Mickey Spillane - The Killing Man

She took her hands down now, settling back in her chair. Her head tilted slightly and she gave me that odd stare again. "See . . . that's the other thing about you that's puzzling."

This time I waited.

"Someone wanted to kill you. Most likely he still wants to kill you and you don't seem to be scared a bit."

"Don't fool yourself."

"You're scared?"

"Not the way you'd count scared. I'm cautious. And you have to be alive to be scared."

"That's a thought."

"I'll give you another," I said. "Be scared, but don't let your hand shake."

"Later I'll ask you to explain that." She snapped her pocketbook open and pulled out a vanity, glanced at the mirror and put it back.

"Later?"

"After you take me home," she said impishly.

They forget sometimes, these beautiful women. There are times when they can lift their skirts up to their eyebrows and nobody will even blink because they did it in the dark, and right then my eyes were closed.

When the cab pulled up to her building and the doorman did his little sprint, I said, "When your hand shakes, you miss the target, kitten."

She glanced at me, frowning, and asked, "Is your hand shaking?"

"It doesn't matter, honey. I'm not aiming."

I kissed the tip of my finger and stuck it on the end of her nose.

This time she smiled and got out of the cab. It wasn't an impish smile at all.

7

The workout at Bing's Gym let me tear at something physical for a change. Weight machines were enemies I could push and shove at, my jaws clamped hard in the effort. I could pound at the heavy bag and rap the hell out of the light one, and even if it wasn't the real thing, there was something therapeutic about it that made me feel better.

I would have kept it up, but Bing reminded me that I was overdoing it for this session and ushered me into the steam room with a towel wrapped around my middle. Nobody else was there, so I sat and let my mind drift through the details of an old hardcase being mutilated and killed in my office.

One lousy murder and the whole world fell apart. The DA's office is in, the FBI is in, the CIA is in, the State Department is in, because a guy they call Penta took out a wacko hood. And that put me in too.

But there was one thing that only I knew for absolute certainty . . . I really wasn't in at all. There was no way at all that I could have any involvement with the killer. Even if he was the Penta everybody was after, he was after nobody else except DiCica. It sure as hell wasn't me.

Question. Which DiCica? The old hit man he was before he had memory smashed out of his skull? In that case, the motive was pure revenge. But why wait so long? DiCica hadn't been in hiding. Even the mob boys knew where he was. Right now Pat would have his inquiries in the works and Petey would be working from another end. Something could show up here . . . possibly.

DiCica with his memory back could be something else. The mob didn't care about him as a person. All they wanted was what he had that could bring pressure on their organization. They could kill him, but that left his information liable to a possible discovery. Their misconception that he had contacted me for assistance meant that they didn't order the kill.

So . . . another part of the organization, an upstart group or person wanting to get control or possibly another family entirely, knew DiCica had flashes of memory recall and went after him.

In that case, did the torture session get it out of him?

Who set up the appointment to meet me in my office? Could that have been legitimate and the guy scared off by the action that day? Logical and possible.

The screwy thing was the trademark mutilation by somebody named Penta our government and the British government seemed to know all about, and it sure wasn't likely that someone in the mob circles was able to contact anybody working on Penta's level.

I let it run through my mind again and the only answer I could come up with was that somebody had picked up some stray facts about Penta and did a duplicate, but more elaborate job of mutilation on the DiCica kill to throw in the most beautiful red herring I ever saw.

And I still was in the middle of it.

After a shower I got dressed and grabbed a cab to the hospital. This time the overnight parkers had left cleared space and there was no Mercedes parked with wheels turned away from the curb. Oddly, I wondered what my muggers' options would have been if I had grabbed a cab at the entrance that night.

Downstairs I picked up a vase of flowers, took the elevator up to Velda's floor and walked to the desk. For one second I almost dropped the flowers. Pat was there talking to Burke Reedey and all I could think of was something had happened to Velda. When he half turned, saw me and nodded agreeably, I knew there was no trouble.

"What're you doing here?" I asked him.

"Same as you, pal, bringing flowers to a friend." But he knew what I had been thinking and added, "She's okay."

I glanced at Burke for confirmation and he grinned. "It's a good recovery, Mike. We had her for some other tests this morning and the prognosis looks fine."

"Can I see her?"

"Sure, but she's asleep. Leave your flowers and we'll tell her you were here."

Even though the cop on the door saw me talking to Pat, he waited for him to nod okay before he let me in. I put the flowers down quietly, then stood beside the bed watching her. The swelling had gone down some and the discoloration had taken on a different hue, but the improvement was noticeable. Her breathing was strong and regular, and I said, "Sleep well, kitten," in a barely audible whisper.

Pat and I found the visitor's lounge, got some coffee and a table away from the main crowd. "You look like something's bugging you," I said.

"I spoke to Ray Wilson this morning."

"And now I'm in deep shit, I suppose."

"No more than usual."

"What's the beef then?"

"Just cool the use of departmental facilities, Mike. The word has come in loud and clear. This Penta business is being taken out of our hands."

"The hell it is," I told him. "The DiCica murder comes under NYPD jurisdiction."

"Not when Uncle Sammy thinks otherwise."

"So why tell me about it?"

"Because you're still the fly in the ointment. You're a principal in the case and even though you're licensed under the state laws, you're still a civilian, a US citizen, and there's nobody harder to keep quiet than one of our own."

"You can do better than that, Pat."

"Okay, our CIA pal, Lewis Ferguson, has asked for an audience in" -- he looked at his watch -- "forty-five minutes."

"Where?"

"In one of those cute little places the State Department reserves for quiet conferences. Take your time. Finish your coffee."

Pat had an unmarked car and we drove up Sixth Avenue to the Fifties, parked in a public garage and went into the side entrance of the half-block-wide building. The elevator took us up to the ninth floor and we turned left to the frosted glass doors marked SUTTERLIN ASSOCIATES, ARCHITECTS.

Inside, a glass booth surrounded the receptionist, and when Pat spoke to her through the cutout in the window, she told us to wait, spoke into the phone, and a minute later a young guy in a business suit with the body language of the State Department came out, ushered us down the hallway and knocked on an unlabeled door, waited for the buzzer to click it open and waved us in.

Bennett Bradley and Ferguson were there already, Bradley behind his desk and Ferguson pacing beside him, ignoring three chairs already positioned. There was no handshaking, just perfunctory nods, and we all sat down at once.

Bradley didn't waste any time. He leaned forward on his desk, his fingers clasped together, the expression on his face as if his shorts were too tight. "Gentlemen," he started, "before we begin, I want it understood that this meeting, and what is said here, is strictly confidential. Three of us represent government agencies and understand that position, so to you, Mr. Hammer, I want to make myself clear. Is that understood?"