Микки Спиллейн - The Last Cop Out

“The hit man knew,” Verdun reminded him with a tight smile.

Shelby’s irritation got the better of him and he leaned forward on the table. “Listen, Frank, there were no photos and no files. It was cash in advance and a guarantee of safety. The only ones on the outside who knew about his operation were Papa Menes, you, me and six members of the big board.”

“We know Papa wouldn’t talk, and the board wouldn’t talk, so that just leaves you and me, doesn’t it, Mark?”

The little .25 Mark Shelby always carried was aimed at Frank Verdun’s gut under the table and his finger was almost ready to squeeze the trigger.

“Put it away,” the Frenchman said through his curious smile. He lifted his glass in a silent toast and drained it, then refilled it from the bottle in the ice bucket.

“You think Papa hasn’t figured that out already?” he told Shelby.

Mark’s finger came off the trigger and he looked at his supper partner. Verdun’s hand was under the table too and he wondered what he held in it. He was being stupid and knew it, said “shit” softly and stuck the little automatic back in its holster. “Somebody’s getting to us, Frank,” he said.

Both of the Frenchman’s hands showed on the table and peace was declared. “Sure it’s inside,” he said. “It has to be inside. The only thing is, how far inside can you get? Who knew everything about Vic Petrocinni and Taggart and Holland... you know how many people we lost so far?”

“I’m the one who keeps the records, remember?”

“Yeah, so you know, but who’s that far inside?”

“What are you getting at, Frank?”

“The Big Board’s getting shook, Mark. They don’t like what’s happening. The first time out they figured they were fooling with some wise ass son of a bitch, then they saw a raid coming on and got all set for it, now they can’t put it together at all unless some outfit is just lining us up for an all-out war and trying to take out the generals before they commit the soldiers.”

“Don’t be silly. That’s impossible.”

“There’s another bit that they’re considering.”

Shelby studied his glass, tasted the wine and put it down again. “What’s that?”

“The United States Government might have decided to take on an internal diversion for publicity purposes to cover up all the other crap that’s going on.”

“Frank, you’re nuts. Who the hell they going to use... the CIA?”

“Consider it a possibility.”

“They got the FBI. They’re bad enough. Right now they use any excuse to go across state lines and their damn director doesn’t even give a shit for constitutional rights. Only we have our people there too and there haven’t been any directives out to nail us.”

Frank Verdun swirled the wine in his glass and sniffed the edge. If Shelby didn’t know better he would have thought he was a constant habitué of the more gracious Paris bistros.

Mark said, “Why should they? It’s even better this way. Let somebody else pick us apart and go in after the pieces. No, Frank, it isn’t the FBI and it isn’t the CIA. I wish it were, because we’d know who we were dealing with and how to take care of it, but what’s happening is pure insanity. Nobody’s made a fucking move yet.”

Verdun nodded, conceded the point. “They will, you know. They have to. You don’t go through all the trouble they went through without finally making a move. Nobody does anything for nothing and so far it’s been their game.” He stopped twirling the wine around in his glass, finished it and slid the ornate crystal to one side. “It’s really simple, you know.”

“I don’t know,” Shelby said.

“What’s the most important thing in the world?” the Frenchman asked. He was hunched over his arms and his eyes were a bright electric blue as they stared at Mark.

Shelby would have said something else, but he knew what the Frenchman wanted to hear and said, “Money.”

The curl in his lip the Frenchman didn’t ordinarily show appeared now. He had inherited his mouth from his mother, had a plastic surgeon take out the birth scar, but there were times when the defect was evident despite the operation. His mind was like a tumescent sore about to burst.

“Somebody is after our treasury,” he said.

Mark Shelby wasn’t about to lance his throbbing boil. “Reasonable,” he agreed. “There’s nothing as important as money.” For a moment he thought he saw a flicker in the Frenchman’s eyes about to dispute the point, but didn’t press it.

Abruptly, Frank Verdun said, “What about this shithead Burke?”

“I heard he was back.”

“You know he’s working for the D.A.’s office?”

“I heard.”

“So what about it?”

“You saw Papa’s orders,” Shelby told him. “Lay off the cops. What the hell could he do anyway? They got twenty-five thousand cops in this city. One more’s going to matter?”

“He’s a specialist.”

“Screw him.”

“He was after you, Mark.”

Shelby let a smile touch his mouth that turned into a laugh. “So he got screwed and we can screw him again. Come on, Frank, you terrified of one stinking ex-blue-coat just because the D.A.’s office is grabbing at straws?”

“No,” the Frenchman said, “I’m not.” He sat back in his booth and waved the waitress in the black miniskirt over. “Are you?” he asked.

Papa Menes had sent his driver into Miami to get a big Rand-McNally map of the United States. Artie Meeker had thumbtacked it on the wall as the old man directed and circled the areas he indicated. He leaned back against the wall thinking of the beautiful whore he had met and didn’t have time to service and waited for Papa Menes to finish thinking.

The old man said, “Draw a dotted line toward Phoenix, Artie.”

He had no idea where Phoenix was, but remembered Nicole telling him about the fly-in whorehouse she worked in and how she used to shop in Phoenix, and after locating the state, he stuck the pencil tip on the city of Phoenix and sketched a line between it and New York.

“What’s in Phoenix, boss?” Artie asked.

“An idea,” Papa Menes told him.” Now draw to Cleveland.”

Artie Meeker knew where Cleveland was and drew a line up to it. “Okay?”

“Fine,” Papa said. “Go to Seattle this time.”

Artie did as he was told and found Seattle by accident.

“San Diego is in lower California. Draw a line to there.”

Artie nodded and followed Route Five all the way down because it was the sure way not to make a mistake. He stepped back and looked at his handiwork. It was like when he was in his geography class at P.S. 19. He wished Miss Fischer were watching right now. He was always the dumbhead, but right now she’d be proud of him. Hell, once he couldn’t even find Philadelphia, and just now he had drawn a line down to San Diego.”

“Go to Dallas,” Papa said.

Artie was like a little kid enjoying the game. He had seen enough weather men on TV and knew right where Dallas was because that was where they made those big circles with the L or the H in the middle and where Kennedy got killed and they just had a crazy cold front last week with a tornado in the north end. He always wanted to hear a tornado go past because everybody said it sounded like a train going by. He drew the line to Dallas.

“Very good,” Papa said. He leaned back in his chair and studied the map. He could have had Artie draw in some more lines, but they weren’t really necessary. He could have put in numbers to indicate the continuity of killings, but they weren’t really necessary. He knew their sequences and nothing made sense at all. “They’re very mobile,” he said.

Artie Meeker didn’t know the meaning of the word so simply bobbed his head as though he did.