Her mouth was too close and too soft to just look at. My fingers seemed to get caught in her hair and suddenly those lovely, wet lips were only inches away, and just as suddenly there was no distance at all.
The bubbling warmth was just what I expected. The fire and the cushiony softness and the vibrancy made a living bed of her mouth. I leaned into it, barely touched it and came away before there was too much hunger. The edges of her teeth showed in a faint smile and she touched my face with the tips of her fingers, then she climbed out of the car.
All the way back to Manhattan I could taste it. The warmth and the wetness and a tantalizing flavor.
The garage was filled so I parked at the curb, gassed up for an excuse to stay there and walked into the office. Bob Gellie was busy putting a distributor together, but he dropped it when I came in.
I said, “How did it go, kid?”
“Hi, Mike. You gave me a job, all right.”
“Get it?”
“Yeah, I got it. I checked two dozen outlets before I found where those heads came from. A place out in Queens sold ’em. The rest of the stuff I couldn’t get a line on at all. Most of it’s done directly from California or Chicago.”
“So?”
“They were ordered by phone and picked up and paid for by a messenger.”
“Great.”
“Want me to keep trying?”
“Never mind. Those boys have their own mechanics. What about the car?”
“Another cutie. It came out of the Bronx. The guy who bought it said it was a surprise for his partner. He paid cash. Like a jerk the dealer let him borrow his plates and it got driven down, the plates were taken off and handed back to the dealer again.” He opened the drawer and slid an envelope across to me. “Here’s your registration. I don’t know how the hell they worked it but they did. Them guys left themselves wide open.”
“Who bought the car?”
“Guess.”
“Smith, Jones, Robinson. Who?”
“O‘Brien. Clancy O’Brien. He was medium. Mr. Average Man. Nobody could describe him worth a hoot. You know the kind?”
“I know the kind. Okay, Bob, call it quits. It isn’t worth pushing.”
He nodded and squinted up his face at me. “Things pretty bad, Mike?”
“Not so bad they can’t get worse.”
“Gee.”
I left him there fiddling with his distributor. Outside the traffic was thick and fast. Women with bundles were crowding the sidewalks and baby carriages were parked alongside the buildings.
Normal, I thought, a nice normal day. I hauled my heap away from the curb, cut back to Broadway and headed home. It took thirty minutes to get there, another thirty for a quick lunch at the corner and I went into the building fishing my keys out of my pocket.
Any other time I would have seen them. Any other time it would have been dark outside and light inside and my eyes wouldn’t have been blanked out. Any other time I would have had a rod on me and it wouldn’t have happened so easy. But this was now and not some other time.
They came out of the corners of the lobby, the two of them, each one with a long-nosed revolver in his fist and a yen to use it. They were bright boys who had been around a long time and who knew all the angles. I got in the elevator, leaned against the wall while they patted me down, turned around and faced the door as they pushed the LOBBY button instead of getting off, and walked out in front of them to my car.
Only the short one seemed surprised that I was clean. He didn’t like it at all. He felt around the seat while his buddy kept his gun against my neck, then got in beside me.
You don’t say much at a time like that. You wait and keep hoping for a break knowing that if it came at all it would be against you. You keep thinking that they wouldn’t pop you out in broad daylight, but you don’t move because you know they will. New York. This is New York. Something exciting happening every minute. After a while you get used to it and don’t pay any attention to it. A gunshot, a backfire, who can tell the difference or who cares. A drunk and a dead man, they both look the same.
The boy next to me said, “Sit on your hands.”
I sat on my hands. He reached over, found my keys in my pocket and started the car. “You’re a sucker, mac,” he said.
The one in the back said, “Shut up and drive.” We pulled out into the street and his voice came again. This time it was closer to my ear. “I don’t have to warn you about nothing, do I?”
The muzzle of the gun was a cold circle against my skin. “I know the score,” I said.
“You only think you do,” he told me.
Chapter Nine
I COULD FEEL THE SWEAT starting down the back of my neck. My insides were all bottled up tight. My hands got tired and I tried to slide them out and the side of the gun smashed into my head over my ear and I could feel the blood start its slow trickle downward to join the sweat.
The guy at the wheel threaded through Manhattan traffic, hit the Queens Midtown Tunnel and took the main drag out toward the airport. He did it all nice and easy so there wouldn’t be any trouble along the way, deliberately driving slowly until I wanted to tell him to get it rolling and quit fooling around. They must have known how I felt because the guy in the back bored the rod into me every time I tightened up and laughed when he did it.
Overhead an occasional plane droned in for a landing and I thought we were going into the field. Instead he passed right by it, hit a stretch where no cars showed ahead and started to let the Ford out.
I said, “Where we going?”
“You’ll find out.”
The gun tapped my neck. “Too bad you took the car.”
“You had a nice package under the hood for me.”
The twitch on the wheel was so slight the car never moved, but I caught the motion. For a second even the pressure against my neck stopped.
“Like it?” the driver asked.
He shouldn’t have licked his lips. They should have taught him better.
The pitch was right there in my lap and I swung on it hard. “It stunk. I figured the angle and had a mechanic pull it.”
“Yeah?”
“So I punch the starter and blooie. It stunk.”
This time his head came around and his eyes were little and black, eyes so packed with a crazy terror that they watered. His foot slammed into the brake and the tires screamed on the pavement.
It wasn’t quite the way I wanted it but it was just as good. Buster in the back seat came pitching over my shoulder and I had his throat in my hands before he could do a thing about it. I saw the driver’s gun come out as the car careened across the road and when it slapped the curbing the blast caught me in the face.
There wasn’t any sense holding the guy’s neck any more, not with the hole he had under his chin. I shoved as hard as I could, felt the driver trying to reach around the body to get at me while he spit out a string of curses that blended together in an incoherent babble.
I had to reach across the corpse to grab him and he slid down under the wheel still fighting, the rod in his hand. Then he had it out from the tangle of clothes and was getting up at me.
But by then it was too late. Much too late. I had my hand clamped over his, snapped it back and he screamed the same time the muzzle rocketed a bullet into his eyeball and in the second before he died the other eye that was still there glared at me balefully before it filmed over.
They happen fast, those things. They happen, yet time seems to drag by when there’s only a matter of seconds and the first thing you wonder is why nobody has come up to see what was going on, then you look down the road and the car you saw in the distance when it all started still hasn’t reached you yet, and although two kids across the street are pointing in your direction, nobody else is.
So I got in the driver’s side, sat the two things next to me in an upright position and drove back the way we came. I found a cutoff near the airport, turned into it and followed the road until it became a one
-lane drive and when I reached its limit there was a sign that read DEAD END.
I was real cute this time. I sat them both under the sign in a nice, natural position and drove back home. All the way back to the apartment I thought of the slobs who gave me credit for finding both gimmicks in the heap and then suddenly realized I was dumber than they figured and the big one was still there ready to go off any second.
Night had seeped in by the time I reached the apartment. I parked and went up to the apartment, opened the door enough to call in for her to take the chain off, but it wasn’t necessary at all.
There was no chain.
There was no Lily either and I could feel that cold feeling crawl up my back again. I walked through the rooms to be sure, hoping I was wrong when I was right. She was gone and everything she owned was gone. There wasn’t even a hairpin left to show that she had been there and I was so damned mad my eyes squinted almost shut and I was cursing them, the whole stinking pack of them under my breath, cursing the efficiency of their organization and the power they held in reserve, swearing at the way they were able to do things nobody else could do.
I grabbed the phone and dialed Pat’s number. Headquarters told me he had left for the day and I put the call through to his apartment. He said hello and knew something was up the minute he heard my voice. “Lily Carver, Pat, you know her?”
“Carver? Damn, Mike ...”
“I had her here at the apartment and she’s gone.”
“Where?”
“How am I supposed to know where! She didn’t leave here by herself. Look ...”
“Wait up, friend. You have some explaining to do. Did you know she had been investigated?”
“I know the whole story, that’s why I pulled her out of Brooklyn. She had the city boys, the feds and another outfit on her back. The last bunch pulled a fast one today and got her out of here somehow.”
“You stuck your neck out on that one.”
“Ah, shut up,” I said. “If you have a description, pass it around. She might know what it was the Torn kid was bumped for.”
His breathing came in heavy over the receiver. “A pickup went out on her yesterday, Mike. As far as we knew she disappeared completely. I wish to hell you let me in on the deal.”
“What have you got on her?” I asked him.
“Nothing. At least not now. A stoolie broke the news that she was to be fingered for a kill.”
“Mafia?”
“It checks.”
“Damn,” I said.
“Yeah, I know how you feel.” He paused, then, “I’ll keep looking around. There’s big trouble winding up, Mike.”
“That’s right.”
“Stuff has been pouring in here.”
“Like what?”
“Like more tough guys seen on the prowl. We picked up one on a Sullivan rap already.”
I grunted. “That law finally did some good.”
“The word is pretty strong. You know what?”
“What?”
“You keep getting mentioned in the wrong places.”
“Yeah.” I lit up a smoke and pulled in a deep drag. “This rumble strictly on the quiet between you and me?”
“I told you yes once.”
“Good. Anybody find a pair of bodies propped up against a sign in Queens?”
He didn’t say anything right away. Then he whispered huskily, “I should’ve figured it. I sure as blazes should’ve figured it.”
“Well, just don’t figure me for your boy. I checked my rod in a few days ago.”
“How’d it happen?”
“It was real cute,” I said. “Remind me to tell you someday.”
“No wonder the boys are out for you.”
“Yeah,” I said, then I laughed and hung up.
Tonight there’d be more. Maybe a whole lot more.
I stood there and listened and outside the window there was another laugh. The city. The monster. It laughed back at me, but it was the kind of a laugh that didn’t sound too sure of itself any more.
Then the phone jangled and the laugh became the muted hum once more as I said hello. The voice I half expected wasn’t there. This one was low and soft and just a little bit sad. It said, “Mike?”
“Speaking.”
“Michael Friday, Mike.”
I could visualize her mouth making the words. A ripe, red mouth, moistly bright, close to the phone and close to mine. I didn’t know what to answer her with, except, “Hi, where are you?”
“Downtown.” She paused for a moment. “Mike ... I’d like to see you again.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Why?”
“Maybe to talk, Mike. Would you mind?”
“At one time I would. Not any more.”
Her smile must have had the same touch of sadness her voice had just then. “Perhaps I’m using that for an excuse.”
“I’d like that better,” I said.
“Will you see me then?”
“Just say where and when.”
“Well ... one of Carl’s friends is giving a party this evening. I’m supposed to be there and if you don’t mind ... could we go together? We don’t have to stay very long.”
I thought about it a minute. I let a lot of things run through my mind, then I said, “Okay, I don’t have anything else on the fire. I’ll meet you in the Astor lobby at ten. How’s that?”
“Fine, Mike. Shall I wear a red carnation or something so you’ll know me?”
“No ... just smile, kid. Your mouth is one thing I’ll never forget.”
“You’ve never really got close enough to tell.”
“I can remember how I said good-bye the last time.”
“That isn’t really close,” she said as she hung up.
I looked at the phone when I put it down. It was black, symmetrical and efficient. Just to talk to somebody put a thousand little things into operation and the final force of it all culminated in a minor miracle. You never knew or thought about how it happened until it was all over. Black, symmetrical, efficient. It could be a picture of a hand outlined in ink. Their organization was the same and you never knew the details until it was too late.
That’s when they’d like me to see the picture.
When it was too late.
How many tries were there now? The first one they spilled me over the cliff. Then there was laughing boy who kept his gun in his pocket. And don’t forget the dead-end sign. That one really must have scared them.
The jerks.
And someplace in the city were two others. Charlie Max and Sugar Smallhouse. For a couple of grand they’d fill a guy’s belly with lead and laugh about it. They’d buck the biggest organization in the country because theirs was even bigger. They wouldn’t give a damn where they scrammed to because wherever they went their protection went too. The name of the Mafia was magic. The color of cash was even bigger magic.
My lips peeled back over my teeth when I thought of them. Maybe now that they knew about the dead-end sign they’d do a little drinking to calm themselves down. Maybe they’d be thinking if they really were good enough after all. Then they’d decide that they were and wait around until it happened and if it came out right in a penthouse somewhere, or in a crummy dive someplace else one of the kings would swallow hard and make other plans and begin to get curious about footsteps behind him and the people around him. Curiosity that would put knots in their stomach first, tiny lumps that would harden into balls of terror before too long.
Ten o’clock. It was still a few hours off.
Ten o‘clock, an exquisite, desirable mouth. Eyes that tried to eat you. Ten o’clock Michael Friday, but I had another appointment first.
I started in the low Forties and picked the spots. They were short stops because I wasn’t after a good time. I could tell when I was getting ripe by the sidewise looks that came my way. In one place they started to move away from me so I knew I was nearing the end. A little pigeon I knew shook hi
s head just enough so I knew they weren’t there and when his mouth pulled down in a tight smile I could tell he wasn’t giving me much of a chance.
Nine fifteen. I walked into Harvey Pullen’s place in the Thirties. Harvey didn’t want to serve me but I waited him out. He went for the tap and I shook my head and said, “Coke.”
He poured it in a hurry, walked away and left me by the faded redhead to drink it. A plain-clothes man I recognized walked in, had a fast beer at the bar, took in the crowd through the back mirror, finished his butt and walked out. In a way I hoped he had spotted me, but if he did he was better at spotting than I was at keeping from being spotted.
She didn’t move her mouth at all. Sometimes the things they pick up in stir pay off and this was one of them. She said, “Hammer, ain’t ’cha?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Long John’s place. They’re settin’ you up.”
I sipped my Coke. “Why you?”
“Take a look, buster. Them creeps gimme the business a long time ago. I coulda had a career.”
“Who saw them?”
“I just came from there.”
“What else?”
“The little guy’s a snowbird and he’s hopped.”
“Coppers?”
“Nobody. Just them. The gang in the dump ain’t wise yet.”
I laid the Coke down, swirled the ice around in the glass and rubbed out my cigarette. The redhead had a sawbuck on her lap when I left.
Long John’s. The name over the door didn’t say so, but that’s what everybody called it. The bartender had a patch over one eye and a peg leg. No parrot.
A drunk sat on the curb puking into the gutter between his legs. The door was open and you could smell the beer and hear a pair of shrill voices. Background music supplied by a jukebox. Maybe a dozen were lined up at the bar talking loud and fast. The curses and filth sifted out of the conversation like minor high lights and the women’s voices shrilled again.
The boys were pros playing it cute.
Sugar Smallhouse was sitting at the comer of the bar, his back facing the door so anybody coming in wouldn’t recognize him.
Charlie Max was in the back comer facing the door so anybody coming in he’d recognize.
Kiss Me Deadly Page 11
