Mickey Spillane - Lady, go die

“A pretty present for the pretty lady,” he said with a shy grin.

Velda took it, looking pleased. It was his latest, the Nativity scene.

“Why, thank you, Poochie,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”

When we were walking back to the car, she squeezed my arm and lay her head against my shoulder. “I like Poochie, too, Mike. Maybe we shouldn’t leave Sidon until we know he’s safe.”

“Yeah.” I lit up a Lucky. “I have to make sure that Dekkert character isn’t a threat to him.”

“You’re a softie, underneath it all, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. All squishy.”

“If it weren’t for Poochie back there, I’d still be thinking you were just an old so-and-so.”

I blew a cloud of cigarette smoke and broke out my lopsided smile.

“Kitten,” I said, pretending to be shocked. “Watch your language.”

They were waiting for me when I ambled into the police station. I hoped they’d enjoyed themselves, speculating on what they’d do to me.

There was a counter at right, but otherwise this was a fair-sized bullpen of half a dozen desks. Everybody from last night was there-the athlete, the scarecrow and Dekkert, of course. But today they were in police uniforms. Somebody reached for a phone while I stood there jamming a butt in my sneer and firing it up.

Then a fat slob in a too-small uniform and a too-large cap squeezed out through a wood-and-pebbled glass door that said CHIEF OF POLICE. His face was a bloated red mask of fury; all the purple veins in his nose had dilated until it looked like a cross section of a Martian landscape. His thick lips were working with anger at the thought of anyone flaunting his authority.

“Morning, Chiefie,” I said with a respectful nod.

Chief Beales said nothing. Just froze between his office and me.

Dekkert was sitting behind one of the front two desks with veins popping on his forehead and cords standing out on his neck, but most of his face was hidden behind a swathing of bandages. If he wore an expression I couldn’t see it. Not that I gave a damn.

He pulled his bulk from the chair and got to his feet, fists clenched into a pair of hams. The cops on either side of him tried to keep him back behind that desk, with hands on his shoulders.

“Let him go,” I said, with a dismissive wave.

They did.

He came out and around the desk, moving at me as though he were going to beat my brains out. Maybe he thought last night was a fluke. If he did, he changed his mind in a hurry.

I never moved.

He stopped in front of me, breathing heavily in my face. No onions this time. Tabasco on his morning eggs, maybe.

The big man seemed almost insane with anger. “I ought to kill you, Hammer!”

“Dekkert, I told you a long time ago, back in the city,” I said casually, “you are welcome to try it. Any time.”

Every word I spoke must have gone through him like a knife. He just stood there, his huge chest rising and falling to where his badge might pop off. I could see him trying to force himself to make a move.

I laughed in his face. “You’re not going to try anything, Dekkert.”

His teeth were clenched and his eyes showed white all round. “I’m not? And why is that, Hammer?”

“Because you’re yellow.”

I put my mitt in his puss and shoved. As he stumbled back against his desk, everybody in the room stopped breathing. Except me.

The bastard’s eyes made narrow slits.

I grinned at him.

His hand streaked for the gun at his hip. I let him get it out before I bothered to move. But when I did, it was faster than his eyes could follow. I fired from a crouch and his gun spun out of his hand and clunked to the floor, while from the corner of my eye I saw wood chips fly from the desk, barely a foot away from the chief.

Dekkert was looking at his gun hand, and the ragged red groove carved there, amazed.

I got to my feet, the. 45 still in hand, waiting to see if any of these other fine officers of the law had anything to say or do about what just happened.

They didn’t. They were too busy standing there shaking like somebody opened a door and let in a cold damn wind.

Finally I shoved my gun back under my shoulder, sauntered over to Dekkert and grabbed a handful of his shirt. With the back of my free hand, I smashed him across the bridge of that nebulous nose. He tried to pull away, but he wasn’t that big. I hit him twice again, until blood stained the bandages on his face.

“You forgot something, Dekkert,” I informed him, his shirt in my fist holding him up, depriving his feet of the floor. “You forgot that I practice with my rod and can get it out in a fraction of a second. And you forgot something else. I never take it out unless I intend to use it. The next time you pull a on gun me, I put one between your eyes.”

I turned to the rest of them, moving from one face to another. “That goes for the rest of you goof-offs. Spread the word to any off-duty brothers in blue.”

I pushed Dekkert away. He was holding his gauze-covered face, peering at me from between his fingers, like a child afraid Daddy would get out the razor strop next.

Somewhere along the way I’d lost my smoke. I got out my Luckies, jammed a fresh one in, let the Zippo set fire to the tip, and turned casually toward the fat florid chief. “Now, what was it you wanted to see me about, Chiefie? You said to stop in.”

The chief tugged at his coat and backed away, looking toward the athlete and scarecrow for assistance, but they didn’t know quite what to do. Cops, they called themselves. Cops hell. I wished Pat Chambers of the New York Homicide Bureau had been here to see this travesty.

Somehow Beales managed to clear his throat. He pointed toward whence he’d come. “In my office, Mr. Hammer.”

“No, Chiefie. Right here is fine.”

He was trembling, too.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, relax. I’m not going to bite you.”

The fatso finally backed himself up against the desk where Dekkert had been sitting. Sidon’s police chief was sweating profusely. I walked over next to him and parked on the desktop, picking splinters from the spot where my bullet clipped it.

“Now you look here,” he spluttered, “this is a police station. You can’t waltz in here and intimidate my men! Pulling a gun and firing it here — are you insane, man?”

I didn’t bother pointing out that Dekkert had gone for his gun first.

“That’s pretty much what I told Dekkert last night,” I remarked dryly. “Not to bother trying to intimidate me. Let’s hear something new.”

There was silence for a few seconds, then, “I could have you arrested.”

“Go ahead,” I invited, “and see what happens. My one phone call won’t be to my attorney, though. I’ll ring up the State’s Attorney’s office. They don’t have to be told that you and your punks aren’t cops, just political appointees. They know all about these small towns. Like I do.”

The chief decided he’d carry on his questioning from a chair between his two men, and got behind Dekkert’s desk to do so. He pulled a cigar from his pocket and bit the end off nervously. The scarecrow provided a flame. The chief got the stogie going, his eyes moving with thought as he searched for a way to handle me.

Right then I figured I’d let them know just where I stood. I spoke between drags on the Lucky.

“Let’s get something straight, ladies. I came here for a vacation, that’s all. I wasn’t on any case, I knew nothing about the fun and games going on in Sidon lately… until now. But for your information I’m going to cut myself a slice of this cake. I don’t know what’s really shaking around here, but if Dekkert has his nose in it, it must be dirty.”

Dekkert, who was plopped in a rear chair, as far away from me as he could get, said nothing.