinah.

As the intruder came into the room, he eased the door closed behind him, telling me he was alone so I put the barrel against the back of his neck where it meets the skull.

"Drop it or you're dead," I whispered.

His gun hit the floor and he was turning a split second later, only to feel the side of my M&P hit the side of his head. It wasn't the best blow but it was enough, and he crashed to the floor as I pushed the door the rest of the way to and clicked the lock. Kicking his revolver under the bed, I hit him a second time, catching his throat, I think, as he tried to rise up and kick out at me. I caught the light switch and saw he looked very familiar and that he was bleeding profusely—okay, maybe I hit his nose with the M&P rather than his throat—so I flipped him over, planted a knee in his back, and jammed the barrel in the center of his back.

Dinah sat up in bed. "Les? What's happ—"

"Shh! I've got this. Stay there and don't move," I told her. "And you, asshole, put your hands behind your head. Lace those fingers together, now! If you try anything else, I'll pull the trigger and blow a hole in your fucking spine. Got it?"

"Yeah," he gurgled.

"You're the guy from the front desk, right? What are you doing up here?" When he didn't answer immediately, I punched him with the gun barrel and added, "If I ever get to three before you answer, you won't hear anything else except the gunshot. One..."

"Red Hornaday's guys came by and offered a reward to anybody who could capture you two for them! Five hundred bucks! They've been doing that all over the city!"

New York's a big city, and the surrounding area is even bigger. Still, with Hornaday's tentacles stretching into as many places as they did, it was possible he could reach a good part of it. I poked the man with the barrel once again. "You called them? Answer me, damn you. One two—"

"Yeah, yeah! They're on the way!" he squealed.

I was angry, angrier than I'd been in a long time, so I slammed down the butt of my revolver on his shoulder; it would leave a mark, I knew, one he'd remember for a while. Whispering with intense resolve just above his ear, I said, "Mister, if they hurt a single hair on her head, I'll be back and that will be the most expensive—and last—five hundred dollars you ever earn."

I probably shouldn't have done it, but knowing that it would be hard to tie him up without the gun on him, I hit him again, disorienting him pretty badly if not knocking him out, before gagging him, and tying him up spread-eagle in the bed using the sheets that I ripped up so he'd have a hard time attracting attention for at least a little while after he came to. There were no bedposts so I tied the other ends of the sheets to the legs of the frame underneath. It wasn't pretty but it would hold him for a while. Probably....

Resisting the sudden urge to break all of his fingers to keep him from eventually untying himself, we packed up quickly, flipped off the light, and locked the door to the room behind us. We went out the back and I threw the room key in a trash can a couple of blocks away.

Oh, they probably had a spare, but if not, there was always a locksmith. After all, I'd told the bastard it would be an expensive $500...that he'd never earn.

***

We never knew how long it took for Red's guys to show up or if they got the info from the trussed-up clerk—or if they even found him, for that matter. We, on the other hand, found a taxi a few blocks away, took several more before finally finding an unlocked shed in a cemetery where we spent the rest of the night holding each other.

Nobody looks for people to be hiding in a cemetery. At least nobody did that night.

Finding a pay phone the next morning, I called the local police and reported hearing strange noises in the room, well after we were far away.

A couple of bus tickets and two days later, we found ourselves on the outskirts of Richmond, Virginia. I considered going on to Sturbin where family and friends could provide us with help, but if Hornaday's guys knew who I was, they might be able to access my background through department records and I didn't want to willingly put anyone else in danger by forcing them to lie for us. Red's crew might still dispatch someone in that direction in case we were to show up, but...well, I couldn't think about that.

With the exception of the heat, the room with no air conditioning or fan, and a diet that consisted of far too many soda crackers and Vienna sausages, it was a delightful three weeks, with the two of us making love once, twice, or occasionally three times almost every day. We grew closer, too, telling all of our tales, our fears, and our hopes and dreams.

To my surprise, Dinah wanted out, wanted a quiet life somewhere in the suburbs where she could find a good man, have children, and avoid, if not completely forget, her past.

"You want to be a wife and mother?" I repeated, as the thought that had been with me for several days grew stronger and transformed into an actual plan. "Dinah...I love you. Marry me and we'll make your dreams come true."

She smiled and gave a single nod. "I love you, too, Les...but...I can't marry you. You have a career, a life—"

"Not without you, I don't. I want to be with you more than anything else. You're the most import—"

"No! I'm not! Stop it! Please, Les. It's not you, it's me. I have to testify and then I have to disappear, don't you see? Once I testify, I'll be marked, marked forever, and Red will have people after me. The only way I'll live is to disappear, disappear completely, and never raise my head above the crowd. I've made plans for this for months, years even, but if you come with me, you won't be happy in the long run."

"Yes, I will. I'll be with you."

"No, Les, you're a police officer, whether in NYC or some hick town a million miles away; you'll end up as a cop somewhere, you'll make an arrest, and you'll end up in the newspaper. Red or his guys will find us and we'll be on the run again. No, just stop. I love you, Les, but this can't be. It won't be."

She turned away, tears streaming, having said words I knew she didn't want to say. I stepped up behind her and slid my arms around her, hugging her tight against me. She leaned back, gripping my arms and pulling them even harder against herself. She said we couldn't be together forever, but she'd said nothing about that night and it wasn't long before she turned toward me, slipping her arms around me.

We made love one and then held each other throughout the night.

***

Two days later, a elderly woman entered a courtroom in Manhattan and took a seat at the outside end of a row on the prosecution side of the courtroom. Once seated, she took a small piece of work, some needles, and a ball of yarn out of her handbag and started knitting. No one paid her any attention.

About five minutes later, an aged man dressed in an old black suit, a white shirt, and a yarmulke hobbled down the center aisle with a cane. He was bald but wore a full beard in the style of an orthodox Jew; he took a seat on the end of the sixth or seventh row on the defense side of the courtroom. Unlike the woman, he drew a few stares for a moment, with some finding it odd that a Hasidic man would have interest in the court proceedings. However, when he took his seat and looked straight ahead, holding both hands on the head of his cane in front of him, he was quickly forgotten, too.

That, of course, was my intent in having us dressed as we were. The theater supply shop in Richmond had what we needed as the basics of our disguises, and Dinah's skill with makeup and a razor was put to good use in decking each of us out and shaving my head. With my rapidly receding hairline, it gave me a good idea what I could expect sometime in the years ahead.

As Red Hornaday was brought in through the rear door by the bailiffs to join his attorney and the lawyer's assistant at the defense table, the accused man scanned the crowd that had assembled and he smiled, seeing, I suspected, that Dinah hadn't made it into the courtroom. As far as I knew, he didn't have a clue as to my usual appearance.

Hornaday whispered to the attorney at length on arriving, but he kept looking around. I believe he made eye contact with a man seated on the end of the row on the other one side from me and about three rows up but I wasn't sure.

After we all rose for the judge to enter, the trial continued. The prosecution called several witnesses and dealt with them quickly, with the defense having no questions. With the prosecution's star witness being a no-show, I suspected they expected the trial to be over quickly without having to belabor the minor points. Hornaday kept glancing back at the doors to the courtroom, watching to see if she was making a last second entrance.

When her turn came, ADA Kimbraugh stood and said, "Your Honor, the prosecution calls Miss Dinah Myatt as our next witness."

All eyes, including Red Hornaday's, looked around the courtroom for the missing woman, but nothing happened for several seconds. Kimbraugh repeated, "The prosecution calls Miss Dinah Myatt. Miss Myatt?"

Again, everyone looked around, but no one rose. Hornaday searched again, smiling this time, and this time I saw him catch the eye of the guy on the aisle. I couldn't tell for sure but I think the man may have been smiling as he gave Red a little nod in reply.

"Mr. Kimbraugh, is there an issue with your witness?" asked the judge.

"Ahhh, your Honor, ahhh," stuttered Kimbraugh before the old lady put her knitting in her bag and stood up to slowly advance down the side aisle.

Red Hornady's eyes narrowed and his face grew grim as he watched her. His head shook involuntarily, denying that this could be the woman with whom he'd worked and more over the years, but when Dinah straightened up and looked around at him, he knew.

"Fuck!" he shouted. "You bitch!"

The deception over, Dinah removed her wig, pulled the yarn that had her hair tied up, and she shook out her blonde locks doing a full-on Marilyn before saying, "I'm Dinah Myatt, your Honor, and I'm here to testify against this son of a bitch," even as Hornaday continued to shout.

My eyes were on the man on the aisle opposite me three rows up. I saw him pulling the gun from his coat as I moved and my cane came crashing down on his wrist as he started to extend the revolver toward Dinah. He screamed as the heavy cane hit, probably shattering bones, and the revolver went flying. Something hit me a second later, harder than I'd ever been hit in my life, and darkness, darker than the darkest night in the big city, took me.

***

"Les? Les? Are you okay?" asked Dinah from somewhere in the murk that surrounded me. "Les, sweetheart? Can you wake up, Les? Please? Wake up!"

"What happened?" I groaned as I opened one eye to surroundings that reminded me of a Picasso painting before I quickly shut it back.

"Les, thank God, you're awake," she breathed. She was kissing my forehead then.

"You are waking up, aren't you, Pardee?" That, I believed, was Lieutenant Stevens' voice.

"Yeah, trying," I agreed. "Something hit me?"

"Yep, the bailiff who used to play as a defensive back for the Nittany Lions," laughed Stevens. "He saw you hit Hornaday's henchman without knowing why you did it so he hit you, but it's all sorted out now. You're back and going to survive, though we think you may have a concussion so we're sending you to the hospital."

"Has Dinah testified?"

The L-T laughed again. "Son, nothing's happened—well, except for them shutting up Red Hornaday and the judge clearing the courtroom—since all this went down a few minutes ago."

Minutes. It wasn't hours or days, so it wasn't that bad. "Ahem...I want to see Dinah testify."

I had both eyes open by now and the world looked more like a bland, imitation Monet rather than the Picasso of earlier. Lieutenant Stevens nodded—at least that's what I think he did—and they helped me to a seat as my eyes slowly came back into focus. Dinah was there, holding my hand for a moment and giving me a kiss.

"I love you, Les," she whispered as her fingertip touched my lips to keep me from replying before she went back toward the witness stand.

"State your name."

"Dinah Louise Myatt, also known as Dyna Myte."

"Hand on the Bible, ma'am. Do you agree to tell the truth, the whole truth..."

Once she was sworn in, ADA Kimbraugh got started with his questions, and he had Dinah testify for hours. Hornaday's lawyer had his turn after lunch, but Dinah's responses to his questions seemed to make things even worse for the man's client.

Lieutenant Stevens had a bunch of guards take her out the back of the courtroom during the breaks and over the lunch break so I didn't get to talk with her then, but she made eye contact with me from the witness stand a number of times as the day progressed.

Then it was over, and the lieutenant had her whisked away.

***

Sadly, I never saw Dinah Myatt again.

Rumor had it that she left town for good right after she finished testifying, but I had no way of knowing for sure and she never attempted to contact me. The hole in my heart took several years to heal and the roaring flame for her was reduced to a tiny flickering candle, but I don't think it ever went completely out.

I thought it was enough though, so when I met and fell in love with Patricia some years later, we married. We were happy and our love lasted for a good while, but the strain of me being in police work, us never having any children, and her always wanting more was trying. When she said she was leaving to pursue her dreams (and a guy) in California, I thought we were both better off. That actually turned out better for me in the long run than I could have imagined, but that's a story better left for another day.

My dad back in Sturbin always told me that those who play with fire will eventually get burned. It took a long while but we finally nailed the mole in the department who'd given up the location of our supposed safehouse to Red Hornaday and his cronies. Too bad the jackass's dad must have never had that discussion about playing with fire with him; he had to learn the hard way, but again, perhaps that tale is better left for later, too.

Finally, Red Hornaday was convicted two days after Dinah testified, with the jury deliberating and finding him guilty on all of the charges in just four hours. He was sentenced to thirty years to life in the slammer, but it turns out he was as much of an arrogant asshole in prison as he'd been on the streets, and eventually that caught up with him. He was killed in a fight in the joint, but I still don't know of anyone who cared.

Some people claim there's no justice in this world.

When I hear that said, I can't help but smile and think of Red Hornaday, and I usually reply, "Yes, sometimes there is."

The End

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Endnotes:

Thanks to all of my readers and to all who vote, like, or provide comments in whatever form. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and helps me to become a better writer.

There are a couple of references near the end about a tale for another day. A large part of that tale is actually written but it still needs a lot of work. Someday....

Finally, long-time fans may recognize Officer Les "Junior" Pardee from his small part many years later in my story entitled "The Milkmaid." You're invited to check it out.