Mickey Spillane - The Deep

Long before I got there I heard the word. It seeped through the nighttime of New York, the tone of it muffled by the rain, yet strong enough to reach away out from its source to the far places of the city. It came to me in a gin mill called Hardy’s just off Columbus Avenue from a half-bagged bim who had had the place to herself for too long.

She grinned crookedly when I walked in, throwing a half-sympathetic wink at my raincoat and then to the night outside. When I got my coat off she swirled the remains of her drink in her glass, threw it down and patted the seat next to her.

There’s no sense arguing with that type. They move in anyway and it was easier sitting and buying than trying to shuck her off and it was too wet to go back into the night again. But, for an accidental partner, she was all right. Big, but they’re better big. Harlow hair, bright white, yet soft and fluid like poured milk. And they’re usually better blonde, too.

When she grinned again and fingered her empty glass I sat down and waved the bartender over to set us both up with the same.

She hoisted the glass in a toast. “Thanks, big guy.” She finished it off in one throw and sipped at the chaser with a smile of satisfaction. “Want to talk?” she asked me.

I shook my head.

“Now don’t tell me you’re feeling sad for that Bennett bum too.”

The bartender tapped her arm. “You better knock it off, Tally.”

“So what do I care about the bum? From a little hood he gets to be a big hood. All the way from a juvenile delinquent up. Look, Jocko-boy, that creep shook me like he shook everybody else and even if they did give the bum a five-grand funeral he’s still a bum.”

“Tally, damn it, you shut up...”

“Nuts. Nuts to you, Jocko-boy. Everybody else feels the same way. Every damn body is glad the creep is dead. Most are happy because he shook ’em and the rest are glad because now maybe they have a chance to drive the machine a while.”

“I told you...”

“Okay, Jocko-boy, okay. Quit worrying. Who’s listening? Only this guy here. You haven’t got the joint bugged, have you?” She let out a giggle and reached for the chaser again. “So big Bennett is dead and all the little Bennett boys are crying. It’s funny as hell.”

This time she looked over at me and her eyes were beginning to film up. “Friend, do you know why they were really crying?”

“Tell me.”

“First I want a drink.”

Jocko-boy said, “She don’t get...”

“Give her a drink.”

He looked at me and his mouth got stiff. Then he reached for the bottle and poured one out. The bim grinned, winked and tossed it off.

“Now tell me,” I said.

“Sure. I’ll tell you. All the little stiffs and all the big stiffs from here to Brooklyn are bawling because they want Bennett’s machine. Every mob in town is ready to rumble to grab it. The bucko-boys are loaded for bear and if you don’t wear some kind of a badge you’re liable to get shot for being an innocent bystander.”

“That’s not why they’re crying.”

“Easy man, I’m telling.” She finished the chaser and nodded for another. “Trouble is,” she said, “they’re crying because they’re scared to death of Deep.”

I looked at her over my glass.

“You don’t know who Deep is, huh?”

“Tally...”

This time I was the one who said, “Shut up, Jocko-boy.”

She winked at me real elaborately. “Attaboy. Like I said, this Deep is a guy. He’s a big man someplace. He’s a bigger creep than was even Bennett, and mister, that’s saying somethin’. Bennett and this Deep was like this, see?” She held up her hand with her fingers crossed.

“Who’s on top?” I asked.

“Deep.” She felt for her glass again. “Hear tell Deep was worse than Bennett ever was. Mean as hell. Carried a gun when he was a little kid. Only delinquent on the block with a real rod.” She giggled again. “Tough boy, and now he’s coming back.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure, man. Him and Bennett were... something. Blood brothers, I guess. You know delinquents.”

“Not altogether,” I said. “They’ve changed lately.”

“Ah, they’re all alike. They’re still bums. Bennett was always a bum and so’s this Deep. They ran everything in shares when they were kids and took a crazy blood vow or something to revenge the other one if ever something happened. Boy, they were something then. They had the whole section organized and you know something? That was when Lenny Sobel was up top and he was careful not to get funny with those little kids. They could pull some pretty rough stuff.”

“You have a big line on those boys, honey.”

Her face flattened out. The eyes that had been filmy before suddenly cleared and for a second there was a bite in them. “That lousy Bennett got my sister on horse and she wound up a suicide at sixteen. I never forgot that. I was nine then. The pig. The stinking pig! ”

She looked back to me again, the film shadowing her eyes. “This Deep. They say he was even worse. He pulled out a long time ago to let Bennett run that end. He said he was going to find something new to take over.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure yeah, what else? He had the makings. Someplace he started creaming the suckers and someplace he’s the biggie. Now he’ll be back.” Her mouth twisted in a sneer and she laughed sourly. “In a way it’s good.”

“Why?”

“The boys won’t rumble until they find out how big Deep really is.”

“It makes a difference, huh?”

She looked at me and I was grinning.

“Sure, you jerk. If he’s big they bump him, then rumble. Otherwise they rumble and get him sometime in between if he gets annoying.”

“Why wait?”

Her mouth twisted up again. “No one knows how big Deep really is. Suppose he comes in with a mob?”

“That’s not really the deal, sugar.”

This time she smiled a little. “Smart boy. You’re right. What they’re scared to death of most is that they don’t know what he looks like yet... and he just might be real kill-crazy. You know the kind?”

“I know the kind.”

“So he blows in and does like he promised to do... knock off anybody one by one who touched his old buddy — Bennett. You know?”

I said, “I get the general idea.”

“And maybe he can do it. Nobody knows. He’s a... what’s that stupid word... an...”

“Enigma,” I told her.

“Smart bastard,” she said. Then she glanced up at Jocko-boy at the end of the bar and laughed drunkenly. “Look at him. Face in a paper. He don’t even want to hear about it. The laddies outside hear that I’ve been running off at the mouth to a stranger and they tell it to Jocko-boy the hard way. That right, Jocko-boy?”

He wouldn’t look up from his paper.

“Now let all the delinquent idiots rumble. Let them all kill their damn selves. I’m glad as hell Bennett got it and I’ll be glad when all the rest get it and no matter who comes first I’ll still be laughing and when I can look at that creep Deep spread out on the sidewalk I’ll spit on him like I did Bennett.”

“Gal,” I said, “that’s hard talk.”

“Don’t call me ‘gal,’ damn it. That’s what Bennett called me. Don’t you or anybody ever call me that.”

“I’ll call you that, gal.”

“Who do you think you are! Just because...”

“Deep,” I said. “Call me Deep.”

Jocko-boy kept staring at the paper, but he wasn’t reading it. There was a strained white look about his face and his tongue flicked across his lips a couple of times.