Mickey Spillane - The Big Kill

"That's right," Pat nodded. "You're tagged."

Chapter Eight

Sometimes you get mad and sometimes you don't. If there was any of that crazy anger in me it had all been drained out up there in Ellen's apartment. Now it's making sense, I thought. Now it's where it should be.

Pat dropped my gun in his pocket. "Let's go, Mike."

So I went as far as the front door and watched the rain wash through under the sill. Before Pat opened the door I said, "You're sure about this, aren't you?"

He was sure. Two minutes ago he had been as sure of it as the day he was born and now he wasn't sure of it at all. His mouth hardened into a gash that pushed his eyes halfway shut with some uncontrollable emotion until they seemed to focus on something right behind me.

I didn't want him to answer me before he knew. "I didn't kill him, Pat. I was hoping I would, but somebody beat me to it."

"The M.E. sets the time of death around four o'clock last night." His voice asked for an explanation.

I said, "You should have told me, Pat. I was real busy then. Real busy."

His hand came away from the door. "You mean you can prove it?"

"I mean just that."

"Mike... if you're lying..."

"I've never been that stupid. You ought to know that."

"I ought to know a lot of things. I ought to know where you were every minute of last night."

"You know how to find out."

"Show me."

I didn't like the way he was looking at me at all. Maybe I'm not so good at lying any more, and I was lying my head off. Last night I was busy as hell sleeping and there wasn't one single way I could prove it. If I tried to tell him the truth it would take a month to talk my way clear.

I said, "Come on," and headed for the phone in the lobby. I shoved a dime in the slot and dialed a number, hoping that I could put enough across with a few words to say what I wanted. He stood right there at my elbow ready to take the phone away as soon as I got my party and ask the question himself.

I couldn't mistake her voice. It was like seeing her again with the lava green of her dress flowing from her waist.

"This is Mike, Marsha. A policeman... wants to ask you something. Mind?"

That was as far as I could get. Pat had the phone while she was still trying to figure it out. He gave me a hard smile and turned to the phone. "Captain Chambers speaking. I understand you can account for Mr. Hammer's whereabouts last night. Is that correct?"

Her voice was music pouring out of the receiver. Pat glanced at me sharply, curiously, then muttered his thanks and hung up. He still didn't quite know what to make of it. "So you spent the night with the lady."

I said a beautiful thanks to Marsha under my breath. "That's not for publication, Pat."

"You better stop tomcatting around when Velda gets back, friend."

"It makes a good alibi."

"Yeah, I'd like to see the guy who'd sooner kill Toady than sleep with a chick like that. Okay, Mike, you got yourself an alibi. I have a screwy notion that I shouldn't believe it, but Link isn't Decker and if you're in this there'll be hell to pay and I'll find out about it soon enough."

I handed him a butt and flipped a light with my thumbnail.

"Can I hear about the deal or is it secret info like everything else?"

"There's not much to it. Somebody walked in and killed him."

"Just like that?"

"He was in bed asleep. He got it right through the head and whoever killed him went through the place like a cyclone. I'm going back there now if you want to come along."

"Blue boy there?"

"The D.A. doesn't know about it yet. He's out with the vice squad again," Pat said tiredly.

"You checked the bullet, didn't you?"

Pat squirmed a little. "I didn't wait for the report. I was so goddamned positive it was you that I came right over. Besides, you could have switched barrels if you felt like it. I've seen the extras you have."

"Thanks. I'm a real great guy."

"Quit rubbing it in."

"Who found the body?"

"As far as we know, the police were the first on the scene. A telegraph boy with a message for Toady saw the door open and went to shut it. Enough stuff was kicked around inside to give him the idea there was a robbery. He was sure of it when he rang the bell and nobody answered. He called the police and they found the body."

"Got any idea what they were looking for... or if they found it?"

Pat threw the butt at the floor. "No. Come on, take a look at it yourself. Maybe it'll make you feel better."

What was left of Toady wouldn't make anybody feel better. Death had taken the roundness from his body and made an oblong slab of it. He lay there on his back with his eyes closed and his mouth open, a huge, fat frog as unlovely dead as he was alive. Right in the center of his forehead was the hole. It was a purplish-black hole with scorched edges flecked by powder burns. Whoever held the gun held it mighty close. If there was a back to his head it was smashed into the pillow.

Outside on the street a couple more prowl cars screamed to a stop and feet came pounding into the house. A lone newshawk was sounding off about the rights of the press and being told to shut up. Pat left me there with a plain-clothesman while he got things organized and started the cops going through the rooms in a methodical search for anything that might be a lead.

When I had enough of Toady I went downstairs and followed Pat around, watching him paw through the wreckage of the living room. "Somebody didn't make a lot of noise, did they?"

I got a sharp grin. "Brother, this place was really searched."

I picked up a maple armchair and looked at it closely. There wasn't a scratch on it. There weren't any scratches on anything for that matter. For all the jumble that it seemed to be, the room had been carefully and methodically torn apart and the pieces put down nice and gently. You could even see some order in the way it was done. The slits in the seat cushions were evenly cut all in the same place. Anything that could be unscrewed or pulled out was unscrewed or pulled out. Books were scattered all over the floor, some with the back linings ripped right out of them.

Pat had one in his hand and waved it at me. "It wasn't very big if they went looking for it here."

I thought I said something to myself, but I said it out loud and Pat's head swiveled around at me. "What?"

I didn't tell him the second time. I shook my head, knowing the leer I was wearing had pulled my face out of shape and if Pat had good eyes he could read what I was thinking without looking any farther than my eyes. He might have done it if a cop hadn't come up to tell him about the junk in the basement, and he left me standing in the middle of the room right where Toady had made me stand, only this time I wasn't after Toady's hide any more because he wasn't the end at all.

Another cop came in looking for Pat. I told him he was downstairs and would be right back. The cop spread out the stuff in his hand and flashed it at me. "Look at the pin-ups I found." He gave a short laugh. "I guess he didn't go for this new stuff. Don't blame him. I like the pre-war crop better myself."

"Let's see them."

He handed them over to me as he looked through them.

Half of them were regular studio stills and the rest were enlargements of snapshots taken during stage shows. Every one of them was personally autographed to Charlie Fallon with love and sometimes kisses from some of the biggest stars in Hollywood.

When he was done with the pictures the cop let me look at a couple of loose-leaf pads that had scrawled notations of appointments to be made for more photos of more lovelies and the list of private phone numbers he had accumulated would have made any Broadway columnist drool. Every so often there was a reminder after a name... introduction to F.