Mickey Spillane - My Gun Is Quick

I dragged out my wallet and fingered off some bills. "Here! You'll need taxi fare and grub money, plus what the guy will ask. That is, if you find it."

She tucked the bills in her pocketbook. "Frankly, what do you think of the chances, Mike?"

"Not too good. Still, it's the only out I know of. It won't be easy to run down, but it's the only lead I have right now."

"Will you be here while I'm gone?"

"I may be, I don't know." I wrote down my home and office addresses, then added Pat's number as an afterthought. "In case you find anything, call me here or at these numbers. If you're in a jam and I'm not around, call Pat. Now, have you got everything straight?"

She nodded. "I think so. Does the faithful wife off to work get a farewell kiss from her lazy spouse?"

I grabbed her arm and hauled her down to me, bruising her lips with mine, and felt the fire start all over again. I had to push her away.

"I don't want to go," she said.

"Scram!" She wrinkled her nose again and waved to me from the doorway.

As soon as she left I went over to the phone and dialed the office. Velda started with, "I'm sorry, but Mr. Hammer isn't here at the moment."

"Where is he?"

"I'm not at liberty to say. He should... Mike! Where the devil are you now? Why don't you stop in and take care of your business? I never...

"Off my back, chick. I'm tied up. Look, have I had any calls?"

"I'll say you have. So far I haven't had time to answer the mail!"

"Who called?"

"First off there was a man who wouldn't give his name. Said it was confidential and he'd call back later. Then two prospective clients called, but I told them you were engaged. Both of them thought their business was so urgent you'd drop what you were doing and go with them."

"Get their names?"

"Yes. Both were named Johnson. Mark and Joseph Johnson, neither related."

I grunted. Johnson was about the third or fourth most popular name in the phone directory. "Who else?"

"There was a guy named Cobbie Bennett. I had a hard time getting his name because he was almost hysterical. He said he had to see you right away but wouldn't say why. I told him you'd call back soon as you came, in. He wouldn't leave a number. He's called three times since."

"Cobbie! What could he want? He said nothing at all, Velda?"

"Not a thing."

"O.K., continue."

"Your client, Mr. Berin-Grotin, called. He wanted to know if his check got to the bank in time. I didn't know about it so I said you'd check with him. He said not to bother if everything was all right."

"Well, everything's not all right, but it's too late to bother about now. You hold down the phone, kiddo. Give out the same answers to whoever calls. Keep one thing in mind... you don't know where I am and you haven't heard from me since yesterday. Got it?"

"Yes, but..."

"No buts. The only one you can feel free to speak to is Pat or a girl called Lola. Take their messages. If they have anything for me try to get me at home or here." I rattled off Lola's number and waited while she wrote it down.

"Mike... what is it? Why can't you..."

I was tired of repeating it. "I'm supposed to be dead, Velda. The killer thinks he nailed me."

"Mike!"

"Oh, quit worrying. I'm 'not even scratched. The bullet hit my gun. Which reminds me... I got to get a new one. 'Bye baby. See you soon."

I stuck the phone back and sat on the edge of the chair, running my hand across my face. Cobbie Bennett. He was hysterical and he wanted to see me. He wouldn't say why. I wondered which of the Johnson boys was the killer trying to make certain I was gone from the land of the living. And who was the caller with the confidential info? At least I knew who Cobbie was.

I hoped I knew where I could find him.

My coat was wrinkled from lying across the chair, and without a rod under my arm the thing bagged like a zoot suit. The holster helped fill it out, but not enough. I closed the door behind me and walked downstairs, trying to appear like just another resident, maybe a little on the seedy side. In that neighborhood nobody gave me a tumble.

At Ninth Avenue I grabbed a cab and had him drive me over, to a gunsmith on the East Side. The guy who ran the shop might have made Daniel Boone's rifle for him, he was so old. At one time guns had been his mainstay, but since the coming of law and order he specialized in locks, even if the sign over the door didn't say so.

He didn't ask questions except to see my license, and when he had gone over it to the extent of comparing the picture with my face, he nodded and asked me what I liked. There were some new Army .45's mounted in a rack on the wall and I pointed them out. He took them down and let me try the action. When I found one that satisfied me I peeled off a bill from my roll, signed the book and took my receipt and a warning to check with the police on the change in gun numbers on my ticket.

I felt a lot better when I walked out of the place.

If the sun had been tucked in bed I would have been able to locate Cobbie in a matter of minutes. At high noon it was going to be a problem. In a cigar store on the corner I cashed in a buck for a handful of nickels and started working the phone book, calling the gin mills where he usually hung out. I got the same answer every time. Cobbie had dropped out of sight. Two wanted to know who I was, so I said a friend and hung up.

Sometimes the city is worse than the jungle. You can get lost in it with a million people within arm's length. I was glad of it now. A guy could roam the streets for a week without being recognized if he were careful not to do anything to attract attention. A cab went by and I whistled it, waited while it braked to a stop and backed up, then got in. After I told the driver where to go, I settled back against the cushions and did exercises to loosen up my neck.

I missed the redhead's ring. I was doing good while I had it. Nancy, a mother... a blackmailer? A girl down on her luck. A good kid. I could never forget the way she looked at me when I gave her the dough. I'd never forget it, because I told her that kind of stuff was murder.

I didn't know how right I was.

She must have had fun shopping for those clothes, being waited on, seeing herself in the mirror as a lady again. What had happened to her attitude, her personal philosophy after that? She was happy, I knew that. Her letter was bubbling over with happiness. What was it that meant so much to her?... and did I help change her mind about it?

Nancy with the grace of a lady, the veneer of a tramp. A girl who should have been soft and warm, staying home nights to cook supper for some guy, was being terrorized by a gunslinging punk. A lousy greaseball. A girl who had no defense except running, forced to sell herself to keep alive. I did her a favor and her eyes lit up like candles at an altar. We were buddies, damn good buddies for a little while.

The driver said, "Here you are, mister."

I passed a bill through the window and got out, my eyes looking up and down the street until I spotted a familiar blue uniform. I was going to have to do it the quickest way possible. The cop was walking towards me and I stared into a drugstore window until he went by, and when he had a half-block lead I followed him at a leisurely pace.

A lot of people like to run down the cops. They begin to think of them as human traffic lights, or two faces in a patrol car cruising down the street hoping some citizen will start some trouble. They forget that a cop has eyes and ears and can think. They forget that sometimes a cop on a beat likes it that way. The street is his. He knows everyone on it. He knows who and what they are and where they spend their time. He doesn't want to get pulled off it even for a promotion, because then he loses his friends and becomes chained to a desk or an impersonal case. The cop I was following looked like that kind. He was big from the ground up, and almost as big around. There was a purpose in his stride and pride in his carriage, and several times I saw him nod to women sitting in doorways and fake a pass at fresh brats that yelled out something nasty about coppers. Some day those same kids would be screaming for him to hurry up and get to where the trouble was.