The Day of the Guns by Mickey Spillane

too stupid to work with at all.”
    Watford ignored the insult, looked at the other one, then back to me. “What is it you want?”
    “A tail on Edith Caine. Twenty-four hours, rotating teams and all contacts tailed individually. Secondary contacts tailed too and stake-outs on everyone involved.”
    “How long is this to last?”
    “A week should do it.”
    Watford said, “You know what this will entail in personnel and cost involved, I imagine.”
    “If the government can finance Tito and underwrite wheat shipments to Russia I think it can stand a few grand and some men to protect its policies. If you want me to I’ll put our own group on this, but that would mean losing a day in the race and I don’t think any of us can afford it.”
    Neither of them answered me directly. Finally Watford asked,“What do you expect to find?”
    “When it happens you’ll know it. We’ll consolidate our reports and pick it apart from there.” I stopped and looked at them both. “Do we have a deal?”
    “For a week,” the big guy said.
    “That should do it,” I told him. “From now on I won’t make any direct contact with you unless it’s absolutely necessary, but if you get anything I’m at the Chester Hotel.”
    “Wide open?”
    “You don’t hide a target, friend, and that’s what you want me to be. A pro won’t find me too hard to locate, but for anybody else it won’t be easy.”
    Watford had a satisfied look on his face. “I’m glad you’re asking for it,” he said.
    “Don’t hold your breath waiting for me to be scratched,” I said.
    “It’s bound to happen. We’ll all be better off when it does.”
    “Drop dead,” I told him. But I was grinning.
    I went downstairs and started walking back to the hotel. I stayed with the crowd, taking my time all the way, doing my thinking as I walked. A lot of things were beginning to tie in now, but the big apple hadn’t been plucked yet.
    It was cute, the way they were working it, calling in outside men rather than involve their own. Rondine wanted no strings tying her into this bit at all. She was passing it down the line to other hands and letting them make the contacts.
    Everything figured out nicely. The try for a hit right after I met her. It wouldn’t have been hard to find me where I was. Until I saw Rondine I wasn’t using a cover at all. I was between assignments from Grady and marking time. I had two weeks in New York with plenty of loot in my pocket and I was going to enjoy myself. Until I saw her again. She sure worked fast, but then again, she had to. I could jeopardize her entire operation whatever it was and she didn’t want to give me the chance. She knew damn well what I’d do.
    She had had my hotel staked out when they made the second try that I spotted. When I made the tail I was thinking of it then because it’s what I would have done myself. If I had played it cool I would have switched hotels after the first attempt, but I wanted her right out in the open where she’d be left cold.
    They missed then too because I was smart enough to get the other room on the floor with the ledge around it, and that was something I did no matter where I stayed or whether I was on an assignment or not. For three years I had been on the Commie “B” list which meant a hit at any given opportunity, but being promoted to the “A” sheet, like they told me I was, meant an organized effort to nail me. Orders had been cut to kill this old soldier and by request from Rondine Vidor Churis had been given the job.
    It was going to be nice to see him again. He had killed a friend of mine too.
    There was a simple message waiting for me at the hotel and I had to laugh when I read it. I hadn’t told Charlie Corbinet where I had moved to but he found me easily enough one way or another. It was coded in the old Tike R form we hadn’t used since the war but couldn’t forget because it was used more to set up interoffice dates than for business purposes. Charlie