Микки Спиллейн - The Long Wait

A light drizzle had put a slick on the streets. Off in the west, sheet lightning turned the sky a dull orange momentarily and seconds later there was a faint rumble of thunder. I stepped up my pace until I got back to the car, then sat there deciding where to go. A kid in a green sweater came along with a batch of papers under his arm, turned into the gin mill and made the rounds. When he came out I called him over and asked him where the Circus Bar was. He told me it was straight down the avenue and I couldn’t miss it because there were pink elephants painted across the windows. I bought a paper, flipped him a quarter and rolled away from the curb.

The Circus Bar was back-to-back with the Lyncastle News building and for all its fancy name, it was strictly a place for reporters and linotype men. There must have been twenty phones on the bar with half of them in use. It was between shifts and eyerybody but the reporters were either having one for the road or a pre-work quickie.

It didn’t take me long to find Logan. He was all the way down at the back of the bar with a phone pressed against his mouth, shifting around every second or so to keep from being overheard. He saw me the same time I saw him, slammed the phone back and grabbed me on the run.

“Come on, if you want to see me you can do it while we ride.” He yelled so long to a couple of people and hustled me outside. I climbed in the Chevvy with him and waited until we had backed out to the street and turned around.

“Where we going?”

“Item for my column. Some jane got bumped.”

I let out a whistle. “Who?”

“Don’t know. A guy that tips me to these things just called in about it. There’s a dead woman in a hotel over by the river. The way Lindsey and the coroner operate, they won’t give out any details to the press for a week unless we’re right on the spot when they arrive. What have you been up to all day?”

“I’ve been visiting with friend Lindsey,” I said. Logan’s eyes drifted to mine for a second, then went back to the road. The wipers buzzed steadily, keeping time to the hum of the wheels.

“What’d he want?”

“He had a couple of experts with him. They wanted to bring my prints out.”

“So?”

I hunched my shoulders in a shrug. “So they couldn’t do it.”

“George Wilson’s as dead as Johnny McBride then, isn’t he?”

“Looks that way.”

Logan wrenched the wheel over and sent the car skittering around a curve onto a gravel drive. Up ahead was a ramshackle wood frame building with a veranda that ran completely around the place. He stopped, backed into a parking area and nodded for me to get out.

Over the door a sign read “Pine Tree Gardens.” There was an old pickup truck around the side, but nobody seemed to be around. Logan started up the steps and pushed the bell. “This used to be a fairly decent boarding house. It’s next door to a flophouse now.”

The dirty curtain that stretched the length of the door inched to one side and a pair of eyes took us in. Something like relief showed in the face and the door creaked open. The guy standing there biting his lips said, “Geez, Mr. Logan, this sure is trouble. I don’t know whatta do.”

“Did you call the police yet?”

“No, no, no! I didn’t do nothing ’cept tell Howie and he said he’d call you. Geez, Mr. Logan...”

“Where is she?”

“Upstairs. Second room on the front. You want to look, you go ahead. I ain’t going in no dead room.”

We went inside through a foyer, up the stairs and the guy waved toward the only door on the floor. Logan said, “There?”

“Yeah.”

I went in behind him. It was a shabby room with an old-fashioned brass bed, a couple of ratty chairs and a dresser. The closet doors were open, the windows were open and the dead woman lay stretched out in the middle of the bed with her head still cradled on her arm. Somebody had planted a knife in her back right through the bedclothes and she died so fast she didn’t even bother to bleed.

Logan let out a coarse shudder. “Right through the heart it looks like. Neat job. Missed the ribs so there was no trouble working the knife out.”

“All that in one glance,” I said sarcastically.

“I’ve seen as many of these as Lindsey has. Where’s that guy?”

“Waiting in the hall.”

Logan swung around and went back to the door. He yelled, “Who is she, Mac?”

“Name’s Inez Casey. She and some other broad have that room together. They’re waitresses someplace. Work shifts in the same joint.”

“You stay here?”

“Downstairs. Yesterday they told me they wanted a window fixed so I came up to fix it. I found... her... there like that.”

Logan grunted something and came back in the room. I was on my knees looking at the babe’s face and he knelt down beside me. “She wasn’t a bad-looking tomato,” I said. “What do you make of it?”

He got up with a shrug and felt her arm. “Hell, who knows? Things like this keep happening in this town now. Probably a love angle in it. The dames they get for waitresses in the joints around here are never too careful who they fool around with. Good knife job, though.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “it has a regular professional touch. Whoever did it knew where to place that shiv. Didn’t even have to feel around for the spot.”

Logan shuddered again. “I’m going to call Lindsey.”

“I’ll wait outside,” I said. “He won’t be too happy to see me around.”

So I sat in the car and Lindsey didn’t see me. Neither did Tucker nor the two plain-clothes men nor the fat little coroner. The D. A. came in last and left first. He didn’t see me either. Almost an hour later Logan came back and got in under the wheel. I asked, “What’s the decision?”

“Stabbed. Unknown assailant. Lindsey was on the phone most of the time and picked up a few details. She worked in the ABC Diner out along the highway. Her roommate is there now. There’s a couple of guys involved but nobody knows their names.”

“Not even the roommate?”

“Nope. It’s a fairly recent thing and they don’t seem to get much time together to talk over love affairs. Evidently she met them both in the diner and has been playing them along. The past week she’s been going strong for this one joe and broke off with the other one after some sort of a fuss. Lindsey’ll track ’em down. Won’t take long.”

“Not much of a story, is there?”

Logan wrinkled his mouth. “Not for my column.”

“I was doing a lot of thinking while I waited for you,” I said.

He looked at me without speaking.

I said, “She didn’t move when she was killed.”

“Hell, she got it right through the heart. She died instantly.”

I made like I hadn’t heard him at all. “She was on her belly with her face buried in her arm.”

“What about it?” he demanded impatiently.

I grinned at him, then let out a short laugh. “Don’t pay any attention to me, Logan. Wild ideas, I guess. I wish I knew where the hell I get them.”

He turned the key and started the engine. Tucker was pulling away in a police car and we stayed behind him to the highway. On the concrete the police heap turned on the siren and picked up speed. Logan didn’t bother to keep up with him.

Right on the edge of town Logan said, “Hey... almost forgot. You see the paper tonight?”

“I bought one, but I didn’t read it. Why?”

“Take a look in the personal column.”

I scowled at him then pulled the paper out from behind my back. When I found the personal section I held it under the dash light and fingered my way down the column. Next to last from the bottom were two lines that read: J. Mc call 5492 at 11 P. M. Urgent.