Free The Body Lovers by Mickey Spillane Page B

police had a record on the guy, or could come up with something out of the lab, getting a make on him wasn’t going to be easy. He looked to be in his late forties, on the thin side and about five ten or so. His dark hair had receded, but there was no gray showing, so my guess at his age could have been off. I studied his face again, taking in the sharp features and the odd skin coloration. There was a death pallor there but it couldn’t obliterate some of the characteristics common to some Europeans or Latin Americans.
    One thing was sure, it wasn’t a plain contract kill. Those guys specialize in one field and don’t bother with any shakedown job to boot. Either there were two involved or this one was on assignment to find out what I knew or make sure I didn’t find out any more.
    But what the hell had I found out?
    I stepped over the body and went back into the corridor. The elevator was still where it had left me and nobody had come to investigate the shots. It wasn’t strange. The old building was solidly built and could muffle noise almost completely.
    There was still a way to play it. I’d be asking for trouble, but it would keep me from doing too much explaining and it was simple enough to look right. Three of the offices down the hall from mine were occupied by small businesses that could conceivably keep something of value on the premises. In the door of each one, I knocked a hole in the glass panes, reached in and opened the lock, hoping none of them had alarms wired to them. Every room got the same treatment, a little disturbance that would indicate a search and the rubber gloves in the guy’s pocket would explain the lack of prints. In the last place there was a gold wrist watch lying on top of a desk and I took it out and dropped it in the dead man’s pocket for a clincher.
    Then I went back to my own office and called Pat.
     
    By nine-thirty they had bought my story. The guy at the newsstand downstairs had remembered the guy coming in after everybody had left and as he was closing up. Two of the men who rented the other offices said they did a cash business, but never left money in the office overnight, but for someone who didn’t know it, they were probably targets for a robbery. The watch in the corpse’s pocket made the deal firm. My version was that I had seen the broken windows, checked my own office and started out to see if anyone was still around when he tried to nail me. The manager admitted that a lot of the empty offices were unlocked, so the probability was that the guy had heard the elevator coming up, slipped into one to hide, and when he started out to make a getaway, saw me, panicked and started shooting.
    I knew better. He had come prepared to handle a lock with those plastic strips. My door wouldn’t give in to that technique so he had broken the window, but they made it easy for him to wait me out in a convenient empty Office.
    Pat drove me downtown and took my statement there. Before I finished, one of the detectives came in and told him there was no make on the guy yet, but that the gun was a .38 Colt Cobra licensed to a jeweler that had been stolen in a robbery two months before. The lab hadn’t come up with any laundry marks on the guy’s clothes and the only lead they had was that he had been wearing shoes made and sold in Spain but they were probably as old as his clothes. His prints had been wired to Washington and pictures were telephotoed to Interpol in case he was a foreign national.
    Pat took my statement, read it through once and tossed it on his desk. “I almost believe it,” he said. “Damn it, I almost believe it.”
    “You’re a spooky slob,” I grunted.
    “I’m supposed to be, buddy. Right now I’m spooked more than ever. First the Delaney thing, now this.”
    “At least this one’s cut and dry.”
    “Is it?” he asked softly.
    “Nobody’s looking for your scalp.”
    He interlocked his fingers and smiled at me, his eyes cold. “Are they looking