Mickey Spillane - The Tough Guys

"You make it sound interesting." I reached out, lifted her to her feet and put my arms around her. I tried to make it casual, a thing that cousins might do, but it didn't quite work that way. My fingers kneaded the firm structure of her back, my palms pressed her close and some crazy thing went through my head and down through my body and was happening to her too. She said something I couldn't hear because my face was buried in the fragrance of her hair, then my mouth was tasting her and feeling the wild response and fiery dart of her tongue and I had to shove her away with arms that wanted to shake.

"Cat . . . I waited. I never believed what they said . . . about you being dead. The night you left I told you I'd wait."

"We were just kids, honey."

"You said you'd come back for me."

And I remembered. It was why I had turned off the road into the driveway.

"I'm too late, kid."

Her eyes, were misty and she leaned her face against my chest. "I know. It can't be changed." She looked up at me. "Take me back, Cat . . . please?"

I left her at the door without bothering to go in. The black Caddie that had been in front of my Ford was gone now, the Buick still there. I got in the car, turned the engine over and drove out the way I had come. Culver City was six miles east and I had nine days before I had to do the job in New York and get back to the coast.

Outside of town I stopped at a second rate motel, put down nine bucks and signed the register. I said I didn't need a receipt, got the key, the guy didn't even bother to look at the name and never commented on it, so I drove down to my room.

After a shower I lay on the bed staring up at the ceiling wondering just how badly I'd like to plaster Rudy and Ted all over their palatial mansion. I laughed at the thought because now it was ridiculous. I could take them both with one hand. I would have settled for a swift kick in the tail or a belt in the puss, dumped old Miles in the cistern out back and called it square.

Except that now a new note was added. The boys from Chicago were on the inside and the fun might be too much to miss out on.

I got up at seven A.M., grabbed breakfast downtown and at eight-thirty when I knew I'd get my party, made a call. Marty Sinclair came on the line with a gruff hello and I said, "Cat Bannerman."

"You in New York?"

"No, Culver City. I'm going to stick around a while."

"You and them crazy broads! When . . ."

"Come on, Marty. I used to live here."

"So why the call?"

"I don't know . . . something cute here we might tie in with. Look, work it easy, but see if you have a line into the local situation."

"Hell, man, Culver City is wide open. Gambling is legal, the horses are out of season but . . ."

"Can you do it?"

"Sure. Take ten minutes."

I gave him the number of the phone booth. "Call me back in fifteen."

He was right on the dot. Fifteen minutes later I knew of a Sid LaMont, had his address and was on the way.

Five sixty one River Street was a sleezy building on the end of a line of apartments with a painted sign advertising a popular beer facing the water. On the ground floor was a printing jobber, a top floor with smashed windows, which put Sidney LaMont right in the middle.

The guy who answered the door was about thirty but looked fifty. He came up to my shoulders, peering at me with a ratty little face, hands fiddling with a dirty undershirt. These guys I knew how to handle without wasting time so I just pushed him back in the room and watched the sweat start forming on his forehead.

They always try a little bull at first. He said, "Look, mister . . . don't you come bustin' in here and . . ."

"Shut up." I didn't have to say any more. When I pulled out the handkerchief and wiped my nose he saw the .45 in the hip holster, swallowed hard and backed into a chair.

"Mac . . . I'm clean, see. I paid my freight. Ask Forbes, he'll tell you. What kind of stuff is this? I'm nickels and dimes. Last week I clear sixty bucks. I don't bother nobody. I . . ."

"Shut up."

I gave him the full treatment, going around the room, just looking until I was satisfied, then pulled up a straight backed chair, turned it around and sat down facing him. His face was wringing wet. So was his undershirt.

"Bannerman," I said. "What do you know about them?"

He seemed genuinely bewildered. " Them? Jeez, Mac, I . . ."

"Quick."

The side of his mouth twitched. "You . . . you cops?"

For a full five seconds I just stared at him until his eyes couldn't meet mine at all any more. "I'm not from Culver City," I told him.

Between my face and where the gun was he couldn't keep his eyes still. He said, "So they're big wheels. Live west of here. Hell, I . . ." I started to move my hands and he held up his for me to wait. "Okay, they're real fancy stiffs. You think I meet them? The two kids are always traveling with some hot tomatoes from the clubs and they blow the dough like it's water. The old one's a crap shooter and his brother likes the wheel. So what else do you want? They got the money, let 'em spend it."

I sat without speaking another minute and let him sweat some more, then I got up and walked to the door. I turned around and said, "What do I look like?"

He got the message. "Man, I never seen you in my life."

"Remember that," I said.

There were five major clubs in town all located on the bay side. None of them were open for business, but somebody was in each one and when I told them I was checking on customer credit they weren't a bit backward about obliging me. I mentioned the Bannermans and all I got was a fat okay. They were big spenders and had been for a long time. They paid their bills and could get credit any time they wanted. They weren't big winners, though. Like any habitual players against the house they wound up in the red, but at least they enjoyed the pleasure of laying it out.

But I could still see the gates hanging off their hinges and picture the worn spots in the oriental rug in the library and it didn't make sense. There was just too much pride and tradition behind the Bannermans to let the old homestead run down.

I never knew what the financial setup was. My old man's father had piled up the loot during the gold rush trade. He had made a find, exploited it as far as he could, then sold out to a company. He had split the pile down the middle between Miles and Max, but the old man wasn't one for investments when he could hightail it around the world chasing wine, women and song. Max had me and Miles nursed his dough. And that's how it goes. The snag in the picture was the gaming tables because you can always spend it faster than you can make it and the signs were that the Bannermans weren't what they had been.

I had gone through all the spots where you can usually pick up a word or two without coming out with a single thing at all. At a quarter to four I tried the public library on State Street, found all the recent issues of the Culver Sentinel and started scanning through them.

In two weeks there were five mentions of the Bannermans, all in connection with some civic project or social function, but not a squib about them in the traffic violation column. Three weeks back the headlines were having a ball because there were four rape cases, a hit-and-run that killed two prominent local citizens, a murder in the parking lot of the Cherokee Club and a raid by the Treasury Department men on a narcotics setup in town. The rapes and the narcotics angle were solved, three teenage kids were being held for the hit-and-run and the parking lot murder was still up in the air. The dead man there was the lot attendant who had been fooling around with a friend's wife and the husband was being sought after. He was an ex con who had done time for second-degree murder and had blown town the night of the killing.