Mickey Spillane - I, The Jury

“Kalecki. George Kalecki. He’s new in this dump. What apartment and the green is yours,” I said.

He gave me a careful going over, that one. Finally put his tongue in his cheek and said, “You must be that Hammer mug. He gimme a ten not to spot him for you.”

I opened my coat and pulled my .45 from its holster. The kid’s eyes popped when he saw it. “I am that Hammer mug, junior,” I told him, “and if you don’t spot him for me I’m giving you this.” I motioned toward his teeth with the gun barrel.

“Front 206,” he said hastily. My bill was a five. I rolled it up in a ball and poked it in his wide-opened mouth, then shoved the rod back.

“The next time remember me. And in the meantime, act like a clam or I’ll open you up like one.”

“Y-yes, sir.” He practically leaped back in the car and slammed the door shut.

206 was down the hall, the apartment facing on the street. I knocked, but there was no answer. Hardly breathing, I put my ear against the wood paneling of the door and kept it there. That way the wood acts as a sounding board, and any noise made inside is magnified a hundred times. That is, except this time. Nobody was home. Just to be sure, I slid a note under the door, then walked away and took the stairs down to the first landing. There I took off my shoes and tiptoed back up. The note was still sticking out exactly as I had placed it.

Instead of fooling around I brought out a set of skeleton keys. The third one did it. I snapped the deadlock on the door behind me—just in case.

The apartment was furnished. None of Kalecki’s personal stuff was in the front room except a picture of himself on the mantel when he was younger. I walked into the bedroom. It was a spacious place, with two chests of drawers and a table. But there was only one bed. So they did sleep together. I had to laugh even if I did mention it to get a rise out of them before.

A suitcase was under the bed. I opened that first. On top of six white shirts a .45 was lying with two spare clips beside it. Man, oh man, that caliber gun is strictly for professionals, and they were turning up all over the place. I sniffed the barrel, but it was clean. As far as I could tell, it hadn’t been fired for a month. I wiped my prints off and put the gun back.

There wasn’t much in the chests of drawers, either. Hal Kines had a photo album that showed him engaging in nearly every college sport there is. A lot of the shots were of women, and some of them weren’t half bad, that is if you like them tall and on the thin side. Me, I like ’em husky. Toward the end of the book were several showing Kalecki and Hal together. In one they were fishing. Another was taken alongside a car in camping clothes. It was the third one that interested me.

Both Hal and Kalecki were standing outside a store. In this one Hal wasn’t dressed like a college kid at all. In fact, he looked quite the businessman. But that wasn’t the point —yet. In the window behind him was one of those news releases they plant in stores facing the street that are made up of a big photo with a caption below it. There were two. One was indiscernible, but the other was the burning of the Morro Castle. And the Morro Castle went up in flames eight years ago. Yet here was Hal Kines looking older than he looked now.

I didn’t get any more time to look around. I heard the elevator doors slam and I walked into the front room. When I got there someone was fiddling at the lock. There was a steady stream of curses before I clicked up the deadlock and opened the door. “Come in, George,” I said.

He looked more scared than amazed. Apparently he really believed that it was me who took the shot at him. Hal was behind him ready to run as soon as I made one move. George recovered first.

“Where do you get off breaking into my apartment. This time . . .”

“Oh, shut up and come in. It’s just as monotonous for me. If you’d stay home awhile, you’d be better off.” The two of them stamped into the bedroom. When he came out he was red as a beet. I didn’t give him a chance to accuse me of anything.

“Why all the artillery?” I asked him.

“For guys like you,” he snarled, “for guys that try potting me through a window. Besides, I have a permit to carry it.”

“Okay, you got a permit. Just be sure you know who you use that rod on.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll give you a warning first. Now, if you don’t mind, will you tell me what you are doing here?”

“Sure, sonny. I want the low-down on the bang, bang. Since I was the one accused of it, I’d like to know just what I was supposed to have done.”

George slid a cigar from its wrapper and inserted it in a holder. He took his time lighting it up before he spoke.

“You seem to have police connections,” he said finally. “Why don’t you ask them?”

“Because I don’t like second-hand information. And if you’re smart you’ll talk. That gun was the killer’s gun, and I want the killer. You know that. But that isn’t all. The killer made one try and missed, so you can bet your boots there’ll be another.”

Kalecki took the cigar out of his mouth. Little lines of fear were racing around his eyes. The guy was scared. He tried to hide it, but he didn’t do very well. A nervous tic tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“I still see nothing I can tell you that would help. I was sitting in the big chair by the window. The first thing I knew the glass shattered beside me and the bullet hit the back of the chair. I dropped to the floor and crawled to the wall to be out of sight of whoever fired the shot.”

“Why?” I said slowly.

“Why? To save myself, of course. You don’t think I was just going to sit there and get shot at, do you?” Kalecki gave me a look of contempt but I ignored it.

“You don’t get the point, George,” I told him. “Why were you shot at to begin with?”

Little beads of sweat were popping out on his forehead. He wiped his brow nervously. “How should I know? I’ve made enemies in my time.”

“This was a very particular enemy, George. This one killed Jack, too, and he’s coming back after you. He may not miss the next time. Why are you on his list?”

He was really jumpy now. “I—I don’t know. Honest I don’t.” He was almost apologetic the way he spoke now. “I tried to think it out but I don’t get anywhere. That’s why I moved to the city. Where I was, anyone could get to me. At least here there are other people around.”

I leaned forward. “You didn’t think enough. You and Jack had something in common. What was it? What did you know that Jack did? What did you have on somebody that Jack might have stumbled to? When you answer that question you’ll have your killer. Now do I bang your head on the floor to help you remember or do you do it yourself?”

He stood up straight and paced across the room. The thought of being on a kill list had him half bugs. He just wasn’t as young as he used to be. This sort of thing got Mm down.

“I can’t say. If there’s anything, it’s a mistake. I didn’t know Jack long. Hal knew him. He met him through Miss Manning. If you can figure out a tie-up in there I’ll be glad to tell you what I know. Do you think I want to get knocked off?”

That was an angle I had forgotten about. Hal Kines was still sitting in the armchair beside the mantlepiece dragging heavily on a cigarette. For an athlete he wasn’t holding to training rules at all. I still couldn’t get the picture of Hal out of my mind. The one taken eight years ago. He was only a young punk, but that shot made him look like an old man. I don’t know. Maybe it was an abandoned store that had the picture in it for years.

“Okay, Hal, let’s hear what you know.” The kid turned his head toward me, giving me an excellent view of his Greek-god profile.