e. . . . Jack was about the best friend I ever had (Spillane 4).
Hammer is also capable of cold-blooded violence. However, unlike with Croft, with Hammer the violence is connected to a sense of justice. The reader may not believe in taking the law into one's own hands, but at least the killing of the murderess at the end of Spillane's novel happens because of Hammer's outrage at the woman's murder of Jack. Still, Hammer's killing of the woman is shocking:
She leaned forward to kiss me, her arms going out to encircle my neck. The roar of the .45 shook the room. Charlotte staggered back a step. . . . Slowly, she looked down at the ugly swelling in her naked belly where the bullet went in (Spillane 245-46).
She asks him how he could have shot her, and he says, "It was easy" (Spillane 246). It was easy, not because he is a sadist like Crof
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