The red lips were tight now. “You’re cruel.”
“Is it cruel when a doctor delivers a diagnosis? And mine is that young Vincent was a sociopath or maybe a psychopath — the finer points of homicidal lunacy elude me. I was absent that day. But you, honey — you’re no sociopath, or psycho, either.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You? You’re just plain greedy.”
“Is that right.”
I gave her the really nasty grin. “Your late husband was a lunatic who didn’t realize he was one — and figured he could beat a murder rap by pretending to be what he actually was, then talk his way out, or fake another head-trauma injury, curing him this time. And in a year or two, he’d be graduated from the laughing academy. That itself was lunacy, of course, and you knew it — and sat on the sidelines urging him on, with dollar signs in your eyes.”
She gestured to nothing in particular. “Why don’t you try telling all this to old man Vance — see how he takes it. See if he buys it.”
“He won’t, huh? You think? Even though it’s all true?”
“Even though it’s all true.”
I laughed softly. “I wonder if you were the one who came up with this whole crazy scheme — the hit-and-run farce outside where you worked... knocking off anybody who could cause the future Mr. and Mrs. Vincent Colby grief, like a blackmailing dominatrix and a boyfriend who battered you... Gino had it coming, did he? Maybe that’s where it started. Getting back at a guy who liked to give his girl a black eye. Guess I’ll never know, ’cause you sure as hell won’t tell me.”
Her chin came up again. “You’re right. I won’t. But I will tell you one thing.”
“Please do.”
She held up the hand with the huge rock glittering on it. “I was a waitress for a long damn time, Mike. I had acting dreams that went bust and the only one that came true at all was landing the hostess gig at that stupid chophouse. When I saw how much Vincent was into me... how the rich, so rich Vincent, had such a thing for me... how much he wanted me... how obsessive he was about having me... I said to myself, ‘Sweetie, you finally caught a break.’”
“Sure,” I said. “And it didn’t matter that you’d originally thought of Vincent as a stalker. You knew once you married him, he’d self-destruct before too long. And if he didn’t, well, you could always expose him as a murderer.”
She was nodding. “I could, yes. And if he didn’t get himself killed somehow, he’d be institutionalized. What you call ‘Plan B.’ Either way, I’d be set for life. The old man isn’t going to live forever. Till then, I’ll be on Easy Street. Until the whole damn fortune is mine.”
How much he had heard I couldn’t be sure — he might have been just outside the door. But I knew he’d stepped inside the room and heard her say, “Even though it’s all true,” and everything that followed.
Vance Colby didn’t get my full attention until he was a few feet away and his hand came up and had the small gun in it, a little .22 S & W Escort; before that, he’d just been a distinguished mustached little man wearing sorrow like a coat of dripping gray paint.
She didn’t see him.
What she saw was me easing my hand inside my coat — Vance’s gun was pointing right at me, and if it coughed, I’d be coughing, too, coughing up blood. Then finally she heard his soft footfalls and whirled and stood, her hands out from her sides, fingers wide, as if looking for something to steady herself on.
“Mr. Colby?” she said. “Vance?”
He was pointing the gun at her now.
She ran to another door — there were plenty in that place — but she didn’t make it. He caught her like a duck on the wing, in the back, the crack ringing in the high-ceilinged room, and she dove to the floor and slid on the slick wood, then shuddered and murmured self-pitying words before getting very still. Very quiet.
He looked at me. I was on my feet and the .45 was in my hand. I didn’t want to do it and my expression told him so. But when — after a lingering look at his wife’s portrait — he raised the gun, I knew I was not the target.
Sheila had been right.
The old man wasn’t going to live forever.
Tip of the Fedora
Although my intent is not exactly to create a historical mystery, I do attempt to place this novel (and others in this series) in the context of when Mickey Spillane wrote the material I worked from, and at what point in the Hammer canon this story appears.
To provide a background at least somewhat consistent with reality, I leaned upon Internet research. Among articles used for this purpose in Masquerade for Murder are: “Bellevue: The Best and Worst of America,” Aaron Rothstein, Public Discourse; “Best Film Locations in NYC,” New York Film Academy; “The Champagne City,” Michael Shnayerson, Vanity Fair/Hive; “Five Fatal Punches,” Sean Culver, SCI Fighting; “How to Make a Prosthetic Mask,” Daniel Hayek, Vimeo; “Ivan Boesky and the End of the ’80s Wall Street Boom,” Peter Grant, New York Daily News; “’90s Anthem: So Many Gyms, So Little Time,” Jennifer Steinhauser, New York Times; “NoHo’s Cinderella Moment,” Aileen Jacobson, New York Times; “One Street at a Time: Gansevoort Street,” Michael Cunningham, New York Times Magazine; “Secret Karate ‘Death Blow,’” The Indulgent Samurai; and the “Tunnel (Night Club)” entry at Wikiwand. Thanks to these writers and websites, and to others whose work I utilized in a more passing way.
My continuing thanks to Titan Books publisher Nick Landau, co-owner Vivian Cheung, and their editorial staff, in particular Andrew Sumner, who stepped up when he was needed; my gratitude to all of them for continuing to pursue the Mickey Spillane Legacy Project. The enthusiastic response to the Spillane Centenary-labelled publications in 2018 and ’19, from the media and readers alike, was gratifying to those of us who consider the writer (he abhorred the term “author”) a major figure in tough crime and mystery fiction.
Toward that end, Mrs. Mickey Spillane — Jane Spillane — continues to make these efforts possible. My wife, writer Barbara Collins, continues her stellar work as in-house editor, always tempering criticism with praise (you have been spared a phrase I wrote, and cut, after she wrote “Yikes!” in the margin).
Finally, my longtime friend and agent Dominick Abel continues to be indispensable where his clients Mickey and Max are concerned.