The Last Cop Out

by Mickey Spillane

  One look at those eyes of his and the doorman didn’t hesitate. He led them to the elevator, took them up to the top floor and pointed out the door. While Helen and the doorman stayed to one side, Burke and Long flanked the door and looked at each other.

  A thin line of light lined the sill and from inside a TV program rambled on. There was another sound too, an intermittent wail of hysterical laughter coupled with an overtone of anguish.

  Burke pushed the doorbell and waited. Nothing happened. He tried it again and there was no answer. He snapped his fingers and the doorman opened the lock with his passkey. Gill turned the knob, threw the door open an inch and looked back at the doorman. “Beat it,” he said.

  They went in together, guns ready, spreading out inside, poised like cats, taking in the entire situation in a fraction of a second.

  Nobody came at them.

  All they heard was the TV and the strange wail, with an odd aromatic smell permeating the air. With professional caution, they picked their way through the area to the living room until they got to the arch and saw the remains of the furniture and the nearly naked wreckage of the woman who squatted on the floor in a pool of her own blood, rocking and writhing in pain, a lit candle in front of her that she kept hacking at with a knife in ineffectual, weary motions.

  Bill Long had seen a lot of things, but this one almost made him sick. The terrible beating she had taken was beyond anything he had witnessed before and whoever did it had to be so twisted he never should have lived through his own birth.

  Gill yelled for Helen and this time there was no fear or disgust in her. It was a woman recognizing the emergency and becoming equal to it. She didn’t even give them time to phone, making them help her get Helga on the couch, finding the towles, the compresses and the medication until the eyes that were so blanked out from shock suddenly became alive from pain and all she could say was, “No . . . no ... please, no more.”

  “You’re all right,” Helen told her. “We’re friends and we’ll help you.”

  “Help . . . me?”

  “That’s right.” She waved to Gill and said, “Better get the ambulance now.”

  He made the call, then followed Long over to the bar. The entire back section was wrecked, a large religious picture and a plaster statue lying in smashed pieces on the shelf. The cop said, “Crazy. She dragged herself all over the place in that condition. You see that blood trail?”

  “I saw it.”

  “It doesn’t seem possible.”

  Burke looked at the red splotches around the back of the bar and on the shelving. There were other smears on the end table and the arm of a chair were she had propped herself as she pulled her wracked body around the room. “Maybe she was motivated,” Burke said.

  “What ... to get to a religious picture?” He kicked over a four-legged metal holder, looking at the wax fragments in its base. “Maybe you’re right.” He picked the holder up and showed it to Burke. “I guess people who got a strong religious conviction can do damn near anything. She thought she was dying and wanted to light a candle to herself.”

  “Then why was she chopping at it with that knife.”

  “Maybe it’s part of her religion,” Long said sourly.

  “Gill ...” Helen was waving him over to the couch.

  “She coming around?”

  “He told her his name was Norris. He was keeping her, all right, but do you know she knew who he really was?” Before he could answer she held out a cheap magazine folded open to a full-page picture of recognizable faces. “She had it under the couch. She pointed him out to me.”

  He glanced at it, flipped the cover over and tapped his finger under the issue date at the top. “This is this month’s copy.”

  Helen got the message and nodded. “She just found out who he really is. That poor kid.”

  Burke said, “Come here, old buddy.” When the captain walked up Gill showed him the photo. “There’s your man,” he said and tapped the photo of the one in the background.

  “Mark Shelby,” Long said softly.

  “I hope you feel better now,” Burke said.

  “About him,” Long grated, “but not about you. You’re still a bastard.”

  Helga’s hot eyes stared at the two of them, her mouth working, trying to form words. Bill Long had to be sure. He held the picture out, his finger indicating Shelby. “That the one who did it?”

  Her nod was affirmative. “He . . .”

  “Don’t try to talk,” Helen told her.

  She made a feeble motion with her hand and her mouth worked again. “He got . . . mad about ... something. Then he ... found about . . . Nils.”

  “Nils? Your husband?”

  She shook her head. “Friend. We were . . . going to ... marry. Take his . . . money and ... run away.”

  Burke said, “You want me to call this Nils for you? Look if . . .”

  The pain in her eyes washed out into one of incredible sorrow and tears flowed slowly onto her cheeks. “Nils . . . was here. He saw me . . . and he ... ran away . . . too.” She managed to force a gruesome smile to her lips. “All gone. Nothing left . . . at all. Only his ... beautiful candle. He ... loved the candle. Now I . . . kill that ... damn thing.”

  It hit Burke first, the entire implication of the whole thing, the beauty of the way Shelby had disguised it. He walked to the middle of the floor, blew the candle out and picked up the blood-stained knife she had tried to kill the candle with. He ran the tip of it down the side of its foot-long length, rammed the blade into the crack and pried the waxen cylinder open.

  The rolls of microfilm were stacked one on top of the other and when Burke held it up for Long to see he said, “The ultimate proof, friend. We just got it in time. If that candle kept burning it would have destroyed the whole bundle. Old Shelby was covering every angle, even to a built-in self-destruct. Who the hell would blow out a religious candle anyway?”

  “Someone with no religion, maybe,” Long said. “Or no conscience. Like you.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Burke said.

  Bill Long gave him a tight smile. “You see I’m right. You are the one. A whole execution squad wrapped up in one man. There was a time when you would have jumped me for saying what I just did, but you can’t now because you know I’m right and you never could fake me out.”

  “Don’t you ever quit?” Gill asked him.

  “Not on this one. I think I’m going to burn your ass on this one, Gill. I won’t even have to try hard because I know what’s been on your mind since the very beginning. There’s only one guy you’re really after, the top man of the whole schmear ... Papa Menes. He’s still alive and still holds the power and even if what’s on those films can indict him he’ll get away before he can be convicted. There are plenty of places he can go and still be head man in the operation. Luciano did it, a few others did it, living out their old age in lush comfort in the old country, still pulling the strings to stay on their ego trips.

  “But you can’t let that happen. You started it all rolling and now you have to finish it. Someday, when I have time, I’m going to make a project out of you. I’ll backtrack every move you made. I’ll dig up everybody you ever contracted or used ... I’ll have your entire operation detailed down to the last iota and perhaps the civilized world will realize what kind of a terror they harbored.”

  Burke gave him a flat grin. “Maybe the uncivilized world will realize it too. The joke would be on you then . . . if all the crap you’re spouting was true.”

  “It’s true enough,” Long smiled back. “The past might be too difficult to prove at the moment, but the future move will be easy because I know it has to happen.”

  Annoyance was in Burke’s voice. “What has to happen?”

  “You have to kill Papa Menes.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then I’d be wrong, wouldn’t I?”

  “You can still go fuck yourself,” Burke told him.

  From across the room Helen was wat
ching them both, something in her eyes vacillating between belief and disbelief.

  The big house on Long Island had been built by a New York banker during the two years he had been a multimillionaire. He was the son of a middle European immigrant and had been put to work shining shoes in downtown Manhattan, turning over his entire income to his impoverished parents so they could live in a cold water tenement, existing on day-old bread and inexpensive grocery leftovers. Once a week they had a Sunday treat of tough boiled beef or wrinkled frankfurters and he hated the tentacles of poverty that enveloped him.

  But he was a good shoe shiner, with a flair and a flourish, a memory for names of the Wall Street tycoons who enjoyed his streetside show and tipped heavily from their fat wallets. He began to save, then, until he could afford a two-chair cubicle in a narrow space between buildings suitable for nothing else.

  With two chairs occupied there was always an interesting conversation above his bowed head and one day he listened carefully at what was being said, took sixty dollars he had accumulated and purchased a few shares of the stock that had been under discussion. That afternoon he had a profit of two thousand, seventy-four dollars.

  He kept listening and within a month his bank account totaled over six figures. He kept the shop for another thirty days, sold out to his assistant and spent his time at the ticker tape.

  When he had made his third million he sent his parents back to the old country with enough for them to live on, established himself in a fabulous office with an apartment on Riverside Drive and commissioned an architect to build him a tasteless, fortress-like mansion on six acres of waterfront footage on Long Island.

  He had shined shoes for twenty-four years. He was then thirty-eight years old, a multimillionaire with a grand estate and ready to marry the most beautiful showgirl on Broadway. The year was nineteen twenty-nine.

  When the stock market crash broke the backs of the paper rich, the girl laughed at him and he jumped out of his own office window. The house on Long Island went through six owners before a company that was a personal front for Papa Menes obtained it. It was an address no one knew, a fortified castle no enemy could take and a luscious retreat where Papa could operate from until the heat was off and the lawyers could bring things back together again while they snarled the workings of justice in its own red tape. All he needed was time and he had plenty of money to buy that little commodity.

  And having bought it, he was going to use it well with the lovely hunk of flesh he had imported from Miami, his own three-way woman who improved with each session, always having something new and different ready for him until he began to wonder if coming so much would drain him like pulling the plug in the bathtub.

  That wild Louise Belhander would tease him until he was ready to blow his mind apart and had the shakes like some palsied old man, then at the right time she would whip herself over into that delicious position on her hands and knees, offering her own lewdness to his and he’d bury himself inside her in a frenzy of passion so exhausting that he’d collapse on top of her and she’d have to roll out from under him and wipe him down with a cold wet rag to revive him.

  She had already pocketed a little over five thousand bucks of Papa Menes’ generosity, which was about all she needed to make sure she could get clear of the retribution that mighty possibly come after her final act revenging herself on Frank Verdun. Or his friends.

  The nice specialists Captain Bill Long had assigned to locate the whereabouts of Papa Menes had put out feelers all over the city without being able to make contact. The legitimate enterprises owned and operated by the shattered underworld kingdom were all functioning normally so there was an active hand still behind it and that only hand had to be the old man’s.

  Legal advisers for the many corporate structures readily admitted having orders transmitted to them, but had no knowledge of the source except that the coded identification was authentic and all they could do was carry out instructions. Across the country, city and state attorneys were working day and night trying to break down the barriers of ownership other attorneys had set up and found themsevles up against a dead wall on every occasion. The other side had bought better men, they had a longer time to prepare for the eventuality and long before any breakthrough could be made, the actual owners could liquidate their holdings and leave without having to face any criminal action.

  Downstairs in the lab the microfilms had been cleaned and put on the enlarger with a select audience of viewers from federal officers to local police personnel and within minutes after the final slide was shown, warrants were issued for various persons in thirty-two states in the union. There would have been more, but the rest were dead in the Chicago blast, or wiped out before the open war had started.

  Robert Lederer sat at the head of the table opposite Bill Long and Burke looking at the check marks he had made on his list, indications of persons beyond prosecution now. “It’s that damn root you have to watch out for.”

  Long scowled at him. “What?”

  “You can kill the fruit and cut down the tree, but leave the root in the ground and it can start all over again. So we can hit all their drops and put a dent in the narco trade. We can close some bookies and lock up some prostitutes. What good does it do? With all those legitimate assets bringing in the money one big guy can finance the entire operation in a matter of months . . . just one guy big enough for the foreign operators or the big locals to fear enough to trust.”

  “We’ll knock off Menes yet, Bob. Relax. Take your time.”

  “There isn’t any time, damn it. You know that as well as I do.”

  “Something ...” he glanced at Burke who sat there impassively, “... or somebody will break.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that the old man isn’t long for this world. Right, Gill?”

  Burke’s eyes barely flicked up at him. “I wouldn’t doubt it for a minute.”

  The tap of Lederer’s pencil went on for ten seconds before he said, “You two know something I ought to know?”

  “Not really, Bob. It’s pure speculation.”

  The D.A. got up and scooped his papers into his attaché case. “You’d better hope something happens.”

  When he left, Bill Long leaned back in his chair, his hands folded behind his head. “When is it going to happen, Gill?”

  “How many times do I have to tell you to go fuck yourself, buddy?”

  “As many as you want. I’m too damn curious to see how you work it to get insulted. I really want to see how you kill the old man. I want to see how you react, how it affects you.”

  “You ought to know, Bill. How did Shelby’s death affect you?”

  “Ah, that wasn’t my kill, friend. That was yours, all yours. It was my finger on the trigger, but your mind that pulled it.”

  Burke stood up and slipped into his coat. “Bill, I hope that brain of yours is good enough to snap back when you really know the answers.”

  The party on Long Island had gotten more boisterous with every network news flash. From the time of Mark Shelby’s death to the daily recapitulation of events, the wine and booze had flowed freely throughout the house, celebrating the sole ownership of Papa Menes’ empire. The guards outside had to wait their turn to indulge, and their replacements brought out enough refreshment to hold them over until they, too, were relieved again.

  It had been a long time since Papa had been drunk. Artie Meeker had started too early and was snoring away beside the stupid redhead he picked up in Brooklyn and Remy was dragged away by the two broads who took care of the office work.

  Not that Papa minded. He was alone again with Louise and the champagne had gotten to them both and Louise was giving him a rubdown with those agile fingers of hers and he could feel the sensation all the way down to his balls. The communiques from his legal advisers assured him that all was well and as long as he wasn’t available to accept a subpoena there was nothing much that could happen to him. His men on the outsid
e had already squelched a couple of the Philadelphia outfit who were talking big and Moss Pitkin from St. Louis stopped the raid he was making on the dry cleaning joints there when he had his head banged around for him. By now everybody knew the old man meant business, knew his business and they were happy to sit back and let him run things.

  Louise giggled when her fingers made Papa squirm and she got her hands under his shoulders and pushed. “Roll over, Papa.”

  “No . . . keep doing what you were. I like that.”

  “I’ll make it better for you,” she teased. “I can’t do it while you’re lying on your stomach.”

  Papa let out one of his chuckles, amazed at how the blonde twist could get to him. His pecker had been hard so many times it was starting to ache and here it was coming up again and he couldn’t fight it back because whatever she did was new and different and worth any ache he might feel. Her naked body was slithering all over him, warm and throbbing, lubricated by the sweat of her unique exertions. Her teeth nipped at his neck and her tongue probed his ear, making his shoulder muscles twitch and gooseflesh stand out over his seamed skin.

  “Come on, roll over,” she said again.

  This time he was fully prepared and let her flip him onto his back and was pleased when Louise let out one of the funny gasps when she saw him in the full glory of manhood. He didn’t know that the gasp was really a suppressed laugh and she pounced on it too quickly for him to even speculate on it.

  She stopped when she felt the signs and he tried to push her back. “Keep going,” he told her. Damn it to hell, don’t quit now. Just . . .”

  “I’m boss now,” she reminded him lightly. “If you like my specialties, you let me do things my way.”

  He kept his eyes closed tightly. “Yeah, okay, sure. But hurry up.”

  “Oh, no, this is one time we don’t hurry at all because it’s going to be the biggest and best of all. It’s something so very extraordinary I have to build up to it step by step, otherwise you’d never appreciate it.”