Mickey Spillane - The Big Kill

Pat left a moment, said something to the M.E. and one of the cops, then joined me on the sidewalk. I nudged a brace of Luckies out of the pack, handed him one and watched his face in the light. He looked teed off like he always did when he came face to face with a corpse.

I said, "This must gripe the pants off you, Pat. There's not one blasted thing you can do to prevent trouble. Like those two back there. Alive one minute, dead the next. Nice, huh? The cops get here in time to clear up the mess, but they can't move until it happens. Christ, what a place to live!"

He didn't say anything until we turned into the bar. By that time most of the customers were so helplessly drunk they couldn't remember anything anyway. The bartender said a guy was in for a few minutes awhile back, but he couldn't help out. Pat gave up after five minutes and came back to me. I was sitting at the booth with my back to the bundle in the corner ready to blow up.

Pat took a long look at my face. "What's eating you, Mike?"

I picked the bundle up and sat it on my knee. The coat came away and the kid's head lolled on my shoulder, his hair a tangled wet mop. Pat pushed his hat back on his head and tucked his lip under his teeth. "I don't get it."

"The dead guy... the one who was here first. He came in with the kid and he was crying. Oh, it was real touching. It damn near made me sick, it was so touching. A guy bawling his head off, then kissing his kid good-by and making a run for the street.

"This is why I was curious. I thought maybe the guy was so far gone he was deserting his kid. Now I know better, Pat. The guy knew he was going to die so he took his kid in here, said so-long and walked right into it. Makes a nice picture, doesn't it?"

"You're drawing a lot of conclusions, aren't you?"

"Let's hear you draw some better ones. Goddamn it, this makes me mad! No matter what the hell the guy did it's the kid who has to pay through the nose for it. Of all the lousy, stinking things that happen..."

"Ease off, Mike."

"Sure, ease off. It sounds real easy to do. But look, if this was his kid and he cared enough to cry about it, what happens to him?"

"I presume he has a mother."

"No doubt," I said sarcastically. "So far you don't know who the father is. Do we leave the kid here until something turns up?"

"Don't be stupid. There are agencies who will take care of him."

"Great. What a hell of a night this is for the kid. His old man gets shot and he gets adopted by an agency."

"You don't know it's his father, friend."

"Who else would cry over a kid?"

Pat gave me a thoughtful grimace. "If your theory holds about the guy knowing he was going to catch it, maybe he was bawling for himself instead of the kid."

"Balls. What kind of a kill you think this is?"

"From the neighborhood and the type of people involved I'd say it was pretty local."

"Maybe the killer hopes you'll think just that."

"Why?" He was getting sore now too.

"I told you he ran over his own boy deliberately, didn't I? Why the hell would he do that?"

Pat shook his head. "I don't think he did."

"Okay, pal, you were there and I wasn't. You saw it all."

"Damn it, Mike, maybe it looked deliberate to you but it sounds screwball to me! It doesn't make sense. If he did swerve like you said he did, maybe he was intending to pick the guy up out of the gutter and didn't judge his distance right. When he hit him it was too late to stop."

I said something dirty.

"All right, what's your angle?"

"The guy was shot in the legs. He might have talked and the guy in the car didn't want to be identified for murder so he put the wheels to him."

Suddenly he grinned at me and his breath hissed out in a chuckle. "You're on the ball. I was thinking the same thing myself and wanted to see if you were sure of yourself."

"Go to hell," I said.

"Yeah, right now. Let's get that kid out of here. I'll be up half the night again on this damn thing. Come on."

"No."

Pat stopped and turned around. "What do you mean... 'no'?"

"What I said. I'll keep the kid with me... for now anyway. He'll only sit down there at headquarters until morning waiting for those agency people to show up."

Maybe it's getting so I can't keep my face a blank any more, or maybe Pat had seen that same expression too often. His teeth clamped together and I knew his shoulders were bunching up under the coat. "Mike," he told me, "if you got ideas about going on a kill-hunt, just get rid of them right now. I'm not going to risk my neck and position because of a lot of wild ideas you dream up."

I said it low and slow so he had to listen hard to catch it. "I don't like what happened to the kid, Pat. Murder doesn't just happen. It's thought about and planned out all nice and neat, and any reason that involves murder and big fat Buicks has to be a damn good one. I don't know who the kid is, but he's going to grow up knowing that the guy who killed his old man died with a nice hot slug in the middle of his intestines. If it means anything to you, consider that I'm on a case. I have me a legal right to do a lot of things including shooting a goddamn killer if I can sucker him into drawing first so it'll look like self-defense.

"So go ahead and rave. Tell me how it won't do me any good. Tell me that I'm interfering in police work and I'll tell you how sick I am of what goes on in this town. I live here, see? I got a damn good right to keep it clean even if I have to kill a few bastards to do it. There's plenty who need killing bad and if I'm electing myself to do the job you shouldn't kick. Just take a look at the papers every day and see how hot the police are when politics can make or break a cop. Take a look at your open cases like who killed Scottoriggio... or Binnaggio and his pal in Kansas City... then look at me straight and say that this town isn't wide open and I'll call you a liar."

I had to stop and take a breath. The air in my lungs was so hot it choked me.

"It isn't nice to see guys cry, Pat. Not grown men. It's worse to see a little kid holding the bag. Somebody's going to get shot for it."

Pat knew better than to argue about it. He looked at me steadily a long minute, then down at the kid. He nodded and his face went tight. "There's not much I can do to stop you, Mike. Not now, anyway."

"Not ever. Think it's okay to keep the kid?"

"Guess so. I'll call you in the morning. As long as you're involved the D.A. is probably going to want a statement from you anyway. This time keep your mouth shut and you'll keep your license. He's got enough trouble on his hands trying to nail the big boys in the gambling racket and he's just as liable to take it out on you."

My laugh sounded like trees rubbing together. "He can go to hell for all I care. He got rough with me once and I bet it still hurts when he thinks about it. What's the matter with him now... can't he even close up a bookie joint?"

"It isn't funny, Mike."

"It's a scream. Even the papers are laughing."

A slow burn crept into his face. "They should. The same guys who do the laughing are probably some of the ones who keep the books open. It's the big shots like Ed Teen who laugh the loudest and they're not laughing at the D.A. or the cops... they're laughing at Joe Citizen, guys like you, who take the bouncing for it. It isn't a bit funny when Teen and Lou Grindle and Fallon can go on enjoying a life of luxury until the day they die while you pay for it."

He got it out of his system and remembered to hand me a good night before he left. I stared at the door swinging shut, my arms tight around the kid, hearing his words come back slowly with one of them getting louder every time it repeated itself.

Lou Grindle. The arm. Lou Grindle who was a flashy holdover from the old days and sold his services where they were needed. Lou Grindle, tough boy de luxe who was as much at home in the hot spots along the Stem as in a cellar club in Harlem.