Микки Спиллейн - The Erection Set

“Something looks pretty damn spooky to me.”

“Maybe you ought to know, kid.” His tone didn’t sound friendly anymore.

“I’m sure going to find out, Tod. There’s always a winner in every game.”

“Who wins in this one?”

“Right now there’s a couple leading the field.”

“Old Alfred and Dennison Barrin?”

“How can they lose?”

“That’s what I figured. The rich get richer.”

“Not in this case,” I said. “I think they’re trying to hold on to what they’d like to have.”

Tod finished his beer, got a refill and looked at me with a direct, earnest glance. “Tell me somethin’, kid. Are any of those old guys gonna get busted?”

Something funny crawled up my back and I had to take the top off my drink so he didn’t see what I was thinking. I put the glass down and looked back up at him. “Not if I can help it.”

“Will they get hurt?”

Now I could see him back the way he was behind the bar in the old days, ready to pick somebody up by his neck with one big, beefy hand and toss him into the wall. He was watching my face and whatever he saw put the assurance back into his expression, and when I said, “No,” Tod nodded slowly.

“Just like your old man,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“Too bad you never met him.”

“I can look in the mirror, Tod.”

“Ah, that you can, that you can. You might even see your grandfather, the old bastard.”

“That’s my title, Tod.”

“It means something different the way I’m saying it. You know, he woulda liked it right now.”

“Hell, that’s the way he started.”

He put down the rest of his beer in a single big gulp. “And you’re going to finish it.”

I grinned at him.

“You haven’t changed either,” he said.

“Don’t fool yourself.”

“The only thing’s missing’s the pretty lady.”

“She’s working,” I told him. “Too much of me is no good.”

“Sheee-it.” One corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. “The little lady is all yours, Kelly.” He ran the back of his arm across his mouth and let his eyes dance across the table. “I got to asking questions after you left.”

“So what’s new?”

“Fuck you, Kelly. Find out for yourself.”

“You’re a big help.”

“Sure I am.”

“Where’s your pay phone?”

“Outside in the hall.” He sat back and folded his hands across his stomach. “You gonna raise some more hell?”

“Just a little,” I said.

“Damn,” he told me, “you kids have all the fun.”

Nothing could perturb the butler. He was too coldly professional, too remote. In his own way he was a contract man too, ready to protect his own as long as the pay was right, but not quite ready to go beyond the bounds of his limitations when it came to Big Casino time. I said, “Hello, Harvey,” and Big Casino time was there and Harvey smiled with a facial expression that didn’t mean anything at all except to me and opened the door.

“Miss Pam and Miss Veda are inside, sir.”

“Where’s Lucella?”

“Drunk, sir. May I be so bold?”

“You may be so bold, Harvey. And my male cousins?”

“At a meeting, sir.”

“Great. I have arrived at the opportune time.”

“I would say so, sir.”

“And why would you say so, Harvey?”

There was no smile, no raising of the eyebrows, just the simple, unspoken acknowledgment of small dog to top dot and he said, “Because you have been the subject of countless discussions since your last visit, sir.”

“I hope they didn’t say anything good about me.”

“You can be sure of that, sir.”

“They’re afraid the plans of mice and men may get screwed up, I guess.”

Harvey almost smiled, but didn’t quite make it. “A rather awkward misquote, sir, but the inference is correct.”

I gave him my coat and hat. “You know, Harvey, I’m beginning to like you.”

“Thank you, sir. This way, please. Shall I announce you?”

“Don’t bother.”

I could hear the two of them before I ever got near the library. Age had touched everything except their voices and to me they were still pigtailed brats laughing at me behind the curtains when I was catching hell, and sniveling slobs when they got caught with their hands in the sugar bowl.

Right now they were hissing at each other like snakes and never heard me come into the room until I said, “Why don’t you flush all that shit, ladies?”

Veda spun around with all that acquired arrogance ready to lash out at me with that venomous tongue of hers, then stopped in midsentence with a startled expression that was almost matched by Pam’s.

I said, “Sit down and shut up,” then walked over to the desk and picked a cigarette out of the cut-glass container. I lit it, gave the butt a disgusted look, then dropped it on the rug and squashed it out with my heel. My own brand tasted better and when it was fired up I turned back to my two cousins and smiled just enough so that they sat down fast without ever taking their eyes off me, their hatred filling the room like smoke.

It was a good scene. Hell, it was a beautiful scene. I leaned back against the desk and soaked it all in, letting them take their time to see what I was really like and when the tight lines in their faces started to droop into age wrinkles around their chins and the flab let loose under their arms I took another long drag of the butt then moved around the desk and sat in my grandfather’s old chair and leaned back nice and comfortable like he used to do and they were seeing him as well as me with scared little eyes and micey moving hands.

I said, “The last time was only for fun, girls.”

Veda tried the bluff. For a lifetime she had been pulling it and for a while it had worked, until she hit the tables at Vegas and Monte Carlo where the experts were better at the game. She started to say, “Dogeron, I will not have this...”

But I was holding the cards and stopped her. “Cut the crap, Veda, we’re not kids anymore, but I took enough cuts across my ass for you to keep those days in mind. You try playing cute and I’m going to hoist your white tail over the edge of that chair and whip the skin off it with my belt. You looked up my bleeding asshole for the last time and now it’s my turn.”

“Well!”

“The sight of it might make me sick, Veda, but I’m willing to try. Just open your big mouth.”

She seemed to push back into the chair, her hands tight on the arms. I looked at Pam.

“The same goes for you, only your ass gets kicked, not whipped.”

If Pam had had a gun she would have killed me. For some reason she couldn’t seem to get her mouth shut and I could see her mind working for something to say. When she finally found it she couldn’t get it out and I grinned at her.

“Where’s old Marvin?” I asked her. “Your husband,” I reminded her.

Every word was stiff and forced. “Out. He’s... downtown.”

“I can’t blame him. If he’s lucky he’s screwing some bag in the back seat of the car. He sure never gets any from you.”

Pam arched with indignation and almost spoke again, but I added, “Cut it, baby, I remember you getting your first taste of love when you were fourteen and thought nobody was watching. And I mean taste. That delivery boy was a big stud, wasn’t he?”

My cousin damn near fainted. Her face got red to the roots of her dye job and she gave Veda a helpless glance that was returned with equal amazement, then she almost raised one hand for me to stop.

I wasn’t about to. “Don’t sweat, Pam. You liked it. You tried every guy who used the delivery entrance until one wanted it straight and stuck it in you. Lest you forget, gal, all that screaming you did you blamed on me for knocking you down the back porch and I got jumped for that one. Hell, all I did was walk into the laundry room to get a shirt at the wrong time. Incidentally, what ever happened to your bloody panties?”