Free The Day of the Guns by Mickey Spillane

vibrant, a luminescent, white, beautiful thing that was all mine.
    And now she stood there again, breasts hard and proud, her belly trembling, the quiver seeming to run into her thighs, legs at a defiant angle, the auburn tint of her hair highlighted with gold, eyes flashing, daring.
    “So you went all the way. The medics did a good job.” There was a cold flat tone to my voice. “Paraffin injections, invisible surgery, hard diet and steady exercise can knock a lot of years off a person’s appearance.” I grinned at her again. “But they can’t operate on memories, can they, kid?”
    I stepped back, laughed and turned toward the door. I heard her curse me softly with something like a sob in her voice and she said, “Tiger ... turn around.”
    She had the gun in her hand this time, the pocketbook open on the chair. “I could kill you right now if I wanted to.”
    “No you couldn’t. Rondine. You forget too much.” I reached in my pocket and took out the clip, looked at it and threw it at her feet. “Better try using bullets. You should know how they work.”
    Her mouth opened in surprise and she looked at the useless piece in her hand. I saw the tears start and like a kid she sort of crumpled to her knees on the floor and sat there crying with her head down.
    She hated to be outguessed and that was the only way she could take it out on herself. But, Rondine had always been like that.
    I got the hell out of there.
     
    Downstairs, I walked to the corner, waited a couple of minutes for a cruising taxi and when none came by empty, turned west toward Broadway and started up the empty channel of the street. On either side the apartments rose flatly into the night sky, angular and drab, windows like dull yellow eyes sick of looking out at nothing. Cars were parked bumper to bumper along either curb, stacked there until morning, abrogating every law and violating every rule of common sense until the herd instinct took over at the de-witching hour of eight A.M. I never failed to wonder how the hell they got out of there. One big Caddie had pushed in the nose of a Volkswagen and tomorrow there would be one big bash on the sidewalk when the owners had it out. Halfway down the block somebody had swiped both tires off a Chewie and left it on chocks. New York at night. Great place.
    Traffic went opposite me so I didn’t bother looking for a cab. All I could think about was Rondine.
    Naked, lovely Rondine.
    How could a woman devote her life to destruction? How could anyone so beautiful as her throw away the only good thing she had ever had? Sure, war could demand things of anyone, but out of war can come peace and decency if you have the sense to let it. Goddamn it, we could have had the world for our own, everything we ever wanted, only she was too warped and twisted inside to take it.
    And now? The big now?
    Warped and twisted? Balls ... she was the essence of total depravity, a person who had gone from one scheme to another to recapture and keep the one thing a woman always wants ... control. She needed it. But she’d never get it. That’s why she cried.
    For a pro I had gotten too lost inside my own head. There was too much night and too many thoughts and too much Rondine to stop and think of what she would do and I damn near died because of it. I didn’t notice the car slowing down at first until the first shot came and missed, but I knew there would be others and went into a crazy dive toward the curb with the slug from a tommy gun slamming into the parked cars and whistling over my head. I had the .45 in my hand when my back hit the doors of a Buick beside me and let one go through the back window of the Ford racing off down the street.
    But it didn’t go any further than that. I was ready for the rest, ready for the second car that pulled up and the guy who jumped out when he thought I was concentrating on watching the Ford and when I turned and killed him with one smashing blow from the butt end of the Army Colt