Mickey Spillane - My Gun Is Quick

I grabbed the phone again and asked for long-distance, waited while the operator took my number and put it into Mr. Berin's address. I asked for my client and the butler told me he had left for the city only a short while before, intending to register at the Sunic House. Yes, he had reservations. He asked who was calling, please, and wanted to take a message, but there wasn't anything I could tell him, so I grumbled goodbye and put the phone back.

Velda must have been out for lunch. I let the phone ring for a good five minutes and nobody picked it up. Hell, I couldn't just sit there while things were happening outside. I wanted to do some hunting of my own, too. I pushed out of the, chair and slung my coat on. Something jingled in the pocket and I pulled out a duplicate set of door keys Lola had left for me and each one had lipstick kisses on the shanks, with a little heart dangling from the chain that held them together. I opened the heart and saw Lola smiling up at me.

I smiled back and told her picture all the things she wouldn't let me tell her last night.

There was still a threat of rain in the air. Overhead the clouds were grey and ruffled, a thick, damp blanket that cut the tops off the bigger buildings and promised to squat down on the smaller ones. From the river a chill wind drove in a wave of mist that covered everything with tiny wet globules. Umbrellas were furled, ready to be opened any instant; passengers waiting for buses or standing along the curb whistling at taxis carried raincoats or else eyed the weather apprehensively.

Twice a radio car screamed its way south, the siren opening a swath down the center of the avenue. I passed a paperstand and saw a later edition and an extra, both with banner headlines. A front-page picture showed the alderman and a socially prominent manufacturer in a police court. The manufacturer looked indignant. A sub-caption made mention of some highly important confidential information the police had and wouldn't disclose at the moment. That would be Murray's code book. I wondered how Pat was getting on with it.

At the bar on the corner I found a spot in the rear and ordered a beer. There was only one topic of discussion going on in the place and it was being pushed around from pillar to post. A ratty little guy with a nose that monopolized his face said he didn't like it. The police were out of order. A girl told him to shut up. Every fifteen minutes a special bulletin would come out with the latest developments, making capital of the big names involved, but unable to give information of any special nature.

For a little over two hours I sat there, having one beer after another, hearing a cross-sectional viewpoint of the city. Vice was losing ground fast to the publicity of the clean-up.

When I had enough I crawled into the phone booth and dialed the Sunic House. The desk clerk said Mr. Berin had arrived a few minutes before. I thanked him and hung up. Later I'd go up and refund his dough. I went out where the mist had laid a slick on the streets and found another bar that was a little more cheerful and searched my mind for that other piece to the puzzle.

My stomach made growling noises and I checked my watch. Six-thirty. I threw a buck on the counter for the bartender and walked out and stood in the doorway.

It had started to rain again.

When I finished eating and climbed behind the wheel of the car it was almost eight. The evening shadows had dissolved into night, glossy and wet, the splatter of the rain on the steel roof an impatient drumming that lulled thoughts away. I switched on the radio to a news program, changed my mind and found some music instead.

Some forty-five minutes later I decided I had had enough aimless driving and pulled to the curb between two sheer walls of apartment buildings that had long ago given up any attempt at pretentiousness. I looked out and saw that there were no lights showing in Cobbie Bennett's room and I settled down to wait.

I might have been alone in that wilderness of brick and concrete. No one bothered to look at me huddled there, my coat collar turned up to merge with the brim of my hat, A few cars were scattered at odd intervals along the street, some old heaps, a couple more respectable by a matter of a few years. A man came out of a building across the way holding a newspaper over his head and hurried to the corner where he turned out of sight.

Off in the distance a fire engine screamed, demanding room, behind it another with a harsh, brassy gong backing up the order. I was listening to the fading clamor when the door of Cobbie's house opened and the little pimp stepped out. He was five minutes early. He had a cigarette in his mouth and was trying to light it with a hand that shook so hard the flame went out and, disgusted, he threw the unlit butt to the pavement and came down the steps.

He didn't walk fast, even in the rain, nor a straight course. His choppy stride carried him through a weaving pattern, avoiding the street lights, blacking him out in the shadows. When he came to a store front I saw his head turn to look into the angle of the window to see if he was being followed.

I let him turn the corner before I started the car. If the police were there, they weren't in sight. Nothing was moving this night. I knew the route Cobbie would take, and rather than follow him, decided to go ahead and wait, taking a wide sweep around the one-way street and coming up in the direction he was walking.

There were stores here, some still open. A pair of gin mills operated at a short stagger apart, smelling the block up with the rank odor of flat beer. Upstairs in an apartment a fight was going on. Somebody threw a coffeepot that smashed through the window and clattered down the basement well. Cobbie was part of the night until it hit, then, he made a short dash to the safety of a stairway and crouched there determining the origin of the racket before continuing his walk. He stopped once to light a cigarette and made it this time.

He was almost opposite me when a car pulled up the street and stopped in front of the gin mill. Cobbie went rigid with fear, one hand half-way to his mouth. When the driver hopped out and went into the dive he finished dragging on the cigarette.

I had to leave the car where it was, using Cobbie's tactics of hugging the shadows to pass him on the opposite side of the street without being seen. Following did no good. I had to anticipate his moves and try to stay ahead of him. The rain came in handy; it let me walk under awnings, stop in doorways for a breather before starting off again...

A cop went by, whistling under his slicker, his night stick slapping his leg in rhythm to his step. It was ten minutes after ten then. I didn't see Pat or his men. Just Cobbie and me. We were in his own bailiwick now, the street moving with people impervious to the rain and the tension. Beside a vacant store I stopped and watched Cobbie hesitate on the corner, making his decision and shuffling off into a cross street.

I didn't know where I expected it to come from, certainly not from the black mouth of an apartment. Cobbie's weave had been discarded for an ambling gait of resignation. Tension can be borne only so long, then the body and mind reverts to normal. His back suddenly stiffened and I heard a yelp that was plain fear. His head was swivelled around to the building and his hands came up protectively.

If the guy had shot from the doorway he would have had him, but he wanted to do it close up and came down the steps with a rod in his fist. He hadn't reached the third step when Cobbie screamed at the top of his lungs, trying to shrink back against the inevitable. The gun levelled with Cobbie's chest but never went off because a dark blur shot out of the same doorway and crashed into the guy's back with such force that they landed at Cobbie's feet together.