The Big Bang Page 10

  I spread my hands. "The things some people will do to rub up against a celebrity."

  He didn't even smile at that. He just got up and went to the door, where he stopped and glared at me.

  "You may be a celebrity, Mike. But you're going to look like just another dead nobody wrapped up in a rubber body bag."

  He went out quickly, not shutting the inner-office door.

  Velda ambled in, in her catlike way, and asked, "What's his problem?"

  "Ah, he's just pissed because we set him up with that broad Helen."

  "Why would that make him mad?"

  I pawed at the air. "The sap just can't handle the steep banks and the dark tunnels."

  That got a nice purring laugh from her, and she dropped off the notes of the Traynor meeting, already typed up.

  "You're fast," I said.

  "Took you long enough." She perched on the edge of my desk, plucked the Lucky out of my mouth, and sucked on it. She let the smoke curl out and I gave her a don't-start-with-me look, and she said, "So why the charade?"

  "Huh?"

  "Don't play dumb. That lobby bit was self-defense that you rigged to stay out of it. Why did you bother? You could have walked away clean."

  I waved that off. "So soon after nailing Billy Blue's attackers? That clown Traynor would have kept me downtown forever. Might have charged me on manslaughter or even murder. At the very least, I'd have had my P.I. ticket suspended and my gun permit pulled."

  "I'd still have my ticket and my permit."

  "Swell, but you're holding down the fort while I'm out chasing Indians. Anyway, I like the message it sends."

  "To the cops and the D.A.'s office?"

  "No. Fuck the cops and the D.A.'s office. I'm talking about whoever sent those St. Louis bozos to splatter me. I like knowing that somewhere some asshole is wondering how I pulled that off, and is coming to the realization of just how much trouble he's in."

  She frowned down at me. "What 'asshole'? This Jay Wren? Or maybe Junior Evello?"

  "Or both," I said.

  She slid off the desk and shook her head and the dark tresses shimmered and bounced. "You need a new hobby."

  "And I bet you have a suggestion."

  She nodded and gave me a look that made the need-anything-just-whistle one Bacall gave Bogie seem like kid stuff. She took her feline time making her way back to her desk, leaving the door between us open so she could drive me crazy with those long legs.

  No problem. I wasn't planning to hang around the office, anyway.

  Old friends have other friends and, if the word is good, they can pass you up the line until one has something to say.

  It had taken me three days and two hundred bucks to get to Marvin Stedman, a thirty-five-year-old heroin addict they called the Junkman.

  Junkman was no ordinary heroin addict, if there is such a thing. Coming off twenty years of pulling down scores, and building a rep as a crook you could trust, Stedman had thrown in with Jay Wren to aid in the dope operation. So far so good, but the exheister made the classic dealer mistake of liking his own product too well, and he got himself hooked.

  Within a period of less than two years, he'd been nailed by the narco squad on seven different occasions, and got retired out of the organization. He did not get a gold watch. Getting fired from the rackets often entails getting fired at—and the Snowbird's boys tried to liquidate him twice, not with slugs but with overdoses.

  Apparently they didn't know how much immunity the Junkman had built up for himself. He'd survived both attempts and emerged with an even bigger habit. Since before he'd gone to work for Wren, Stedman had been a first-class heister, and he'd returned to his old ways. More reckless now, the Junkman still had a knack for small-scale knockovers.

  The Wren outfit took him off their hit list when they found Junkman, out of desperation, overpaying for his bundle of glassine packets with two- to ten-carat chunks of jewelry lifted from show-biz personalities' hotel rooms. A junkie with this kind of initiative was rare, and he went from liability to the kind of prime customer worth keeping.

  Also, the Snowbird apparently had his own uses for the Junkman's talent as a break-in artist, and kept him handy for certain delicate jobs. Junkman could plant evidence for the narcs, if a balky operator didn't like the way the game was going, or do a home invasion that was in reality a mission, Junkman checking out anybody Wren thought might be trying to work the territory.

  Sweetest of all, Junkman's services came cheap. All they had to do was cut off his supply, and he was ready to do whatever it took to climb back on the Horse.

  I did it the other way around.

  He was hurting when I found him, and I made sure he got his fix—at least enough of one to calm him down and set me up as an all-right guy. But he was going to need more and fast, and knowing how tight the stuff was on the street, Junkman was grateful for the jolt that eased the big hurt that had him on a bare, ancient mattress, cramped up against the headboard of a metal bed in the crummy old hotel.

  Funny. Around the turn of the century, these walls and halls had been filled with wealthy wastrels of the Stanford White and Harry Thaw variety, a luxurious hideaway for monied marital cheaters and other high-hat sinners. But neighborhoods change and shift, and the old hotel had long ago decayed into a way station for transients and junkies and other dwellers on the fringes of society.

  I had walked a hall where paint peeled and occasional bare bulbs gave off halfhearted yellow light. You could smell the disinfectant but also the urine, mingled with the smell of cheap canned food getting heated up. The fate of the old dump might be a hot plate with a frayed cord causing a fire, or a slumlord with a can of gasoline doing the same. Either way, the terrible promise of hellish flames hung over everything.

  Now I was sitting in a creaky, scarred-up wooden chair next to the Junkman's bed, as if I were visiting a patient at the world's worst hospital.

  Skinny, pale, sunken-chested, Marvin Stedman was a little man made smaller by life, his face an oval of deep-grooved flesh, his thin gray matted hair as long as any hippie kid on the street, but not a fashion statement or a social protest. He wore frayed, faded long johns and no shoes—the needle marks between his toes were as obvious as on the track-marked forearm that he used to wipe his nose.

  "Thanks, man," he said. His voice was a rasp crossed with a wheeze. "I was dying, man. I was really no shit dying." A shudder racked him again, and when it passed, he looked at me with bloodshot eyes, his tobacco-stained teeth clamped tightly together under gums with nasty sores. "Ain't been that close in a long time, my friend."

  "Pretty bad, huh?"

  "Bad don't cover it. What's your name, buddy?"

  "Hammer."

  "Where'd you score, man? Ain't nothin' out there. Them streets are naked as shit."

  "A buddy of mine was holding a spare."

  He worked at studying my face. "You don't look like no junkie, man."

  "I'm not."

  "And I ... don't make you no narco, neither."

  "Right again."

  A little light seeped into the rheumy eyes that radiated pure fear. "What do you want from me?"

  There had been no questions before. No questions when a stranger in a trench coat showed up at his door with a glassine bag of powder for him. Just snatch it up and find the spoon and heat it up and slam it home.

  Now he had questions.

  "You want to know something," he said, "don't you?"

  "Everybody wants to know something, Junkman."

  "Ain't nothin' free. You're gonna hold me here ... until it hits again ... and then you figure I'll talk."

  "Nope. I'm just going to walk out."

  He sat up. The metal bed groaned. So did Junkman. "Look, man, you gotta tell me where you scored!"

  "I don't gotta do nothing," I said.

  "Man, I'll die!" He pushed away from the headboard and half collapsed on the filthy mattress. "You don't know how it is, man. I can't make it by myself."

 
He dropped his head in an attitude of pure pathos, staring blankly at his hands. They weren't trembling. Thanks to me, he'd shot up not long ago. But they were empty—as empty as his prospects.

  "Man, man, I didn't know I wanted to keep on living so bad. Used to be ... I thought dying was nice ... only come to find, it's worse'n livin'."

  "They got treatment centers, Junkman."

  The shake of his head was barely discernible. "Forget it. Wouldn't do nohow. Ain't nothin' for me but this." His smile was a death mask. "You're lookin' at a real, hardcore head, Mr. Hammer. You see ... I like it. Mother's milk. Nectar of the gods. Only thing worth livin' for."

  "But you're killing yourself, Junkman."

  "Yeah, man, but slow. Like real slow... floating, man...."

  "Only when you aren't floating, Junkman, you're hurting—hurting all the way. Is it worth it?"

  "Well ... that ... that's ... the bad part. I admit it. Look, Mr. Hammer, I appreciate what you done for me. But you know I am gonna need another fix, and soon. I am really gonna need another fix. You think maybe you could help me out again?"

  "We can talk about that after."

  "After what, Mr. Hammer?" He was mellow now.

  "After you answer some questions."

  "I was right ... I was right about you...."

  "You said it yourself—the street has dried up. Who's holding back the stuff, Junkman? What the hell is shaking out there? A price war on?"

  "Might be a war coming."

  "Oh?"

  "Snowbird and the Syndicate."

  "I thought they worked together?"

  "Snowbird ... he has ambitions."

  "So he's holding back?"

  "No! No ... no ... too much heat ... cops got lucky couple times, and now ... no stuff. Not for ages, not for ever. Everybody's waitin' ... dying inside and waitin'..."

  "Till the Snowbird comes through?"

  "That ... that bastard don't care about nothin' or nobody. He ain't no user. He ain't dying. He don't know how it feels to have your guts churn up inside you like they was tryin' to crawl out."

  I shifted and the chair complained. "Junkman, businesses can't let their customers die. Otherwise there won't be a business."

  "Sure, sure, and it is comin' in. It is comin'."

  "Who says?"

  "The street. Word on the street."

  "Who's spreading that word?"

  "Snowbird's boys. Only ... I can't wait two more weeks, Mr. Hammer. Man, I'm carryin' one heavy fuckin' monkey, you know? I got King Fuckin' Kong on my back! I don't need it next week! I need it right now!"

  "What happens next week?"

  He got his head up and his eyes had more of a shine in them. "Mr. Hammer, that's just the word that's out. I told you. I don't know from nothin'."

  "Where's the new shipment coming from?"

  "I don't give a shit, understand? I just know I'm gonna need it...."

  "Junkman," I told him, "I can tap a couple of sources, but whatever those guys can spare, you won't be off the hook for more than today. I'm sorry, man, but that's all I can manage. It's tighter outside for me than it is for you. I have my contacts, my sources, but this is your world."

  And welcome to it.

  "Yeah, Mr. Hammer, I hear you, but you got bread, man. I ain't even been able to hustle a tie clip since the heat went on."

  "A week is a long time," I reminded him. "If you know who I can hit, to get the stuff, you better give me the word. And maybe I can score you some."

  His cheeks seemed to sink in even further and he fell back against the headboard again. "Just the Snowbird and his boys. That's the only ones I know."

  I shrugged. "Then I can't help you."

  He smiled weakly. "So, then, it's dying time, man, right? If it ain't on the street..."

  "The Snowbird's cupboards are bare? I figured he was just doling out a supply."

  "What supply? He's waitin', too."

  "Who's his source?"

  It was another slow span of time before he spoke again. "You're asking too small a fry, man. All I know is ... it all ... comes down the line."

  "Who's in line ahead of Snowbird?"

  The Junkman rolled his palms up helplessly. "You said it, Mr. Hammer ... the Syndicate. The Evello Family, working their middlemen ... the receivers."

  "No names?"

  "No names, no faces, nothin', man. They're just there, and if they don't come through fast ... man, this town's gonna be really strung out, like you never seen."

  "You know Russell Frazer?"

  His voice was a harsh whisper: "I know the fuckin' fink."

  "He bought it," I said.

  "Bastard tried to O.D. me, once." His eyes came up and peered at me through the mental haze. "Come around saying he felt sorry for me. Do me a favor, for old times, fink Frazer. Gimme a hot shot. Tried to boil me out." Somehow he managed a skull-with-skin grin. "Sent me flyin', but I fooled him—man, I came down. Who's he think he's dealin' with? Bastard fink."

  Then my words finally sank in and he squinted, trying to get me in focus. "Bought it? You mean ... he bad-tripped out?"

  "Naw. Knife job."

  The Junkman nodded approvingly. "Good. Good fuckin' riddance. Now he won't be hittin' no more school kids. That's the new way, Mr. Hammer—screw the old trade ... hook the straights. Suck the money kids." He shook his head. "That bastard was due."

  He took a breath, then fumbled in the ashtray for a broken cigarette butt.

  I gave him a fresh Lucky and held a match out to the tip. He drew on it till the tip burned red, but then just held it without smoking.

  "Who ... who carved his ass?"

  "The cops said it was a mugging."

  His dry lips stretched humorlessly across the bad teeth. "Not that fink. He just made too many ... too many bad runs."

  There was more I wanted to ask him, but it would have to be another time. The Junkman's eyes weren't all the way closed, but he was off in happy land.

  I took the burning cigarette from fingers already scarred from hot tips, and squashed it out. No need to let the hellish flames take this old hotel, and Junkman, sooner than necessary.

  But the old junkie had told me something.

  I wasn't sure just exactly what it was, but something had been fed into the computer between my ears, and was sitting there waiting for other bits and pieces of information that would finally read out an answer.

  Who was I kidding? I didn't know what the question was—though I was pretty sure it had something to do with why bringing in guns from St. Louis to kill Mike Hammer was a good business move.

  For somebody.

  Chapter Seven

  FROM A WINDOW BOOTH at Marco's Bar and Grill, I watched Velda get out of the cab, those long sleek legs unmistakably announcing her. She was in a cream-colored silk blouse and a dark brown tight skirt, simple fare that she made sexier than a bikini on any other woman.

  She strode in, purse tucked under her arm, and I came up to take her elbow and guide her to a back booth, where we ordered a couple of drinks. She glanced around the place, taking in the lone hardhat gouging his way into a huge hero sandwich, determined to finish it on a ten-minute break, and the pair of gay lovers nuzzling at the bar. The counterman was watching a late-afternoon soap opera, ignoring the real thing a few feet away.

  Velda shoved a sealed envelope at me after the drinks came, and held a match up to my cigarette.

  "This far uptown," she said, "you're as out of place as a Van Gogh on Coney Island."

  "Says who?" I said. "I've seen plenty of guys with one ear out there." I ripped open the flap and shook out the file cards with the photos stapled to them. "Have any trouble getting the stuff?"

  "Nope. Bud Tiller is still paying back for the help you gave him with the Hanley case."

  "I thought I owed him one."

  "Maybe, but that Hanley deal would've cost him his license, if you hadn't waded in." Her dark eyes were reassuring. "Being an ex-FBI type, Bud's contacts are solid."

/>   I was looking at mug shots of the hit men who'd tried to take me out in my apartment-building lobby.

  She said, "Even the papers haven't got those."

  The pair of police photos had been taken over ten years ago. Despite the occasion, both faces had an expression of unconcealed arrogance. Louis "Frenchy" Tallman had been booked on attempted assault, the case later dismissed because the victim refused to press charges, and Gerald Kopf on car theft. Kopf was convicted, sentenced, but put on probation for a year because it was his first offense. No other charges were registered, although the two were rumored to be open for contract kills, and had been questioned several times about various murders in several states.

  "What interests me most," Velda said, "is their background."

  "Yeah. Me, too."

  They were originally New York boys—specifically, Brooklynites. They'd met in reform school and, although that part of their package was sealed, the name of the street gang they'd been in was mentioned.

  "The Jackers," I said. "Short for 'hijackers'—those kids were the farm team for the Evello mob."

  "So we have an interesting connection, despite the out-of-town tag."

  I moved on to the other photos.

  The pic of Russell Frazer was taken on a slab in the morgue, and he looked like he was asleep. Well, he was—he just wasn't waking up.

  The one of the guy who had supposedly knifed Frazer had been grabbed by a newspaper photog and showed a surly, half-bald joker getting hauled out of a hotel entrance by a couple of uniformed cops. Behind him was a sullen whore with a boxer's nose, a delicate flower with twenty-eight previous arrests going for her. This was the first New York bust for the guy—or maybe I should say fall guy—who was registered at the Stearman Hotel as Edwin Brooke.

  I let my eyes run over the picture again, picking up the background. "Isn't this Broadway?" I asked her.

  "The Stearman Hotel is next to that cafeteria where all the junkies hang out."

  I frowned. "Hell, that's two blocks from the Avondale, where Frazer lived in his salad days."

  Velda nodded, then caught up with me and said, "You think Brooke might have known Russell Frazer?"

  "It's the same neighborhood."