Mystery Tribune / Issue Nº5

The Punk-1

The Punkby Mickey Spillane

& Max Allan Collins

Co-author’s note: “The Punk” is based on an

unproduced TV script written by Mickey in the 1950s. The subject matter makes

it unlikely even a bestselling writer like Spillane could have seen it produced

at that time. It may have been a pilot script for an anthology series he would

have hosted and that would have been produced by his friend Gene Roddenberry.

This rainy night would be the punk’s last.

As he stands looking through the dirty moisture-streaked

storefront window, studying a clock, he is not counting the hours or the

minutes or even seconds. Although he is already condemned to death, he has no

knowledge of his sentence.

He doesn’t even know he’s going to die, that somewhere in

the night someone waits — unwittingly, at the moment — to take this ancient

young man’s life.

The skinny punk in the sopping workshirt and denims hears

the approaching car, sluicing through the rain, but thinks nothing of it till

he hears it slow. He turns and is washed in white as a mounted spotlight makes

a momentary star out of a minor player.

He cannot see the two cops in the car, but he

hears them, talking about him as if he weren’t there at all.

“You make him?” one cop asks.

“Yeah. A punk. Jo Jo something. He’s got a lot

of workhouse time. Heroin addict.”

“Want to shake him?”

“Not in this damn rain. He’d be clean anyway.

Let him make his connection and we’ll reach out later. Let’s go.”

As the cop car pulls away, Jo Jo spits back at

the rain. “Lousy bastards,” he mutters.

Somebody is walking, coming from the direction

the cop car did — heavy footsteps splashing rain. Then an indistinct figure

becomes plain as a beat cop, swinging his stick, steps under a streetlamp,

pausing for an up-and-down the thoroughfare look.

Jo Jo retreats into the recession of a shop

doorway. Waits and watches till the beat cop, swinging that stick, moves on.

“... By the time I dump this crap, I got nickels and

dimes.”

Another car rounds the corner, pulling to a stop on the

opposite side, down a ways. A driver sits waiting, and Jo Jo — still out of the

rain, tucked in the doorway — lights up a cigarette with a kitchen match. The

flare illuminates the punk’s face and announces his presence.

Jo Jo takes a drag and flips the cig prematurely

away, to sizzle briefly until the rain kills it. Soon a car door has slammed

and footsteps approach, and Jo Jo smiles.

The guy might have been a plainclothes cop in

the raincoat and snugged-down fedora. But he isn’t.

Jo Jo asks, “Got it, Rock?”

“Yeah. You got it?”

“Sure, sure.”

“Get it up, then.”

Jo Jo digs out two wrist watches from a pants

pocket. The connection slips out of the rain into the doorway recession,

accepts the watches, looks them over without enthusiasm, his fedora emptying

some rain between them.

“That all?” The guy sounds disgusted.

Jo Jo’s face gets hot. “What do you mean, that

all? Gold casing and Swiss works, man...”

“So?”

“So... how many are those good for?”

“Just one. You’ll get one and count yourself

lucky.”

“You crazy? These didn’t come out of no

tenement!”

“So they’re Swiss with gold cases. You want I

should start dancing? By the time I dump this crap, I got nickels and dimes.”

Jo Jo almost calls the connection a cheat, then

thinks better of it, licks his lips and says, “Okay, Rock. Gimme.”

The connection pockets the watches, then drops a

lone capsule in Jo Jo’s begging palm. There’s something both nasty and superior

in the connection’s grin. Then he winks at the punk and walks back into the

rain and gone.

Jo Jo studies the single capsule in his palm and

says to no one, “Stinking cheat!”

Now he has to get out of the rain. He ducks into

a nearby alley, moves past garbage cans and boxes, stops to kneel down at a

basement window. The well of the window is both his hiding place, under a loose

brick, and his table top, where the angle of rain doesn’t intrude. He sets a

flashlight on the brick to illuminate his work.

Spoon.

Candle.

Dope melting down.

Hypo needle drawing in the stuff.

Yanks back a sleeve, exposes his inside forearm,

dotted with marks. Shoots the stuff. Withdraws the needle. Kisses his arm.

“You beautiful white horse you,” he says.

His ecstatic expression looks back at him from

the reflection in the basement window. But he doesn’t see it. He’s gone, man.

Real gone.

But not so far gone he can’t, from his kneeling

position, wrap up his stuff and put it back in the window well. He rises with

loose, easy confidence and walks out of the alley.

He emerges a new man — bigger now, tougher,

owning the world. The rain is letting up, as if he told it to. He pauses,

grinning as he reaches into his breast pocket and takes out two diamond rings.

He thumbs the stones. Puts the rings back. Laughs and walks off.

“How do you like that, Rock, you goddamn cheat?”

he asks the night.

The candy store is a shoddy thing, hard to

imagine a mom allowing a child inside. Behind the counter is an equally shoddy,

heavy-set proprietor, in suspenders and leaning on the counter, reading a

racing form. The fat man with the wolfish, bearded face looks up when he hears

the door open to let the sound of diminishing rain and a customer in.

“What do you want, Jo Jo?” Lupo asks.

Jo Jo, closing the door, grins and walks to the

counter, leaning on it. “What d’you think, Daddy Lupo?”

Lupo appraises him with a smile that would be

sad if its owner had any humanity left. “I think you’re flyin’.... Well, look,

I’m not cashing in any more of your loot. I caught a squeal on it, last time,

punk. Nice job. Your own uptown sister you rob? Who’ll come next — me?

I buy from you, then you steal the swag back, that it?”

The snick of Jo Jo’s switchblade is the

immediate answer. Then the punk leans across the counter and mock-shaves the

fence with the blade.

“Thanks for the tip, Daddy Lupo. Maybe you’re

just who I got in mind.”

The automatic comes up from behind the counter.

“Back off, punk.”

Jo Jo scowls but it turns into a grin. “Bang me

with that and the blues’ll tear this place apart. And what’ll they find, Daddy

Lupo? How much hot stuff you got stashed here, huh?”

Disgusted, Lupo says, “Okay, punk. Stow the

blade and we go in back.”

The knife gets tucked away, the rod, too. Lupo

leads Jo Jo through curtains behind the counter into a box-piled storeroom.

“Let’s see what you brung me, Jo Jo.”

Jo Jo gets out the rings and hands them over.

Lupo has a look at them with a jeweler’s eyepiece. “These from your sister’s?”

“What do you care?”

“Just asking.”

“Where else would I score like that? What’ll you

go on them?”

Lupo studies the diamonds some more, then drops

the loupe in his palm. “Go a hundred on each.... Don’t argue. Take it or blow.”

“There’s a couple of grand wrapped up in

‘em!”

“Then go someplace else and get more. From me,

two yards is the limit. And show me that blade again and you won’t get any.”

Jo Jo considers. Then he says, “Gimme the

green.”

“Go back out front.”

“What, afraid I’ll see where you hide the stuff,

and help myself?”

“... Who knows, Daddy?

Night’s young, like me.”

“Out front, punk.”

Jo Jo pushes back out through the curtains,

wanders over to a penny gumball machine. Drops a coin in. Pops a gumball into

his mouth and chews. Soon Daddy Lupo is back and hands over the cash. Fives,

tens, twenties. Nice fat little roll.

Lupo’s smile has some sneer in it. “What’re you

shooting a day, punk?”

“Two hundred a day’s plenty to send me flyin’.

Cruise over the rooftops and even do stunts. Man, I leave streamers in the

sky.”

“Sounds like you got a big night planned.”

“Who knows, Daddy? Night’s young, like me. I

just live it up, long as guys like you are around to put gas in the flyin’

machine.... See you later, Daddy. Be good, hear?”

Jo Jo is at the door when Lupo says, “Don’t come

back.”

The punk wheels. “I’ll be back when I want.”

A smile flashes in Lupo’s beard. “Then do me a

favor and bring that shiv along.”

“Why’s that, Daddy?”

“Because I’m gonna shoot you up but not the way

you like. With that knife on you, I can kill your skinny ass and tag it a

hold-up.”

“And if I leave it behind, the shiv?”

“I’ll plant one on you anyway, when you’re

bleeding out on the floor.”

Jo Jo knows his fear is showing, so he laughs it

off. “You kill me, man,” he says and goes out into the night.

He doesn’t hear Lupo says, “That’s the idea.”

Jo Jo turns his collar up to the rain, which has

built again. He’s moving down the sidewalk, fast, pausing only to shake a fist

and swear at a car that goes by with a splash that gets all over him.

“Jo Jo! Hey, Jo Jo!”

The voice comes from a dark doorway. Jo Jo

ignores it, but a skinny, pitiful figure stumbles out — Pikey, a hype who makes

Jo Jo seem normal.

Jo Jo doesn’t break his stride. “Whaddya want,

Pikey?”

“Man, I’m hurting. You got any stuff? I gotta

blast one or I’m gone.”

“Get lost.”

Pikey falls in alongside Jo Jo, saying, “Man, I

gotta have it! That monkey’s scratching hard. Man, you know what it’s like!”

“I shot my last cap. I’m scrounging up some

fresh stuff.”

“You ain’t got a couple to spare?”

“Not hardly.”

“How about a fin, then? Just a fin. I’m hurtin’,

Jo Jo. Hurtin’ bad.”

“Tough s**t!”

“Come on, Jo Jo. We’re pals!”

Jo Jo stops and grabs Pikey by his sopping

shirt. “Look, you drippy hophead. That lousy Rock only gimme one round for

prime swag. Get off my back! You wanna blast one, get some loot the hard way,

same as everybody else.”

Jo Jo thrusts the bundle of bones against a

building and Pikey — hurting, in early narcotic convulsions — reaches out

pathetically.

“Don’t go, Jo Jo! We’re pals, remember?” Pikey

is sobbing, then the sobs turn to retching, but Jo Jo doesn’t see or care. He’s

heading toward a glowing neon sign in the mist, at the end of the street.

Stepping inside the dive, Jo Jo lights up a

cigarette. Takes a drag, looks around. Smoke in here was thick as fog if fog

made you cough. A couple of frowsy babes at the bar wave hello. Jo Jo yells

hello back and heads for the jukebox. Looks at his choice of tunes, drops a

quarter in the slot and soon is swaying lazily to Bill Haley.

A tall, wide-shouldered junkie pal of Jo Jo’s —

flesh hanging on him as a reminder of how he once got his moniker, So Big —

slaps the punk on the shoulder.

“Hey there, Jo Jo boy. Where you been this crazy

night?”

“Out and about, So Big. You’re happy.”

“Had a real warm fix ‘bout an hour ago and found

a real cool mouse to cuddle up with. Wait’ll you meet her.”

Jo Jo makes a face around his cig. “You and your

mice. What rathole did you snag this one out of?”

“This one’s different, Jo Jo. She’s class, real

class.” So Big leans in, puts a hand on Jo Jo’s shoulder. Winks. “So far

everybody’s been nudging me for a intro. Only I ain’t sharing. But for you,

buddy boy, I will make an exception. Come on.”

So Big walks Jo Jo back to a booth. For once, So

Big is right — the dame is class all the way, good-looking, nicely dressed,

real wrong for this place, yet something about her is... offbeat. She’s got a

streak, Jo Jo can tell, the kind of streak that can lead a girl from the right

side of town to check out a wrong joint like this.

Blonde, blue eyes, cheekbones like Bacall,

long-sleeve dress that hugs her shapely slender frame — Jo Jo would be in love,

if he didn’t already have a thing for the stuff.

“Meet Francine,” So Big says, as Jo Jo slides in

next to her and So Big crawls in across. “Francine, meet Jo Jo Tea. From the

old days uptown, we’re pals.”

Jo Jo says, “Hi, Francine.”

She smiles at him but says nothing.

Blonde, blue eyes, cheekbones like Bacall,

long-sleeve dress that hugs her shapely slender frame — Jo Jo would be in love,

if he didn’t already have a thing for the stuff.

“Ain’t she something?” So Big says. Then he

calls to a waitress: “Hey, Red! Bring us three ryes on the rocks! Big ones! And

get us another bowl of potato chips!”

Jo Jo can’t stop looking at her. He licks his

lips and she only smiles. Sultry, dangerous. She’s heroin in a long-sleeve

dress.

“Isn’t she something?” So Big asks him.

“Yeah. Real something.”

She says, “I’m sitting right here, boys.” Voice

as sultry as her looks. She gets in her purse, comes back with her cigarettes.