Mickey Spillane - [Mike Hammer 13] Read Online Free Page A

there.” Then I added, “How’s Velda, Pat?”
    I knew he was grinning into the phone. “Waiting,” he told me. “She never could see you dying.”
     
    The doctor had gotten me an early flight into New York and had sprung for a first-class ticket to give me plenty of room to stretch out and rest. I told the stewardess not to awaken me until we were in the traffic pattern, then kicked off my loafers and went to sleep. There were no narcotics this time. It was pure, natural sleep with unnatural dreams so disturbingly real they twisted me back to wakefulness just to get rid of them. Faces were distorted, yet ones I knew, and the dream sounds made banging noises that came out of a past I didn’t want to remember. Somehow time compacted itself and before I could swing at the thing that had grabbed me I opened my eyes and saw the pretty stewardess shaking me awake very gently and made myself smile.
    But she knew. “Bad dreams?”
    “Terrible,” I told her.
    “You wanted to clobber me, didn’t you?”
    “Not you.”
    “Who then?”
    “The bad guys,” I said.
    “You military?”
    “A long time ago.”
    “Now you’re a cop.” The tiny frown between her eyes had a smile to it.
    “Of a sort,” I said.
    The frown went away but the smile stayed. “Ohooo,” she said, “one of those.” She saw that I was wondering what she was getting at and added, “A terrorist, like.”
    This time I grinned and straightened up, bringing the seat back to an upright position as the PA directed. I said, “You might say that.”
    The smile I got back said she didn’t believe me at all.
    It was off season for the return of the snowbirds to the big city so there weren’t many there to meet the passengers. I slung the single piece of luggage over my shoulder and ambled slowly down the corridor, walking too slowly to be a native New Yorker. Everybody else from the plane passed me by before I reached the gate and that strange thrill of anticipation ran up my spine before I ever spotted Pat Chambers and Velda watching me, not really knowing what to expect, a walking dead man, a ghost from the past, or somebody with a crazy, writhing anger bottled up, not knowing where to spill it.
    But something came across that said everything was all right. I saw it in Pat’s expression and in the sparkle of Velda’s eyes. My buddy could read me the way old buddies can, but with Velda there was knowledge that saw other things on the inside and her eyes told me that the many past months were just that . . . past. There was no need for excuses, no need for stories to be told if I didn’t want to tell them. Just that wonderful glad you’re back look that said everything without saying anything at all.
    If you didn’t look closely, our greeting would have seemed perfunctory. When I shook hands with Pat, we both wanted to do it harder, but knew it wasn’t time yet, and when Velda and I hugged, there was a gentle intensity we both felt. It was only a hello kiss to whoever saw it, but to us it was a silent explosion of flaming emotion that was almost frightening. Velda drew back modestly, and when she looked at my eyes, knew that I had felt it too.
    There was a time when I would have questioned the feeling, wondering what it was. But not now. This time I knew. Very quietly, so that even Pat couldn’t hear me, I said, “I love you, Velda.”
    And just as quickly she answered, “Yes, I know.”
    I waited. She smiled. Finally she said, “You know how I feel, don’t you?” Then I waited, grinned a little bit and said, “Now I know, kitten.”

2
    MY APARTMENT HAD CHANGED. There was a different smell to it. The furniture was the same, but seemed brighter. The window curtains weren’t the same ones I had a girl from Third Avenue put up. Velda caught me looking at them and said, “They needed changing.”
    I nodded as if I knew what she meant.
    No dishes were in the kitchen sink and in the bathroom there was fresh soap and new towels on the rack.