Mickey Spillane - Survival... ZERO!

"You want me to get a doctor?"

"No ... I'll be all right. Please ... don't leave until Maria gets here."

"Sure, kid. How do you feel?"

"Awful ... headache."

Luckily, Maria's sister only worked three blocks away and she was there in ten minutes. She helped me get Renée into bed, but kept looking at me suspiciously as though she didn't believe what really had happened. She made me leave while she got a nightgown on her, then came bustling back into the living room, frowning. Just in time I kicked the vibrator under the couch before she saw it. "You stay. I'm going to the drugstore for something to make her sleep."

I got that guilty feeling again and just nodded.

From the bedroom I heard Renée call my name and I walked in and took her hand. There was a fresh bandage in place and the blood had been wiped from her hair. "Mike .. I'm sorry."

"Forget it."

"Go do what you have to do," she said softly.

I looked at my watch. It was still early. Caesar liked to work the later crowds; he looked a little more pitiful under the night lights. "I got time," I told her.

It was thirty minutes before Maria got back with a plastic bottle of capsules, and another thirty before the drowsiness came over Renée's eyes. Just before they closed, she said, "It was nice, wasn't it, Mike?"

"Crazy, but beautiful," I answered.

Maria gave me another of those stern looks and nodded toward the door. "Now you go."

And I went.

I called William Dorn's apartment from the first open bar I came to. A maid answered and said Mr. Dorn was in a business conference and couldn't be disturbed at the moment.

"Give him a message for me, please."

"Certainly, sir."

"Tell him Miss Talmage suffered a slight relapse and has been given a sedative, but there's nothing to worry about."

"Oh ... then she won't be at the meeting this evening?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Yes, thank you, Doctor. Is there anything Mr. Dorn can do?"

"Nothing at all."

"Very well, Doctor, and thank you again."

I hung up and grunted. I didn't think I sounded like a doctor at all.

The rain was coming down harder and I turned up my collar against it. Somewhere Beaver was hiding and Woody and his boys were waiting.

It was going to be a trouble night.

CHAPTER 10

They could only hold the story back just so long. When more than one person knows, there is no secret. The final edition of the evening paper carried the opener that was the crack in the whole faulty scheme of security. An unmentioned source had leaked the information that the dead guy in the subway station had died of a highly contagious disease and upon further investigation nothing could be learned from officialdom about the matter. There were vigorous denials, but no one offered other explanation. The Newark paper went a little further, an editorial demanding an answer over a body-shot of the corpse.

So far nobody had put the obvious pieces in place . . . the sudden show of harmony between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., the burst of activity from the armed forces reservists and the presence of the Fort Detrick C.B. warfare teams. But it was coming. No amount of security was going to stop people with imagination from thinking along certain lines, then proving out their theories. Tomorrow a few more questions would be asked, then when no answers were forthcoming the dam would burst and every end of the news media would be jamming down the throat of bureaucracy. Tom-Tom Schneider was dead, his killers were dead. What other pieces of sensationalism could they dig up to bury the biggest news story of them all?

I walked up Broadway past the offices of WOBY-TV and wondered how Eddie Dandy was doing. On impulse, I turned in out of the wet, found the receptionist just going out for a coffee break and asked her.

Eddie Dandy had just come in an hour ago. He was in his office and wasn't to be disturbed. I thanked her, let her go for her coffee and took the elevator upstairs. I spotted the two guys by his door before they saw me, turned right instead of toward his office, rounded the corridor until I found an empty desk and picked up the phone and dialed Eddie's number.

His hello was tired and curt and I said, "Mike Hammer, Ed. How goes it?"

"Stinking, kid. Where are you?"

"Right down the hall. Can you break away from the watchdogs long enough to go to the John?"

"Yeah, sure, but look, buddy ... I'm strictly off limits. Anybody caught talking to me gets the same solitary confinement treatment."

"Balls."

"Man, they did it to me."

"I'm not you. Give me five minutes, then cut out."

The men's room was across the corridor, out of sight from the pair, and I went in without being seen. Nobody else was there, so I stepped into the end booth and closed the door. Five minutes later I heard the outside door hiss shut and walked out of the cubicle.

Eddie looked tired, but his eyes were bright and his mouth tight with constrained rage. "You look terrible," I said.

His eyes went toward the door. "Quiet. They're standing outside."

"How'd you shake loose? I thought they had you under wraps."

"A few nosy buddies of mine started poking around when I didn't show. The big wheels figured I'd be better off where I could be seen and answer monitored phone calls that could be chopped off fast if I started to squawk. Brother, when this is over asses are going to burn, and I mean burn."

"It isn't over yet," I reminded him.

His face turned gray and he seemed ten years older. "I was in on some high level discussion, Mike. You really know how bad it is?"

"Maybe I'm better off not knowing."

Eddie didn't even hear me. "There's no place to hide. Everybody would be running for cover, but there's no place to hide! They've isolated that damned disease and it's the worst thing they ever came up against. Once it gets started there's no stopping it, no vaccines, no natural barriers ... nothing. The damn stuff is so self-perpetuating it can even feed on itself after it's done feeding on everything else. Maybe a few guys will escape it for a while. The men in the Antarctic on Operation Deepfreeze will miss it because intense cold is the only thing that can stop it, but where will they be when the supply planes stop coming in?"

"Eddie ..."

"Hell, for years they talked about the atom bomb, the big boom that could wipe out the world. They should have talked about something else. At least that would have been quick. This makes nuclear fission look like a toy."

"There's still a chance."

"Not much, friend. Only one guy knew where those containers were planted and now he's dead."

I shrugged and looked at him. "So what's left to do?"

He finally broke a grin loose and waved his arms in mock disgust at me. "I wish I could think like you, Mike. No kidding, I really do. I'd go out, find a few broads and start banging away until it was all over. Me, I'm just going to sit and sweat and swear and worry until my time comes to check out, then maybe I'll cry a little, get drunk as hell and not have to fight a hangover."

"Pessimists are a pain in the butt," I said.

"You're absolutely nuts, Mike. How can you stand there and ..."

"I have my own business to take care of."

Eddie let out a grunt of disbelief. "Still Lippy Sullivan? Just like things weren't ..."

"It keeps me busy," I interrupted. I brought him up to date and by the time I was done he had almost forgotten about what was happening outside.

"Woody Ballinger's a rough boy to snag in a trap, Mike. He's been around. If that dip lifted something from his wallet and tried to shake him down for it, he was plain asking to be killed. You ought to let Woody do you a favor and knock him off."

"Not this guy. As long as we still have murder one punishment, I want him to go through the whole damn torturous process."