Микки Спиллейн - The Last Cop Out

At twenty-two sex became a necessity to sign a contract, see her name in the gaudy lights outside the theaters or any place the agents and managers decided to book her and she learned to accept it as she would a bad dream, closing her mind off from the experience and completely forgetting about it afterward. She had neither wanted it nor sought it. Actually, she had avoided it, learning all the tricks possible that could void a man before he could culminate his intent, even to the point where they blamed themselves for their own overexuberance rather than her expertise.

Never, never before had it been like this.

The wetness was still there, the satisfied glow in her body that centered directly in the full brunette triangle that was the apex of all her immediate being. Her breasts quivered with delight and a dreamy exhaustion seemed to flow from her fingers to her toes.

Gill felt it too, letting his thoughts drift through the smoke from his cigarette. He didn’t know whether he liked it or not, because for the first time there was an infringement on his perfect sense of independence. Always, he had been alone, capable of independent and solitary action, accountable to no one. He had never known a want that he couldn’t dismiss, never known anything he couldn’t do without.

Now there was something clawing at him he didn’t understand and wondered why her warm flesh felt so damn good under his hand and why he was beginning to get a fullness in his groin again when he should have been completely worn out.

No, he told himself, it had happened much too late. The button had already been pushed and the missile was flying. You don’t try to board after the launch. If you did, you’d be dead, and he didn’t want that to happen to her.

He stubbed his butt out and took his hand away slowly. “I have to leave, Helen.”

She put her arm through his and held on tightly. “It’s too late.” Her voice was drowsy.

“I have work to do.”

“Tomorrow.”

He kissed her gently. “Now, you gorgeous doll.”

She let her eyes drift open and looked at him. She wished she could see more than just the outside. She wanted to know everything about him, everything inside his mind and body. But too many years had gone into building the same kind of façade her father had had and the inscrutable mask that shielded all those things was too opaque to dislodge.

“Say it again,” she asked.

“Now?”

“No, the rest.”

“Beautiful doll.”

“I like that,” she said.

She watched him get dressed, snap the holster on his belt and slip into his jacket. In the half light of the room he looked huge and she could still imagine the weight of him on her and inside her. It was all new and so different that she quivered again.

“You’ll be back?”

“How can I stay away?”

“You could if you wanted to.”

“I don’t want to. In a way, I wish I did, but I don’t want to.”

“I understand,” Helen said.

“No, you don’t at all.”

The delightful quiver suddenly had a cold chill to it and she knew how Mother must have felt when Joe Scanlon had to get up in the middle of the night to do what he had to do.

Nobody had to tell the Frenchman the score. What he didn’t know already he had been briefed on, but when events that should have stayed buried came back to throw a ghostly shadow over the vital workings of the organization his life was dedicated to, he felt annoyance turn to wrath at the bunglings of the incompetents who tried to take on assignments better left to the experts.

Half the night had been spent going over the details until he was satisfied that everything was in order, and now the scotch was beginning to blur his vision and make him forget he was in New York for a more primary purpose than having one ex-cop eliminated.

As long as Gill Burke had been off the force he hadn’t constituted a menace, but now he was a fucking badge-carrying piece of officialdom whose death could initiate an investigation they didn’t need at all. He was a nuisance when he had directed all his efforts at getting the top syndicate men, but the ones he had nailed they could afford to lose and twice they had dropped pretty well-known troublemakers in his lap. If they had stopped there and promoted him to a desk job like they thought they would have, there would have been no more trouble at all. Paperwork can grind any machine to a halt. But they didn’t and Burke kept pushing until he hit such a sensitive nerve in trying to nail down Mark Shelby that they had to take away his teeth. Luckily, he provided his own grease and built his own skid. All they had to do was give him a shove and bureaucracy did the rest.

Now he was back pushing again and that fucking overeducated Shelby was getting the jumps because Burke had picked up where he left off and Mark didn’t trust the cover they had laid out for him. Frank Verdun didn’t like Shelby in the first place. Him and that Primus Gladatori shit because he had punched a few holes in a handful of guys. The old dons liked it, but he had quit counting the bodies so long ago that Shelby looked like a damn amateur.

Asshole. The Frenchman thought. Knocks off two Jew photographers because he thought they had taken pictures of him and some cunt. They had plenty of that stuff in their files, but Shelby wasn’t in any of it. They were working in the room next to his in that fucking fleabag hotel and that hole in the wall came from a slug that drunken sailor had let loose the week before.

Now they had to tap out Burke before he could get too nosy. That was always the trouble. No matter how you tried, you couldn’t kill everybody involved. Somebody always had a little piece and if somebody was nosy enough and smart enough, he could put those pieces together. It was law-and-order time with soft courts and liberals all over the place protecting this right or that, but with a guy like Burke all that was a lot of garbage and if he was satisfied the pieces fit he’d go in shooting and take his chances with an explanation later.

And they couldn’t afford to scratch Mark Shelby. The dons still had the power and they raised him from a pup to mind their affairs. He had made his bones and made their millions and he was still their boy and boys had a way of getting into trouble once in a while and he was supposed to take care of it.

He’d like to give Mark Shelby, Primus Gladatori, one swift boot in his tail and shove a gun barrel down his throat far enough to make him gag. Except that Papa Menes or the big board might order his balls dipped into a pan of boiling water for his arrogance and he didn’t want that at all. Not since he had seen it done to Malone, his Irish upstart predecessor.

The Frenchman picked up the phone and tried to call Slick Kevin for the ninth time. The phone rang until he tired of the buzz in his ear and he slammed it down, cursing. He didn’t need it, but he was annoyed as hell, so he poured a shot of scotch over two cubes of ice and sat down in front of the TV set that was running the late, late movie and thought about his plan for killing Gill Burke.

The more he thought about it, the less he liked it. Then he remembered something special and smiled to himself. Yes, the board would like this one. He could walk Burke right into an open grave and he’d never know how it happened... nor would anybody else.

Soon he’d speak to Helen Scanlon. There was no better bait than a big-titted broad with an inviting pussy who was all for the company and had such a yen for show business she’d do anything to get back in front of an audience. In due time she would disappear into a hole in the desert outside of Vegas and that would take care of it.

He picked up the phone and tried Slick Kevin one more time.