The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 3 Page 14

  How could she still be alive?

  Seven years is a long time to hide. Too long. Why? Why?

  So think, old soldier. Go over the possibilities.

  The rain came down a little harder and began to run off the brim of my hat. In a little while it seeped through the top of the cheap trench coat and I could feel the cold of it on my shoulders. And then I had the streets all alone again and the night and the city belonged only to me. I walked, so I was king. The others who huddled in the doorways and watched me with tired eyes were the lesser ones. Those who ran for the taxis were the scared ones. So I walked and I was able to think about Velda again. She had suddenly become a case and it had to be that way. It had to be cold and logical, otherwise it would vaporize into incredibility and there would be nothing left except to go back to where I had come from.

  Think.

  Who saw her die? No one. It was an assumption. Well assumed, but an assumption nevertheless.

  Then, after seven years, who saw her alive? Richie Cole.

  Sure, he had reason to know her. They were friends. War buddies. They had worked together. Once a year they’d meet for supper and a show and talk over old times. Hell, I’d done it myself with George and Earle, Ray, Mason and the others. It was nothing you could talk about to anybody else, though. Death and destruction you took part in could be shared only with those in range of the same enemy guns. With them you couldn’t brag or lie. You simply recounted and wondered that you were still alive and renewed a friendship.

  Cole couldn’t have made a mistake. He knew her.

  And Cole had been a pro. Velda was a pro. He had come looking for me because she had told him I was a pro and he had been disappointed at what he had seen. He had taken a look at me and his reason for staying alive died right then. Whatever it was, he didn’t think I could do it. He saw a damned drunken bum who had lost every bit of himself years before and he died thinking she was going to die too and he was loathing me with eyes starting to film over with the nonexistence of death.

  Richie Cole just didn’t know me very well at all.

  He had a chance to say the magic word and that made all the difference.

  Velda.

  Would it still be the same? How will you look after seven years? Hell, you should see me. You should see the way I look. And what’s inside you after a time span like that? Things happen in seven years; things build, things dissolve. What happens to people in love? Seven years ago that’s the way we were. In Love. Capital L. Had we stayed together time would only have lent maturity and quality to that which it served to improve.

  But my love, my love, how could you look at me, me after seven years? You knew what I had been and called for me at last, but I wasn’t what you expected at all. That big one you knew and loved is gone, kid, long gone, and you can’t come back that big anymore. Hell, Velda, you know that. You can’t come back . . . you should have known what would happen to me. Damn, you knew me well enough. And it happened. So how can you yell for me now? I know you knew what I’d be like, and you asked for me anyway.

  I let out a little laugh and only the rain could enjoy it with me. She knew, all right. You can’t come back just as big. Either lesser or bigger. There was no other answer. She just didn’t know the odds against the right choice.

  There was a new man on the elevator now. I signed the night book, nodded to him and gave him my floor. I got off at eight and went down the hall, watching my shadow grow longer and longer from the single light behind me.

  I had my keys in my hand, but I didn’t need them at all. The door to 808 stood wide open invitingly, the lights inside throwing a warm glow over the dust and the furniture and when I closed it behind me I went through the anteroom to my office where Art Rickerby was sitting and picked up the sandwich and Blue Ribbon beer he had waiting for me and sat down on the edge of the couch and didn’t say a word until I had finished both.

  Art said, “Your friend Nat Drutman gave me the key.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I pushed him a little.”

  “He’s been pushed before. If he couldn’t read you right you wouldn’t have gotten the key. Don’t sell him short.”

  “I figured as much.”

  I got up, took off the soggy coat and hat and threw them across a chair. “What’s with the visit? I hope you’re not getting too impatient.”

  “No. Patience is something inbred. Nothing I can do will bring Richie back. All I can do is play the angles, the curves, float along the stream of time, then, my friend, something will bite, even on an unbaited hook.”

  “Shit.”

  “You know it’s like that. You’re a cop.”

  “A long time ago.”

  He watched me, a funny smile on his face. “No. Now. I know the signs. I’ve been in this business too long.”

  “So what do you want here?”

  Rickerby’s smile broadened. “I told you once. I’ll do anything to get Richie’s killer.”

  “Oh?”

  He reached in his pocket and brought out an envelope. I took it from him, tore it open and read the folded card it contained on all four of its sides, then slid it into my wallet and tucked it away.

  “Now I can carry a gun,” I said.

  “Legally. In any state.”

  “Thanks. What did you give up to get it?”

  “Not a thing. Favors were owed me too. Our department is very—wise.”

  “They think it’s smart to let me carry a rod again?”

  “There aren’t any complaints. You have your—ticket.”

  “It’s a little different from the last one this state gave me.”

  “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, my friend.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “No trouble. I’m being smug.”

  “Why?”

  He took off his glasses again, wiped them and put them back on. “Because I have found out all about you a person could find. You’re going to do something I can’t possibly do because you have the key to it all and won’t let it go. Whatever your motives are, they aren’t mine, but they encompass what I want and that’s enough for me. Sooner or later you’re going to name Richie’s killer and that’s all I want. In the meantime, rather than interfere with your operation, I’ll do everything I can to supplement it. Do you understand?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Good. Then I’ll wait you out.” He smiled, but there was nothing pleasant in his expression. “Some people are different from others. You’re a killer, Mike. You’ve always been a killer. Somehow your actions have been justified and I think righteously so, but nevertheless, you’re a killer. You’re on a hunt again and I’m going to help you. There’s just one thing I ask.”

  “What?”

  “If you do find Richie’s murderer before me, don’t kill him.”

  I looked up from the fists I had made. “Why?”

  “I want him, Mike. Let him be mine.”

  “What will you do with him?”

  Rickerby’s grin was damn near inhuman. It was a look I had seen before on other people and never would have expected from him. “A quick kill would be too good, Mike,” he told me slowly. “But the law—this supposedly just, merciful provision—this is the most cruel of all. It lets you rot in a death cell for months and deteriorate slowly until you’re only an accumulation of living cells with the consciousness of knowing you are about to die; then the creature is tied in a chair and jazzed with a hot shot that wipes him from the face of the earth with one big jolt and that’s that.”

  “Pleasant thought,” I said.

  “Isn’t it, though? Too many people think the sudden kill is the perfect answer for revenge. Ah, no, my friend. It’s the waiting. It’s the knowing beforehand that even the merciful provisions of a public trial will only result in what you already know—more waiting and further contemplation of that little room where you spend your last days with death in an oaken chair only a few yards away. And do you know what? I’l
l see that killer every day. I’ll savor his anguish like a fine drink and be there as a witness when he burns and he’ll see me and know why I’m there and when he’s finished I’ll be satisfied.”

  “You got a mean streak a yard wide, Rickerby.”

  “But it doesn’t quite match yours, Mike.”

  “The hell it doesn’t.”

  “No—you’ll see what I mean some day. You’ll see yourself express the violence of thought and action in a way I’d never do. True violence isn’t in the deed itself. It’s the contemplation and enjoyment of the deed.”

  “Come off it.”

  Rickerby smiled, the intensity of hatred he was filled with a moment ago seeping out slowly. If it had been me I would have been shaking like a leaf, but now he casually reached out for the can of beer, sipped at it coolly and put it down.

  “I have some information you requested,” he told me.

  While I waited I walked behind the desk, sat down and pulled open the lower drawer. The shoulder holster was still supple although it had lain there seven years. I took off my jacket, slipped it on and put my coat back.

  Art said, “I—managed to find out about Gerald Erlich.”

  I could feel the pulse in my arm throb against the arm of the chair. I still waited.

  “Erlich is dead, my friend.”

  I let my breath out slowly, hoping my face didn’t show how I felt.

  “He died five years ago and his body was positively identified.”

  Five years ago! But he was supposed to have died during the war!

  “He was found shot in the head in the Eastern Zone of Germany. After the war he had been fingerprinted and classified along with other prisoners of note so there was no doubt as to his identity.” Art stopped a moment, studied me, then went on. “Apparently this man was trying to make the Western Zone. On his person were papers and articles that showed he had come out of Russia, there were signs that he had been under severe punishment and if you want to speculate, you might say that he had escaped from a prison and was tracked down just yards from freedom.”

  “That’s pretty good information to come out of the Eastern Zone,” I said.

  Rickerby nodded sagely. “We have people there. They purposely investigate things of this sort. There’s nothing coincidental about it.

  “There’s more.”

  His eyes were funny. They had an oblique quality as if they watched something totally foreign, something they had never realized could exist before. They watched and waited. Then he said, “Erlich had an importance we really didn’t understand until lately. He was the nucleus of an organization of espionage agents the like of which had never been developed before and whose importance remained intact even after the downfall of the Third Reich. It was an organization so ruthless that its members, in order to pursue their own ends, would go with any government they thought capable of winning a present global conflict and apparently they selected the Reds. To oppose them and us meant fighting two battles, so it would be better to support one until the other lost, then undermine that one until it could take over.”

  “Crazy,” I said.

  “Is it?”

  “They can’t win.”

  “But they can certainly bring on some incredible devastation.”

  “Then why kill Erlich?”

  Art sat back and folded his hands together in a familiar way. “Simple. He defected. He wanted out. Let’s say he got smart in his late years and realized the personal futility of pushing this thing any further. He wanted to spend a few years in peace.”

  It was reasonable in a way. I nodded.

  “But he had to die,” Art continued. “There was one thing he knew that was known only to the next in line in the chain of command, the ones taking over the organization.”

  “Like what?”

  “He knew every agent in the group. He could bust the whole shebang up if he spilled his guts to the West and the idea of world conquest by the Reds or the others would go smack down the drain.”

  “This you know?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No. Let’s say I’m sure of it, but I don’t know it. At this point I really don’t care. It’s the rest of the story I pulled out of the hat I’m interested in.” And now his eyes cocked themselves up at me again. “He was tracked down and killed by one known to the Reds as their chief assassin agent, Gorlin, but to us as The Dragon.”

  If he could have had his hand on my chest, or even have touched me anywhere, he would have known what was happening. My guts would knot and churn and my head was filled with a wild flushing sensation of blood almost bursting through their walls. But he didn’t touch me and he couldn’t tell from my face so his eyes looked at me even a little more obliquely, expecting even the slightest reaction and getting none. None at all.

  “You’re a cold-blooded bastard,” he nearly whispered.

  “You said that before.”

  He blinked owlishly behind his glasses and stood up, his coat over his arm. “You know where to reach me.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  “Not now. Thanks for the ticket.”

  “No trouble. Will you promise me something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Just don’t use that gun on The Dragon.”

  “I won’t kill him, Art.”

  “No. Leave that for me. Don’t spoil my pleasure or yours either.”

  He went out, closing the door softly behind him. I pulled the center desk drawer out, got the extra clip and the box of shells from the niche and closed the drawer.

  The package I had mailed to myself was on the table by the door where Nat always put my packages when he had to take them from the mailman. I ripped it open, took out the .45, checked the action and dropped it in the holster.

  Now it was just like old times.

  I turned off the light in my office and went outside. I was reaching for the door when the phone on Velda’s desk went off with a sudden jangling that shook me for a second before I could pick it up.

  Her voice was rich and vibrant when she said hello and I wanted her right there with me right then. She knew it too, and her laugh rippled across the miles. She said, “Are you going to be busy tonight, Mike?”

  Time was something I had too little of, but I had too little of her too. “Well—why?”

  “Because I’m coming into your big city.”

  “Isn’t it kind of late?”

  “No. I have to be there at ten p.m. to see a friend of yours and since I see no sense of wasting the evening I thought that whatever you have to do you can do it with me. Or can you?”

  “It takes two to dance, baby.”

  She laughed again. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Sure, come on in. If I said not to I’d be lying. Who’s my friend you have a date with?”

  “An old friend and new enemy. Captain Chambers.”

  “What is this?”

  “I don’t know. He called and asked if I could come in. It would simplify things since his going out of his jurisdiction requires a lot of work.”

  “For Pete’s sake—”

  “Mike—I don’t mind, really. If it has to do with Leo’s death, well, I’ll do anything. You know that.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Besides, it gives me an excuse to see you even sooner than I hoped. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “See you in a little while, Mike. Any special place?”

  “Moriarty’s at Sixth and Fifty-second. I’ll be at the bar.”

  “Real quick,” she said and hung up.

  I held the disconnect bar down with my finger. Time. Seven years’ worth just wasted and now there was none left. I let the bar up and dialed Hy Gardner’s private number at the paper, hoping I’d be lucky enough to catch him in. I was.

  He said, “Mike, if you’re not doing anything, come on up here. I have to get my column out and I’ll be done before you’re here. I have something to show you.�
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  “Important?”

  “Brother, one word from you and everybody flips. Shake it up.”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Good.”

  I hung up and pushed the phone back. When I did I uncovered a heart scratched in the surface with something sharp. Inside it was a V and an M. Velda and Mike. I pulled the phone back to cover it, climbed into my coat and went outside. Just to be sure I still had the night to myself I walked down, out the back way through the drugstore then headed south on Broadway toward Hy’s office.

  Marilyn opened the door and hugged me hello, a pretty grin lighting her face up. She said, “Hy’s inside waiting for you. He won’t tell me what it’s all about.”

  “You’re his wife now, not his secretary anymore. You don’t work for him.”

  “The heck I don’t. But he still won’t tell me.”

  “It’s man talk, sugar.”

  “All right, I’ll let you be. I’ll get some coffee—and Mike—” I turned around.

  “It’s good to have you back.”

  When I winked she blew me a kiss and scurried out the door.

  Hy was at his desk inside with his glasses up on his forehead, frowning at some sheets in his hand. They were covered with penciled notations apparently culled from another batch beside his elbow.

  I pulled up a chair, sat down and let Hy finish what he was doing. Finally he glanced up, pulling his glasses down. “I got your message across.”

  “So?”

  “So it was like I dropped a bomb in HQ. Over there they seem to know things we don’t read in the paper here.” He leaned forward and tapped the sheets in his hand. “This bit of The Dragon is the hottest item in the cold war, buddy. Are you sure you know what you’re up to?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay, I’ll go along with you. The Reds are engaged in an operation under code name REN. It’s a chase thing. Behind the Iron Curtain there has been a little hell to pay the last few years. Somebody was loose back there who could rock the whole Soviet system and that one had to be eliminated. That’s where The Dragon came in. This one has been on that chase and was close to making his hit. Nobody knows what the score really is.” He stopped then, pushed his glasses back up and said seriously, “Or do they, Mike?”