Mickey Spillane - The Deep

“All right. You were tough.”

I shook my head. “Not really, friend. You know what I was.”

“A juvenile delinquent.”

“That’s right. Now I’m tough.” Then I grinned real big. “You know?”

The professional mask was back again. “I know,” he acknowledged.

To one side Augie changed his stance. He was facing me now. There was more butter on my bread.

I said, “You have Bennett’s will?”

“That’s right.”

“It’s all in order?”

“I was his legal advisor.”

“What does it say?”

For a moment he judged me, straining hard to see if I could be had. “Provisionally, you are his inheritor.”

“What provisions?”

“First, that you arrive within two weeks after his death.”

“This is the fourth day.”

He nodded. “Second, that you satisfactorily determine his killer’s identity in the event of violent death.”

“Nice of him.”

“He had great confidence in you, Deep.”

“Was the word determine or avenge?”

“Determine. Mr. Bennett wanted it otherwise, but it never would have stood up. Legally, that is.”

“Legally, of course. Now one more question, Wilse. Determine to whose satisfaction?”

“You are very astute, Deep.” He opened the drawer of his desk, drew out a newspaper tearsheet and pushed it toward me. Outlined in red was a two-column, full-length spread titled “Uptown Speaking” by Roscoe Tate.

I didn’t have to read it again. It was one man’s hate being spilled over into print. A guy who couldn’t make it the soft way crying out loud because others did. A guy who had a hate for three people in the world. Me, Bennett and himself.

“Prove it to Roscoe?”

“Not necessarily. Merely ‘determine.’ ” A smile tugged at the comer of Batten’s mouth. “That won’t be easy, you know.”

“ ‘No, it won’t. He hates me pretty hard.”

The smile widened. “That’s not why.”

I looked at him quickly.

“Tate thinks you did it, Deep.”

“Silly boy.’”

“But with reason.”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“The empire was a big one. You had been unheard from for twenty-five years. Could be that you knew where Bennett stood and decided to take over, figuring that he’d stick to the old agreement you two had of the survivor inheriting and... well, taking care of the... killer?”

“It’s a killer, Wilse.”

“You see how it figures.”

“I see. Now tell me something. If I don’t prove out, who gets the domain?”

His smile went into all teeth. White teeth very big and clean. “Me. I get it all.”

“Smart boy,” I said.

“Quite.”

“I may have to kill you, Wilse.”

He got pasty-white then. “You’d be tied into it so tight...”

“That still wouldn’t stop me from killing you, Wilse. It would be easy. No trouble at all.”

The slack in his face was that of an old man. For a minute he had forgotten what the real tough ones were like. In twenty-five years he had grown big to the point where sudden death had no personal meaning any longer, now he was staring it down again.

I said, “What do I come into?”

“Supposing I read the will. That should...”

“Tell me yourself, Wilse. You won’t lie. I’m not worried.”

His mouth was a fine, tight line, the tautness reaching up to his eyes. “The Cosmo Taxi Service, the old clubhouse building, several real estate properties consisting of tenements, lots, garages... I’ll list them for you... half interest or better in four businesses and a brewery.”

“Nice,” I said. “Any cash?”

“Ten thousand upon appearing, which is now. All other monies and so forth when you have met the provisions of the will.”

I held out my hand with a grin. Wilson Batten looked at it, then the grin, and let a hard smile crack through his lips. He opened the middle desk drawer, slipped out a yellow cashier’s check and laid it in my palm. I said, “Last question. How long have I to meet the... provisions.”

His smile had a nasty touch of laughter in it. “A week.” All his teeth showed through it. “You think you can make it, Deep?”

I folded the check, shoved it in my pocket and stood up. “No trouble. Plenty of time.” When I walked to the door I could feel his eyes on me and when I reached it I turned around and gave him a little taste of what he had to look forward to. I said to Augie, “Coming, friend?”

He didn’t even look at Wilson. He said, “Yes, Mr. Deep,” and walked out behind me.

Like I said, Augie was the kind who could always tell.

Roscoe Tate was the first kid on the block who had ever had a job. When he was fourteen he made the six-to-eight rush hour at the subway entrances with the two-star tabs and brought home more drinking dough for his old man. A year later he told the rumdum to beat it, called the cops to back up a nonsupport, wife-beating and cruelty-to-children charge, made it stick and supported the family from then on.

Now it was twenty-five years later and the papers he hawked once he wrote for now. The old man had drunk himself to death, the mother was in L.A. with a married daughter and Roscoe carried on a vendetta with the block he grew up on. The only trouble was, he couldn’t make himself leave it.

He sat it out in Hymie’s deli behind a chicken liver sandwich and a phone, scowling at some notes he had made. I walked in alongside the row of stools and pulled an antique chair out from behind the counter. Hymie looked up, his face squeezed mad, ready to cream anybody who’d touch his private throne, then froze solid.

When I slid the chair under the table and slouched in it Roscoe said without looking up, “You want big trouble, feller?”

I laughed quietly, and for moments it was the only sound in the place. Then his finger got white around the paper and his eyes rolled up to meet mine. “Deep,” he said.

“Hello, Roscoe.”

“You crumb, you got nine dollars and forty cents?”

“Why sure.”

“Put it down.” His forefinger tapped the table top. “Here.”

“Why sure.” I counted out the dough and laid it on his notes with a grin. A long time ago I had smacked him silly and lifted his weekly take out of his jeans. Now I laughed again when Roscoe picked up the cash and shoved it into his jacket pocket.

His face was pulled into tight lines and I could tell he was wishing that he was real man-sized for a change. “Don’t spoil it for me, you bastard,” he said. “I promised myself I’d take that dough back from you sometime.”

“You want interest?”

“Don’t be so stinking condescending.” He licked his lips, tasting the beads of hate-sweat that had made a fine line under his nose. “I was hoping to take it off your corpse.”

“Now you got it back, buddy. No hard feelings?”

“You louse. You miserable louse.” He waited to see what would happen and when I grinned the malice hissed through his teeth. “So what do you want?”

My shoulders hunched in a shrug. “I don’t know. Not yet. But it’s somebody I want, Roscoe. You follow?”

“I got ideas.”

“You know why I came back?” I asked him.

His hand wiped more hate-sweat away. “Yeah,” he said “I think I know. I’ll even talk about it because I hope I can get something on you that will hang you high as a kite.”

“Then why?”

“You want the outfit. It’s yours by inheritance. A whole mob of blank-faced idiots to go with it. A hand-hewn chunk of corruption and violence all set to roll into action. Brother, you and Bennett were some buddies, I can say that all right. You guys really stuck to the creed of the old gang. You make a blood pact and you sure keep it!” He stopped, his teeth an uneven line across his face. “So Bennett wills you the whole works... the buildings, the clubs, the dough... everything.”