Микки Спиллейн - Killer Mine

Outside the storm lashed the city, but it was an hour before we heard it. Marty stirred beside me, came awake quickly when she knew I was too. “Joe...”

“I have to leave, kid.”

“Why?”

“He’s still loose.”

“Who is he, Joe?”

“I don’t know yet. I can’t be sure.”

“Can you tell me?”

“No.”

“Then I want to go with you.”

“Orders, sugar. You stay. Your part is done. I can’t use you in the job now.”

“Please, Joe.”

“No choice, Marty. It’s guns now. I don’t want you in the middle. It’s all changed, and I want you where I know I can come back to you.”

“Will you?”

I turned and kissed her, felt her tremble slightly and said: “I’ll be back. I have to. We started too long ago to let it end now. It’s you and me now, Marty. We’re back where we started, but it’s better and we have a lot to look forward to. We’re on the straight side and can be the builders. I want you, Marty.”

Very simply, she said, “You have me, Joe. It’s always been that way. There never has been anyone else.”

“I know it,” I grinned.

A kill stirs things up. It’s like having a winning ball club. The fans gather to talk about it, to speculate and chew it to pieces. Donavan’s place was packed and so was Bunny’s, but the one I was looking for wasn’t in either one. But that wasn’t the end. There were a lot of places he could go to.

And I looked in them all. I put the word out and let them take it as they liked. I was a cop with a name he wanted and everybody knew it. It wasn’t going to take long. There was always somebody who wanted a favor or some heat taken off and they’d show sooner or later. While I waited I kept on looking and knew the others were all watching, knowing I was there and it wasn’t over yet, not by a long sight.

It was little Harry Wope who found me. He was buried in the shadows of the corner drug store and whistled as I walked past, stepping far enough out into the light so I’d recognize him and when I moved beside him, sought out the shadows again.

“Scanlon...”

“Hello, Harry.”

“It was Will Fater who got it, wasn’t it?”

“Everybody else is guessing.”

“Not me. I knew what they were gonna pull off. I told you.”

“What else do you know?”

“How much money did Fater have on him?”

“A couple hundred bucks. That’s all.”

“He should have had more,” Harry said. “Al Reese promised him more. I heard him. That stupid Fater, for five grand he’d shoot himself. He had a big reputation, that one did. He never said nothin’, but he had it.”

“We know, Harry.”

“So Reese said five grand.”

“Where would he get it?” I asked him.

“He said he was coming into it. Soon, too. He had Will all worked up. He would’na taken the job on if he wasn’t sure.”

“And where is Reese now?”

“That’s what I wanted to tell you. I seen him by Grafton’s place. Over two blocks and...”

“I know where it is,” I said.

“Reese, he got out of a car and was walking,” Harry Wope told me. “He had on a raincoat and was carrying an umbrella, but I seen his face when he was getting out. A couple of people came along and he ducked down behind that umbrella like he didn’t want to be seen, but I knew who he was.”

“See where he went?”

“Raining too hard. He was up near Paula Lees’ place when I couldn’t see him no more. I didn’t wait around, anyway. I went looking for you.”

“Okay, Harry, thanks. You get the hell out of here and don’t mention seeing me.”

“Sure enough. Not a word. You give that Al Reese what he needs, huh?”

“Don’t worry.”

I waited until Harry was out of sight before crossing the street. I knew where Grafton’s place was. Twenty-five years ago I had run errands for the guy, delivered his orders and fought for my right to sell papers on the corner he occupied.

Fifty feet from the intersection a late-model Chevvy sedan was parked, the doors locked. After an initial glance at it I walked on down the street, casing every building as I went. Any darkened doorway or unlighted window could hide a killer behind it. One try was made, another was possible. Will Fater’s try for me was a money deal, not the original one.

But there was a tie-in there too. If Gus Wilder came into the section, Al Reese could have known about it. Political bosses had to keep their fingers on the pulse of every movement in their area. If there was a bite to be taken out of a money pie Al Reese would want his and anybody standing in his way had to be taken out.

The possibility was plain now. René Mills lost his shot at the dough... Reese wasn’t going to miss his. He could have promised René protection for a price, and even if René got killed for his trouble Reese was going to push it. He wouldn’t put himself in the same class as René, not Al Reese. He had power and cover from the party whom he represented. Anybody circulating in his bailiwick was going to pay off no matter who they were.

Up ahead was Paula Lees’ apartment.

Cute deal, Al, I thought. A guy is holed up and wanting a woman. You make the arrangements for him and catch him with his pants down and put the screws to him. Maybe you’d be doing it right now and I could nail you both at once.

I took the gun out, checked the load in the cylinders and cut in when I came to the worn sandstone stoop. I would have gone up the steps if the sudden brilliance of the lightning flash hadn’t turned night into day and outlined a quick movement from behind the railing that guarded the basement entrance to the tenement across the street

This time I moved as fast as they did, not quickly, just deliberately. As far as they were concerned, I was just another pedestrian. I had stayed out of the glow of the street lights from force of habit and my pause by Paula’s apartment could have been accidental if they hadn’t seen me with the gun in my hand. I bent down, made like I was flipping water from my cuffs, pulled the collar of my trench coat tighter around my neck and ambled on like a guy walking aimlessly after fighting with his wife.

I didn’t look back to see if the act worked. I kept on going until I reached the corner, found the alley in between the stores and squeezed between the garbage cans and refuse cartons stacked shoulder high until I reached the fence, then climbed over it

For a second I had the funny feeling that it was the game again. A long time ago the bunch of us had come through this same alley over the same fence to scramble through the basement of the apartment to get away from Ralph Callahan who was after us for some piece of hell we had just raised. Now it was the other way around and I was the cop.

The cellar doors set at a forty-five degree angle were still the same, boards warped, braces loose and two hinges rusted away. I pulled one up, went down the steps with the light of my pencil flash showing the way, seeing the same old asbestos-wrapped furnace sitting in the middle of the room like a dead, dirty idol, the coal bin on the left gaping blackly. It was neater now than the last time, probably because a fire inspector had checked the premises and squeezed the landlord.

A flight of rickety steps led to the first floor. The door was locked, but a steady push with my shoulder snapped the lock and sent the door slamming open against the wall with a noise that would have gotten anyone alerted.

But it didn’t. It was drowned in the resonating blast of gunfire from the floor above that rolled through the building with punctuated hammering that was sharper than the echoes they made. They came too fast to identify the caliber, but at least three were going, then two, one, and all that was left was the sharp smell of cordite and a dull reverberation that bounced from the walls until it died out in the yells of the neighbors and the sound of a woman screaming for the police somewhere outside.