Free Don't Look Behind You by Mickey Spillane Page A

assembled in the dining room for the entertainment. Bobby Short, a young colored cabaret singer and pianist making a name for himself, had arrived around four-thirty, and had done some mingling. But now, with that stereo silenced, it was time for him to do his thing, which was jazzy takes on Rodgers and Hart and Cole Porter and other real songwriters.
    The living room emptied out for his performance, and I was left alone to watch the door. But it was unlikely anybody invited would show up this late. Even the young man taking coats had bailed for martini duty. At least I could hear the smoky-voiced song stylings from the other room.
    Around six o’clock, I let the cabaret singer out, while in the other room the jewel-clad cuties were watching Gwen open presents, with Velda handing each one to her, the hostess thanking each gift giver to applause while Velda wrote down the name of the gift and the giver in a book.
    That left me alone in the living room with only the occasional babe cutting through to use the bedroom john. Most of them flicked me a smile that said they were a little embarrassed I’d discovered they were human.
    The detective stuff people read about is exciting, even thrilling. But what we mostly actually do is dishwater dull. This had been boring duty, nicely mitigated by all the female goodies on show. I strolled to the open French doors where I had a view on Gwen and Velda doing the presents routine.
    Man, all that swag was something—if there were any fondue sets or blenders in there, they must be sterling silver, because it seemed like everything else was. The girls at their tables were laughing and clapping and doing more ooohing and aaahing, getting loud about it—frankly they were all probably at least a little tipsy. That’s probably why I didn’t hear him.
    But I heard Velda, all right, and saw her wide-eyed alarm as she said, “
Mike! Down!
”
    I didn’t argue, and as I hit the deck, I caught Velda whipping her little automatic out from the thigh holster under that full skirt and three shots were flying over my head, cracks that
one-two-three
turned the hen party into a screaming, all-out zoo.
    I looked back fast enough, still on my belly, to see a bland-faced guy in a white shirt, bow tie and black trousers take all three of Velda’s shots in his chest, with immediate blossoms of red soaking the white, not going with the bride’s colors at all. He slid down the bedroom door, leaving smeary snail trails of scarlet and sat there with his chin on his chest and dead eyes staring at nothing, the nine-millimeter automatic clunking to the floor from lifeless fingers.
    The girls weren’t screaming now, but they were talking, loud and upset, those who weren’t shocked into a stunned silence, anyway.
    Velda was at my side, helping me up. “You all right, Mike?”
    “Just wounded pride,” I said, on my feet. “And you know what? I’m starting to feel unpopular.”

CHAPTER SIX
    I called headquarters from the suite’s bedroom and Pat said he’d be over with a team straightaway. Then I phoned down to Merle Allison’s office. The line was busy and I had to try the front desk to have them send somebody over to the security office and tell Merle there had been a shooting in Suite 2757.
    When the well-dressed stocky house dick arrived, not quite five minutes later, he told me he’d missed my call because he was on the phone dealing with guests on the twenty-seventh floor asking about gunshots.
    “Velda has rounded up the guests and the hostess in the dining room,” I said. “The wait staff and the two cooks, too. Would you keep an eye on them till Captain Chambers gets here?”
    Merle was feeling territorial again. “Who put you in charge, Hammer?”
    “The guy who came here to shoot me.”
    “I thought it was a heist.”
    Maybe Merle
was
a detective—he’d put his finger on the crux of it, hadn’t he?
    “Would you rather stand guard over a corpse,” I asked him, “or ride herd on a