Free Killer Mine by Mickey Spillane Page A

a homicide case, baby.”
    “Until now nobody’s talked. Nobody saw anything.”
    “I’m glad you’re so damn confident.”
    “Kitten, I’ve been at this job a long time,” I said. “There are times when they get ready. All you have to do is prod them a little.”
    “Okay then, ugly, I’m ready whenever you are,” she laughed.

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    THE supper crowd had left Tony’s Pizza when we got there. One couple was at the small bar, and two tables were occupied. Fat Mary was busy forcing another helping on one pair and Tony was behind the bar listening to a small transistor radio. Marty and I climbed on the stools and Tony saw us and came over grinning, the first time I saw him smile in a long time. He said hello in his rich Neapolitan accent and drew two beers automatically.
    “You do nice thing for those girls, Joe,” he told me. “I see them, they very glad. Terrible a woman should be on the streets and pushed around. Terrible.”
    “They should have kept their mouths shut or people will think the cops are getting soft.”
    “Ah, no. It is not like you think.” He gave us a knowing glance then. “Now you two, you belong here. Good maybe that you come back, Joe. Things are bad here, very bad.”
    “Those killings?”
    Tony nodded vigorously. “Very bad, that.”
    “It’s another department and I’m off duty. The hell with it.”
    His face pulled itself into a seamy, concerned frown. “Who cares about here, Joe? The cops? They don’t care. Somebody dies, so what?” He leaned forward confidentially. “That killer, he’s still here. He can kill anybody.”
    “What can I do, Tony? Hell, I knew all the guys who got knocked off. I went to school with “em.”
    Tony gave me a typical shrug. “So they’re no good, well okay. But still good people here, you can bet. You oughta know. Plenty good people. They’re scared, that’s what.”
    “You scared?”
    “Sure. I was scared of that stupid René Mills. I’m scared of everybody like them.”
    I kept my voice down. “What was with him, Tony? He was flashing money around and it was more than he ever had before. René never had the brains to set up a heist and nobody was going to just give it to him. He was a low-type punk.”
    Tony let his eyes rove around the place before he answered. “You know what I think? He had something on somebody. He was expectin’ plenty money soon. He had it all set.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Better’n that even. I tell you somethin’, Joe. That René, he stays up all night watching that damn TV or playing cards. Always like that. Never his light go off like he’s scared of the dark. Then alla sudden he got them lights out right after it gets dark. He comes down and goes up, but never a light goes on and when it does the shade is down like never before. He got somebody up there with him.”
    “Hiding him out?”
    I got another big shrug that lasted three seconds. “Who knows?”
    “Doesn’t sound reasonable, Tony. Who the hell would trust René Mills?”
    Tony gave me a face full of fat lip. “Suppose there’s nobody else he can go to?”
    “It wouldn’t be René Mills, buddy.”
    “For whoever it was, he kicked Noisy Stuccio out, didn’t he? René, he wouldn’t give a pork chop to his own mother if she didn’t pay. So Noisy paid him, then gets the boot. Noisy was pretty damn mad. Plenty years he live with René and pays most the bills ’cause he’s scared of René. Then the boot. How about that?”
    “How about that?” I repeated. “René still feeling pretty high when he got killed?”
    “Sure. He thought he was all set. You gotta get that one, Joe.”
    “There’s nothing to get.”
    “No?” He gave me a curious look. “Then ask that Al Reese. That fat bum, he knows. He shoves everybody. He always looking for his bite, that bum. He hooked into René, because I seen René pay him off,” he confided.
    I finished my beer and nudged Marta to do the same. “Okay, Tony, maybe. Just maybe,