Read Online The Day of the Guns by Mickey Spillane - Free Book Online

pleasure.”
    The steaks came and we waited until the waiter left and then began eating to resume the pleasantries. It was like twenty questions now, the probing and parrying. It was fun being with her again, like the old days when we were on opposite sides, lovers, yet enemies, digging for information without wanting to hurt the other.
    “Parents?” I asked casually.
    “Richard and Agnes Caine: 1892 to 1951; 1896, still living.” She smiled and went on, “Ruth, Patricia, Diana, sisters, Vernon, John my brothers. Both Diana and John were killed during the war. The dates of ...”
    “Never mind.”
    “You have a family crest,” I started.
    “Honorably won. Unicorns bearing a shield of red and blue with the bar dexter, beneath, an unfurled scroll with the insignia...”
    “You’re doing great,” I cut her off. “You always were a quick study.
    “Remember Cal Haggerty, Rondine?” I said abruptly.
    She stopped eating, giving me a curious look. Damn, she was better than ever!
    “Who?”
    “You killed him, baby. You let him have it with a tommy gun. Right after you shot me.”
    She almost dropped her fork and the expression in her eyes was unreadable.
    “Hurt to bring those things back? Hell, kid, I don’t feel bad when I think about the people I knocked off. They all needed it. To your way Cal and I needed it too so don’t feel bad about it.” I stopped and picked up my drink and finished it. “Or does the thought scare you?”
    Then she was back to normal again. “No,” she said, “it doesn’t scare me.”
    “It should, doll.”
    We finished eating then, not saying much more. I paid the bill and walked out with her and if anyone had looked we could have been nothing more than man and wife, not executioner and victim. On the corner of Broadway and Forty-fourth I whistled a cab over, gave her address and sat back, smiling to myself. She was on edge now and that’s the way I wanted her.
    Unconsciously, she had set her handbag between the two of us and I gave it a squeeze. There was a gun in there, all right. It was easy to wait until she glanced out the window to flip it open, finger the clip out of the small automatic, close it and drop the clip in my pocket without being noticed. Colonel Corbinet had trained us well and we kept up the practice.
    She made no objection when I got out and followed her into the apartment, but she did make a point of speaking to the doorman and the porter inside. Both had a good chance to look at me and very deliberately she asked the porter the time and she made a pretense of setting her watch. No matter what I did now there would be personal and time identification by two people and my neck would be in the trap.
    What Rondine didn’t know was why I was there.
    It wasn’t to kill her. Not just yet.
    She pushed the number twelve button in the elevator and I said, “Very nice, Rondine. Good thinking.”
    Rondine knew what I meant. She looked at me, smiled and said, “Do you blame me?”
    “Not at all. You’ve had the training for it, haven’t you?”
    Her smile and the set of her face were peculiar. “Yes, I have.”
    Sure, admit it, kid. You’ve had the best. I already know, so why deny it?
    She held the bag with her thumb and forefinger on the snaps, the other hand ready to dip into it if she had to and unless you were aware of those things you’d never notice the stance. It just wasn’t quite the way a woman holds her purse. It would have been funny to see what happened if she tried it.
    At her door I took the key out of her fingers, unlocked it myself and handed the key back. She walked in, held the door open and said, “A nightcap, Tiger?”
    “Sure.”
    One switch seemed to turn everything on in the room. Three lamps blossomed into a soft glow and the haunting strains of Dvorak’s New World Symphony chanted from hidden speakers. She threw her coat on the back of a chair, went behind the bar and reached for glasses and bottles. When she made the drinks she