The Long Wait

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  “One’s going to die.... One’s going to get his arm broken. The other is going to get the hell kicked out of her.”

  Johnny McBride blows into Lyncastle on a mission of revenge. His best friend—a man who was his exact double—died in an accident trying to save Johnny’s life. He left behind a letter revealing how he’d been framed and run out of Lyncastle, a ruined man, how he had been deprived of his money, his honor, and his girl.

  So Johnny sets out to get the mob who had double-crossed him. How he pulls off this dangerous, gutter-tough job and manages to hold on to his skin, makes this Mickey Spillane’s most nerve-tingling thriller yet!

  If you enjoy fast and furious action, expert story-telling, and top-notch entertainment, don’t miss this Mickey Spillane Signet bestseller.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, livnig or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  COPYRIGHT, © 1951, BY E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY, INC. COPYRIGHT © 1979, BY MICKEY SPILLANE

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in magazine or newspaper or radio broadcast. For information address E. P. Dutton, Inc., 2 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

  SIGNET TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN CHICAGO, U.S.A.

  SIGNET, SIGNET CLASSIC, MENTOR, PLUME, MERIDIAN AND NAL BOOKS are published by New American Library, 1633 Broadway, New York, New York 10019

  eISBN : 978-1-101-17449-4

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  TO WARD... who

  hasn’t changed

  a bit after all.

  All characters and events portrayed in this story are fictitious. Any similarity to personsliving or dead is purely coincidental.

  Chapter One

  THE BUS came up over the rise and there was Lyncastle nestling in the dark palm of the mountains like a jewel box with the moon shining on it. From a distance the avenues and streets were like burlap woven of lights and neon tubes, a crosshatch pattern that went on long after midnight, moving and screaming with a false, drunken gaiety.

  I took the envelope out of my pocket and tore it until my lap was filled with the remains, then slid the window open and let the fragments whip out into the night.

  The fat lady behind me poked a chubby finger into my shoulder and said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like that window shut.” The way she said it you’d think I was a damn kid.

  I said, “I’d like your mouth shut too.” She shut it. All day it had been flapping about everything from the way the driver handled the crate to the noise the baby up front made, but this time it was shut so tight even her lips didn’t show.

  The last of the shreds steamed by the window and I thought that there goes a big fat reason for killing somebody, scattered over a mile of concrete, and no matter how hard he tried, nobody could go back and pick up the pieces fast enough to find out why.

  I left the window open and hoped it would blow the wig off the fat lady and I didn’t close it until the bus angled into a port that was the other half of the railroad station.

  The driver killed the engine and half turned his head while he said, “This is Lyncastle. Change here for railroad and bus connections to Chicago and all points east. There will be a twenty-minute rest stop for anyone going south.”

  For me it was the end of the line.

  I waited until the fat woman puffed by and traded her a nasty grin for something she said too low to hear, then hauled my metal overnight case out of the rack and followed her off the bus.

  A mile off a train hooted twice and its eye swiveled around a curve and led it down the stretch to the station. A redcap inside the station was warning the group headed for the rest rooms that there was no time to waste and those who were making the connection ran for the platform.

  I put the overnight case down and pulled the last cigarette out of my jacket pocket, lit it, and went into the waiting room. A flimsy lunch counter ran along one side of the wall with a newsstand opposite it by the ticket booth. All the seats were filled so I went back to the men’s room and did what I had to do.

  For a minute I thought of washing up, but it was going to take more than a bowl and a jar of liquid soap to take the grime of a thousand miles out of my skin. I needed a haircut and shave more than I needed a change from the greasy pants and leather jacket. So I washed my hands and let it go at that.

  This time there was an empty stool at the lunch counter and I could see why it was empty. The fat woman had the next one and was shooting her mouth off again. Something to do with the grease in the doughnuts. The tired-looking waitress was next to tears and if I hadn’t climbed onto the stool fatty would have gotten her second cup of coffee thrown in her face. She shut up when she saw me and wrinkled her nose like I smelled bad or something.

  The waitress came down and I said, “Coffee. A ham and Swiss on rye, too.” She made up my order and rang up the change on the register. I had a second coffee to put a lid on the meal and turned around on the stool.

  For the first time I noticed the old man in the ticket booth. But it wasn’t the first time he had noticed me. I could tell that much. There were four people lined up in front of his window waiting to get tickets and he wasn’t paying much attention to what he was doing. He kept looking past them, squinting alternately through and above his steel-rimmed glasses with his face drawn into a puzzled frown that held something of a father’s worried look when his kid is sick.

  For a thousand miles I had been wondering when the first time would be. For a thousand miles I thought and speculated and now it was here. Just a grizzled old man with a handlebar mustache that looked like a yellow-tipped broom from straining so much tobacco juice.

  It wasn’t like I thought it would be at all.

  The last man in line picked up his ticket and walked back to the bus port and I took his place. The old man started to smile and I said, “Hello, Pop.” Just like that.

  It looked like somebody pulled his mustache up with a string. Forty-eight false teeth showed a great big grin that was hesitant going up but solid once it was there. “Gawd! Johnny McBnde. Johnny boy....”

  “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it, Pop?”

  I couldn’t figure the look on his face. But at least I was sure of one thing ... he recognized me. “Gawd, yesl” he said.

  “How’s things in town?”

  He made a funny hollow noise with his teeth to keep the smile in place. “Same as ever. You ... planning to stay around?”

  “For a while.”

  “Johnny....”

  I picked up my bag. “See you, Pop. rm tired and dirty and I want to get sacked in for the night.” I didn’t want to stay there too long. From now on I had to go slow and easy. Sort of feel my way around the details I didn’t know. Too much at once could ruin a lifetime.

  Over at the newsstand I picked up a pack of Luckies and a package of gum and had one of each while the attendant m
ade change of my buck. When I got back to the platform I stood there in the shadows watching the bus that brought me pull out and I knew that it was too late to do anything except go through with it even if I didn’t want to.

  But I did want to. I wanted to more than I ever wanted anything else and just thinking about it was nice, like eating a thick juicy steak when you were hungry. For somebody else it wasn’t going to be so nice.

  For three people. One was going to die. One was going to get both arms broken so he could never use them again. One was going to get a beating that would leave the marks of the lash striped across the skin for all the years left to live.

  That last one was a woman.

  Something in the deeper shadows that formed the comer of the building moved and evolved into the bulk of a man. He stood there a minute, broad and tall, then took a step into the light. He was ponderous, the way a heavyweight is when he goes to fat, but without losing too much of his speed and strength. The light from the window hit his face, highlighting the coarse features that seemed built around the stub of the cigar in his mouth. He had on a new broad-brimmed hat with a narrow rancher’s band, but his suit was strictly working clothes and would have fit if there wasn’t the bulge of a gun in his hip pocket.

  I didn t look at him, but I felt it when he was by my shoulder. “Got a light, buddy?”

  I flicked a match with my thumbnail and held it out. The face I thought was only coarse took on a brutal appearance. He nodded and I blew it out, squeezing the head out of habit to make sure there was no warmth left before I chucked it down. “Staying in town long?” He blew the cigar smoke right in my face.

  “Could be,” I said.

  “Where you from?”

  “Oklahoma.” I gave him a faceful of cigarette smoke and he coughed. “The oil fields,” I added.

  “No work like that here.”

  “Who says?”

  I wondered if he was going to swing on me. He did something with his hand, but all it was was to show the silver glint of a badge against a black leather folder. “I says.”

  “So?”

  “We don’t like migrants. Especially Oakies out of work. There’s a bus leaving m twenty minutes. You better be on it.”

  “What happens if I’m not?”

  “If you’re real interested I could show you.”

  My cigarette hit and splashed sparks in the road. Just for the hell of it I leaned into the shadows where there was nothing but dark, nothing at all, and he was there in the light squinting a little to see where I was. “I’m real interested,” I said.

  There’s one thing nice about the guys who play rough. They can always tell when they got a sucker or somebody who’s not such a sucker. “Twenty minutes,” he said. His cigar glowed to a cherry red as he pulled on it. “They turn the lights back on out here then.”

  A cab cruised in and slowed down. I picked up my case and walked over. The driver was a young kid with his hair slicked back and he gave me the eyes up and down while I opened the door. I said, “Town.”

  The cop moved out of the shadows and stepped off the curb. The kid leered, “What do I get paid with?”

  So I took out the roll in my pocket and riffled through the twenties and fifties until I found a pair of singles and threw them on the seat beside him. He tucked them in his pocket fast and got polite all of a sudden. “Town it is, friend,” he told me.

  I shut the door and looked back out the window. The cop was still there, but his face was all screwed up in a scowl and he was trying to figure out how he had made such a big mistake twice in figuring me for a sucker and for a poor sucker at that.

  The cab spun to the main drag and I settled back against the cushions after telling the kid to take me to the Hathaway House. I watched the pattern of the lights shriek into a blaze of color and thought that so far it had been a hell of a homecoming.

  But it was about what I had expected.

  Chapter Two

  THE CAB DRIVER and the bellhop had a signal rigged up. If I had gone in cold I would have gotten the treatment. The Hathaway House was the best hotel in town and it didn’t take to anybody who wasn’t lined with dough. The bellhop and the desk clerk had a signal system too, because I got a lot of smiles and nobody asked me to pay in advance. The hop did everything he was supposed to do and collected a five for it.

  He laid the key on the table and said, “Would you like anything brought up, sir?”

  I said, “What have you got?”

  “The best of everything. Whisky if you want it. Women too.”

  “What kind of women?”

  “You won’t be disappointed.”

  “The woman might be though. Maybe some other time.”

  “Sure, anything you say. Just ask for Jack. That’s me.” He grinned on one side of his face. “I can get you anything you want in town.”

  He had wise little eyes like he knew everything there was to know. “I might do that,” I said. He nodded and pulled the door shut. When he was gone I turned the lock and threw the bolt into the hasp and stnpped off my clothes. I took out some clean underwear and socks from the case, tossed them on the bed with my shaving kit and stuffed everything else back in the case. Tomorrow I’d throw the works in some trash can and start over fresh.

  Tonight I was going to clean up if I had to ream out each pore individually, then crawl in between fresh sheets and stay there until I felt damn good and ready to get up.

  It was the sun that awakened me. It started at my feet and warmed its way up to my face until I had it full in the eyes. It was a bright, beautiful day that had gotten off to a good start. I stretched, got up and took a look out the window. It was a very beautiful day. It even made the town look good. And from up where I was looking down you’d never know that the place was called Little Reno because the saloons and gambling joints were still closed and aside from the black dots that were women in the shopping district, the streets were peacefully calm and deserted.

  No, not quite deserted. There was a drunk lying in the gutter down there. A dog came over, smelled him and backed away.

  I took another shower to wash the sleep off me, shaved fresh and called up room service for a breakfast. When they took my order I had the switchboard girl put me on an outside line to a fancy men’s shop and reeled off a list of things I needed. I had just finished breakfast when a beaming clerk from the men’s shop came in with a tailor to finish me off in party clothes. Luckily for me I’m one of those guys who walk right into a ready-made outfit, so there wasn’t much to be done except let out a few things. I’m not a small guy, either.

  The clerk walked off happy with a couple hundred bucks, a fat tip and all I needed was a haircut. I got that downstairs.

  Barbershops are funny places. Like the three monkeys, only in reverse. For some reason, barbers seem to be frustrated reporters, orators and G-men all wrapped up together. While they have you strapped down to a chair they make you listen to a summary of events that would make a news commentator blush. I told the guy working on me to cut it as short as he could get it and that’s all I ever did get to say to him. He took it from there, started jawing about the people and the town and how he’d run it if he was mayor, got sidetracked into national politics then branched off into the first war, the second war and was well into his third.

  If I had been listening I would have noticed the way he lost track of things and concentrated on shaving around my ears, but I was paying too much attention to the rhythm the old colored boy was putting into the shine on my new shoes and missed it all. He whipped off the towel and nodded to me in the mirror. His face looked funny. His smile was all porcelain when he took the buck and something in his throat made his tie bob up and down.

  I was climbing into my coat when the bellhop who could get me anything in town poked his head in the door and grinned at me. “Thought I saw you come in here. There’s a call for you at the desk. Guy says it’s important and I told him to hang on while I rounded you up.”

  “Th
anks.” His fingers picked the quarter out of the air that went with it. I went back into the lobby of the hotel and he pointed to a row of booths.

  “Number four. You can take it in there.”

  I closed the door, picked up the phone and said hello.

  I was thinking that I sure was a popular guy for somebody who had never been in the town of Lyncastle in his life. Maybe it was going to be fun after all. A nice, nasty kind of fun a lot of people wouldn’t forget in a hurry.

  The voice cracked in the middle when it said, “Hello ... hello, Johnny?”

  I said, “That’s right,” and waited to hear the rest of it.

  “Well, speak up, boy. Good Lord, you had a nerve running off like that last night. Took me right until now to find the cabbie that brought you to town.”

  He spoke like I was supposed to know him and I did. It was the old boy from the railroad station and he sounded like he was calling off trains. Everything all at once and jumbled. Like three trains on the same track at the same time. You know.

  “Sorry, Pop,” I said. “Had a long trip and I needed some sleep.”

  He exploded into a barrage of words. “Johnny, boy, are you out of your head? What’s the idea coming back You git yourself outa that hotel right now and get down here. I haven’t been able to sleep a wink all night just thinking. That’s all, just thinking. You git caught up with and you know what’ll happen. I don’t have to tell you about this town. You know what’s gonna happen soon as you step outside the door. Now you call a cab and get down here, understand? There’s a bus going west in thirty minutes and I got your ticket all made out.”

  I had been looking out the window of the booth and saw them come in. Two of them. One was the bruiser who guarded the railroad station after dark. The other was a little smaller, not quite as chunky. His face was all happy-looking like he’d just stepped on a snake and there wasn’t any fingers on his hands because they were all rolled up into fists. He had a bulge on his hip too. A pair of bulges. One on each side.