Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, of course. The characters depicted within are most certainly not my invention or property, and no profit is being made. Oh, and I don't own the Lifebuoy trademark, either, it's the property of Lever Brothers.

Author's notes: All that talk on the Gullsway board recently about cussin' got me to thinking, just why might the judge and Mark not swear much?(Aside from the fact that the original show was on network TV in primetime in the middle '80--I mean what would the fictional explanation be?) And so I came up with—

Blue Streak

By L .M. Lewis

They were almost home, Mark taking the familiar twists and turns of the PCH with only one part of his mind on the driving. Lead foot, he admonished himself, it's gotta be the adrenalin. His hands had only stopped shaking after they'd left the warehouse. He cast a sideward glance at the judge. Hardcastle was staring ahead, looking surprisingly subdued for a guy who'd just busted up a multi-million dollar insurance fraud scheme and put another old nemesis behind bars.

McCormick slowed down to make the turn into the estate. "Save the world and still home in time for True Grit" he quipped. "Now that's what I call efficiency."

Hardcastle grunted something. They pulled up to the garage. He was out of the car without another word and walking up the front steps, leaving the younger man staring in puzzlement.

Now what's going on? Hardcastle without a sharp rejoinder was . . . unnatural. But, now that he thought about it, the judge had been pretty quiet all afternoon. Coming out of the warehouse he hadn't said a word. Of course Frank had already known most of the story, and the judge had been wired for sound going into the set-up, so there hadn't been all that much left to report.

McCormick found himself walking mentally back through that scene--the deserted warehouse where the meet was supposed to have taken place. Standing there, hands in his pockets, trying to look nonchalant, then noticing . . . something out of place among the rest of the crates. What had it been? Oh, yeah, a couple screws on the floor and a lid knocked just out of kilter. And what would that matter? Why did he go over and check it out with Hardcase hissing at him to stop fooling around and . . .

And then his heart speeding up when he pushed back the lid of the crate and saw a device which was completely unfamiliar and yet entirely recognizable—a mass of wires and a red diode counting down through the single digits like something out of a thousand cheesy action flicks.

Then the whole thing slowing down to one of those moments where your feet seem to be stuck in mud while your heart goes a mile a minute . . . 6 . . . 5 . . . 4 . . . He heard himself repeating a single word over and over again, one that would have made his mother reach for a bar of Lifebuoy. It was some sort of crazy mantra for him now, with no time to think, and no time to be sorry if he was wrong about this. He reached in and smashed his fist down on it, feeling the thing bite the edge of his hand as the device fragmented, and then . . . silence. He'd turned around, swaying a little, and found Hardcastle right behind him, reaching out for his shoulder to steady him.

"Didn't know whether it was the red wire or the green one," he said sheepishly, "couldn't think of anything else to do in three seconds."

Hardcastle had nodded, looked past McCormick into the box, then pushed him toward the door saying "Might still be unstable. Frank, you listening? We're gonna need some bomb guys down here."

There were sirens, guys in special outfits going in where he and Hardcastle had come out. Gotta be crazy to work a job like that, McCormick thought. Frank and the judge talked while he leaned back against a squad car waiting for his heart to slow down

Now everything was back to normal, wasn't it? Or back to whatever it was that passed for normal here on the Lone Ranger's spread. McCormick got out of the car and stood there for a moment. The judge was already in the house. Mark glanced over his shoulder at the gate house. He didn't need to follow Hardcase into the bat-cave. He could turn around right now and head over to his own place, take a long hot shower . . . yeah, and then stretch out on the bed with your hands behind your head, and rerun that six seconds over and over again in your mind about a thousand times between now and dawn.

Better the distraction of confronting Hardcastle about whatever it was that was bugging the old donkey. He ambled slowly up the steps of the porch and sidled through the door--no sounds from the kitchen, must've gone into the den. Good, he thought, I'll take the kitchen, then. Neither one of them had had any lunch. There was ham left from two days ago and some Swiss cheese, rye, a little mayo and mustard. The judge was a sucker for ham and Swiss on rye. He rattled around a little while he made the sandwiches. No sounds from the den. You go to sleep in there, Hardcastle? Near-death experiences affected people differently.

He balanced the two plates on one arm and grabbed the beer bottles and a bag of chips with the other, backed through the kitchen door and walked into the dining room.

"Chow's on. Get it while it's cold," he hollered.

No answer, but he heard sounds from the other room--Hardcastle getting up, still no words, the slow approaching tread. McCormick sat down in his usual place, tore open the chips, arranged his face in an expression of unconcern and took a swig of beer. The judge was there in the doorway.

"How's your hand?" He grunted.

"Huh? Oh, s'okay," Mark spoke around a mouthful of ham and rye, holding his hand up and flexing it experimentally. "I'll live to mow again. Thanks for asking, it's been maybe, what, five hours since it happened?"

Nothing from the judge. Hardcastle just sat down and studied his sandwich, lifting the top slice of rye to peer at the mustard and mayo, then closing it up again and staring at his beer.

"Okay, Hardcase, you're mad at me. I get it. It was a dumb thing to do and it could've got us both blown to pieces and I promise next time I go to a meeting in a warehouse, I'll carry a wire-clipper and copy of A Beginner's Guide to Bomb Disposal, with the right page dog-eared and then you can . . ."

Hardcastle had looked up from the beer while Mark was spouting off. His look of bemusement made McCormick sputter to a halt.

"It wasn't that, kiddo, no, that was some pretty quick thinking, don't think it would maybe work ever time, but—"

"Then what the f—" There it had almost been again, the word that would have made Donna McCormick reach for the soap, balanced right there on the tip of his tongue with the judge giving him the strangest look of disapproval. McCormick paused, thought the whole thing through again, right from where he'd taken the lid off the crate. There was a long moment before he started talking again, this time trying to keep his voice slow and calm.

"Oh. No. You can't be serious, Hardcase. It's not because I said a bad word a couple of times while I was staring death in the face."

"A couple? Try maybe 24, the same one 24 times."

"No way, it was only six seconds."

"Well, that's a lot shorter thing to say than 'one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand.' Frank said it was at least 24 times."

So that was it. The wire, it was all on tape. "So this is like, going on my permanent record, huh, Judge? I can't believe this. You were in the Army in World War II; you probably know how to swear in at least three languages. You were a motorcycle cop. You can't tell me cops don't swear."

"Wouldn't do that."

"Then what the hell are you saying, Judge?"

"Not saying I never did it, just saying I don't, much, and you don't have to, either."

Come to think of it, he couldn't remember that last time he'd heard Hardcastle let loose a single word more intense than 'hell'. He was studying the judge's face, which had taken on the look of a man who was remembering something a long ways back. Nancy. The last piece of the puzzle rotated and slipped into place.

"Oh, I, get it—"

"I don't think you do," the judge growled. "'Cause I can tell by the way you're lookin' at me that you think maybe I moved to the big fancy estate and got the rough corners knocked off of me so I'd fit in. I've known appellate court justices who could peel the paint off the walls in their own chambers, and society hoo-hahs who couldn't string a whole sentence together without tripping over that word at least once. It's got nothing to do with that. It has to do with self-respect, and respecting the people around you."

"So, you mean to tell me that Mrs. Judge Hardcastle never read you the riot act about cussin' a blue streak at some dinner party?"

"She didn't have to read me nothing. She was a lady." The judge finally had a smile on his face. "She had this look, see. It meant something like, 'I didn't hear you say that and I'd better not hear you say it again.'"

"Oh, yeah, I've seen that one, except my mom always followed it up with a bar of soap." McCormick sat back and took another swig of beer. "Hey, Judge, you think they're both up there, discussing my shortcomings tonight?"

"Nah, they'll probably cut you some slack, gotta be some kinda six-second staring-death-in-the-face rule . . . but, geez, McCormick, twenty-four times?"