Killer Mine Read Free Page A

smug.”
    “It doesn’t happen often. Let me enjoy the moment.”
    Her smile started gently, then broadened when some subtle intuition gave her an insight into my thoughts.
    “Let me,” she said softly. “Please?”
    The seconds that passed were years going back and little things coming forth.
    “What are you thinking?”
    “When you were the Big Pig because you wanted to be the cop and Polack Izzie and you got into the fight over me.”
    “We didn’t fight over you.”
    “You did, friend,” she reminded me. “It was night and I was coming home from the library when he jumped me next to the Strauss store.”
    I laughed because I remembered all too painfully. “He beat the hell out of me, chicken.”
    “Sure he did,” she chuckled, “but I got away. I never did thank you, did I?”
    “Never.”
    “So thanks.”
    “Don’t bother. We didn’t fight over you. He ran over my foot with that old Packard 120. You happened along at the right time.”
    “Don’t be modest, Joe. You fought over me.”
    “Old Giggie?”
    “Well… maybe you knew how I’d wind up.”
    Both of us laughed at that one day so long ago. The laugh was real short, then she bent her head down-into the reports again and I looked at the wild chestnut hair and felt real funny inside.
    Real funny.
    Both of us playing guns for public money and winding up on the same deal.
    Sergeant Mack Brissom rapped on the door and walked in, grinning at the comfortable little scene. “Kind of late, ain’t it?”
    I shrugged. “Got to get it done. You have the rest of the stuff?”
    He tapped the envelope. “It’s all here. A lot of speculation, but it can count. You know how those things are.”
    “Sure.”
    “You want me to brief you?”
    “Yeah, but in brief. You know? Sit down.” I leaned back in the chair and folded my hands behind my head. “Let’s hear it.”
    Mack bit the end off a cigar, spit the piece into his palm and lit up. It stunk, but it was part of the mores of the place.
    “Well, you know the guys who were knocked off. René Mills, Hymie Shapiro, ‘Noisy’ Stuccio and Doug Kitchen.”
    “I knew them when we were kids.”
    “You see the ballistics report on Kitchen?”
    I shook my head no.
    “Same gun, so now the heat is really on. Bryan says hurry-hurry. Anyway, they all got rap sheets except this Kitchen guy and on him there’s nothing. The rest were backtracked down to when they were still playing hookey, but if you can tie them in to each other you’re better’n I am. You went over the earlies, didn’t you?”
    “In detail.”
    “Make anything?”
    I shook my head again. “Nothing there but a familiarization course. What’s the word from outside?”
    “Well…” He reached forward and picked a sheet from the envelope and scanned it quickly, then flipped it back.
    “McNeil… he’s on the beat there… he knew them. René Mills and Stuccio had been sharing a pad a month earlier, then René hit a daily double and moved out. McNeil figured Mills was running numbers when he was bumped and he knew damn well Noisy was getting bread by pimping for a couple of tomatoes he had on the top floor over old Papa Jones’ store. But lately, nobody could tie them in. Both had been playing it quiet enough to be let alone.”
    “No talk along the street?” I asked him.
    “Hell, who’ll talk? The few who would, had nothing to say. But anyway, that’s your bit now. You’re real home town, huh?”
    Marty looked up and grinned. “Both of us.”
    “Yeah, I heard,” he said. Then he looked at me and winked through the haze of smoke. “It pays to be brass. That it does. A chick like this in the department and they yank her all the way across town to be your buddy. Cripes, you shoulda seen the partners they gave me. Old Grootz, fat as a pregnant cow… Billy Menter who could say ‘yup’ and ‘nope’ and that was all, and one time a matron who looked like my aunt in Linden, but at least that only lasted one