Free One Lonely Night by Mickey Spillane Page A

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 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 doctor. That was all I needed. I made a path through that mob pouring through the exit gates onto the station and battled my way up to the front.
    Velda was all right. She was perfectly all right and I could quit shaking and let the sweat turn warm again. I shoved the gun back under my arm and walked over to her with a sad attempt of trying to look normal.
    The train was almost all the way in the station. Not quite. It had to jam on the brakes too fast to make the marker farther down the platform. The driver and two trainmen were standing in front of the lead car poking at a bloody mess that was sticking out under the wheels. The driver said, “He’s dead as hell. He won’t need an ambulance.”
    Velda saw me out of the corner of her eye. I eased up to her, my breath still coming hard. “Deamer?”
    She nodded.
    I heard Pat busting through the crowd and saw Lee at his heels. “Beat it, kid. I’ll call you later.” She stepped back and the curious crowd surged around her to fill the spot. She was gone before Pat reached me.
    His pants were torn and he had a dirty black smear across his cheek. He took about two minutes to get the crowd back from the edge and when a cop from the beat upstairs came through the gang was herded back to the exits like cattle, all bawling to be in on the blood.
    Pat wiped his hand across his face. “What the hell happened?”
    “I don’t know, but I think that’s our boy down there. Bring Lee over.”
    The trainmen were tugging the remains out. One said, “He ain’t got much face left,” then he puked all over the third rail.
    Lee Deamer looked over the side and turned white. “My God!”
    Pat steadied him with an arm around his waist. They had most of the corpse out from under the train now. “That him?” Pat asked.
    Lee nodded dumbly. I could see his throat working hard.
    Two more cops from the local precinct sauntered over. Pat shoved his badge out and told them to take over, then motioned me to bring Lee back to one of the benches. He folded up in one like a limp sack and buried his face in his hands. What the hell could I say? So the guy was a loony, but he was still his brother. While Pat went back to talk to the trainmen I stood there and listened to him sob.
    We put Lee in a cab outside before I had a chance to say anything. The street was mobbed now, the people crowding around the ambulance waiting to see what was going in on the stretcher. They were disappointed when a wicker basket came up and was shoved into a morgue wagon instead. A kid pointed to the blood dripping from one corner and a woman fainted. Nice.
    I watched the wagon pull away and reached for a butt. I needed one bad. “It was an easy way out,” I said. “What did the driver say?”
    Pat took a cigarette from my pack. “He didn’t see him. He thinks the guy must have been hiding behind a pillar then jumped out in front of the car. He sure was messed up.”
    “I don’t know whether to be relieved or not.”
    “It’s a relief to me, Mike. He’s dead and his name will get published but who will connect him with Lee? The trouble’s over.”
    “He have anything on him?”
    Pat stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out some stuff. Under the light it looked as if it had been stained with ink. Sticky ink. “Here’s a train ticket from Chicago. It’s in a bus envelope so he must have taken a bus as far as Chi then switched to rail.” It was dated the 15th, a Friday.
    I turned the envelope over and saw “Deamer” printed