“I got news for you, Nick.” It was my last card coming up. The only one left in a badly misplayed hand. “Mike died but he had his fun before he went.”
Torrento grunted, his eyes narrowing. Velvet growled.
“What does that mean?”
“Dolly let him have some fun. Her own brand, the brand you know so well. Mike went out the way every red-blooded guy would like to go when they die. One last fling with a beautiful broad. You know what I mean.”
I let that sink in, fighting to clear my head. Forcing a smile, I winked. That was too startling for their single-gauge intellects. Wounded, beaten men just don’t wink and joke. Especially a man who is about to die.
Dolly Warren paled. The color left her face with the enormity of the lie.
Nick Torrento scowled. “Say it in English, Noon.”
“Want me to use four-letter words in front of a lady? Mike and Dolly made love before he got killed—”
“Want Velvet to kiss you again, shamus?” Big Nick snarled. “Lay off that kind of talk! It won’t buy you a thing!”
“That’s just it, Nick. It won’t. So I’m telling you for nothing. Go ahead. Ask her yourself.”
Dolly Warren was no angel. But she was Nick Torrento’s girl. Big Nick was shrugging his shoulders in contempt, willing to let it go at that, but not Dolly. Her meal ticket and her well-being were on the line.
She forced her way between the guns and glared down at me. Her blue eyes had tiny specks in them. Red specks of uncontrollable anger.
“You cheap, no-good excuse for a man! Sayin’ things like that about me!” She moved in closer, her lithe body weaving in the evening gown. “I hope they cut out your rotten tongue. I want Nick to have your arms and legs pulled off, one by one! I want to see—”
It was what I had hoped for.
For split seconds she was between me and the guns in their hands. It was probably my last chance.
My foot came up with all the speed and force I could muster and everything I had left was wrapped up in it. With all the nerves and muscles in my body alive with pain, I rocketed her back the way she had come.
Dolly Warren’s surprise and fright made windmills of her arms. She flailed wildly at Velvet and the third gun in the room. Her sudden weight sent them spinning backward, their guns falling. Big Nick started forward with a hoarse shout of warning, one fat hand clawing for a weapon. But the hand I had damaged in the office was slow. I had time to recover.
I rolled to the carpet, my fingers closing fast on Velvet’s sleek-barreled .38. I came up with it, spitting fire and noise, feeling a mad wave of exultation surging over me.
Velvet had pulled another gun from his coat pocket but not in time. He made a face as my slug thudded into his chest, then his mouth sagged and he crumpled like wet newspaper to the floor. His crony scrambled desperately for the cover of the built-in bar. He had another gun now too. I could see it was my own .45.
Big Nick had grabbed Dolly Warren. She squirmed in his arms as his meaning got home to her. They reeled in a curious dance of self-preservation as the hood behind the bar opened fire.
A slug tore a hole in the floor near my thigh. I maneuvered behind the divan. The lights of the room were changing like kaleidoscopes in front of me. I fought to keep my head and eyes clear. I was close to blackout.
I could hear Dolly Warren screaming and kicking to get free of her bear-like captor.
The hood behind the bar didn’t see me prop myself on the arm of the divan, sight carefully and squeeze off three rounds. I raked the length of the bar. There was a strangled cry of surprise and a pair of trousered legs flopped into view from one corner of the thin-walled bar. I had estimated its solidity perfectly. The hood hadn’t. He joined Velvet in oblivion.
My eyes swung back to Dolly Warren and Nick Torrento.
Toward their struggling, contrasting figures, Dolly, beautiful in her strapless, skin-tight gown. Big Nick, massive and dark in his full dress clothes. I cocked the gun, ready for the slightest opening. It never came.
The hall door was swinging inward again.
There were men in plainclothes, a flash of blue uniforms. I staggered erect as I spotted Lieutenant Drum. But they had come too late, also. For somebody.
There was a roar and a shot. Dolly Warren and Nick Torrento broke apart like dancers who have reached the end of the waltz. A gun thudded to the floor in the sudden stillness. Big Nick Torrento stared at Dolly Warren foolishly, then looked down at the widening red stain on his white shirt front. He giggled. A short, bubbly giggle. Dolly Warren moaned.
Nick Torrento crawled to the floor suddenly and curled up in a bulky heap at her feet.
The whites of Dolly Warren’s eyes rolled up and her breath-taking figure sank down beside him. Then the shouting and movement started all over again. I heard Drum bellowing something.
That was all I saw because I fainted myself.
We were alone in Drum’s office when the red-headed lieutenant of detectives let me have it with official scorn.
“You ex-cops are all alike! Think you can handle everything by yourselves. Why the hell didn’t you tell our man Stone what you were up to? He’d been watching the dame’s place since Peters got it. Did you think the department was asleep on the job?”
I lifted the clean white sling on my arm. “This was personal, Red. I thought you’d understand.”
Drum’s face got redder than his hair. “Sure, I understand. I’ve got some friends too. But this was a police case. And there are police methods, in spite of your peculiar ideas on the subject. You should have known better. We had Torrento in mind too. Peters had been assigned to his policy racket to get the evidence that would put him where he belongs.”
I shook my head. “I wasn’t counting on Big Nick having time to use a smart lawyer. This was the only way, Red. I’m sorry Dolly Warren beat me to it.”
“Be glad she didn’t miss.” Drum pounded the desk. “I oughta grab your license for this. As a former cop you should have known better.”
I stood up. He had iced me good and I didn’t like it. “Is that all, lieutenant? My arm’s starting to bother me.”
Drum’s freckled face broke into an exasperated smile. “Ah, get the hell out of here. I never could talk any sense into you. Go ahead. Be a private cop. Use a gun to win your argument. But don’t expect any help from me.”
At the door I turned. I owed him an explanation.
“Red, I know vendettas went out with gaslights but this was one time I couldn’t turn the other cheek. If Big Nick was still alive, there’d still be a bullet for him. I don’t give a damn about your feelings or the department’s feelings, I’d still want to deliver it.”
Drum said nothing but his expression had softened. He reached into his desk drawer and came up with a bottle with a bright label. He drew two shot glasses from a cabinet behind him.
“You intellectual gunmen make me sick,” he said tiredly. “Come on back here, Ed. Let’s drink a toast. To a swell cop. Mike Peters, your friend, and mine.”
Peter Lovesey
Trace of Spice
Peter Lovesey is best known for his series of novels featuring the Victorian detective. Sergeant Cribb, who has been seen around the world on television. He prefers, he says, to regard his books as “Victorian police procedural novels.” He was awarded the Gold Dagger of the British Crime Writers Association for The False Inspector Dew (1982). Mr. Lovesey, a former college teacher who lives in Wiltshire, writes that he has made a living out of murder for ten years now. “Trace of Spice” is his most recent story.