Read Online Mickey Spillane - [Mike Hammer 02] by My Gun Is Quick - Free Book Online Page B

was killed, and when I got back to the house it was burned. I came back to get Nancy, but she was gone, and she was the only friend I had left, so I went down to Barney’s and got drunk.”
    “Where you made a very professional pass at me.”
    “I didn’t mean to, Mike. I was drunk and I couldn’t get out of the habit, I guess. Forgive me?”
    When she turned the neckline fell away and I was ready to forgive her for anything. But first there was more I had to find out.
    “Nancy ... what about Nancy... did she follow the same route you did? About working her way down the ladder, I mean.”
    “It happens to the best of them sooner or later, Mike. Yes, Nancy was a call girl too, only she had made the grade before me.”
    “And did she have to go to the hospital, too?”
    A puzzled frown tugged at her forehead. “No, that was the strange part about it. She was very careful. First she was in the big money, then suddenly she quit it all and dropped out of sight. She was forever running into people that hadn’t seen her for a long time, and it frightened her. She stayed in the business as though it were a place to hide.”
    “Hiding from what?”
    “I never found out. Those were things you didn’t ask about.”
    “Did she have anything worth hiding?”
    “If she did I didn’t see it, though she was mighty secretive about her personal belongings. The only expensive thing she had was a camera, an imported affair that she used when she had a job once. You know, taking pictures of couples on the street and handing them a card. They would send the card in with a quarter and get their picture.”
    “When was that... recently?”
    “Oh, no, quite some time ago. I happened to see some of the cards she had left over and asked about them. I think the name was ‘QUICK PICK’... or something like that.”
    I put a cigarette in my mouth and lit it, then gave her a drag from it. “What’s your whole name, Lola?”
    “Does it matter?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Bergan, Lola Bergan, and I come from a little town called Byeville down in Mississippi. It isn’t a big town, but it’s a nice town, and I still have a family there. My mother and father think I’m a famous New York model and I have a little sister that wants to grow up and be just like me, and if she does I’ll beat her brains out.”
    There wasn’t any answer to that. I said, “Lola, there’s just one thing more. Answer me yes or no fast and if you lie to me I’ll know it. Does the name Feeney Last mean anything to you?”
    “No, Mike. Should it?”
    “No, perhaps not. It meant something to Red and some other people, but it shouldn’t involve you. Maybe I’m on the wrong trolley?”
    “Mike ... did you love Nancy?”
    “Naw, she was a friend. I saw her once and spoke to her a few minutes and we got to be buddies. It was one of those things. Then some son of a bitch killed her.”
    “I’m sorry, Mike. I wish you could like me like that. Do you think you could?”
    She turned again, and this time she was closer. Her head nestled against my shoulder and she moved my hand up her body until I knew that there was no marvel of engineering connected to the bra because there was no bra. And the studded belt she wore was the keystone to the whole ensemble, and when it was unsnapped the whole affair came apart in a whisper of black satin that folded back against the sand until all of her reflected the moonlight from above until I eclipsed the pale brilliance, and there was no sound except that of the waves and our breathing. Then soon even the waves were gone, and there was only the warmth of white skin and little muscles that played under my hand and the fragrance that was her mouth.
    The redhead had been right.
     
    At one-fifteen I awoke with the phone shrilling in my ears. I kicked the cover off the bed and shuffled over to the stand, wiping the sleep from my eyes. Then I barked a sharp hello into the phone.
    Velda said, “Where the devil have you been? I’ve