The Consummata Read online

  Raves For the Work of MICKEY SPILLANE and MAX ALLAN COLLINS!

  “Authentic narrative drive and almost hypnotic conviction...set Spillane apart from all his imitators.”

  —The New York Times

  “No one can twist you through a maze with as much intensity and suspense as Max Allan Collins.”

  —Clive Cussler

  “A superb writer. Spillane is one of this century’s bestselling authors.”

  —Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “Collins never misses a beat...All the stand-up pleasures of dime-store pulp with a beguiling level of complexity.”

  —Booklist

  “If you are a Spillane fan you will enjoy this one more than anything done before. It is fast-moving, easy reading, and has the greatest shocker of an ending.”

  —Albuquerque Tribune

  “Max Allan Collins [is] like no other writer.”

  —Andrew Vachss

  “Spillane’s books...redefined the detective story.”

  —Wallace Stroby

  “Collins has a gift for creating low-life believable characters [in] a sharply focused action story that keeps the reader guessing till the slam-bang ending. A consummate thriller from one of the new masters of the genre.”

  —Atlanta Journal Constitution

  “Spillane...presents nothing save visual facts; but he selects only those facts, only those eloquent details, which convey the visual reality of the scene and create a mood of desolate loneliness.”

  —Ayn Rand

  “There’s a kind of power about Mickey Spillane that no other writer can imitate.”

  —Miami Herald

  “Max Allan Collins is the closest thing we have to a 21st century Mickey Spillane.”

  —This Week

  “Need we say more than—the Mick is back.”

  —Hammond Times

  I sat forward. “What can you tell me about Halaquez?”

  The madam was frowning. “That he was a patron here. That he’s a ruthless killer with sadistic tastes that bleed over into his sexual kinks. His needs extend well beyond what we provide here at Mandor.”

  “It’s a way to find him. You must know other houses or girls working solo, doing the S & M thing.”

  Bunny’s eyes were tight. “I think you will find Mr. Halaquez is banned from all such establishments. But I will give you a list, if you think that may help.”

  “It’s a start.”

  “The only other thing...but it’s a long shot.”

  “Hell. Guys get rich playing long shots. Go.”

  Again she chose her words carefully. “There is a rumor...and for now it’s just a rumor...that the Consummata is setting up shop in Miami.”

  I blinked. “Who or what is the ‘Consummata’?”

  “A very famous dominatrix.”

  “From Miami?”

  “From nowhere. From everywhere. Her clients, they say, are among the most rich and powerful men. She is a rumor. A wisp of smoke. A legend. If Jaimie Halaquez hears that the Consummata has graced Miami with her presence, he won’t be able to resist...”

  SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY:

  DEAD STREET by Mickey Spillane

  THE FIRST QUARRY by Max Allan Collins

  THE LAST QUARRY by Max Allan Collins

  QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE by Max Allan Collins

  QUARRY’S EX by Max Allan Collins

  TWO FOR THE MONEY by Max Allan Collins

  DEADLY BELOVED by Max Allan Collins

  FIFTY-TO-ONE by Charles Ardai

  KILLING CASTRO by Lawrence Block

  THE DEAD MAN’S BROTHER by Roger Zelazny

  THE CUTIE by Donald E. Westlake

  HOUSE DICK by E. Howard Hunt

  CASINO MOON by Peter Blauner

  FAKE I.D. by Jason Starr

  PASSPORT TO PERIL by Robert B. Parker

  STOP THIS MAN! by Peter Rabe

  LOSERS LIVE LONGER by Russell Atwood

  HONEY IN HIS MOUTH by Lester Dent

  THE CORPSE WORE PASTIES by Jonny Porkpie

  THE VALLEY OF FEAR by A.C. Doyle

  MEMORY by Donald E. Westlake

  NOBODY’S ANGEL by Jack Clark

  MURDER IS MY BUSINESS by Brett Halliday

  GETTING OFF by Lawrence Block

  The CONSUMMATA

  by Mickey Spillane

  and Max Allan Collins

  A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

  (HCC-103)

  First Hard Case Crime edition: October 2011

  Published by

  Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street

  London SE1 0UP

  in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should know that it is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Copyright © 2011 by Mickey Spillane Publishing LLC.

  Cover painting copyright © 2011 by Robert McGinnis.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

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

  Print edition ISBN 978-0-85768-288-8

  E-book ISBN 978-0-85768-598-8

  Design direction by Max Phillips

  www.maxphillips.net

  Typeset by Swordsmith Productions

  The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com

  For Lynn Myers—

  one of Mickey’s

  favorite customers

  Contents

  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

  CO-AUTHOR’S NOTE

  In 1967, with some fanfare, Mickey Spillane’s The Delta Factor—introducing Morgan the Raider as a new series character—enjoyed considerable critical and commercial success. After a disappointing experience producing a Factor film, however, the frustrated Spillane set aside the already-announced second Morgan novel, The Consummata. Twenty years ago, he entrusted the incomplete manuscript to me, saying, “Maybe someday we can do something with this.”

  Thanks to Charles Ardai of Hard Case Crime, that day is here.

  The story is set in the late ’60s, when Mickey began it.

  CHAPTER ONE

  They were closing in.

  There were two up ahead, another pair behind me, and when I reached the corner the trap would snap shut...and only open again inside a maximum security prison where every contrivance devised by experts knowledgeable in the science of incarceration would be utilized to keep me there the rest of my life.

  At least I had given them a run for the taxpayers’ money. Still, it was a damn shame this melodrama had to wind up on a side street in Miami with the federal boys having all the advantage, and me with the
job I had to do so far from over.

  In the reflection of an angled window, I saw a black sedan round the corner behind me and cruise at a walking pace. Modern technology was raising hell with being a fugitive—each two-man team carried an attaché case packed with a communications rig. That kept the pairs fore and aft in touch with the rolling forces as well as other teams that would be blocking off any remaining escape avenues.

  It was my own damn fault, but part of the odds I had to face. When you come out into the open, knowing your photo is in every post office, representing a forty-million dollar haul every hood would like to hijack—and that any stool pigeon would like to cash in for big-league brownie points—well, you are really bucking the odds.

  I had one thing going for me, anyway—this was a capture operation, not a hit. They’d have orders to go all out bringing me back alive, even risking taking on fire themselves. Your life carries a high premium when they think you’re the only guy who knows where a forty-mil payday got buried.

  Just the same, they had minimized any chance of defeat. Federal suits hit the streets with local fuzz playing backup—a power play from the second they’d made me.

  When exactly they got me in their sights, I didn’t know—sometime during the last four days—but now all I could do was lead them down a blind alley as far away as possible from those who had covered for me.

  My trackers kept their suitcoats unbuttoned to make for easy access under government threads designed to disguise the artillery beneath their arms. But they weren’t as smart as they thought they were. Suits in stifling weather like this? And dark colors, not even going pastel for the season and the locale. Picking out these feds in a Florida crowd was like spotting a turd in a punch bowl.

  But all their man- and firepower was unnecessary because I wasn’t even packing a rod. They sure were going all out to get their forty million bucks back.

  Forty million I never had in the first place.

  Overhead, the summer sun had started to snuggle down into its pocket in the west, leaving the heat of day shimmering off the buildings of a neighborhood where white guys in suits didn’t belong in the first place. Little cream-in-the-coffee Cuban kids ran around like mice, shrieking and yelling in two languages, bare feet slapping the hot pavement.

  The little ones were lucky. One way or another, they had made it off Castro’s island with their families and they had freedom now. They were even free to run on the damn sidewalks.

  Another half-block and I wouldn’t be free at all.

  Behind me, the pair closed the gap and the car had picked up the pace. With their blank pale faces and black sunglasses, they were like robots on a programmed course of action. And they were timing it very nicely. There was a surety about their movements that reflected absolute confidence in their maneuver.

  Until I had walked them into Little Havana, they probably figured I hadn’t smelled them out, and that when they took me, the surprise would be complete. Only now they had to know that I knew, and that was not a good thing.

  In fact, it put me in a worse place. But when they took me down—and they would take me down, all right—I’d at least have the fun of sitting in an interrogation room chair and letting them know how fast I’d got on to them.

  “Glad to help you boys out,” I’d say. “Maybe you can be more on the ball next time. Might want to skip the Brooks Brothers in tropical climes.”

  And I would have the small pleasure of making them squirm, while they would have the big pleasure of slamming my ass in solitary confinement.

  If I had wanted to throw Penny and Lee to the wolves, I could’ve broken loose; but you don’t do that to friends. I had to put distance between myself and those who’d risked everything to shelter me, and play it out with the odds against me, and if I lost, I lost.

  It was as simple as that.

  Up ahead a pack of little muchachos let out a howl of bird squeals as they came tumbling around the side of a building, racing toward me with another pack in pursuit, playing one of their crazy kid games. I paused while they flowed around me, then edged myself toward the wall so the second bunch of brats wouldn’t have to use me for an obstacle course.

  But suddenly I had become part of their game.

  They had me surrounded, with half of the pack pushing and the other half pulling, and somehow under the yelling I could make out a tiny voice whispering, “Go in, señor...go inside, rapidamente!”

  I had time for one quick look around and spotted the first bunch of kids piled up in front of the pair of tails who were trying to pick and claw their way through the mini-mob hanging onto their legs and arms when an adult hand grabbed my shoulder, hauled me through the doorway beside a grocery store, and shoved me into the gloom of a corridor.

  The sun outside had been so blinding that the transition threw me into total darkness for a second, but I followed the hand that tugged at my coat, stumbled twice, recovered, then felt myself being guided into a recession in a wall. To call it a closet would be generous.

  The voice said, “Stay there. Be quiet, señor.”

  Then something was slammed in place—not a door, more like a panel—and I had just enough room to feel like I was in an upright coffin.

  Out there somewhere, a woman was screaming in anger, her lung power fantastic. She was the lead instrument in a raucous symphony that included babies bawling, kids yelling, feet pounding, furious voices barking orders in English, and only getting in return a chorus of excited Spanish.

  A husky male voice said, “Damnit, you people—shut up! You, lady...cut that yelling, now! Jesus Christ. Lou, will you tell them to speak English, goddamnit!”

  A younger, higher-pitched voice rattled out commands in fluent Spanish and answers came from a dozen mouths. The screaming woman took over after a few seconds, demanding in her shrill, distinctive fashion to know who these invaders were.

  In the momentary lull, I knew the feds must be flashing their fancy credentials.

  In Spanish the woman intoned in a mix of sarcasm and resignation, “So—the militia. Your type, they are here only two ways—when they are not needed, or when they are too late. Where were you, when that crazy gringo came running in here and knocked everybody and everything over? The children, too! Did you see what your madman did to our little ones? Knocking them over like dolls? But, no—of course you don’t see!”

  “Ma’am....”

  “No, you stop in the street to play games with them. Should we thank you for such attention? You play games, then finally you come pushing in here and make all the noise, and now the bambinos, they will never get to sleep. The customers, they will stay away today because of the crazy white one running through, knocking over things and people! You militia, you are of such great help...”

  “Take it easy, señora. Take a breath, and tell us what happened.”

  She took the breath. “He ran out through the back. What do you think? If you had been here, you would see!” She paused, perhaps to point the way. “And that is what happened while you were playing games with our children. Now you stand here and waste even more time...”

  Somebody swore, then the husky voice again: “Jesus, lady...stand here and listen to your nonsense and we are wasting time...Jack, Roger, go out there through the back, where she indicated. Lou, call the locals to close in around the area. I’ll take Marty and Pete and shake this place down.”

  The one called Lou said, “Relax, Bud. Everybody’s converging. We’re on top of this.”

  “Are we really? You could fool me.”

  “Bud, a bat couldn’t fly out of here now.”

  A disgusted grunt. “You must think we’re playing with a kid, Lou. Did you read the damn data? This Morgan character’s a regular Houdini. How do you think he engineered that last escape?”

  “This isn’t the last escape.”

  “No, it’s a brand-new one.” A deep sigh. “Special Agent in Charge Crowley made it clear—he wants Morgan caught, and turned over. He wants some other agency
to hold the damn receipt for Morgan’s body.”

  Standing there in total darkness, like a tin soldier in a too-tight toy box, I felt my mouth twist in a grin.

  So it was Crowley—the guy who was supposed to have delivered me back into a thirty-year stretch, after I did Uncle Sam that little favor that cut my sentence in half. Or would have, if I hadn’t escaped instead.

  The last time I saw Crowley, he had a wild, surprised look, finding himself stretched out on the cabin floor, a look that got even more surprised as I bailed out over the ocean....

  Crowley. I’d have to keep him in mind. At the time, he’d struck me as a guy with the bland face of a professional who would kill if necessary and who you couldn’t easily fake out.

  A top hand—and he’d have to be, if they’d selected him to take delivery on Morgan the Raider. My mission had been a joint venture of the CIA and FBI and assorted other government alphabet soup, and losing a prisoner this important was not going to help out Crowley’s career path...

  Maybe I’d been wrong about the capture priority. Maybe everything was on the line now, and this time Crowley wouldn’t worry too much about taking me alive, forty mil or no forty mil. After all, that receipt just specified my body.

  Being alive or dead wasn’t mentioned.

  I could only wonder how long I was going to have to play mummy in this sarcophagus. Hours ago I had gotten cramped from remaining immobile and managed to work myself into a half-squat, knees and back jammed against the sides of the enclosure to relieve my aching muscles.

  The passage of time I could only figure from the smells. Two times the odors of cooking drifted into my tiny compartment, so I must have been stuffed in there for the rest of the day—thank God I’d emptied my bladder before leaving the safe house this morning.

  At first the food smells had been a source of annoyance, thick and spicy enough to be an irritant, making me want to sneeze. Now they were tantalizing tempters because my stomach was flat in its emptiness and what at first had seemed distasteful now seemed potentially delicious.