Kill Me, Darling by Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins

Author:Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins [Spillane, Mickey & Collins, Max Allan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, United States, Private Investigators, Thrillers & Suspense, Hard-Boiled, Thriller & Suspense, Literary, Literary Fiction, Thrillers, Crime, Literature & Fiction, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense
ISBN: 9781783291410
Amazon: B00N6PCLP8
Publisher: Titan Books
Published: 2015-03-24T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

The “World-Famous” Place Pigalle, just west of Collins Avenue, dressed up its undistinguished yellow-brick facade by writing its name in black letters outlined in pink neon and displaying movie-house-style posters of such top-name peelers as Tempest Storm and Dixie Evans.

But “The Fabulous 4D Gal” and “The Marilyn Monroe of Burlesk” were strictly Thanksgiving-to-Easter material. The rest of the year, the facade’s boldly lettered guarantee of “15 Exotic Dancers 15” was honored by unknowns. Famous or novice, all take-it-off talent at the Pigalle was required A.K. (“After Kefauver”) to put the brakes on at bras and g-strings.

I thought the gorgeous taffy-haired no-name doll sharing the stage with a Cuban combo was doing just fine, her bump-and-grind mixing well with Latin rhythms. She was a game kid, considering the place was barely a third full. Purplish lighting turned cigarette smoke into a garish haze while a handful of lone men got hustled for drinks at the bar by strippers who’d finished their sets. Despite the Cuban band, the place lived up to the Parisian promise of its name by way of Can-Can-Girl wall murals from some modestly talented but highly horny local Lautrec.

Velda was in a booth in the back, waiting, half of her highball gone. A lovely woman with midnight hair brushing mostly bare shoulders, the straight-across cut of her bangs echoing the horizontal neckline of the black sheath dress. Only about a third of her bosom was exposed. Just enough to turn my mouth as cottony as going off the booze.

“We don’t have long,” she said. No hello or other preamble. “Quinn is out on ‘business’ and didn’t say what kind or when he’d return. I told that houseboy of his that I wanted to go shopping on Lincoln Road.”

“You have a car to do that?”

“Quinn said I could drive his Jag when he was out. But I want to be there when he gets back. We shouldn’t risk it for very long.”

“Risk seeing each other, you mean.”

She swallowed, nodded. Her eyes seemed only able to meet mine momentarily. “I don’t suppose it will do any good to ask you to trust me? And to ask you again to just…”

“Go? No.” I gave her the nasty grin. “The time to ask for my trust was right before you blew town. Of course, you did leave me that sweet kiss-off. ‘Goodbye.’ Yeah, that about covers everything.”

A waitress in an Apache dancer getup came over and I ordered a beer.

Velda was looking at her folded hands. I expected tension in her face, and maybe I’d thought my little speech would make her cry. It hadn’t quite. Her eyes glistened some, but her face had a softness that comes with resignation.

I said, “You want to tell me, or should I take a stab?”

“Go… go ahead.” Her voice was small with some tremor. I’d never heard it like that.

I folded my arms, cocked my head. “I figure around four months ago, maybe five, your old boss Wade Manley approached you. He had an

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