Mickey Spillane - The Deep

“Nothing, friend. I got it all. It’s what you want.” I looked at the three gentlemen from uptown and their faces flushed.”

“Go ahead, Deep.” Benny’s voice was raspy, his bloated lips softening the Red Hook accent.

“What made you think you could take over, friend?”

“Who else was...”

“You didn’t wait very long.”

“The organization wasn’t gonna come apart because you wasn’t handy, Deep. You...”

I interrupted again. “I don’t suppose you talked to Batten, did you?”

“So what’s he got? You don’t show, he got...”

“Maybe a million in enterprises, Benny-boy. But that’s not big time when you can walk out with the rest of the package, is it?”

For a short space it was still. One of the uptown boys sucked wetly on a cigar and coughed out blue smoke. None of them wanted to watch me at all. They were on the wrong end of the stick this time, drawn there by necessity, but there just the same, the chagrin of it drenched and basted with the stink of hypocrisy.

Lenny Sobel leaned back in his chair, a lifetime of experience in these matters showing in his face as he weighed and divided the possibilities and at last, arriving at a conclusion, he said to me alone, “Do you have anything to control... or to sell?”

My grin was as nasty as I could make it. “I could have.”

“But you don’t,” he smiled, then the smile went mean. “You haven’t figured it out all the way yet and you don’t have it.” When I didn’t answer he said, “You’ve run the prettiest bluff I’ve ever seen,” and with a barely perceptible movement of his head he said over his shoulder, “Get him.”

I hit Harold in the hip with one that shattered his pelvis and caught Al in the biceps before he could make a left-handed draw. For one unbelieving second the little hood looked at his ruined arm then let out a long sob and fainted.

When I cocked the .38 I grinned at Lenny and watched the color run out of his face. Right then he looked old. A beaten, terrified hood who had stuck around just one day too long and now he knew it. Words that he was trying to say wouldn’t come out and he seemed to choke on his tongue. Benny was watching, fascinated, his eyes wide and filmy looking. The three from uptown who had never been so close to death hadn’t time to have the horror of the moment register yet.

I said, “Stand up, Lenny.”

He choked again and tried to run and stumbled over his gunbearers. While he was still on his knees I put a hot one across his rump and he let out a hoarse yell.

“Just like the old days,” I said. “Right in the behind.”

When I laughed one of the gents at the table went into a hysterical giggle and didn’t stop until he was out of breath.

“You, Benny?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I pass. You’re crazy.”

“Could be. Dixie playing?”

“You hurt him bad, Deep. He’s popping every hour.”

“Clean this mess up. Then pass the word.”

“Sure, Deep.”

“Tell ’em to get in line. That whip is going to start cracking pretty quick.”

“Sure, Deep.”

“And any more meetings, you invite me in, buddy.”

“No... you got it wrong, Deep. These are... friends.”

“Friends?” I said. “Three big pillars of the church calling a stinking hood like you friend? Don’t be so damn dumb, Benny. I know these guys and their business and if you want to go on trying to give me the business you’re going to wind up with a tag on your toe.”

“Gee, Deep...”

“Shut up. Just get in line. That means way back. You never were a big one in the old days. Don’t try to get rough now, because you don’t even have a little idea how rough it can really get.”

They said nothing and watched me leave. At the bar I picked up my forty cents change that was still there and said to Bimmy, “My apologies, fat man. They asked for it.”

He didn’t answer.

I said, “No need to remind you that this is a family matter, is there?”

When he finished his clinical study of my face he shook his head. “Don’t worry. I know what to do.”

Outside Cat was pressed against the glass, his thin body tense and shivering. He kept rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand, looking nervously up and down the block. I answered him before he could ask it. “Relax. They just got chopped up a little bit.”

“Who’d you hit?”

“Lenny and his two boys.”

“You’re bringing it on fast, Deep. Fast!”

“Not really, Cat. I’m just slowing down the action a bit.”

“Okay, okay. Just let’s get out of here so they can blow their mad. Any nabs come in, we’re tagged quick.”

I laughed and we waved down a cab and got in. At the nearest IRT kiosk I told Augie to get the breakdown on all of Bennett’s enterprises, listing every employee he ever had or anybody he ever financed. We dropped him off, then rode up Amsterdam to 101st Street where Cat had a room, picked up some of his personal effects and went on to the apartment.

On the stoop I opened the door and handed him the keys. “Stay put until I call you. Lock up. I don’t want anybody roaming around here.”

“Where you going?”

“To see a doll, Cat.”

“Look, you better let me tag along. You forgetting those boys in from Philly?”

“Lew James and Morrie Reeves,” I said, “At the Westhampton under the names of Charlie and George Wagner.”

“Yeah. And they got contacts here.”

I laughed and opened the door back of me. “So have I, pal.”

Late evening was turning into early night when I came out of Maury’s hole-in-the-wall diner on the east side of Columbus Avenue. I walked down to 103rd Street, turned the corner and started east. And there was Mr. Sullivan, looking at me with that same look he had when he beat me to my back with a pair of cuffs so long ago.

He put a hand on my chest, the motion almost a friendly gesture to any stranger watching... unless he saw the stiffness in the fingers and noticed how the night stick stopped twirling.

“The trouble’s getting bigger, boy.”

“Oh?”

“It’s only going to end one way.”

“I know, Mr. Sullivan. It has to end only one way.”

“Always the smart one,” he said.

I nodded. “I have to be.”

His eyes were like glass. “The talk is getting bigger and stronger. I don’t like it.”

“What do you figure on doing about it, old-timer?”

“It’s my beat, boy. My beat. I’ve been here a long time. I’ve seen all the big ones, all the tough ones come and go. One day they’re here, the next day they’re lying sprawled in the gutter. A couple of them I put there myself.”

“You’re over retirement age, aren’t you, Mr. Sullivan?”

The red crept into his face slowly and his hand came away from my chest. “Don’t ask for it, Deep.”

“Sure, Mr. Sullivan,” I said with a laugh. “I’ll do like you say.”

I walked around him and all the while I could feel his eyes poking holes through my back. They were two holes, very close together, smaller going in than coming out, the way a pair of steel-jacketed slugs makes them. I shook off the feeling and walked on up to Grogan’s market, opened the door into pitch darkness, my hand going to my pocket for a book of matches.

I tore one out, struck it and held it up. But I was looking in the wrong direction. Whoever had cuddled in the doorway smashed something down across the back of my head and when I hit the floor with my face there wasn’t any feeling left at all.

Unconsciousness was only a partial thing. All feeling was gone, but there was still the knowledge of what had happened. There were still sounds from outside, vehicle sounds and people sounds. There was knowledge that my mouth was open and the incredible sour dirt taste of floor filth was on my tongue. There were things stumbling over me, then the door opened and closed, smashing into my head in the motion. But at least it turned my mouth to one side.