Mickey Spillane - The Big Kill

Her hands were warm, friendly things that grabbed mine and held on. "Did you get my package, Mike?"

"Yup. Came down to thank you personally."

"How is the boy?"

"Fine, just fine. Don't ask me how I feel because I'll give you a stinking answer. Somebody tried to break my head open last night."

"Mike!"

"I got a hard head."

She moved up close and ran her hand over my hair to where the bump was and wrinkled her nose at me. "Do you know who it was?"

"No. If I did the bastard'd be in the hospital."

Marsha took my arm and nodded over to the side of the wall.

"Let's sit down a few minutes. I can worry better about you that way."

"Why worry about me at all?"

The eye with the shiner was closed just enough to give it the damnedest look you ever saw. "I could be a fool and tell you why, Mike," she said. "Shall I be a fool?"

If ever I had wanted to kiss a woman it was then, only she had too much make-up on and there were too many people for an audience. "Later. Tonight, maybe," I told her. "Be a fool then." I was grinning and her lips went into a smile that said a lot of things, but mostly was a promise of tonight.

When we had a pair of cigarettes going I tipped my chair back against the wall and stared at her. "We have another murder on our hands, kitten."

The cigarette stopped halfway to her lips and her head came around slowly. "Another? Oh, no!"

I nodded. "Guy named Mel Hooker. He was Decker's best friend. You know, Marsha, I think there's a hell of a lot more behind this than we thought."

"Chain reaction," she said softly.

"Sort of. It didn't take much to start it going. Three hundred bucks and a necklace, to be exact."

Marsha nodded, her lips between her teeth. "My playboy friend in the other apartment was coerced into keeping his money in a bank instead of the wall safe. The management threatened to break his lease unless he co-operated. Everybody in the building knows what happened and raised a fuss about it. Apparently the idea of being beaten up by a burglar doesn't sound very appealing, especially when the burglar is wild over having made a mistake in safes."

"You got off easy. He might have killed you."

Her shoulders twitched convulsively. "What are you going to do, Mike?"

"Keep looking. Make enough stink so trouble'll come looking for me. Sometimes it's easier that way."

"Do you... have to?" Her eyes were soft, and-her hand on my arm squeezed me gently.

"I have to, kid. I'm made that way. I hate killers."

"But do you have to be so... so damned reckless about it?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do. I don't have to be but that's the way I, like it. Then I can cut them down and enjoy it."

"Oh, Lord! Mike, please..."

"Look, kid, when you play with mugs you can't be coy. At first this looked all cut-and-dried-out and all there was to it was nailing a bimbo who drove a car with a hot rod in the back seat. That's the way it looked at first. Now we got names creeping into this thing, names and faces that don't belong to any cheap bimbos. There's Teen and Grindle and a guy who died a long time ago but who won't stay buried... his name was Charlie Fallon and I keep hearing it every time I turn around.

Somebody said, "Charlie Fallon?" in a voice that ended with a chuckle and I turned around chewing on my words.

The place was getting to look like backstage of a burlesque house. The woman in the dress toga did a trick with the oversize cigarette holder and stood there smiling at us. She was medium in height only. The rest of her was over done, but that's the way they liked them in Hollywood. Her name was Kay Cutler and she was right in there among the top movie stars and it wasn't hard to see why.

Marsha introduced us and I stood there like an idiot with one of those nobody-meets-celebrity grins all over my pan. She held my hand longer than was necessary and said, "Surprised?"

"Hell, yes. How come all the talent in this dump?"

The two of them laughed together. Kay did another trick with the holder. "It's a hobby that gets a lot of exciting publicity. Actually we don't play the parts for the audience. Instead we portray them so the others can use our interpretation as a model, then coach them into giving some sort of a performance. You wouldn't believe it, but the theater group makes quite a bit of money for itself. Enough to cover expenses, at least."

"You come for free?"

She laughed and let her eyes drift to one of the centurians who was giving me some dark looks. "Well, not exactly."

Marsha poked me in the back so I'd quit leering. I said, "You mentioned Charlie Fallon before. Where'd you hear of him?"

"If he's the one I'm thinking of a lot of people knew him. Was he the gangster?"

"That's right."

"He was a fan-letter writer. God, how that man turned them out! Even the extras used to get notes and flowers from the old goat. I bet I've had twenty or more."

"That was a long time ago," I reminded her.

She smiled until the dimples showed in her cheeks. "You aren't supposed to mention the passage of time so lightly. I still claim to be in my early thirties."

"What are you?"

I got the dimples again. "I'm a liar," she said. "Marsha, didn't you ever get mail from that character?"

"Perhaps. At the time I didn't handle my own correspondence and it was all sorted out for me." She paused and squinted a little. "Come to think of it, yes. I did. I remember talking about it to someone one day."

I pulled on the butt and let the smoke out slowly. "He was like that. The guy made plenty and didn't know how to spend it, so he threw it away on the girlies. I wonder if he ever followed it up?"

"Never," Kay stated flatly. "When he was still news some of the columnists kept up with his latest crushes and slipped in a publicity line now and then, but nobody ever saw him around the Coast. By the way, what's so important about him now?"

"I wish I knew. For a dead man he's sure not forgotten."

"Mike is a detective, Kay," Marsha said bluntly. "There have been a couple of murders and Mike's conducting an investigation."

"And not getting far," I added.

"Really?" Her eyebrows went up and she cocked the holder between her teeth and gave me a look that was sexy right down to her sandals. "A detective. You sound exciting."

"You're not going to sound at all if you don't get back to your warrior, lady," Marsha cut in. "Now scram."

Kay faked a pout at her and said so-long to me after another long hand-clasp. When she was across the room Marsha slipped her arm through mine. "Kay's a wonderful gal, but if you have it and it wears pants she wants it."

"Good old Kay," I said.

"Luckily, I know her too well."

"Any more around like that?"

"Well, if it's a celebrity you'd like to meet, I can take you backstage and introduce you to a pair of Hollywood starlets, a television sensation, the country's biggest comic and..."

"Never mind," I said: "You're enough for me."

She gave me another one of those squeezes with a laugh thrown in and I wanted to kiss her again. The kid with an arm in a sling who tapped her on the shoulder as he murmured, "Two minutes more, Marsha," must have read my mind, because his eyes went limp and sad.

Marsha nodded as he walked off and I pointed my cigarette at his back. "The kid's got a crush on you."

She watched him a moment, then glanced at me. "I know it. He's only nineteen and I'm afraid he has stars in his eyes. A month ago he was in love with Helen O'Roark and was so far down in the dumps when he found out she was married he almost starved himself to death. He's the one I took to the hospital the night the Decker fellow broke into my apartment."

"What happened to him?"

"He was setting up props and fell off the ladder."

Down at the end of the hall hairy legs in short pants was banging on the piano again screaming for everyone to get back on the stage. Togas started to unravel from the floor, chairs and the scenery and if I had a dozen more pairs of eyes I could have enjoyed myself. Those babes didn't give a damn what they showed and I seemed to be the only one there who appreciated the view. The overhead lights went out and the stage spots came on and I was doing good watching the silhouettes until Marsha said, "I'm getting jealous, Mike.