Микки Спиллейн - The Erection Set

I shrugged and drank my beer.

“Brother,” Lee said. “Am I glad you checked in with me. I guess I got a father image. I got to take care of you, Doggie boy.”

My teeth showed in a grin when I looked at him.

Lee grinned back and nodded. “Sure, I remember you pulling those ME109s off my tail. I got a good picture of you squiring me through the skies like a Dutch uncle and keeping my ass intact. You got one lousy year on me, nursed me through the whole damn war and made sure I came out with all my skin and now it’s my turn. I play big daddy. From here on in until you’re on your own two pedals again I’m going to be big daddy and take care of you .” He finished the beer off in a single long pull. “You are now my responsibility and the first thing I’m going to do is dump your past into the incinerator, dress you like a living New Yorker and put you back into the world again.”

He flipped the empty can against the wall, yanked a dressing robe from a hook behind the door and wrapped it around him. With a faked gesture of distaste he picked up the battered suitcase with all the pasted-on stickers that were loose around the edges and said, “Anything in here of sentimental value?”

I took another taste of the beer. It was cold, refreshing and lighter than all that other stuff. “A few things,” I said. “You can tell which ones.”

Lee tossed the old bag on the bed, undid the straps, fingered the clasps open and threw the lid back. His expression was very funny. He took his two forefingers and poked around in there and didn’t quite know what to say.

It wasn’t often that a guy saw a couple of million bucks in ten-thousand-dollar bills.

He looked up. “No underwear?”

“No underwear,” I said.

The law offices of Leyland Ross Hunter occupied an entire floor of the Empire State Building, a private world hundreds of feet above the concrete and asphalt surface of the city, existing in the almost-stunned hush of a library where even the whisper of feet shrouded in thick pile carpets was a minor commotion. Supposedly silent typewriters were touched with timid apprehension as though the operators were waiting to be castigated for every tiny click. It should have smelled of old leather and old people, but modern air conditioning and artificial atmosphere gave it the lewd tang of incense inhaled.

Behind the antique desk the maiden secretary peered at me over her gold-rimmed, flat-plate glasses, thought she bought me with an invisible peripheral glance and said, “Yes, Mr. Kelly, do you have an appointment?”

I said, “No, ma’am.”

“You’ll really have to call for an appointment.”

“Why?”

Her smile was very condescending. “Mr. Kelly, please, Mr. Hunter is...”

“A very busy man,” I interrupted.

“Quite.”

“What do you bet he sees me?” I lit a cigarette and grinned a little bit.

The vox populi had to be kept in its place. She took off the glasses with a ladylike gesture and smiled back indulgently. “Mr. Kelly...”

“When I was ten I took a picture of him skinny-dipping with Miss Erticia Dubro, who, at that time, was common nanny to our clan.” I took another drag on the butt and blew the smoke over her head. “Miss Dubro was forty-some and fat and was the first broad I had ever seen with hair on her chest. I think old Hunter had a thing for hairy-chested ladies because he let me drive his car that weekend around the estate in exchange for the film.”

“Mr. Kelly!”

“Just tell him Dog is here and mention Miss Dubro. Please?”

She was funny. The indignation was real, but so was the curiosity, and with me standing there speaking too quietly to be anything but real too, she flushed, turned a pair of toggle switches off on her intercom and sniffed up out of her chair into the office behind her.

And when I heard the high cackle of laughter come through the locked doors I was ready for her red face and wide eyes, with that total expression of disbelief that comes from living too long in a commercial nunnery.

“Mr. Hunter will see you now,” she said.

I stuffed the butt out in her paper clip bowl and nodded. “I figured he would.”

“Twenty years,” the old man said.

“Thirty.” I sat down. “You were a horny old bastard even then.”

“I wish you worked for me so I could fire you.”

“Balls.”

“You’re right. I’d give you a raise for reminding me I used to be a real he-goat. Now word’ll go around I’m an old roué and maybe some of those young squirts will give me a little respect. Good to see you, Dog.”

“Same here, old man.”

“You got a.copy of that picture of me and Dubro?”

“Hell no. You got the film before I even developed it.”

“Shit, I wish I had a copy. I’d have it enlarged and hung over the front entrance. I could use a taste of those days.”

“Don’t tell me you had your prostitute gland removed.”

“Only massaged, Dog. That’s not even fun when a doctor does it.”

“Why not try a lady doctor?”

“Who the hell you think I went to?” He sat back and roared, a wizened old guy with a face like a shaved pixie in a leprechaun body. You could see why he could still make it in a courtroom against the young ones and when the chips were down you’d have to guess where he got the single cauliflower ear that looked so ridiculous stuck there on the side of his head.

“I should have gotten that film developed,” he said.

“Look, if it worries you, I’ll set you up for another one. I know some dolls...”

“Ah, me. It sounds so good, but let me live with my memories. I’m too old to be embittered or flattered. It’s just nice to be reminded.” He handed me a silver and walnut humidor. “Cigar?”

I shook my head.

“You got my letter, naturally. I had a dickens of a time locating you.”

“No sweat. I jump around a lot.”

For a few seconds he looked at me, then sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “There’s something peculiar about you, Dog.”

“I’m older.”

“Not that.”

“Wiser?”

“Don’t we all get that way?”

This time it was my turn to wait. “Not everybody.”

His smile was impish, his eyes twinkling. “Too bad the old man didn’t like you.”

“Why should he? All he wanted was a legitimate heir. My mother got knocked up by an itinerant bartender and I was locked in under the bar sinister to preserve family pride.”

“Did you ever know your mother married your father?”

“Sure. I still got a copy of the wedding certificate. She made sure I knew about it.”

“Why didn’t she mention it?”

“Maybe she had her pride too.”

Leyland Hunter unlocked his arms and leaned on the desk. “If the old man had known, things would have been different.”

I tapped another cigarette out of the pack and lit it. “Who gives a damn? All I want is my ten grand. It was standard practice in the family ever since they had slaves and servant girls. They buy you off, kick you out and the foul deed is forgotten.”

“Speculate further,” Hunter said.

“Why not? If the perpetuator was a male, it was laughed off as a boyish prank. If the recipient of the seed was a female claimant to the family name, she was buried under the cloak of shame.”

“You should have been a lawyer.”

I grinned at him again. “Let’s say I’m a philosopher.”

“No hard feelings?”

“What for?”

“All the others take ownership of Barrin Industries. Cousins Alfred and Dennison are president and chairman of the board, respectively, Veda, Pam and Lucella own a majority of the stock, your uncles and aunts sit back and direct operations from the big houses at Mondo Beach and Grand Sita, arranging debutante balls and marriages that highlight all the celebrity columns.”