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

handed me mine, said, “Luck,” sipped from hers and put it on the bar. Then she walked out of the room. I didn’t worry. Her bag was still on the chair with her coat.
    But she was clever. The door to her bedroom was open enough so that if I walked to the chair she’d see me. As long as I stayed at the bar where I was she’d play the game my way, thinking I was playing it hers.
    Come, darling, I have seen the act before. It’s nothing new. Remember Hamburg? Remember that little town in occupied France where you did the bit in a ripped-open pillowcase? Man, but were you hot then. All white, soft skin and flowing, soft flesh and lovely hair and all mine. Mine. Remember the things we did that night? If they knew, the names they’d call us, eh? But fun. Great. Love. Real, true love.
    She came out in a quilted, blue housecoat and I didn’t have to be told that there was nothing beneath it. Her legs were the same lovely flash of pink, beautifully molded like a dancer’s, that melted into fabric before they revealed their true beauty; her waist pinched in and rising into the proud outthrusting of her breasts that were so deliberately Rondine’s.
    Oh, kid, I thought, what the hell do you think you’re pulling? This old soldier’s been through the routine. Backwards and forwards. Don’t give me the negligee and thigh deal. Hell, I’ve seen more naked broads than you have hair on your head. I’ve put them to bed, waked them up, left them gasping and two dyingand now you’re doing this to me? Nuts.
    “Nice,” I said. “You’d make a great whore.”
    She stopped in mid-stride and smiled. “Thank you. Have you finished your drink?”
    “I’m ready for another.”
    “So am I.” She never saw the first one I poured down the drain, but I took the second one she handed to me, tasted it, then walked across the room to the windows. The apartment looked out on Central Park, the view taking in almost all of the giant rectangle that was so tightly laced together with the lights of taxis.
    “Nice place, Rondine. Rent must go about a grand a month. Your U.N. job isn’t about to keep you in a joint like this one.”
    “I have a private income,” she answered simply. “I consider the position important enough to warrant the loss. My family feels the same way.”
    “Hell. I can think up an easier explanation.”
    “What would that be?”
    I turned around and stared at her. She was standing in the middle of the room, the superb beauty of her turning my guts around. “You have a private income all right, but the source isn’t the family. It’s another government, a Red one.”
    She didn’t challenge me. The small shake of her head was almost pitying.
    Then I had another thought. “But maybe you are right, kid. Maybe it is the Caine family after all. Rattle that skeleton enough and they’ll come across with anything.” I paused a moment and grinned. “Perfect. Trace back your income and it fits the picture. What a wonderful setup.”
    The whiteness was there again, the fine lines back at her eyes, but only momentarily. The hate dissolved into the thinnest of smiles and she raised her glass to take a taste of her drink.
    “In two days I’ll have a pipeline into your family, kitten,” I said. “If you could do it, so can I. You should know I’m not working alone. Behind me are others trained to the hilt and they’ll get everything I want.”
    “Tiger ...”
    “How about your brother and sister who are dead? Maybe we’ll have to go that far back if that’s where the skeleton is. Want to tell me about them?”
    “Damn you!” She threw the glass and it went past my head to smash against the wall. I never moved. “They’re dead. You let my family alone.” There was a harsh edge to her voice.
    I let out a little laugh. “Honey,” I said, “how you forget. You don’t remember your old Tiger very well at all. I never let anything alone until I bury it personally. I want all the answers, sugar. I want you to