Mickey Spillane - Dead Street

Acclaim For the Legendary MICKEY SPILLANE!

“One of the world’s most popular mystery writers.”

—The Washington Post

“Authentic narrative drive and almost hypnotic conviction... set Spillane apart from all his imitators.”

—The New York Times

“There’s a kind of power about Mickey Spillane that no other writer can imitate.”

—Miami Herald

“Satisfying... its blithe lack of concern with present-day political correctness gives it a rough-hewn charm that’s as refreshing as it is rare.”

—Entertainment Weekly

“A superb writer. Spillane is one of this century’s best-selling authors.”

—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Spillane’s books... redefined the detective story.”

—Wallace Stroby

“A wonderfully guilty pleasure.”

—Tim McLoughlin, The Brooklyn Rail

“A fun, fast read... from one of the all-time greats.”

—Denver Rocky Mountain News

“Spillane... presents nothing save visual facts; but he selects only those facts, only those eloquent details, which convey the visual reality of the scene and create a mood of desolate loneliness”

—Ayn Rand

“A writer who revolutionized a genre [with] heavy doses of testosterone, fast action, brutality and sensuality.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Sexy and frantically paced.”

—Chicago American

“Salty and satisfying... will hit like a slug of Old Crow from the bottom-drawer bottle.”

—The Buffalo News

“Machine gun pace... good writing... fascinating tale.”

—Charlotte Observer

“Simple, brutal, and sexy.”

—Kansas City Star

“As bang-bang as you’d ever want.”

—The Associated Press

“If you think he has lost his touch or drained the well, read this one... the new one is better than ever. If you are a Spillane fan you will enjoy this one more than anything done before. It is fast-moving, easy reading, and has the greatest shocker of an ending.”

—Albuquerque Tribune

“The socko ending is Mickey Spillane’s stock in trade, and never has he done it with greater effect... Sensational.”

—Buffalo News

“A swift-paced, pulsating yarn... which very definitely shows that Mr. Spillane still has control of his fast ball, plus a few sneaky slow ones for the change-up.”

—Springfield Daily News

“Need we say more than — the Mick is back.”

—Hammond Times

I had lain in the wet grass outside Buck Head Benny’s shack where he was holed up with three of his gang of damned killers all armed with AK’s and sawed-off twelve gauge shotguns, looking for more cops to kill. My backup was still a mile away and all I had was ... .45 with four shots left in the clip and their door swung open with a tiny creaking noise and they all came out too fast. They were ready but they didn’t know where I was until Buck Head Benny spotted me and raised the AK in my direction, but before his finger could tighten on the trigger I took him down and he spun into a crazy twist, the AK going into its staccato chatter with the spasmodic yank on the trigger dying men make and the chopper took out all of his killer buddies behind him.

Back then I wasn’t afraid of anything.

Now even breathing didn’t come easily...

SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY:

THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART by Lawrence Block

THE GUTTER AND THE GRAVE by Ed McBain

NIGHT WALKER by Donald Hamilton

A TOUCH OF DEATH by Charles Williams

SAY IT WITH BULLETS by Richard Powell

WITNESS TO MYSELF by Seymour Shubin

BUST by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

STRAIGHT CUT by Madison Smartt Bell

LEMONS NEVER LIE by Richard Stark

THE LAST QUARRY by Max Allan Collins

THE GUNS OF HEAVEN by Pete Hamill

THE LAST MATCH by David Dodge

GRAVE DESCEND by John Lange

THE PEDDLER by Richard S. Prather

LUCKY AT CARDS by Lawrence Block

ROBBIE’S WIFE by Russell Hill

THE VENGEFUL VIRGIN by Gil Brewer

THE WOUNDED AND THE SLAIN by David Goodis

BLACKMAILER by George Axelrod

SONGS OF INNOCENCE by Richard Aleas

FRIGHT by Cornell Woolrich

KILL NOW, PAY LATER by Robert Terrall

SLIDE by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

Dead STREET

by Mickey Spillane

PREPARED FOR PUBLICATION BY MAX ALLAN COLLINS

A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

(HCC-037)

First Hard Case Crime edition: November 2007

Published by

Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street

London

SE1 0UP

in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

Copyright © 2007 by Jane Spillane and Max Allan Collins

Cover painting copyright © 2007 by Arthur Suydam

All rights reserved.

In memory of Jay Bernstein

Chapter One

The street wasn’t dead yet. Not all the way. Old Charlie Wing had given the kids from the next block the last of the leechee nuts, and was packing his meager belongings for a U-Haul ride to Los Angeles and his relatives and then on by plane to his home province in China where he would be the richest man in the village and a big daddy to his horde of great and great-great grandkids.

Two houses down, the wicked witch of the neighborhood, ninety-year-old Bessie O’Brian, hung out the window, cushioning herself on a red velvet pillow as old as she was. When it snowed she stayed inside, only sliding the sash up if she heard gunshots. Hardly anything ever happened that she didn’t know about. She saw Findley get killed, the cops nail the pickup truck loaded with five million bucks worth of narcotics, was able to identify over twenty muggers and was the State’s foremost witness when Tootsie Carmody shot The Frog, the super peddler of heroin in the area. She wouldn’t go to court to identify the shooter. She made the court come to her and for one day her tenement building was jammed past inspection requirements by New York’s legal elite.

Bessie didn’t wave. She just yelled down, “Kill anybody today, Captain Jack?”

“Not yet,” I yelled back.

When I passed the brownstone where Bucky Mohler had lived, I could still see the faint outlines of the white 703 he had painted there when he was a trouble-making twelve-year-old punk. He had been knifed and shot twice before he was sixteen, then the Blue Uptowners nailed him with the radiator of a stolen car because he messed with one of their chicks.

That was a long time ago.

The Street was starting to die about then.

Set fifty feet back from the corner, so there would be ample curb space for a few squad cars, was the timeworn station house. It was an old-fashioned name for an old-fashioned building that had been born in the eighteen hundreds when this part of Manhattan still had goatherds and potato fields.

Until two years ago it had been well taken care of, but the financial cut-off had let the cement chip away from the courses of brick and left a blackboard for the damn graffiti artists to spray-paint insults on. A couple of those slobs were still wearing bandages. The station house wasn’t going at full throttle, but the few left for roll call were the tough apples.