Mickey Spillane - The Tough Guys

When I got up this time Rhino Massley was smiling, the gun in his hand pointed at Terry's head and to me he said, "Then watch her die."

I let him smile for the last time and squeezed the trigger of the .45 and watched it cave in his chest. The gun he held went off into the ceiling then flew out of his hand, but I didn't let that stop me. I disintegrated Rhino's face into a crazy welter of bits and pieces and when the last slug was gone threw the empty rod at his body and stood there yelling my head off with a panic that lasted only a minute.

The soft cry of Terry's voice spun me around. She was sitting up, the shock of the gunshots jerking her into consciousness, eyes wide with terror and one hand over her mouth covering a soundless scream.

I took her in my arms, cradled her, and let her bury her face against me. Outside I could hear the whistles and the yells and voices shouting directions.

I said, "It's all right, baby, it's all over now."

"Phil?" It was a child's question, asking for a touch of security.

"It's me, kitten. He won't hurt you ever again. It's all right." I kissed her gently, softly, knowing that now she was hurt. Later I would tell her what happened. Not all of it, nor would anyone else. There was no reason for any to know. As far as the world was concerned, Rhino was buried back there in Phoenix. Cal Porter would see to that. What he had to work with now gave him a lever big enough to pull it off or even jack himself into the big chair in Albany. It would be an easy story to tell. Simple. Rhino Massley's black bundle had been found. Certain hoods tried to beat the law to it and were killed.

She opened her eyes, drew back, and looked at me. She smiled through the pain she felt and touched my face. Across the room she could see the huddled lump of Massley.

"That man, Phil. He wasn't my father." Her voice had a note of surety.

"You're right, Terry. He was just another hood. He had a gimmick he thought could get you to lead him to something. He's dead."

"But my father . . . ?"

"He died a long time ago, sugar. You never knew him."

I kissed her again. "Let's go home," I said.

And we did.

THE BASTARD BANNERMAN

CHAPTER ONE

I let the old Ford drift over the hill so I could see the sweep of the Bannerman estate nestling in the cove of the bay with the light of the full moon throwing shadows from the tall pines and making the columns of the mansion stand clear like a skeletal hand.

The hedgerow inside the fieldstone wall that surrounded the place had outgrown it by six feet since I had seen it last and as I eased past the huge brick posts that had once supported a handmade wrought-iron gate I could see what time and negligence had done to it. The gates were still there, but propped open, the posts ripped loose from the brick.

At no time did I have any intention of stopping by. Cutting off the main east-west highway onto 242 was an act of curiosity more than nostalgia, but when a guy lives the first twelve years of his life in a place before he gets the boot into the wild world outside, it's a natural thing to want to see if his old home had as many scars as he did.

Through the break in the tree line I could see the lights on downstairs. I grinned to myself, braked the Ford, backed up and turned in the drive and followed the curve of it up to the house.

What a damn fool I am, I thought. Do I shake hands or slap somebody's tail for them? This was no prodigal son returning and if I expected a happy homecoming I was blowing smoke all the way.

But what the hell, that was all twenty-three years ago, two wars ago, a lifetime ago and when curiosity gets the better of you, go to it. Like the old man used to say before he died though, just remember what it did to the cat. Then he'd laugh because that was my name. C. C., for Cat Cay Bannerman.

Now I knew the joke. Cat Cay was where I was conceived and born, only out of wedlock. The girl died an hour after I showed up and the old man brought me home with his name and a stigma the rest of the family couldn't live with.

The bar sinister. The bastard Bannerman. To be raised with the bar dexter class in wealth and tradition, but always on the tail end out of sight so the blight on the family escutcheon wouldn't be seen by the more genteel folk.

I parked behind the two other cars, walked up the broad flight of steps to the porch and pulled the bell cord. It had an electrical device now and chimed somewhere inside. When that happened the voices that seemed a little too loud suddenly stopped and when the door opened I looked at the tiny old lady that used to make me jelly sandwiches when I was locked in my room and tell me everything was going to be all right and I said, "Hello, Annie."

She stiffened automatically, looked up at me over her glasses, annoyed. "Yes?" Her voice was thin now, and quavered a little.

I bent down and kissed her cheek. It was quick and she didn't have time to pull away, but her mouth opened in a gasp of indignation. Before she could speak I said, "It's been a long time, Annie. Don't you remember the one you called your pussy cat?"

Her eyebrows went up slowly as memories returned. She reached out, touched my face, shaking her head in disbelief. "Cat. My little Cat Cay."

I lifted her right off her feet, held her up and squeezed her a little. The two-day-old beard was rough against her cheek and she squealed with a little sob of pleasure until I put her down. "I don't believe it," she told me. "So many years. You're so . . . so big now. Come in, Cat, come in, come in."

"You haven't changed, Annie. You still smell of apple pie and furniture polish."

She closed the door, took my arm with fragile fingers, stepped back and looked at me closely. "Yes, it's you all right . . . the broken nose Rudy gave you, the scar where you fell out of the tree . . . your father's eyes."

But at the same time she was looking at the well-worn black suit and the battered porkpie hat and in her mind I was still the left over, the one who didn't fit or belong, who had always been a convenient whipping boy for Rudy and his brother Theodore, the family scapegoat who took the blame and punishment for everything two cousins did and had to cut out at twelve.

"Where's the clan?" I asked her.

Her eyes darted toward the pair of oak doors that led to the library. "Cat . . . do you think you should . . ."

"Why not, old girl? No hard feelings on my part. What happened is over and I'm not going to be around long enough to get any rumors started. Besides, there's not one thing I want from this bunch of Bannermans. By myself I do okay and no squawks. I'm only passing through."

She was going to say something else, stopped herself and pointed to the doors. "They're all . . . inside there." There was a peculiar edge to her voice, but she was still the family housekeeper and didn't intrude in the closed circle of affairs.

I patted her shoulder, pushed down the two great brass handles and swung the doors open. For one second I had that cold feeling like I used to get when I was told to report and knew what was going to happen. Uncle Miles would be pacing the floor in his whipcord breeches, slapping his leg with the riding crop while he listened to Rudy and Teddy lie about who let the bay mare eat herself to death from the feed bin, or who fired the old cabin out back. I'd know the crop was for me with long hours in the dark attic bedroom and a week of doing backbreaking man-chores to follow until I was allowed the company of the family again. I remembered the way old MacCauley hated to assign the jobs, but he had his orders from Miles and he'd try to take the load off my back, knowing he'd be fired if he was caught. If my old man had been alive he would have knocked his brother's ass off for doing it. But pop had died. He went under a frozen lake to get Rudy who had fallen through, caught pneumonia and a week later was dead.