Mickey Spillane - The Big Kill

"Now let's suppose it was Toady. Two guys are dead and he can be right in line for the hot seat if somebody gets panicky and talks. After all, Hooker didn't know the details of the kill so he could have thought that Toady was getting him out of the way to keep him from talking. That puts him in the same spot and he's scared stiff. Evidently he did have one run-in with the tough boys before and carried the scar around on his face to prove it.

"So Hooker spots two of Toady's boys and gets the jumps. They're sticking around waiting for the right spot to stick him. When Hooker got confidential with me they must have thought that Mel was asking for protection or trying to get rid of what I knew so they tried to take me. They muffed that one and went back to get Hooker. They didn't muff that one.

"Up to there Toady didn't have too much to worry about, but, when I showed my face he got scared. Just before that he packed his boys out of town because he couldn't afford to have them around, so if we can get them back we ought to finger Toady without any trouble at all. Not the least little bit of trouble."

There was a silence that lasted for a full minute and I could hear Pat breathing and my own watch ticking. Pat said, "That's supposing you got all this dealt out right."

"Uh-huh."

"We can find out soon enough." He picked up the phone and said, "Give me an outside line, please," and while he waited riffled through the phone book. I heard the dial tone come on and Pat fingered out a number. The phone ringing on the other end made a faraway hum. Then it stopped. "I'd like to speak to Mr. Holmes," Pat said. "This is Captain Chambers, Homicide, speaking."

He sat there and frowned at the wall while he listened, then put the receiver back too carefully. "He's gone, Mike. He left for South America with one of his blondes yesterday morning."

"That's great," I said. My voice didn't sound like me at all.

Pat's mouth got tight around the corners. "That's perfect. It proves your point. The guy isn't too big to push around after all. Somebody's scared him right out of the city. You called every goddamn move right on the nose."

"I hope so."

I guess he didn't like the way I said it.

"It looks good to me."

"It looks too good. I wish we had the murder weapons to back it up."

"Metal doesn't rot out that fast. If we get those two we'll get the gun and we'll get Toady too. It doesn't matter which one we get him for."

"Maybe. I'd like to know who drove the car that night."

"Toady certainly wouldn't do it himself."

I stopped watching the people on the roof across the way and turned my face toward Pat. "I'm thinking that he did, Pat. If it was the kind of haul he expected he wasn't going to let it go through a few hands before it got back to him. Yeah, feller, I think I'll tag Toady with this one."

"Not you, Mike... we'll tag him for it. The police. The public. Justice. You know."

"Want to bet?"

Suddenly he wasn't my friend any more. His eyes were too gray and his face was too bland and I was the guy in the chair who was going to keep answering questions until he was done with me. Or that's what he thought.

I said, "A few minutes ago I asked you if you'd like to nail the whole batch of them at once."

"So there's more to it?"

"There could be. Lots more. Only if I get a couple extra days first."

Something you might call a smile threw a shadow around his mouth. "You know what will happen to me if you mess things up?"

"Do you know what will happen to me?"

"You might get yourself killed."

"Yeah."

"Okay, Mike, you got your three days. God help you if you get in a jam because I won't."

He was lying both times and I knew it. I'd no more get three days than he'd give me a boot when I needed a hand, but I played it like I didn't catch the drift and got up out of my chair. He was sitting there with the same expression when I closed the door, but his hand had already started to reach for the phone.

I went down the corridor to where a bunch of typewriters were banging out a madhouse symphony and asked one of the stenos where I could find Ellen Scobie. She told me that she had gone out to lunch at noon and was expected back that afternoon, but I might still find her in the Nelson Steak House if I got over there right away.

It took me about ten minutes to make the four blocks and there was Ellen in the back looking more luscious than the oversize T-bone steak she was gnawing on.

She saw me and waved and I wondered what it was going to cost who to get hold of that file on Toady Link.

It made nice wondering.

Chapter Seven

She was all in black, but without Ellen inside it the dress would have been nothing. The sun had kissed her skin into a light toast color, dotting the corner of her eyes with freckles. Her hair swept back and down, caressing her bare shoulders whenever she moved her head.

She said, "Hello, man."

I slid in across the table. "Did you eat yourself out of company?"

"Long ago. My poor working friends had to get back to the office."

"What about you?"

"You are enjoying the sight of a woman enjoying the benefits of working overtime when the city budget doesn't allow for unauthorized pay. They had to give me the time off. Want something to eat?"

A waitress sneaked up behind me and poised her pencil over her pad. "I'll have a beer and a sandwich. Ham. Plenty of mustard and anything else you can squeeze on."

Ellen made a motion for another coffee and went back to the remains of the steak. I had my sandwich and beer without benefit of small talk until we were both finished and relaxing over a smoke.

She was nice to look at. Not because she was pretty all over, but because there was something alive about everything she did. Now she was propped in the corner of the booth with one leg half up on the bench grinning because the girl across the way was talking her head off to keep her partner's attention. The guy was trying, but his eyes kept sliding over to Ellen every few seconds.

I said, "Give the kid a break, will you?"

She laughed lightly, way down in her throat, then leaned on the table and cupped her chin in her hands. "I feel real wicked when I do things like that."

"Your friends must love you."

"Ooh," her mouth made a pouty little circle, "... they do. The men, I mean. Like you, Mike. You came in here especially to see me. You find me so attractive that you can't stay away." She laughed again.

"Yeah," I said. "I even dream about you."

"Like hell."

"No kidding, I mean it."

"I can picture you going out of your way for a woman. I'd give my right arm to hear you say that in a different tone of voice, though. There's something about you that fascinates me. Now that we have the love-making over with, what do I have that you want?

I shouldn't have let my eyes do what they did.

"Besides that, I mean," she said.

"Your boss has a certain file on Toady Link. I want a look at it."

Her hands came together to cover her eyes. "I should have known. I spend every waking hour making myself pretty for you, hoping that you'll pop in on me and when you do you ask me to climb up a cloud."

"Well?"

"It's... well, it's almost impossible, Mike."

"Why?"

Her eyes drifted away from mine reluctantly. "Mike, I..."

"It isn't exactly secret information with me, Ellen. Pat told me about the D.A. getting ready to wrap Link up in a gray suit."

"Then he should have told you that those files are locked and under guard. He doesn't trust anybody."

"He trusts you."

"And if I get caught doing a thing like that I'll not only lose this job and never be able to get another one, but I'll get a gray suit too. I don't like the color." She reached out and plucked a Lucky from my pack and toyed with it before accepting the light I held out.