The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 1 Page 14

  Not a word was visible, so thoroughly had George burned them. I looked around the spot on the floor where the box was originally. A few ashes were there, too. One was larger than the rest and not as well burned through. It had a string of numbers on it. I wondered how he concealed the fire. From outside it would have lit the room up as much as the overhead light would have.

  I found out in a moment. A throw rug lay on the floor. When I turned it over the underside was blackened. Stuck to the mesh of the weave was a half-page leaf of the paper. It would have gone well at a murder trial. George was named as the trigger man in a murder, and where the proof could be found was also revealed—in a safe-deposit box in an uptown bank. It even gave the number and the code word. The key was in trust with the bank officer.

  So George was a murderer. I had always thought he went that far back in the old days. Well, here was something to prove it. At least it more than justified my self-defense act in gunning him down. I tucked the charred bit into a small envelope I carry for things like this, addressed it to myself and put a stamp on it. This time I used the door. I broke the seal with my shoulder and nearly bowled over a half-dozen kids. When I shooed them away I looked around for a post box and found one at the end of the corridor. I dropped it in and went back to wait for the arrival of the cops.

  It was coming out now. Heretofore I thought Kalecki was the big wheel behind the syndicate, but now I could see that he was only a small part of it. Hal Kines had been the big shot. His methods were as subtle as those he used in obtaining his women. He went to enough trouble, but it was worth it. First he picked on guys with a dubious past, and ones against whom he wouldn’t run into much trouble obtaining evidence. When he compiled it, he presented the stuff, or a photostat, and made the guy work with him. If I could have gotten the information that was burned we could have broken the filthiest racket in the world. Too late now, but at least I had a start. Maybe there were duplicates in the strong box, but I doubted that. Hal probably kept his evidence in different boxes for different people. That way, if he had to put the pressure on the group, he could send a note to the cops to investigate such and such a box without having any of his others disturbed. Nice thinking. Very farsighted.

  I felt sort of good over having nailed Kalecki, but he still wasn’t the one I wanted. If this kept up there wouldn’t be anyone left at all. There was an outsider in this case. There had to be. One that nobody knew about, except, perhaps, those that were dead.

  The county police arrived with all the pomp and ceremony of a presidential inaugural address. The chief, a big florid-faced farmer, pranced into the room with his hand on the butt of a revolver and promptly placed me under arrest for murder. Two minutes later, after a demonstration of arm waving, shouting and bulldozing of which I did not think myself capable, he retreated hastily and just as promptly un-arrested me. However, to soothe his ruffled feelings I let him inspect my private operator’s license, my gun permit and a few other items of identification.

  I let him listen to me put in the call to Pat. These county cops have no respect for authority outside their own limits, but when he got on the phone, Pat threatened him with calling the governor unless he cooperated with me. I gave him what details were necessary to keep him busy awhile, then took off for New York.

  Going back I took it easier. It was early morning when I stopped outside of Pat’s office and my eyes wouldn’t stay open. He was waiting for me nevertheless. As quickly as I could I gave him the details of the shooting. He dispatched a car upstate to get photographs and see if there was anything to be learned from the ashes of the burned notebooks.

  I didn’t feel like going home, so I called Charlotte. She was up and dressed for an early appointment.

  “Can you stay put until I get there?” I queried.

  “Certainly, Mike. Hurry up. I want to hear what happened.”

  “Be there in fifteen minutes,” I said, then hung up.

  It took thirty, traffic was pretty heavy. Charlotte was in the door while Kathy was dusting. She took my coat and hat and I headed for the sofa. I relaxed with a sigh, and she bent down and kissed me. I hardly had enough energy to kiss her back. With her there beside me I told the whole story. Charlotte was a good listener. When I finished she stroked my forehead and my face.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Tell me what makes a nymphomaniac.”

  “So? You’ve been to see her again!” Her answer was indignant.

  “Business, darling.” I wondered when I’d be able to stop using that line.

  Charlotte laughed. “That’s all right. I understand. As for your question, a nymphomaniac can be either a case of gradual development through environment or born into a person. Some people are oversexed, a glandular difficulty. Others can be repressed in childhood, and when they find themselves in an adult world, no longer the victim of senseless restrictions, they go hog wild. Why?”

  I evaded the why and asked, “Can the ones with emotional difficulty go bad?”

  “You mean, will they kill as a result of their emotional overload? I’d say offhand, no. They find an easier out for their emotions.”

  “For instance,” I parried.

  “Well, if a nymphomaniac showers a great deal of emotion on a person, then is rebuffed, instead of killing the one who spurned her, she simply finds another with whom to become emotionally entangled. It’s quicker, besides being more effective. If she suffers a loss of prowess from the rebuff, this new person renews her. See?”

  I got what she was driving at, but there was still something else. “Would it be likely for both the twins to be nymphomaniacs?”

  Charlotte gave me that delightful laugh. “Possible, but it doesn’t happen to be so. You see, I know them rather well. Not too well, but enough to determine their characters. Mary is beyond help. She likes to be the way she is. I daresay she has more fun than her sister, but Esther has seen so many of her escapades and helped her out of trouble, that she has a tendency to turn away from love affairs herself. Esther is a charming enough person, all right. Just about everything her sister has without the craze for men. When a man does drop into Esther’s life, she’ll take it naturally.”

  “I’ll have to meet her,” I said, sleepily. “By the way, are you going up to their place this weekend?”

  “Why yes, Mary invited me. I’ll be late getting there, but I won’t miss the game. However, I have to come back right after it. Are you going?”

  “Uh-huh. I’m going to drive Myrna up. That is, I still have to call her so she’ll know about it.”

  “Swell,” she said. That was the last word I heard. I fell into a sleep as deep as the ocean.

  When I awoke I glanced at my watch. It was nearly four in the afternoon. Kathy heard me stir and came into the room with a tray of bacon and eggs and coffee.

  “Heah’s yo’ breakfast, Mistah Hammah. Miss Charlotte tell me to take good care of y’all till she comes home.” Kathy gave me a toothy white smile and waddled out after setting the tray down.

  I gulped the eggs hungrily and polished off three cups of coffee. Then I called Myrna and she told me that it was okay to pick her up at ten A.M. Saturday. I hung up and poked around the bookshelves for something to read while I waited. Most of the fiction I had read, so I passed on to some of Charlotte’s textbooks. One was a honey called Hypnosis as a Treatment for Mental Disorders. I skimmed through it. Too wordy. It gave the procedure for putting a patient into a state of relaxation, inducing hypnosis, and suggesting treatment. That way, the patient later went about effecting his own cure automatically.

  That would have been a nice stunt for me to learn if I could do it. I pictured myself putting the eye on a beautiful doll and—hell, that was nasty. Besides, I wasn’t that bad off. I chose one that had a lot of pictures. This one was titled, Psychology of Marriage. Brother, it was a dilly. If it weren’t for the big words I would have enjoyed it. I wished they would write stuff like that in language for the lay
man.

  Charlotte came in when I was on the last chapter. She took the book out of my hand and saw what I was reading. “Thinking of anything special?” she asked.

  I gave her a silly grin. “Better get the low-down now while I’m able to. Can’t say how long I’m going to have the strength to hold off.” She kissed me and whipped me up a Scotch and soda. When I downed it I told Kathy to get my hat and coat. Charlotte looked disappointed.

  “Have to leave so soon? I thought you’d stay to dinner at least.”

  “Not tonight, honey. I have a job for my tailor and I want to get cleaned up. I don’t suppose you’d have a razor handy.” I pointed to the bullet hole in my coat. Charlotte got a little white when she saw how close it had come.

  “Are ... are you hurt, Mike?”

  “Hell, no. Got a bullet burn across the ribs but it never broke the skin.” I pulled up my shirt to confirm it, then got dressed. The phone rang just then and she took it.

  She frowned once or twice, said, “Are you sure? All right, I’ll look into it.” When she hung up I asked her what the matter was. “A client. Responded to treatment, then lapsed into his former state. I think I’ll prescribe a sedative and see him in the morning.” She went to her desk.

  “I’ll run along then. Maybe I’ll see you later. Right now I want to get a haircut before I do anything else.”

  “Okay, darling.” She came over and put her arms around me. “There’s a place on the corner.”

  “That’ll do as well as any,” I told her between kisses.

  “Hurry back, Mike.”

  “You bet, darling.”

  Luckily, the place was empty. A guy was just getting out of the chair when I went in. I hung my coat on a hook and plunked into the seat. “Trim,” I told the barber. After he ogled my rod a bit, he draped me with the sheet and the clippers buzzed. Fifteen minutes later he dusted me off and I walked out of there slicked down like an uptown sharpie. I got the boiler rolling and turned across town to get on Broadway.

  I heard the sirens wailing, but I didn’t know it was Pat until the squad car shot past me and I saw him leaning out of the side window. He was too busy to notice me, but cut across the intersection while the cop on the corner held traffic back. Further down the avenue another siren was blasting a path northward.

  It was more a hunch than anything else, the same kind of a hunch that put me on the trail of George Kalecki. And this one paid off, too, but in a way I didn’t recognize at first. As soon as the cop on the corner waved us on, I followed the howl of police cars and turned left on Lexington Avenue. Up ahead I saw the white top of Pat’s car weaving in and out of the lanes. It slowed down momentarily and turned into a side street.

  This time I had to park a block away. Two police cars had the street barred to traffic at either end. I flashed my badge and my card to the patrolman on the corner. He let me pass and I hurried down to the little knot of people gathered outside a drugstore. Pat was there with what looked like the whole homicide bureau. I pushed my way through the crowd and nodded to Pat. I followed his eyes down to the crumpled figure on the sidewalk. Blood had spilled out of the single hole in the back, staining the shabby coat a deep maroon. Pat told me to go ahead and I turned the face around to see who it was.

  I whistled. Bobo Hopper would keep bees no longer.

  Pat indicated the body. “Know him?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Know him well. His name is Hopper, Bobo Hopper. A hell of a nice guy even if he was a moron. Never hurt anything in his life. He used to be one of Kalecki’s runners.”

  “He was shot with a .45, Mike.”

  “What!” I exploded.

  “There’s something else now. Dope. Come over here.” Pat took me inside the drugstore. The fat little clerk was facing a battery of detectives led by a heavy-set guy in a blue serge suit. I knew him all too well. He never liked me much since I blew a case wide open under his very nose. He was Inspector Daly of the narcotics squad.

  Daly turned to me. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “Same thing you are, I think.”

  “Well, you can start walking as of now. I don’t want any private noses snooping around. Go on, beat it.”

  “One moment, Inspector.” When Pat talked in that tone of voice he could command attention. Daly respected Pat. They were different kinds of cop. Daly had come up the hard way, with more time between promotions, while Pat had achieved his position through the scientific approach to crime. Even though they didn’t see eye to eye in their methods, Daly was man enough to give Pat credit where credit was due and listen to him.

  “Mike has an unusual interest in this case,” he continued. “It was through him we got as far as we have. If you don’t mind, I would like him to keep in close touch with this.”

  Daly glared at me and shrugged his beefy shoulders. “Okay. Let him stay. Only be sure you don’t withhold any evidence,” he spat at me.

  The last time I was involved in a case he was working on I had to play my cards close to my vest, but hanging on to the evidence I had led me to a big-time drug dealer we never would have nailed otherwise. Daly never forgot that.

  The head of the narcotics bureau was blasting away at the druggist and I picked up every word. “Once more now. Give me the whole thing and see what else you can remember.”

  Harried to the breaking point, the druggist wrung his pudgy hands and looked at the sea of faces glaring at him. Pat must have had the most sympathetic expression, so he spoke to him.

  “I was doing nothing. Sweeping out under the counter, maybe. That is all. This man, he walks in and says fill a prescription. Very worried he was. He hands me a broken box that has nothing written on the cover. He says to me he will lose his job and nobody will trust him if I can’t do it. He drops the box he was delivering and somebody steps on it and his prescription is all over the sidewalk.

  “This powder was coming out of the sides. I take it in the back and taste it yet, then test it. Pretty sure I was that I knew what was in it, and when I test it I was positive. Heroin. This should not be, so like a good citizen I phone the police and tell them what I have. They tell me to keep him here, but how do I know that he is not a gangster and will shoot me?” Here the little guy stopped and shuddered.

  “I have a family yet. I take my time, but he tells me to hurry up and puts his hand in a pocket. Maybe he has a gun. What can I do? I fill another box with boric acid, charge him a dollar and he walks out. I leave my counter to go see where he goes, but before I get to the door he falls to the sidewalk. He is shot. All the way dead. I call police again, then you come.”

  “See anyone running off?” Pat asked.

  He shook his head. “Nobody. At this time it is slow. Nobody on the street.”

  “Did you hear a shot?”

  “No. That I could not understand. I was too scared. I see the blood from the hole and I run back inside.”

  Pat stroked his chin. “How about a car. Did any go by at that time?”

  The little guy squinted his eyes and thought back. Once he started to speak, stopped, then reassured, said, “Y-yes. Now that you remind me, I think one goes by just before. Yes. I am sure of it. Very slow it goes and it was turning.” He continued hurriedly from here. “Like it was coming from the curb maybe. It goes past, then when I am outside it is gone. I don’t even look for it after that, so scared I am.”

  Daly had one of his men taking the whole thing down in shorthand. Pat and I had heard enough. We went outside to the body and checked the bullet angle. From the position of where it lay, the killer had been going toward Lexington when the shot was fired. The packet of boric acid, now a blood red, lay underneath Bobo’s hand. We patted the pockets. Empty. His wallet held eight dollars and a library card. Inside the coat was a booklet on the raising of bees.

  “Silencer,” Pat said. “I’ll give ten to one it’s the same gun.”

  “I wouldn’t take that bet,” I agreed.

  “What do you make of it, Mike?”<
br />
  “I don’t know. If Kalecki were alive it would involve him even deeper. First prostitution, now dope. That is, if Bobo was still working for Kalecki. He said not, and I believed him. I thought Bobo was too simple to try to deceive anybody. I’m not so sure now.”

  We both stared at the body a bit, then walked down the street a way by ourselves. I happened to think of something.

  “Pat.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Remember when Kalecki was shot at in his home? When he tried to put the finger on me?”

  “Yeah. What of it?”

  “It was the killer’s gun. The killer we want fired that shot. Why? Can you make anything out of it? Even then Kalecki was on the spot for something and he moved to town for his own protection. That’s what we want, the answer to the question of why he was shot at.”

  “That’s going to take some doing, Mike. The only ones that can tell us are dead.”

  I gave him a grin. “No. There’s still someone. The killer. He knows why. Have you anything to do right now?”

  “Nothing I can’t put off. This case will be in Daly’s hands for a while. Why?”

  I took his arm and walked him around the block to my car. We got in and headed toward my apartment.

  The mailman was just coming out when we got there. I opened my box and drew out the envelope I addressed to myself at the college and ripped it open. I explained to Pat I had to get the piece of charred evidence out of the hands of those hick cops while I could and he agreed that I did it right.

  Pat knew the ropes. He put in three phone calls and when we reached the bank a guard ushered us into the office of the president. By that time he had already received the court order by phone to permit us to inspect the box listed on the slip.

  It was there, all of it. Evidence enough to hang George Kalecki a dozen times over. I was really grateful now that I had put a slug into him. The guy was a rat, all right. He had his fingers in more than I had suspected. There were photostats of checks, letters, a few original documents, and plenty of material to indict George Kalecki for every vice charge there was, including a few new ones. But nothing else. Where George had gone there was no need for a court. Hal Kines had tied him up in a knot with both ends leading to the hot squat if he had tried to make a break.