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.
“Same thing you were, punk.”
He ignored the sarcasm. “If you were, then you knew Peddle would be away, and consequently probably knew where he was going.”
I knew the next step and got there ahead of him. “You can beat my head all day,” I said, “but it won’t do any good. I was here after Peddle. If you missed him, so did I.”
Lenny let the black hate seep out of him. “But I’m luckier than you. After Peddle we were going to find you. Peddle can’t hide, at least for long. We’ll have him quickly enough. Now you... that would have been another matter, but you made it easy for us.”
“I’m glad for you,” I said.
“You have two choices.”
“Oh?”
“You walk out of here quietly, and into a car quietly, and where we take you quietly.”
“Or?”
“Don’t be stupid. Not you, tough boy. Or we carry you out with a hole in your gut in the right place to slow you down some.”
There really wasn’t any choice at all. “I’ll walk,” I said. “Quietly.”
We all went down the private elevator to the street, walked fifty feet to the new tan Pontiac and got in like a bunch of old friends. Every move was professionally perfect and no one would ever have caught wise. If they had they would have died on the spot, but with the new regime of hoods it’s better not to have trouble.
I sat between the two hoods with my arms folded across my chest, feeling the blunt noses of the two rods against my side. In front, Lenny sat with the driver, his arm across the seat, looking back at me. He was enjoying every moment of it, getting rid of the dirty taste he had whenever he thought of the things I had done to him in the past.
The driver cut crosstown, picked up the West Side Drive and went up the ramp into traffic. They made no attempt to cover their route and that meant only one thing. I was going someplace... but I wasn’t coming back. I could hurry it or I could wait it out. They really didn’t care. The choice was still a singular one. I’d wait it out.
What were the odds? Augie was gone, Cat was gone. Nobody else knew where I was or what I had in mind. This time the mistake was mine for going it solo and it could be the last one I’d make. These were strictly pros now. They did only one thing. They were assigned to kill, that was all they knew and nothing could talk them out of it. They’d shoot as soon as talk and have a hot lunch after they dropped you in the river somewhere. They didn’t think, they didn’t want to think, and to them it was just one more job and one more dollar.
Lenny turned and smiled placidly. He was happy. I said, “Hurt, Lenny?”
He raised his eyebrows. “The way you’re perched on the seat. Thought maybe your ass hurt,” I said.
Tony snickered again.
Lenny said, “You’re going to be fun, Deep.”
“Think about it a little bit.”
He didn’t catch my meaning and his smile came off.
I said, “You’re too old for the rough stuff, man.”
“Not with you. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.”
“Then you should know better.”
Flatly, Tony cut in with, “You think he’s got an angle? He ain’t the kind not to cover hisself.”
“I think our boy forgot himself this time,” Lenny answered.
“You better be sure.”
Lenny nodded. “I’m sure. I’ve known him a long, long time.”
“He’s been away a long time too.”
“They never change, Tony. You should know that as well as I do. Isn’t that right, Deep?”
I shrugged.
Tony’s head swiveled on his shoulders like that of a praying mantis. He regarded me silently for a long time, then turned and said to Lenny, “If I was you I’d knock this guy off right now.”
“You’re not me, Tony.”
“So you’ll be wishin’ you did. Something tells me.”
“I’m telling you to shut up.”
Tony grunted something and was still. The one on the other side had taken it all in without batting an eyelash.
We turned off the West Side Highway at the bridge and angled back across town. In ten minutes we stopped in front of a closed restaurant a block away from Yankee Stadium and Tony nudged me with the gun. “Out,” he said.
The other one went first, his gun out of sight, but ready. Tony came behind me, the muzzle of his gun steering me toward the door beside the restaurant.
Lenny opened the door and said, “After you.”
There weren’t going to be many more chances after this one.
But Tony anticipated me by a full half second and the sound of his rod slamming against the side of my head was like that of a board being broken in half.
I could see my feet and they seemed miles away. They were together primly, the toes matching. The feet swam up closer and I saw why they were so neatly arranged. They had been tied like that. I had the sensation I was going to fall forward on my face and slowly I knew why I didn’t. My hands were tied behind the chair I sat on with just enough slack to let me hang away from it.
Lenny’s voice, sounding very fuzzy, said, “He’s coming out of it.”
Somebody else said, “Good. Hold that ammonia under his nose again.”
Harsh, acrid fumes caught in my throat and I choked, my eyes flooding with tears. I pulled back away from the smell and shook my head. The little gray man sitting in front of me smiled. “Welcome,” he said.
I blinked, trying to see him, and when my eyes cleared recognized his face. They called him Mr. Holiday and spoke softly in front of him. He represented the syndicate interest in New York but unless you knew it for sure you’d think he was simply somebody’s father. The others sitting comfortably around the room had equal, but different interests. Some of them had been at the meeting the night I walked in the K.O. Club. Now they were watching me in a detached, yet curious way. I was part of the obstacles of their business and had to be handled just so.
“You are all right?” Mr. Holiday asked me.
My head pounded and rather than talk I nodded once.
“Good. You know why you are here?”
This time I said no.
He made a face. “It really doesn’t matter. However, you know what we want.”
There wasn’t any sense playing games. “Bennett’s stuff.”
“Exactly.”
I raised my head and forced a grin. “You can’t get it from me. I haven’t got it.”
Holiday made a quick gesture with his pudgy hands. “That we shall be sure of.” He waved a finger over his shoulder. “Maxie... please.”
Maxie was a big fat guy with forearms like barrels. He walked up thoroughly enjoying what he had to do, looked at me clinically a moment, then whipped the back of his hand across my face. It came too fast to duck and before I could set myself the other one came at me from the other side. With open hands he almost tore my head off and when he stopped my mouth was full of blood from where my teeth were driven into my cheeks and my eyes began to puff out around the cheekbones.
Mr. Holiday said, “You can hear me, Deep?”
I bobbed my head.
“They tell me all about you. They tell me you are very tough. Too, they tell me how you used to make people talk, you and your friend Bennett. You know, naturally what will come next. You will talk or die very, very slowly.
Somehow I grated out, “I know the routine. It won’t do you any good.”
Lenny Sobel said, “He’s lying.”
“So? How do you know?”
“Because I remember how the two of them were. I know how they thought. Bennett left everything to this guy.”
“Wouldn’t he have produced it by now if he had?”
“Listen,” Sobel insisted, “you can’t tell what angle this one’ll play. With Bennett it was cut and dried, but you can’t tell with him. They’re both nuts. He knows where it is all right! Squeeze it out of him... he’ll talk.”