Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 3, February 1961

Big Time Operator by Jay Richards

Two hired killers pick their victim.

The night was dark but its somber overcast suited Dave Lashek’s purpose. He leaned against the wall of the corner building, and watched the midtown, eight-thirty theater crowds scurrying along the dimly-lit pavements.

Eddie would be showing soon in the hustling throngs of pedestrians, and then all Dave would have to do was point him out. The rest would be taken care of by the dark figures standing in tight-lipped silence on each side of Dave Lashek, the two out-of-town killers Karen had ordered for this job.

After he fingered Eddie for the “hit,” he’d fade into the crowds and disappear. The police wouldn’t be able to tie Dave to the murder. Not a chance. He wasn’t even carrying a gun.

Dave Lashek never operated without a considerable margin of safety to fall back upon. He believed in playing things sharp and cool. Still, he felt bad about tonight’s job, worse than he would have felt about an ordinary kill.

After all, Eddie was his cousin.

A dirt-encrusted newsboy came by, struggling under an armload of late editions. Dave took a paper and handed him a bill. The kid gave him change with a pleased grin.

That was a laugh. But it was also good in a way. It proved the newsboy didn’t know him and wouldn’t be able to identify him later. Only a stranger would give change to Dave Lashek. His fingers opened up, letting the silver drop away as if it was filth. The coins jangled as they hit the sidewalk and the two killers were impressed. Even though they were from out of town, they knew Dave Lashek never carried anything but bills.

B. T. O. That’s what people called him and it was true. Big Time Operator. The only sound he ever wanted to hear was the silky rustle of bills — large-denomination bills.

The clank of coins was strictly for the peons.

He glanced at his wristwatch under cover of the opened newspaper. Eight thirty-five. Eddie was due any minute now. Too bad. But the kid never should have become interested in Karen. It was only a matter of time before he’d have grown tired of just looking. And nobody, not even Eddie, was going to move in on Dave Lashek’s woman.

Goodbye cousin, he thought. And he was sorry, genuinely so.

The two hoods were becoming uneasy, anxious to do the job they had been paid to do and vanish in the night. The darkness was stirring on either side of him with their restlessness.

But he wasn’t disturbed. Eddie would be along any moment now. Dave had told him to be here and he would come. Ed was very dependable. Dave had known that when he’d let the kid into the business over a year ago. It was much too good a business to trust to irresponsible personnel. So Eddie had gotten in on merit, not just because he was Dave Lashek’s cousin.

It was an excellent business, Dave thought smugly, running his fingertips lovingly over the thick roll of greenbacks nestling in his pocket. At last he was secure in the Big Time. If anybody in the city wanted slots or girls or the numbers, they had to come to Dave Lashek.

Things would have been fine if only Ed hadn’t started looking at Karen that way. Not that the kid could be blamed much. It was for precisely the same reason he’d taken Karen for his woman in the first place. So he could walk into any night dub with her on his arm and watch the men at the bar, their stools spinning slowly as they tracked Karen’s passage. It gave him pleasure to watch the drooling peasants eat their grubby hearts out.

But it made no difference in the final count, the showdown count, that it wasn’t Eddie’s fault. Once he’d become interested in Karen, Eddie was through. Because no one took anything away from Dave Lashek.

It was eight forty-five now. Dave turned his head slightly, first to the left and then to the right, glancing at the imported talent that Karen had contracted for. The two hoods looked competent enough. Hired killers. But Dave was glad he could afford them for tonight’s execution. Sure, he’d done his share of killings but he never cared for that end of the business.

Besides, it was no stranger that was going to be “hit” tonight.

He could have done it, himself, of course. Dave Lashek could do anything he expected of his subordinates. But it was sharper, cooler, to order it performed.

There was a tiny smile tucked away inside his mouth where nobody could see it. Irony was something Dave appreciated. He’d made Karen take care of the arrangements for the out-of-town killers. That was really rich. Here poor Eddie had flipped over Karen, and Dave had forced her to give the order for the execution.

Eddie was coming now.

It was only the work of a moment for Dave to jab elbows into the sides of the close-standing assassins, alerting them to the victim’s approach. The young slim face came rapidly nearer, jutting half a head taller than the scurrying crowds. Dave Lashek waited another moment to let the kid get closer still, and then pointed him out.

Dave walked away quickly and before Eddie could see him. All that was necessary had been done. He’d fingered the victim for the two executioners and Ed was as good as dead now. It was just as if Dave Lashek had squeezed the trigger personally.

He regretted the need for Eddie’s liquidation. But Dave could harden himself to it because the kill was necessary. They’d all been necessary. All the killing that had been performed at his orders over the years. It made him feel kind of tired, inside. But only for a moment. Because then Dave’s fingers brushed the huge wad of bills in his pocket and his spirits soared.

He had no regrets. It was worth the occasional twinges of conscience to be Dave Lashek and throw nickels and dimes and quarters away as if they were dirt.

He was listening as he walked. Listening for the sharp crackle of gunfire he’d heard so many times in the past. The shots would sound any moment now, signaling the end of cousin Eddie’s interference. But it was strange. The guns of the hired killers remained silent.

He let another minute go by before he turned. Then he saw the reason for the delay. The two hired killers were about half a block behind Dave. And they were walking after him, purposefully. Eddie was between them, not a captive but a big shot in command, giving the deadly orders.

The realization grated into Dave Lashek’s consciousness like a jagged metal spike. His suspicions hadn’t extended far enough. He hadn’t considered Karen. Eddie’s interest in her evidently hadn’t been a one-way thing. And Dave had insisted that Karen set up the execution!

She’d set it up, all right. Only he was to be the victim.

Instinctively his hand went under his coat for a non-existent rod. Bitterly he cursed his new respectability. In the old days, Dave Lashek wouldn’t have been caught out on the streets without a shoulder-holstered pistol. But tonight he was unarmed, leaving flight as his only means of escape.

Dave ran. Through the twisting, darkened streets, down the garbage-strewn alleys, trying to shake his relentless pursuers. The executioners spread out to cover more ground, to corner him between their three-pronged pincers. But he dodged them, using every hard-learned trick of the back streets.

Suddenly he burst out into the open, safe for perhaps thirty seconds from the deadly malice, and saw it.

The haven.

It was only a street-corner telephone booth but nothing had ever looked more welcome. Dave half-ran, half-staggered the last couple of yards, collapsing into the booth. Now he could phone for help. For the first time in his life, he’d be glad to see the police.

His pockets crackled as he went through them frantically. A crisp paper crackling solely — a folding-money crackling. Nothing but bills. Hundreds and twenties and tens and fives. And all Dave wanted was a dime. One lousy little ten-cent piece. Desperately he rummaged amidst the greenbacks. There had to be a dime, a quarter — anything that would fit into the coin telephone slot.

They were coming now. He could see the three assassins converging on the booth. They were walking very slow on the night-black streets, cutting off all retreat for Dave, penned defenseless in the bulb-lit transparency of the phone booth.

He yanked at the telephone cradle, trying to pump it into life, screaming for help into the dead mouthpiece that could have saved him.

Then the guns of the executioners were out with their muzzles gaping darkly at him and immediately thereafter winking redly in the night. The phone booth exploded about him in tinkling glass shards. He stood pinned against the back of the booth — pinned by the angry buzzing of copper-jacketed bees flying overhand around and into him. A swarm of bullets.

He watched the useless bills floating down to the floor, stared in dull terror at the bloody red waterfall which was gushing from his sleeves onto the fluttering greenbacks. Red or green, Dave thought as he fell, like a Christmas tree. Just like a goddamned old Christmas tree!