Mickey Spillane and The Murder Room

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The Murder Room

Where Criminal Minds Meet

themurderroom.com

Bloody Sunrise

Mickey Spillane

Contents

Cover

The Murder Room Introduction

Title page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Outro

By Mickey Spillane

Dedication

About the author

Copyright page

Chapter One

It was Saturday and I was going to be married. But it was dawn and too early, yet I couldn’t sleep thinking of what was going to happen later and that twenty blocks farther uptown Rondine would be curled up in a bed, naked and inviting, still asleep, and in a little while there never would be a city mile between us again.

Mentally I had already composed the letter of resignation Martin Grady would get. He wouldn’t like it. He’d do his damndest to stop it but his damndest wouldn’t be good enough. The day of the guns was past. The Soviets could take me off their “A” list and any future targets Grady had planned for me could breathe a little easier because whoever came at them wouldn’t be quite as good, nor as fast or even enjoy the work as much as I had. The odds for them would be better, even if not good enough, and they’d fall like all the others. But at least they’d die knowing they did have a better chance of survival.

I wondered what Grady would say. Appeal to my patriotism? Maybe he’d remind me that nobody ever came off the “A” list. I’d always be a Red target if for nothing better than to teach the rest of them a lesson. When one of us went down all of us felt the impact. Or would he use the old dodge about me, like the others, having some psychological quirk that made staying in the business a necessity in order to satisfy our compulsions? Grady could be mighty persuasive, but one thought of Rondine could make a far more formidable argument for my side.

Grady boy, I’m cutting out. No more guns, no more kills. I’m walking out of the jungle alive and staying that way. I liked the dough and the work fine, but now I love something more. Tiger Mann has been on his last hunt and now the name changes, the locale differs and the future opens. I bury the .45 in a closet for a keepsake and go into the vine-covered-cottage routine. I’ve seen the world and helped change it. I met the people and helped kill some. I don’t like what I’ve done. So now I’ll change Tiger Mann. Sorry, buddy, but that’s how it goes. That’s how Rondine wants it. That’s how I want it, too.

The phone beside me let out a sharp, discordant note and I reached for it, annoyed. It was still a little before seven and I hadn’t put any calls in. As soon as I lifted the receiver a voice said, “Tiger?”

“Yeah.”

“Wally Gibbons.” His voice sounded tired.

“What’re you doing up this early? You Broadway columnists never . . .”

“I haven’t been to bed yet.”

“So why roust me out?”

“Because I got a call from a guy who says he knows you. He read about the last business in my column and contacted me to find you. Now I didn’t tell him a damn thing. I said I’d see if I could find you and pass on the message.”

“A lot of people would like to find me,” I said.

“That’s why I didn’t say anything. You know a guy named Clement Fletcher?”

I ran through a list of names in my head and couldn’t place it. “Describe him.”

“I can’t. It was a phone call. He rang my office eight times before I got the call, and he said it was urgent I get hold of you. Anyway, he left a number. Call it if you want to.” He reeled it off and I jotted it down absently.

“What did he say, Wally?”

“Nothing. He wouldn’t talk. He was excited about something and one of those guys who chew up a mouthpiece. Talked in a whisper, made it fast and said that somehow I should get you to call. Know what it’s about?”

I put the pencil down and stretched out on the bed. “Not the slightest, buddy. I don’t give a damn either. I’ll make the call but if it’s got anything to do with my job I’ll toss it in the hopper and let somebody else pick it up. I’m getting married today.”

“So I heard. Good luck. You’ll need it.”

“Thanks, but why?”

“To stay that way. Or maybe just to stay alive. Ever since I found out about you I don’t even want to be on the same side of the street where you are.”

“Drop dead.” I laughed at him and hung up. This was one day nobody was going to spoil for me.

The sun was cutting across the top of the skyline and reaching in the window with waxy yellow rays. Twenty stories down the city was coming to life with the birth pangs of noise only the garbage collectors can make, the shrill screech of metal on pavement as loud as the chain loaders on the trucks. Farther off a siren moaned its sympathy and dwindled to silence behind the walls of Broadway, and dot by dot, the specks of people began their endless thread toward the great holes on the street that led underground to the veins and arteries of New York that would circulate them to some other wound in some other street where they would work or play.

Me, I was going to get married and dump the whole bit.

Clement Fletcher.

There was something familiar about it but I couldn’t remember where or when. Or who.

It wasn’t a big name. It had to be pretty far down the line because in my business you couldn’t afford to forget important names, or even unimportant ones. This was just a name, yet somehow familiar.

Friend? I didn’t have that many.

And enemies don’t call first. They just kill.

The call couldn’t have come through Martin Grady or any of the organization because there would have been a signal word involved, giving the degree of urgency or related to a target, so it had to be personal. But I was still on the Soviet’s “A” list and there was no telling how they worked. They could set up some pretty cute traps at times.

Whoever said curiosity killed the cat said a mouthful. If it had just been another name I would have forgotten about it, but this one came from the past and had enough of a familiar touch so that I couldn’t leave it alone.

I called Wally Gibbons back, got him out of the sack, swearing up a storm, and asked him to get a reverse on the number so I’d have an address to go with it, dropped the phone back, waited ten minutes and he came up with a West Side residence a block off the river and an invitation for me to drop dead, too.

A quick shower and shave took the sleep out of me and I pulled on my clothes. Out of force of habit I fitted the shoulder holster on, snapped it on my belt, then remembered what day it was. I grinned, said the hell with it and almost took it off. The .45 was an old job, but there were times when it had been my best friend. It was going to be hard to discard it.

So okay, old friend, just one more time.

I shoved it into the black leather sling, tried the spring clip to make sure it threw out properly, then went downstairs, had a cup of coffee at the breakfast counter and grabbed a cab at the front door. It was too early for heavy traffic, so I was able to make sure nobody was on my tail then settled back until we got over to the row of antiquated brownstones that ran perpendicular to the river and the wharves that bordered it.

The number was the third in from the bridging that was the West Side Highway, a dilapidated rooming house with a crumbling sandstone stoop and a dirty front that advertised with an enameled metal plaque on the door. Just one word. ROOMS.

I rang the bell twice before a tiny old lady came to the door, wiping her mouth on her apron, two rolls of toilet paper clutched under one arm.

“You looking for a place, son?”

I winked at her. “A friend. Clement Fletcher. Think it’s too early to get him up?”

Her eyes went up and down me slowly, then her face wrinkled in a smile. “Didn’t think he had such friends, but you can’t tell anymore. Had a boy in here last week said Judge Long was his father, and he was. The judge even came here. Gave him hell for shipping out, but the boy left again yesterday. Went out on the Maitland, same one my mister used to work. He was an A.B., he was. Good, too. You’ll find Mr. Fletcher next floor, up front.”

“I’ll find him. Thanks.”

I went up the stairs, heard the landlady shut a door on the floor below and unloaded the .45, cocking the hammer back under my thumb. There was only one door to Fletcher’s room and I stood beside it, listening. From inside came the gentle rumble of a snore. The second pick I used on the lock opened it and I eased the door open, stepped inside and closed it behind me.

The guy was sleeping in a chair, yesterday’s News lying across his lap, his head buried against one wing of the mohair monstrosity that was the third piece of furniture in the place. He was somewhere in his middle fifties, a small guy in dungarees and unbuttoned shirt with a fresh haircut and not-so-fresh shave. His mouth was open and he breathed heavily, evenly, each snore a soft burble of unconscious contentment. On the dresser beside the bed was a handful of bills and the top two were C-notes, the rest all fifties.

I stood in front of him, knowing that I had seen him before, yet still unable to recollect where it was. When I was satisfied that he was clean, I nudged his foot with mine, took a step back with the .45 leveled at his gut and watched him come awake.

All he said when he saw me was, “Goddamn, Tiger! I . . .” Then he saw the rod in my fist and closed his mouth hard, swallowed and looked at me.

“Where do I know you from, Fletcher?”

“Geez, Tiger, I . . .”

“Fast, buddy. No long talks. Where?”

He let go the arms of the chair, his eyes fascinated by the sight of the .45. Finally he nodded, found the words and said, “Like Panama, man! Remember?”

“No.”

He thumped his finger against his chest. “You dragged me out of the bay. Damn, I was drowning. You hauled my ass on the dock and ran them thieving bastards off who grabbed my roll and saved my life!”

Then I remembered him and put the rod back under my coat. A crazy seaman who saved his dough instead of blowing it, setting himself up for a pack of gooks who saw him flash it. They had rolled him when he was drunk and dumped him when I was on the dock trying to find where Messner had planted the explosives and I was in time to punch a few holes in the natives, grab his kick back and get him out of the drink.

So now I had an everlasting friend who wanted to buy me a drink. I grinned at him, stuck out my hand and he took it with a grin that went all the way across his face. “Sorry I forgot, Fletch.” I tapped my side where the .45 hung. “I’m in a business where you can’t take chances.”

“Yeah, I know, Tiger. Damn, you gimme a scare. I don’t like all that iron pointed at me.”

“Gibbons passed on your call to me. Now look, I’d like to bust a few with you for old time’s sake, but I’m getting married today and I have to stay clean. Good to see you and if we meet up again maybe we can have a few, but I have to scratch off.”

“Hell, Tiger, I didn’t call you for that.” His face screwed up into a frown and he squirmed out of the chair. He looked at me, walked to the window and parted the curtains for a glance at the street, then turned around. “I read about you.”

“So did a lot of people.”

“I remembered the name.”

I nodded.

“After Panama word got around the ship and I knew who it was broke the trouble. I didn’t say nothing, Tiger. I never told nobody about you being on the docks and all that.”

“Thanks.”

He waved his hand and grimaced. “It ain’t that why I called you. Like I said, I knew about you from what was said and because we was on top of it all. I figured you was somebody special after they hushed up that deal when the warehouse blew and those guys was killed. I knowed it was you, all right. I heard that fink punk Billy Mendes describe you, but I didn’t say nothing. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I knew there had been a watcher that night, but I never knew who it was. I had seen the movement from behind the bales and didn’t have to clean up the action. Friend Fletcher never knew how close to dying he had been. Billy Mendes had died before he could sign a statement or make an identification positive.

“Then why did you call me, Fletch?”

He wiped his hand across his face, chipped at his teeth with a thumbnail, then plunked down on the edge of the bed. Very quietly he said, “So I don’t know who else to call. I buzz the fuzz and they laugh, I go it alone and I get trouble. Hell, I don’t know what to do until I read about you.”

“What kind of trouble?” I asked him.

He eased his eyes up to me. “You’ll laugh.”

“Why?”

“Because it don’t sound for real.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Clement Fletcher had something big on his mind. To him, anyway. He sat there a minute trying to think out what he had to say, then: “Remember the roll you got me back?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So I saved up another grand. I worked for it, too. In Brussels I found this guy.”

“What guy?” I asked him.

“Like I told you, Tiger, I want to go to Perdes outside of Vera Cruz where they got uranium. I always did want to go there. Wells and Chobeay told me about them strikes in U there and I wanted to go. You think I want to sail all my life? You think I want to hustle . . .”

“Get to the point?”

He looked at me from between his fingers. “So in Brussels I buy a Geiger counter.”

“How much?”

“Eighteen hundred bucks. I blew my roll.”

“You got robbed too. They’re on the market for two-fifty here.”

He jumped out of the chair and went back to the window. “So I got robbed. I don’t know. They said I needed it for going to Perdes. I play with it on the ship. I can tell hot watches from cool ones.”

“That’s no test.”

“Screw you.”

I knew he had a sore spot and felt sorry for the words. “Okay, Fletch, so what’s the bit? I got to go. I don’t come running for just anybody and this is a big day for me.”

“Geez, Tiger, I’m sorry.”

“Forget it.”

He nodded, banged his hands together and finally stopped his pacing long enough to face me. “I come in on the Maitland, y’ know?”

“I know.”

“In Germany they load three presses. I’m down in the hold with the counter and it starts to run off. Going like hell. I track it down and I pick up a crate . . . big one . . . them damn presses are big. One’s hot.”

“Go on.”

“I check it out . . . I mark the crate. It’s hot. It’s got uranium in it.”

“A crateful?”

“I didn’t look.”

He didn’t want to look at me at all. He kept staring out the window wondering what I’d say, and he was feeling like a jerk and I couldn’t blame him. I said, “Let’s take a look at it.”

And it was my good deed for the day. I could wind up my operation with a favor to a friend who had been took and maybe ease his misery when he found out the answer . . . then I could get married and cut out.

It took a call and a promise to get where we wanted to go, but we got inside the warehouse and found the crate that Fletcher had marked off and it didn’t take too long to get inside it. About thirty more cases were around the big one, packed with accessories, but this was the one he had marked off.

The German firm of Keipleitz was one of the foremost manufacturers of rotary presses in the world and to make one took almost a year, but because the press could turn out some fantastic runs, the firm had the biggest demand from every publishing house in the world. Luckily, we were their biggest buyers. This one was consigned to somewhere in Washington, D.C.

After the fourth board we climbed inside and there it was.

A rotary press.

Complete, excepting accessories.

Not one thing that shouldn’t be there, and when we got out and put the boards back I looked at Clement Fletcher and said, “No gimmick, Fletch.”

“I’m telling you, that counter . . .”

“Fletch . . . I know printing from old Kelly’s to the newest rotaries. I went over that job. There’s no gimmick.”

“Tiger . . . the counter . . .”

“Suppose we look at the counter.”

“Why?”

“Let’s look at it, okay?”

“Sure, Tiger. It’s on the ship.”

But it wasn’t. He searched all over his section of the hold and came up with only the empty box in his hands and a blank look on his face and I knew what had happened.

I said, “Fletcher . . .”

“Look, Tiger . . .”

I stopped him. “Buddy, you got a salted gimmick. For eighteen hundred bucks they hand you a simple frame you couldn’t tell from a Geiger counter or a radarscope that clicks at certain times and you got stuck. Face it, you lost your loot and to make sure there were no kickbacks, the sellers hired somebody on board to dump it for a fin and you are out, Fletch, O—U—T. Did you see the timer on that press?”

“No.”

“It had a luminous dial. A big one. It could start any Geiger-type reactor working like hell. You zeroed in on that. You got stuck, friend.”

He got it all at once. All he could say was, “Oh, hell,” then we walked outside, went back where we came from and found a diner where we had a cup of coffee together.

It was a year-old reunion and for a while we were able to talk about the broads back in Panama and what had happened there, but his heart wasn’t in it at all. In front of his eyes he could see the eighteen hundred bucks doing him out of an expedition to Perdes, and even though he lost it I couldn’t tell him how lucky he was. The big con was worse than the little con.

At noon I shook hands with him and walked up three long blocks before I found a cab and got a ride back to the hotel.

For a guy’s wedding day it had really started off with a squash, but maybe I was just as lucky. At four I’d be married and that would be the end of it.

I went upstairs and started getting my things rogether. One leather bag took everything I carried and the rest was in my pocket. I snapped the bag shut, picked up the phone to call for a bellboy so I could go down in style one last time and before I could speak the desk clerk said, “There’s a call for you, sir, will you take it?”

I thought it would be Rondine. I said, “Please,” too fast.

And Martin Grady said, “Tiger, you’re on assignment. Plato.”

Plato was the big one. Kill or be killed. The entire structure of America was in trouble. The alternate answer was war.