Free The Body Lovers by Mickey Spillane Page A

systematically scrutinized and left lying there. Nobody ripped up seat cushions any more, but each one had been turned over and inspected for signs of fresh stitching and all the furniture had been pulled out to see if anything had been concealed behind it.
    Now it was getting interesting. Somewhere out there in the maw of the city somebody was concerned about my participation in something. I sat down in my chair, swung around and looked out at the lights that outlined New York.
    The possibilities were limited. To somebody, the fact that I was the one to find the Delaney girl could have seemed like more than a coincidence. With her backround, she could have been involved in something heavy enough to warrant investigation from private sources and I was on her tail.
    Or was it Greta Service? The prison grapevine could have passed along Harry’s concern about his sister’s absence and his contact with me and if Greta had been wrapped up with the wrong people, they wouldn’t want me poking around.
    Then there was Mitch Temple. A guy like that could always pop an exposé that was worth a kill if it could be kept quiet.
    Somebody wanted to know how much I knew. Somebody didn’t know I knew about the thread that tied all three of those people together.
    I picked up the phone and dialed Velda’s apartment. After four rings her service answered and when I identified myself, said she hadn’t called in since that afternoon. I left a message for her to contact me at the usual places and hung up.
    There was no sense dusting the place down for prints; a pro would have worn gloves anyway. Nothing was missing as far as I could see and the data Velda had compiled for me would be in the safe at Lakland’s—a precaution we always took.
    I used a piece of cardboard and covered the hole in the glass from the inside, then snapped the lock, walked out and closed the door.
    Silence has a funny sound. You hear it in the jungles when everything is too still and you know there’s somebody in the trees with a gun ready to pick you off. You hear it in a crowded room when everybody turns off the conversation when you walk in the door and you know the hostile element is ready and waiting.
    I could hear it in the corridor and before the parrots could scream with indignation of sudden movement and the monkeys jump with alarm at shattering blasts, I hit the floor and rolled, the .45 in my hand spitting back at the half-opened door behind me where the guy in the black suit was trying to bring me into the sights of his automatic and getting nowhere because his bullets were tearing aimlessly into the tile and ricocheting off the walls while mine had already punched three holes into his chest.

chapter 5
    He lay face down in the half-opened doorway, death so new that it hadn’t erased the look of surprise on his face. I nudged the door open, flipped the light switch with the tip of my finger and looked around the room. There was nothing fancy about the Hackard Building or the offices it rented. This one was a minimum setup with a wooden desk, a pair of chairs and a coat rack. A layer of dust was spread evenly over everything, the window was grimy and the floor scuffed and splintered from the countless pieces of equipment that had been moved in and out.
    The guy had drawn up a chair close to the door to be able to listen to any activity in the hall outside. Chances were that he had shaken my place down, found nothing and waited for me. If the door had opened from the other side he would have had a clear shot at my back before I could have done anything about it and Pat would have had me in his statistical columns instead of his address book.
    I went though his pockets, found sixty-two bucks and some change, a pair of rubber gloves you could buy anywhere and two fairly stiff plastic strips that I slipped into my own pocket. None of his clothes were new. His suit had come from a large chain and looked about a year old, matching everything else. Unless the