Mickey Spillane - The Deep

“Why?”

“Because I hate too. I hate just as hard as Tally. I hate whatever turns little kids into filthy, immoral things who can turn on their own kind for something like money or power. I hate the political lusts and greed that drive decent people to the wall so one person can be big. I hate that so hard I could spit and that’s why I hate you.”

“And yet you’re Lenny Sobel’s... friend?” There was contempt in my voice now.

“It’s a point you probably couldn’t understand,” she said, “but I’ll tell you anyway.” The corners of her eyes drew up in nearly oriental points. “By being his... friend, I can exert enough influence to make it easier on... some people.”

“And maybe rougher on others?”

“Maybe.”

“Have you ever forgotten the night on the roof by the chimney?”

“No.”

I grinned to myself.

“But that doesn’t stop my wanting to be there when you get killed. I’ll give anything to see it happen.”

“Anything?”

She nodded earnestly. “Anything.”

When they tore the guts out of Fifty-second Street, one of the bistros was overpaid for expediency’s sake, changed its name from The Kickoff to The Signature, and with a small move north and the perversity that belongs only to New York, became an overnight bang and by now a two-year success story.

It had good food, smooth music, premium beer and whisky and top prices, and you still needed reservations even for lunch unless you were big enough to bandy Lenny Sobel’s name around and make it stick.

When we got out of the taxi, Irish Helen’s face was beautifully quizzical, not so much at me as at herself, not knowing whether to stick it or run out.

I overtipped the driver a buck for luck, took her arm and started toward the door.

She said, “You know where you’re going, don’t you?”

“Sure,” I nodded. “Your boy’s place. Maybe you’ll sound off and he’ll be hot for my head.”

“Smart guy. You’re real smart, Deep.”

“I’ve been told already.”

“Yeah.” Her eyes were real cold. “You should be scared stiff, man. You should be shaking in your shoes.”

I stopped with my hand on the ornamented handle of the door. “You ever see me scared, sugar?”

“Maybe not in the old days.”

“You won’t see me now either.”

“So you’re a big one,” she said flatly.

For a couple seconds I just looked at her, then nodded. “Everybody’s asked me that lately. I told them, so I’ll tell you too. Yeah, I’m a big one. They never saw anyone big like I am.”

The frown creased her eyes again. “How did you know this was Lenny’s place?”

I grinned at her. “I’m a big one, remember?” I opened the door and eased her through.

The headwaiter was an impeccable Slav imported in ’49 from Paris by the Galveston and lately lured to The Signature by the big buck. His name was Stashu, he wore two hero pips in his lapel for underground activity in the last war and a nod of recognition from him could put you on the smart list in anybody’s book.

Others were standing in the lobby, a few accepting cocktails on the house from a pretty waitress. Some of the junior exec types waited their time at the bar, preferring the side lines of the main room to the ignominy of just waiting.

I handed my hat and raincoat to the kid in the checkroom and turned back to Irish Helen. She was tall and cool, feeling everyone’s eyes on her and playing it just right. She was waiting to see what happened next and waiting to laugh when it didn’t. I walked to the plush chain where Stashu was quietly talking to a waiter. He looked up, smiled and nodded, lowered the plush chain and led Helen and me to a table and discreetly removed the reserved sign that had somebody else’s name on it.

He took our orders personally, smiled again and left. Helen looked up at me, something like a shadow across her face. “That went too nice, Deep.”

“Of course.”

“You’ve never been here before.” It was a flat statement.

I just looked at her and waited.

“How’d you work it?” she asked.

“Headwaiters are paid to know people. Everybody.”

The shadow left her face and now I could see the tight lines of indecision that touched her. “He’ll tell Lenny,” she said.

“He’d better.”

The drinks came then, timed flawlessly to make lunch the thing that it should be. Twice Stashu stopped by, inquired with his flavored English if everything was all right, and left happily when assured that it was. At two-thirty the lunch music faded into cocktail hour numbers, the room partially emptied and Lenny Sobel made his appearance.

He was fatter now. Still greasy looking, but able to wear five-hundred-buck suits and a ten-grand ring with an air of authority.

Lenny Sobel never walked fast. It might have been that he couldn’t. It might have been that he didn’t want to. He neither walked nor strolled. It was sort of a step that he took. He made it hard for the two who walked behind him. They had to either stop a moment then catch up or quarter the area at a slow pace merely to stay abreast.

He reached the table, smiled a fat smile first at Helen, then smiled a fat smile at me.

I said, “Hello, pig,” and if it weren’t for Lenny’s fast hand wave I would have been shot right there and the two boys back of me on somebody else’s kill list.

But I knew the slob would wave them off fast and my grin told everybody I knew it. I said, “Make them come around in front, Lenny.”

His smile was still there. It was a friendly smile, bunching the fat under his eyes into humorous lines. He brought them around in front and they stood there docilely, just waiting. If Lenny said kill... they’d kill. Right now he said to stand. So they stood.

One was a TV western type, tiny-hipped and over-broad at the shoulders where his jacket was cut to carry a rod. The other was as average as a person can get. I nodded to them both and in order said, “Harold... Al. Good to see you.”

Only Al, the average one, flicked. I said. “Your buddy’s a Q and Dannemora grad, Al. Lousy partner.”

Lenny Sobel’s hand touched my shoulder. “You know my associates?”

“Sure. Great guys. Al’s the smart one, though, and you got to watch him. Not a rap to his name and looking to go places.”

The hood looked at me steadily, nothing showing in his face this time.

Sobel asked, “That right, Al?”

“I work for you, Mr. Sobel. You know what I can do.”

Lenny’s smile broadened. “You ever meet this man, Al?”

“Not yet, Mr. Sobel. I think I’m going to like it if you want me to introduce myself.”

The fat wreathed itself into a laugh around Lenny’s mouth. “Deep?”

“Go ahead,” I said. “For fun why not pull the cork and let me shoot all three of you. First you, Lenny, then these two schmarts in order. It should be fun. Go ahead, pull the cork.”

Helen’s voice was a hoarse, “No ... Deep!”

The two hoods came in a step.

I said, “Tell them for me, Lenny.”

They looked at him and watched his fat smile fall apart. Lenny said, “Let it drop.”

Al started, “If you want, Mr. Sobel...”

“Let it drop, Al,” he repeated softly. “You and Harold wait for me outside. I’ll be along.”

He waved again and they left, then pulled a chair out slowly and sat down. “You shouldn’t be too care-free with those boys, Deep.”

“They different?”

“They’re different.”

“I’ll find out soon for sure and tell you, Lenny.”

“You seem to know them pretty well already.”

“I get around good. Anybody to know, I know. You know?”