Mickey Spillane - Survival... ZERO!

"So what can I do?"

I looked at my watch again. Time was going by fast. Outside, darkness had blacked out a wet city and the rain was still scratching against the windows. "Do me a favor," I said. "Get a call through to Pat Chambers for me and tell him to drop the area around Ninety-second and get his men over to Columbus and One Hundred-tenth. If they spot Velda, don't tip her to the move. Can you do that?"

"Sure. Those kind of calls I can make, so long as I stay off the Big Subject."

"They letting you broadcast?"

"Nothing live. I have to tape it first. They thought of everything."

I looked around the room and grinned. "Except this."

"Yeah. Who makes appointments in men's rooms except sexual deviates?"

"Don't let it get around. That might make more news."

Suddenly his eyes clouded. "Wait until tomorrow. They really got a beaut cooked up. The public will flip, Wall Street stocks will tumble and the news outlets will eat it up. There won't be room enough in any paper or broadcast for anything else."

"Oh? Why?"

"The President is scheduled to have a serious heart attack," he said.

Caesar Mario Tulley hadn't shown up and nobody had seen him around since earlier in the day. Little Joe had taken up his usual rainy night station in the back booth of Aspen's Snack Bar, peering out the window, sipping one coffee after another.

He shrugged when I asked him and said, "Don't worry about him, Mike. He'll show. A night like this, the kid makes out, all wet and sorry-looking. Wish I could make half of his take. The suckers feel worse over a long-haired kid in dirty clothes panhandling nickels than a guy like me with no legs."

"Quit complaining," I said- "You got it made."

Little Joe laughed and took another sip of his coffee. "If I didn't I wouldn't be inside. Man, I had my times out there on nights like this. It was good hustling, but hell on the health. You look for him over at Leo's?"

"They didn't see him."

"How about Tessie ... you know, Theresa Miller, that cute little whore from the Village. She never stops. If there's a live one on the street she'll tap him."

"She saw him this afternoon, not since," I said. "Look, he told me he was going to see a friend. You know who he hangs out with?"

"Come on, Mike. Them hippies all look alike to me. Sure, I seen him with a few creeps before, but nobody I could finger. Hell, I don't even want to get close to 'em. He works his side of the street, I work mine. Look, why don't you try Austin Towers? Tall, lanky guy with a scraggly goatee. Always hangs out by the paper kiosk the next block down. He sells them kids pot and if anybody would know, he would."

I told Little Joe thanks and flipped him a five-spot.

He grabbed it and grinned. "I never refuse money," he said.

Austin Towers didn't want to talk, but he thought it was a bust and didn't have time to dump the two paper bags he had in his raincoat pocket and gave me a resigned look and followed me into the semilit entrance of the closed shoe store.

"I want to talk to a lawyer," he said.

All I did was look at him.

For a second he stared back, then dropped his eyes nervously and a tic pulled at the corner of his mouth.

I still didn't say anything.

"Listen, Mister ..."

I let him see the .45 under my coat and his eyes widened and he tried to swallow the lump in his throat. His voice was a hoarse whisper when he said, "Man, look, look ... I'm just pushing grass. I ain't crowding nobody. I don't hold no hard stuff, not me. Man, it's all grass and who puts heat on grass? You guys want me out, I go pick another spot and ..."

"Where can I find Caesar?"

The relief that flooded his face swept over him like a wave. "Oh, man, he ain't nothin', that guy. He just ..."

"You see him today?"

"Sure, about four. He bought some stuff so he and a friend . . ."

He was talking fast and furiously, happy to know it wasn't him I was leaning on. I cut him short. "Where is he?"

"His pal got a pad on Forty-ninth. First floor over the grocery in the front."

"Show me."

"Mister . . ."

I didn't want him making any phone calls that would scare off my birds. "Show me," I said again.

And he showed me. A stinking, miserable two-room flop that reeked of garbage and marijuana smoke where Caesar Mario Tulley and a scruffy-looking jerk in shoulder-length hair were wrapped in Mexican scrapes, stretched out on the floor completely out of their skulls from the pot party.

I said, "Damn!" and the word seemed to drop in the room like soft thunder.

Austin Towers started edging toward the door. "Like I showed you, man, so now I gotta cut, y'know?"

"Get back here, freak."

"Man ..."

"Killing you would be a public service." My voice had such an edge to it that he scurried back like a scared rat, Ms head bobbing, eager to do anything that would keep him alive. "How long are they going to be out of it?"

"How would I know, man?"

I snapped my head around and stared at him, watching his breath catch in his chest. "You sold him the stuff. You know how much they had. Now check them to see what's left and make a guess and make a good one or I'll snap your damn arms in half."

He didn't argue about it. One look at my face and he knew I wasn't kidding. He bent over the pair, patted them down expertly, finding the remnants of the joints they had gone through, then stood up. "Used it all. Man, they tied one on, them two. Maybe three-four hours you might reach 'em if you're lucky."

This time I grinned, my lips pulled tight across my teeth. "Maybe if you're lucky it'll be one hour. One. You're in the business, boy, so you'd better know all the tricks. You start working on them and don't stop until they're awake. Don't bother trying to run out. You couldn't run fast or far enough that I couldn't nail you, so play it sweet and cool and you might get out of this in one piece. One hour, kid. Get them back and I don't give a damn how you do it."

"Man, you don't know this stuff!" His voice was nearly hysterical.

"No, but you do," I told him.

Velda had called in again. She was still on the stakeout but getting edgy because there had been no tip-off to Beaver's whereabouts. She was going to give it one more hour and then try another possible lead. That left me forty-six minutes to work ahead of her.

The taxi dropped me at the corner of Columbus Avenue and a Hundred-tenth Street and when I looked around the memories of the old days from when I was a kid came rushing back like an incoming tide. There were changes, but some things never change at all. The uneven rooftops still were castle battlements, each street a gateway in the great wall. The shufflers still shuffled, oblivious to the weather, urchin noises and cooking smells mingling in this vast stomach of a neighborhood. Plate glass windows protected with steel grilling, others unconcernedly dark and empty. The perennial tavern yellow-lit behind streaked glazing, the drugstore still sporting the huge red and purple urns, the insignia of its trade. On a good night the young bloods would be gathered on the corners, swapping lies and insults, protecting their turf. The hookers

would cruise for their Johns and the pushers would be clearing the path to an early grave for the users.

They didn't know me here, but they knew I wasn't an outsider. I was born part of the scene and still looked it and they didn't mind me asking things and didn't mind answering. I showed the photo of Beaver to the bartender in Steve's Bar and Grill. He didn't know the guy, but took it to the back room and showed it to somebody else. One guy thought he looked familiar, but that was all.

In the candy store, the old man shook his head and told me the man in the picture looked like somebody good to stay away from and tried to talk about the old days until I thanked him and went back outside.