The Deep
- Автор: Спиллейн Микки
- Год: 1961
- Язык: английский
- Год: E. P. Dutton & Company
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Deep». Краткое содержание книги:
Deep was back in town after a twenty-five year exile — to inherit an empire and avenge a death. He and Bennett had made the inheritance pact when they were kids — blood brothers in crime. They had known then that even New York was too small for them both to share, and so they had tossed a coin to determine who would stay and who would build his organization in another town. Deep had lost and gone.
But now Bennett has lost — been murdered in his own home — and Deep is ready to prove lie is strong enough to take over. Deep wants Bennett’s killer; the others want Bennett’s job. And all too many of them — including the beautiful Irish — want Deep dead.
The Deep is the mastermind in one of the most exciting stories Spillane has ever written — a breathtaking tale of violence in action.
Ten minutes later the phone rang and when I answered my informant said, “Ready?” and when I said I was, began to rattle off numbers and names. I took them all down on the back of an envelope and when he reached the sixth one I said, “Hold it,” told him thanks and cradled the phone. A little mistake in judgment had come home to roost.
I remembered what Cat had told me. Two killers had been given a contract to rub me out. Later somebody had gone even higher to delay the execution. The killers called their original employer for further orders and were told to go ahead. That call was the mistake.
They had called Hugh Peddle, the sixth name on the list.
Chapter Twelve
The old Dutch district had undergone a face change when they tore down the tenements ten years ago. They built a new housing development in the middle of it, moved the people back in and now they had a real, up-to-date tenement section. The people had never changed; they talked the same, they acted the same, they did the same. They voted as a bloc for whoever offered the most for their vote and cared little about what happened afterwards.
Hugh Peddle had bought their votes with no trouble at all. He was basically a machine politician, but lately had been pretty independent because he controlled a section big enough to be a critical factor in any election.
And the people loved him. He was a local Santa Claus who took care of his own even to living among them where he was right at hand to solve their immediate problems, which were his problems too. Hugh lived in a quiet corner apartment house that had, thirty years before, been a well thought of address. But times and conditions change and the block the building faced was scrubbed by a better section an eighth of a mile away and gradually blended into the rest of the environment and was accepted as part of the Dutch district.
The bartender thought Hugh owned the entire building. He lived, with a valet and a part-time maid, in what could be called a penthouse apartment if such a thing were possible in the neighborhood and had a private elevator to an entrance on the street. Below, the tenants were people well respected... two families employed by Con Ed, a city fireman, the manager of the grocery chain on the north corner and a wild red-headed artist who did a syndicated comic strip that was actually a biography of his own life.
I had a few more beers, paid the tab and walked out. It was exactly ten o’clock. Overhead a high overcast threw back the diffused glow of the city lights and there was a smell of rain in the air. It was like the night we had that rumble with the Delrays and Bennett and Augie had stopped the action when they fired a round from the zips Augie had fashioned in school that past week.
What the hell, was I getting sentimental too?
And I had that feeling again as if I thought of something and just as fast forgot it. A key thought. Damn. I put it away and walked toward Hugh Peddle’s building.
The lobby was small, walled with mirrors to make it seem larger. To one side a door with an EXIT sign above it led upstairs. Directly opposite the street doors was a self-service elevator.
I chose the stairway.
Each landing opened into a miniature foyer that had access to the elevator. The elevator itself was opened and empty at the final floor it served, but the stairway continued another flight. I followed it up, opened the door to a small flagstone terrace that ran around the penthouse and eased it closed behind me.
This side of the penthouse was flanked by curtained French windows facing the south. A pair of them seemed to be the type that swung out but I wanted to go around the place before I tried an entry. There was a door on the north side that evidently led into the kitchen area and on the west a rather elaborate entrance that opened onto a mock patio that held three fancy wrought-iron, marble-topped tables and matching chairs.
From there I could see a dull glow of light inside that would come from a night light or a small table lamp. It was too early to assume Peddle was there and asleep. The only conclusion was that he had gone out and given the servants the night off too.
The French doors on the south side were the easiest to open. A knife blade forced the simple drop catch up and I opened the doors, stepped inside and pulled them closed behind me.
From what I could see there was no simplicity in Peddle’s way of life. The neighborhood might be in that slow state of decay on the avenue below, but here there was no awareness of it. He was forced by political expediency to live where he made it, but he didn’t have to live like the others. Some things still could be bought no matter where you were.
Luxury, for instance.
I eased by the grand piano, followed the sweep of the room to the archway and paused. The light came from a room to my right and when I stepped into the hallway I saw what it was, a small table lamp in the far comer. I let the .38 drop back in the holster and walked quietly toward the light.
It was a library of a sort. Two walls were shelved with books, a TV stood at one end and heavy overstuffed leather chairs threw bulky shadows into the dim reaches of the room. I circled it, not touching anything, then crossed to the other side.
A polished mahogany bar curved out from the wall there, in back of it a blue tinted mirror and twin rows of bottles and glasses. One empty glass still rested there and when I picked it up the ice in the bottom clinked.
I had the gun out ahead of me when I reached the bedroom. The door was open and I could half see the bed. Somebody was lying on top of it unmoving and I took a step inside, feeling for the switch. In the sudden glare of the light I felt my heart slam against my ribs and knew I had mousetrapped myself like a damn fool sucker because the guy on the bed was tied down tight with a gag in his mouth and the snout of a gun was in my back against my spine.
A voice said coldly, “Drop it,” and I let the gun go.
The guy behind me prodded harder and I took two steps farther into the room.
“Turn around.”
I did.
I said, “Hello, Tony,” and the slack-faced killer who worked for the uptown crowd nodded distantly, not caring one way or another. There was another one, a few feet behind him and to his left and he had a small hammerless automatic in his hand and looked at me anxiously as though he hoped I was going to break in and run for it.
Then Lenny Sobel came in smiling, picked my gun off the floor, hefted it and put it in his pocket. He looked at me, his eyes deadly. “You carry a nice piece, Deep. That’s the one you took off the cop, isn’t it?”
“The same,” I said. He could drop dead before I’d take his jazz. “You should remember it, Lenny. I shot you twice with it. Both times in the same place.”
Tony let out a snicker but when Lenny glanced at him, cut it short. “I’ve been looking forward to this, Deep.”
“I bet you have.”
“Big mouth.”
“Always,” I told him.
Before Lenny could answer Tony said, “We better get outa here.”
“I’ll tell you when,” Lenny scowled.
The little hood did a Cagney with his shoulders. “Like hell. You work for the same guys I do. They said make it snappy and we’re making it snappy. We missed Peddle but we saved ourselves a trip and got this one so we’re halfway home. Let’s get back there.”
Lenny didn’t like to be reminded that he was under orders. His face was hard and black and every ounce of his hate was poured out at me. I wanted a bigger picture than I got so I made a motion toward the bed with the back of my head and said, “The butler’ll talk, Lenny.”
Tony spoke for him. “He never knew what hit him or who. It don’t matter.”
It didn’t make him mad at all. He half circled me and stood there a few seconds, then finally said, “You were looking for something, Deep?”