New York City
October, 1940
Men gathered on the New York waterfront near a ship’s gangplank. The cargo ship anchored in the bay carried the Swastika of the German Reich. Groups of men worked quickly offload large crates from the ship and carry them down the gangplank. The stevedores removed the tops of the crates to inspect the items inside. Guns and explosives were carefully packed in the crates. One of the men pulled an MP-34 from the crate and showed it off to his friends. The group broke out in an excited gaggle of laughter mixed with German. Perched atop a nearby building overlooking the scene were two figures. The older and taller of the two wore a suit and fedora. A gasmask obscured his face. Beside him was a teenaged boy in a yellow shirt, yellow leggings, and red boots and gloves.
“Looks like our source was right, Uncle Wes,” the boy said excitedly. “Dirty kraut spies right here in New York. What’s the plan?”
“We go quiet, Sandy,” The Sandman said through his gasmask. “If I can get close enough, I’ll gas them right to dreamland. While our traitorous friends are being introduced to their own dark dreams, our contact with the FBI will roll out the dragnet and round the Fifth Columnists up. By that time we’ll be well gone into the night.”
Sandy punched his open palm.
“Heck of a plan, Uncle Wes!”
The Sandman put his finger to the gasmask.
“We must be quiet, Sandy.”
Sandy’s eyes expanded when he saw Uncle Wes pull the gas gun from the hip holster underneath his jacket. The Sandman walked to the edge of the building and looked down as the men continued unloading their cargo from the ship.
“Let’s make haste,” he said before diving off the ledge. “The sands of time run swift..."
New York City
Now
The sands of time run swift....
Wesley Dodds stood in front of his nightstand. The closed flip phone rested in one hand and threaten to fall out of his loose grip. He looked down at the collection of pill bottles on the nightstand. Blood pressure meds, cholesterol meds, and of course a collection of daily vitamins. Nothing out of the ordinary for an old man. But nestled among the regular medications were sleep meds. For forty years Wesley Dodds had taken the same cocktail of sleep medication and muscle relaxers to keep the dreams at bay. It gave Wesley the perfect combination of a sleep that was sound and dreamless without being so deep he might not wake up. And it had worked for forty years. Those dreams… the dreams that had haunted his nights since he was a teenager… were gone.
Until tonight, that was.
He’d dreamt that he was being strangled to death. Something had cut off his air supply. Something thick and leathery, something held firmly in place by strong hands. This dream had cut through the haze of the medicine and came to Wesley. And with the dream came tragedy. Wesley cleared his throat and looked across the small bedroom at the pictures on the wall. Dian put them there when they first moved into the apartment fifty years ago. There was one of the two of them, one of her father Larry, and of course plenty of photos of Sandy. First as a boy, then a young man, and then one with Sandy and Frankie as Vegas newlyweds, and one with a middle aged Sandy with now elderly Wesley and Dian. The entire course of a man’s life from start to finish.
The sands of time run swift....
Wesley closed his eyes and sighed. He opened his eyes and fought back the tears. He suddenly realized he was still clad in his pajamas. Frankie had asked for him to come to the police station. Wesley took a deep breath and shuffled towards his closet for a change of clothes.
NYPD 19th Precinct
It was a little past 5 AM by the time Wesley found himself in the lobby of the 19th precinct. The place had the usual retinue of arrested prostitutes, victims of assault, and drunken disorderlies you’d find at any police station’s lobby on the night shift. The same tired, burned out desk sergeant that seemed to haunt every graveyard shift, a fixture Wesley remembered when he haunted this same precinct back in the 30’s. Just now the sergeant had a smartphone to look at to pass the time.
Wesley paused as he saw the woman waiting at the far end of the lobby. Thirty years had passed since they last saw each other. And those thirty years had not been as kind to Francesca Hawkins as they had been to Wesley Dodds. Frankie had always been younger than Sandy, so Wesley guessed she was almost eighty. The bright blonde hair atop her head was either dyed or a wig. The heavy makeup highlighted Frankie’s age rather than conceal it. The entire get up made Wesley remember Frankie’s Vegas showgirl roots. That wasn’t fair to her, thought Wesley. His Dian had been quite the party girl before they got together, and Frankie had done nothing but love Wesley and Dian and Sandy… as best as anyone could love Sandy.
“Uncle Wes,” she said, her voice raspy from a life of smoking.
They hugged. She felt so thin. Paper thin, almost. Almost as if a stiff wind could easily blow her away. Even in Wesley’s advanced age he was sturdier than Frankie felt right now.
The sands of time run swift....
“They called me up in the middle of the night,” Frankie said without preamble. “Been divorced twenty years but I was still Sandy’s emergency contact and next of kin. His body is down in the morgue getting cleaned up… they’re waiting to call me back to make sure it’s him, but they found his wallet on the body.”
“Do you know…,” Wesley said softly, almost afraid to finish the question. “Do… you know how he died?”
“They’re…” Frankie closed her eyes and swallowed hard. Wesley saw tears beginning to run down her cheeks, smudging the heavy foundation. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a handkerchief for her. She waved him off and put her ring-covered hands to her face. When she finally spoke, it came out as a hoarse whisper. “They say… he hanged himself.”
The words made Wesley’s blood run cold.
“With his own goddamn belt,” Frankie said, breaking out into sobs. “And some goddamn flophouse… Why…. why?!”
He thought back to his dream. Thick leather and strong hands squeezing the air out of his body.
“Frankie,” Wesley said softly. “Frankie...I have to go.”
Frankie looked at him curiously. The makeup was now running in streams down her face and dripping from her chin. “Why?”
Wesley ran a comforting hand across her shoulder. “Just trust me. I’ll see you later. Just… stay here and talk to the police… and identify Sandy’s body. Call me when you’re done.”
He left Frankie standing there, confused and tear-streaked, as he headed back out into the early New York morning.
Upper East Side
When the door to the apartment wouldn’t open on its own, Wesley opened it with a little… coercion. He’d made a quick stop back home for his lockpick kit, something he hadn’t touched in over fifty years. There was rust in his skills for sure. But after about two minutes he got the door open. Picking locks, like riding a bike, was a skill you never completely forgot.
He quickly shut the door behind him and flicked on a flashlight. Wesley gingerly walked through the two-bedroom apartment and observed. Sandy’s place still looked mostly like it had the last time Wesley had been here. The home served as a shrine to his -- and Sandy’s -- exploits. Covers of old pulp novels and comics featuring The Sandman had been blown up as artwork and hung on the walls. Bookshelves were crammed with material dedicated to The Sandman and the old JSA. Wesley knew somewhere in a sealed box Sandy had old black and white serials of some schlubb actor playing The Sandman in a series of Republic Films pictures. There was the newer stuff too, some cheesy action movie from the 70's where Sandy played himself, the second Sandman, in "Perchance to Dream" some movie they shot for cheap and paid the actors the bare minimum.
Although Wesley noticed the place was a touch different then it had been before all those years ago. There were gaps in Sandy's collection. Books and memorabilia and posters were missing here and there, the places where they had once been were glaring obvious holes. The collection wasn’t as full as it had been decades ago. But…
Wesley paused when he saw it. The key piece in Sandy’s collection. In the corner of the living room in a glass display was Wesley’s original Sandman costume. The gasmask his father had worn during the Battle of Belleau Wood, the gas gun Wesley had created, even the same suit right down to the frayed threads on the trenchcoat’s left breast. Wesley placed his hands on the glass and stared at his old costume.
“I don’t know who killed you, Sandy...but I will find them. And I’ll introduce them to their own dark dreams.”
