[Mike Hammer 03] - Vengeance Is Mine by Mickey Spillane Page B

the pieces of the glass down on the window sill and she said, “You looked at me that way again, Mike.”
    This time I forced the memory out of my mind. I slipped my hand over hers and ran my fingers through her hair, sifting its short silky loveliness. “I’ll make it up to you sometime, Juno. I can’t help thinking and it hasn’t got anything to do with you.”
    “Make it up to me now.”
    I gave her ear a little pull. “No.”
    “Why?”
    “Because.”
    She pouted and her eyes tried to convince me.
    I couldn’t tell her that it was because there was a time and place for everything, and though this was the time and place she wasn’t the person. I was only a mortal. A mortal doesn’t undress a goddess and let his eyes feast and his hands feel and his body seek fulfillment.
    Then too maybe that wasn’t the reason at all. Maybe she reminded me of something else I could never have.
    Never.
    She said it slowly. “Who was she, Mike? Was she lovely?”
    I couldn’t keep the words back. I tried, but they wouldn’t stay there. “She was lovely. She was the most gorgeous thing that ever lived and I was in love with her. But she did something and I played God; I was the judge and I the jury and the sentence was death. I shot her right in the gut and when she died I died too.”
    Juno never said a word. Only her eyes moved. They softened, offered themselves to me, trying to convince me that I wasn’t dead ... not to her.
    I lit a cigarette and stuck it in my mouth, then got the hell out of there before her eyes became too convincing. I felt her eyes burning in my back because we both knew I’d be back.
    Juno, goddess of marriage and births, queen of the lesser gods and goddesses. Why wasn’t she Venus, goddess of beauty and love? Juno was a queen and she didn’t want to be. She wanted to be a woman.
     
    Darkness had come prematurely, but the reflected lights on the whiteness of the snow made the city brighter than ever. Each office building discharged a constant stream of people clutching their collars tight at the throat. I joined the traffic that pressed against the sides of the buildings trying to get away from the stinging blast of air, watching them escape into the mouths of the kiosks.
    I grabbed a cab, stayed in it until I reached Times Square, then got out and ducked into a bar for a quick beer. When I came out there were no empty cabs around so I started walking down Broadway toward Thirty-third. Every inch it was a fight against the snow and the crowd. My feet were soaked and the crease was out of my pants. Halfway there the light changed suddenly and the cars coming around the corner forced the pedestrians back on the curb.
    Somebody must have slipped because there was a tinkle of glass than a splintering crash as the front came out of a store showcase on the corner. Those who jumped out of the way were crammed in by others who wanted to see what happened. A cop wormed in through the melee and stood in front of the window and I got out through the path he left behind him.
    When I reached Thirty-third I turned east hoping to find a taxi to get over to the parking lot and decided to give it up as a bad job and walk the rest of the way after one more look.
    I stepped out on the curb to look down the street when the plate glass in a window behind me twanged and split into a spider web of cracks. Nobody had touched it this time, either. A car engine roared and all I saw was the top half of a face looking out from the back window of a blue sedan and it was looking straight at me for a long second before it pulled out of sight.
    My eyes felt tight and my lips were pulled back over my teeth. My voice cut into the air and faces turned my way. “Twice the same day,” I said, “right on Broadway, too. The crazy bastard, the crazy son-of-a-bitch!”
    I didn’t remember getting to the car lot or driving out through traffic. I must have been muttering to myself because the drivers of cars that stopped alongside me