MH-09. The Big Bang by Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins

Author:Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fiction, Hard-Boiled, Mystery & Detective
ISBN: 9780151014484
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2010-05-14T04:00:00+00:00

The files in the back room were simple gray steel affairs, powdered lightly with ceramic dust. Two oversize figurines and a collection of painted chess pieces were stacked on their tops beside a box of color charts.

Each drawer held alphabetically filed folders with the exception being the lower left-hand one, where a bag of hair curlers, a can of spray, and a comb and brush were tucked away. Most of the filing related to domestic business, but two drawers were given over to the foreign accounts, suppliers of certain paints and European-oriented molds.

I asked her, "Would any of this stuff be of value to competitors?"

"I can't see how," she said, eyes narrowed, brow furrowed. "Everybody has access to those firms. It's an open market—it isn't as if the business had any great financial or social significance."

Just to be sure, I riffled through the files one more time, picked out the one labeled SAXONY HOSPITAL, and looked over the purchase orders signed by Dr. Harrin. Practically all of them were for novelty items from ashtrays to toy banks along with paint, stains, and equipment to decorate them.

Before I could ask her, Shirley said, "The hospital has a kiln in the basement that a wealthy patient donated. They bake their own pieces."

I put the folder back and slid the door shut with disgust. I said, "Damnit," and Shirley shrugged.

"I told you there was nothing to look at."

"Maybe I should have taken you up on your first offer," I said.

She came into my arms, her face tilted up toward mine. She might have been just a little tipsy from several glasses of wine. Lifting herself on her toes, hands behind my head pulling me closer, she ran her tongue like a little firebrand across my lips.

"It still isn't too late," she said.

"I should just take you home," I told her.

But I didn't count on the little alcove dressing room with the soft pink light and the big overstuffed chair. She was out of the designer dress as quick as a jump cut in a movie, and although I was trying to swear off those wild oats Velda had said to get sown, I was human—that curvy body with the dramatic tan lines and the puffy, hard-tipped areolas against stark white flesh and the dark pubic triangle against that same startling white was mine for the asking, without asking, and she began by falling to her knees to worship the part of me that seemed to be in charge. Soon I was lost in sweet-smelling flesh and hair and caught up with the incredible agility of a woman who loved the unusual, whose curious sounds of total enjoyment were like thunderous applause.

A long time later she said, "Thank you. You're nice. Now you can take me home."

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