Dust in the Heart

by Ralph Dennis

  Before Wilt said a word, Bottoms opened his jacket and revealed a rig with a tape recorder hooked to his belt. “Good morning, Sheriff. I was in the area and I thought I’d touch bases with you.” Bottoms edged a chair close to the desk. He sat and leaned forward. He placed an index card on the blotter. It was neatly typed.

  Have to cover my ass. Go along with me. Will explain.

  Wilt read the card and pushed it back across the desk to Bottoms. Bottoms scooped it up and shoved it in his jacket pocket.

  “I hope I haven’t caught you at a busy time, Sheriff, dropping by like this.”

  “I’m always glad to talk to my friends in the Justice Department. No matter how busy I am.”

  “That’s a good attitude. It’ll make our talk a lot easier.”

  “What’s the problem, Marshal?” Leaning back in his chair, Wilt gave Bottoms his go-to-hell grin.

  “There’s no reason for this to be kept secret between law officers. I assume you didn’t know that Raymond Thorpe was in our Federal Witness Protection Program.”

  “He was? Lord, that’s an amazement to me.”

  “If you’d known, I assume you’d have been in touch with us to see if we could work out some agreement that would have suited both of us.”

  “Exactly,” Wilt said. “Heck, we both eat out of the same soup pot. No reason I know for either of us to poison the soup.”

  “It’s good to hear that from you,” Bottoms said.

  “Of course, Marshal, if I’d known Thorpe was under your wing, I might not have done one solitary thing different. In this circumstance, the molestation and savage murder of two little girls, the murder of two adults, the serious attacks on two fellow law officers … I’m not sure much could be done to protect Raymond Thorpe from law and justice.”

  “But, at least, if you’d known our concern with him, we could have had a talk.”

  “Exactly,” Wilt said.

  “I believe we understand each other. Sheriff. I have to admit to you, just between us, that Raymond Thorpe was not the model of what the protected witness ought to be. I’ve read the record of your investigation and I have no quarrel with your conclusion that Thorpe was guilty as weekend sin.”

  “It’s good to know that a lofty organization like the Justice Department approves of our investigative methods. I’ll quote you to my men, a kind of pat on the back, if you don’t mind.”

  “Feel free,” Bottoms said.

  “It’ll make them proud,” Wilt said. “Peacock proud.”

  Bottoms scowled at him. Wilt’s speech was getting more country every minute that passed. He stood. “It’s been a pleasure talking to you.”

  “Enjoyed it myself.”

  “The next time I hope we meet under better circumstances.” Bottoms pointed at the recorder and held up two fingers. He marched out and through the lobby. On the way past the switchboard he waved at Susie.

  Bottoms returned a couple of minutes later. He smiled at Wilt. “Had to wait until I was outside before I switched off the recorder. Had to make it sound right.” He opened his jacket. The rig and the recorder were gone.

  Wilt shouted through the open doorway. “Susie, bring us in two cups of the fresh.”

  Bottoms settled into a seat across the desk from Wilt. “You really laid that hick crap on me.”

  “I thought it was what the Feds expected.”

  “It was cut thick.”

  “When it’s typed it won’t read that way.”

  Wilt watched Bottoms consider that carefully. He nodded. He would hope for the best. “It must have been rough out there a couple of night ago. I don’t envy you.”

  “Thorpe was good at all the wrong things.”

  Susie brought them two cups of coffee. She waited in the doorway. Bottoms looked at his coffee and frowned. “I’m now on sick leave. My boss thinks I shouldn’t be on the job looking like I came out on the wrong end of a punch-out.” He placed the cup on the desk blotter. “You tied down here for the day or can we get some breakfast?”

  Susie answered Wilt’s question before he asked it. “Joe’s running late. He called in. He’ll be here in five minutes.”

  Wilt got his heavy coat. Passing Susie, he said, “You drink the coffee for us like a nice girl.”

  “Where’ll I reach you if I need …?”

  “You don’t. We just disappeared. Joe’s in charge. He makes all the decisions.”

  “If you say so …” Susie didn’t sound happy about the arrangement.

  “That’s exactly what I say.” Wilt stopped in the doorway next to Susie. He leaned over her. “Honey, that boy’s got to grow up some day. He might as well start today.”

  Wilt tucked the covers around Diane and walked into the bathroom. He closed the door before he fumbled for the light switch. It was still very much her bathroom, a woman’s bathroom. All he’d added to it was a card of disposable razors, a toothbrush and a tube of Alka-Seltzer. He even shaved with her scented soap and felt very much a dandy.

  He removed his toothbrush, added water and dropped in two Alka-Seltzer tablets. He drank the fizz before the tablet dissolved. He chewed the thin, chalky disks that remained on his tongue after the liquid was gone.

  That Bottoms was a drinker and that was no lie. After Wilt left the Brass Rail, he called in from his apartment and told Susie that Joe was still in charge. He curled up in his bed and slept off most of the alcohol before Diane called to remind him that he’d promised to take her to supper.

  Now, back in her bedroom again, he stood beside the bed and looked down at her. Beautiful in light and beautiful in shadows. That he loved her both surprised and frightened him. It put a sense of wonder back in his life. His fear was that it wouldn’t last, that love wouldn’t stay as bright and shiny as a dime polished with mercury.

  “Come back to bed, Wilt.”

  He hadn’t known she was awake. “All you horny women want me in your beds now that I am a bona fide hero.”

  “Come to bed, old man.”

  “How old?”

  “Just the right age,” she said. “Slow enough for me to catch in the first place and too slow to get away if you change your mind.”

  “I don’t have any intention of changing my mind. I especially wouldn’t change my mind if I knew what you are talking about.”

  “I see,” she said. “You are going to try to get out of it by pretending you don’t remember what you asked me last night in the throes of passion.”

  “I’m an honorable man,” he said. He sat on the side of the bed. “But I wish to hell I knew what you’re talking about.”

  “A weaker woman than I am would cry now.”

  A cold wind shook the windows. He shivered and pulled back the covers and got into bed beside her. Her warmth soothed him.

  “I think I’m remembering the question now,” he said. “But I’m a little foggy on what your answer was.”

  “I’m an honorable woman,” she said. “But I wish to hell I knew what you’re talking about.”

  He twisted around in her arms. “Maybe if we were in the throes of passion, it would refresh our memories.”

  “Good idea,” she said, and drew his head to her breast.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ralph Dennis isn’t a household name … but he should be. He is widely considered among crime writers as a master of the genre, denied the recognition he deserved because his twelve Hardman books, which are beloved and highly sought-after collectables now, were poorly packaged in the 1970s by Popular Library as a cheap men’s action-adventure paperbacks with numbered titles.

  Even so, some top critics saw past the cheesy covers and noticed that he was producing work as good as John D. MacDonald, Raymond Chandler, Chester Himes, Dashiell Hammett, and Ross MacDonald.

  The New York Times praised the Hardman novels for “expert writing, plotting, and an unusual degree of sensitivity. Dennis has mastered the genre and supplied top entertainment.” The Philadelphia Daily News proclaimed Hardman “the best s
eries around, but they’ve got such terrible covers …”

  Unfortunately, Popular Library didn’t take the hint and continued to present the series like hack work, dooming the novels to a short shelf-life and obscurity … except among generations of crime writers, like novelist Joe R. Lansdale (the Hap & Leonard series) and screenwriter Shane Black (the Lethal Weapon movies), who’ve kept Dennis’ legacy alive through word-of-mouth and by acknowledging his influence on their stellar work.

  Ralph Dennis wrote three other novels that were published outside of the Hardman series but he wasn’t able to reach the wide audience, or gain the critical acclaim, that he deserved during his lifetime.

  He was born in 1931 in Sumter, South Carolina, and received a Masters degree from University of North Carolina, where he later taught film and television writing after serving a stint in the Navy. At the time of his death in 1988, he was working at a bookstore in Atlanta and had a file cabinet full of unpublished novels.