James Chase: Miss Shumway Waves a Wand

I had a word with Summers and he sent Pablo back to Mexico under an armed escort. There, he was handed over to Mexican authorities who put a rope around his neck and strung him several feet into the air.

I never liked Pablo anyway.

Now that his influence had been removed from Whisky the dog was unable to talk. We regretted this because Whisky had been a sensible kind of dog and he invariably had a number of sensible things to say.

At first, Whisky was depressed because he couldn’t express himself, but, fortunately, he ran into a lady dog who took to him and they settled down quite happily together.

Myra and I decided to set up home on the Pacific coast. This decision was largely influenced by finding among Myra’s clothes twenty-four thousand-dollar bills. It was the reward that Arym had hidden on the night she met me for the first time on the stairs, three days after we had arrived in New York.

It seemed a waste of good money to return the money to Maddox. He had plenty of his own and we could use it to advantage ourselves. Besides, Maddox never really forgave me and as he spent much of his time making inquiries about lunatic asylums, it seemed safer to have a change of air.

Doc set himself up once again as a herbalist and Sam helped him. They insisted on sharing our house. It seemed only right to have them after all we had been through together and we invited Whisky and his lady friend to join us.

It is an odd thing, but I never did meet Myra’s father. We heard he had married a midget from a travelling circus, but we never had confirmation of this. Anyway, he dropped out of Myra’s life which was a good thing. I had enough on hand without having a midget for a mother-in-law.

I found a profitable market as a short-story writer and Myra was busy preparing for Ross Milan junior.

I always wanted a son. And, after the inevitable alarming span of months, a son arrived. He was a nice-looking kid, more like his mother than me. We were all crazy about him.

On the face of it, it looked like we had finished with black magic, policemen and hoodlums and were all set for a nice quiet trip to old age, but it didn’t work out like that.

One Sunday morning I was sitting at my desk trying to invent a situation for a story, when a sudden wild scream brought me to my feet. Throwing down my pen, I rushed into the garden.

Myra, Doc and Sam were staring into the sky with horrified expressions.

I followed their gaze and my reason almost crumbled.

Thirty feet or so in the air sat Ross Millan junior. He waved his toy Mickey Mouse excitedly when he saw me.

“Look, Pop,” he shouted happily, “I’m flying!”