Read Online Killer Mine by Mickey Spillane - Free Book Online Page B

the reason. It was that damn Marty. I kept thinking about her.
     
    The late-afternoon shift was just beginning to drift into Donavan’s place when I got there. This was the straight bunch, the guys still in work clothes carrying lunch pails, having a drink before they had to breech the fortresses of their own homes. The bartender caught my entry and tried to pass the word, but I stopped him with a single look and went back to where Donavan was sitting behind a paper and pulled it away from his face.
    “Al Reese,” I said. “Where is he?”
    His tone was bland, but forced. “He ain’t been in.”
    All I had to do was start that damn vicious grin again.
    “Try Bunny’s,” he said in a hurry. He covered his fright by looking at his watch. “He don’t generally come over here until six.”
    I said, “You make a call, Donavan, you put the word out and I’ll smear you all over your own joint. You got that?”
    “Listen, Scanlon…”
    Tough guys I didn’t like. I just grinned again, and he got the message. Whatever he saw in my face scared the crap out of him. “Look… I got my own business…”
    I didn’t bother to hear him out.
    Bunny’s was a fag joint around the bend. Hell, you’ve probably read about it a dozen times if you keep up with the columns. At night a cop is stationed outside and a cruiser goes by every ten minutes looking for trouble. It was an old place and back when Prohibition was still in effect and the stage door Johnnies were still escorting the chorus babes around as status symbols and it was a genuine saloon, Larry and I were making bucks for eating money holding open car doors for the tux crowd and sometimes steering the lonelies to spots where exciting company could be found in a hurry.
    Now it was changed, the exterior was gaudy, the canopy and doorman expensive, the line of taxis unusually long for this area at this time, but the reason plain… it was the convention season, and the out-of-towners wanted a peek at New York in the rough.
    I could still feel Larry at my side, laughing at the suckers, knowing what marks they’d be when a forlorn lad was out for a favor and a broad watching to see how expansive her date would be. Hell, that was how he got his loot to go watch all the Tom Mix shows.
    Chief Crazy Horse, I kept thinking. Miss you, boy. Of all that big family we had, I miss you the most. One lousy war and a missing in action notification telegram busts us up.
    You didn’t miss a thing, Larry. The world went wild after you left. Most of the bunch are dead. Some died with you… some the hard way. Some are still waiting to die. The rest just waiting.
    I went inside.
    Al Reese was at the bar, his bulk taking up a corner of it Loefert was two stools down with a pretty, but hard-looking B girl beside him, and next to her Will Fater and Steve Lutz were sipping drinks without talking, satisfied with watching their reflections in the back bar mirror.
    It was going to be a fun evening. And the night hadn’t even begun.
    When I tapped him on the shoulder he turned around, annoyed at the interruption, his chunky jowls ready to chop into me with a wise remark, then all at once he went white.
    Everybody was looking when I said, “On the wall, fatty. Hands out, feet back and apart and make a move I don’t like and you’ll catch one.” I let them see the rod in the Weber rig and whatever my face said, they knew I wasn’t kidding. To insure the deal I nodded to Loefert, Fater and Lutz to join him and without a word they took the position. Hell, I knew they’d all be clean, but when you roust you roust and you don’t give a damn. Tomorrow all hell would break loose at HQ when Reese put the squeal in, but right then I was enjoying myself. The customers had a treat, the hired help had a laugh and Al Reese damn near had a stroke when I finally got them patted down, identified and let them go back to their seats. For the others it was an old routine, but for Reese, it was strictly a new