The Last Cop Out

by Mickey Spillane

  “There isn’t supposed to be a syndicate,” Verdun said casually.

  “Not according to him. But he didn’t say much about it. We had supper, then his idea of fun was to visit a hock shop before he took me home.”

  “Policemen are notoriously underpaid,” Verdun said.

  But his mind was telling him something else. Burke had to be hit fast. He’d sure as hell like to make it a two-for-one and get that stupid Shelby at the same time, but that part was out.

  They finished the rest of the meal with just a little small talk and while they had coffee he remembered one more letter and she took down a reminder to the main office to update the billing machines and install two more phone lines. The driver took them back and he disappeared behind his door where she could hear him in occasional conversations. One of the other girls transcribed her dictation while she filed the invoices, delivered envelopes from the messenger service and admitted the clients who had appointments.

  At four-thirty Frank Verdun came out with a client, talking about a promotion in Arizona, walked over to her desk. “Did Mr. Clough’s airline tickets come in, Helen?”

  She picked up an envelope delivered by one of the messengers and handed it to him. “Ten minutes ago. The eight-ten out of LaGuardia.”

  The heavyset man checked his flight and stuck them in his pocket. “Thanks. Saved me a lot of trouble. Sure hate to leave this soon.” He looked at Verdun, fished around in his coat and brought out a pair of theater tickets. “Maybe you can use these, Frank. Took me a month to get them and Sadie is gonna be mad as hell about missing it, but the trip is more important.”

  Verdun took the tickets and shook his head. “Tomorrow I’ll be with the auditors.” He tossed the tickets down on Helen’s desk. “Here, see if anybody can use them.”

  When they walked out she looked at the tickets. They were good seats for the top show in town. She asked the other two girls if they wanted them, but one had seen the show and the other had a heavy date, so she stuck them in her pocketbook.

  Maybe she could charm Gill Burke into taking her.

  A clammy sweat beaded Mark Shelby’s face. It was bad enough having to try to put back all the information that had been destroyed and the job would have been impossible if the orders hadn’t been so explicit and direct. Between the old Moustache Petes and the new breed bucking their way in, there were no exceptions, no excuses, and if you couldn’t cut it, they’d cut you. The more he thought about it the more fierce his anger grew, the only satisfying aspect being that the pressure wasn’t going to last forever and one day they were all going to fold like deflated balloons and be swept into the fucking ash can where they belonged and he’d be the one with the pan and the broom. Damn their hides ... they with no class, no education, no natural ability except enjoying a total lack of conscience that enabled them to let death do the ruling. Pricks. That’s all they were. Fucking pig pricks. They held onto Old Country ties when they couldn’t even locate Rome or Naples or Sicily on the map. They sure were going to make some funny faces when they went down. Maybe they’d even do that crazy breast-beating routine.

  The thought made him feel better, but only for a second. Oh, he could put everything back together again because he had his mind and more notes than they thought he had. He’d even get bigger when they learned how it had all been accomplished and it was even conceivable that he could accomplish his goal without using his original plan.

  What was screwing everything up was that damned Gill Burke, that bastard cop they should have hit and been done with instead of just shuffling off into nobody-land. Now he was back at the pawnbroker’s asking questions and that lousy slob might not be able to take the pressure any more and say more than he was supposed to.

  Maybe he already had!

  The thought made him sweat again. He never underestimated Gill Burke, not even once, and he wasn’t about to now. He had kept a check on him all the time he had been off the force and there had been no repercussions, but there was always the chance that Burke had figured it that way too and had been a little more artful than he had been. There had been time for him to puzzle it out, too, and he could have reached the right answer. The whole Big Board had investigated too, and they even had access to the police probe, but they had been satisfied with his story.

  Nevertheless, he, the Primus Gladatori, wasn’t completely satisfied and until he was he couldn’t concentrate on what he was doing. Shelby picked up the phone and dialed Helga. He knew she had a beauty shop appointment and she was just getting ready to leave. All he did was confirm the fact, exchange a few pleasantries and tell her he’d call tomorrow. He looked at his watch, waited fifteen minutes and took his own special way out of the building.

  The little old man who just seemed to be shuffling along picked him up at exactly the last point he had lost him and this time everything was working in his favor. It was no trouble at all to tail Mark Shelby to the building where he kept Helga in her luxurious apartment and when he was satisfied he found the nearest phone and made a call. A tape recorder answered and he left his final message innocuously disguised and felt a little sad that his assignment had come to an end. It had been a lot of fun, had used up his idle hours and made him a lot of friends in odd places. It was now going to bring him a sizable bonus that would finish the payment on the orange grove in the middle of Florida where he would sit in the sun until he mummified.

  Mark Shelby made sure the apartment was empty and while he was checking the rooms, automatically looked through Helga’s personal effects too. Whatever she had, he had given her. Except one thing. A new packet of three rubber condoms was in the back of the drawer in the nightstand table. For a second his fist clenched because if she tried fooling around with some punk on him ... then he grinned because it was a new pack, discarded in the back, just in case her coil fell out or something like that and it was for him, not some punk.

  He went out to the living room behind the bar and lifted the candle from the holder, not paying a bit of attention to the religious statue at all, took it in front of a strong light and tried to peer through it. It was too opaque to see anything, so he inspected it carefully. After five minutes he was sure that nobody had ever touched it since he had put it there.

  A great weight was lifted from his mind.

  He looked at the statue guarding his treasure and wondered why he didn’t feel the need to genuflect or something. Maybe make the sign of the cross.

  Screw that stuff he thought. His faith was in the candle, not the statue.

  He went back downstairs to retrace his route.

  At that moment the message on the tape recorder was being decoded.

  9

  Moe Piel had come to New York again in an old panel truck that bore the labels of a Fort Lauderdale television repair service. He had driven within speed limits, stopped overnight outside of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and the only incident had been a flat on Route 13 in Delaware. A state trooper had even stopped to offer assistance, but when none was necessary, had driven away after a perfunctory license check.

  Had he inspected the truck he would have found a tool box full of cash destined for delivery to another dealer in arms and ammunition with a warehouse on the Lower West Side of Manhattan. Unfortunately, the Delaware police had, at that time, no want out on Moe Piel or the truck, but that wouldn’t have mattered anyway since his license, registration and occupation were all phony anyway. Besides, he looked like any typical television repairman having to make an emergency trip to New York to pick up parts that would take too long in shipment.

  Unfortunately, too, the organization knew that if Herman Shanke were to hold on to the bite he had taken out of their Miami operations, he was going to have the weaponry to do it with and the police had clamped down in Miami to such an extent that nothing was available in that area.

  Which left New York and the organization knew about the unscrupulous dealer in arms and ammunition with his warehouse a stone’s throw away from the West Sid
e Highway.

  And Bingo and Shatzi were waiting for him when he parked the panel truck in front of the old converted garage that supposedly dealt in used car parts, which wouldn’t even attract a junkie burglar.

  Since Moe Piel had never met the dealer, he didn’t recognize that Bingo Miles didn’t fit the description at all until Shatzi shoved a gun in his ribs from behind and he didn’t even get the chance to go for the rod he kept in his belt to impress the city slickers when they were culminating the transaction. All he could feel was embarrassment, because down there at the tip of Florida he was one hell of a hotshot killer with his own inexhaustible supply of weapons and suddenly he was nothing but a stupid shit.

  What made it worse, they thought he had dumped a whole fucking handful of big wheels and were treating him with a little respect when he didn’t even know what the hell they were getting at. All he knew was that they thought he was an idiot for going out of his league to hustle ammo for Herman the German when some slob could have done the same thing. He heard them talking it over and the conclusion was it was simply a matter of expediting matters. Except that Herman wasn’t family, nor was Moe, and they couldn’t be expected to know any better.

  The place wasn’t soundproofed or isolated, so after they tied him up, they taped his mouth and Shatzi took out the pan, charcoal, poured in the starter fluid and stuck the irons in the works. They gave Moe Piel a pad and pencil to write with when he was ready to talk and put in a call to the Frenchman.

  You really couldn’t tell when Frank Verdun was mad. It was even better when you could tell, but when you couldn’t it was worse. He had killed the best when he was at his happiest moments, savoring the ebbing away of life, his face placid and the tiniest of smiles playing around his lips. He was looking at Bingo and Shatzi like that right now.

  “Look, Frank, I swear, neither Bingo or I touched him. No shit, Frank. We were waiting for you and when we looked he was like that, all drooped over and hell, the irons didn’t even get hot yet.”

  The Frenchman yanked Moe Piel’s head back by the hair and stared into the lifeless eyes. “You dumbheads!”

  “Frank ... ”

  “Shut up.” It wasn’t the first time he had seen this happen. Twice before it had happened to him and he had made a doctor explain it all in detail, and now he went through those details until he was satisfied. “The fucker’s had a heart attack.”

  “Aw, shit, Frank ...”

  “Stupid bastards. You have to put on the full show before I get here? You like it that way?”

  “We only thought ...”

  “Who the hell ever told you to think, you dumb pricks? You know what this bum could have told us? We could have the backup man, the rest, the head ... and you lousy assholes blow the whole deal.”

  “Come on, Frank, we was expectin’ a driver. Who else. So when we see this punk we’re gonna set him up for you. It always works. You know ...”

  “Shit.” He looked at the two guys and let the anger ebb from him. All they did was the job the way they were used to and they couldn’t be blamed at all. “Where’s the dealer?”

  Bingo said, “I killed him. He’s in the back.”

  “Okay, dump them both.”

  “What about the truck, boss?”

  “You rig it up right and send it back. Let that fucking Herman the German have some ammo, but make sure it blows up in his fucking face. You think you can do that right?”

  “Sure, boss,” Bingo said.

  “Hey, Frank ...”

  “Now what, Shatzi?”

  “Ah, nothing, boss.”

  The Frenchman nodded and went out in disgust. Shatzi smiled. No sense asking for something so simple. He pulled the knife out of his pocket and while Bingo was rigging the truck he cut the navels from the two bodies, looked at them with horrified eyes, then flushed them down the stained toilet.

  They dumped the corpses in the Jersey meadows and sent the truck back to Florida with the big surprise for Herman the German.

  The Big Board in Chicago was duly notified and approved the procedure, even though they didn’t appreciate it. The only thing they didn’t know about was the navel surgery.

  She had enjoyed the show, but Gill had sat there silent beside her and never even cracked a smile, even during the most hilarious scenes of the performance. He didn’t look at his watch or squirm or complain, so that’s the way he probably enjoys a stage show, she was thinking.

  But Gill Burke was occupied by the two bodies the Jersey police had found because they were searching the area for a lost kid, and the lab had turned up physical evidence of particles that indicated they had both been in a garage, a very old garage that stored number-one cup grease which had been out of style since World War I.

  That fracas had been a long time ago and the garage had to cater to renovators of antique automobiles, or their parts, or just be plain old. They hadn’t gotten a make on the corpses yet, but that would come and when the performance was over he’d have to call Bill Long to see how far they had gotten. He had tried once at intermission and they were still working on it. Well, another fifteen minutes and maybe they’d have it.

  He didn’t realize the curtain had come down until everybody started to leave and he remembered the present and looked at Helen. “Enjoy it?” she asked him.

  “Great.”

  “Later I want you to tell me about it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think you sleep with your eyes open.”

  “You know better than that.”

  “Do I?”

  “Maybe if I had you next to me ...”

  Helen let a slow smile drift across her mouth. “He told me you could be charming.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Verdun. He gave us the tickets.”

  The crawl started down between his legs and crossed up his belly. Everything was there and she didn’t even have to tell him how accidental it all looked. Damn, he was dumb! He should have asked, should have done something. He was too preoccupied with his own thoughts and let everything go by the board.

  “Helen ...” He looked around him. The aisles were emptying fast. “Don’t ask questions and do exactly what I tell you to do.”

  “Gill?”

  “Just do it. Come on.” He took her arm and edged out of the row of seats, then fought his way into the throng heading for the exits. When they were firmly surrounded he spotted a group of eight, joined them in their frenzy to flag down a cab, then beat them out with a hard shove of his left hand and shoved Helen in and got in behind her.

  He told the driver where to go, kept checking behind him, but the streets of Manhattan at theater-closing time are nothing but cabs anyway and he couldn’t tell if they were being followed or not. When he dropepd her at her apartment he told the driver what else to do and got out four blocks away.

  By the time the cab that had really followed him had reached the point he was at there was a basement stairwell handy and he dropped into it before the tommy gun went off and took the windows out of the lower floor right beside his head.

  Only this time he had a two-handed grip on the .45 and let one slug off and saw the driver catch it square in the side of the head and the cab went halfway down the street before it crashed into the row of parked cars at the curb.

  He wasn’t fast enough to get the occupant of the back seat, but Bingo Miles was sure as hell dead in the front one.

  Two hours later the disgruntled lab technicians who had been summoned from their quiet homes had certified the fact that Bingo Miles had the same microscopic particles in his clothing that had been found on the dead men in the Jersey meadows and Robert Lederer was blue in the face because Gill Burke wouldn’t tell him what it was all about.

  All he’d do was grin and he couldn’t even fire him, since Burke was the only one who had any inkling of what was going on. That son of a bitch renegade ex-cop was holding all the aces.

  Until now, the Frenchman could never understand fear. He had seen i
t in others, heard it expressed, saw it demonstrated, but he never could understand it, because until now it had been part of somebody who was fearful of him. He didn’t like the sensation at all. In fact, he didn’t even recognize it until he vomited without being sick. He just stopped on the street and vomited like a fucking pregnant woman.

  So what if that idiot Miles got himself shot? He had it all set up and instead of letting it happen he gets himself shot and that fucking Shatzi is all hyped up because his buddy gets knocked off and he’s all shook because he thinks the setup went the other way. Damn it, you couldn’t trust a freak when the chips went down and why he used Shatzi he’d never know. Maybe he was getting too old. He used to be able to handle the freaks, now they blew up on him and if he didn’t squash that crazy bastard he’d have the whole Big Board climbing down his neck. He should have remembered what Lulu told him one day. “Freaks speak,” she had said. He should have listened.

  Okay, Shatzi, you are on the hot list now.

  But Shatzi Heinkle had already figured that one out and had packed up his stuff and changed hotels. When the soldiers came to look for him, the room was cold and empty. The night clerk had not seen him go, neither had the doorman, who was half drunk.

  Frank Verdun felt another quiver of fear when they told him. He didn’t like what was outside there. Gill Burke was bad enough, but there was something else too.

  The whole fucking organization was falling apart, he thought.

  “Let’s have it again,” Bill Long said.

  “They set me up,” Burke grinned slowly. “Verdun tossed the tickets in her lap and they were able to spot my movements.”

  “That’s right, Miss Scanlon?”

  “I don’t know. Mr. Verdun said I could give the tickets away. I choose to keep them.”

  “Then you could have made the deal work.”