Микки Спиллейн: Together We Kill

“You know, Mike,” Pat said, “if anybody but you asked me for information on Wellman, Rich, or Whiteman, I’d hold them for questioning. What are you up to?”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“First you tell me things.”

“A woman is slowly dying because a killer is loose. I like that woman.”

Pat paused. “Helen Venn?”

“You’re a brain, Pat. It’s her.”

“Be careful, friend. She’s marked.”

“I know.”

“We kept a tail on her after Marty’s death. She’s marked... We know that... but we don’t know how, why, or by whom.”

“The paper never said much about Marty catching it.”

He threw the sheaf of papers on his desk; they scattered. “There’s the file on him. A few pictures, too. That one there is the last he ever had taken.”

It was a police photo, a garish head-on shot of Marty Wellman, the muscle kid. Too handsome for his own good. Too big and broad for anybody else’s good either.

He looked pretty sharp sitting there at his desk in a dressing gown that was open to let his chest hair show through. His head was turned to one side and a cigar was tight in his pretty teeth.

Yeah, pretty sharp. The only trouble was that he was pretty dead, too. The bullet hole showed right over his ear.

“ .38 slug did it,” Pat said.

“He got it cold?”

“No... warm, sort of. The desk drawer was open and a snub-nosed .38 was right where he could get it. Notice his hand. It’s still lying almost on the rod. He must have sat there with the thing in his hand.”

“It was a hard two million he had, Pat.”

“I’ll tell you something, kid. We found out about that. The two million was a bluff. He never had it. He called that bluff his insurance dough for retirement and used it to bank himself into control of the Syndicate’s gambling setup in town here.”

“Some use money... some use a bluff... and some use an army.”

“What?”

“Nothing... Helen Venn. What about her?”

“Beautiful... and lonely. Marty cultivated her. That was another bluff, only she didn’t know it.”

“I’m glad he’s dead.”

“Oh, it wasn’t all his fault. You know dames. If she hadn’t been looking for a push ahead, she wouldn’t have hung out with the money boys. First it was Earnie Haver. Then Salvy Slocum. Big Ed Smith got in line and finally it was Marly. She was quite a girl to get a yen for.”

“Yeah.”

“You say it funny, Mike.”

“Yeah. Was she really a pusher, Pat?”

“Oh... I wouldn’t say so. A kid blinded by the bright lights, let’s say. She checked clean.”

“Do we talk about the Syndicate?”

“Do you mean Carmen Rich?”

“That’s right.”

“No, we don’t talk.”

“Carmen too big to talk about?”

“Let’s stay friends, kid.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“We don’t talk because it’s a sealed case. It’s being worked on.”

“Okay, Pat, thanks.” I stood. “I’ll dig around. Anything turns up... I’ll buzz you. ”

“Swell,” he said. “Do that.”

I had asked rats first. They didn’t know. Then the cops. They wouldn’t talk. There were still the ferrets... sharp-eyed little people who walked in the shadow of the rats and knew everything they did. All you had to do was get them to open their mouths.

On the Bowery I found my ferret.

He was sleeping in a doorway dreaming big dreams and living under a blue sky someplace that was warm and comfortable... He didn’t like it too much when I woke him up.

“Hello, Jake.”

“Hey... hey... cut it.”

“It’s me, kid — Mike Hammer.”

He scrambled to his feet, scared.

“Come here, come here... what’s the matter with you?”

“Look, lemme alone, Mike. Just lemme alone.”

I held his arm and hauled him in close until the sour whiskey smell of him was right under my nose.

“What’s the matter with you? You want a fin or a train ticket? I’m not too good to speak to, am I?”

He groaned loudly. “Mike... look, lemme say it fast... The word’s out. They’re gunning for you. You ain’t healthy no more.”

“Who?”

“Who knows? The word’s out. Mike... lemme go.”

“Sure, Jake. Just answer me something. Why did Marty Wellman die?”

A long hiss escaped his lips. He was scared. “Mike!”

“Why, Jake... why.”

“There’s talk... it isn’t loud talk because if it gets heard somebody gets killed. Marty... he had to die. You know, the king is dead. Long live the king. He got pushed because somebody else wanted in.”

“Carmen?”

“Honest, Mike, I...”

“Okay, I won’t push you. But the talk I heard had two million bucks in it.”

“Marty was flat. He borrowed fifty grand from a Chicago outfit. That sound like two million?”

“No.” I gave him a fin. “Here buy yourself a steak.”

“Thanks.”

And that was all the ferret had to say. No... he wouldn’t have said another word. He was one more guy the fear had gotten to.

So now the word was out.

Somebody wanted... me.

“Don’t move, mister,” a voice said.

My boy Dave from the bar. The second time he held a gun on me.

“Sucker,” he said. “Sucker. You would’ve had it easy if you didn’t nose around. Come on.”

“Where?”

“There’s a car over there.”

“Suppose I don’t?”

“Try it.”

“Yeah... yeah.”

He wasn’t fast enough.

Somebody should’ve told him. This is New York. You let them find out for themselves here. I stepped past him, 45 in hand, hearing the last little sounds he was making, aware of the complete silence that hung over the Bowery while a hundred eyes saw a kill that a hundred mouths would never speak about except among themselves.

But the dead man proved a point. I was important. Then I knew just how important...

Important enough for two more of Carmen’s boys to be on top of me, and I never saw the other one. I heard the swish and thud of the sap...

“We can’t go out to the island,” a voice was saying.

“Then use the park,” another voice said. “We can pull over, dump him, and blow.”

“Suppose somebody hears the shot?”

“For the kind of dough we’re making, you want Social Security?”

“Aw, shut up.”

“Here’s the place. Pull over.”

They carried me out. They dragged me through the bushes and around a jutting tooth of rock like you find in Central Park, then they dumped me. The fat boy pulled the gun from his pocket, checked the shells, then flipped the cylinder back...

I played it just a little too slow. Too slow. The louse got me with the gun butt and I had it good... just long enough to hear them get away.

But I wasn’t too bad off. One dead man earlier still told the story. I started to get up... then my hand closed around a flat little pad and I thought how I had missed it earlier when I had chased somebody else into these same bushes... somebody who had been waiting for Helen and me ripped it out of his coat pocket when he tried to get me off his back.

I wrapped my handkerchief around it, stuck it in my pocket, and got up. It wouldn’t take long to reach the street... or get a boy to run my package up to Pat’s office.

It was enough for the night. Enough. I called a cab over and gave the driver Helen’s address...

“Hello, Mike,” she said. “It’s so good to see you.”

“Helen... You look different, kid.”

“I... feel different, Mike. I’m... not afraid anymore.”

“You’ll never have to be afraid again.”

“But... you look different, too, Mike.”

“Somebody else told me that once, too. They said they could always tell when I killed somebody.”