The Snake

Mickey Spillane

THE SNAKE

First Published in 1964

For Bob Fellows, who knows Mike from too many angles. And Donna, who knows Bob the same way.

Chapter One

You walk down the street at night. It's raining out. The only sound is that of your own feet. There are city sounds too, but these you don't hear because at the end of the street is the woman you've been waiting for for seven long years and each muffled tread of your footsteps takes you closer and closer and the sound of them marks off seconds and days and months of waiting.

Then, suddenly, you're there, outside a dark faced building, a brownstone anachronism that stares back dully with the defiant expression of the moronic and you have an impending sense of being challenged.

What would it be like, I thought. Was she still beautiful? Had seven years of hell changed her as it had me? And what did you say to a woman you loved and thought was killed because you pulled a stupid play? How do you go from seven years ago to now?

Only a little while ago a lot of other feet were pointing this way, searching for this one house on this one street, but now mine were the only ones left to find it because the rest belonged to dead men or those about to die.

The woman inside was important now. Perhaps the most important in the world. What she knew would help destroy an enemy when she told it. My hands in my pockets balled into hard knots to keep from shaking and for a moment the throbbing ache of the welts and cuts that laced my skin stopped.

And I took the first step.

There were five more, then the V code on the doorbell marked Case, the automatic clicking of the lock and I was in the vestibule of the building under a dim yellow light from a single overhead bulb and down the shadowed hallway to the rear was the big door. Behind it lay seven years ago.

I tapped out a Y on the panel and waited, then tapped a slow R and the bolt slid back and the knob turned and there she stood with the gun still ready if something had gone wrong.

Even in that pale light I could see that she was more beautiful than ever, the black shadow of her hair framing a face I had seen every night in the misery of sleep for so long. Those deep brown eyes still had that hungry look when they watched mine and the lush fullness of her mouth glistened with a damp warmth of invitation.

Then, as though there had never been those seven years, I said, 'Hello, Velda.'

For a long second she just stood there, somehow telling me that it was only the now that counted and with that same rich voice that could make music with a simple word, she answered, 'Mike...'

She came into my arms with a rush and buried her face in my neck, barely able to whisper my name over and over because my arms were so tight around her. Even though I knew I was hurting her I couldn't stop and she didn't ask me to. It was like we were trying to get inside each other and in the frenzy of it found a way when our mouths met in a predatory coupling we had never known before. I tasted the fire and beauty of her, my fingers probing the flesh of her back and arms and shoulders, leaving marks wherever they touched. That familiar resiliency was still in her body, tightening gradually into a passionate tautness that rippled and quivered, crying out soundlessly for more, more, more.

I took the gun from her hand, dropped it in a chair, then pushed the door closed with my foot and felt for the light switch. A lamp on the table seemed to come alive with the unreal slowness, of a movie prop, gradually highlighting the classic beauty of her face and the provocative thrust of her breasts.

There was a subtle leanness about her now, like you saw in those fresh from a battle area, every gesture a precision movement, every sense totally alert. And now she was just beginning to realize that it was over and she could be free again.

'Hello, kitten,' I said, and watched her smile.

There wasn't much we could say. That would take time, but now we had all the time in the world. She looked at me, talking through those crazy eyes, then her expression went soft and a frown made small creases across her forehead. Her fingers went out and touched my face and the white edge of her teeth went into her lip.

'Mike... ?'

'It's okay, baby.'

'You're not... hurt?'

I shook my head. 'Not any more.'

'There's something about you now... I can't quite tell what...'

'Seven years, Velda,' I interrupted.. 'It was downhill all the way until I found out you were still alive. It leaves marks, but none that can't be wiped out.'

Her eyes blurred under tears that came too quickly to control. 'Mike darling,... I couldn't reach you. It was all too impossible and big...'

'I know it, kid. You don't have to explain.'

Her hair swirled in a dark arc when she shook her head. 'But I do.'

'Later.'

'Now.' Her fingers touched my mouth to silence me and I let them. 'It took seven years to learn a man's secret and escape Communist Europe with information that will keep us equal or better than they are. I know I could have... gotten away earlier... but I had to make a choice.'

'You made the right one.'

'There was no way to tell you.'

'I know it.'

'Truly...'

'I understand, kitten.'

She wouldn't listen. Her voice was softly insistent, almost pleading. 'I could have, Mike. I know I could have some way, but I couldn't afford the chance. There were millions of lives at stake.' She paused a second, then pulled my cheek against hers. 'I know how you must have felt, thinking you had me killed. I thought of it so often I nearly went out of my mind, but I still couldn't have changed things.'

'Forget it,' I told her.

'What did happen to you, Mike?'

She pushed away, holding me at arm's length to study me.

'I got to be a drunk,' I said.

'You?'

'Me, kitten.'

Her expression was one of curious bewilderment. 'But when I told them... they had to find you... only you could do it...'

'One mentioned your name and I changed, honey. When you came alive again, so did I.'

'Oh, Mike...'

As big as she was, I picked her up easily, kissed her again, and took her across the room to the gaudy mohair couch that nestled in the bay of an airshaft window. She quivered against me, smiled when I laid her down, then pulled my mouth to hers with a desperation that told me of the loneliness of seven years and the gnawing wanting inside her now.

Finally she said, 'I'm a virgin, Mike.'

'I know.'

'I've always waited for you. It's been a pretty long wait.'

I grinned down at her. 'I was crazy to make you wait.'

'And now?'

Then I wasn't grinning any more. She was all mine whenever I wanted her, a big, beautiful animal of a