Mickey Spillane - The Big Kill

She let me hold the kid while she probed around the lump awhile. If she had found a hole to stick her finger in, I wouldn't have been at all surprised. Finally she stood back satisfied and picked the kid up. "There doesn't seem to be anything wrong, but if I were you I'd see a doctor anyway."

I told her I would.

"You know, Mr. Hammer, in my time I've seen a great deal of suffering. It isn't new to me, not by a long sight. All I ask is that you don't bring any of it home to the child."

"Nothing will bother the kid. I'll see to that. He'll be all right with you then?"

"I'll take perfect care of him." She paused and her face creased in a frown. "This town is full of rabid dogs and there's not a dogcatcher in sight."

"I kill mad dogs," I said.

"Yes, I've heard that you do. Good morning, Mr. Hammer." I handed her the box of clothes, picked the rod up from the floor and ushered her out.

My, head was still booming away and I tried to fix it up with a hot shower. That helped, but a mess of bacon and eggs helped even more. It woke me up enough to remember Pat said my name was on a murder and I didn't have the sense to ask who he was talking about.

I gave it a try on the phone anyway, but they couldn't locate Pat in the building anywhere. I held the receiver down for a second, long enough to check Marsha's number in the book, then punched out her call. The nurse with the mustache answered and told me that Miss Lee had just left for a morning rehearsal of the Little Theater Group and wasn't expected back until later that afternoon.

Nuts. So now I had to go down to police headquarters and face an inquisition. My legs had more life in them by the time I reached the street, and when I had pulled up in front of the building downtown I was back to normal in a sense. At least I felt like having a beer and a butt without choking over the thought.

They were real happy to see me, they were. They looked like they hoped I wouldn't come so they could go drag me down by the neck, but now that I was there everything was malicious, tight smiles and short, sharp sentences that steered me into a little room where I was supposed to sit and sweat so I'd blab my head off when they asked me questions.

I spit on the floor, right in the middle, to be exact, and had the Lucky I wanted. The college boy with the pointed face who rated as the D.A.'s assistant glared at me but didn't have the guts to back it up with any words. He parked behind a desk and tried to look important and tough. It was a lousy act.

When I started wondering how long they were going to let me cool my heels the corridor got noisy and I picked out Pat's voice raising Cain with somebody. The door slammed open and he stalked in with his face tight in anger.

I said, "'lo, Pal," but he didn't answer.

He walked up to the desk and leaned on it until his face wasn't an inch away from the D.A.'s boy and he did a good job of keeping his hands off the guy's neck. "Since when do you take over the duties of the Police Department? I'm still Captain of Homicide around here and when there's murder I'll handle it myself, personally, understand? I ought to knock your ears off for pulling a stunt like that!"

The boy got a blustery red and started to get up. "See here, the District Attorney gave me full permission..."

"To butt into my business because a friend of mine is suspected of murder!"

"Exactly!"

Pat's voice got dangerously low. "Get your ass out of this office before I kick hell out of you. Go on, get out. And you tell the D.A. that I'll see him in a few minutes."

He practically ran to the door. I could see the D.A. getting a sweet version of the story, all right. I said, "What'd he do to you, kid?"

"Crazy little bastard. He thinks because I'm a friend of yours I'll do a little whitewashing. He got me out of the building on a phony call right after I spoke to you."

"You're not going to be very popular with the D.A. for that."

"I'm sick of that guy walking all over this office. They pulled a raid on a wire room last night and all they got was an empty apartment with a lot of holes in the walls and a blackboard that still showed track results and a snotty little character who said he was thinking of opening a school for handicappers. The guy was clean and there wasn't a thing the D.A. could do."

"Sounds like a good business. Whose wire room was it?"

"Hell, who else has wire rooms in this town? The place was run by one of Ed Teen's outfit."

"Or so your information said."

"Yeah. So now the D.A. gets in a rile and raises hell with everyone from the mayor down. He's pulled his last rough sketch on, me with this deal though. Let him try getting rough just once and the news boys are going to get a lot of fancy stuff that won't do a thing for him when election time comes."

"Where is he now?"

"Inside waiting for you."

"Let's see the guy then."

"Just a minute. Tell me something straight. Did you kill a guy named Mel Hooker?" he asked.

"Oh, God!"

Pat's eyes got that squinty look. "What's the matter?"

"Your corpse was the friend of William Decker... That beautiful local-type kill the police seem to be ignoring so well."

"The police aren't ignoring anything."

"Then they're not looking very hard. Mel and Decker were playing the ponies and Mel introduced him to a loan shark that financed his little escapades. There was a catch in it. Mel said Decker lost his shirt, but the loan shark, that Dixie Cooper guy, said Decker paid him off in full and was able to prove it."

Pat muttered something under his breath. He nodded for me to follow him and started for the door. This time the tight smiles loosened up and nobody seemed to want to get in our way. From the way Pat was glowering it looked like he was ready to take me and anybody else apart and had already started.

Pat knocked on the door and I heard the D.A. call out for somebody to see who it was. The door opened, a pair of thick-lensed glasses did a quick focus on the two of us and the D.A. said, "Show them in, Mr. Mertig."

It was quite a gathering. The D.A. straddled his throne with two assistant D.A.'s flanking him, a pair of plain-clothesmen in the background and two more over by the window huddled together for mutual protection apparently.

"Sit down, Hammer," the D.A. said.

Everybody watched me with the annoyed look you see when the king isn't obeyed pronto. I walked up to his desk, planted my hands on the top and leaned right down in his face. I didn't like the guy and he didn't like me, but he wasn't getting snooty now or any other time. I said, "You call me Mister when you use my name. I don't want any crap from you or your boys and if you think you can make it tough for me just go ahead and try it. I came in here myself to save you the trouble of getting a false arrest charge slapped against your office and right now I'm not above walking out just to see what you'd do. It's about time you learned to be polite to your public when you're not sure of your facts."

The D.A. started to get purple. In fact, a lot of people started to get purple. When they all got a nice livid tinge I sat down. He made a good job of keeping his voice under control. "We are sure of the facts... Mister Hammer."

"Go on."

"A certain Mel Hooker has been found dead. He was shot to death with a .45."

"I suppose the bullet came from my gun?" I tried to make it sound as sarcastic as possible.

The purple started to fade into an unhealthy red. Unhealthy for me, I mean. "Unfortunately, no. The bullet passed through the man and out the window. So far we haven't been able to locate It."

I started to interrupt, but he held up, his hand. "However, you were very generous with your fingerprints. They're all over the place. The landlady identified your picture and vouched that she heard threats before you left, so it is quite a simple matter to see what followed."