The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 3 Read online

  She reached out her hand and I stood up, tilted her chin up with my fingers and held her that way. “You’re thinking, kitten.”

  “With you I have to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because somehow you know Leo’s death is part of her, and I feel the same way you do. Whoever killed Leo is going to die too.”

  I let go of her face, put my hands on her shoulders and pulled her close to me. “If he’s the one I want I’ll kill him for you, kid.”

  “No, Mike. I’ll do it myself.” And her voice was as cold and as full of purpose as my own when she said it. Then she added, “You just find that one for me.”

  “You’re asking a lot, girl.”

  “Am I? After you left I found out all about you. It didn’t take long. It was very fascinating information, but nothing I didn’t know the first minute I saw you.”

  “That was me of a long time ago. I’ve been seven years drunk and I’m just over the bum stage now. Maybe I could drop back real easy. I don’t know.”

  “I know.”

  “Nobody knows. Besides, I’m not authorized to pursue investigations.”

  “That doesn’t seem to stop you.”

  A grin started to etch my face again. “You’re getting to a point, kid.”

  She laughed gently, a full, quiet laugh. Once again her hand came up to my face. “Then I’ll help you find your woman, Mike, if you’ll find who killed Leo.”

  “Laura—”

  “When Leo died the investigation was simply routine. They were more concerned about the political repercussions than in locating his killer. They forgot about that one, but I haven’t. I thought I had, but I really hadn’t. Nobody would look for me—they all promised and turned in reports, but they never really cared about finding that one. But you do, Mike, and somehow I know you will. Oh, you have no license and no authority, but I have money and it will put many things at your disposal. You take it. You find your woman, and while you’re doing it, or before, or after, whatever you like, you find the one I want. Tomorrow I’ll send you five thousand dollars in cash. No questions. No paperwork. No reports. Even if nothing comes of it there is no obligation on you.”

  Under my hands she was trembling. It didn’t show on her face, but her shoulders quivered with tension. “You loved him very much,” I stated.

  She nodded. “As you loved her.”

  We were too close then, both of us feeling the jarring impact of new and sudden emotions. My hands were things of their own, leaving her shoulders to slide down to her waist, then reaching behind her to bring her body close to mine until it was touching, then pressing until a fusion was almost reached.

  She had to gasp to breathe, and fingers that were light on my face were suddenly as fierce and demanding as my own as she brought me down to meet her mouth and the scalding touch of her tongue that worked serpentlike in a passionate orgy that screamed of release after so long a time.

  She pulled away, her breasts moving spasmodically against my chest. Her eyes were wet and shimmering with a glow of disbelief that it could ever happen again and she said softly: “You, Mike—I want a man. It could never be anybody but—a man.” She turned her eyes on mine, pleading. “Please, Mike.”

  “You never have to say please,” I told her, then I kissed her again and we found our place in time and in distance, lost people who didn’t have to hurry or be cautious and who could enjoy the sensual discomfort of a cold leather couch on naked skin and take pleasure in the whispering of clothing and relish the tiny sounds of a bursting seam; two whose appetites had been stifled for much too long, yet who loved the food of flesh enough not to rush through the first offering, but to taste and become filled course by course until in an explosion of delight, the grand finale of the whole table, was served and partaken.

  We were gourmets, the body satisfied, but the mind knowing that it was only a momentary filling and that there would be other meals, each different, each more succulent than the last in a never-ending progression of enjoyment. The banquet was over so we kissed and smiled at each other, neither having been the guest, but rather, one the host, the other the hostess, both having the same startling thought of Where was the past now? Could the present possibly be more important?

  When she was ready I said, “Let’s get you home now, Laura.”

  “Must I?”

  “You must.”

  “I could stay in town.”

  “If you did it would be a distraction I can’t afford.”

  “But I live a hundred and ten miles from your city.”

  “That’s only two hours up the Thruway and over the hills.”

  She grinned at me. “Will you come?”

  I grinned back. “Naturally.”

  I picked up my hat and guided her to the outer office. For a single, terrible moment I felt a wash of shame drench me with guilt. There on the floor where it had been squashed underfoot by the one who killed old Morris Fleming and who had taken a shot at me was the letter from Velda that began, “Mike Darling—”

  We sat at the corner of the bar in P. J. Moriarty’s steak and chop house on Sixth and Fifty-second and across the angle his eyes were terrible little beads, magnified by the lenses of his glasses. John, the Irish bartender, brought us each a cold Blue Ribbon, leaving without a word because he could feel the thing that existed there.

  Art Rickerby said, “How far do you think you can go?”

  “All the way,” I said.

  “Not with me.”

  “Then alone.”

  He poured the beer and drank it as if it were water and he was thirsty, yet in a perfunctory manner that made you realize he wasn’t a drinker at all, but simply doing a job, something he had to do.

  When he finished he put the glass down and stared at me blandly. “You don’t realize just how alone you really are.”

  “I know. Now do we talk?”

  “Do you?”

  “You gave me a week, buddy.”

  “Uh-huh.” He poured the rest of the bottle into the glass and made a pattern with the wet bottom on the bar. When he looked up he said, “I may take it back.”

  I shrugged. “So you found something out.”

  “I did. About you too.”

  “Go ahead.”

  From overhead, the light bounced from his glasses so I couldn’t see what was happening to his eyes. He said, “Richie was a little bigger than I thought during the war. He was quite important. Quite.”

  “At his age?”

  “He was your age, Mike. And during the war age can be as much of a disguise as a deciding factor.”

  “Get to it.”

  “My pleasure.” He paused, looked at me and threw the rest of the beer down. “He commanded the Seventeen Group.” When I didn’t give him the reaction he looked for he asked me, “Did you ever hear of Butterfly Two?”

  I covered the frown that pulled at my forehead by finishing my own beer and waving to John for another. “I heard of it. I don’t know the details. Something to do with the German system of total espionage. They had people working for them ever since the First World War.”

  There was something like respect in his eyes now. “It’s amazing that you even heard of it.”

  “I have friends in amazing places.”

  “Yes, you had.”

  As slowly as I could I put the glass down. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  And then his eyes came up, fastened on my face so as not to lose sight of even the slightest expression and he said, “It was your girl, the one called Velda, that he saw on the few occasions he was home. She was something left over from the war.”

  The glass broke in my hand and I felt a warm surge of blood spill into my hand. I took the towel John offered me and held it until the bleeding stopped. I said, “Go on.”

  Art smiled. It was the wrong kind of smile, with a gruesome quality that didn’t match his face. “He last saw her in Paris just before the war ended and at that time he was working on Butterfly Two.�
��

  I gave the towel back to John and pressed on the Band-Aid he gave me.

  “Gerald Erlich was the target then. At the time his name wasn’t known except to Richie—and the enemy. Does it make sense now?”

  “No.” My guts were starting to turn upside down. I reached for the beer again, but it was too much. I couldn’t do anything except listen.

  “Erlich was the head of an espionage ring that had been instituted in 1920. Those agents went into every land in the world to get ready for the next war and even raised their children to be agents. Do you think World War II was simply the result of a political turnover? ”

  “Politics are not my speciality.”

  “Well, it wasn’t. There was another group. It wasn’t part of the German General Staff’s machinations either. They utilized this group and so did Hitler—or better still, let’s say vice versa.”

  I shook my head, not getting it at all.

  “It was a world conquest scheme. It incorporated some of the greatest military and corrupt minds this world has ever known and is using global wars and brushfire wars to its own advantage until one day when everything is ready they can take over the world for their own.”

  “You’re nuts!”

  “I am?” he said softly. “How many powers were involved in 1918?”

  “All but a few.”

  “That’s right. And in 1945?”

  “All of them were—”

  “Not quite. I mean, who were the major powers?”

  “We were. England, Germany, Russia, Japan—”

  “That narrows it down a bit, doesn’t it? And now, right now, how many major powers are there really?”

  What he was getting at was almost inconceivable. “Two. Ourselves and the Reds.”

  “Ah—now we’re getting to the point. And they hold most of the world’s land and inhabitants in their hands. They’re the antagonists. They’re the ones pushing and we’re the ones holding.”

  “Damn it, Rickerby—”

  “Easy, friend. Just think a little bit.”

  “Ah, think my ass. What the hell are you getting to? Velda’s part of that deal? You have visions, man, you got the big bug! Damn, I can get better than that from them at a jag dance in the Village. Even the bearded idiots make more sense.”

  His mouth didn’t smile. It twisted. “Your tense is unusual. You spoke as if she were alive.”

  I let it go. I deliberately poured the beer into the glass until the head was foaming over the rim, then drank it off with a grimace of pleasure and put the glass down.

  When I was ready I said, “So now the Reds are going to take over the world. They’ll bury us. Well, maybe they will, buddy, but there won’t be enough Reds around to start repopulating again, that’s for sure.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Art told me.

  His manner had changed again. I threw him an annoyed look and reached for the beer.

  “I think the world conquest parties changed hands. The conqueror has been conquered. The Reds have located and are using this vast fund of information, this great organization we call Butterfly Two, and that’s why the free world is on the defensive.”

  John asked me if I wanted another Blue Ribbon and I said yes. He brought two, poured them, put the bar check in the register and returned it with a nod. When he had gone I half swung around, no longer so filled with a crazy fury that I couldn’t speak. I said, “You’re lucky, Rickerby. I didn’t know whether to belt you in the mouth or listen.”

  “You’re fortunate you listened.”

  “Then finish it. You think Velda’s part of Butterfly Two.” Everything, yet nothing, was in his shrug. “I didn’t ask that many questions. I didn’t care. All I want is Richie’s killer.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question. What do you think?”

  Once again he shrugged. “It looks like she was,” he told me.

  So I thought my way through it and let the line cut all the corners off because there wasn’t that much time and I asked him, “What was Richie working on when he was killed?”

  Somehow, he knew I was going to ask that one and shook his head sadly. “Not that at all. His current job had to do with illegal gold shipments.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Then what about this Erlich?”

  Noncommittally, Art shrugged. “Dead or disappeared. Swallowed up in the aftermath of war. Nobody knows.”

  “Somebody does,” I reminded him. “The Big Agency boys don’t give up their targets that easily. Not if the target is so big it makes a lifetime speciality of espionage.”

  He reflected a moment and nodded. “Quite possible. However, it’s more than likely Erlich is dead at this point. He’d be in his sixties now if he escaped the general roundup of agents after the war. When the underground organizations of Europe were free of restraint they didn’t wait on public trials. They knew who their targets were and how to find them. You’d be surprised at just how many people simply disappeared, big people and little people, agents and collaborators both. Many a person we wanted badly went into a garbage pit somewhere.”

  “Is that an official attitude?”

  “Don’t be silly. We don’t reflect on attitudes to civilians. Occasionally it becomes necessary—”

  “Now, for instance,” I interrupted.

  “Yes, like now. And believe me, they’re better off knowing nothing.”

  Through the glasses his eyes tried to read me, then lost whatever expression they had. There was a touch of contempt and disgust in the way he sat there, examining me like a specimen under glass, then the last part of my line cut across the last corner and I asked him casually, “Who’s The Dragon?”

  Art Rickerby was good. Damn, but he was good. It was as if I had asked what time it was and he had no watch. But he just wasn’t that good. I saw all the little things happen to him that nobody else would have noticed and watched them grow and grow until he could contain them no longer and had to sluff them off with an aside remark. So with an insipid look that didn’t become him at all he said, “Who?”

  “Or is it whom? Art?”

  I had him where the hair was short and he knew it. He had given me all the big talk but this one was one too big. It was even bigger than he was and he didn’t quite know how to handle it. You could say this about him: he was a book man. He put all the facts through the machine in his head and took the risk alone. He couldn’t tell what I knew, yet he couldn’t tell what I didn’t know. Neither could he take a chance on having me clam up.

  Art Rickerby was strictly a statesman. A federal agent, true, a cop, a dedicated servant of the people, but foremost he was a statesman. He was dealing with big security now and all the wraps were off. We were in a bar drinking beer and somehow the world was at our feet. What was it Laura had said—“I saw wars start over a drink”—and now it was almost the same thing right here.

  “You didn’t answer me,” I prodded.

  He put his glass down, and for the first time his hand wasn’t steady. “How did you know about that?”

  “Tell me, is it a big secret?”

  His voice had an edge to it. “Top secret.”

  “Well, whatta you know.”

  “Hammer—”

  “Nuts, Rickerby. You tell me.”

  Time was on my side now. I could afford a little bit of it. He couldn’t. He was going to have to get to a phone to let someone bigger than he was know that The Dragon wasn’t a secret any longer. He flipped the mental coin and that someone lost. He turned slowly and took his glasses off, wiping them on a handkerchief. They were all fogged up. “The Dragon is a team.”

  “So is Rutgers.”

  The joke didn’t go across. Ignoring it, he said, “It’s a code name for an execution team. There are two parts, Tooth and Nail.”

  I turned the glass around in my hand, staring at it, waiting. I asked, “Commies?”

  “Yes.” His reluctance was almost tangible. He finally said,
“I can name persons throughout the world in critical positions in government who have died lately, some violently, some of natural causes apparently. You would probably recognize their names.”

  “I doubt it. I’ve been out of circulation for seven years.”

  He put the glasses on again and looked at the backbar. “I wonder,” he mused to himself.

  “The Dragon, Rickerby, if it were so important, how come the name never appeared? With a name like that it was bound to show.”

  “Hell,” he said, “it was our code name, not theirs.” His hands made an innocuous gesture, then folded together. “And now that you know something no one outside our agency knows, perhaps you’ll tell me a little something about The Dragon.”

  “Sure,” I said, and I watched his face closely. “The Dragon killed Richie.”

  Nothing showed.

  “Now The Dragon is trying to kill Velda.”

  Still nothing showed, but he said calmly, “How do you know?”

  “Richie told me. That’s what he told me before he died. So she couldn’t be tied up with the other side, could she?”

  Unexpectedly, he smiled, tight and deadly and you really couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “You never know,” Art answered. “When their own kind slip from grace, they too become targets. We have such in our records. It isn’t even unusual.”

  “You bastard.”

  “You know too much, Mr. Hammer. You might become a target yourself.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  He took a bill from his pocket and put it on the bar. John took it, totaled up the check and hit the register. When he gave the change back Art said, “Thanks for being so candid. Thank you for The Dragon.”

  “You leaving it like that?”

  “I think that’s it, don’t you?”

  “Sucker,” I said.

  He stopped halfway off his stool.

  “You don’t think I’d be that stupid, do you? Even after seven years I wouldn’t be that much of a joker.”

  For a minute he was the placid little gray man I had first met, then almost sorrowfully he nodded and said, “I’m losing my insight. I thought I had it all. What else do you know?”