Survival...Zero

by Mickey Spillane

  Pat wasn’t in, but I got hold of Sergeant Corbett and told him to get a message through and gave him my location. He told me Pat had assigned an unmarked cruiser to the area earlier, but they were being pulled out in another thirty minutes. Too much was happening to restrict even one car team in a quiet zone on a quiet night and I was lucky to get the cooperation I did.

  I said, “It may not be so damn quiet in a little while, buddy.”

  “Well, it won’t be like the U.N. or the embassy joints. Everybody’s in emergency sessions. You’ll still be lucky if you get thirty minutes.”

  I hung up and tossed the covers back over the phone. The watchman was bent over the radio again with a beer in his hand, reading a comic book lying open on the floor.

  My watch said Velda had left her post fifteen minutes ago. Somehow, someway, she’d find a thread, then a string, then a rope that would draw her right to this block.

  I went out, closed the door and looked up the street, then started to walk slowly. On half the four-floor tenements were white square cardboard signs lettered in black notifying the world that the building was unfit for tenancy or scheduled for demolition. The windows were broken and dark, the fronts grime-caked and eroded. One building was occupied despite the sign, either by squatters with kerosene lamps or some undaunted tenant fighting City Hall. In the middle of the block was one brownstone, the basement renovated years ago into a decrepit tailor shop no wider than a big closet. A tilted sign on the door said a forlorn open, and I would have passed it up entirely if I hadn’t seen the dot of light through the crack in the drawn blind.

  Sigmund Katz looked like a little gnome perched on his stool, methodically handstitching a child’s coat, glasses on the end of his nose, bald head shiny under the single low-watt bulb. His eyes through the thick glasses were blue and watery, his smile weak, but friendly. An old-world accent was thick in his voice when he spoke. “No, this man in the picture I did not see,” he told me.

  “And you know everyone?”

  “I have been here sixty-one years, young man.” He paused and looked up from his needlework. “This is the only one you are looking for?” There was an expression of patient waiting on his face.

  “There could be others.”

  “I see. And these are... not nice people?”

  “Very bad people, Mr. Katz.”

  “They did not look so bad,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “They were young and well dressed, but it is not in the appearance that makes a person good or bad, true?”

  I didn’t want to push him. “True,” I said.

  “One used the phone twice. The second time the other one stopped him before he could talk. I may not see too well, but my hearing is most good. There were violent words spoken.”

  I described Carl and Sammy and he nodded.

  “Yes,” he said, “those are the two young men.”

  “When they left here ... did you see where they went?”

  The old man smiled, shook his head gently and continued sewing. “No, I’m afraid I didn’t. Long ago I learned never to interfere.”

  I unclenched the knots my fingers were balled into and took a deep breath. Time, damn it, it was running outl

  Before I could leave he added, “However, there was Mrs. Luden for whom I am making this coat for her grandson. She thought they were salesmen, but who would try to sell in this poor neighborhood? Not well dressed young men who arrive in a shiny new car. They knock on doors and are very polite.”

  I watched him, waiting, trying to stay relaxed.

  “Perhaps they did find a customer. Not so long ago they went into Mrs. Stone’s building across the street where the steps are broken and haven’t come out.”

  The tension leaked out of my muscles like rain from my hair and I grinned humorously at Mr. Katz.

  His eyes peered at me over his glasses. “Tell me, young man, you look like one thing, but you may be another. By one’s appearance, you cannot tell. Are you a nice man?”

  “I’m not one of them.”

  “Ah, but are you a nice man?”

  “Maybe to some people,” I said.

  “That is good enough. Then I tell you something else. In Mrs. Stone’s building ... there are not just two men. Three went up the first time, then a few minutes ago, another two. Be careful, young man. It is not good.”

  And now things were beginning to shape up!

  I ran back into the rain and the night, cut across the street and found the building with the broken steps, took them two at a time on the side that still held and unsheathed the .45 and thumbed the hammer back. The front door was partially ajar and I slammed it open with the flat of my hand and tried to see into the inkwell of the vestibule. It took seconds for my eyes to adjust, then I spotted the staircase and started toward it.

  And time ran out.

  From a couple of floors up was a crash of splintering wood, a hoarse yell and the dull blast of heavy caliber guns in rapid fire, punctuated by the flatter pops of lighter ones. Somebody screamed in wild agony and a single curse ripped through the musty air. I didn’t bother trying to be quiet. I took the steps two at a time and almost made the top when I saw the melee at the top lit momentarily in the burst of gunfire, then one figure burst through the others and came smashing down on top of me in a welter of arms and legs, gurgling wetly with those strange final sounds of death, and we both went backward down the staircase into an old cast iron radiator with sharp edges that bit into my skull in a blinding welter of pain and light.

  CHAPTER 11

  Velda was crying through some distant rage. I heard her say, “Damn it, Mike, you’re all right! You’re all right! Mike... answer me!”

  My head felt like it was split wide open and I felt myself gag and almost threw up. The light from Velda’s flash whipped into my eyes, beating at my brain like a club for a second until I pushed it away.

  “Mike ...?”

  “I’m not shot,” I said flatly.

  “Damn you, why didn’t you wait? Why didn’t you call ...”

  “Ease off.” I pushed to my knees and took the flash from her and turned it on the body. There was a bloody froth around the mouth and the eyes were glassy and staring. Sammy had bought his farm too.

  Across the street people were shouting and a siren had started to whine. I let Velda help me up, then groped my way up the stairs to the top. The President wouldn’t have to have a heart attack after this. The pictures would take care of all the gory news the public was interested in. Carl was sprawled out face down on the kitchen floor of the apartment with half his head blown away, a skinny little guy in a plaid sports coat and dirty jeans was tied to a chair with a hole in his chest big enough to throw a cat through, his toupee flopping over one ear. Like the little whore had told me, one was partially bald. Woody Ballinger was in a curiously lifelike position of being asleep with his head on an overturned garbage sack, one hand over his heart like a patriotic citizen watching the flag go by. Only his hand covered a gaping wound that was all bright red and runny.

  That was all.

  Beaver wasn’t there.

  I walked over and looked at the broken chair beside the table with the ropes in loose coils around the remnants. Somebody else had been tied up too. Behind the chair was a broken window leading to the rear fire escape and on one of the shards of glass was a neat little triangle of red wool. The kind they make vests out of.

  The flash picked out an unbroken bulb and I snapped it on. In the dull light it looked even messier and Velda made heaving noises in her throat.

  I looked at the table top and knew why Woody wanted Beaver so badly. His policy code sequence identifying the workings of his organization was laid out there on a single sheet of typewritten paper that had been folded so that it would fit a pocket wallet.

  And that was why Woody wanted Beaver. But who had wanted Woody?

  My head felt like it wanted to burst. In a minute the place would be crawling with cops. And outside, th
ere still was Beaver, and I wanted him.

  I shoved the unfired .45 back in the sling and turned to Velda. “You stay here and handle it, kitten. Give them as much as you know, but give me running time.”

  “Mike ...”

  “This was only one stop on Beaver’s route. He’s heading someplace else.” I went over to the window and put one leg through. “How did you know about this place?”

  “One of Anton Virelli’s runners saw Woody’s car here. He reported in.”

  “You see anybody leave the building?”

  “I’m ... not sure. I was looking for you.”

  “Okay, sugar. Stall ’em. They’re coming up.”

  Austin Towers had had more than the hour he expected and he hadn’t wasted any of it. Caesar and his friend were sitting up, shivering under cold wet sheets, trying to keep their feet off the sodden rug on the floor. The dull luster was still in their eyes, but they were awake enough to mumble complaints at Towers who threatened them with another bucket of ice water if they tried to get up.

  When he heard me come in he almost dropped the pail and stood stiff in his tracks, waiting to see if I approved or not. Caesar let his head sag toward me and managed a sick grin. “Hi, Mike. Get... get this bastard... outa here.”

  “Shut up, punk.” I took the pail from Towers and sat it on the floor. “How good are they?”

  “Man, I tried. Honest ...”

  “Can they think coherently?”

  “Yeah, I’d say so. It ain’t exactly like a booze hangover. They ...”

  “Okay then, cut out.” He started to move around me and I grabbed his arm. Very slowly I brought the 45 up where he could see it. His face went pasty white and his knees started to sag. “This is the kind of trouble that stuff brings. You’re not invulnerable... and kid, you’re sure expendable as hell. Start thinking twice before you peddle that crap again.”

  His head bobbed in a nod and new life came back into his legs. “Man,” he said, “I’m thinking! I’m thinking right now.”

  I let him go. “Scram.”

  He didn’t wait for me to repeat the invitation. He even left his coat on the back of the chair. Caesar chuckled and tried to unwrap himself from the sheet. “Thanks, old pal Mike. That guy ... he sure was bugging us. Gimme a hand. I’m freezing to death.”

  “In a minute.” I glanced at the other guy, slack-lipped and bony, like a sparrow under the wet cloth. “This the guy you were going to meet about Beaver?”

  “Sure, Mike.” He let out a belch and moaned, his teeth chattering. “So we meet like I said.”

  “You were going to meet me too, Caesar.”

  His face tried to scowl. “Look, if you’re going to be like that ...” He saw me pick up the pail. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. It ain’t the end of the world.”

  I almost felt like telling him right then.

  “Hey, Mister.” The other one looked like he was coming apart at the seams. “I did like Caesar asked. My friend, he told me where this guy ... the one in the red vest, where he flops.”

  “Where?”

  He gulped and tried to look straight at me. “Take ... this sheet off, huh?”

  I hated to waste the time, but I couldn’t afford to put up with a stubborn idiot. I undid the knots Tower had twisted the ends into and yanked the wet cloth away and he stumbled out of his chair and reached for the coat Towers had left and pulled it tightly around him, still shivering.

  “Where?” I repeated.

  “Carmine said he seen him at the Stanton Hotel. They’re on the same floor.”

  “He describe him?”

  “Tall. Skinny. Like kind of a mean character. He ain’t there all the time, but he hangs onto his pad.”

  “What else?”

  “Always the red vest. Never took it off. Like it was lucky or something.” I started to leave, then: “Mister...”

  “Yeah?”

  “You got a quarter? I’m flat.”

  I tossed five bucks on the chair. “Unwrap the idiot there and you can both blow your minds. Someday take a look in a mirror and see what’s happening to you.”

  I picked up a cruising cab on Eighth Avenue and gave him the address of the Stanton. Before the turn of the century it had been an exclusive, well-appointed establishment catering to the wealthy idler who wanted privacy for his extramarital affairs, but time and changes in neighborhood patterns had turned it into a way station for transients and a semipermanent pad for those living on the fringes of society.

  A fifteen-struck Army convoy was blocking traffic, white-helmeted M.P.’s diverting cars west, and the driver cut left, swearing at all the nonsense. “Like the damn war, y’know? You’d think we was being invaded. The way traffic is already they could hold them damn maneuvers someplace else.”

  “Maybe they hate the mayor,” I said.

  He growled in answer, swerved violently around a timid woman driver who was taking up a lane and a half and yanked the cab through a slot and made a right on Tenth Avenue. I looked at my watch. Five after ten. An hour and a half since the slaughter uptown. Enough time for Beaver to collect his gear and make another run.

  I didn’t wait for change. I threw a bill on the seat beside the driver and got out without bothering to close the door. Fingers of rain clawed at my face, wind-whipping the drenching spray around my legs. Inside the lobby of the Stanton clusters of men trying to look busy were staying away from the night. A uniformed patrolman, a walkie-talkie slung over his shoulder, finished checking the groups and pushed through the doors, looked up at the sky in disgust, then lowered his head against the wind and turned west.

  I went in, cut across the lobby to the desk where a bored clerk with a cigarette drooping from the comer of his mouth was doing a crossword puzzle on the counter.

  He didn’t bother looking up. “No rooms,” he said.

  I flipped the puzzle to the floor and knocked the cigarette from his mouth with a backhanded swipe and his head snapped up with a mean snarl and he had his hand all cocked to swing when he saw my face and faded. “You got bad manners, friend”

  “If you’re looking for trouble ...”

  “I am trouble, kiddo.” I let him look at me for another few seconds, then he dropped his eyes and wiped his mouth, not liking what he saw. I reached in my pocket for the photos of Beaver. There were two left. Someplace I had left one, but it didn’t matter now.

  The clerk had seen cards like those before, but cops carried them, and I got the eyes again because he had figured me first for one thing, now he was trying to make me for another and it didn’t jell. I put the card on the counter facing him. “Recognize him?”

  He didn’t want to talk, but he didn’t want to know what would happen if he didn’t, either. Finally he nodded. “Room 417.”

  “There now?”

  “Came in earlier. His face was swollen and he was all bloodied up. What’d he do?”

  “Nothing that would interest you.”

  “Listen, Mac ... we’re trying to stay clean. This guy never gave us no fuss so why are you guys ...”

  I grabbed his arm. “What guys?”

  “There was another one before. Another cop. He wanted him too.”

  “Cop?”

  “Sure. He had one of these mug cards.”

  Pat might have made it. One of his squad just might have gotten a lead and run it down. Enough of them had copies of the photos and one way or another Beaver could be nailed.

  “You see them come out?” I asked him.

  “Naw. I don’t watch them bums. You think I ain’t got nothin’ better to do?”

  “Yeah, I don’t think you have. Just one more thing... stay off that phone.”

  A swamper in filthy coveralls was oiling down the wooden steps, so I pushed the button beside the elevators instead of walking up. The ancient machinery creaked and whined, finally groaning to a halt. The door slid open and two drunks were arguing over a bottle until one behind them pushed through with a muttered curse, almost knocking them d
own. He looked familiar, but I had seen too many lineups with these characters playing lead roles, so any of them could be familiar. The other two guys that pushed their way through were Vance Solito and Jimmy Healey, a pair of the Marbletop bunch who ran floating crap games on the side. I shoved the two drunks out to do their arguing and punched the button for the fourth floor.

  Outside 417 I stopped and put my ear to the door. No sound at all. I slid the .45 out, thumbed the hammer back and rapped hard, twice. Nobody answered and I did it again with the same result. Then I tried the knob. The door was locked, but with the kind of lock it only took a minute to open. When I had the latch released I stepped aside and shoved it open and stared into the darkness that was intermittently lit by the reflected glow from a blinking light on the street below.

  I waited, listening, then stepped around the door opening inside, flipped the light switch on and hit the floor. Nothing happened. I stood up, put the .45 back and closed the door. Nothing was going to happen.

  Beaver was lying spread-eagled on the floor wallowing in his own blood, as dead as he ever was going to be, his stomach slit open and a vicious hole in his chest where a knife thrust had laid open muscle and bone before it carved into his heart. There were other carefully planned cuts and slices too, but Beaver had never made a sound through the tape that covered his mouth. His face was lumpy, bruised from earlier blows, with nasty charred and blistered hollows pockmarking his neck from deliberate cigarette burns.

  But this was different. Woody had taken care of the first assault, but he hadn’t gotten around to killing him and when the break came Beaver had dumped himself out of his chair, broken loose and gone through the window while all the action was going on. But this was different.

  No, this was the same. It had happened before to Lippy Sullivan.

  I took my time and read all the signs. It finally made sense when I thought it out. Beaver’s break wasn’t as clean as he had figured. He had been tailed to his safe place, hurting bad and terrified as hell. And when the killer finally reached him he couldn’t run again. He was supposed to talk. He was tied up, his mouth taped while the killer told him what he wanted and what he was going to do to him if he didn’t talk and just to prove his point the killer made his initial slashes that would insure his talking.