Read Online Lady, Go Die! by Mickey Spillane - Free Book Online Page A

wasn’t a bastard.
    Nowhere in the well-appointed but relatively small apartment could I find evidence of male occupation, which wasn’t like her at all. None of those guys with their pictures on the baby grand hadtoothbrush and pajama privileges. Nor could I find any servant’s quarters. Whenever Mrs. Wesley gave a shindig, she must have imported a full staff of servants from the city to do the arranging and the cleaning up.
    The guest list must have been a carefully selected bunch. If they weren’t, news of this joint most certainly would have found its way to county or state officials and there would have been hell to pay. Admittance then, would be by invitation only, a swell way to attract the suckers and snobs. Very hush hush or you were kicked out on your well-off fanny, maybe worse. If they did squawk, they’d only leave themselves open for a gambling charge.
    Neat.
    I opened a few drawers and poked around a bit, but there was nothing of unusual interest. After completing a tour of the rooms, I walked downstairs and around to the new kitchen to complete the circuit. I had my eyes open all the way and I know where to look, but I never found what I wanted.
    In that whole damn house there wasn’t one sign of a safe.
    I had looked in all the usual places and unusual, as well, behind pictures, under desks, checking for loose carpet. No safe.
    If Sharron Wesley didn’t have one in the house, she must have buried it somewhere on the property. One thing was certain, money wasn’t being banked or stored where a check could be kept and income tax dragged out of it. An illegal den like this didn’t dare operate that way. There was the likelihood that she had a partner in the venture, and he hauled the dough back to the city. But the parties were probably Friday/Saturday affairs. And I doubted a bank run would happen daily, eighty miles out on LongIsland like this. A Nassau County bank, perhaps, but that was still a drive. Any operation like this needed a safe for overnight purposes, at least, and I could not find one.
    It was past eight-thirty and I still had to see Poochie—a guy like him could be in the rack already. Living as close to the Wesley mansion as he did, it was highly probable that he had witnessed plenty of the goings-on out here that the townspeople didn’t know about... and I wanted to see him before the cops tried to question him again, in the wake of Sharron Wesley’s Godiva act.
    Now that they had something besides a disappearance to go on, the Sidon PD had a legitimate reason to drag Poochie in to answer a few questions, and knowing their interrogation techniques, I wanted the little guy left strictly alone.
    I went out a side door. The same flagstone path that I had seen from the shore took me past the gazebo to the beach and I hit the sand for the walk to the shack.
    In the moonlight, the little structure was just a dark blot on the beach. No light was on. The water lapped softly on the sand, and at regular intervals the hooting of some night bird broke the oppressive stillness. Overhead the moon skidded behind a cloud, but a few stars winked off and on like a street sign.
    When I was still fifty feet away, an ominous snarling came from Poochie’s hut, then a higher-pitched growl, almost trying for harmony. His cats. They lived outside the shack, huddled like feline watchdogs. They spit repeatedly at the night, then a lantern flared up within the hovel and there was a banging as the occupant shut his door. Then the metal clank of a bolt shot into place.
    “It’s me , Poochie,” I called out as I approached. “It’s Mike!”
    No answer. I went up to the door and knocked.
    “Who... who is it?” His voice was high and frightened. He lacked the confidence of his cats.
    I was about to respond when a furry body flung itself at my legs and nails ripped through my pant leg into the flesh. I let out a curse and detached the cat from my leg and yelled, “ Ow! ”
    The bolt went back and the