So Long, Chief

Book 0: A Mulholland / Strand Magazine Short

by Mickey Spillane, Max Allan Collins

Genres: Short Stories; Private Investigators; Suspense

Synopsis

From legendary noir novelist Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins, a short story in which world-famous private eye Mike Hammer repays a debt to a dying police chief, proving loyalty can be as deadly as deception. A legendary and retired police chief lies in a New York hospital bed, visited by two strangers: the first is ex-cop-turned-PI Mike Hammer, whose life was saved more than once by the old man. To the detective, the chief gives a mysterious key. The second visitor murders the chief, mere days before he would have died from natural causes. Someone is trying to tie up loose ends, and Mike Hammer is the only one with the evidence and calculation to ferret him or her out."So Long, Chief" by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins is one of 20 short stories within Mulholland Books's Strand Originals series, featuring thrilling stories by the biggest names in mystery from the Strand Magazine archives. View the full series list at mulhollandbooks.com and listen to them all!

Release date: December 6, 2016

Publisher: Mulholland Books

Print pages: 31

Sample

The old man was dying, but there was nobody to see him off. In a few more days he’d get the royal farewell, a eulogy by the police chaplain, a cavalcade of motorcycle troops, and a final salute from the fresh young faces to whom he was nothing but a fading legend. He was the last of the old breed who had outlived his friends and his usefulness and he was all alone on his final assignment.

The nurse said, “Not too long, please.”

She was a cute brunette in her twenties, well worth flirting with, but I wasn’t in the mood.

I asked, “Pretty bad?”

Her answer was only slightly evasive: “He’s almost ninety, tires easily. Are you family?”

“No,” I said. “He doesn’t have any family.”

She gave me a little smile and nodded. “I see. Just don’t excite him.”

I could have told her that there wasn’t much that could ever excite him after the life he’d lived.

But I just said my thanks and went into the sterile little hospital room with the green walls and the automated bed that seemed to hold him like a waiter balancing a tray. Hard to believe that once he would have dominated a room of any size like the Colossus of Rhodes. Now he was just a textured form under the sheet.

But the unmistakable quality was there, a strange force as alive as ever, hovering like a protective screen around his withered face.

I walked to the bed, looked down at him, and said, “Hello, Chief.”

He didn’t open his eyes. He simply let the tone of my voice go through a mental computer check and when it didn’t register, he said, “You one of the new ones?”

“Not really.”

When he turned his head he let his eyes slide open and the old tiger was still in there. For a good five seconds he was riffling through the cerebral filing cabinet before he was satisfied that I was clean…at least up to a point.

“I don’t know you,” he stated in a curiously noncommittal voice.

“No reason why you should. It’s been a long time, Chief. Forty-some years.”

The voice still had strength, shrouded though it was in a growly rasp. “You’d have been a little kid then.”

“Uh-huh. About eleven. A wise-ass young punk in a lousy neighborhood who was prepping himself for all that beautiful mob action he saw around him…the rolls of dough, the fancy cars, a string of lovely broads, just the way Gino Madoni had it.”

The tiger stirred behind the eyes. It . . .