Mickey Spillane - My Gun Is Quick

It had been a bedroom once, but now it was a morgue of boxed sheets, mattresses, glassware and dirty utensils. A few broken chairs were still in clamps where an attempt had, been made to repair them. Against the wall in the back an assortment of luggage had been stacked; overnight bags, footlockers, an expensive Gladstone, cheap paper carriers. Each one had a tag tied to the handle with a big price marked in red.

The runner of carpet that ran the length of the room had been laid down without tacks and I turned it over to keep from putting tracks in the dust. I found what I was looking for. It was a small trunk that had Nancy Sanford stencilled on it and it opened on the first try.

With near reverence I spread the folders apart and saw what was in them. I wasn't ashamed of Nancy now, I was ashamed of myself for thinking she was after blackmail. There in the trunk was her reason for living, a complete expose of the whole racket, substantiated with pictures, documents, notes that had no meaning at the moment but would when they were studied. There were names and familiar faces. More than just aldermen. More than just manufacturers. Lots more. The lid was coming off City Hall. Park Avenue would feel the impact. But what was more important was the mechanics of the thing, neatly placed in a separate folder, enlarged pictures of books the police and the revenue men would want, definite proof of to whom those books belonged. The entire pretty set-up.

My ears picked up the sound, a faint metallic snapping. I closed the lid, locked it, then walked back my original path, taking time to fold the carpet over and study it, and satisfied that I had left no trace, closed the door and snapped the padlock in place. From the baseboard around the wall I scooped a handful of dust and blew it at the lock, restoring to it the age my hands had wiped off.

A yellow flood of light wandered up the hall, centered on the stairs and held. I stepped back into a bedroom, stuffing my watch in my pocket so the luminous face would be out of sight.

The light was poking into the rooms just as I had done. Feet sounded on the stairs, trying to be careful. Whoever stood behind that light was taking no chances, for it went down on the carpet, scanning it for tracks.

Back there in the room I grinned to myself.

The light came up the stairs, throwing the whole corridor into flickering shadows, giving off a hissing noise that meant he carried a naphtha lantern. It came onto the door of the storage room. There was a sigh. He sat the lantern on the floor, directing the beam towards the lock, and I heard him working over it with a pick.

He took longer than I did. But he got it open.

When I heard him enter the room I reached for my rod and stood with it in my hand. The racket he made dragging the trunk into the light covered the sound of my feet carrying me to the door. He was too excited to use a pick in the lock; instead he smashed it open and a low chuckle came out of his throat as he pawed through the contents.

I said, "Hullo, Mr. Berin-Grotin."

I should have shot the bastard in the back and kept quiet. He whipped around with unbelievable speed, smashing at the light and shooting at the same time. Before I could pull the trigger a slug hit my chest and spun me out of the doorway. Then another tore into my leg.

"Damn you anyway!" he screamed.

I rolled to one side, the shock of the bullet's impact numbing me all over. I lay on my face and pulled the trigger again and again, firing into the darkness.

A shot licked back at me and hit the wall over my head, but that brief spurt of flame had death in it. The lantern had overturned, spilling the naphtha over the floor, and it rose in a fierce blaze right in Berin's face. I saw his eyes, mad eyes, crazy eyes. He was on his hands and knees, shoving himself back, momentarily blinded by the light.

I had to fight to get a grip on the gun, bring it back in line. When I pulled the trigger it bucked in my hand and skittered across the floor. But it was enough. The .45 caught him in the hip and knocked him over backwards.

Everything was ablaze now, the flames licking to the bedding, running up the walls to the ceilings. A paint can and something in a bottle went up with a dull roar. It was getting hard to feel anything, even the heat. Over in the corner Berin groaned and pushed himself erect. He saw me then, lying helpless on the floor, and his hand reached out for his gun.

He was going to kill me if it was the last thing he did. He would have if the wall hadn't blossomed out into a shower of sparks and given way. One of the timbers that had lost the support of rusted nails wavered, and like a falling giant pine tree, crashed into the room and nailed the goddamn killer to the floor under it.

I laughed like a fiend, laughed and laughed, even though I knew I was going to die anyway.

"You lost, Berin, you lost! You could have gotten away, but you lost!"

He fought the heavy timber, throwing his hands against the flame of the wood to push it away and I smelt the acrid odor of burning flesh. "Get it off me, Mike! Get it off... please. You can have anything you want! Get it off me!"

"I can't... I can't even move. Maybe I would if I could, but I can't even move!"

"Mike!..."

"No good, you filthy louse. I'll die with you. I don't give a damn any more. I'll die, but you'll go, too. You never thought it would happen, did you? You had the ring and you thought you'd have time. You didn't, know I killed Feeney and got the ticket from him.

"There was Lola waiting for me. You heard me tell her that on the phone. While you got the drinks you called Feeney and covered up by playing the phonograph for me. He must have walked right in on her. She was expecting me and she got a killer. Sure, you stalled me while Feeney went to my office and broke in. He did a good job of it, too. But he had to go back and kill Lola because she knew the address on the ticket, and the camera could have been traced.

"Feeney called you right after he sank his knife in her, but she wasn't dead and saw him do it. You told Feeney to get out of there and wait for you somewhere. Sure, you wouldn't want Feeney to get his hands on that stuff. He got out... just as I came in and Lola put the finger on him. She put the finger on you, too, when she pointed to the phone. Feeney got out, but I was coming in and he stepped back to let me pass and I didn't see him. I caught him, though. Yeah, you played it cautious right to the end. You took your time about getting here, careful not to attract attention in any way. Did you sneak out of your hotel or just pretend you were up early as usual?"

"Mike, I'm burning!"

His hair smoked, puffed up in a ball of flame and he screamed again. He looked like a killer, being bald like that. The other wall was a sheet of fire now.

"I didn't get the connection until tonight. It was the ring after all. The ring was very important. I sat there looking at a bottle of whisky. The label had three feathers spread across the front just like the fancy plaque on your private morgue. I happened to think that the spread of feathers looked just like a fleur-de-lis pattern, then I got it. The design on the ring was three feathers, battered out enough to make it hard to recognize."

He fought the timber now, his face contorted in agony. I watched him a second and laughed again.

"The three feathers were part of your family crest, weren't they? An imitation of royalty. You and your damn pride, you bastard! Nancy Sanford was your own granddaughter. She was going to have a baby and you kicked her out. What did you think of her pride? So she turned from one job to another, working under an assumed name. She became a prostitute on the side. She got to know guys like Russ Bowen and his connection with Feeney. Then one day she saw you two together.