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.
He had.
I put them back for the moment, then went out into the main room of the old club. Just one big room with a curtained alcove at one end spotted by a jumble of chairs and boxes with a radio in a special place because at one time it had been a status symbol.
In the comer a phone. The ultimate status symbol for a clubhouse.
Had Bennett recognized the symbolism?
Overhead the floor creaked. I paused, thinking the faint strains of a scream marked the quiet.
Easy. Don’t rush it. It has to be done right. I repeated it to myself. There can’t be any chances. The odds are wrong and the cost too high to pay.
I picked the phone up, dialed Information and asked for Roscoe Tate in a whisper. She gave me the number, I dialed it and when it had rung a few times the ringing stopped.
Quietly, I said, “Roscoe?”
“Yes?”
“Deep.”
There was no smart talk now. He had seen the carnage at the rooming house and without having seen the papers I knew he had made the most of it.
“Another scoop, friend.”
“I told you I don’t need any favors.”
“You’ll like this one.”
“Go on.”
“It’s over, little man. The gang is all busted up. In five minutes they’ll be taking each other apart and the ones who are left over will be on hind tit because I have the works. I found Bennett’s power package and I’m going to wrap those miserable pigs up like in the old days and watch them cry.”
“Where are you, Deep?”
“At the old clubhouse. Grab your pencil and come along. It’ll be the biggest story of your life... the one you always wanted to write. That old gang of mine. All one big obit.”
“Deep...”
“But come easy,” I said. “They got Helen upstairs and first I got to shake her loose.” I was grinning and he knew it. “Maybe you’ll get your wish, kiddo. I may not make it, but somebody had better be here to take care of Irish.”
Before he could answer I hung up.
I made one more call. I couldn’t afford to buck the odds. Alone I might get part way, but that was all. Both sides wanted Helen and if there was any doubt she’d be better off dead than alive.
The operator gave me my number, the one who answered gave me another to call and I got Sergeant Hurd at home. I said, “Don’t talk, just listen,” and gave him the poop.
His voice was as cold and as nasty as he could make it. “Stay alive, Deep. I want you all for myself.”
I laughed. “But just in case, hardman, I could still beat the crap out of you anytime.”
“Stay alive, Deep,” he said, “if you got the guts to.”
I was certain now. It was a scream from upstairs.
I put the phone back and yanked the .38 out, thumbing the hammer back. I went up the stairs into the narrow vestibule and almost tripped over Henny. He was alive, but blood flowed from a gash in his head. He still had a flashlight in his hand and I took it from him, tested it and snapped it off.
The picture was fairly clear now. Hugh Peddle had come in, sapped Henny and probably made a quick tour of the place with Helen. When she couldn’t come up with anything, he called for his boys. They’d be in bad shape, but still more the type to squeeze a woman than he was. Peddle was ruthless. He could give the orders, but personal involvement when it came to putting heat on somebody was another thing.
I went up the stairs and like the last time, felt the notch Bunny Krepto had carved out with his switchblade the night before Petie Scotch had killed him and ran my hand over the break in the post at the top of the landing just like in the old days.
Think.
Think.
Five are looking for three. Possibly seven guns and if Peddle packed one, eight.
There was a scream again and I spotted it. They were on the top floor and I could hear the terse, whispered commands that came through the walls. The others had heard it too.
Only now the edge was mine.
I had run the course more often than they and knew the twists and turns. I knew the way the wall angled back at the landing, and how you could get through the window to the part of the old fire escape that had never been torn down and if you wanted to take a chance, could climb up.
A core of steel still existed under the rust otherwise it never would have held. I got to the window I looked for, and strangely enough it eased open after all these years, or else Henny had been a better caretaker than I assumed.
They had her in that big room, sprawled out on the floor, her raven hair spilling out over her shoulders and her dress high above the waxen smoothness of her thighs.
Hugh Peddle wouldn’t look. He stood to one side examining his fingernails while the guy, Al, the guy I had shot in the arm, was standing spraddle-legged over Helen, his arm in a sling and he was enjoying everything he was doing. He had a rag wrapped around his good hand so he wouldn’t carve up his knuckles and a few feet away the other guy whom I hadn’t seen before watched him with obvious pleasure.
I laid the sights of the .38 on the back of Al’s head and held it so I was sure of the shot. He had his foot ready and was going to put the boot to her in another second and the instant he moved his brains would come out through the front of his face.
My finger curled around the metal, I started the squeeze, already had Hugh and the other one in my peripheral vision to kill next, when somebody yelled and Hugh spun around toward the door at the far end of the room and said, “Who was that?”
“Knock that light out!” Al told him.
Hugh reached the switch, flipped it and threw the place into total darkness.
They had locked the door, but it gave under a barrage of shots. I heard Hugh yell hoarsely and run toward the far end. He wasn’t a pro like the other pair. They snapped off a couple of fast shots, scrambled for the protection of the furniture and stayed there.
I put the gun back. I didn’t waste any of the seconds I had left. I went crabwise across the floor, found Helen and dragged her backwards. By then the ones outside had hit the front entrance and knocked the door open. Somebody was yelling for a light.
She tried to fight me until I told her to be still. She recognized my voice and slumped with the sheer relief she felt.
Together we inched forward on the floor, got to the break in the room and cut around the angle of it.
Behind us the roar of gunfire was a steady thing and bullets were slapping into the walls and skipping off the metal things. Somebody began screaming and wouldn’t stop.
I said, “Are you hurt badly?”
“No. They had... just started to... really hurt me.”
“We have to climb down a flight and bypass the action.”
“All right.”
So I helped her out above me, guided her feet into the rungs and hoped the steel would hold until we reached the level below.
Luck was on our side this time and it did. The gunfire above abated, then started again. Feet slammed down the stairs and we flattened out against the wall. When they passed we followed them down, stopped at the first landing, cut back to the rear where the other stairwell went down to the basement and held it while I listened.
A voice far above us was yelling that they had them and the shooting stopped abruptly. Another voice found Al, the other and Peddle, and they were dead. Somebody wasn’t quite sure about one and there was another shot and everybody laughed.
When they couldn’t find Helen they made a circuit of the room and suddenly realized what had happened, only they thought she had done it all by herself. There was a sharp order and feet began pounding down the stairwell. I grabbed Helen and we made the last run into the old clubroom.
Outside on The Street sirens began their unearthly howl, coming closer and closer and it was almost all over.