Mickey Spillane - Survival... ZERO!

It was an old block, a hangover from a century of an orgy of progress, a four-storied chasm with feeble yellow eyes to show that there still was a pulse beat somewhere behind the crumbling brownstone facades. Halfway down the street a handful of kids were playing craps under an overhead light and on the other side a pair of drifters were shuffling toward Ninth. It wasn't the kind of street you bothered to sit around and watch at night. It was one you wanted to get away from.

I flashed a quick look at the rooftops and the areaways under the stoops when I reached Lippy's old place, found nothing and spotted Velda in the doorway across the street. I gave her the "wait and see" signal, then took the sandstone steps two at a time, the .45 in my hand.

A 25-watt bulb hung from a dropcord in the ceiling of the vestibule and I reached up and unscrewed it, making sure I had my distance and direction to the right door clear in my mind. The darkness would have been complete except for the pale glow that seeped out from under the super's door, but it was enough. His TV was on loud enough to cover any sound my feet might make and I went past his apartment to Lippy's and tried the knob.

The door was locked.

I took one step back, planted myself and thumbed the hammer back on the rod. Then I took a running hop, smashed the door open with my foot and went rolling inside taking furniture with me that was briefly outlined in the white blast of a gunshot that sent a slug ripping into the floor beside my head.

My hand tightened on the butt of the .45 and blew the darkness apart while I was skittering in a different direction, the wild thunder of the shot echoing around the room. Glass crashed from the far end and a chair went over, then running legs hit me when I was halfway up, fell and I had my hands on his neck, wrenched him back and banged two fast rights into his ear and heard him let out a choked yell. Whoever he was, he was big and strong and wrenched out of my hands, his arms flailing. I swung with the gun, felt the sight rip into flesh and skull bone. It was almost enough and I would have had him the next time around, but the beam of a pencil flash hit me in the face and there was a dull, clicking sound against the top of my head and all the strength went out of me in one full gush.

A faraway voice said almost indistinctly, "Get up so I can kill him!" But then there were two popping sounds, a muffled curse, and I lay there in the dreary state of semiconsciousness knowing something was happening without knowing or caring what until a hazy dawn of artificial light made everything finally come into misty focus that solidified into specific little objects I could recognize.

"Velda said, "You stupid jerk."

"Don't be redundant," I told her. "Where are they?"

"Out. Gone. The back window was open for a secondary exit and they used it. If I hadn't fired coming into the building you would have been dead by now."

The yelling and screaming of the fun watchers on the street were coming closer and a siren was whining to a stop in front of the house. I pushed myself to a sitting position, saw the .45 on the floor and reached for it. I thumbed out the clip, ejected the live slug in the breech, caught it and slid it back into the clip, then reloaded the piece and stuck it back in the holster. "You see them?" I asked.

"No."

I took a quick look around the room before they all came in. The place was a shambles. Even the paper had been torn off the walls. "Somebody else figured it out too," I said.

"What were they after, Mike?"

"Something pretty easily hidden," I told her.

CHAPTER 6

Pat came in while they were taking my statement, listened impassively as I detailed the events at Lippy's place and when I signed the sheets, walked over and threw a leg over the edge of the desk. "You can't keep your nose clean, can you?"

"You ought to be happy about extra diversions from what I hear," I said.

"Not your kind." Pat glanced sidewise at Velda. "Why didn't you call for a squad car?"

Velda threw him an amused smile. "I wanted to be subtle about it. Besides, I wouldn't want to get fired."

I said, "Why the beef, Pat? We interrupted a simple break in and attempted robbery."

"Like hell you did."

"Nothing illegal about it. Any citizen could pull it off."

"You managed to goof," he reminded me. "They got away."

"They didn't get what they were after."

"What were they after, Mike?"

I gave a meaningless shrug.

Pat picked up a pencil and twirled it in his fingers. Let's have it, Mike," he said softly.

"Lippy was right, Pat. He got killed for no reason at all. He was a hardworking slob who made friends with some dip working the area and took him into the rooming house with him. That's the one they were after."

Pat's eyes half closed, watching me closely. "Something was in one of those wallets . . ."

"Maybe not," I said. "Apparently the guy was with Lippy a few weeks before Lippy got onto him and booted him out. That bunch of wallets was probably just his last day's take. You know who they all belonged to."

"And one guy was Woody Ballinger."

"Yeah, I know."

"Keep talking," Pat said.

"How many good pickpockets do you know who never took a fall?"

"They all do sooner or later."

"None of the prints you picked up from the apartment got any action, did they?"

Pat's lips twisted in a grin. "You're guessing, but you're right. The set we sent to Washington turned out negative. No record of them anywhere, not even military."

"That gives us one lead then," I said. "Most people stay within their own age groups, so he was a 4-F in his late forties."

"Great," Pat said.

"And without a record, maybe he wasn't a regular practicing dip at all. Somebody could have been after him for what he did before he took up the profession."

"That still leaves us with nothing."

"Oh, we have something, all right," I said. "Like what?" Pat asked me.

"Like what they didn't get yet. They'll keep looking." The other two cops and the steno collected their papers, nodded to Pat and left the three of us alone in the room. Pat swung off the desk in that lazy way he had and stared out the window. Finally he said, "We haven't got time to throw any manpower into this right now." There was something tight in his voice. I felt Velda's eyes on me, but didn't react. "I know."

"You be damn careful, Mike. My neck's out now too."

"No sweat." I lit a cigarette and tossed the match in the wastebasket. "Any progress yet?" He didn't look at me. "No."

"The lid on pretty tight?"

"Nothing will ever be tighter." He took a deep breath and turned around. In the backlight from the window his face looked drawn. "If you turn up anything, keep in touch. We still have a primary job to do."

"Sure, Pat."

I picked up my hat and reached for Velda's arm. I knew the question was on her lips, but she said nothing except for a so long to Pat. When we got down on the street to hunt up a cab she asked evenly, "What was that all about?"

It was a nice night for New York. The wind had cleaned the smog out of the skies and you could see the stars. Kids walked by holding hands, traffic was idling along and behind the lighted widows families would be watching the late news. Only nobody was telling them that

the biggest news of all they wouldn't want to hear. They were all living in wonderful ignorance, not knowing that they might be living their last night. For one second I wished I was in the same boat as they were.

I took Velda's hand and started across the street to intercept a cab going north. "Just some departmental business," I said. "Nothing important."

But she knew I was lying. There was a sadness in the small smile she gave me and her hand was flaccid in mine. Keeping details from Velda wasn't something I was used to doing. Not too long ago she had taken a pair of killers off my back without a second's hesitation. Now she was thinking that I couldn't trust her.