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16
Black Mask
that he had picked up at the plant simply by keeping his ears open. Leslie Gramm saying, "Friday's fine. But don't be late.
We always have dinner at seven on the dot." And another time, "The seven- teenth of next month? Afrai.d I can't make it, old chap. That's my birthday and I'll be spending the evening at home."
A blast echoed hollowly · in the dis- tance.
Jud hadn't realized how tense he ,vas · until the explosion came. He didn't start nervously. He didn't react at all. He had been expecting if alt the time. But something inside him snapped.
The fire smouldered down to ashes.
He went back in the garage. He put into a box all the shotgun shells from which he had emptied the powder. The next thing to do was bury them.
Jud wondered just how it had hap- pened.. He had built the bomb to go off at seven, or whenever the package was opened. Maybe Leslie Gramm was hav- ing a birthday dinner. Maybe he waited till he had all his presents before opening them. .
Jud finished with the shotgun shells. He was getting hungry . A11yminute, now, his wife ought to call him to sup- per.
He started cleaning up the pieces of metal, wire, and materials on the work bench. A few minutes more, and he'd be through by seven-thirty.
The noise of the opening door made him whirl around, his face twitching. Damn that snooping woman! He'd or- dered her never to interrupt him when he was in the garage. She'd never dared
cross him before. He'd smack her for this!
But it wasn't his wife in the ·doorway. It was a cop. The cop·looked at the work bench, the betraying pieces, and the tell- tale flakes of spilled powder.
Jud made a wild dive for the alley door of the garage. A powerful g~ip seized his shoulder and swung him around. Then fists like e>,..-plodindgyn~-
mite were smashing his face, beating }115 features to pulp, breaking him in a kind of deliberate fury.
Through the pain and body concu;- sions of those blows, Jud heard the cop s voice, harsh and murderous, in snatches of phrase:
"Don't care what they do to me dov:n at H. Q. Stand up, guy, and take it. You've got lots more coming. Hash is all you'll be when I'm through . • · · Told your wife and she fainted dead in her tracks. Said you were out here.
"This paper in my fist, it's the biggest piece of anything we found after the blast . . . . List of groceries and the name they were to be charged to-K er- run. She sends the kid off to get the groceries and you give him a bomb to deliver, only he didn't get there in time.
"God, your own kid . . . ."
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