One Lonely Night Read online

  I made an unintelligible answer.

  “You are staying for the meeting?” he asked me.

  “Yeah, I want to poke around a little.”

  This time he edged close to me, looking around to see if there was anyone close enough to hear. “Comrade, if I am not getting too inquisitive again, is there a possibility that ... the person could be here?”

  There it was again. Just what I wanted to know and I didn’t dare ask the question. It was going to take some pretty careful handling. “It’s possible,” I said tentatively.

  He was aghast. “Comrade! It is unthinkable!” He reflected a moment then: “Yet it had to come from somewhere. I simply can’t understand it. Everything is so carefully screened, every member so carefully selected that it seems impossible for there to be a leak anywhere. And those filthy warmongers, doing a thing like that ... so cold-blooded! It is simply incredible. How I wish the party was in power at this moment. Why, the one who did that would be uncovered before the sun could set!”

  Gladow cursed through his teeth and pounded a puny, carefully tended fist into his palm. “Don’t worry,” I said slowly.

  It took ten seconds for my words to sink in. Gladow’s little eyes narrowed in pleasure like a hog seeing a trough full of slops. The underside of his top lip showed when he smiled. “No, comrade. I won’t worry. The party is too clever to let a direct representative’s death go unpunished. No, I won’t worry because I realize that the punishment that comes will more than equal the crime.” He beamed at me fatuously. “I am happy to realize that the higher echelon has sent a man of your capacity, comrade.”

  I didn’t even thank him. I was thinking and this time the words made sense. They made more than sense ... they made murder! Only death is cold-blooded, and who was dead? Three people. One hadn’t been found. One was found and not identified, even by a lousy sketch. The other was dead and identified. He was cold-bloodedly murdered and he was a direct representative of the party and I was the guy looking for his killer.

  Good Lord, the insane bastards thought I was an MVD man!

  My hands started to shake and I kept them in my pockets. And who was the dead man but Charlie Moffit! My predecessor. A goddamned Commie gestapo man. A hatchetman, a torpedo, a lot of things you want to call him. Lee ought to be proud of his brother, damn proud. All by himself he went out and he knocked off a skunk.

  But I was the prize, I was the MVD guy that came to take his place and run the killer down. Oh, brother! No wonder the jerks were afraid of me! No wonder they didn’t ask my name! No wonder I was supposed to know it all.

  I felt a grin trying to pull my mouth out of shape because so much of it was funny. They thought they were clever as hell and here I was right in the middle of things with an in that couldn’t be better. Any good red would give his shirt to be where I was right this minute.

  Everything started to come out right then, even the screwy test they put me through. A small-time setup like this was hardly worth the direct attention of a Moscow man unless something was wrong, so I had to prove myself.

  Smart? Sure, just like road apples that happen behind horses.

  Now I knew and now I could play the game. I could be one of the boys and show them some fun. There were going to be a lot of broken backs around town before I got done.

  There was only one catch I could think of. Someplace was another MVD laddie, a real one. I’d have to be careful of him. At least careful that he didn’t see me first, because when I met up with that stinkpot I was going to split him right down the middle with a .45!

  I had been down too deep in my thoughts to catch the arrival of the party that came in behind me. I heard Gladow extending a welcome that wasn’t handed out to just everybody. When I turned around to look I saw one little fat man, one big fat man and a guy who was in the newspapers every so often. His name was General Osilov and he was attached to the Russian Embassy in Washington. The big and little fat men were his aides and they did all the smiling. If anything went on in the head of the bald-headed general it didn’t show in is flat, wide face.

  Whatever it was Henry Gladow said swung the three heads in my direction. Two swung back again fast leaving only the general staring at me. It was a stare-down that I won. The general coughed without covering his mouth and stuck his hands in the pockets of his suitcoat. None of them seemed anxious to make my acquaintance.

  From then on there was a steady flow of traffic in through the door. They came singly and in pairs, spaced about five minutes apart. Before the hour was out the place was packed. It was filled with the kind of people you’d expect to find there and it would hit you that when the cartoonists did a caricature of a pack of shabby reds lurking in the shadow of democracy they did a good job.

  A few of them dragged out seats and the meeting was on. I saw Ethel Brighton slide into the last chair in the last row and waited until she was settled before I saw down beside her. She smiled, let that brief look of fear mask her face, then turned her head to the front. When I put my hand over hers I felt it tremble.

  Gladow spoke, The aides spoke. Then the general spoke. He pulled his tux jacket down when he rose and glared at the audience. I had to sit there and listen to it. It was propaganda right off the latest Moscow cable and it turned me inside out. I wanted to feel the butt of an M-1 against my shoulder pointing at those bastards up there on the rostrum and feel the pleasant impact as it spit slugs into their guts.

  Sure, you can sit down at night and read about the hog-wash they hand out. Maybe you’re fairly intelligent and can laugh at it. Believe me, it isn’t funny. They use the very thing we build up, our own government and our own laws, to undermine the things we want.

  It wasn’t a very complicated speech the general made. It was plain, bitter poison and they cheered him noiselessly. He was making plain one thing. There were still too many people who didn’t go for Communism and not enough who did and he gave a plan of organization that had worked in a dozen countries already. One armed Communist was worth twenty capitalists without guns. It was Hitler all over again. A powerful Communist government already formed would be there to take over when the big upset came, and according to him it was coming soon. Here, and he swept the room with his arm, was one phase of that government ready to go into action.

  I didn’t hear the rest of it. I sat there fiddling with my fingernails because I was getting ready to bust loose and spoil their plans. If I let any more words go in my ears there was going to be blood on the floor and it wasn’t time for that yet. I caught snatches of things that went on, repeated intimations of how the top men were already in the core of the present government eating its vitals out so the upset would be an easy one.

  For a long time I sat there working up more hatred than I had ever had at any time and I wasn’t conscious of how tightly Ethel Brighton was squeezing my hand. When I looked at her tears were running down her face. That’s the kind of thing the general and his party could do to decent people.

  I took a long look at him, making sure that I wouldn’t forget his face, because some day he’d be passing a dark alley or forget to lock his door when he went to bed. That’s when he’d catch it. And I didn’t want to get tagged for it either. That would be like getting the chair for squashing a spider.

  The meeting ended with handshakes all around. The audience lined up along the walls taking handfuls of booklets and printed sheets to distribute later, then grouped in bunches around the room talking things over in excited murmurs. Henry Gladow and Martin Romberg were up on the rostrum having their own conference. The general said something to Henry and he must have ordered his bodyguard down into the crowd to look for his trench coat or something. Martin Romberg looked hurt. Tough.

  While the seats were folded and stacked I lost track of Ethel. I saw her a few minutes later coming from the washroom and she looked a little better. She had a smile for me this time, a big one. I would have made something of it if a pimply-faced kid about twenty didn’t come crawling over and tell m
e that the general wanted to know if I had time to speak to him.

  Rather than answer I picked a hole in the crowd that had started to head for the door and walked up to the rostrum. The general stood alone, his hands behind his back. He nodded briefly and said something in a guttural tongue.

  I let my eyes slide to the few who remained near by. There wasn’t any respect in my tone when I said, “English. You know better than that.”

  The general paled a little and his mouth worked. “Yes ... yes. I didn’t expect to find anyone here. Do you have a report for me?”

  I shook a cigarette out of the pack and stuck it in my mouth. “When I have you’ll know about it.”

  His head bobbed anxiously and I knew I had the bull on him. Even a general had to be leery of the MVD. That made it nice for me. “Of course. But there should be some word to bring back to the committee.”

  “Then tell ’em things are looking up. It won’t be long.”

  The general’s hands came out in front where he squeezed them happily. “Then you do have word! The courier ... he did have the documents? You know where they are?”

  I didn’t say a word. All I did was look at him and he got that same look on his face as the others had. He was thinking what I thought he was thinking, that he had taken me for granted and it was his mistake and one word to the right sources and he’d feel the ax.

  He tried his first smile. “It is very all right, you know. Comrade Gladow told me.”

  I dragged on the cigarette and blew it in his face wishing it was some mustard gas. “You’ll know soon enough,” I said. I left him standing there and walked back to Ethel. She was slipping into her mink and nobody seemed to care a hoot what she wore.

  “Going home?”

  “Yes ... are you?”

  “I don’t mind.”

  One of the men paused to have a word with her before she left. She excused herself to talk to him and I used the time to look around and be sure there weren’t any faces there that I’d ever forget. When the time came I wanted to be able to put the finger on them and put it on good.

  Maybe it was the way I stared at the babe from the desk at the door or maybe it was because I looked at her too long. Her lashes made like bird’s wings for a second and everything in the room seemed to get interesting all of a sudden. Her eyes jerked around but kept coming back to mine and each time there was a little more of a blush crowding her hairline.

  I kept my grin hidden because she thought I was on the make. It could have been pathetic if it wasn’t so damn funny. She wasn’t the kind of woman a guy would bother with if there was anything else around. Strictly the last resort type. From the way she wore her clothes you couldn’t tell what was underneath and suspected probably nothing. Her face looked like nature had been tired when it made it and whatever she did to her hair certainly didn’t improve things any.

  Plain was the word. Stuffy was the type. And here she thought a man saw something interesting in her.

  I guessed that all women were born with some conceit in them so I put on a sort of smile and walked over to her casually. A little flattery could make a woman useful sometimes.

  I held out my deck of butts. “Smoke?”

  It must have been her first cigarette. She choked on it, but came up smiling. “Thank you.”

  I said, “You’ve, er ... belonged some time, Miss ...”

  “Linda Holbright.” She got real fluttery then. “Oh, yes, for years, you know. And I ... try to do anything I can for the party.”

  “Good, good,” I said. “You seem to be ... very capable. Pretty, too.”

  Her first blush had been nothing. This one went right down to her shoes. Her eyes got big and blue and round and gave me the damnedest look you ever saw. Just for the hell of it I gave one back with a punch in it. What she made of it stopped her from breathing for a second.

  I heard Ethel finish her little conversation behind me and I said, “Good night, Linda. I’ll see you soon.” I gave her that look again. “Real soon.”

  Her voice sounded a little bit strained. “I ... meant to ask you. If there is anything ... important you should know ... where can I reach you?”

  I ripped the back off a book of matches and wrote down my address. “Here it is. Apartment 5B.”

  Ethel was waiting for me, so I said good night again and started for the door behind the mink coat. It made nice wiggles when she walked. I liked that.

  I let her go out first then followed her. The street was empty enough so you wouldn’t think anything unusual about the few couples who were making their way to the subways. Trench Coat was still at the door holding a cigarette in his mouth. His belt was too tight and the gun showed underneath. One day a cop would spot that and there’d be more trouble.

  Yeah, they sure were smart.

  Going back was better than going down. This time Ethel turned into a vivid conversationalist, commenting on everything she saw. I tried to get in a remark about the meeting and she brushed it off with some fast talk. I let her get it out of her system, sitting there with my mouth shut, grinning at the right places and chiming in with a grunt whenever she laughed.

  About a block from my apartment I pointed to the corner and said, “I’ll get off under the light, kid.”

  She edged into the curb and stopped. “Good night, then,” she smiled. “I hope you enjoyed the meeting.”

  “As a matter of fact, I thought they stunk.” Ethel’s mouth dropped open. I kissed it and she closed it, fast. “Do you know what I’d do if I were you, Ethel?”

  She shook her head, watching me strangely.

  “I’d go back to being a woman and less of a dabbler in politics.”

  This time her eyes and mouth came open together. I kissed her again before she could get it shut. She looked at me as if I were a puzzle that couldn’t be solved and let out a short, sharp laugh that had real pleasure in it.

  “Aren’t you a bit curious about my name, Ethel?”

  Her face went soft. “Only for my own sake.”

  “It’s Mike. Mike Hammer and it’s a good name to remember.”

  “Mike ...” very softly. “After last night ... how could I forget?”

  I grinned at her and opened the door. “Will I be seeing you again?”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Very much.”

  “Then you’ll be seeing me again. You know where I live.”

  I couldn’t forget her, either. On that bearskin rug with the fire behind her she was something a man never forgets. I stuck my hands in my pockets and started to whistle my way down the street.

  I got as far as the door next to mine when the sedan across the street came to life. If the guy at the wheel hadn’t let the clutch out so fast I wouldn’t have looked up and seen the snout of the rifle that hung out the back window. What happened then came in a blur of motion and a mad blasting of sound. The long streak of flame from the rifle, the screaming of the ricocheted slug, the howl of the car engine. I dove flat out. Rolling before I hit the concrete, my hand pulling the gun out, my thumb grabbing for the hammer. The rifle barked again and gouged a hunk out of the sidewalk in front of my face, but by that time the .45 in my hand was bucking out the bullets as fast as my finger could pull the trigger, and in the light of the street lamp overhead I saw the dimples pop into the back of the car and the rear window spiderweb suddenly and smash to the ground. Somebody in the car screamed like a banshee gone mad and there were no more shots. Around me the windows were slamming up before the car had made the turn at the corner.

  I kept saying it over and over to myself. “Those goddamned bastards. They got wise! Those goddamn bastards!”

  A woman shrieked from a window that somebody was dead and when I looked up I saw she was pointing to me. When I climbed back on my feet she shrieked again and fell away from the window.

  It hadn’t been a full twenty seconds since that car had started up, and a police car was wheeling around the corner. The driver slammed on the brakes and the tw
o of them came out with Police Specials in their hands, both of them pointed at me. I was trying to shove a fresh load into the clip when the cop snarled, “Drop that gun, damn it!”

  I wasn’t doing any arguing with them. I tossed the gun so it landed on my foot then shoved it away gently. The other cop picked it up. Before they told me to put my hands on my head and stood there while they flashed the beam of light in my face.

  “There’s a ticket for that rod in my wallet along with a Private Operator’s license.”

  The cop didn’t lose any time frisking me for another rod before yanking my wallet out. He had a skeptical look on his face until he saw the ticket. “Okay, put ’em down,” he said. I dropped my hands and reached for my .45. “I didn’t say to pick that up yet,” he added. I let it stay there. The cop who drove the buggy looked the ticket over then looked at me. He said something to his partner and motioned for me to get the gun.

  “All clear?” I blew the dust off old Betsy and stowed it away. A crowd was beginning to collect and one of the cops started to herd them away.

  “What happened?” He wasn’t a man of many words.

  “There you got me, feller. I was on my way home when the shooting started. Either it’s the old yarn of mistaken identity which isn’t too probable or somebody whom I thought was a friend, isn’t.”

  “Maybe you better come with us.”

  “Sure, but in the meantime a black Buick sedan with no back window and a few bullets in its behind is making tracks to the nearest garage. I think I got one of the guys in the car and you can start checking the doctors.”

  The cop peered at me under his visor and took my word for it. The call went out on the police wires without any more talk. They were all for dragging me with them until I had a call put in to Pat and his answer relayed back to the squad car. Pat told them I was available at any time and they gave me the green light through the crowd.