Don't Look Behind You Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  More Mike Hammer from Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Co-Author’s Note

  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

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  A Tip of the Porkpie

  About the Authors

  Mike Hammer Novels

  Also Available from Titan Books

  MORE MIKE HAMMER FROM TITAN BOOKS

  Lady, Go Die!

  Complex 90

  King of the Weeds

  Kill Me, Darling

  Murder Never Knocks: A Mike Hammer Novel

  Print edition ISBN: 9781783291342

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781783291373

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark St, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: March 2016

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work.

  Copyright © 2016 Mickey Spillane Publishing, LLC

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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  For my writer pal

  STEVE MERTZ

  whose love for Mickey’s work

  rivals my own.

  CO-AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Shortly before his death, Mike Hammer’s creator Mickey Spillane paid me an incredible honor. He asked me to complete the Hammer novel that he currently had in progress—The Goliath Bone—and then told his wife Jane to gather all of the other unfinished, unpublished material and give it to me: “Max will know what to do.”

  These manuscripts, surprising in number, spanned Mickey’s entire career from the late ’40s until his passing in 2006. Six manuscripts were substantial, usually 100 pages or more, with plot and character notes and sometimes roughed-out final chapters. Most of the books had been announced by Mickey’s publisher at various times from the 1950s through the ’90s. As a Spillane/Hammer fan since my early teens, I am delighted to finally see these long-promised books lined up on a shelf next to the thirteen Hammer novels published by Mickey in his lifetime.

  In addition to the substantial novel manuscripts mentioned above, a number of shorter Mike Hammer manuscripts were uncovered in the treasure hunt conducted by Jane Spillane, my wife Barb and me, ranging over three offices in Mickey’s South Carolina home. Some of these were fragments of a few pages, primarily the openings of never-written novels or stories; these I have been gradually turning into short stories with an eventual collection in mind. Others were more substantial if less so than the six novel manuscripts, and—although they vary in particulars—these shorter manuscripts represent significant unfinished entries in the most popular American mystery series of the twentieth century.

  I am now in the process of completing at least three of these shorter Hammer novels-in-progress; Murder Never Knocks is the second of these (the first, Kill Me, Darling, appeared in 2015). Mickey had completed several chapters but also left behind extensive plot and character notes, as well as a draft of the novel’s ending. Mike Hammer’s creator often said that he wrote the ending first. Of the unfinished manuscripts in Mickey’s files, Murder Never Knocks is one of the few that back up that assertion.

  The alternate title, Don’t Look Behind You, is partly a tribute by Mickey to his favorite mystery writer, Fredric Brown, who wrote a famous short story of that name. Mickey’s other alternate titles were The Controlled Kill and The Controller.

  Internal evidence in the narrative indicates Mickey began this novel in 1966 or 1967, before or after The Body Lovers (1967), and that is the time frame I’ve employed.

  M.A.C.

  CHAPTER ONE

  He just stood there looking at me, the silenced, foreign-made automatic pointed at my chest, the key he had used in the door still in the fingers of his left hand until he gently dropped it in his pocket. I hadn’t heard him at all. He was already framed in the doorway when I noticed him. But then, he was the kind you didn’t notice.

  Eight stories down, on the streets of New York, there were thousands like him, quiet people, utterly uncommanding souls who could pass unnoticed anywhere. They could be next to you on the sidewalk, or maybe behind you, without being seen, and speaking without being heard. Their faces and their actions would never be remembered except vaguely at best. Just part of the crowd.

  That made him anonymous. It also pegged him a pro. Because such unremarkable people make the best killers.

  This one might have been a lower level drone from Wall Street—nice gray topcoat but off the rack, a darker gray trilby hat, gray complexion, too. The only thing that stood out were the black-rimmed glasses on his narrow soft-jawed face, and the eyes behind them were gray, too.

  His voice was a soft monotone, but there was something off in it. “Mike Hammer. In person. In the flesh. Hard to believe.”

  What was that something in his voice? Sarcasm? No. Respect? Or… awe? It was like he’d spotted his favorite movie star across a room, or was taking in the Grand Canyon or maybe Mount Rushmore.

  He did have a tinge of surprise tightening his eyes. That was probably because he hadn’t expected to find me in the outer office, right there in front of him, big as life, ready for death. Velda, who wasn’t just my secretary but the other licensed P.I. at Michael Hammer Investigations, had left just before five for an urgent appointment.

  I’d hung around to take a phone call from the West Coast, and was on my way out when I noticed a stack of afternoon mail on her desk. I perched on the edge of it, lit up a Lucky, and started thumbing through the envelopes. He’d come in and found me like that.

  Casual as hell, I tossed the mail on the blotter and half-turned on my roost, took a drag from the butt and put it down in the ashtray. I gave him an easy grin, nothing nasty in it at all.

  “Why hard to believe?” I asked. “I’m not tough to find.”

  A tiny smile. Damn, the teeth were gray, too.

  “You’re a tough man to find alone, Mr. Hammer. And when you are, you’re on the move.” The gun was steady as he shook his head, his smile slight but regretful. “Pity it has to be like this.”

  “To what do I owe this honor?”

  “I
have no idea why.”

  “You have an idea who, then? Anybody I know?”

  He shook his head, his eyes never leaving mine. The automatic snout with its silencer, either. “Nobody I even know.”

  “So it’s a contract job.”

  He nodded once. “A very lucrative one, Mr. Hammer. Not just anyone was deemed up to it. But I have to admit, I almost regret having to fulfill it.”

  “And why is that?”

  His eyebrows went up a touch. “You may find this hard to believe, but some people on my side of this business… well, a good number of us look up to you. How many kills have you racked up by now, Mr. Hammer?”

  “Who’s counting?”

  The unremarkable face gave up a whole gray smile now. “And to think I won’t even get any credit for it.” His shrug was barely perceptible. “Nature of the business. Back in the day, take out the likes of Mike Hammer, you’d be a big man. Imagine taking out Billy the Kid or Jesse James, and no one ever knew? But the world operates differently now, doesn’t it?”

  I picked up the butt, took another deep drag, and put it back in the tray again. “You’re being pretty careless about this thing, aren’t you? Shouldn’t I be dead by now?”

  The smile lingered. “You’re not going anywhere. Would you like to know how I managed this?”

  “Sure.”

  “I rented an office down the hall a month ago. That gave me freedom of the building. I wanted to observe your, ah… routine. Your habits. Your patterns.” He saw my eyes touch his pocket. “The key is a copy of the superintendent’s master. Tonight was the first time your secretary didn’t double-lock your door when she left, you know.”

  I shrugged. “Guess she was in a hurry. Everybody screws up now and then.”

  This time there was a touch of pathos in the smile. “With all due respect, Mr. Hammer, some of us don’t.”

  My hand drifted toward the cigarette in the ashtray, but the cig went flying in a shower of sparks when I flung the glass object at him with a sharpness that sent it sailing edge first right into his forehead, stunning him just as his finger was tightening on the trigger. In that same second, my right hand was drawing the .45 from its shoulder holster and firing back at him as I hit the deck, his bullet kissing a pock in the plaster behind and above me. His shot and mine were so close together, they might been one report.

  But there’d be no more gunfire from my caller.

  I got to my feet and had a look at him. The .45 slug had gone in clean mid-chest but delivered a fat sloppy wad of the gray man’s colorful insides to splash and glop and slide bloodily down the wall behind where he lay crumpled under it, just inside the door. He looked up at me, eyes trying to blink death away. But that wasn’t going to happen—not with his chest a tired beach ball, slowly deflating.

  The glaze hadn’t reached his eyes yet, so I’m pretty sure he could still hear me.

  “I told you, buddy,” I said. “Sooner or later, everybody screws up.”

  * * *

  I had to take the hinges off the doors so they could go through the routine of seeing the body before anyone touched it. Lots of pics, lots of prints. They impounded my gun, inspected my license and took my statement while they photographed the corpse, then ushered me out when they took the guy away in a rubber body bag, neither one of us the captain of our own ship in this instance.

  When we reached headquarters, the desk sergeant nodded to the detectives flanking me and said, “Chambers doesn’t want to see him just yet. But keep him handy.”

  They dumped me on a bench outside the door that read Captain Patrick Chambers, Homicide Division, and somebody offered me coffee that I turned down. Instead I made the bench my hard little bed, dropped my hat down over my face and had a snooze. Killing that guy hadn’t taken it out of me, but waiting around while the cops and techs treated my office like a crime scene had been a damn drain.

  Somebody shook me awake, lifting the hat off my face, and it was Pat in his shirtsleeves, his tie loose as a noose awaiting a customer. I saw a tiredness that made me think maybe the hard line cop had finally mellowed out of him. Then the gray-blue eyes focused on me and I knew it hadn’t.

  “Up and at ’em, boy.”

  I yawned, sat up, tasted the nasty thickness in my mouth, and said, “What’s been shaking, Pat?”

  He just sighed, went over and opened his office door and I went in. The space was modest, a few filing cabinets and scads of framed citations. I took the visitor’s chair while he shambled behind the desk. A couple of cardboard cups of coffee were waiting and I sampled mine.

  The homicide captain laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back in his swivel chair. His grin was as rumpled as his shirt. “Your damn luck is something else, Mike.”

  I shrugged.

  “Your tail really ought to be hanging out on this one. Your reputation precedes you, you know. And this new administration isn’t like the old one, chum. They won’t be happy with you ruining the Fun City image.”

  “Who gives a shit?”

  Pat let a small grin crease his mouth. “This time you may just get away with that flip-ass attitude. Come the inquest, you’ll no doubt have a list of formidable witnesses ready to testify to your character, thanks to you getting them out of various jams.”

  “That’s right. Haven’t you heard? I’m beloved.”

  “Not by the new crowd you aren’t. The big boys would be ready to stand you on your ear for erasing one Milton Woodcock…”

  “Is that who he was?”

  “…a reputable businessman from the suburbs of Chicago who recently elected to re-establish himself in the insurance game in our fair town.”

  “Sure,” I said, “he was a nice, reputable guy all right. He came around to tell me how much he admired me while he pointed that fancy silenced rod at my chest.” I shoved my hat back and slouched in the chair. “So are these big boys of yours going to lean on me or not?”

  “Not.” Pat took his hands down and folded them on the desk. He grunted a deep laugh and shook his head. “A dinosaur like you, and modern science gets you off the hook. That and a certain pal of yours in the Homicide Division.”

  “Sounds like somebody did me a favor.”

  “He did. I did. I rushed that foreign-make automatic through ballistics. Those boys don’t like to work fast but I lit a fire.”

  “Thanks, buddy. When should we hear from ’em?”

  “We have heard.” His face drained of anything frivolous. “Woodcock had used that weapon before. He had routinely switched out the barrel so ballistics couldn’t match up any slugs, but the last time out, he didn’t recover all the ejected shells… and the firing pin marks tallied with the gun he held on you. I called a friend of mine on the Chicago PD, at home, and he put me in touch with a night-shift homicide dick who had a file on Mr. Woodcock as thick as your skull.”

  “No kidding.”

  “The Chicago lads were never able to indict the respectable Mr. Woodcock, but they linked him to half a dozen homicides and figured those were the tip of a very bloody iceberg. That and a few more goodies pointed to him as a contract killer, which explains his relocating to our little island.”

  “I should nap outside your office more often,” I commented drily. “It does a taxpayer’s heart good to know public servants are working like elves for him while he slumbers.”

  Pat spoke two words, one of them nasty, but his grin took off all the edge.

  I said, “So—where do we go from here?”

  The grin on Pat’s mouth spread a little. “I had calls about this from two of the upstairs crowd, making lots of noise, but now they’re mostly embarrassed. Woodcock’s presence in our fair city is more of a liability than yours, apparently.”

  “So I helped keep the city clean, even if I did litter up my office. You’re welcome, kiddo.”

  “Oh, don’t get this wrong—the big shots aren’t offering any apologies… but you’ll walk through the inquest. In fact, I’ve already been inst
ructed to return your license, gun and good name.”

  “Generous souls.”

  “Consider it a show of good faith.” What he said next he tossed out casually, like a kid buying a pack of rubbers between a comb and a candy bar. “And they’ve given me a special assignment—investigate why you were the target of a certain contract killer.”

  “When you find out,” I said, “be sure to let me know.”

  I saw the grin fade and Pat’s eyes got that curious, almost spooky look I had seen so often. “Something must be running around in your mind. Like Daffy damn Duck.”

  I shook my head. “No way, old buddy. I haven’t been on anything worth shooting me over in a long damn while. I’m just a working P.I. with a colorful reputation.”

  Pat waited a second, then said, “Maybe it’s for something you didn’t do.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  He shrugged. “Could be some case you got recently that you haven’t dug into yet. Or maybe some client feels you didn’t deliver, or maybe you did deliver and it caused somebody else trouble. This doesn’t necessarily have to come from your gaudy past.”

  But I was waving that off. “Sorry. All my assignments for the year so far have been completed to the clients’ satisfaction and none of it was anything that wasn’t a simple civil case. And there’s nothing shaking at all right now.”

  “For a guy who had a hitman caller,” Pat said, “you don’t seem very worried.”

  “Why should I be? I’ve been shot at before.”

  “You haven’t been dead before. Anyway, not so you’d notice.” His eyes were steady on mine. “A contract for a guy like you would come high. You’ve been keeping a low profile in recent years, granted, but you still have a hell of a rep.”

  “Thanks, buddy.”

  He ignored that. “The more prominent the target, the bigger the fee… but when there’s a big element of possible failure involved, because the target is capable of deadly defense? Well, the price goes sky high.”

  My smile turned into a laugh. “When you’re an aging legend, it’s nice to know you’re still wanted. Somebody just watched a bundle go down the drain along with the esteemed Mr. Woodcock. A contract like that would be paid in front of the kill.”