One Lonely Night (Mike Hammer Series #4) Book

In a clean, well-lighted place, Mickey Spillane, Ayn Rand and Ernest Hemingway sit drinking cocktails and talking about, among many things, Spillane's 1951 novel One Lonely Night.

Ernest: So what's it about, Mick?

Mickey: What's it about, Ernie? It's a Mike Hammer book. It's about death and violence and about Mike taking it to those no good Commie bastards like only he knows how.

Ernest: Please don't call me Ernie, I've asked you before.

Ayn: It was magnificent, Mickey. Mike Hammer is a metaphor for what is best in man; he is simple and brutal and cuts to the heart of the matter. Your writing is vibrant and clean, yet you can write about dirty subjects without fear. Tell us, how you do it?

Ernest: Really?

Mickey: You don't want advice from me, doll. I'm mud, and whatever I touched gets smeared with it. I don't mind dirtying myself, but I don't want any of it to rub off on you.

Ayn: Thank you darling, you're fabulous. Your politics, especially for the 50s was strident and correct.

Mickey: Frankly, I don't know a hoot about politics except that it's a dirty game from any angle.

Ernest: That was a strawman production, Mickey, you propped up the Communist party for what our culture wanted us to believe. There's more than what you described. My 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls describes a nobility to the communists struggle. They fought against extraordinary odds, knowing that they would likely loose.

Ayn: The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

Ernest: Does communism deny individual rights, or give the freedom to express one's self without the constraints of economic sustainability? Who lets you decide what is best for everyone?

Ayn: The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me. Tell us, Mickey, what is the secret to your great success?

Ernest: Success? Book sales? I won the Nobel Prize! I win this argument, damn it! I'm the success! I win, I beat him!

Ayn: A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.

Mickey: There it is, here's to you and your big prize. Big-shot writers like you could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar. You'll never be happy.

Ernest: Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

Ayn: So Mickey and I are not happy, not intelligent? Why, Ernest, because we sold books, because we enjoyed commercial success? And isn't that the truest measure of success? Be an author, Ernest, Mickey and I were writers.

Ernest: May I quote Flannery O'Connor?

Ayn: O please! Not that country hick -

Ernest: "The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get in fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky."

Ayn: Repulsive! She was a common servant.

Ernest: There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

Mickey: Watch yer mouth, you mug! That's a lady yer talkin to, why I outta - Yer drunk!

Ernest: Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.

Mickey: What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Ernest: I drink to make other people more interesting.

Mickey: Whatever, pal. You've still got a chip on your shoulder about Chicago.

Ayn: What happened in Chicago?

Mickey: Now what happened with Ernest was that he wrote this nasty piece about me. I never say anything bad about a writer. Some are better than others, that's all. And some make more money. But anyway, I got aggravated at him writing that piece about me, cause none of it was true. So I was on a show in Chicago, a live TV show. It was in a big theatre and there was a stage audience, and the guy who was interviewing me said, "Did you read that piece that Hemingway wrote about you?" And I said, "Hemingway who?" It brought the house down, but he hated my guts after that.

Ayn: Wonderful, Mickey! Let's get out of here and go spend some money.

[Mickey and Ayn exit, laughing]

Ernest sits drinking and lost in thought. What did he fear? It was not fear or dread, It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order.