Mickey Spillane: Survival... ZERO!

"Someday you're going to shave and wear an unwrinkled suit in the daytime and nobody's going to know you," I told him. "A dandy you are by name only."

Eddie put his pie and milk down, set the tray on the empty table beside us and picked up his fork. "That's what the wife keeps telling me. We people in show business like to change characters."

"Yeah, sure."

Between bites he said, "Petie Canero saw you down at headquarters. That Sullivan thing, wasn't it?"

I nodded and took another pull at my coffee. "It's still cold."

"You got to be a big man to get any action nowadays. Like Schneider. They'll spend a bundle going after his killers and wind up with nothing anyway."

"Maybe not."

"Oh hell, it was a contract kill. Somebody hired an out-of-town hit man and that was it for Tom-Tom. He's been stepping on too many toes trying to get on top. Everybody saw it coming. For one thing, he steps outside without his two musclemen beside him and it's bingo time. The cops ask questions but who's going to talk?"

"Somebody always does."

"When it's too late to move in. Right now I wish somebody would say something about that body in the subway. I never saw such a damn cover-up in my life. We all got the boot at the hospital ... nice and polite, but the big boot just the same. What gets me is ... ah, hell."

I frowned and looked across the table at him. "Well ... what about it?"

"Nothing. Just that coincidences make me feel funny."

"Afraid I'll scoop you on your own program?"

Eddie finished his first piece of pie, washed it down with half a glass of milk and reached for the other. "Sure, man," he grinned. "No, it's just funny, is all. Remember when I did the news for the Washington, D.C., station? Well, I got to know a lot of the local citizenry. So when I went down to the hospital I spotted a couple of familiar faces. One was Crane from the State Department. He said one of his staff was in with an appendectomy and he was visiting. Then I saw Matt Rollings."

"Who's Rollings?"

"Remember that stink about the train loaded with containers of nerve gas out West... the stuff they were going to dump in the ocean only they wouldn't let it travel across the country?"

"Yeah."

"Rollings was in charge of the project originally," Eddie said. "So when I saw Rollings and Crane talking I checked on Crane's friend. She was there with an appendectomy, all right, but she was a young girl in the steno pool who had only been with State six weeks. Seems funny they could have gotten that close in such a short time."

"She could have been a relative."

"Unlikely. The girl was a native Puerto Rican."

"Guys and gals are a strange combination," I said.

"Not with a wife like Crane's. Anyway, it was a coincidence and I don't like coincidences. They get admittance, we get the boot. All because some bum twitches to death on a subway platform. If they got a make on him it wouldn't have been so bad, but there was no identification at all."

"It's a shame you guys work so hard for a story," I laughed.

Eddie finished his pie and milk, belched gently and got up. "Back to the grind, buddy. I got to get my garbage ready for tonight."

I looked at him, nodded silently and watched him leave. Eddie Dandy had just told what I had forgotten. Damn, I thought.

Outside it had started to rain.

The kid perched on the steps of the brownstone lifted the cardboard box off his head and peered up at me. The super, he said, went down to the deli for his evening six-pack of beer. From there he'd go to Welch's Bar, have a few for starters, tell some lies and make a pass at Welch's barmaid before he came home. That wouldn't be for another hour yet. Smart, these kids. Twelve going on thirty. I tossed him a quarter and he put the box back on his head so he could listen to the rain hammer on it and ignored me.

I didn't bother to wait for the super. I went to the back of the hallway, found the stairs to the basement and snapped my penlight on. I had to pick my way around the clutter of junk to the bottom, then climb over trash that had been accumulating for years before I came to the current collection. Four banged up, rusted cans, each half filled with garbage, were nested beside the crumbling stairwell that led to the backyard and the areaway to the street. Tomorrow was collection day.

Garbage. The residue of a man. Sometimes it could tell you more than what he saved.

I turned the cans over and kicked the contents around on the floor, separating the litter with my foot. A rat ran

out over my toe and scurried away into the darkness. Empty cans, crumpled boxes and newspaper made up most of the contents, the decayed food smell half obscured by the fumes from some old paint-soaked rags at the bottom of one can. A fire inspector would flip over that. There was a pile of sticky sawdust in a stained shopping bag that was all that was left of Lippy. It almost made me gag. Farther down was some broken glass, two opened envelopes and a partially crushed shoebox. The envelopes were addressed to Lipton Sullivan. One was a notice from the local political organization encouraging him to vote for their candidate in the next election. The other was a mimeographed form letter from a furniture store listing their latest sale items.

I tossed them back and picked up the box, ripping the folded-in top back with my fingers.

Then I was pretty sure I knew where all of Lippy's bank deposit money had been coming from. The box was loaded with men's wallets and some goodies that obviously came from a woman's purse. There was no money anywhere.

My old friend Lippy had been a damn pickpocket.

Velda was already at my apartment when I got there, curled up like a sleek cat at the end of the sofa, all lovely long legs that the miniskirt couldn't begin to hide and a neckline it didn't try to. Those gorgeous breasts were still high and bouncy, flaring out in a wild challenge, her stomach flat until it took that delicious swell outward into her thighs and always that silky pageboy of auburn hair framing a face that was much too pretty for anybody's good.

"You look obscene," I said.

"It's a very studied pose," she reminded me. "It's supposed to have an effect on you."

"And it does, kitten. You know me." I tossed the box on the coffee table.

"Why don't you get out of those wet clothes and then we'll talk."

"Don't mind the garbage smell," I said. "It's a dirty business. Make me a drink and take a look at that stuff. Don't touch anything. I'm going to take a hot shower. This racket is beginning to get to me."

The impish grin she had greeted me with was lost in the look of concern and she nodded. I walked into the bedroom, peeled off my coat, yanked the .45 from the shoulder rig, tossed it on the dresser and got rid of the rest of

my clothes. I spent fifteen minutes under a stinging needle spray, got out, wrapped a towel around my middle and walked back into the living room trailing wet footsteps.

Velda handed me my drink, the ice clinking in the glass. "Now you look obscene. Why don't you ever dry yourself off?"

"That's what I got you for," I said.

"Not me. I'd only make you wetter."

"Someday I'm going to marry you and legalize all this nonsense."

"You know how long I've been hearing that?"

I tasted the drink. She'd hit the blend right on the button. "At least you're engaged," I said.

"The longest one on record." I grinned at her and she smiled back. "That's okay, Mike. I'm patient." Her eyes drifted toward the box on the table. She had dumped out the contents and sorted things out with the end of a ball-point pen. "Sorry about Lippy, Mike. Pretty disappointing. I always had him figured for a right guy."

"He gave that impression," I said. "What do you make of it?"

"Plain enough. Somebody knew what he did in his spare time and tried to heist his take. He wouldn't tell where he hid it because it wouldn't have done any good since it was in the bank. So he was killed. Getting rid of the stuff is part of the pattern. They take the money and dump the rest. He probably could have tried using some of the credit cards in those wallets, but that doesn't fit a pickpocket's usual routine."