The Last Cop Out by Mickey Spillane Page A

hand. There was ink smeared on the fingertips. Apparently somebody took his prints and checked out his I.D. The same person could have lifted this picture and used our files.”
    “You releasing the picture to the papers?”
    “Might as well now,” Long said. The phone rang and he picked it up, listened and growled, “Send him up.” When he cradled the receiver he told Gill, “Corrigan’s on his way in. He’s a detective with the Fourth now. Don’t waste too much of his time. If you need me I’ll be down the hall.”
    Burke nodded so-long, lit a cigarette and had taken his second drag on it when the cop in the civvies walked in. Gill said, “Hi, have a seat.”
    Jimmie Corrigan tossed his hat on the desk and sat down.
    “What’s up, Mr. Burke?”
    “How’s your memory?”
    “Good enough.”
    “Remember Ted Proctor?”
    The cop’s head snapped around. “No way to forget that, is there? He was the first, and I hope the last. Killing somebody doesn’t leave a nice taste.”
    “Yeah, I know.”
    Corrigan flushed and turned his eyes away. Gill Burke’s history was very clear in his mind.
    “Tell me about that night,” Gill asked him.
    “It’s all in the report, Mr. Burke.”
    “I know. I read them. Now I want to hear you tell me about it.”
    “Well, I was an hour from coming off duty. I had called in from the box, crossed over to the south side of the street and continued west.”
    “On schedule?”
    “A few minutes early, I suppose. It was cold as hell that night and I was figuring on a hot cup of coffee in Gracie’s Diner at the end of the beat. The Chinaman’s laundry and the pawnshop were open and ...”
    “Any incidents?”
    Corrigan thought back and shrugged. “I checked an alley out when I heard a garbage can go over. It was a dog. Right after that some half-lit broad stopped to tell me what a son of a bitch her boy friend was because he had another woman in his apartment when she had helped him buy the furniture.”
    “Many people on the street?”
    “Too cold. I saw a couple, that’s all.”
    “Where were you when you were talking to the dame?”
    “By the doorway of the grocery store.”
    “Lights on?”
    “Nope. The place was dark.”
    “Then if Proctor entered the pawnshop then he couldn’t have seen you.”
    “Guess so. I didn’t see him go in, either.”
    “Okay, go on.”
    “So I told the woman to forget about it and she left. I went on up the street. When I got to the pawnshop I looked in and saw the owner standing there with his hands up and Proctor facing him. I pulled my own gun out and went in right then and told the guy to drop his weapon, but instead he swung around with the gun in his hand and I thought sure as hell he was going to start shooting and I shot him.”
    “He say anything?”
    “No, but he sure had a crazy look on his face.”
    “Describe it?”
    Corrigan squinted and shrugged, “Been a couple of years, Mr. Burke. I can still see that expression but the only way I can describe it is crazy. Believe me, it was all so damn fast you really can’t tell what’s happening. You just react and hope you did the right thing.”
    “You did.”
    “I wish I could be sure.”
    “What makes you doubt it?”
    The cop rubbed his hands together, his eyes trying to peer at a dim, indistinguishable picture in his mind. “You know,” he said, “I try not to, but I keep seeing that whole damn thing over and over again. I even dream about it. There was something there that just wasn’t right and I’ll be damned if I can figure out what it was.”
    “Don’t you think the follow-up would have spotted it?”
    “I keep telling myself so,” Corrigan said. “Anything else?”
    “No, I guess that’s all.”
    “I thought that was a closed case, Mr. Burke.”
    “That’s what the sign says,” Gill told him, “but sometimes closed cases just make room for new ones.”
    Corrigan said, “That’s life,” shook hands and left.
     
    Over in records, Sergeant