The Girl With The Gun Simple Eyes-With Robert Mitchum And Jane Greer’s The Big Steal In Mind

By Zack James

Duke Halliday had a funny feeling that he had seen her before, had seen her maybe one time when he was in Acapulco over by the ocean on other side of Mexico from where he was now landing in Vera Cruz on the eastern side of this benighted sweat-filled dusty road bracero country. Yeah she had come up on him from behind speaking some low-slung Spanish to a bracero that he had pushed aside, pushed aside hard and she had made her apologies for the whole gringo race to that besotted bracero and then levelled off and told Duke “what was what” in proper schoolteacher or something English. (Duke, trying to get a word in edgewise, tried to explain without success and with an on-going sneer continually on her face which meant she brooked no back talk while she was talking that the particular bracero he had “shoved” had attempted in broad daylight and on the crowded docks to heist his wallet. Had he the chance Duke would have told her that any member of any nationality anywhere would have received the same shove under the circumstances. Although he did not tell her that a big-shouldered burly guy like him was used to shoving for any reason under the sun, drunk or sober, just to let whoever challenged him think twice about the matter.)   

Those silent thoughts over she had not gotten half way through her schoolmarm berating an errant student when he had had that funny feeling that while her hair was darker (the result of some man-made elixir), she was a little more shapely but not bad in all the right places and had a couple of small crow’s feet showing around the eyes she was the spitting imagine of Kathie, Kathie who had tried to kill him, kill him good as they were heading to Baja California and the good life. Left him on the side of the road after having just crashed through a police blockade and with two big slugs in his almost heart leaving him for dead and for taking the fall on those big shoulders alone, the big step-off fall if it came to that. That evil schoolmarm rattling last heard by Duke in Miss Johnson’s eight grade English class had thrown him off a bit on some small reflection because no way was Katie, a she-devil, a woman take any man’s measure and make him run through hoops, her hoops either a schoolmarm or much for language beyond the customary swear words and a few “come hither” phrases that when she was in heat or wanted some hard work done, like killing, maiming or armed robbery which would bring a guy running like a lap dog, including him.       

That funny feeling maybe not so funny because when he had seen her the last time she had already broken his spirit so bad that it would have taken emergency surgery, maybe more to put the broken pieces together. The story flashed through his now increasingly fevered brain almost as quickly as it happened. In those days he had been a private eye, a shamus, and a pretty good one with a partner who maybe wasn’t so good but who covered his back, mostly. Yeah Duke had been known for taking no prisoners when he got on a case. Left no untidy pieces and was as anybody could tell from a quick look at him that he was built for heavy lifting, could handle himself in a tight corner, and could give and take a few swift punches.

Those calling cards are what brought him to the attention of Whit Sterling, Whit the big-time mobster out in Reno. Whit had as most guys, guys including big-time mobsters a woman problem, had it bad for a piece of fluff named Kathie. Nothing but a work of art femme fatale and nothing but big trouble from the first day she came out of some ditch in some Podunk looking for the next best thing with that come hither look of hers and the guys fell right in line. No heavy lifting for that gal, none. She had for kicks skipped out on Whit with a chunk of dough, about forty thou, not much today, not much then maybe either but being a big-time mobster meant no sweet pussy was going to do a dance of death on him. Not if he expected to stay on top of the totem pole. And so he sent Duke to find her, bring her back if possible, bring back that fucking forty thou though even if he had to waste her. That waste her being perhaps necessary since she carried a very un-ladylike .32 and had used it on some long-ago lover whom she shot dead as a doornail and walked. Walked when the jury believed that she had been raped by that guy. Had clipped Whit too for good measure when she was in the process of her escape, with that quick forty thou which would keep her until the next guy she needed anted up.

The trail to Kathie naturally led south to warm sunny cheap living Mexico. Duke had had no problem finding her, as if she had left bread crumbs to lead him to her. Once he got a look at her, no, smelled that jasmine something scent she was wearing and which he could smell/feel a block before she entered the café where an informant told him she hung out he was a goner. And she seeing those broad shoulders, that clefted chin, those arms and hands that looked like they could handle just about anything-except a woman’s gun took dead aim at her new protector. They hit the sheets that first night, she almost raping him before they got to the bed, and they ran around for a while in Mexico before heading north until Whit got nervous and hired another private eye to ferret them out. In that confrontation Kathie killed that trailing shamus after he knocked Duke out. Needless to say, Duke was not going to take the fall for her, not on murder one. Whit or no Whit.   

Duke figuring it was his hard luck that he had picked a gun simple gal dropped out of sight, went underground really but he didn’t figure that Whit might have hard feelings about Duke taking his daily rate plus expenses money, and his woman too. But Whit was built that way and one of his minions found Duke doing short order chef duty in a dinky café diner outside of Pacifica. Brought him in to see Whit once he made Duke see reason with a fistful of brass knuckles and a jackroll, and Kathie. Yeah Whit was a piece of work, had found Katie and somehow had been taken in once again by here after she gave him back that forty thou to square things-for a while. But bringing oil and water together was not good this time as Duke and Kathie linked up again to do in Whit (both agreeing for their own reasons that Whit had to be done in or else neither life was worth a penny). Duke though what they hell had his claws in him since she took that well-used .32 out of her back aimed and without a blink fired. Almost a professional hit. Duke thought, though later when it was too late that he would have at least given the guy a way out as slim as that was. Yeah, Kathie placed two neat slugs into Whit’s heart as they were leaving. Never even looked back.         

As they headed out in Whit’s automobile for freedom in the Baja they ran into that police roadblock which they ran and Duke sensing he was in for a rough tumble if he ever crossed Kathie decided that he would turn himself in. Needless to say, Kathie did not like that idea and placed two neat slugs in what she though was Duke’s heart while she was driving to boot. The commotion though cause the car to crash and Duke jumped out trying to get the hell away. Kathie lay with her head over the steering wheel, maybe dead, maybe alive. That was the last he saw of her, the last time he had been in trouble over a woman after he squared himself with the coppers on the Whit and private eye beefs.      

Now that he looked at her a second time Duke could see that although she looked very much like Kathie, and giving a few pounds and years gone by this was not her, although she did have that gun simple look in her eyes that he had come to fear but it may have just been coincidence. As for her, as for Joan, she too had some sneaking feeling that she had met Duke before, had met him up in Reno one night when she was feeling frisky after a few drinks, after winning a few bucks at the gaming tables and feeling like she wanted a man that night had picked a guy with broad shoulders, with big hands that knew where to be put with a willing woman, and the ability to fend off any guy whom she didn’t want to deal with once she gave him her best come hither look. He who called himself Jeff then had told he had been built strictly for one- night stands which was fine by her that night as they hit the sheets without even knowing last names, also that night okay with her. A second look at this guy said behind those sleepy blue eyes and that granite chin was long-time serious affairs not one- night stands and not all had ended well. Still given what her predicament was just then trying to get a couple of thou back from the last guy who threw her over for some cheap laughing eyes Spanish whore who probably would give him a sexually transmitted disease those big shoulders, those hands and those fighter eyes would come in handy in case she ran into trouble with Jim, Jim Fiske if that was his real name.           

Duke looked her up and down and licked his chops and she took note that he ate her up, a conquest and she wasn’t even wearing her jasmine something scent that was guaranteed to get from a guy whatever she wanted from sex to heavy-lifting. So their dance in a dance began. He asked her if she wanted a drink, she accepted, and they went into Senor somebody’s cantina. They drank for a few hours, talked the talk and headed to her place (he didn’t have a place since he was just off the boat) and hit the sheets just the way they both figured when they compared notes in the morning.

Here is the funny part, the part that would glue them together for the duration. Joan had a photograph of that last guy she had tangled with, the guy who had run out on her on her bedroom table face down. When Duke turned the frame over and saw one Jim Fiske he flipped out. Pulled out his revolver and carefully aimed it at Joan. She in turn turned around and pulled out her own gun. A draw. That was when upon inquiry Duke found out that Joan and this Fiske had been lovers. Fiske was the guy who had taken a powder on her. More importantly to Duke this Fiske had waylaid him when he worked for Wells Fargo and taken some quarter of a million in cash from the bags strapped to his wrists. Then Joan told her two- bit story. Comparing notes, they decided to work together, after another run under the sheets to seal the deal, seal the deal by request from Joan on this one (Duke was not sure that he cared for her sexual aggression, but she had little tricks that he liked that usually only whorehouse whores knew).     

They gathered information that Fiske had hit the highway for Mexico City where he probably would try to convert the cash he had stolen from Duke which any way one looked at it was hot as a pistol since one did not usually act so foolishly as to rob a Wells Fargo armored truck or its employees. They rented a car and headed west stopping along the way to give a description of the dapper Fiske who had the look of a solid gringo and not some stinking bracero. They had some trouble in a small town, really just a trading post and a cantina, over cashing a check. That is where Duke started buckling a little once Joan took out her little snub-nosed gun and forced the proprietor to cash the check. Duke just stood there with his jaw hanging until she told him to wise up and that they had better vamoose.       

Having been given a description of Jim’s car they hit a little town and noticed a car fitting Jim’s description being worked on in some stinking garage, or what passed for a garage in sunny Mexico outside the big cities. They waited around for Jim to show to pick up the car and a couple of hours later he did show up. With a look of surprise on his face at seeing Joan he sized Duke up and figured that at best in a mix he would get the worst of it and so he “cut” them in on the robbery dough not knowing that Duke was the guy whom he had robbed. They travelled together uneasily until they hit the outskirts of Mexico City where they went up a private road and entered a big hacienda where Senor Blanco was waiting for Jim to deliver the hot money to fence. Jim took a cool one hundred thou in the transfer and was glad to get it. Duke figured he was a goner, could never work security again. 

When the trio got outside though before Jim could say to Joan for them to move on together without Duke Joan coolly put two slugs between his eyes. He fell like a tree. Joan just as coolly went over to the fallen Jim and swooped up the dough. Coolly asked if Duke was up for the road ahead. Not sure juts then that he had not played out this scene already he walked toward her and took the gun out of her hand. Then took her arm as they walked out into the sunset but the look on his face said he would spend many sleepless nights watching over his shoulder for the other shoe to fall. Jesus these gun simple women would kill him yet.