Mickey Spillane - The Big Kill

"Where is he, Mike?"

"If I knew I wouldn't tell you, friend. I want him for myself. Someday I want to be able to tell that kid what his face looked like when he was dying."

"Damn it anyway, Mike, you can stretch friendship too far sometimes."

"No, I'll never stretch it, Pat. Just remember that I live in this town too. Besides having what few police powers the state chooses to hand me, I'm still a citizen and responsible in some small way for what happens in the city. And by God, if I'm partly responsible then I have a right to take care of an obligation like removing a lousy orphan-maker."

"Who is he, Mike?"

"I said I didn't know."

"But you know where to find out."

"That's right. It isn't too hard if you want to take a chance on getting your head smashed in."

"Like you did last night?"

"Yeah. That's something else I have to even up. I don't know why or how it happened, but I got a beaut of an idea, I have."

"Something like looking for a guy named Lou Grindle whom you called all sorts of names and threatened to shoot on sight if you found out he was responsible for Decker's death?"

My mouth fell open. "How the hell did you get that?"

"Now you're taking me for the chump, Mike. I checked the tie-up Arnold Basil had with Grindle thoroughly, and from the way Lou acted I knew somebody had been there before me. It didn't take long to guess who it was. Lou was steamed up to beat hell and told me what happened. Let me tell you something. Don't try anything with that boy. The D.A. has men covering him every minute he's awake trying to get something on him."

"Where was he last night then?"

A thundercloud rolled over Pat's face. "The bastard skipped out. He pulled a fastie and skipped his apartment and never got back until eleven. In case you're thinking he had anything to do with Hooker's death, forget it. He couldn't have gotten back at that time."

"I'm not thinking anything. I was just going to tell you he was in a place called the Glass Bar on Eighth Avenue with Ed Teen somewhere around ten. The D.A. ought to get new eyes. The old ones are going bad."

Pat swore under his breath.

I said, "What made you say that, Pat?"

"Say what?"

"Oh, connect Lou and Hooker."

"Hell, I didn't connect anything. I just said..."

"You said something that ought to make you think a lot more, boy. Grindle and Decker and Hooker don't go together at all. They're miles apart. In fact, they're so far apart they're backing into each other from the ends."

He set his glass down with a thump. "Wait a minute. Don't go getting this thing screwed up with a lot of wacky ideas. Lou Grindle isn't playing with anything worth a few grand and if he is, he doesn't send out blockheads to do the job. You're way the hell out of line."

"Okay, don't get excited."

"Good Lord, who's getting excited? Damn it, Mike..."

My face was as flat as I could make it. I just sat there with the beer in my hand and stared at myself in the mirror because I started thinking of something that was like a shadow hovering in the background. I thought about it for a long time and it was still a shadow when I finished and it had a shape that was so curious I wanted to go up closer for another look.

I didn't hear Pat because his voice was so low it was almost a whisper, but he repeated it loud enough so I could hear it and he made me look at him so I wouldn't forget it. His hands were a nervous bunch of fingers that opened and shut with every word and his mouth was all teeth with sharp biting edges.

"Mike, you try pulling a smart frame that will pull Grindle into that damn murder case of yours and you and I are finished! We've worked too damn long and hard to nail that punk and his boss to have you slip over a cutie that will stink up the whole works. Don't give me the business, friend. I know you and the way you work. Anything appeals to you just as long as you can point a gun at somebody. For my money Lou Grindle is as far away from this as I am and because one of his boys tried to pick up some extra change you can't fix him for it. All right, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that if you tried hard enough and lived through it you'd do it, but Lou's got Teen and a lot more behind him. He'd get out of that charge easy as pie and only leave the department open for another big laugh. When we get those two, we want them so it'll stick, and no frame is going to do it. You lay off, hear?"

I didn't answer him for a long minute, then; "I wasn't thinking of any frame, Pat."

Pat's hands were still jerking on the bar. "The hell you weren't. Remember what I told you, that's all." He spilled his beer down and fiddled with the empty glass until the bartender moved in and filled it up again. I didn't say a damn thing. I just sat. Pat's fingernails were little firecrackers going off against the wood while his coat rippled as the muscles bunched underneath the fabric.

It lasted about five minutes, then he drained the glass and shoved it back. He muttered, "Goddamn!"

I said, "Relax, chum."

Then he repeated what he said the first time, told me to take it easy, and swung off the stool. I waited until he was out the door, then started to laugh. It wasn't so easy to be a cop. At least not a city cop. Or maybe it was the years that were getting him down. Six years ago you couldn't get him excited about anything, not even a murder or a naked dame with daisies in her hair.

The bartender came over and asked me if I wanted another. I said no and shoved him a quarter to make into change, then picked up a dime and walked back to the phone booth. The book listed the Little Theater as being on the edge of Greenwich Village and a babe with a low-down voice told me that Miss Lee was there and rehearsing and if I was a friend I could certainly come up.

The Little Theater was an old warehouse with a poster-decorated front that was a lousy disguise. The day had warped into a hot afternoon and the air inside the place was even hotter, wetter and bedded down with the perfumed smell of make-up. A sawed-off babe in a Roman toga let me in, locked the door to keep out the spies, then wiggled her fanny in the direction of all the noise to show me where to go. A pair of swinging doors opened and two more dames in togas came through for a smoke. They stood right in the glare of the only light in the place looking too cool to be real and lit up the smokes without seeing me there in the shadows.

Then I saw why they were so cool. One of them flipped the damn thing open and stood with her hands on her hips and she didn't have a thing on underneath it. Sawed-off said, "Helen, we have a visitor."

And Helen finally saw me, smiled, and said, "How nice."

But she didn't bother to do anything about the toga. I said, "The play's the thing," and sawed-off grinned a little like she wished she had thought of the open-toga deal first herself and sort of pushed me into the swinging doors.

Inside, a pair of floor fans moved the air around enough to make you think you were cool, at least. I opened my shirt and tie, then stood there for a moment getting used to the artificial dusk. All around the place were stacks of funeral parlor chairs with clothes draped over them. Up front a rickety stage held up some more togas and a few centurians in uniform while a hairy-legged little squirt in tennis shorts screamed at them in a high falsetto as he pounded a script against an old upright piano.

It wasn't hard to find Marsha. There was a baby spot behind her outlining a hundred handfuls of lovely curves through the white cotton toga. She was the most beautiful woman in the place even with a touched-up shiner, and from where I stood I could see that there was plenty of competition.

The squirt with the hairy legs called for a ten-minute break and sawed-off called something up to Marsha I didn't catch. She tried to peer past the glare of the footlights, didn't make out too well, so came off the stage in a jump and ran all the way back to where I was.