There was a different smell to it. The furniture was the same, but seemed brighter. The window curtains weren’t the same ones I had a girl from Third Avenue put up. Velda caught me looking at them and said, “They needed changing.” I nodded as if I knew what she meant. No dishes were in the kitchen sink and in the bathroom there was fresh soap and new towels on the rack. “I cleaned up in here,” Velda said. “Then I kept it clean.” “Yes,” I told her. “I could tell.” “How?” she asked me with a verbal smirk. “The toilet seat was down,” I said. She started to laugh and when she stopped her eyes did that thing that always unnerved me somehow. It was something only a woman could do and she seemed to know just when to do it. Her voice was low and throaty, her words soft and inviting. She let the look linger a few seconds longer, knowing what it was doing to me, then she husked, “How are you going to thank me, Mike?” I could time a reaction, too. I knew what she wanted and what she expected me to tell her, but this was my time now and she needed something so utterly unexpected it would rock her down to her socks.
What do You think about Mickey Spillane - [Mike Hammer 13]?
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