by Jerry eBooks
What would she do after two or three days with Kuppfen?
What would she do when she was a different Erika London, something hurt, twisted and changed for the rest of her life, with no more campus at Berkeley, no more serene confidence in herself, no more faith in an ordered, decent world?
Mitchell’s’ head was on her breast and the boy was shaking in a special kind of agony, that of the young man who has not been strong enough and whose girl is being taken from him in violence by a stronger man.
CHAPTER SEVEN
KICKS came back with Erika’s purse, and Big Tom went through it.
“Now listen careful, you two. You get these addresses right. It says in here to notify Arthur H. Mitchell in case of something. In this other one the doll’s old man is listed as Duncan London. You send the same wire to both: ‘Going to Las Vegas to get married. Love.’ Got it? Take my car and go to the all-night Western Union downtown. Just you. Kicks, and you. Honey. I’ll give you a couple bucks. Gage, get the guy’s keys and find that Jag. It’ll be around the Bada somewhere. Bring it back. You on it?”
“Yeah,” said Kicks. “How’s about a little of the money from that guy we knocked off tonight?”
“Later. Don’t heat up, Kicks. Get this done. We’re going to score big tonight.”
“Yeah,” said Kicks. “Sure thing, Tom.”
Duane Freeposter was looking at the girl, his eyes on her bare shoulders.
Big Tom noticed and laughed. “Not this one, Gage. I’ve tossed you plenty of ’em, but not this doll. I keep this exclusive for awhile. You might say this is my fiancée. Crazy, huh?”
Freeposter’s eyes turned away from the girl.
“If the apple tries again, you’re all right?” asked Harry.
“I’ve worked him a little.
I’ll make him a little silly before I do the big job of work I’ve lined up for tonight.” Big Tom’s mouth was wet and loose. “Move.
Get those wires out and get that beautiful Jag of mine back here.”
Freeposter flicked his knife open and walked to the couch. “Give me the keys.”
Erika reached into the side pocket of Arthur’s jacket and handed the keys to Freeposter. He stepped backwards, the knife pointed upward and ready.
She heard the door close, heard the rumble of the Buick starting. The room was quiet.
“You might as well get your clothes off, doll. Unless you want me to do it for you. . . .”
She didn’t want to turn around. She wanted to stay there, frozen, with Arthur’s head against her, her hands tight on his shoulders.
“All I can do is to scream, and keep screaming,” she thought, and the fear of pain locked her mouth. She knew what would happen with the first sound—the club of the fist on her face. The fear of pain, the sick knowing the scream would not help.
“Get up, doll, and get those clothes off. I want to talk to your ex-boy-friend.
He makes me jealous.”
There was a chance. It would be a cruel thing, because her chance could only come while Kuppfen was “making Arthur a little silly”—terrible words—with those clubs of fists.
But there was no other chance. She was afraid to scream.
Erika London stood up, and Kuppfen watched her.
“I’d rather take them off than have you tear them off.”
“I’ll give you a little strip music. The real exciting kind, chick.” He hit Mitchell in the face and the boy tried to roll away, to stand up. Kuppfen brought his heel down hard on Mitchell’s ankle, then slapped him with the heels of his hands on either side of Mitchell’s jaw, in a quick right-left.
Erika’s eyes hunted frantically for something to use—something heavy.
Big Tom swung suddenly around, grinning.
“Looking for something to hit me with, chick? Try it. I like to be hurt a little.” He reached for her and she stepped backwards.
“Start getting those threads down, chick.”
“All right.” She reached for the zipper at the side of her gown.
Mitchell was standing up, not steady.
Big Tom was watching her, but she couldn’t let Arthur try again. Kuppfen would break his face with those great club fists.
“Don’t, Arthur, don’t.”
Kuppfen spun around, and waited like a giant cat. His right knee was raised a little, ready to come up in a tissue-smashing thrust when Mitchell was close enough. His hands were open, the fingers almost straight. He intended to hurt the boy, pretty much for keeps this time.
Erika ran to the door, tried to pull it open. This was the one chance, the chance she would have gambled Kuppfen’s fists on Arthur for, because it was their only chance.
The door was locked, and she opened her mouth to scream, knowing what would happen then.
The door made a little rusty-metal noise—and opened.
Erika was standing almost in front of it. Big Tom Kuppfen was in the center of the room. Arthur Mitchell stopped, three feet from Kuppfen.
The door swung open and Frank Worth Williams followed his knife into the room. He kicked the door closed behind him and the Yale latch clicked. He stood with his back to the closed door.
Big Tom knew a final play when the play was shown in the bright, four-inch blade, shown in the wide-open eyes and clown grin of the Gopher. He had a hurt enemy behind him, a killer in front of him, the girl to watch. The six-foot-four body rested easily, like a thick-wound spring, on the front of his feet, and his hands were up, the fingers bent a little now.
“Yes.” The word meant that this night had to have this, too. The final play. There would be no other words.
Frank Worth Williams let his body bend forward, his left hand wide and a little behind him. his right arm out from his chest, the blade forward and upward. He stayed with his hack to the door. He wanted Big Tom to come to him.
Kuppfen figured. Like Williams, he was grinning. He was figuring: wait and let the Gopher move? Or rush the smaller man?
His own nerves made the decision. Before he had told his powerful muscles the order, they had moved involuntarily. He was going forward, toward the grinning face and the up-coming point.
Kuppfen half turned as he reached Williams and his left hand closed on the Gopher’s right wrist as the knife hand tried to reach around Kuppfen’s right arm and side. His shoulder knocked the Gopher against the door, coming up under the Gopher’s chin.
Now Big Tom turned, the left hand viced on the Gopher’s wrist, pushing it and the knife up against his chin. His right arm was a steel bar across the small of Williams’ back, and he lifted the smaller man up from the floor.
The Gopher was shouting sounds that were not words. Big Tom yelled, and his body seemed to grow, to arch, as his left arm straightened and the Gopher’s head went back. The last sound from Frank Worth Williams was a high, clear note of utter pain.
Kuppfen dropped him, the knife clattering to the floor. As the body rolled on the dusty rug, the eyes and mouth were open, the head tilted to one side.
A bitter, lonely, empty life was done with. The carefully learned words and manners no longer needed, the well selected clothes bought with worthless checks crumpled and useless. Twenty years of life, and never once in the twenty years and Frank Worth Williams been happy.
Big Tom Kuppfen looked at the body.
“I broke the cat’s neck.” His foot poked at the body. “Crazy. Real crazy!” The words were slow and heavy.
Then Erika screamed and he was upon her like a great cat leaping, his hands reaching for her.
Arthur Mitchell, his face twisted and his mouth trying to bite air for his lungs, pushed himself toward them.
Big Tom pushed Erika away and turned to meet Mitchell. The giant clubbed the boy toward him with a big fist that hooked around the back of Mitchell’s neck. Mitchell looked up into the box-square, thick-boned face; Kuppfen’s eyes were bright and he was grinning with his teeth together.
Kuppfen’s left arm bent to a tight triangle and he swung it,
the point of the elbow coming toward the side of Mitchell’s head like a skull-shattering hammer. The boy dug his face against Big Tom’s chest.
Erika’s eyes were on the knife, the Gopher’s slim, bright knife, on the floor. She knew there were only seconds left of life for Mitchell, only seconds left of any real life for her. But a knife . . .
Kuppfen’s back was to her, and she could sense the slow pleasure he was taking before he smashed down the man before him. But only seconds left.
She was on his back, her knees tearing at her skirt as she wrapped her legs around his thighs, pulling herself with her left hand on his throat, her right hand in his hair, over his head, her nails hooking into his eyes. The big head bent hack and her nails bit into blood and tissue. She felt his hands reaching hack, then one hand on her wrist trying to pull the terrible fingers from his eyes.
Arthur Mitchell brought his knee up hard and fast and there was destruction of blood-vessels, of the soft, unprotected flesh and nerves. The giant’s hands fell away from Erika, and she dropped from his hack, looking first in wonder at her bloody fingernails. Big Tom was bent forward, one hand pulling upward at his groin, the other over his eyes.
There was no mercy left here. Mitchell picked up a chair and clubbed Big Tom to the floor, smashing the chair, beating at the ruined man with the broken pieces.
It was over. Kuppfen lay close to the body of the Gopher. Mitchell put his arm around the girl.
They would have to find the police; there were these two to be taken care of, there were the others to be found and taken downtown. . . . Later, there would be home and a return to life. . . .
He led her out the door.
THE PICKPOCKET
Mickey Spillane
Willie came into the bar smiling. He couldn’t understand why he did it, but he did it anyway. Ever since the day he had married Sally and had stopped in for a bottle of beer to bring home for his wedding supper, he had come in smiling. Sally, he thought, three years with Sally, and now there was little Bill and a brother or maybe a sister on the way.
The bartender waved, and Willie said, “Hello, Barney.” A beer came up and he pushed a quarter out, looking at himself in the big mirror behind the wall. He wasn’t very big, and he was far from good-looking. Just an ordinary guy, a little on the small side. He was respectable now. A real law-abiding citizen. Meeting Sally had done that.
He remembered the day three winters ago when he’d tried to lift a wallet from a guy’s pocket. Hunger and cold had made his hand shake and the guy had collared him. He was almost glad to be run into the station house where it was warm. But the guy must have known that, too, and refused to press any charges. So he got kicked out in the cold again. That was where Sally had found him.
He remembered the taxi, and Sally and the driver half-carrying him into her tiny apartment. The smell of the hot soup did more to revive him than anything else. She didn’t ask any questions, but he told her nevertheless. He was a pickpocket. A skinny little mug who had lived by his hands ever since he was a kid. She’d told him, right away, that it didn’t matter.
He had eaten her food and slept on her couch for a week before he got smart. Then he did something he had never done before in his life. He got a job. It wasn’t much at first, just sweeping up in a loft where they made radio parts. Slowly he found out he had hands that could do better things than push a broom. The boss found it out, too, when he discovered Willie assembling sections in half the time that it took a skilled mechanic to do it. They gave the broom to someone else.
Only then did he ask Sally to marry him. She gave up her job at the department store and they settled down to a regular married life. The funny part was that he liked it.
The cops never gave up, though. As regularly as clockwork they came around. A real friendly visit, understand? But they came around. The first of the month Detective Coggins would walk in right after supper, talk a while, looking at him with those cynical, cold blue eyes, then leave. That part worried Willie—not for himself, but for little Bill. It wouldn’t be long now before he’d be in school, and the other kids . . . they’d take it out on him. Your old man was a crook . . . a pickpocket . . . yeah, then why do the coppers come around all the time? Willie drained his beer quickly. Sally was waiting supper for him.
He had almost reached the door when he heard the shots. The black sedan shot past as he stepped outside and for one awful instant he saw a face. Black eyebrows . . . the sneer . . . the scar on the cheek. The face of a guy he had known three years ago. And the guy had seen him, too. In his mind, Willie ran. He ran faster than he had ever run in his life—but his legs didn’t run. They carried him homeward as the self-respecting should walk: but his mind ran.
Three years wasn’t so long after all.
As soon as he came in Sally knew something was wrong. She said, “What happened?” Willie couldn’t answer. “Your job . . .” she said hesitantly. Willie shook his head.
It was the hurt look that made his lips move. “Somebody got shot up the street,” he told her. “I don’t know who it was, but I know who did it.”
“Did anyone else . . .”
“No, just me. I think I was the only one.”
He could tell Sally was almost afraid to ask the next question. Finally, she said: “Did they see you?”
“Yes. He knows me.”
“Oh, Willie!” Her voice was muffled with despair. They stood in silence, not knowing what to say, not daring to say anything. But both had the same thoughts. Run. Get out of town. Somebody was dead and it wouldn’t hurt to kill a couple more to cover the first.
Sally said: “. . . The cops. Should we . . .”
“I don’t dare. They wouldn’t believe me. My word wouldn’t be any good anyway.”
It came then, the sharp rap on the door. Willie leaped to his feet and ran, reaching for the key in the lock. He was a second too late. The door was tried and pushed open. The guy that came in was big. He filled the door from jamb to jamb with the bulk of his body. He grabbed Willie by the shirt and held him tight in his huge hands.
“Hello, shrimp,” he said.
Willie punched him. It was as hard as he could hit, but it didn’t do a bit of good. The guy snarled: “Cut it out before I break your skinny neck!” Behind him he closed the door softly. Sally stood with the back of her hand to her mouth, tense, motionless.
With a rough shove the big guy sent Willie staggering into the table, his thick lips curling into a tight sneer. “Didn’t expect somebody so soon, did you, Willie? Too bad you’re not smart. Marty doesn’t waste any time. Not with dopes that see too much. You know, Marty’s a lucky guy. The only one that spots the shooting turns out to be a punk he can put the finger on right away. Anybody else would be down at headquarters picking out his picture right now.”
His hand went inside his coat and came out with a .45 automatic. “I always said Marty was lucky.”
The big guy didn’t level the gun. He just swung it until it covered Willie’s stomach. Sally drew in her breath to scream quickly, just once, before she died.
But before the scream came Willie gave a little laugh and said: “You won’t shoot me with that gun, Buster.”
Time stood still. Willie laughed again. “I slipped out the magazine when you grabbed me.” The big guy cursed. His finger curled under the butt and felt the empty space there. Willie was very calm now. “And I don’t think you’ve got a shell in the chamber, either.”
The big guy took one step, reaching for Willie, a vicious curse on his lips; then the sugar bowl left Sally’s hand and took him on the forehead. He went down.
Willie didn’t hesitate this time. He picked up the phone and called the station house. He asked for Detective Coggins. In three minutes the cop with the cold blue eyes was there, listening to Willie’s story. The big guy went out with cuffs on. Willie said: “Coggins . . .”
“Yes?”
“When the trial comes up . . . you can count on me to testify. They won’t scare me off
.”
The detective smiled, and for the first time the ice left those cold blue eyes. “I know you will, Willie.” He paused. “And Willie . . . about those visits of mine . . . I’d like to come up and see you. I think we could be good friends. But I’d like to have you ask me first.”
A grin covered Willie’s face. “Sure! Come up . . . anytime at all! Let’s say next Saturday night. Bring the missus!”
The detective waved and left. As he closed the door Willie could imagine the chant of young voices. They were saying:
“Yeah . . . and you better not get funny with Bill because his pop is friends with that cop. Sure, they’re all the time playing cards and . . .”
Willie laughed. “Sometimes,” he said, “I’m almost glad that I had some experience. Finally came in handy!”
THE PURPLE COLLAR
Jonathan Craig
1.
There’d been a stab-and-assault in the Eighteenth’s bailiwick the night before, and all leaves and days off had been cancelled until we caught the guy. My partner, Ben Muller, and I had been scheduled for relief at eight a.m., but at a quarter past four that afternoon we were still checking out leads. It’s all in the day’s work, of course, but there are some crimes you just naturally take more interest in than others; and when the stab-and-assault victim happens to be only nine years old, you don’t mind the extra hours and loss of sleep at all.
But at a quarter past four, Control gave the signals and coding that meant the killer had been apprehended, and that all off-duty detective teams should report back to their precincts.
Ben, who was driving our RMP car, sighed and turned onto Broadway, heading back uptown to the Eighteenth.
“I’d a little rather we’d grabbed the guy ourselves,” he said. “But now that he’s nailed, I got no thoughts but bed. A cold shower, and then ten straight hours of sack-time.”