Микки Спиллейн - Killer Mine

I got out of the car slowly and stood looking up at the darkened window of the apartment. The cold rain pelted the glass, making it look like a black mirror, an evil, nasty eye in the face of an evil, nasty building. There was something disgusting about it all, something foul and dirty, even unthinkable.

Up there, behind that darkened window, I had to kill myself. Up there I’d know what it would be like to lie dead, know the feeling and sight of featureless expression, the laxity of death.

The gun in my pocket seemed to be too heavy, so I just took it out and crossed the street with it in my hand. The front door was open. So was the inside one. Behind it was the yawning, cavernous mouth of the pitch-black stairway and corridor.

One flight up and to the front.

In my mind I was picturing my face on the floor, half turned into the light, eyes partially opened and jaw slack. All consciousness gone. All conscience gone too. Nothing left. Just dead.

Under my feet the carpet was worn, and each step up brought a musty, aged smell closer. From habit born long ago I stepped over the step that had pulled away from the wall, and as a kid would, counted my way toward the landing.

Four more to go. Then three, two, one and I was there. The door was ten feet away. I didn’t hurry. I wasn’t in a hurry to see what I looked like dead.

So I went slowly and when I had the knob under my hand I cocked the .38 and thought how stupid it all was. And how it started. In a way it had two starting points, but the first was last and the last first. At the last second I was thinking back over the simplicity and stupidity of the whole thing.

It was ten minutes after the kill when I got there. The squad car men were taking statements from the handful who had heard the shots and were trying to make sense from the henna head nighthawk who had seen the car.

The captain was there, an uptown inspector and one of the lab specialists I had seen around a few times. As I got out of the car the photogs were taking their last pics and scrounging for an identification of the dead man.

When I reached the doctor he was just getting up, stuffing the last of his instruments back in his bag. I said, “How’d he get it?”

“Two in the chest and one in the neck, any one fatal.”

“He say anything before he died?”

He shook his head. “Not a thing. I knew he was dying and I tried to bring him around long enough to say something. Couldn’t do it.”

“Tough.”

The doctor drew in his breath and made a wry face. “It was bound to happen.” He scanned the block, taking in the stone faces of the tenements. “Anything can happen here. This is typical.”

I watched him without saying anything, then glanced down at the dead man. There wasn’t much to see. Blood obscured his face, and on the sidewalk like that he looked small and pitiful, not at all important enough to be knocked off in such spectacular fashion. I looked again, frowned, shook my head at what I thought.

Before I could think on it any longer I heard, “Joe... Hey Joe.” Captain Oliver was waving at me, his cigar making a red arc in the night. I walked over and nodded. “This is Inspector Bryan, Joe... Lieutenant Joe Scanlon, sir.”

Bryan stuck out his hand and grabbed mine. He was a big, beefy cop who had come up the hard way and knew all the ropes that went with the job. “Ollie told me about you, Joe. I asked to have you up here.”

“I wondered why the call.”

“You know this area?”

“I was born a couple blocks away. It stinks, but I know it.”

The inspector pulled on his cigarette. “You up on current events around here?”

Before I answered I tried to see what he was getting to but couldn’t make it. I said, “Partly. No details.”

“You know the dead man?”

I squinted at him, then: “You make him?”

“Not yet. We’re waiting on prints.”

The funny feeling came back and I couldn’t shake it off. I turned, went back to the corpse, took a good, close look and stood up. “Forget prints. I can make him.”

“Who is he, Joe?” Oliver asked.

“Doug Kitchen. We grew up together.”

“Positive make?”

I nodded. “Positive. He used to run with my sister. A nice guy. No punk.”

The inspector flipped the butt and said, “Nice guys don’t get shot like that.”

“This one did.”

“Nuts.” His eyes got too cold and knowing.

I said, “My old man got gut shot by a cop on the next corner. He was mistaken for somebody else. The cop thought he had a gun. He was carrying his thermos bottle.”

“So?”

“So Doug was no punk. I knew him. That’s enough.”

“What’s he doing out at four-thirty in the morning?”

“You check the corpse, Inspector?” I didn’t say it nice.

“Briefly.”

“Then maybe you noticed his shipyard badge. He was on the eight to four and coming home.”

“My slip,” Bryan said. He grinned at me then. “Something’s happening around here, Joe. Four crazy, yet well-planned kills in one month. None of them tie in except that they’re all executed in the same area. It doesn’t set right. I think we need a local man to take it on.”

“Me?”

“You lived here. You know the people.”

“Only the old ones. Things change.”

“I know. We want to keep them from changing.”

“It can’t be that big.”

“Four murders, with three from the same gun, can be big,” he said. “It can go to more.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a lined index card. He handed it to me and held a light on it. “Know the names?”

After I looked at them I said, “I know them.”

“Well?”

“We were kids then. We went to the same school together. I was a hell of a lot older than most of them.”

“But it’s a pattern.”

“Of a sort maybe. The dead men lived within ten blocks of each other.”

“And all killed pretty quick, one after the other.”

I handed the card back. “What do I do?”

Bryan grinned that old cop grin of his. “You take it on.”

“Get off it, friend.”

He gave me that grin again. “You won’t be creamed. You got a girl down the block. It’ll all look pretty natural.”

“I don’t have any girl.”

“You will have before long, mister. She’s a dame you knew as a kid and as far as anybody is concerned around here you’ve met accidentally again and are just picking up all the old pieces.”

“Listen, Inspector, I don’t want any dame messing around.”

“Maybe you will after you’ve seen this one.”

“Oh, for...”

“Her name’s Marta Borlig. Remember her?”

I couldn’t help the face I made. “Sure,” I said disgustedly.

“She’s a policewoman now, but nobody around here knows it. It’s all in the department and you can keep it that way. That’s how you like it anyway.”

“You know a lot about me.”

“We looked long and carefully into this thing, Joe. Now listen. It’s small and slummy but it’s got some nasty overtones. If it happened to all punks or known criminals we could do it routine, but now we got citizens involved who don’t like murder in their back yards. They own stores and work hard. They have the right of complaint. Soon the papers catch on and we’re targets.”

I nodded. “And if I don’t produce, I’m the target.”

“That’s the general idea, Joe.”

“Then go blow it. I won’t play. I don’t feel like being a target. It happened too many times for me to ask for it.”

“You’re being told, Joe.”

“Swell, so I’m told. You want me to pull strings? I’ve been around a long time too.”