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  Kiss Her Goodbye

  A Mike Hammer Novel

  Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  ...

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Coauthor's Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Authors

  AN OTTO PENZLER BOOK

  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT

  2011 BOSTON NEW YORK

  Copyright © 2011 by Mickey Spillane Publishing LLC

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,

  write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,

  215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  www.hmhbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Spillane, Mickey, 1918–2006.

  Kiss her goodbye : a Mike Hammer novel / by Mickey Spillane and

  Max Allan Collins.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-15-101460-6

  1. Hammer, Mike (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—

  New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 3. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction.

  I. Collins, Max Allan. II. Title.

  PS3537.P652K57 2011

  813'.54—dc22 2010025839

  Book design by Brian Moore

  Printed in the United States of America

  DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Stacy Keach,

  the Hammer of a generation

  Coauthor's Note

  In the week prior to Mickey Spillane's death, he told his wife, Jane, "When I'm gone, there's going to be a treasure hunt around here. Take everything you find and give it to Max—he'll know what to do." No greater honor could ever be paid me.

  Half a dozen substantial Mike Hammer manuscripts were found in the "treasure hunt," frequently including plot notes, rough outlines, and even drafts of final chapters. These lost Hammer novels spanned Mickey's career, from the late 40s through the mid-'6os and up to The Goliath Bone, which he was working on at the time of his passing.

  The unfinished manuscript for this novel, found on a desk in one of Mickey's three offices at his South Carolina home, included plot and character notes, as well as a shorter false start.

  The theme of an older, ailing Mike Hammer returning to New York and finding it (and himself) changed was important to Mickey, and he revisited it in Black Alley(1996). But nowhere did he explore it with more passion than in the two partial manuscripts that I combined, shaped, and expanded into Kiss Her Goodbye—the "lost" '70s Mike Hammer, written as it was between Survival ... Zero!(1970) and The Killing Man(1989).

  M. A. C.

  Chapter 1

  I DIDN'T WANT to come back to New York.

  Nothing was there for me anymore. After a year, I almost had the city out of my system. No nostalgia, no sense of loss, no reluctance at having abandoned a place that had been so much a part of my life.

  All I felt was annoyance at having to return to a town I had flushed away in one wild firefight—a firefight that nobody but me remembered.

  Even before I'd left, so-called progress had squeezed out the great old neighborhood spots, leaving sad relics behind that had become sophisticated corrals for the idiotic "in" crowd. When they tore down the old Blue Ribbon Restaurant on West Forty-fourth Street, it was the beginning of the end. Why the hell ever go back?

  Only a call from Pat Chambers could have changed my mind—the captain of Homicide who had hounded and helped me over a bloodstained career that had made the tabloids thrive and the Powers That Be apoplectic.

  Pat's voice had been friendly, but not questioning, almost as if he understood why I chose to disappear, and that it was all right with him.

  The Ocean View Motel had two floors of rooms and half a dozen cabins. I had one of the latter and was in the midst of an afternoon nap when the phone rang. It didn't surprise me he'd got the number somehow. Nobody had been informed of where I was because I wanted nobody to know, not even my best friend, which is what Pat was.

  But a good New York cop can find anybody, if he wants to badly enough.

  "Mike, Bill Doolan is dead. They're having services for him tomorrow night at eight at McCormick's Funeral Home."

  It was as if a year hadn't passed at all.

  "What happened?" I asked him.

  "He shot himself."

  "Not Doolan."

  "Yes Doolan."

  "...You sure?"

  "I'm sure." He knew I wouldn't question him any further, so added, "He was dying of cancer. The big-pain part was coming up just ahead, and he decided to bypass it."

  Outside palm trees riffled in the wind. Beyond, blue endless ocean rippled under a butterscotch sun. No palms in Manhattan. The ocean there was endless, too, only gray, and the sun was blotted out by skyscraper tombstones.

  "There's an afternoon flight out of here tomorrow around three," I said with a sigh. "I should get in about supper time."

  "Cutting it a little close."

  "Don't want a minute more in that town than I have to."

  "So when did you start to hate New York?"

  "When the medic yanked me out of a nice warm womb," I said, "and slapped my tiny ass."

  "And you been trying to find your way back into one ever since."

  "No shit." I paused, trying to fit details of the city back in my mind. "The Pub still open?"

  "Still open."

  "Get a reservation."

  "Nothing changes with you."

  "Yeah?"

  "Still telling me what to do."

  "So do it," I said, and hung up, and for a minute just lay there. Finally, I said, "Damn," and hauled my behind off the bed.

  The soft-pac suitcase was still in a corner of the closet and it didn't take me more than five minutes to lay out what I needed. One thing good about late spring—it packed easily. The three medicine vials went into a side pocket with the worn address book and I zipped the bag shut.

  When I looked at myself in the mirror, I could only shake my head. It had been twelve months since I had worn a tie, and my suit jacket was loose around my waist, but dropping eighteen pounds will do that. There was no flab at all now, which was good, but the minimal exercise I was allowed hadn't done much for muscle tissue.

  I knelt to get the oiled and loaded .45 and its shoulder rig out of the box under the closet floorboard, but then stood up quickly, like I'd almost touched something hot. The old days were gone now and it could stay where it was.

  The weather forecast said it was raining in New York, so I packed the trench coat and got my hat out of the plastic bag, the last of God knew how many Stetson porkpies I'd bought over the years—a nice new feel to the gray felt. I snapped the brim into place, rolling the edge until I had it just right—that was one thing I still had. Nobody could wear hats anymore, but I had that down.

  Then I took the porkpie off and carried it in my hand. Down here among the sun and palms and sand, a felt hat was a little too much.

  Bag in my left hand, hat in my right, I walked over to the main building and called Marty out of the pool, where he was clowning around with two well-tanned beauties, a blonde and brunette, who spent the weekends working as mates on a headboat out of Key West.

  The big ex-Marine motel manager with the
white crewcut and dark tan stood there dripping, looking at me in my city clothes as he held back a grin in that well-grooved, blue-eyed face.

  "Where are you going?" He nodded toward the bikinis. "There's one for you. Betty or Veronica. Take your pick."

  "Not in the mood."

  He grunted a laugh. "Still carrying the torch for that secretary of yours?"

  I gave a look that said cool it.

  Then I said, "I'll be gone a few days."

  "I had a feeling," he said. He seemed to be considering bringing up the subject of my secretary again, but apparently thought better of it.

  Good call.

  "Tomorrow the doc will be stopping by," I said. "Just tell him I feel fine, that I'll be taking it easy, and not to have a cow over it."

  A frown flashed across Marty's face. "He's gonna be pissed off, pal ... and you know how he gets."

  I nodded toward the pool. "Loan him your extra girl ... Look, man, I'm going to a funeral. It's an old, old friend, and something I have to do."

  He nodded. No grin. Eyes slitted. "One question, Mike."

  "Yeah?"

  "You gonna attend a funeral or are you gonna cause one?"

  I just looked at him.

  "Damnit, Mike, I'm serious..."

  I waved it off. "No action this time, Marty. Strictly a pallbearer."

  "Yeah, but whose?" His shrug was one of resignation. "Okay, I guess I'll believe you. You been here a year and haven't killed anybody yet, and that must be a record." A sigh accompanied a second shrug. "Shit, I'll just keep your cabin locked up and hope you don't come back in a body bag. What about your car?"

  "I'll leave it at the airport."

  "Any idea when you'll be heading back?"

  "Like I said—a few days. I'll call ahead of time. When Buzz comes in tonight, cancel that fishing trip."

  "Sure thing." He let a long moment go by, then asked me with a frown, "Who knew where to get a hold of you down here?"

  "I told you before, Marty—I left word with nobody. But the caller was a cop. He's a damn good friend and probably knew where I was all along."

  "Really?"

  "Really. Probably tracked me right from the beginning, which would've been hard but not impossible. I wasn't in good enough shape to lay a decent cover down."

  His eyes widened. "But if your cop pal could find you, so could somebody else ..."

  I waved that off, too. "Forget it. Nobody's on my tail. I am very old news."

  "Mike ..."

  "I told you before, Marty—they went down, I went down. It's all evened out. Nobody wants to start that crap all over again. Like Capone said, 'It ain't good business.'"

  "Do I need to take on extra security precautions down here?"

  "No. I won't be hiding in New York. If somebody wants to settle a score, that's where they'll do it. Anybody who wants to find me? Can."

  But Marty looked worried. His war was a long time ago, and he was used to a life of sun and fun and boats and bikinis.

  "They might follow you back, Mike, before settling that score. In Manhattan, you'll have your cop buddies around you. They're all badges and guns, and who the hell wants to take on that combo?"

  "Marty, you got one hell of an imagination. It's not like I registered here under my own name."

  "Bullshit. Do me one favor—when you're finished burying your friend, and whoever else the fuck you bury—sneak back down here, really make it on the sly, okay? Bullets flying might discourage return visits by guests."

  "Pal, I'm an old pro at that sort of stuff. Now get back in the pool and play with your pussycats."

  He grinned and waved goodbye and jumped back in the pool. Those two dolls together didn't add up to his age, but he was a bigger kid than they ever were. Still, he'd got me thinking.

  So I went back to the cabin, got the .45 and speed rig out of their hiding place, and stuffed the holstered gun in the soft-pac between my underwear and shirts.

  When you went to Florida, you took your fishing rod. For Manhattan, a rod of a different kind was called for.

  I picked up the Piedmont flight at Key West and watched as the Florida Keys passed by under the wing. This time of year, traffic was light. The winter tourists had packed their gear and made the yearly trek north to escape the clean heat and humidity of summer to broil in their own sweat and the clamminess of those big cities where the graffiti grew.

  At Miami I got a direct flight to New York and watched the ocean with its little toy boats until the coastline came into view again with its cities that thickened the farther north we got. At one time I would have felt like I was coming back to something alive, something vital, and would have had a drink in anticipation of hitting the Big Apple.

  But it wasn't like that at all. At dusk from fifteen thousand feet, it was all fireflies and Christmas tree bulbs, winking and blinking; wormy lines of a million car lights on endless paths to nowhere, just keeping that big octopus down there in motion.

  We landed at LaGuardia and I took my damn time getting down to the baggage claim. I didn't want that hot spot behind my ribs to begin kicking up again. When I had my bag, I walked out to the taxi stand, my fellow passengers long gone, and after a thirty-second wait got into a taxi and told the guy to take me to the Pub on East Fifty-seventh Street.

  Now it was the city's turn to pass in review and it did a lousy job. Nothing had changed. No sudden sense of déjà vu—the smells were the same, the noise still grating, the people out there looking and waiting but never seeing anything at all. If they did, they sure as hell didn't let anyone know about it.

  Going over the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, the sounds and smells brought the city up closer and I was almost ready to crawl back into it by the time my cab turned off the East Side Highway. A few drops of rain splattered on the cab's windshield and I put my hat on. Up here it didn't feel out of place.

  At the curb in front of the Pub, I passed a twenty and a five over the seat and told the driver to keep the change. For a second I caught his eye in the rearview mirror, a bald black guy with a graying beard that had a big blossoming smile in its midst as he said, "You been away, Mike?"

  That's New York. The first native you see puts a finger right on you, as if he were your best buddy, and it almost makes you want to revamp your negative thinking.

  I grinned back at him. "Why, you miss me?"

  "Never see you at the jazz clubs anymore."

  "I had to lay back a while."

  "Yeah, yeah—there was something in the papers. You and that Bonetti kid. They clip you bad, Mike?"

  I shrugged. "One in the side that went right through, and another that fragged my ass. A piece is still in there."

  "Yeah, man." He shook his head. "I got one like that in Korea. Worked itself all the way down my leg and came out the back of my friggin' knee. That stuff travels. You take care, Mike."

  "Sure, man," I said, and got out of the cab.

  And there was Pat Chambers, a big rangy guy with gray eyes, an off-the-rack suit, and a mouth twisted in that soft cop grin he gets when the suspect drops it all down on tape and the case is closed on his end. He held out his hand and I took it.

  "Welcome home, friend," he said.

  "It was a fast year," I told him. "How have you been?"

  "Still a captain. I think I'm glued in there."

  "Too bad. Inspector Chambers has a nice ring."

  "Not holding my breath. Hungry?"

  "Starving. I skipped eating on the plane—a TV dinner at thirty thousand feet, I don't need. I hope those Irishers still know how to serve up the corned beef."

  "Best in New York. Hell, you ought to know, Mike—you discovered the place."

  I nodded, dropping back into the past again. All I did was follow the boys from Dublin who served out their apprenticeships at P.J. Gallagher's and opened up their own spot in real Irish-American tradition. And now their corned beef was a tradition all its own.

  The supper crowd was three deep at the bar with all the happy no
ises that come when the Dow Jones is up and a few drinks are down. I waved at the bartenders, got a wink back, and followed Pat to the booth in the restaurant section.

  When we were seated, Pat said, "You drinking anything?"

  "Yeah. A Miller will go good."

  "You mean with the corned beef special?"

  "Natch."

  He looked up at the waiter. "I'll have the same." He leaned back then, waited a moment, and asked, "How you feeling, Mike?"

  "Fine—another few months and I'll be off the medication. I'm not running any footraces, but I managed to stay in shape."

  "I don't mean that way."

  His eyes were searching me now, friendly, curious, but still searching.

  "Why, Pat? You think I might have an attitude problem?"

  "Don't you always?"

  After a moment, I said, "Not anymore."

  "I asked you how you're feeling, Mike."

  "And I said fine. Hell, man. I've been shot before."

  "Yeah, and you've crawled off to recuperate before. But it never took you this long to show your face again."

  "Maybe I'm getting older," I told him. "Why, did you miss me?"

  "Yeah. Like an amputated leg that you keep trying to scratch."

  The corned beef and beer came then, thick slabs of meat steaming on top of a huge baked potato, the beer foaming down the iced mug. We hoisted our glasses in a silent toast, gulped down half the contents, and got to the main course.

  I let Pat take his time getting back to the questions again. They were all the same ones I had asked myself, but this time I had to give an answer.

  "Why didn't you ever contact me, Mike?"

  "I meant to, pal, I really did, but there was no urgency."

  "Come on," he said softly.

  When I looked up he was still watching me in that strange way. The expression was exactly the same as the one he had worn the last night he saw me in the hospital. It was my ninth day in the place, I was up and around, but still hurting like hell. Sleep hadn't helped any either...

  ...my head still full of the wild banging of handguns and the crazy booming of shotguns, echoing across the pier, flame belching right past my face and even though I didn't feel the impact of the slugs that took me down I could remember the numbness and the slow drifting away that began to smother me. The face was there, too, blood smeared across the Bonetti kid's mouth, tight in a mad grin as he poked the barrel of his .357 against my forehead and said, "Die, you bastard," as he started to squeeze the trigger but he shouldn't have taken the time to say it because the .45 in my fist went off and his finger couldn't make the squeeze because the brain that should have sent it signals shut off like a switch as Bonettis head came apart in crimson chunks like a target-range watermelon.