Mickey Spillane - My Gun Is Quick

Mr. Berin had the door open waiting for me. I pushed it in and closed it behind me, expecting to find myself in just another room. I was wrong, dead wrong. Whatever the Sunic House looked like on the outside, its appearance was deceiving. Here was a complete suite of rooms, and as far as I could see executed with the finest taste possible.

A moment later my client appeared, dressed in a silken smoking jacket, his hair brushed into a snow-white mane, looking for all the world like a man who had planned to receive a guest rather than be awakened out of a sound sleep by an obnoxious employee.

His hand met mine in a firm clasp. "It's good to see you, Mike, very good. Come inside where we can talk."

"Thanks." He led me past the livingroom, that centered around a grand piano, into a small study that faced on the street, a room banked with shelves of books, mounted heads of animals and fish, and rows of framed pictures showing himself in his younger days. "Some place you have here, Mr. Berin."

"Yes, I've used it for years as you can see. It's my city residence with all the benefits of a hotel. Here, sit down." He offered me an overstuffed leather chair and I sank into it, feeling the outlines of another person who had made his impression through constant use.

"Cigar?"

"No, thanks." I took out my deck of Luckies and flipped one into my mouth. "Sorry I had to drag you out of bed like this."

"Not at all, Mike. I must admit that I was rather surprised. That all comes of having fixed habits for so many years, I presume. I gathered you had a good reason for wanting to see me."

I breathed out a cloud of smoke. "Nope, I just wanted to talk to somebody. I have five hundred bucks of yours and that's my excuse for picking you as that somebody."

"Five hundred..." he began, "you mean that money I sent to your bank to cover that, ah, expense?"

"That's right. I don't need it now."

"But you thought it would be worth spending to secure the information. Did you change your mind?"

"No, the girl didn't live to cash it, that's all." His face showed bewilderment, then amazement. "I was tailed. Like a jerk I didn't think of it and was tailed. Whoever was behind me killed the girl and fixed it to look like suicide. It didn't work. While I was out the same party went through my room and copped some of the stuff."

"You know... ?" his voice choked off.

"Feeney Last. Your ex-hired hand, Mr. Berin."

"Good Lord, no!"

"Yes."

His fingers were entwined in his lap and they tightened until the knuckles went white. "What have I done, what have I done?" He sat there with his eyes closed, looking old and shrunken for the first time.

"You didn't do a thing. It would have happened anyway. What you did do was stop the same thing from happening again."

"Thank you, Mike."

I stood up and laid my hand on his shoulder. "Look, come off it. You don't have anything to feel bad about. If you feel anything, feel good. You know what's been going on in town all day and night?"

"Yes, I--I've heard."

"That's what your money bought, a sense of decency to this place. It's what the town has needed for a long time. You hired me to find a name for the redhead. We found a package of dirt instead, all because a girl lies in the morgue unidentified. I didn't want her buried without a name, neither did you. Neither of us expected what would come, and it isn't over yet by a long shot. One day the sun is going to shine again and when it does it will be over a city that can hold its head up."

"But the redheaded girl still doesn't have a name, does she?" He glanced at me wryly, his eyes weary.

"No. Maybe she will have soon. Mind if I use your phone?"

"Not at all. It's outside in the livingroom. I'll mix a drink in the meantime. I believe I can use one. I'm not used to distressing news, Mike."

There was sadness in his carriage that I hated to see. The old boy was going to take a lot of cheering up. I found the phone and dialed Velda's number at home. She took a long time answering and was mad as hell. "It's me, Velda. Anything doing at the office?"

"Gee whiz, Mike, you call at the most awful hours. I waited in the office all evening for you to call. That girl, Lola, was it?... sent up an envelope by special messenger. There was a pawn ticket in it and nothing else."

"A pawn ticket?" My voice hit a high note. "She's found it then, Velda! Hot damn, she's found it! What did you do with it?"

"I left it there," she said, "on top of my desk."

"Damn, that's wonderful. Look, kid, I left my office keys home. Meet me there in an hour... make it an hour and a half. I want a drink first to celebrate the occasion. I'll call Pat from there and we can go on together. This is it, Velda, see you in a jiffy!"

I slapped my hand over the bar, holding it a moment before I spun out Lola's number on the dial. Her voice came on before the phone finished ringing. She was breathless with excitement. "Mike, baby!... Oh, Mike, where are you? Did you get my envelope?"

"I just called Velda, and she has it at the office. I'm going up to get it in a little while. Where did you find it?"

"In a little place just off the Bowery. It was hanging in the window like you said it might be."

"Great! Where's the camera now?"

"I have it."

"Then why the rigmarole with the pawn ticket."

A new note crept into her voice. "Someone else was looking for it, too, Mike. For a while they were right ahead of me. Five different clerks told me that I was the second party after a camera like that."

The chill went up my back this time. "What happened?"

"I figured that whoever he was had been using the same method going right from the phone book. I started at the bottom and worked backwards."

Mr. Berin came in and silently offered me a highball. I picked it off the tray with a nod of thanks and took a quick swallow. "Go on."

"I found it then, but I was afraid to keep the ticket on me. I addressed an envelope to your office and sent the ticket up with a boy."

"Smart girl! I love you to pieces, little chum. You'll never know how much."

"Please, Mike."

I laughed at her, happy, bubbling over with joy I hadn't known in a long time. "You stow it this time, Lola. When this is done you and I will have the world in our hands and a lifetime to enjoy it. Tell me, Lola. Say it loud and often."

"Mike, I love you, I love you!" She sobbed and said it again.

My voice went soft. "Remember it, sugar... I love you, too. I'll be along in just a little while. Wait up for me?"

"Of course, darling. Please hurry. I want to see you so much it hurts."

When I put the phone back I finished the drink in one long pull and went into the den. I wished I could give some of my happiness to Mr. Berin. He needed it badly.

"It's finished," I said.

There was no response save a slow turn of his head. "Will there be more... killing, Mike?"

"Maybe. Might be the law will take its course."

His hand lifted the glass to his lips. "I should be elated, I suppose. However, I can't reconcile myself to death. Not when my actions are partly responsible for it." He shuddered and put the glass down. "Care for another? I'm going to have one."

"Yeah, I have time."

He took my glass on the tray, and on the way out opened the lid of a combination radio-phonograph. A sheaf of records was already in the metal grippers, and he lowered the needle to the first one. I leaned back and listened to the pounding beat of a Wagnerian opera, watching the smoke curl upwards from the red tip of my cigarette.

This time Mr. Berin brought the bottle, the mixer and a bowl of ice with him. When he handed me the drink he sat on the edge of his chair and said, "Tell me about it, Mike, not the details, just the high points, and the reasons for these things happening. Perhaps if I knew I could put my mind at rest."