Mickey Spillane - Kiss Her Goodbye

"Unless its pieces are mixed in with all those others."

"Bingo, baby."

"So what now?"

"Now I think I'd like to get cleaned up."

"I think I'd like to see you cleaned up."

I gave her a funny look. "I don't know, though—I can't quite buy you as a blonde."

She pretended to take offense. "Really? I was a blonde when we met."

"Yeah, you were an undercover policewoman and I damn near ruined everything trying to save your pretty behind."

"I didn't mind. That guy needed killing anyway."

Memories.

"So," she shrugged, "maybe blondes don't have more fun."

And she grabbed at the scalp of the ash blonde hair and yanked it off. She tossed the wig with the rest of the odds and ends scattered around the office floor, and unpinned all that black, auburn-highlighted hair and shook it and shook it and shook it some more ... then smoothed it some.

Then there she was—Velda.

With that timeless pageboy and those beautiful brown eyes and a mouth that fed your hunger even as it encouraged you to sup some more.

"Baby...," I said, and was reaching for her.

"First you get cleaned up," she said. She shook a finger at me. "And maybe buy a girl a meal. You don't think I'm easy, do you?"

She had left a suitcase out on the landing, and we collected that and caught a cab to the Commodore. When I took her up to my room, and she saw that it was the Honeymoon Suite, she started laughing, but managed to blurt, "You gotta be kidding me!"

"Hey, you know I'm a sensual slob."

She gave me a narrow-eyed look, hands on her raincoated hips. "Have you been having fun while I was away?"

I ignored that and pointed. "There's a hot tub in there. Big enough for two. You had a long plane trip. Maybe we could ... wash away each other's sins?"

She came over and wrapped her arms around me and gave me a short but sweet kiss. "I don't think they have enough soap for that. But it's not a bad idea."

That was when the goddamn phone rang.

Velda said, "A buck says it's Pat."

"No bet."

It was Pat.

"Mike, where were you this afternoon?"

"At Cummings's office going through more files. Why?"

"Have you heard about the raid on the Y and S social club?"

"Yeah. Who'd have thought in this day and age those guineas would go back to the mattresses."

"Mike ... we found a lot of .45 shells there."

"No kidding."

"No kidding. I put a rush through ballistics on them. Some came from an old grease gun, World War II era. Strictly illegal weapon. The others came from a Colt .45."

"Do tell."

"I thought sure it would match up with yours on file. But it didn't."

"I could have told you that."

"Somehow I think you could. It did match up to another weapon on file. The .45 used at the Y and S Club belonged to Bill Doolan. Somebody in that shoot-out was using Bill Doolan's piece, Mike. Who do you think that could have been?"

"Probably not Doolan."

His sigh was inevitable. "If the forensics guys didn't say that massacre likely involved an invading force of around ten, I would haul your ass to Centre Street."

"If elephants had wings, hats would get popular again. Where are you calling from? Are you outside?"

"Yeah, this is a public phone. I'm around the corner from Club 52. You might want to get over here and have a look. I think you'll be interested."

"Why?"

"Somebody just killed Tony Tret."

We had to postpone the hot tub, but I did take a quick shower and Velda laid out clean clothes for me. I switched back to my own .45 for the shoulder sling, and told Velda to go downstairs after I left and put Doolan's gun—which I'd borrowed from his private stash in the old desk at his apartment—in a manila envelope and have it stowed in the hotel safe.

"I'm not going with you?" she asked.

"No. I want a better sense of who's doing the shooting before I risk putting you back on the firing line."

"If you say so. But I am a big girl."

"And in all the right places. Do keep that little .32 of yours handy. People have been dropping in on me at this hotel with more in mind than leaving a mint on my pillow."

"Got it."

So I was in the trench coat and my dry-cleaned suit with my hat only mildly spattered with remnants of my afternoon at the Y and S. I would get a new porkpie soon enough. Right now I had a cab to catch.

The rain was gone but its memory endured in the slick black patent-leather look of the sidewalks and streets. I grabbed a cab and fifteen minutes later got dropped at where yellow police sawhorses cut off Club 52's block. The only crowd in front of the art deco marquee tonight was police-oriented—an ambulance, four black-and-whites, Pat's unmarked Ford—and the only people playing dress-up were uniformed cops and E.M.T.s.

They were loading the long, lumpy rubber bag into the ambulance when I strolled up to where Pat was watching the procedure. "Do I need a look at him?"

Pat shook his head. "Not much to see." He pointed across the way at an office building. "It was a rifle shot from the fourth window over, on the tenth floor."

"He got shot right here, out on the street, in front of the club?"

The Homicide captain nodded. "While he was picking out tonight's lucky customers from the crowd." His eyes went to the office building again. "We've already been up there. Empty office space."

"Night watchmen?"

"Six empty floors get a cursory inspection, twice a night. Whoever did this had a little eagle's nest setup. Regular Oswald routine. We found nothing but the three spent shells."

"Three?"

"Yeah, took the shooter three tries. The third one went in small and came out big, splattered a security guy pretty good." Pat sighed. "They were lucky it was a rainy night, and the crowd unusually small. Otherwise, those other two shots might have taken out a clubber or two."

"Have you released the crowd?"

"Yeah. We took names. I didn't see any need for holding them here. They saw nothing."

"What about the security guys?"

"They're still inside."

"Mind if I step in there?"

"What for?"

"Maybe I want to pick up a souvenir swizzle stick."

He grabbed my arm—not hard, not exactly friendly. "Mike—what's going on? I'm trying to tell myself you had nothing to do with that slaughter this afternoon. But even without that, the body count is getting out of hand. What kind of war is this?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"Mike...."

"Pat, you'll be the first to know."

"Will I?"

"Okay—the second." I grinned at him.

He couldn't help it—he grinned back. Where would he be without me to do his dirty work?

The lights were up inside Club 52 and its magical world was revealed as the old theater it had once been, all its renovations designed only to work in the near dark. The club was a blowsy woman wearing a lot of flashy makeup, hoping to get picked up before last call and the lights coming on.

Chrome was on stage.

Not performing, sitting backward on a white caneback chair, like Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel. She was in an electric blue version of that midriff-baring outfit she'd done her disco thing in the other night—the blue against her naturally tan skin made a stark contrast. Nobody was up there with her. The drum kit on its riser, the synthesizer, a guitar on a stand, a few amps. But her Colombian "musicians" were M.I.A.

I walked across the plexiglass dance floor where a pair of bare-chested bartenders were sweeping up, a strangely pitiful sight. Normally the stairs at the far side of the stage were blocked by security staff, but not now. I was able to go right up there.

"Hi, honey," I said, depositing myself before her.

She looked up. Her makeup had run, and the big brown almond-shaped eyes had the same raccoon look as that little, mostly naked kid in the cellar at the Y and S. The platinum mane was in disarray. "Mike. Oh, Mike, what a terrible night is this."