Микки Спиллейн - The Last Cop Out

“Berkowitz and Manute were processing film they had shot. There wasn’t any dough in the joint and none of their equipment could be fenced very easily. It wasn’t the kind of place a holdup artist would hit.”

“Gill... they were in a partially deserted area, alone, and that guy... what’s his name... Ted Proctor just saw an easy target. As far as we could determine, Berkowitz had over a hundred bucks on him and Manute was probably good for fifty. Enough to justify a holdup, anyway.”

“And Mark Shelby was in the area about the same time.”

“The supposed witness retracted his statement. He was parking lot attendant and had only seen Shelby once before when he dropped off his car.”

“Balls.”

“That’s what he swore to.”

“A parking lot beside a mob-owned restaurant. He had seen plenty of Shelby.”

“You’re pushing, Gill.”

“Mavbe, but it was the pushing I did before that got me laid out like a squashed bug.”

“You were after Papa Menes, friend.”

“A rung at a time and you reach the top man, Bill. Somehow I was just about to shake the apples out of the tree when they cut the branch out from under me.”

“Forget it, will you?”

The side of Burke’s mouth curled in a smile. “Would you?”

“No.”

Burke laid the papers down on the desk and stretched in his chair. For a minute or so he stared at the ceiling, then leaned forward and stared at his friend. “How’d they work it on me, Bill?”

“You’ve been a maverick a long time, Gill. That citizen’s committee instituted the probe.”

“Their two lawyers had mob connections.”

“No way of proving that.”

“Why didn’t somebody try to cover for me?”

“Because we all have ourselves to protect, Gill, you know that. They gave only what facts that were drawn out the hard way. Nobody volunteered a damn thing.”

“The papers had a field day. The TV boys pulled me apart.”

“You always made sensational news. When you shot those three guys in that subway it gave them something to chew on.”

“Bill, those guys all had guns. Some of those bastards in the crowd grabbed them and ran when I dropped them.”

“You almost started a race riot.”

“Don’t believe it. There were plenty of cool heads there.”

“Why didn’t they speak up then?”

“And get labled Uncle Tom? Get the boot by their own people? Maybe if my life was on the line they would have, but I was just another cop getting the squeeze and squeezes aren’t new to them. Those guys were all carrying the loot they lifted from the heist and the shooting would have been justified even if I thought they had a gun.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Begin where I left off.”

“Here we go again,” Long said resignedly. “Just keep in mind what they wanted you back for. There’s one hell of a gang war brewing and they’re hoping you might be able to add that one touch that could stop it.” The Captain paused, watching Gill’s face. It was the kind of face you couldn’t read at all. “Do you think you can, Gill?”

“It’s a possibility,” he said, “but I don’t suppose they’d mind a few fringe benefits on the side.”

“Like what?”

“Like putting a crimp in the whole fucking syndicate.”

“You’ve been away too long, Gill. They’re too big. It can’t be done.”

“In the pig’s ass it can’t,” Gill told him. “Somebody’s doing it to them now.”

When the eleven o’clock news was over, Gill Burke switched off the TV and poured the rest of his beer into his glass. It had been a long day and tomorrow would be even longer and he was looking forward to getting to bed early.

The sudden rasp of the door buzzer made him snap his head around wondering who the hell it could be at that hour. Any friends he had would have called first and anybody else he didn’t want to see. He put the glass down and picked up the .45 from the table, then stood to one side of the door and yanked it open.

She was in a short sweater and skirt combination with a white raincoat thrown loosely over her shoulders, and her hair was a dark frame for startled, wide brown eyes and a rich, full ruby mouth.

Helen Scanlon said, “Are you going to shoot me, Mr. Burke?”

Burke smiled with his lips, but his eyes remained impassive. With a casual movement he put the gun inside his waistband. “Not tonight.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

“These are hardly visiting hours.”

“Make an exception.”

“Come on in then.” He made a deprecating motion with his head toward the apartment. “Don’t mind the mess. I wasn’t expecting company.”

“Apparently not since you’ve lived here. You aren’t very,neat, Mr. Burke.”

“Who gives a shit,” he told her. “Can I make you a drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“Then get to it.”

“Don’t be so abrupt. May I sit down?”

Gill waved toward a chair and eased himself down in the worn recliner. Something, he thought, was very, very screwy.

“I’ve come to apologize,” she said.

“For what?”

“My remark about you being a turncoat.”

“How about being as repulsive as a skinless rat?”

“Did that really get to you?”

Burke shrugged and sipped his beer. “That’s nothing compared to some of the things I’ve been called.”

“But it got to you.”

“Just the repulsive part.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. The sincerity in her tone was real.

“Why?”

“Because I overheard Mr. Verdun making a phone call. He said you were a policeman again and poking around. Apparently you are some sort of a threat to his... business.”

“You’re damn well told I am.”

“Mr. Burke... things get very confusing sometimes.”

“Don’t believe everything you read in the papers. How old are you?”

“Thirty.”

“You don’t look it at all.”

“How old are you?”

“A hundred and ten.”

She smiled gently. “You don’t look it either.”

“It’s all mental, kid.”

“Why are you a threat to them?”

“Because I made a career out of trying to break them.”

“You know it isn’t possible, don’t you?”

“That’s what everybody seems to think, but they’re wrong. What goes up can come down.”

“My father thought that too.”

“Joe Scanlon had just obtained the murder weapon used to gun down a key witness who could have testified against Papa Menes and six other top men in the syndicate. The fingerprints of the killer were on that gun and it would have brought the walls tumbling down around some important political figure. The mob had him run down by a stolen auto and they retrieved the gun. It was classified as a hit-and-run accident.”

“There has never been any proof otherwise,” she stated flatly.

“If a little old lady were still alive... the one who heard the last words he ever spoke, she’d tell you differently.”

“What little old lady?”

“She died of a stroke two days later. Seeing that incident probably triggered it. She gave the information to Hanson, who was the local beat cop then. All he could do was report it, but as courtroom evidence it was out.”

Helen Scanlon nibbled on the tip of her thumb and tried to blink away the wetness that clouded her vision. She had come only to apologize, not resurrect the past. It was something she neither wished to discuss or even think about, but sitting opposite Gill Burke, seeing all the hardness reflected in his face and the way he carried himself and sensing the controlled violence that was an integral part of himself, the past kept forcing itself into the present.

“That thirty thousand dollars they found hidden in my father’s home... he never could have saved that. Every cent he made went to pay medical bills for my mother. Everything I could afford I sent on too.”