Mickey Spillane - The Killing Man

So he'd search. First the rooms, then for less obvious places.

I was running like hell, the .45 in my hand. I got to the house and stayed on the grass, edging to the back. The lock would have been easy enough for a pro to open. Or he could have knocked a pane out of the door window, reached in and turned the knob. That didn't matter. What mattered was that he was in there.

My feet felt the gravel and I stepped over it, got to the window and pushed it up. This was the one time I could die in a hurry, but the window went easily, he wasn't in the room and I slid in as silently as my shadow.

In the living room the firelight was dancing, throwing a dull orange glow over the place, the sound of the logs burning obscuring any small sounds I might have heard. I stepped out into the weird patterns the fire was making on the walls, listened again, then got down almost to my knees and started an animal crawl across the room.

The beam of a pencil flash made a quick splash of light around the corner. Then I heard it, the drag of chair legs across the floor. A hand suddenly slammed against the ceiling and he laughed. The bastard laughed!

I went in just as I heard a muffled scream from Velda and there in the dim, weaving light patterns were a pair of male legs sticking down from the attic opening, slowly going up as he raised himself with his arms.

For a second I was going to snatch him down. I changed my mind.

I cocked the .45, took real deliberate aim and touched the trigger. The gun blasted into a roaring yellowish light and for that one second I saw the leg jerk and twitch with a grotesque motion, and even before he could scream, I did it again to the other leg and the whole man came tumbling out of the ceiling opening, his hand still holding onto Velda, pulling her down with him.

My foot kicked him to one side, and I pulled Velda to her feet so we both could look down at Bradley. The impact of the slugs had shocked him almost breathless. Then the pain really hit him. His hands reached out, clawing wildly. He looked up at me with eyes so full of hate they seemed nearly black.

Quietly, I said, "He was your brother, wasn't he?"

He started to go wild then, thrashing his body in fury and pain, still trying to drag himself away. He was leaving a trail of blood behind and his face was tight with a screaming grimace. "My twin, you bastard! You killed my twin brother. You killed me, you rotten . . ."

I leaned down and put the muzzle of the .45 directly against Bradley's forehead. "If I do," I told him, "I'll cut off more than your fingers, Penta. I'll do it with your own knife."

Velda was standing there, not interfering, coldly observing.

I said, "There's a CB radio in the car, doll. The state troopers guard Channel Nine. Call them."

She nodded once and went to the door.

I was grinning down at Bradley. I wondered what the State Department was going to say. In a way it was too bad he was going back alive. The publicity was going to be terrible. It was going to louse up the big story that would put the NYPD on top and give Ray Wilson a glory sendoff and make Candace president some day.

The grin got to him. I was grinning at him the way I had at his brother back in the courtroom. Suddenly his body wrenched into spasms. He started ripping his clothes and screamed, "You killed me!" He glanced down and was ripping at his clothes again and screamed, "You killed me!"

"Not yet," I told him. He tried to twitch his head away from the gun, but I held it on him. He had thrashed around so he was pointing away from me, blood spatters streaking the wall. I felt some of it on my face and grinned again.

His hands were trying to reach his shattered legs, the agony foaming at his mouth. He saw my grin again and choked out another scream, making it into words. "You killed my brother and you killed me!"

Then he found the small-caliber pistol his hands had really been groping for and brought it up in a sweeping, deadly arc, one finger tightening around the trigger.

There was one smashing roar of the .45. His blood went all over the place. Fresh specks of crimson were on the back of my hand. I stood up slowly and gave him a hard grin he couldn't see any more.

I said, " Now I killed you, you shit."