Микки Спиллейн - The Erection Set

A ghost of a smile crossed the old man’s face, but I didn’t catch what he said. I asked, “What?”

He shook his head and smiled. “The day after tomorrow. We’ll leave from here. Four P.M.”

REFLECTIONS: LEYLAND HUNTER

“Like meeting a pack of cobras,” Dog had said, and didn’t hear me when I answered, “But who’s the mongoose?”

Dogeron Kelly, the kid they could never figure out or pin down. He didn’t give a damn for anything then and he sure doesn’t now. Anybody else would take him for just another big guy who had been around the world and had seen and done as he damn well pleased, a guy who wasn’t anything and didn’t want anything.

But me, I’m old in the trade. Too damn many court-rooms. Too damn many times looking through wire screens at clients and watching their minds work. There are types and types, but they all fall either on one side of the fence or the other. Dogeron Kelly was walking around behind a disguise. He was a predator in camouflage, always stalking, but so much at home in whatever world he lived in he was completely at ease.

Idly, I wondered how many men he had killed. The ones he didn’t get medals for killing. Once Interpol had queried me about a possible identification of a man whose description answered his, a man who had hijacked a shipment of stolen Nazi gold destined for Moscow. The picture was indistinct, Moscow denied the incident, and, upon further investigation, the man was reported supposedly dead or missing. I still had the photo in my desk drawer. I took it out and looked at it for the hundredth Time. It was still indistinct. It could and could not be Dogeron Kelly. Or anybody else for that matter.

Who are you really, Dog? That look that comes from the back of your eyes isn’t new to me at all. It has violence in it and something I can’t pin down at all, something that doesn’t belong there.

I glanced at the calendar and wondered how much longer it would be before the explosion went off.

You’re a bomb, Dog, a damned walking bomb, but I like you anyway. You bring excitement into an old man’s life.

LEE SHAY... REFLECTIONS

Oh, boy, when I buy trouble I buy it in big, fat bundles wrapped in FBI WANTED posters smelling of cordite and burning rubber. Already I could hear the hum of the spectators as the jury filed in and the rap of the judge’s gavel and the clanging of steel bars. How the hell does it feel to have your hands braceleted behind your back with nickel-chrome cuffs? The only guy I ever knew who spent time in the pen said the food was lousy, the guards sadistic and the queers a menace.

And here I sit like a big idiot in front of an old open suitcase carefully counting out the bills. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they had been all old or all new, but they were mixed, and by the time I reached two million five I was in a sweat, my hands shaking and the pain in my gut wasn’t to be believed. The crazy green stuff was all over like grass thrown from a mower and more was still in the bag.

Where did it come from?

How the hell did he get it through Customs?

Whose was it?

That wild loon of a Dog didn’t even give a shit about leaving it here, and me with a single lock on the door and not a gun in the place. I kept looking around wondering where I could stash the stuff, but modern apartments didn’t come with hidden panels and there wasn’t enough room in the closets to take care of an extra shoebox.

Damn it, Dog, we’re buddies. You saved my tail and I owe you, but how much, buddy, how much? We were full of piss and vinegar during the war, but for me the vinegar is all gone and all I have left is the piss and the way I’ve been leaking over your pile, there won’t even be much of that left.

You were such a nice guy at one time. No trouble. Always doing somebody a favor, flying extra missions when a pal wanted to get laid in London; dumping yourself in front of a junior birdman to get a Jerry off his tail; taking care of the dame who got stood up. Man, you were a fooler. I don’t know what happened or why, but you changed. You wouldn’t come back after it was all over... no, you take a European discharge and disappear into the back alleys of the world and except for a few postcards from screwball places like Algiers and Budapest, nobody knows anything about you. Ernie Kirrel thought he saw you in Marseilles, but he couldn’t be sure.

Then I remembered yesterday’s News, the item about the new controls to be exercised in narcotics production. Turkey was cutting back on her licensed poppy fields; France was going against the illegal processors; the U.S. was funding for an all-out war against the distributors. I started to sweat all over again. The origin of the postcards made sense now. So did the money. Dog was in the racket and was cutting out before they had him over a barrel. Damn it, Dog, are you nuts? You went and heisted somebody’s bundle and they weren’t law-conscious, good-guy police types. They’d track you down, cut your nuts off and let you bleed to death while you were holding them in your hand.

And me. I was in it now too. I was his protector. I couldn’t give the stuff away ... I couldn’t take a chance dumping it somewhere without leaving tracks. I just didn’t think that way at all. All they had to find was the money or the bag and I’d be holding my own balls too. There was no way out, none at all.

But there was. I had almost done it the first time. I picked up every bill lying around, repacked it, closed the lid of the suitcase and buckled the straps.

The whole thing would just about fit into the hall incinerator.

I was sweaty and grimy and looked forward to a cool shower when I stuck the key in the lock and walked into Lee’s apartment. He was standing in the middle of the living room pulling on his pants with nervous hands, his face white and puckered looking. He jammed his feet into a pair of loafers and never saw me until he picked up my suitcase and started toward the door and when he caught my eyes across the distance he nearly lost his grip on it.

“Going somewhere?” I shouldn’t have let my teeth show through the grin like that. Hell, I could have told him where he was going. His face was like the proverbial open book. He was scared halfway out of his mind, but he was still the same old Lee and going through no matter what happened.

“Don’t stop me, Dog.”

I shrugged, stepped aside and pulled a cigarette from my pack. “That leather’s tough. It won’t burn so easily. And besides, supposing some of that money starts drifting up the flue and lands in the street?”

The simple idea of it shook him and this time his fingers did let go. The bag slammed to the floor and rocked over slowly to lie on its side.

“You always could think things through, you bastard.” His face was mad now, more at himself for being stupid, then his anger turned back to me again. “Okay, where can I dump it?” He was ready to come through me again.

“Why not try the bank? There’s one across the street.” I looked at my watch. “We still have an hour until closing.”

“Don’t try bluffing me out, Dog.”

“You can always call, kid.”

“Okay, I’m calling,” he said.

I went over, picked up the bag and he followed me out, pulling on a tattered sport jacket over his T-shirt.

The teller called the manager and the manager called the president. Lee waited in the reception room while the president took me into his office. Two bank guards stood by watching Lee, and his lips were dry and cracked. When I came out, the bank was closed for the day, but we got a grand escort to the front door and a fine shaking of hands.