Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 6, May 1961

I’m Tough by Davis Dresser

The tough private eye — and Mike Shayne has often been coiled the toughest of them all — has come in for some good-natured ribbing of late by friends and opponents alike. But for a witty tour-de-force on that very theme it would be hard to surpass this satire-barbed short story by Mr. Dresser, the famed redhead’s creator — the secret’s out — Brett Halliday himself!

It was late and it was raining. The streets were sleek, black and dismal. I was wet outside and dry inside. I went into a bar.

It was empty except for a thin man behind the mahogany. He was polishing glasses and he looked over his shoulder at me like he didn’t want customers. I dripped water on his clean floor toward the bar. I said, “A double whiskey,” to his back.

He turned, shaking his head. “Closing up, chum.” He had a thin face shaped like the hatchet Lizzie Borden chopped up her mama with. And with funny ears sticking out on each side that looked like the shrivelled hands of a baby that was born dead.

I slid onto a stool and said, “A double whiskey.”

He had a long thin nose and there was a glob of snot forming at the end of it. He shook his head and the end of his nose twitched and the snot started to fall. He reached up and swiped it off with his cloth and went back to polishing the glass. Only it didn’t polish so good now. He said, “Closing up.”

I got out my gat and laid it on the bar. He looked at the gat and then at my face, and then put down the glass and got a bottle of bonded stuff and a double shot-glass. He said, “Pardon me,” and gurgled bourbon to the brim.

He left the bottle in front of me and turned away. I drank it I gurgled in more bourbon and drank that. I heard the door open behind me and looked at the mirror behind the bar and saw her.

She was young. Maybe fifteen. Maybe sixteen. She wore a transparent yellow rain cape with a hood that she pushed back off her head. Her hair was pale gold, smooth and straight. Her face was white, and the rose-red lipstick made a gaping wound across her blank face. Her eyes were green as emeralds, slanted and shining as she looked at me.

I said, “Hi, kid,” to her reflection in the mirror.

She said, “Hi,” back to my reflection. Her eyelids drooped and listed slowly like the flick of a cat’s tail. She moved up close behind me. She said, “Will you do something for me?”

I reached for the bottle. “Name it, kid.”

She took in a deep breath, sibilant with a little hiss. I could see her teeth between swollen, scarlet lips, small white and sharply pointed. Her voice close behind my ear was a whisper. “Will you kill a man for me?”

I slid my gat back into my pocket. I turned on the stool and took a long look into those green eyes. They were young and they were hot and they promised me everything. I said, “For you... sure, babe.”

She said, “Come on,” and turned toward the door. I dropped a bill on the bar and followed her out.

Neon lights threw screaming colors across the rain-blackened streets. She left her hood down and walked through the lights and shadows and the rain, stony and detached.

I walked through the rain beside her and asked, “Your boyfriend?”

Her voice was small and clear and dry as she answered, “No.”

I said, “Who, then?”

She said, “That doesn’t concern you.”

We went on through the night and the rain. We reached the corner of Broadway at 42nd. There weren’t any pedestrians. There was a black-coated cop directing traffic at the intersection. His back was to us.

The wind tore at our bodies and the rain lashed at our faces. There was only an old man selling pencils on the corner. A very old man. His hair was white and his beard was white and his slack mouth trembled as the cold rain beat at it.

She lifted her hand and pointed a finger at the old man and said, “That’s him.”

I looked into her green eyes and she looked back and it was like there was a flame between us that the raindrops couldn’t put out.

I said, “Okay, babe,” and pulled my gun and shot him between the eyes.

He fell flat on his face. His bony fingers scrabbled a moment among the scattered pencils. The cop thought it was a back-fire and kept his back turned. I nudged the old man over with my toe to make sure he was dead. I knelt beside him. His rheumy old eyes were glazing. His lips parted. He muttered, “That bitch,” and then he died.

I got up and turned around. She was gone. I was alone with the night and the wind and the rain... and with a dead man.