What she saw was me easing my hand inside my coat—Vance’s gun was pointing right at me, and if it coughed, I’d be coughing, too, coughing up blood. Then finally she heard his soft footfalls and whirled and stood, her hands out from her sides, fingers wide, as if looking for something to steady herself on.

“Mr. Colby?” she said. “Vance?”

He was pointing the gun at her now.

She ran to another door—there were plenty in that place—but she didn’t make it. He caught her like a duck on the wing, in the back, the crack ringing in the high-ceilinged room, and she dove to the floor and slid on the slick wood, then shuddered and murmured self-pitying words before getting very still. Very quiet.

He looked at me. I was on my feet and the .45 was in my hand. I didn’t want to do it and my expression told him so. But when—after a lingering look at his wife’s portrait—he raised the gun, I knew I was not the target.

Sheila had been right.

The old man wasn’t going to live forever.

Tip of the Fedora

TIP OF THE FEDORA

Although my intent is not exactly to create a historical mystery, I do attempt to place this novel (and others in this series) in the context of when Mickey Spillane wrote the material I worked from, and at what point in the Hammer canon this story appears.

To provide a background at least somewhat consistent with reality, I leaned upon Internet research. Among articles used for this purpose in Masquerade for Murder are: “Bellevue: The Best and Worst of America,” Aaron Rothstein, Public Discourse; “Best Film Locations in NYC,” New York Film Academy; “The Champagne City,” Michael Shnayerson, Vanity Fair/Hive; “Five Fatal Punches,” Sean Culver, SCI Fighting; “How to Make a Prosthetic Mask,” Daniel Hayek, Vimeo; “Ivan Boesky and the End of the ’80s Wall Street Boom,” Peter Grant, New York Daily News; “’90s Anthem: So Many Gyms, So Little Time,” Jennifer Steinhauser, New York Times; “NoHo’s Cinderella Moment,” Aileen Jacobson, New York Times; “One Street at a Time: Gansevoort Street,” Michael Cunningham, New York Times Magazine; “Secret Karate ‘Death Blow,’” The Indulgent Samurai; and the “Tunnel (Night Club)” entry at Wikiwand. Thanks to these writers and websites, and to others whose work I utilized in a more passing way.

My continuing thanks to Titan Books publisher Nick Landau, co-owner Vivian Cheung, and their editorial staff, in particular Andrew Sumner, who stepped up when he was needed; my gratitude to all of them for continuing to pursue the Mickey Spillane Legacy Project. The enthusiastic response to the Spillane Centenary-labelled publications in 2018 and ’19, from the media and readers alike, was gratifying to those of us who consider the writer (he abhorred the term “author”) a major figure in tough crime and mystery fiction.