Mickey Spillane - My Gun Is Quick

When you sit at home comfortably folded up in a chair beside a fire, have you ever thought what goes on outside there? Probably not. You pick up a book and read about things and stuff, getting a vicarious kick from people and events that never happened. You're doing it now, getting ready to fill in a normal life with the details of someone else's experiences. Fun, isn't it? You read about life on the outside, thinking of how maybe you'd like it to happen to you, or at least how you'd like to watch it. Even the old Romans did it, spiced their life with action when they sat in the Colosseum and watched wild animals rip a bunch of humans apart, revelling in the sight of blood and terror. They screamed for joy and slapped each other on the back when murderous claws tore into the live flesh of slaves, and cheered when the kill was, made. Oh, it's great to watch, all right. Life through a keyhole. But day after day goes by, and nothing like that ever happens to you, so you think that it's all in books and not in reality at all and that's that. Still good reading, though. Tomorrow night you'll find another book, forgetting what was in the last, and live some more in your imagination. But remember this: there are things happening out there. They go on every day and night, making Roman holidays look like school picnics. They go on right under your very nose and you never know about them. Oh, yes, you can find them all right. All you have to do is look for them. But I wouldn't if I were you, because you won't like what you'll find. Then, again, I'm not you, and looking for these things is my job. They aren't nice things to see because they show people up for what they are. There isn't a Colosseum any more, but the city is a bigger bowl and it seats more people. The razor-sharp claws aren't those of wild animals, but man's can be just as sharp and twice as vicious. You have to be quick, and you have to be able, or you become one of the devoured, and if you can kill first, no matter how and no matter who, you can live and return to the comfortable chair and the comfortable fire. But you have to be quick. And able. Or you'll be dead.

At ten minutes after twelve I tied a knot in my case and delivered Herman Gable's lost manuscript to his apartment. To me, it was nothing more than a sheaf of yellow papers covered with barely legible tracings, but to my client it was worth twenty-five hundred bucks. The old fool had wrapped it up with some old newspapers and sent it down the dumbwaiter with the garbage. He sure was happy to get it back. It took three days to run it down and practically snatch the stuff out of the city incinerator; but when I fingered the package of nice, crisp fifties he handed me I figured it was worth going without all that sleep.

I made him out a receipt and took the elevator downstairs to my heap. As far as I was concerned the dough would live a peaceful life until I had a good, long nap. After that, maybe, I'd cut loose a little bit. At that hour of the night traffic was light. I cut across town, then headed north to my own private cave in the massive cliff I called home.

But the first time I hit a red light I fell asleep across the wheel and woke up with a dozen horns blasting in my ears. A couple of cars banged bumpers backing up so they could swing around me, and I was too damned pooped even to swear back at some of the stuff they called me. The hell with 'em. I pulled the jalopy over to the curb and chilled the engine. Right up the street under the el was an all-night hash joint, and what I needed was a couple of mugs of good java to bring me around.

I don't know how the place got by the health inspectors, because it stunk. There were two bums down at one end of the counter taking their time about finishing a tencent bowl of soup, making the most out of the free crackers and catsup in front of them. Half-way down, a drunk concentrated between his plate of eggs and hanging on to the stool to keep from falling off the world. Evidently he was down to his last buck, for all his pockets had been turned inside out to locate the lone bill, that was putting a roof on his load.

Until I sat down and looked in the mirror behind the shelves of pie segments, I didn't notice the fluff sitting off to one side at a table. She had red hair that didn't come out of a bottle, and looked pretty enough from where I was sitting.

The counterman came up just then and asked, "What'll it be?" He had a voice like a frog's.

"Coffee--black."

The fluff noticed me then. She looked up, smiled, tucked her nail tools in a peeling plastic handbag and hipped it in my direction. When she sat down on the stool next to me she nodded towards the counterman and said, "Shorty's got a heart of steel, mister. Won't even trust me for a cup of joe until I get a job. Care to finance me to a few vitamins?"

I was too tired to argue the point. "Make it two, feller."

He grabbed another cup disgustedly and filled it, then set the two down on the counter, slopping half of it across the washworn linoleum top.

"Listen, Red," he croaked, "quit using this joint fer an office. First thing I get the cops on my tail. That's all I need."

"Be good and toddle off, Shorty. All I want from the gentleman is a cup of coffee. He looks much too tired to play any games tonight."

"Yeah, scram, Shorty," I put in. He gave me a nasty look, but since I was as ugly as he was and twice as big, he shuffled off to keep count over the cracker bowl in front of the bums. Then I looked at the redhead.

She wasn't very pretty after all. She had been once, but there are those things that happen under the skin and are reflected in the eyes and set of the mouth that take all the beauty out of a woman's face. Yeah, at one time she must have been almost beautiful. That wasn't too long ago, either. Her clothes were last year's old look and a little too tight. They showed a lot of leg and a lot of chest; nice white flesh still firm and young; but her face was old with knowledge that never came out of books. I watched her from the corner of my eye when she lifted her cup of coffee. She had delicate hands, long fingers tipped with deep-toned nails perfectly kept. It was the way she held the cup that annoyed me. Instead of being a thick, cracked mug, she gave it a touch of elegance as she balanced it in front of her lips. I thought she was wearing a wedding band until she put the cup down. Then I saw that it was just a ring with a fleur-de-lis design of blue enamel and diamond chips that had turned sideways slightly.

Red turned suddenly and said, "Like me?"

I grinned. "Uh-huh. But, like you said, much too tired to make it matter."

Her laugh was a tinkle of sound. "Rest easy, mister, I won't give you a sales talk. There are only certain types interested in what I have to sell."

"Amateur psychologist?"

"I have to be."

"And I don't look the type?"

Red's eyes danced. "Big mugs like you never have to pay, mister. With you it's the woman who pays."

I pulled out a deck of Luckies and offered her one. When we lit up I said, "I wish all the babies I met thought that way."

She blew a stream of smoke towards the ceiling and looked at me as if she were going back a long way. "They do, mister. Maybe you don't know it, but they do."

I don't know why I liked the kid. Maybe it was because she had eyes that were hard, but could still cry a little. Maybe it was because she handed me some words that were nice to listen to. Maybe it was because I was tired and my cave was a cold empty place, while here I had a redhead to talk to. Whatever it was, I liked her and she knew it and smiled at me in a way I knew she hadn't smiled in a long time. Like I was her friend.