Mickey Spillane - I, The Jury

“What’s the matter,” I asked her, “doesn’t the bell ring anymore?”

“Sho’ nuff, Mistah Hammah. Ah think so. Come in. Come in.”

When I walked in the door Charlotte came running out to meet me. She had on a stained smock and a pair of rubber gloves. “Hey, honey,” she smiled at me. “You sure made that trip fast. Goody, goody, goody.” She threw her arms around me and tilted her head for a kiss. Kathy stood there watching, her teeth flashing whitely in her mouth.

“Go ‘way,” I grinned. Kathy turned her back so I could kiss her boss. Charlotte sighed and laid her head against my chest.

“Going to stay now?”

“Nope.”

“Oh , . . why? You just got here.”

“I came to get my wallet.” I walked over to the sofa with her and ran my hand down behind the cushions. I found it. The darn thing had slipped out of my hip pocket while I was asleep and stuck there.

“Now I suppose you’re going to accuse me of stealing all your money,” Charlotte pouted.

“Idiot.” I kissed the top of her blonde head. “What are you doing in this outfit?” I fingered the smock.

“Developing pictures. Want to see them?” She led me to her darkroom and turned out the lights. As she did so, a red glow came from the shield over the sink. Charlotte put some films in the developer, and in a few moments printed up a pic of a guy sitting in a chair, hands glued to the metal arms, and a strained expression on his face. She flicked the overhead on and looked over the photo.

“Who’s this?”

“A clinical patient. As a matter of fact, that is one that Hal Kines had released from the charity ward of the city hospital to undergo treatment in our clinic.”

“What’s the matter with him? The guy looks scared to death.”

“He’s in a state of what is commonly known as hypnosis. Actually there’s nothing more to it than inducing in the patient a sense of relaxation and confidence. In this case, the patient was a confirmed kleptomaniac. It wasn’t found out until he was admitted to the city ward after being found nearly dead of starvation on the streets.

“When we got to the bottom of his mental status, we found that in childhood he had been deprived of everything and had to steal to get what he wanted. Through a friend, I got him a job and explained why he had been like that. Once understanding his condition, he was able to overcome it. Now he’s doing quite well.”

I put the pic back in a rack and looked the place over. She had certainly spent enough fixing up the darkroom. I saw where I was going to have to earn more than I did to support a wife who had such a lavish hobby.

Charlotte must have read my mind. “After we’re married,” she smiled, “I’ll give all this up and have my pictures developed at the corner drugstore.”

“Naw, we’ll do all right.” She grabbed me and hung on. I kissed her so hard I hurt my mouth this time. It was a wonder she could breathe, I held her so tightly.

We walked to the door arm in arm. “What about tonight, Mike? Where will we go?”

“I don’t know. To the movies, maybe.”

“Swell, I’d like that.” I opened the door. When I did I pointed to the chime behind it. “How come it doesn’t ring any more?”

“Oh, phooey.” Charlotte poked under the rug with her toe. “Kathy has been using the vacuum in here again. She always knocks out the plug.” I bent down and stuck it back in the socket.

“See you about eight, kitten,” I said as I left. She waited until I was nearly out of sight down the stairs, then blew me a kiss and shut the door.

Chapter Twelve

My tailor had a fit when he saw the bullet hole in my coat. I guess he was afraid he was coming close to losing a good customer. He pleaded with me to be careful, then told me he’d have the cloth rewoven by next week. I picked up my other suit and went home.

The phone was ringing when I opened the door. I dropped the suit over the back of a chair and grabbed the receiver. It was Pat.

“I just got a report on the bullet that killed Bobo Hopper, Mike.”

“Go on.” I was all excited now.

“Same one.”

“That does it, Pat. Anything else?”

“Yeah, I have Kalecki’s gun here, too. The bullet doesn’t fit except with the ones he let loose at you. We traced the serial number and it was sold down South. It went through two more hands and wound up in a pawnshop on Third Avenue where it went to a guy named George K. Masters.”

So that was how George got the gun. No wonder there was no record of it before. Kalecki was his middle, and probably a family, name. I thanked Pat and hung up. Now why the hell would Kalecki be using that name? Not unless he was liable to be traced through his real one for a crime committed some time ago. At any rate, the question would have to remain unanswered unless Pat could make some sense out of the evidence we found in the safe-deposit box. You can’t prosecute a corpse.

After I ate, I showered and was getting dressed when the phone went off again. This time it was Myrna. She wanted me to pick her up earlier, if I could, tomorrow morning. That was all right with me and I told her so. She still sounded pretty bad and I was glad to do what I could to help her out. Maybe the ride into the country would do her good. Poor kid, she needed something to cheer her up. The only thing that had me worried was that she might try going back on the junk again to get Jack’s death out of her mind. She was a smart girl. There were other ways. Some day she would settle down with a nice fellow and Jack would be but a memory. That’s the way nature made us. Maybe it’s best.

Charlotte met me in front of the apartment house. When she saw me coming she tapped her foot impatiently as though she had been waiting an hour. “Mike,” she said fiercely, “you’re late. A whole five minutes. Explain.”

“Don’t beat me with that whip,” I laughed. “I got held up in traffic.”

“A likely excuse. I bet you were trying to see what makes a nymphomaniac tick again.” She was a little devil.

“Shut up and climb in. We’ll never get a seat in the show otherwise.”

“Where are we going?”

“I’m in the mood for a good ‘who-dun-it’ if you are. Maybe I can pick up something new in detecting techniques.”

“Swell. Let’s go, Macduff.”

We finally found a small theater along the stem that didn’t have a line outside a mile long, and we sat through two and a half hours of a fantastic murder mystery that had more holes in it than a piece of swiss cheese, and a

Western that moved as slowly as the Long Island Rail Road during a snowstorm.

When we got out I thought I had blisters on my butt. Charlotte suggested having a sandwich, so we stopped in a dog wagon for poached eggs on toast, then moved on down to a bar for a drink. I ordered beer, and when Charlotte did the same I raised my eyebrows.

“Go ahead, get what you want. I got dough.”

She giggled. “Silly, I like beer. Always have.”

“Well, glad to hear it. I can’t make you out. An expensive hobby, but you drink beer. Maybe you aren’t going to be so hard to keep after all.”

“Oh, if it comes to a pinch, I can always go back to work.”

“Nothing doing. No wife of mine is going to work. I want her at home where I know where she is.”

Charlotte laid her beer down and looked at me wickedly. “Has it ever occurred to you that you’ve never even proposed to me? How do you know I’ll have you?”

“Okay, minx,” I said. I took her hand in mine and raised it to my lips. “Will you marry me?”

She started to laugh, but tears came into her eyes and she pushed her face against my shoulder. “Oh, Mike, yes. Yes. I love you so much.”