Mickey Spillane - Survival... ZERO!

He half-stepped to intercept me when I came through the glass doors and I said, "Hi, Spud. Do I say hello or salute?"

Spud Henry squinted at me once, then stepped back with a grin that made his face uglier but friendlier and held out a massive paw to grip mine in a crushing handshake. "Mike, you old S.O.B.! How the hell are you?"

"Back to normal when you let go my hand." I laughed at him. "What're you doing here? I thought you had saved your money."

"Hell, man, I sure did, but try retiring around that old lady of mine. She drives me bats. All the time wants me to do somethin' that don't need doin'. Take the garbage out. What garbage out? Who cares, take it out. Paint the bathroom. I just painted the bathroom. The color stinks. Get those kids outa the back yard. Whatta ya mean, get 'em out, they're our kids. Man, don't never get married. It was easier fightin' in the ring."

"How many kids you got, Spud?"

"Twelve."

"How old's the youngest?"

"Two months. Why?"

"Some fighting you do."

Spud gave me a sheepish grin and shrugged. "Well hell, Mike, ya gotta take a rest between rounds, don't ya?" He paused and cocked his head. "What you doin' up this way? I thought you was a side-street type."

"I have to see William Dorn. He in?"

"Sure. Got here a little while ago. He got a crowd up there. Some kind of party?"

"Beats me. What's his apartment?"

"Twenty-two, the east terrace. Real fancy place. Since when you goin' with the swells?"

"Come on, Spud, I got a little class."

"That's big class up there, Mikey boy. Man, what loot, but nice people. Big tippers, always polite, even to me. Just nice people. When the last kid was born he gimme a hundred bucks. One bill with a fat one-zero-zero on it and it was like the days back in the Garden when they used to pay off in brand-new century notes. You want me to announce you?"

"Never mind. He called me. I didn't call him."

"Take that back elevator. It's express. Good to see you, Mike."

"Same here. Tell the missus hello."

I got off at the twenty-second floor into an elaborate gold-scrolled and marble-ornamented vestibule that reeked of wealth only a few ever got to know, turned east to a pair of massive mahogany doors inlaid with intricate carvings and set off with thick polished brass fixtures. I located the tiny bell button set into the frame, pushed it and waited. No sound penetrated through the doors or walls, nothing came up from the street and I didn't hear anything ring. I was about to touch it again when bolts clicked and the door opened and William Dorn stood there, a drink in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other.

His surprise was brief, then he pulled the door open and said, "Mike . . . good to see you. Come in. I didn't know you were on the way up."

I didn't want to get Spud in a jam so I said, "I slipped by the doorman while he was busy. Sneaky habit I can't get out of."

Dorn laughed and closed the door. From the other room a subdued murmur of voices blended into a monotonous hum. I could see the backs and shoulders of a dozen men in quiet conversation and when one looked around I spotted Teddy Finlay with Josef Kudak beside him and a few feet away the six-foot-six beanpole from the Ukraine who made all those anti-U.S. speeches in the United Nations last month. This time they all seemed to be pounding at one nail with no disagreement for a change.

"Didn't mean to break in on your party," I said.

"Business meeting," Dorn told me. "Glad you could come. Let's go into the library where we can talk. Care for a drink?."

"No thanks."

He folded the papers in his hand and stuffed them in his pocket. "This way."

The library was another example of class and money. It was there in rare first editions and original oils, genuine Sheraton furniture giving obeisance to a great Louis XIV desk at one end of the room that nestled there like a throne.

"You ever read all those books?" I asked Dorn.

"Most of them." He waved me to a chair. Before I got comfortable he asked, "What happened to Renée?"

"She got creased by a bullet."

Dorn nearly dropped his drink. His mouth pulled tight and I saw his shoulders stiffen. "She didn't tell me ..."

"Don't worry, she's okay."

"What happened?"

"Nothing I'm going to talk about right now. Why?"

"She ... well, she's important to me, damn it. Right now we have a big expansion move on and ..." He looked at me, shook his head and glanced down at his hands that were clasped together too tightly. Finally he looked up. "It might be better if you said what you were thinking, Mike. I'm a callous person so wrapped up in business and finance that nothing else matters. Nothing is expected to interfere with those vital affairs."

"Don't sweat it, William. She'll be okay."

"Is she ..."

"Just a crease. She was real lucky. I'm surprised she didn't tell you about it."

"Renée can keep a confidence, even from me. I knew she was with you, but it was unlike her to ..."

"It was justified. Hell, doesn't she ever get sick?"

"Never."

"A dame got to get her period once in a while. That's usually a good excuse."

"Not with Renée. She treats ... commerce, let's say, almost as I do. You're the first one she ever took an active interest in."

"You don't know what you're missing," I said.

For a second a flash of annoyance creased his eyes, then disappeared into a wry smile. "You may be right. I've heard that before." He picked up a pencil and tapped it against the polished wood of the desk. "Mike ... do me a favor."

I nodded.

"Check on her. She won't answer the phone and I'd rather not bother her after what you just told me."

"Be glad to."

"And Mike ..."

"If it can be avoided, don't expose her to ... well, anything more in your line. I'd appreciate that."

"I didn't expose anybody. It just happened. She wanted to see how we lived on the other side of the tracks. I could have told her it could be just as rough where she came from too because I've been on the other side of the bridge myself. Nobody ever seems to learn anything, do they?"

The seconds ticked by while he looked at me, finally nodding agreement. "And you, Mike. Do you ever learn?"

"Always something new," I said. I got up and took a last look at all the money that surrounded me. "I'll check in on Renée for you. She'll be fine, so quit worrying."

Dorn held out his hand and I took it. "Sorry you couldn't get me at the office. I didn't mean for you to go out of your way. I guess it really wasn't that important after all."

"No trouble," I said.

He walked me to the door and behind me the hum of voices had grown louder. One was edgy and hoarse, but I recognized it as Crane's from the State Department. The one he was talking to said, "Nyet, nyet!" then subsided while Crane finished talking. I said "So long" to Dorn at the door, took the elevator back down again and looked for Spud. He was gone, and a tall kid with a sad face had replaced him. He had his hair tucked under the back of his visored cap and didn't look happy about it. They probably even made him shave off his beard. He couldn't have run off a Bowery panhandler.

Rain. Someday they'd cover New York like the Astrodome and you wouldn't have to worry about it. The computers had predicted partly cloudy and had sat back in their oiled compartments with all the whirring and clacking, giving off with mechanical laughter at the idiots who had believed their programming. The smart one knew the city. Never predict New York. Never try to outthink it. The damn octopus could even control the weather and when it wanted everybody to be miserable, everybody was miserable.

I looked up at the tops of the buildings and watched the gray blanket of wet sifting down to slick the streets and fog the windows, wondering why the hell I didn't get out like Hy Gardner did. A cab pulled up and disgorged a fat little man who threw a bill at the driver and trotted across the sidewalk to the protection of the building entrance and