Mickey Spillane - I, The Jury

“I know,” I cut in. “You’ll have me arrested for assault and battery and have my license revoked. Only when you do that, keep a picture in your mind of what your face will look like when I reach you. Someone already worked over your nose, but it’s nothing compared to what you’ll look like when I get done with it. Now keep your big mouth shut and give me some answers. First, what time did you leave the party?”

“About one or a little after,” George said sullenly. That checked with Myrna’s version.

“Where did you go after you left?”

“We went downstairs to Hal’s car and drove straight home.”

“Who’s we?”

“Hal, Myrna and myself. We dropped her off at her apartment and came here after putting the car in the garage. Ask Hal, he’ll verify it.”

Hal looked at me. It was easy to see that he was worried. Evidently this was the first time he had been mixed up in anything so deep. Murders don’t appeal to anyone.

I continued with my questioning. “Then what?”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, we had a highball and went to bed. What else do you think we did?” Hal said.

“I don’t know. Maybe you sleep together.” Hal stood up in front of me, his face a red mask of fury. I put my mitt in his face and shoved him back on the sofa. “Or maybe,” I went on, “you don’t sleep together. Which means that either one of you had plenty of time to take the car back out and make the run to town to knock off Jack and get back here without anyone noticing it. If you do sleep together you both could have done it. See what I mean?

“If either of you think you’re clean you’d better think again. I’m not the only one that has a mind that can figure out angles. Right now Pat Chambers has it all figured out on paper. He’ll be around soon, so you’d better be expecting him. And if either of you are tapped for the hot seat, you’d do a lot better by letting Pat pick you up. At least that way you’ll live through a trial.”

“Someone calling me?” a voice said from the doorway. I spun around. Pat Chambers was framed in the hardwood paneling wearing his ever-present grin.

I waved him over. “Yeah. You’re the main topic of conversation around here at this minute.” George Kalecki got up from the overstuffed cushions and walked to Pat. His old bluster was back.

“Officer, I demand the arrest of this man at once,” he fairly shouted. “He broke into my home and insulted me and my guest. Look at the bruise on his jaw. Tell him what happened, Hal.”

Hal saw me watching him. He saw Pat standing ten feet away from me with his hands in his pockets and apparently no desire to stop what might happen. It suddenly hit him that Jack had been a cop and Pat was a cop and Jack had been killed. And you don’t kill a cop and get away with it. “Nothing happened,” he said.

“You stinking little liar!” Kalecki turned on him. “Tell the truth! Tell how he threatened us. What are you afraid of, this dirty two-bit shamus?”

“No, George,” I said quietly, “he’s afraid of this.” I swung on him with all of my hundred and ninety pounds. My fist went in up to the wrist in his stomach. He flopped to the floor vomiting his lungs out, his face gradually turning purple. Hal just looked. For a second I could have sworn I saw a satisfied leer cross his swollen face.

I took Pat by the arm. “Coming?” I asked him.

“Yeah, nothing more to do here.”

Outside Pat’s car was drawn up under the covered portico. We climbed in and he started it up and drove around the house to the graveled driveway to the highway and turned south toward the city. Neither of us had spoken until I asked him, “Get an earful back there?”

He gave me a glance and nodded. “Yeah, I was outside the door while you were going through your spiel. Guess you laid it out the same way I did.”

“By the way,” I added, “don’t get the idea I’m slipping. I was onto the tail you put on me. What did he do, call from the front gate or the filling station where I left my heap?”

“From the station,” he answered. “He couldn’t catch on to why the hike and called for instructions. By the way. Why did you walk a mile and a half to his house?”

“That ought to be easy, Pat. Kalecki probably left instructions not to admit me after he read that piece in the papers. I came in over the wall. Here’s the station. Pull up.”

Pat slid the car off the road to the cindered drive. My car was still alongside the stucco house. I pointed to the grey-suited man sitting inside asleep. “Your tail. Better wake him up.”

Pat got out and shook the guy. He came to with a silly grin. Pat motioned in my direction. “He was on to you, chum. Maybe you had better change your technique.”

The guy looked puzzled. “On to me? Hell, he never gave me a tumble.”

“Nuts,” I said. “Your rod sticks out of your back pocket like a sore thumb. I’ve been in this game awhile myself, you know.”

I climbed into my buggy and turned it over. Pat stuck his head in the window and asked, “You still going ahead on your own, Mike?”

The best I could do was nod. “Natch. What else?”

“Then you’d better follow me in to town. I have something that might interest you.”

He got in the squad car and slid out of the cinders to the highway. My tail pulled out behind Pat and I followed him. Pat was playing it square so far. He was using me for bait, but I didn’t mind. It was like using a trout for bait to catch flies as far as I was concerned. But he was sticking too close to me to make the game any fun. Whether he was keeping me from being blasted or just making sure I didn’t knock off any prominent Joes whom I suspected I couldn’t say.

The article in the paper didn’t have enough time to work. The killer wouldn’t be flushed as quickly as that. Whoever pulled the trigger was a smart apple. Too damned smart. He must have considered me if he was in his right mind at all. He had to consider the cops even if it was an ordinary job. But this was a cop killing which made it worse. I was sure of one thing though, I’d be on the kill list for sure, especially after I made the rounds of everyone connected with it.

So far, I couldn’t find anything on Kalecki or Kines. No motive yet. That would come later. They both had the chance to knock off Jack. George Kalecki wasn’t what people thought him to be. His finger was still in the rackets. Possibilities there. Where Hal came in was something else again. He was tied up in some way. Maybe not. Maybe so. I’d find out.

My thoughts wandered around the general aspects of the case without reaching any conclusions. Pat went through the city sans benefit of a siren, unlike a lot of coppers, and we finally pulled up to the curb in front of his precinct station.

Upstairs he pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk and drew out a pint of bourbon from a lunch box. He handed me a man-sized slug of the stuff and set up one for himself. I poured mine down in one gulp.

“Want another?”

“Nope. Want some information. What were you going to tell me?” He went over to a filing cabinet and drew out a folder. I noticed the label. It read, “Myrna Devlin.”

Pat sat down and shook out the contents. The dossier was complete. It had everything on her that I had and more. “What’s the angle, Pat?” I knew he was getting at something. “Are you connecting Myrna with this? If you are you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“Perhaps. You see, Mike, when Jack first found Myrna trying to go over the railing of the bridge, he treated her like any other narcotic case. He took her to the emergency ward of the hospital.” Pat rose and shoved his hands in his pockets. His mouth talked, but I could see that his mind was deep in thought. “It was through constant contact with her that he fell in love. It was real enough for him. He saw all the bad side of her before he saw the good. If he could love her then he could love her anytime.”