Mickey Spillane - Kiss Her Goodbye

"This was lying in the street back there," I said. I handed him the pocketbook.

He looked at me sharply. "You see the accident?"

I told him the truth. "No, I sure didn't."

Being in the accident didn't mean I had to see it.

"You open this purse?"

"No, but maybe you'd better. Some legalities involved, aren't there?"

That got me a frosty look, then he said, "I'll go get the sergeant."

I didn't wait for him to come back.

Two blocks away I looked down at myself. There was a small tear in my pants leg and street dirt on the sleeve of my coat. With all that jostling, I checked to see if the pebble was still in my pocket.

It was.

My hat needed straightening out, but I wouldn't have been taken for an accident victim, not as long as I was up and walking. Not that that mattered—a guy unconscious on the sidewalk would just be a drunk to anyone running where the action was. If there was no blood, there was no hurt, so who needed to stop, in this town?

My side was hurting again, a dull ache that had all the promise of building into a boiling agony if I didn't get back to my medication fast.

But first I had to make sure of something. I found where the car had made the initial contact and I kept on walking. About two hundred feet down, I found the skid marks that curved out from the curb where the driver burned rubber pulling away. Any squeal noise he made would have been buried in the traffic clatter from Sixth Avenue.

It had to be a big car with a big engine that could pick up momentum fast, but the driver was lousy and never took his foot off the pedal long enough to counteract the centrifugal force of the curve.

He had wanted me, but all he got was her.

And I didn't even know her name.

I got up at six-thirty, showered, brushed my teeth, and shaved. I began to come alive when room service got there with my coffee and the News. "I have the Times if you'd like, sir..."

" News is fine," I said.

I signed the bill, fixed my coffee, and opened the paper.

In the photo her body was covered on the stretcher but I wasn't interested in that. The story was brief because she was a nobody who had gotten splattered publicly, a twenty-nine-year-old named Dulcie Thorpe who lived alone in a small East Side apartment. She apparently maintained a nice lifestyle with no visible means of support, no family, and apparently few friends. Her purse had been recovered and had contained a little over six hundred dollars in cash.

So there were still honest cops in New York.

It was strictly a hit-and-run accident and from the damage it did, the car must have been well above the speed limit. No one saw the accident, although several saw a car race by, turn against the light of Fifth, and fly away. One said a headlight was out.

Pat was in when I called, told somebody in his office to close the door, and said, "Well, how are things going, pal?"

"Could be better."

"Yeah?"

"Last night there was a hit-and-run on Forty-seventh right off Fifth."

"Right, a young girl."

"Since when do hit-and-runs hit your desk?"

"It's in the papers this morning. Why?"

"They locate the car, Pat?"

"Beats me."

"Think you can find out?"

"Why?"

"This is where I remind you I'm a taxpayer, and you tell me to go fuck myself and do what I ask anyway."

I heard him breathing hard, then, irritably, he said, "Hang on," and put me on hold.

My coffee was gone and I had finished the paper when he came back on. "Mike...?"

"I'm here."

"It was four blocks away, double-parked outside a bar. The lights and grille were smashed, blood, pieces of flesh, and bits of clothing were in the wreckage. A cabbie parked down the street saw it pull in, a man get out and apparently walk toward the bar. That was all. It was a stolen late-model Caddy and the driver probably wore gloves."

"When was it reported stolen?"

"At eleven P.M. when the police tow-away truck saw what had happened to the front end. They pulled the owner's name from the computer and got him out of bed."

"Who was he?"

"A young doctor who had spent the whole day in surgery at Bellevue."

"And no prints," I said.

"Actually, plenty of 'em, but they all belong to two people—the doctor and his wife." He paused, then added, "It was a real pro job—the entry, hot-wiring, the whole bit. Does this have something to do with you, Mike?"

I let out a little laugh. I could feel Pat stiffen on the other end of the line. My voice sounded strained when I said, "How long have I been back, Pat?"

"Two days."

"Two D.O.A.s."

"Okay, Mike, say it."

"That guy in the car was trying to take me out. He got the girl instead."

"You're not in the report," he said quietly.

"Right, and there's no sense getting me in it either." I took a deep breath, sat in a different position, and told Pat how it had gone down.

When he had mulled it over, he said, "How do you see it?"

"Somebody doesn't appreciate me snooping around. Whether it's Doolan or the Mathes girl that has made me popular, I can't say yet."

"Mike, you were already popular."

"Like with Alberto Bonetti?"

"Hell, man, that makes zero sense. Like old Alberto so cleverly put it to you the other night, he could have had you pickled or fried anytime he wanted to."

"He didn't say it that cleverly, but you have a point.... Shit."

"What?"

"Nothing. These damn pills are still working on me. Give me a while and I'll think this thing through."

"And the answer will come out just the same," he told me. "You were inside a hit-and-run, and came out lucky. Try looking at it that way. You're the one always saying coincidences do happen."

We said so long and hung up.

Suppose, I thought.

Suppose somebody had picked me up coming out of the hotel, tailed me all day trying to figure a way to nail me, watched when the little hooker and I went to that restaurant for supper, and—knowing we'd be there at least an hour—snagged a car, parked, and waited, hoping he'd get a crack at us.

The possibility was limited, but it was a possibility. And if it happened that way, the killer was in a real bind. That "accident" was a murder with the wrong one down, and whoever pulled it would know damn well I'd figure it out.

I felt a grin grow and blossom teeth. Whoever tried to hit me—whether for Doolan or the Mathes kid or both—would have to start all over again.

Only this time I'd be expecting it.

I WALKED TO BING'S Gym to work out the body ache from the love tap that Caddy gave me the night before. Bing's top trainer, Clarence, knew something had happened when he saw the bruises across my back and on my leg.

"Mixing it up already, Mr. Hammer?" Clarence asked. He was a black guy about thirty-five who'd long since retired from the ring. "You ain't been back in the city that long."

"Maybe somebody mistook me for an out-of-towner."

"Well, they gonna learn a lesson, I bet. You better work an easy routine today, on the apparatus."

Bing had taught everybody that word.

But I still worked up a good sweat, and even with the new aches and pains, I was feeling more myself. Clarence made sure I had a good rubdown and a shower before turning me loose. I was still sore, but clean as a whistle, and feeling better than I could remember. I hoofed it back to the hotel to change from my sweatshirt and slacks into a suit and tie, and to dump my gym bag.

I had made some changes. You would think I'd have doubled up on the meds last night, after that hit-and-run scrape. You would be wrong. I stopped taking the pills. I didn't flush them—I just put them away. They were mostly for pain and sleep and something that I suspected was an antidepressant meant to cool me out.