Микки Спиллейн: Primal Spillane: Early Stories 1941-1942

Jerry came to ten minutes later. A crowd of people were in the room gaping at him. A glance at the window told him that his midnight attacker had fled down the fire escape. A second look proved that he’d taken his weapon with him. He got rid of the people to sit down to think and scratch. One thing he knew — his ruse had been successful! One of the three men he pulled the match trick on got wise and tried to finish him.

As usual, his head was jammed with thoughts, racing back and forth trying to come to a conclusion. Try as he might he could not piece them together. He sat there until morning, alternately thinking and scratching. The sun was climbing in his window when he saw what was bothering him.

“Why it’s easy,” he said softly, “simple as eating pie!”

He picked up the phone and dialed police headquarters. “Hello, Captain Carter? I think I have something on the Slade murder.”

“What! Shoot it to me.”

“Not so fast, Captain. I want you to get Collins, Mike Bedloe and Whitey Alpin together in three days. Let’s see, today is Monday. How about Thursday night at eight.”

“Why Thursday?”

“What I have in mind will take three days to develop!”

“Okay. But you better have something good, or we’ll have our heads handed to us, especially yours.”

“Don’t worry. It’ll be good!”

Thursday night the three suspects, Captain Carter, Jerry and four plainclothesmen gathered in Slade’s death room. There was a little trouble getting them together, with Bedloe screaming about false arrest, but Carter managed. They all sat around a table, and Jerry went into the story of the killing. Carefully he eyed their every move as he spoke, and as the story drew to a close he saw Whitey Alpin’s hand come up and start to scratch his neck.

With a bound Jerry cleared the table, and had him on the floor. His movement was so sudden that the others had no time to move.

“Here’s your man, Captain. When he jumped me that night in my apartment, he was infected with that blasted itch I have. I knew he was the one as soon as he started scratching. He must have found out where Slade hid his dough and killed him so he wouldn’t get to it.”

Jerry laughed at the killer. “It’s too bad about that itch, old man, but the electric chair will cure it pretty soon!”

Dopey Fooz of the Snooty Detective Service was “rocking the cradle’ with his yo-yo top when Stephen Smirch, the boss, stormed in.

“Fooz! Whatcha doing with that thing?” he bellowed. “I thought I told you to get down to Tony’s place to find out who was swiping all his silverware!”

“Aw, Smirch, I’m a manhunter, that’s what. A guy with my reputation can’t afford to go chasing down spoon swipers.”

Smirch tore out a handful of hair and stuffed it in his pocket. Very deliberately he picked up a desk by the leg and waved it over his head.

“If you don’t git—!”

Dopey got. When Smirch started whizzing desks around, he was pretty sure to hit something, and that something was not going to be named Dopey Fooz. He grabbed his benny on the run and made for the hall. The elevator door was open and he headed that way on the double. S’too bad that nobody told him there wasn’t an elevator there, but fortunately, he was only on the tenth floor.

Dopey picked himself up from the bottom of the shaft, dashed out, and hopped in a cab. Tony’s place was a combination delicatessen, eat shoppe and dance hall, which all the riff-raff, with less than a million fish in the bank, kept going with their orders of clams on the half shell. When his cutlery started to disappear, he called in the S.D.S. to investigate.

Tony was so fat you couldn’t get near enough to him to shake hands, so Dopey slid up on his port bow and mitted him. “I’m Fooz, of Snooty Service. Hear ya got some trouble.”

Tony grinned through his six chins and led the detective inside.

“ Trouble is what I got plenty of! Alla time spoons go, till I have to serve soup with straws. That I don’t mind, but when the customers start blowing clams through straws at my pictures on the wall, then it’s gotta stop!” The recollection of this last situation turned Tony’s face a dangerous purple.

Dopey said, “Ummmmm,” and got down to business. However, he could see why any sane person would want to smear up the pictures — they really were awful. He even felt like blowing a clam at them himself. Fooz sat down to think. Spoons were silver, and silver made coins. Ah! Counterfeiters!! Now all he had to do was find out what ex-con came in here, and then put the finger on him!

He didn’t have long to wait. Danny Koople strolled in about seven with two rough-looking citizens who might have come out of a zoo. No sooner did they sit down than Dopey laid a trembling hand on Danny’s head.

“I hereby arrest you in—”

“WHAT? Why you apple head! I’ll break your bones! I’ll mash your head! I’ll... I’ll—!” Dopey got out of there under a full head of steam. He crawled under a table and stayed there until the shaking stopped. That Koople was no man to mess with. Neither were the individuals with him. He got from under the table and began to inspect the unlucky customers who were slurping clams by the dozen. They sounded like a herd of elephants wallowing in mud.

THE kitchen was next. Fooz ducked around piles of clams and coffee tables right into the chef’s breadbasket, just as the chef was gingerly tasting hot chowder out of a soup ladle. Wow! The stuff seared down his neck and he came at Dopey, red-faced, with a cleaver! Poor Dopey! He couldn’t move an inch. The chef was preparing to split him down the middle, when a deep voice boomed out.

“Up wit ’em! You, Cookie, cut out d’ nonsense en’ fix me some chowder.”

Dopey almost passed out with joy. That kitchen ax wasn’t an inch from his hair when the ruffian walked in. The burly boy had a pop-gun in his paw that should have had wheels on it. Fooz took one look, then started to shake again.

“Say,” he gulped, “ain’t you Killer Gilroy?”

“Yeah, but what of it? When I git done wit me chowder, you won’t blab to d’ cops, ’cause you two are gonna be a couple of dead boids.” His face split in a gruesome grin.

The chef dug up a bowl of clam soup and the Killer grabbed it out of his hands and poured it into his stomach.

“More, blast ya! I ain’t et for t’ree days, so I’m gonna eat now! More!”

Cookie jumped to the command.

Dopey reached around for something to protect himself with, but all he could get his hands on was a round box. Gilroy saw him. “T’row dat away!”

Fooz threw, and it landed in the soup, all over Cookie! The chef looked like a lobster from being boiled by his own cooking. The top had come off the box, and the red, powdery stuff soaked into the soup.

Cookie dished out the chowder, and the killer put it away in a gulp. Then — WOOSH! His face got beet-red. He hopped and he howled, fanning his mouth with both hands. “Red pepper! Help!”

Dopey grabbed a clam and let it ride. It conked the Killer on the dome and both he and the clam raced to the floor. But Gilroy won, cold as a herring.

Dopey Fooz shoved the killer in a corner with a pile of shells and tied him up good. Shucks, this wasn’t getting the spoons back. Outside the crowd was getting noisy, and even in the kitchen Dopey could hear the clams splatting against the wall pictures. He ducked through the bombardment, and went over to Tony.

“Why don’t you take those pictures down?”

“Are you batty, chum? The only reason people come here is to blow clams.”

Dopey couldn’t stand it any more. He raced around the wall yanking the clam-smeared pictures from the wall. Everybody thought it was a joke and cheered wildly. He got them in a big pile and carried them into the hall.