Read Online Don't Look Behind You by Mickey Spillane - Free Book Online

cover was all but blown, offering a fresh start in the same field? And I don’t mean insurance.”
    Pat’s sigh spoke volumes. “Yeah. And the question is, how many more imported Woodcocks and Maxwells are out there? Maybe this is a syndicate of hired guns, a new Murder Incorporated, and these relocated hitmen weren’t tapped to kill you… their
boss
got the contract.”
    I grunted a laugh. “I was just an assignment that both assholes blew.”
    “Elegantly put. Mike, why don’t you be reasonable for a change, and keep a low profile until my office can clear this thing up.”
    “Maybe leave town, you think? Or you could provide me with police protection?”
    “Right!”
    I hung up on him.
    Velda made her liquid way into my office, her pretty mouth twitching with amusement. “You just hung up on the Captain of Homicide.”
    “Yeah, I’m out of control.”
    She sat opposite me, no amusement on her face now. “That cabbie’s name, according to the papers, was Ernie Jackson. He has a wife and three kids in Harlem. A deacon of his church. A man who welcomed fares into his cab like old friends.”
    My fists balled of their own volition. “I know. Somebody’s going to die for that.”
    “That’s swell, but his family has to live.” Her face was smooth, no wrinkles at all, and yet she was frowning at me. “Ernie Jackson got it because he was unlucky enough to have you as a potential passenger.”
    I frowned back at her, but with every wrinkle my face had to offer. “Think I don’t know that? Send them five grand out of our off-the-books stash.”
    Now the smooth face was somehow smiling. “You want to write a note to go with it? Or I can.”
    I shook my head. “No. Anonymous. And flowers to the funeral parlor. Nice and big, like he was a horse that won a race.
That
you can sign.”
    She nodded. “By the way, you look like something the cat dragged in. All those nicks on your face.”
    “Gives me character.”
    “I was thinking maybe we should dump the Borensen bridal shower, even if they aren’t smart enough to cancel us themselves. We know people who could handle that, and even get a referral fee of our own. I mean, how can you manage it? Your best suit got ruined.”
    “Good idea.” I reached for the phone.
    She was really smiling now and rose to go out when she heard me talking with my tailor at Brooks Brothers, telling him I needed another suit with the same specs as last time, and a rush job. Not all Brooks Brothers jobs are cut to conceal a .45 in a shoulder sling.
    And when she went out, she wasn’t smiling at all.
    * * *
    The next afternoon, at a quarter till three, I was crossing the mosaic-tiled floor of the mile-long lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria, on my way to the tower elevators and the twenty-seventh of the hotel’s forty-seven floors. The place had more marble, stone and bronze than Green-Wood Cemetery, and enough eighteenth-century paintings to stock a decent-size museum. And if the Early American furnishings clashed with the Art Moderne touches, nobody seemed to mind. I was skirting over-stuffed chairs and potted plants, making for the bank of elevators, when a bland stocky guy, hatless in a business suit as nice as my new Brooks Brothers, approached and gave a slight head bob. Without a word, we moved in that direction to a nearby couch and sat.
    In those pricey threads, Merle Allison might have been a refugee from an executive suite, but he wasn’t. He was the chief house dick at the Waldorf with a staff of twenty-five, all of whom dressed as well as their well-off guests, the better to blend in.
    Merle had the round, deceptively pleasant face of a top sergeant. He folded his arms and gave me a sideways look. “How dangerous are you making it for my guests, Mike, hanging around my hotel?”
    “Congratulations on buying the joint, Merle, and I hope they gave you an employee discount. I don’t think anybody’s going to take a potshot at me in this lobby, but thanks for your