Микки Спиллейн - The Last Cop Out

He reached the newsstand at exactly three minutes to eleven, picked up the early edition of tomorrow’s paper, a copy of TV Guide, then waited another minute scanning the headlines in the light of the booth before crossing to the other side of the street. The dachshund on the end of the leash clambered over the curb, looked back quizzically, then turned right on command and led the way east on the deserted sidewalk.

It was precisely one minute to eleven. He was totally punctual because the other one was fetishly punctual too and when the dark sedan passed the man and the dog, slipping into the open parking space in front of the old brownstone, it was as if watches had been synchronized hours earlier for this one brief meeting of their hands at the ultimate moment of destiny.

The driver of the car cut the engine, switched off the lights and put the gear lever into park. He locked the right side doors, the left rear one and was feeling for the window handle beside him when he automatically looked up at the pedestrian walking his dog home, the innocuous one he had seen seconds before buying his paper and dismissed because people in New York still walked dogs, bought papers and went home, which an enemy would never do, and almost smiled back when the stranger smiled at him.

Then he felt the ice in his stomach and a horrible dryness in his throat because he knew the face and recognized the curiously strange smile and knew that forty-six years of life was about to come to an end on a dismal little street on the West Side where he had no place being at all. There would be no more luxury penthouse in one of Manhattan’s towers, no more chubby wife nagging at him in broken English, no more backtalk from too-wise teenage kids, no more relishing his life or death power in the far-flung organization. And all because of a stupid blond cunt in a cold water flat who knew how to assuage his sex problems and bring him to that white glow he thought had disappeared forever.

He saw the newspaper in the hand come up and tried to snatch his own gun from his pocket but he was much too late. Victor Petrocinni achieved one final orgasm when a heavy caliber bullet tapped a hole in his forehead and blew his brains all over the front of the car.

The dachshund barely glanced back at the silenced whup of the discharge.

Neither the man nor the dog had broken their leisurely stride in their walk to the end of the street.

A month ago twenty-one of them had sat around the long table in the conference room of Boyer-Reston, Inc. This time only seventeen conservatively dressed men of various ages occupied the dark oaken captain chairs. Legal-sized pads and pencils were in front of each, coffee was available from an ornate urn against the wall, but the cups were empty and the pads were blank.

At the head of the table Mark Shelby, whose original name had been Marcus Aurilieus Fabius Shelvan, silently fingered the gold Phi Beta Kappa key that ornamented his watch chain and let his eyes touch each one of the persons lining the table before him, remembering twenty years back when he had first sat at a meeting like this one.

They had been old country faces then, with accented voices, and the garlicky smell still hung over them from the dinner that Peppy had served. Empty wine bottles had doubled as ash trays and he alone did the note keeping because he alone had the skill to transpose two languages into a coherent English to be referred to later. Only a few weeks before he had made his bones, a double kill of Herm and Sal Perigino, the attempted killers of Papa Fats... a little late in life to be put to the test, but then, he had been preselected to obtain the university education to benefit the organization and the murder assignment was more a formality, more a fraternal initiation than anything else.

That other table had been a handmade plank affair in the back room of Peppy’s tavern and he had sat at it many times, working his way ever closer to the head. Now it was he who occupied the big chair and commanded the attention of the various corporate heads who fronted for the new, modern organization, the other society whose fortunes were made from the ills and vices of the Manhattan sector of New York City.

Shelby’s voice and choice of words had a classic courtroom aura but there was no doubting the steel behind each syllable. Since the Perignino affair he had ordered the elimination of some thirty-odd persons whose actions he had found intolerable to organizational activities, personally attending to four of them as a constant reminder that he was still totally capable and as determinedly ruthless as any of his predecessors and worthy of the title he legally enjoyed as well as the sub rosa one employed behind his back. They called him Primus Gladatori, the First Gladiator, not because of his true given name, but for the way he dispatched his opponents — quickly and with pleasure.

“Last night,” Mark Shelby said, “Vic Petrocinni was killed.” He shuffled the papers in front of him, found the one he wanted and held it down with a forefinger. “For six weeks, on Mondays and Fridays, he went to the same address at the same time for the same purpose. His excuses were all different and he thought he had everybody fooled but he walked right into an ambush because there was somebody he didn’t fool at all. That makes four of our people in one month.” He paused and looked up, his face as frigid as his eyes. “The question now is... why?”

Leon Bray ran the computer section that serviced the organization’s long list of activities. At fifty, he looked a decade older, his face seamed from years of intense detail work, eyes owlishly large behind thick-lensed glasses. He tapped the table top with his pencil and waited for the soft murmuring to cease.

“None of our people showed any unbalanced books,” he said. “I’ve triple-checked everything and the accounts were right, down to the last penny. Joe Morse and Baggert had upped their figures over twenty percent from last year and both Rose and Vic were doing great with their new territories. No complaints anywhere.”

Shelby digested the information and nodded, then looked to his right. “Kevin?”

Arthur “Slick” Kevin rolled his unlit cigar in his fingers and looked back at the chairman. He was nervous, and he didn’t like to be nervous, but what was happening had all the earmarks of something just beginning and promising to get bigger and bigger. His eyes narrowed and he shook his head.

“I checked with all the other offices and nobody’s trying to move in or take over. Chicago and St. Louis want to lend us some of their men who might be able to spot any new faces around in case it’s a push by some of those wise punks from Miami or Philly, or even K.C. They ran into some trouble like that last year, but cleared it up in a hurry. I told them we’d wait awhile to see how things developed.”

“How about Al Harris? He’s been out of Atlanta a year now.”

Kevin waved the suggestion off. “That was all big talk and his day is past. Al’s got that place in Baja California and hasn’t left it since he got there. The Mex authorities keep an eye on him all the time and let him blow his loot in that little town where he lives and the old boy seems happy about it. On top of everything, he’s got T.B. So even if Big Al Harris has the contacts and the loot to finance a return he’s got too much sense to try it.”

“You sure?”