Микки Спиллейн: Together We Kill

“Feeling better, Mr. Fallon?” His eyes danced again and the pencil-line mustache twisted as he smiled.

All I could do was glare at him.

“Don’t try to talk. Until you fully understand your predicament, I merely want you to listen and understand. Then you may speak. Let me remind you — one attempt to draw attention here and you will regret it.” He turned his head to the man beside him. “Juan...”

With a practiced move, the little guy flipped open a knife.

“It can be painful, Mr. Fallon.”

He didn’t have to point it out. I’d seen it all done before. I let my eyes wander past his face and take in the room. They had destroyed it pretty well. The one in the chair smiled again. He reached inside his coat and found an envelope. When he pulled out the letter, I saw it was the note Tucker had left for me.

“I’m going to remove the tape from your mouth, Mr. Fallon. I want you to explain something, and if it is satisfactory we will simply leave you here. Frankly, dead men can cause trouble. However, you can make me kill you, if you wish. Your life is a very impersonal matter. Do you understand?”

I nodded. I had done business with these types before.

“Take off the tape.”

The man with the knife bent over, felt for the edge of the adhesive like he was going to peel an apple, caught it and ripped it loose with a jerk. I felt the skin of my lips tear and I almost made a fatal mistake of trying to catch his nose with the top of my head. He grinned, realizing my intention, and squatted there with the knife, ready to slip it into my belly.

“You have control now?”

“I know the rules,” I said.

“Good.” He fingered the paper, holding it up so I could see it. “A carefully guarded note from your late friend, no?”

“No.”

“Then why hide it where you did?”

“It wasn’t hard to find. I just considered it personal, that’s all.”

“Perhaps. But I think you couldn’t quite figure it out and kept it as a memorandum.”

“Why?”

“Ah yes, why. We know that Tucker Stacy had little or no previous contact with you, so I agree that you have no knowledge or interest in his... let’s say, ventures. However, as his inheritor, you do have now, and it is likely that you think to capitalize on everything he was involved in. Therefore you do not wish to let anything slip through your fingers. Reasonable?”

“Yeah, but not true,” I grunted. “What the hell is this all about?”

“Who are Verdo and Cristy, Mr. Fallon?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Ah, but you do.”

“Sorry, buddy, but that’s one thing you can’t get from me. Whoever they are belongs to twenty years ago.”

“Tucker Stacy seemed to think you would know them.”

“He was wrong.” It was the way I said it that made him frown.

“Yes, that could be, but there are ways of probing a man’s mind to make him remember.”

“So hypnotize me.”

Very languidly, he screwed a cigarette into a holder. “You are in no position to be facetious, my friend.”

“So go screw yourself then.”

The little guy with the knife pricked the skin of my neck. He was enjoying his work.

I said, “What’s this all about?”

“It is better that you don’t know. None of it is your affair.”

“Then you’re at a dead end, buddy.”

The tall one nodded and pulled at his cigarette, “If we could be sure of that, your chances of survival would be much improved.”

There was a sudden shriek of metal and something smashed against the window frame. Like a cat, the little guy was at the light, snapped it off, then opened the door a crack to peer out. He turned, closed the door and flipped the light back on. “It is the window shutter, Señor Marcel. The wind...”

His voice cut off at the look the tall guy gave him. I faked a groan and laid my head back to cover the moment. A name. At least I had a name now. Señor Marcel.

When I opened my eyes he was watching me. Then, after a few seconds, he seemed to make his decision. I was a nothing. I couldn’t have caught his name. “This note, Mr. Fallon... it mentions choking on a banana. Could you explain that?”

Inside my head the pounding started again. Cramp spasms were starting up my neck and all sensation was gone in my fingers. “I don’t know what the hell he meant. Get off my back, will you?”

The knife touched me again. “Shall we try another way, señor?”

Marcel pulled the cigarette butt from the holder and dropped it into an ashtray. “No, not this time. I think our friend here is telling the truth. It is quite possible that he might learn something later. In that case we shall pay him another visit.” He stepped toward me and looked down at me, his eyes cold little slips of ice. “You are a smart man, Mr. Fallon?”

I didn’t answer him.

“If you are, you will say nothing about this. We have people around and if it is necessary to eliminate you I will be more than happy to accommodate. If you even become a nuisance, this will happen. You may, for instance, speculate on your friend Tucker Stacy.”

Before I could grasp his meaning, he made a motion to the one with the knife, the tape was slapped on my mouth, and with a smile of pure pleasure he swung the sap at my head and the world was all dark, pinpricked with a million lights that went out one by one.

I didn’t realize I was awake until the beam of a light seared my eyes. I had been in a state of half consciousness when the flash beamed itself at my face, twisting a knife into my brain. A curiously lilting voice said, “Maybe this time I shall kill you, señor. ”

Sharon Ortiz.

It won’t take much, I figured.

The light made a circuit of the moon, spotting the disorder and the strewn papers. “They found something,” she accused. Then the light hit my face again. “You will tell me.”

I was past the point of argument. I didn’t care one way or another. There was a lot I wanted to tell her that could be summed up in two distinct words, but something always made me play the angles.

She leaned forward and caught the tape over my mouth by a corner. I squinted my eyes against what was to come, but unlike the others, she worked it loose carefully. “What was it?” she hissed.

“Bananas,” I said. “That’s all those damn fools wanted to know about.”

Air whistled through her clenched teeth. “They know!”

“Nuts.”

“Mr. Fallon!” I was looking right down the barrel of the .38 again.

I said, “He left me a note. He told me not to choke on a banana. Now drop dead. I’m sick and tired of being caught in the middle of all this.”

Slowly, the gun dropped so that it pointed at the floor. The light bouncing off the tile threw a soft glow around her, making her hair shimmer like new coal. “Yes, I realize. You are typically American, señor. Nothing is of any importance to you except your dollar and yourself. You are making it so easy.”

Sharon Ortiz knelt beside me and I felt her fingers at the tape behind my back. She stripped it off with a harsh, tearing sound, not trying to be gentle. Then she stood up to watch me writhe helplessly as the blood flowed back into my arms and legs.

“I don’t think you are worth killing, señor. Maybe later, but not now.”

“That’s what everybody thinks.”

“I hope your friend gave you good advice. Don’t choke on a banana. If I were you I would not even look for one. Good night, señor. ”

For a half hour I lay there rubbing myself back to normal. When I could walk, I found a bottle of Four Roses in the kitchenette and mixed a drink. Damn Tuck and whatever he was up to. Why did he leave me trouble? I had enough on my own. Damn every one of them. I was tired of being kicked around like a stray dog. Well, the Capital K was mine now and I was going to run it. Nobody else. Just me and my way. You get one chance in life to cut out of the ditch and this was mine.