Mickey Spillane - The Killing Man

Velda was sitting on the edge of her chair. "It's going down?"

"Bradley and Candace Amory have located the site. Pat said there's a political problem."

"What kind?"

"He didn't say, but it sounds like an inter-agency squabble. Bennett Bradley is going to handle it, and he damn well better be a good diplomat on this one. A hit like this is so big everybody wants a cut of it."

"Damn," she said, "can they mess it up?"

"They can mess up a headhunter's picnic."

"What do we do?"

"Wait . . . and hope they can keep a lid on this."

She looked at me very seriously, her lower lip clenched between her teeth. "This isn't the way it's supposed to be, is it?"

"No."

"There's trouble. You can feel it too, can't you?"

I nodded. It was like that first Saturday when it all started. It was the way the big city so far away was able to swallow its victims and make them disappear without anyone knowing or caring.

The mountain shadow was coming down again.

I fixed coffee and sandwiches for the guys outside, gave them a fast call and Eddie came in, picked up supper for them both and went back to his vigil. Velda and I had a snack and went back to TV, staying on the local New York channel. So far nothing had happened.

At nine o'clock the weather predictions came true. The cold front had come in on schedule and was making itself felt. Velda pulled the blanket up to her neck and shivered.

"Want me to make a fire?"

"That would be nice."

I got the logs together and laid them up on the firedogs, stuffing some loose kindling under them, making a nice neat arrangement. "This is stupid," I said.

"Why?"

"Trying to keep comfortable while a damn killer's playing a game with us."

"It was his game, Mike."

"The slob didn't have to leave that note."

"Yes, he did."

"Why? Explain that. Why?"

"Mike . . . how did you kill him?"

I stood up and looked around the mantelpiece. "You see a can of fire starter around?"

"No. You didn't answer me."

"Screw it." I looked on both sides of the fireplace.

"Use the newspapers," she told me.

They were neatly stacked against the wall, about two weeks' worth of The New York Times. I grabbed a handful, squatted down and began stripping the pages out, twisting them into cylinders to go under the kindling.

I used up one day's edition and pulled the second one over and nearly ripped the front page off when the thing popped right off the page at me, a two-column photo of a face I hadn't seen in four years and an accompanying article headlined FRANCISCO DUVALLE DIES TONIGHT.

And now, Francisco DuValle was already dead.

"What is it, Mike?"

"They finally executed DuValle," I said.

She took the paper from my hand and read the article. "He had appealed the death sentence for four years. They just came to an end."

"It was my testimony that decided the case. Remember?"

"The verdict was justified. He was a deliberate murderer."

I took the page back and stared at the photo. The face seemed expressionless unless you knew him, because behind the black mask of a heavy, pointed Vandyke beard and an unruly mop of hair that swept forward across his forehead, there was anger and hatred that had erupted into fourteen murders. The eyes appeared flat, but in court they glistened and burned at anybody who had accused him.

When I was on the stand identifying him, they tried to eat me alive. He sat there, tight with controlled anger, not caring that what I said was true, but that his pleasure in the death act had been taken from him. I should have shot him instead of coldcocking him when he made that last attack on the girl, but I hadn't realized who I was taking out.

As I left the stand he said very softly, "You'll die, Hammer. I'll kill you." The guys in the press box heard it and a couple even reported it.

Velda was watching my face as I studied the picture. I could feel myself getting tight as DuValle's soft voice came back to me. My teeth were clenched so tight my jaws ached and she said, "What is it, Mike?"

I turned the page toward her. "Familiar?"

"Only from the court. I was there at the sentencing."

I frowned and said, "Of course . . . how could you see a connection? You only had a short contact and that under stress."

She still didn't get it. "With whom?"

"Have you got any of that makeup they use to cover up your black eye?"

"Erase? It's in my pocketbook."

"Get it."

She brought the tube over and uncapped it. It was a soft white creamy stick, and I laid the paper on the floor and used it on the photo. Carefully, I wiped off the Van Dyke, then took off the mop of hair. Now Duvalle was bald-headed, clean-shaven, and when I trimmed back the ends of the droopy adornment on his upper lip to form a conservative-style mustache, Velda saw the incredible similarity too.

She said, "It's Bennett Bradley."

"No," I told her. "It's Francisco DuValle. They're brothers."

"Mike . . . you'd better be sure."

"I'm sure, doll." I took another long look at the doctored photograph and said, "Penta. I finally got that bastard on the surface."

Francisco DuValle had said it, and Bradley had heard of it, and how he had to do it. You die for killing me.

All this time I had played myself for being the innocent bystander when I was the prime target. I had gone off on a wild-assed goose chase, putting Tony DiCica in the middle and getting one hell of a haul of coke and a possible presidential candidate when all the time the slob I wanted who damn near wiped out Velda was standing right there in front of me.

Stupid. I was stupid. And Bradley-Penta loved the chase. It got everybody involved and took all the heat off him. He could operate any way he wanted and all the blame would go in a different direction.

"How could it happen, Mike?"

"Maybe there was a genetic similarity, kitten. Both of them were cold killers. They made a damn study of the subject and killing became part of their lives. They just had different targets, that's all. DuValle went for the pleasure of killing. It was a sensual thing with him. He got off on each murder, enjoying the entire, senseless act. He was hard to run down because there was no motive except pleasure, like so many of the other serial killers."

"But Bradley, he made a profession out of it. Imagine the audacity of a man like that who could promote himself through the ranks to a position in the State Department. Damn!"

Velda couldn't quite comprehend it. She said, "But State would run a check on him, Mike, they don't simply-"

"Kid, his name most likely is Bradley. His early background could pass inspection, and no one knew about his current activities. He came in as an expert on Penta. Certainly he knew all about him. He could make his case histories look great, almost coming down on the guy, nearly nailing him and missing so closely they couldn't afford to let him go."

"You said he had a replacement coming in."

"Sure. He even arranged his own transfer as part of his cover. He was given an assignment to assassinate the vice president of the United States by an unfriendly nation because in his position he could work in those circles. He accepted the contract, probably made some deliberate errors on the Penta job that made State recall him, and got reassigned here."

"There was no attempt made on the vice president's life, Mike."

"No, because before he could lay the groundwork, they executed his brother and his mind went into one of those crazy turns that comes with being out of balance. He flipped, really flipped."

"For the first time he acted out of context. He was going to make his brother's promise come true. He knew about me, knew where I lived and where I worked. He had the whole scenario planned out and made arrangements to meet me that Saturday. His loose point was that he didn't know what I looked like. All he had to do was check a newspaper morgue, and he wouldn't have missed. My photo files are an inch thick. All that expertise he had developed went down the drain because he got emotional about a kill."