Микки Спиллейн - Together We Kill

I tightened the last knot and straightened up. “You won’t be too uncomfortable. Mrs. Morgan, the cleaning woman, should show up about two this afternoon and she’ll cut you loose. Incidentally, you’ll find a body in the study. My work; I’ll tell you about it some day.”

I was out the front door before he could protest further. The convertible came alive under my foot and I roared down the curving gravel side-road to where it joined the highway.

At eleven-thirty-six I pulled into the curb in front of an office building on Madison Avenue in the Seventies. I rode the elevator to the ninth floor and entered the first door to a suite that took up most of one corridor. The legend on that door read “Edward Treeglos, Investments.” The only investment involved was the money I invested to keep the place staffed and functioning. I had set it up, under the management of Eddie Treeglos, a former college friend of mine, five years before, at the time I came into the vast holdings from my father’s estate. Its purpose was to handle matters too confidential to be taken care of by the mammoth organization, further downtown, known as The Terris Foundation.

I passed the receptionist before she could get her nose out of a magazine, and charged into Eddie’s private office without bothering to knock.

He was behind his desk, his sharp-featured intelligent face bent over a pile of thin, outsize volumes bound in everything from leather to glossy stock. He looked up as I came in.

“Did you know,” he said, “that four out of every ten girls attending finishing school on the East Coast come from Westchester County?”

I said, “When I want percentages I’ll ask for them. What have you got?”

He gestured toward the pile of volumes. “Help yourself, playboy. The pages with Westchester babes are marked, and I’ve got six girls in the other offices going through more books. If I never see a sweet innocent schoolgirl face again it’ll be fine with me.”

At one o’clock I was still going strong, flipping pages, scanning face after face, as many as thirty to a page. One of the office girls brought in sandwiches and coffee; they cooled and were finally taken away without my even noticing them.

Slowly my hopes were beginning to dim. Maybe that blonde was cleverer than I had supposed. Her seemingly careless remark might have been a deliberate plant to throw me off the track. If so, she was too good for her job; she should have been the head of the entire Russian M.V.B. And then, just when I was about ready to sweep the books to the floor with rage, I spotted the face I was hunting for.

I came close to missing it entirely. She wore her hair different then and her face was fuller. But the angle to her nose and the high cheekbones and the slope of her jaw were unmistakable. She stared up at me from the glossy paper, the eyes wide and direct, the same faint curl to her lips. Do you find the evening oppressively warm, Mr. Terris?

Under the photo were several lines of type. They told me her name was Ann Fullerton, that she lived at 327 Old Colony Drive, Larchmont, New York, that she was a political science major. She belonged to a swank sorority, was vice-president of her senior class and had been mixed up in a lot of campus activities that probably would make fascinating reading for her children — if she lived long enough to have any.

My eyes went back to the mocking smile. “Laugh, baby,” I muttered. “Laugh while you can. Your belly will make me a fine dart board.”

Across the desk, Eddie stared at me open-mouthed. “Take it slow, pal. You sound like a goddamn tax collector.”

I ripped the page out, shoved a pile of the books to the floor and pulled the phone over in front of me. “Tell the help to forget it. I’ve found what I’m after.”

“Sure, sure. You feel like telling me what’s going on?”

“Next week,” I said. “You got a Westchester phone directory?”

He shrugged, reached out and flipped a lever on the intercom and told the receptionist to bring one in. I leafed through the Fullertons and found an Eric Fullerton living at the same address in Larchmont shown on the page from the yearbook. I dialed the number.

“Fullerton residence,” a man’s voice said.

I made my voice brisk and business-like. “Is this Mr. Fullerton?”

“Mr. Fullerton is not in, sir. Caldwell, the butler, speaking. Is there a message?”

“I’ll talk to Ann Fullerton,” I said.

The silence at the other end lasted long enough to be shocked. “...I’m afraid there’s some mistake, sir. Miss Ann Fullerton died almost a year ago.”

“What!”

“Yes, sir.”

I got my chin up off my necktie. “Look... uh, Caldwell. Is Mrs. Fullerton there?”

“Yes, sir. Who shall I say is calling?”

“My name is... Carney. Alan Carney.”

“One moment, Mr. Carney.”

The receiver went down and I lit a cigarette, getting over the shock. There wasn’t the slightest chance that the girl in the yearbook and the girl who had held a gun on me a few hours before were not one and the same. I had studied her face much too carefully to be mistaken.

A quiet voice said, “This is Mrs. Fullerton.”

I said, “I hate to bother you, Mrs. Fullerton. I had no idea, of course, that your daughter...”

“I understand, Mr. Carney.”

“You see, it’s very important that I get in touch with a former friend of Ann’s. A girl named... Taylor — Mollie Taylor. I wonder if you could tell me anything about her.”

“I’m afraid not, Mr. Carney.” Her voice sounded flat, almost weary. “You see, I didn’t know Ann’s friends. She hadn’t lived with us for nearly two years before her death.”

I said, “Would you mind giving me her address at the time? It’s just possible somebody there could help me.”

“We never knew her address, Mr. Carney. Ann was employed by an importing company. Anton & Porkov, I believe it was called.”

“In New York?”

“Yes. I don’t know the street address.”

I wrote the name on a pad. “You’ve been very patient, Mrs. Fullerton. I know how painful all this has been for you. But would you mind telling me the circumstances of your daughter’s death?”

There was a lengthy pause during which I expected her quietly to hang up the receiver. When she finally did speak I could barely hear her. “Ann died in a warehouse fire. I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you. Good-bye, Mr. Carney.”

A dry click told me the connection had been broken. I hung up and sat there staring at my thumb. All I had to do now was find a girl who had died months before, but who last night had engineered the kidnapping of my wife. Lodi’s secret was now known to at least three people other than me. I should never have taken her out of Africa. I thought of her in the hands of those two silent ghouls and the blonde and a cold fury shook me. The mere fact that they had discovered what was behind Lodi’s veil meant they must die. How they would die would depend on how they had treated her.

Eddie Treeglos was watching me wide-eyed. I tripped the lever on the intercom and said to the receptionist, “Get me the street address of Anton & Porkov, importers.” I closed the key and leaned back in my chair and looked at Eddie through the smoke of my cigarette. “Does that name- Anton & Porkov — mean anything to you?”

“Can’t say it does.”

“My wife was snatched last night, Eddie.”

“We’ll get her back, Karl.”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, we’ll get her back.” I got up and walked across the office and slapped my hand hard against the wall. For no reason. I turned and came back to the desk just as the intercom buzzer sounded. I moved the key again. “Well?”