The Deep by Mickey Spillane Page B

my life. What happened?”
    Augie volunteered the same information himself, then stood there waiting.
    On the other side of the bed the Medical Examiner finished his examination, snapped his bag shut and flipped the sheet up over the body.
    Hurd said, “What does it look like?”
    â€œNo more than an hour ago. That soda bottle’s the weapon, all right. Well make it positive later, of course, but there’s no doubt about it as far as I’m concerned.” He nodded toward me then, “If it got him as well, and we’ll know by the hair comparison tests, you’ll have a time hanging it on him.”
    â€œYou’re sure he was out?” Hurd asked him.
    In a typical manner the doctor fingered the welt on my head as he went by. “He was out, all right. Of course, in a case like this you can always try for a self-inflicted bruise.”
    â€œThanks,” I told him.
    â€œNo trouble,” he smiled.
    The plain-clothes man who had been given the bottle came in frowning, the bottle impaled on a wooden dowel rod. He was shaking his head and said, “No prints at all. Everything’s messed up. It’s possible there may be something under the blood stains, but we’ll have to let the lab finish with that first.”
    â€œOkay,” Hurd told him. “Pack it in.” Then he turned to Mr. Sullivan and said, “What about these two?”
    â€œThey were in The Pelican bar. Lew Bucks said they had been there for three hours and Grady the waiter backed him up.”
    Without changing expression Augie said, “We can go then?”
    Hurd’s snaky eyes touched his, moved to Cat, then took in Helen and me. “You’ll go. All of you can go.” We knew what he meant, but to be sure he threw in, “with me.”
    â€œWhat for?” I asked him.
    His smile was all for me now. “For fun, Deep. I got news of a little rumble down the block. Nobody seemed to have been hurt, but there were blood stains in the back room of Bimmy’s Tavern and some slugs stuck in the wall. It seems like you three had been seen going in there just before it all happened.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œSo I think it’d all be nice if we went over to the Green House where we can make an issue out of it.”
    Cat went a little white around the mouth and his eyes narrowed. I knew what he was thinking, shook my head when he glanced at me with a look that said let it ride. Augie caught the exchange and said nothing.
    They called the precinct station the “Green House.” The name had come down from a generation ago and still stuck, but it was only this one precinct that had the name. It meant there was something special about this place and there was. To those on the street outside it was like the Bastille was to some and the Tower of London to others. It was a tough house in a tough place and things went on inside there that weren’t pretty to think about and even worse to be a part of. Somebody once said they broke more murder cases out of that building than any six others like it in the city and you knew they weren’t wrong.
    At eight-thirty I was in the Green House again after a long time and when I looked around all I could think of was that the fixtures had been changed a little but the smell was still the same. It stank of cigars, wet clothes and man-sweat held fast in an atmosphere gray with cigarette smoke.
    Outside in the reception room they left Helen, Cat and Augie to sit and think and wait. Cat was sweating, dragging hard on a smoke. Augie was his impeccable self, seemingly unworried, but nevertheless concerned. It was Helen who had acted strangely. She was one bundle of fury well contained and if the slobs had any sense they would have cut her out of it in a hurry. Any fuzz with time in grade should have been able to spot an innocent bystander without too much trouble and to throw one like Helen in with a rat pack was plain asking for it. So