The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 2 by Mickey Spillane

“Here’s the place where he’s holed up. The subway is a half-block away from the place. You go directly there and look the joint over. I don’t know why, but there’s something about it I don’t like. We’re going to tag after Lee when he goes in, but I want somebody covering the place while we’re there.
    “Remember, it’s a rough neighborhood, so be on your toes. We don’t want any extra trouble. If you spot anything that doesn’t seem to be on the square, walk over to the subway kiosk and meet us. You’ll have about a half-hour to look around. Be careful.”
    “Don’t worry about me.” She pulled on her gloves, a smile playing with her mouth. Hell, I wasn’t going to worry about her. That rod in her bag wasn’t there for ballast.
    I dropped her at the subway and waited on the curb until a cab cruised by.

    Pat was standing under the canopy of his apartment building when I got there. He had a cigarette cupped in the palm of his hand and dragged on it nervously. I yelled at him from the taxi and he crossed the street and got in.
    It was seven-fifteen.
    At ten minutes to eight we paid off the cab and walked the half-block to the kiosk. We were still fifty feet away when Lee Deamer came up. He looked neither to the right nor left, walking straight ahead as if he lived there. Pat nudged me with his elbow and I grunted an acknowledgment.
    I waited to see if Velda would show, but there wasn’t a sign of her.
    Twice Lee stopped to look at house numbers. The third time he paused in front of an old brick building, his head going to the dim light behind the shades in the downstairs room. Briefly, he cast a quick glance behind him, then went up the three steps and disappeared into the shadowy well of the doorway.
    Thirty seconds, that’s all he got. Both of us were counting under our breaths, hugging the shadows of the building. The street boasted a lone light a hundred yards away, a wan, yellow eye that seemed to search for us with eerie tendrils, determined to pull us into its glare. Somewhere a voice cursed. A baby squealed and stopped abruptly. The street was too damn deserted. It should have been running with kids or something. Maybe the one light scared them off. Maybe they had a better place to hang out than a side street in nowhere.
    We hit the thirty count at the same time, but too late. A door slammed above our heads and we could hear feet pounding on boards, diminishing with every step. A voice half sobbed something unintelligible and we flew up those stairs and tugged at a door that wouldn’t give. Pat hit it with his shoulder, ramming it open.
    Lee was standing in the doorway, hanging on to the sill, his mouth agape. He was pointing down the hall. “He ran . . . he ran. He looked out the window ... and he ran!”
    Pat muttered, “Damn ... we can’t let him get away!” I was ahead of him, my hands probing the darkness. I felt the wall give way to the inky blackness that was the night behind an open door and stumbled down the steps.
    That was when I heard Velda’s voice rise in a tense, “Mike . . . MIKE!”
    “Over here, Pat. There’s a gate in the wall. Get a light on!”
    Pat swore again, yelling that he had lost it. I didn’t wait. I made the gate and picked my way through the litter in the alley that ran behind the buildings. My .45 was in my hand, ready to be used. Velda yelled again and I followed her voice to the end of the alley.
    When I came to the street through the two-foot space that separated the buildings I couldn’t have found anybody, because the street was a funnel of people running to the subway kiosk. They ran and yelled back over their shoulders and I knew that whatever it was had happened down there and I was afraid to look. If anything happened to Velda I’d tear the guts out of some son-of-a-bitch! I’d nail him to a wall and take his skin off him in inch.-wide strips!
    A colored fellow in a porter’s outfit came up bucking the crowd yelling for someone to get a