Микки Спиллейн - The Long Wait

The shots came blasting out with the shouts and curses, stabbing the air where I had been, trying to search me out with orange tongues of flame. The slugs were smacking the ground, wining off into the brush splatting the walls of the quarry and tearing into the foliage with a harsh, ripping sound.

I had a rock under my hand and threw it. A frenzied yell welled out in a hoarse throat and the bullets spit in a direction away from me. The guy doing most of the shooting wasn’t three feet away. I came up behind him, choked off a scream with my forearm and wrenched the gun out of his hand. I clipped him once behind his ear, stuck the gun in my pocket and heaved him as hard as I could.

One bullet gouging into soft flesh made the nastiest noise I ever heard.

There was no sound after that for a few seconds. Just the dull rumble of the echoes down there in the quarry. A guy said, “That one got him.”

I heard their feet on the gravel, the grating of a match and there they were, the two of them, bending over the body. He was sprawled face down and one guy turned him over. “Cripes, it’s Larry!” The whole thing hit him at once and he tried to shake the match out.

I shot him in the head while I could still see him and he gave one convulsive leap that threw him over backwards into the quarry. You could hear him bouncing off the rocks until there was a faint splash. I didn’t even try for the other one. He didn’t waste any time about moving. The air was so still, so quiet now that I could hear his feet slipping in the soft loam and the way he dragged his breath in as he battered a path through the brush.

Just to leave a nice clean camp I put my foot under the body of the one called Larry and shoved. He went down there in the wet with his friend. Then I tossed the gun down after him.

It was nice of them to leave me the car. The plates were from out of state and there were some toys on the floor in the back, so it was a sure bet the heap was stolen. I kicked it over, swung around and took the road back to the highway.

I should have felt good. I was dirty as hell but I was still alive. That should make anybody feel good. That is, anybody but me. A gun felt too natural in my hand. I got too much pleasure out of seeing a guy die even if he did deserve to die. I was thinking things that no right guy would ever think of, like getting the powder marks out of my hand before the police could make a paraffin test on me. I knew how to do all that and I didn’t know what or who I was more than a few years ago.

A shudder pinched my shoulders together and I could feel the damp of the sweat on the back of my neck. I knew too goddamn many things for my own good, all right, but in a way I was lucky I knew them.

I found a drugstore still open on the edge of town, bought a few things and sat in the car washing my hands. When I was done I wasn’t worried about paraffin tests any more. I threw the bottles and the jar of solvent out of the window, started to turn the key and noticed the pad on the seat.

It was just a cheap loose-leaf job with a small pencil stuffed between the rings. Whoever used it tore the pages out as they were used up, and except for the first page it was completely empty. Right at the top of the page one was the notation, “John McBride, registered own name Hathaway House. Check both entrances.”

They had it down pat. If they missed me in town I would have been picked up at the hotel. I grinned a little bit, ripped the page out and tossed the rest of the pad out the window.

That made two attempts to knock me off and I could damn well expect a third. I must have been some boy to be so important dead. Brother! I gunned the motor and drove into town.

The hotel was out now. There was no sense building my own trap. When trouble came I wanted to pick the spot myself. Between times I wanted someplace where I could hole up and think if I had to without worrying about who was waiting outside ready to use me for a target.

It was after two when I left the car in front of police headquarters. Hell, I wasn’t trying to be wise about it. But it helps when the other guy knows you’re cocky enough to pull a stunt like that. It makes them a little cautious, and in the time it takes to be cautious you can make them wish they hadn’t been, if you get what I mean.

A family-type gin mill was going strong on the corner. Everybody had a package on including the bartender and they were all huddled together giving some Irish ballads a working over. Nobody noticed me slip into the phone booth and nobody cared.

I got the Lyncastle News office first and the night editor gave me Logan’s home number. It took five minutes of steady ringing to wake him up and he wasn’t the happiest sounding person I’d ever talked to. He barked, “Who the hell is this and what d’ya want?”

“It’s Johnny, kid. Got some news for you if you’re interested.”

His voice tightened up. “Find her?”

“Nope. Somebody found me. I got taken for a ride.”

“God! What happened?”

“There’s a quarry of some kind outside of town. Know where it is?”

“Yeah, yeah. What about it?”

“There’s two bodies down there. The third got away from me.”

“Did you...” He hung there expectantly.

“I did one, friend. The other was knocked off by his buddy. The third lad is going to carry the story home and we better get our licks in first.”

“Johnny, this is going to be rough. Lindsey’ll love it.”

“Uh-uh. Not if we handle it right. Whoever put them on me can’t talk without exposing himself and there’s no reason why I should get tied into it. Can you keep it quiet?”

“I sure can try. I’ll round up the boys and get out there now.”

“Good. See if you can find out who they are. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they were hauling in ringers now,” I said dryly.

“They?”

“Yeah. It goes back a long way, friend, but it’s just now paying off. Somebody is scared silly. I’ll call you in the morning. By the way... they used a stolen car. I left it in front of police headquarters.”

“You’re a damn fool, Johnny!”

“Everybody keeps telling me that. Someday I’ll believe it. One more thing before I forget. ”Servo’s got a red-headed tomato up his place. Who is she?”

“Slow down, Johnny. You haven’t been fooling around with her, have you?”

“Not exactly. The pleasure was all hers.”

He said a couple of nasty words under his breath. “You’re just looking to get killed, aren’t you?”

“That’s not the question.”

“If you gotta know, her name is Troy Avalard.”

“The hell with her name. What about her?”

“She’s been living with Lenny for a couple of years. She came through with a show one time, made a big play for Lenny and he bought out her contract to keep her around.”

“You know how he does it?”

“I’ve heard.”

“Doesn’t she ever get out?”

He didn’t answer right away. I could hear his fingernails rattle against the phone impatiently. “When she’s out Lenny’s with her,” he said. “Troy’s a good hand at steering a sucker who’s loaded with dough to a dice table.”

“A nice friendly gesture that helps out Lenny’s friends, is that it?”

“Sort of.”

“Who held her contract, Logan?”

I hit him with the question so fast he choked over a curse. When he got his voice back it was soft with amazement. “You should have been a cop. Sure as hell you should have been a cop. You can smell out the damndest things.”

“Yeah?”

“Lenny paid fifty grand for that contract. It was supposed to be a hush-hush deal but it got noised around. That’s too much cash to hand out for a chunk of sex so I checked on it. The guy who held the contract sold it for five.”