Killer Mine by Mickey Spillane

people came along and he ducked down behind that umbrella like he didn’t want to be seen, but I knew who he was.”
    “See where he went?”
    “Raining too hard. He was up near Paula Lees’ place when I couldn’t see him no more. I didn’t wait around, anyway. I went looking for you.”
    “Okay, Harry, thanks. You get the hell out of here and don’t mention seeing me.”
    “Sure enough. Not a word. You give that Al Reese what he needs, huh?”
    “Don’t worry.”
    I waited until Harry was out of sight before crossing the street. I knew where Grafton’s place was. Twenty-five years ago I had run errands for the guy, delivered his orders and fought for my right to sell papers on the corner he occupied.
    Fifty feet from the intersection a late-model Chevvy sedan was parked, the doors locked. After an initial glance at it I walked on down the street, casing every building as I went. Any darkened doorway or unlighted window could hide a killer behind it. One try was made, another was possible. Will Fater’s try for me was a money deal, not the original one.
    But there was a tie-in there too. If Gus Wilder came into the section, Al Reese could have known about it. Political bosses had to keep their fingers on the pulse of every movement in their area. If there was a bite to be taken out of a money pie Al Reese would want his and anybody standing in his way had to be taken out.
    The possibility was plain now. René Mills lost his shot at the dough… Reese wasn’t going to miss his. He could have promised René protection for a price, and even if René got killed for his trouble Reese was going to push it. He wouldn’t put himself in the same class as René, not Al Reese. He had power and cover from the party whom he represented. Anybody circulating in his bailiwick was going to pay off no matter who they were.
    Up ahead was Paula Lees’ apartment.
    Cute deal, Al, I thought. A guy is holed up and wanting a woman. You make the arrangements for him and catch him with his pants down and put the screws to him. Maybe you’d be doing it right now and I could nail you both at once.
    I took the gun out, checked the load in the cylinders and cut in when I came to the worn sandstone stoop. I would have gone up the steps if the sudden brilliance of the lightning flash hadn’t turned night into day and outlined a quick movement from behind the railing that guarded the basement entrance to the tenement across the street
    This time I moved as fast as they did, not quickly, just deliberately. As far as they were concerned, I was just another pedestrian. I had stayed out of the glow of the street lights from force of habit and my pause by Paula’s apartment could have been accidental if they hadn’t seen me with the gun in my hand. I bent down, made like I was flipping water from my cuffs, pulled the collar of my trench coat tighter around my neck and ambled on like a guy walking aimlessly after fighting with his wife.
    I didn’t look back to see if the act worked. I kept on going until I reached the corner, found the alley in between the stores and squeezed between the garbage cans and refuse cartons stacked shoulder high until I reached the fence, then climbed over it
    For a second I had the funny feeling that it was the game again. A long time ago the bunch of us had come through this same alley over the same fence to scramble through the basement of the apartment to get away from Ralph Callahan who was after us for some piece of hell we had just raised. Now it was the other way around and I was the cop.
    The cellar doors set at a forty-five degree angle were still the same, boards warped, braces loose and two hinges rusted away. I pulled one up, went down the steps with the light of my pencil flash showing the way, seeing the same old asbestos-wrapped furnace sitting in the middle of the room like a dead, dirty idol, the coal bin on the left gaping blackly. It was neater now than the last time, probably because a fire