Микки Спиллейн - The Last Cop Out

Nevertheless, he, the Primus Gladatori, wasn’t completely satisfied and until he was he couldn’t concentrate on what he was doing. Shelby picked up the phone and dialed Helga. He knew she had a beauty shop appointment and she was just getting ready to leave. All he did was confirm the fact, exchange a few pleasantries and tell her he’d call tomorrow. He looked at his watch, waited fifteen minutes and took his own special way out of the building.

The little old man who just seemed to be shuffling along picked him up at exactly the last point he had lost him and this time everything was working in his favor. It was no trouble at all to tail Mark Shelby to the building where he kept Helga in her luxurious apartment and when he was satisfied he found the nearest phone and made a call. A tape recorder answered and he left his final message innocuously disguised and felt a little sad that his assignment had come to an end. It had been a lot of fun, had used up his idle hours and made him a lot of friends in odd places. It was now going to bring him a sizable bonus that would finish the payment on the orange grove in the middle of Florida where he would sit in the sun until he mummified.

Mark Shelby made sure the apartment was empty and while he was checking the rooms, automatically looked through Helga’s personal effects too. Whatever she had, he had given her. Except one thing. A new packet of three rubber condoms was in the back of the drawer in the nightstand table. For a second his fist clenched because if she tried fooling around with some punk on him... then he grinned because it was a new pack, discarded in the back, just in case her coil fell out or something like that and it was for him, not some punk.

He went out to the living room behind the bar and lifted the candle from the holder, not paying a bit of attention to the religious statue at all, took it in front of a strong light and tried to peer through it. It was too opaque to see anything, so he inspected it carefully. After five minutes he was sure that nobody had ever touched it since he had put it there.

A great weight was lifted from his mind.

He looked at the statue guarding his treasure and wondered why he didn’t feel the need to genuflect or something. Maybe make the sign of the cross.

Screw that stuff he thought. His faith was in the candle, not the statue.

He went back downstairs to retrace his route.

At that moment the message on the tape recorder was being decoded.

Moe Piel had come to New York again in an old panel truck that bore the labels of a Fort Lauderdale television repair service. He had driven within speed limits, stopped overnight outside of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and the only incident had been a flat on Route 13 in Delaware. A state trooper had even stopped to offer assistance, but when none was necessary, had driven away after a perfunctory license check.

Had he inspected the truck he would have found a tool box full of cash destined for delivery to another dealer in arms and ammunition with a warehouse on the Lower West Side of Manhattan. Unfortunately, the Delaware police had, at that time, no want out on Moe Piel or the truck, but that wouldn’t have mattered anyway since his license, registration and occupation were all phony anyway. Besides, he looked like any typical television repairman having to make an emergency trip to New York to pick up parts that would take too long in shipment.

Unfortunately, too, the organization knew that if Herman Shanke were to hold on to the bite he had taken out of their Miami operations, he was going to have the weaponry to do it with and the police had clamped down in Miami to such an extent that nothing was available in that area.

Which left New York and the organization knew about the unscrupulous dealer in arms and ammunition with his warehouse a stone’s throw away from the West Side Highway.

And Bingo and Shatzi were waiting for him when he parked the panel truck in front of the old converted garage that supposedly dealt in used car parts, which wouldn’t even attract a junkie burglar.

Since Moe Piel had never met the dealer, he didn’t recognize that Bingo Miles didn’t fit the description at all until Shatzi shoved a gun in his ribs from behind and he didn’t even get the chance to go for the rod he kept in his belt to impress the city slickers when they were culminating the transaction. All he could feel was embarrassment, because down there at the tip of Florida he was one hell of a hotshot killer with his own inexhaustible supply of weapons and suddenly he was nothing but a stupid shit.

What made it worse, they thought he had dumped a whole fucking handful of big wheels and were treating him with a little respect when he didn’t even know what the hell they were getting at. All he knew was that they thought he was an idiot for going out of his league to hustle ammo for Herman the German when some slob could have done the same thing. He heard them talking it over and the conclusion was it was simply a matter of expediting matters. Except that Herman wasn’t family, nor was Moe, and they couldn’t be expected to know any better.

The place wasn’t soundproofed or isolated, so after they tied him up, they taped his mouth and Shatzi took out the pan, charcoal, poured in the starter fluid and stuck the irons in the works. They gave Moe Piel a pad and pencil to write with when he was ready to talk and put in a call to the Frenchman.

You really couldn’t tell when Frank Verdun was mad. It was even better when you could tell, but when you couldn’t it was worse. He had killed the best when he was at his happiest moments, savoring the ebbing away of life, his face placid and the tiniest of smiles playing around his lips. He was looking at Bingo and Shatzi like that right now.

“Look, Frank, I swear, neither Bingo or I touched him. No shit, Frank. We were waiting for you and when we looked he was like that, all drooped over and hell, the irons didn’t even get hot yet.”

The Frenchman yanked Moe Piel’s head back by the hair and stared into the lifeless eyes. “You dumbheads!”

“Frank...”

“Shut up.” It wasn’t the first time he had seen this happen. Twice before it had happened to him and he had made a doctor explain it all in detail, and now he went through those details until he was satisfied. “The fucker’s had a heart attack.”

“Aw, shit, Frank...”

“Stupid bastards. You have to put on the full show before I get here? You like it that way?”

“We only thought...”

“Who the hell ever told you to think, you dumb pricks? You know what this bum could have told us? We could have the backup man, the rest, the head... and you lousy assholes blow the whole deal.”

“Come on, Frank, we was expectin’ a driver. Who else. So when we see this punk we’re gonna set him up for you. It always works. You know...”

“Shit.” He looked at the two guys and let the anger ebb from him. All they did was the job the way they were used to and they couldn’t be blamed at all. “Where’s the dealer?”

Bingo said, “I killed him. He’s in the back.”

“Okay, dump them both.”

“What about the truck, boss?”

“You rig it up right and send it back. Let that fucking Herman the German have some ammo, but make sure it blows up in his fucking face. You think you can do that right?”

“Sure, boss,” Bingo said.

“Hey, Frank...”

“Now what, Shatzi?”

“Ah, nothing, boss.”

The Frenchman nodded and went out in disgust. Shatzi smiled. No sense asking for something so simple. He pulled the knife out of his pocket and while Bingo was rigging the truck he cut the navels from the two bodies, looked at them with horrified eyes, then flushed them down the stained toilet.