Survival... ZERO! mh-11 Read online

  He half-stepped to intercept me when I came through the glass doors and I said, "Hi, Spud. Do I say hello or salute?"

  Spud Henry squinted at me once, then stepped back with a grin that made his face uglier but friendlier and held out a massive paw to grip mine in a crushing handshake. "Mike, you old S.O.B.! How the hell are you?"

  "Back to normal when you let go my hand." I laughed at him. "What're you doing here? I thought you had saved your money."

  "Hell, man, I sure did, but try retiring around that old lady of mine. She drives me bats. All the time wants me to do somethin' that don't need doin'. Take the garbage out. What garbage out? Who cares, take it out. Paint the bathroom. I just painted the bathroom. The color stinks. Get those kids outa the back yard. Whatta ya mean, get 'em out, they're our kids. Man, don't never get married. It was easier fightin' in the ring."

  "How many kids you got, Spud?"

  "Twelve."

  "How old's the youngest?"

  "Two months. Why?"

  "Some fighting you do."

  Spud gave me a sheepish grin and shrugged. "Well hell, Mike, ya gotta take a rest between rounds, don't ya?" He paused and cocked his head. "What you doin' up this way? I thought you was a side-street type."

  "I have to see William Dorn. He in?"

  "Sure. Got here a little while ago. He got a crowd up there. Some kind of party?"

  "Beats me. What's his apartment?"

  "Twenty-two, the east terrace. Real fancy place. Since when you goin' with the swells?"

  "Come on, Spud, I got a little class."

  "That's big class up there, Mikey boy. Man, what loot, but nice people. Big tippers, always polite, even to me. Just nice people. When the last kid was born he gimme a hundred bucks. One bill with a fat one-zero-zero on it and it was like the days back in the Garden when they used to pay off in brand-new century notes. You want me to announce you?"

  "Never mind. He called me. I didn't call him."

  "Take that back elevator. It's express. Good to see you, Mike."

  "Same here. Tell the missus hello."

  I got off at the twenty-second floor into an elaborate gold-scrolled and marble-ornamented vestibule that reeked of wealth only a few ever got to know, turned east to a pair of massive mahogany doors inlaid with intricate carvings and set off with thick polished brass fixtures. I located the tiny bell button set into the frame, pushed it and waited. No sound penetrated through the doors or walls, nothing came up from the street and I didn't hear anything ring. I was about to touch it again when bolts clicked and the door opened and William Dorn stood there, a drink in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other.

  His surprise was brief, then he pulled the door open and said, "Mike . . . good to see you. Come in. I didn't know you were on the way up."

  I didn't want to get Spud in a jam so I said, "I slipped by the doorman while he was busy. Sneaky habit I can't get out of."

  Dorn laughed and closed the door. From the other room a subdued murmur of voices blended into a monotonous hum. I could see the backs and shoulders of a dozen men in quiet conversation and when one looked around I spotted Teddy Finlay with Josef Kudak beside him and a few feet away the six-foot-six beanpole from the Ukraine who made all those anti-U.S. speeches in the United Nations last month. This time they all seemed to be pounding at one nail with no disagreement for a change.

  "Didn't mean to break in on your party," I said.

  "Business meeting," Dorn told me. "Glad you could come. Let's go into the library where we can talk. Care for a drink?."

  "No thanks."

  He folded the papers in his hand and stuffed them in his pocket. "This way."

  The library was another example of class and money. It was there in rare first editions and original oils, genuine Sheraton furniture giving obeisance to a great Louis XIV desk at one end of the room that nestled there like a throne.

  "You ever read all those books?" I asked Dorn.

  "Most of them." He waved me to a chair. Before I got comfortable he asked, "What happened to Renée?"

  "She got creased by a bullet."

  Dorn nearly dropped his drink. His mouth pulled tight and I saw his shoulders stiffen. "She didn't tell me ..."

  "Don't worry, she's okay."

  "What happened?"

  "Nothing I'm going to talk about right now. Why?"

  "She ... well, she's important to me, damn it. Right now we have a big expansion move on and ..." He looked at me, shook his head and glanced down at his hands that were clasped together too tightly. Finally he looked up. "It might be better if you said what you were thinking, Mike. I'm a callous person so wrapped up in business and finance that nothing else matters. Nothing is expected to interfere with those vital affairs."

  "Don't sweat it, William. She'll be okay."

  "Is she ..."

  "Just a crease. She was real lucky. I'm surprised she didn't tell you about it."

  "Renée can keep a confidence, even from me. I knew she was with you, but it was unlike her to ..."

  "It was justified. Hell, doesn't she ever get sick?"

  "Never."

  "A dame got to get her period once in a while. That's usually a good excuse."

  "Not with Renée. She treats ... commerce, let's say, almost as I do. You're the first one she ever took an active interest in."

  "You don't know what you're missing," I said.

  For a second a flash of annoyance creased his eyes, then disappeared into a wry smile. "You may be right. I've heard that before." He picked up a pencil and tapped it against the polished wood of the desk. "Mike ... do me a favor."

  I nodded.

  "Check on her. She won't answer the phone and I'd rather not bother her after what you just told me."

  "Be glad to."

  "And Mike ..."

  "If it can be avoided, don't expose her to ... well, anything more in your line. I'd appreciate that."

  "I didn't expose anybody. It just happened. She wanted to see how we lived on the other side of the tracks. I could have told her it could be just as rough where she came from too because I've been on the other side of the bridge myself. Nobody ever seems to learn anything, do they?"

  The seconds ticked by while he looked at me, finally nodding agreement. "And you, Mike. Do you ever learn?"

  "Always something new," I said. I got up and took a last look at all the money that surrounded me. "I'll check in on Renée for you. She'll be fine, so quit worrying."

  Dorn held out his hand and I took it. "Sorry you couldn't get me at the office. I didn't mean for you to go out of your way. I guess it really wasn't that important after all."

  "No trouble," I said.

  He walked me to the door and behind me the hum of voices had grown louder. One was edgy and hoarse, but I recognized it as Crane's from the State Department. The one he was talking to said, "Nyet, nyet!" then subsided while Crane finished talking. I said "So long" to Dorn at the door, took the elevator back down again and looked for Spud. He was gone, and a tall kid with a sad face had replaced him. He had his hair tucked under the back of his visored cap and didn't look happy about it. They probably even made him shave off his beard. He couldn't have run off a Bowery panhandler.

  Rain. Someday they'd cover New York like the Astrodome and you wouldn't have to worry about it. The computers had predicted partly cloudy and had sat back in their oiled compartments with all the whirring and clacking, giving off with mechanical laughter at the idiots who had believed their programming. The smart one knew the city. Never predict New York. Never try to outthink it. The damn octopus could even control the weather and when it wanted everybody to be miserable, everybody was miserable.

  I looked up at the tops of the buildings and watched the gray blanket of wet sifting down to slick the streets and fog the windows, wondering why the hell I didn't get out like Hy Gardner did. A cab pulled up and disgorged a fat little man who threw a bill at the driver and trotted across the sidewalk to the protection of the building
entrance and

  before the elderly couple frantically waving at the cabbie from the corner could make the run, I hopped in and closed the door. The driver saw my face in the rearview mirror and didn't try for the Sweetest Cabbie of the Year award. I gave him Renée's address and sat back while he pulled out into the traffic and U-turned at the corner to head north.

  The ends. Why the hell don't they meet? It wasn't all that complicated, just a simple rundown of a lousy pickpocket who lost his haul to an honest guy who tried to keep him straight and killed to get it back. A lousy pickpocket who had hit the wrong pockets and now there were others looking for him too, but why? What did Woody Ballinger have to lose? Heidi Anders had a compact with her life wrapped up in white powder in a false bottom. She would have done anything for a single pop of the junk and damn near did until I creamed her out. Now it was Woody trying to beat me to Beaver.

  The driver's radio blared out another of those special bulletins the networks loved to issue. In Buffalo, New York the police had shot and killed Tom-Tom Schneider's killers. The hostages were unharmed. Tomorrow the papers and TV would carry the full account and Pat Chambers could count on another day free of panic. But where the hell was Velda? Where was that lousy dip Beaver in the red vest and where were Woody Ballinger and his boys? The rain splattered against the windows and the radio went back to Dow-Jones averages and the cab pulled into the curb. I peeled off a five from my roll and handed it through the window to the driver.

  The little patch on her head around the shaved area of her scalp was nearly unnoticeable, her hair covering it with the usual feminine vanity. I grinned at her, lying there under the covers and she smiled back, her eyes twinkling, "I know," she said, "under the covers, the nightgown . . . I'm stark naked."

  "Lovely," I said.

  "X-ray eyes?"

  "Absolutely. I walk down Fifth Avenue and all those broads in their fancy clothes think they're hiding something? Hell, I look right through them and all I see is skin and hair and toenails that need cutting. Everybody's naked, sugar."

  "Am I naked?"

  "My X-ray eyes are out of order."

  Renée looked at me and smiled, then pushed the covers down to her midriff, then all the way to her feet with a quick flip of her hand. Without taking her eyes off mine, she tugged at the nightgown, then slipped it over her head and tossed it to the floor.

  "Now you'e naked," I said.

  "You don't sound excited."

  "I'm an old dog, kid. I had this happen before lunch." I lit up a butt and took a deep drag, then let the smoke blow across the bed.

  "I could kill you."

  "You are."

  "How can you resist me?"

  "It isn't easy. Luckily, you're a sick woman."

  "Horse manure," Renée said. "Tell me how pretty I am."

  I looked at her lying there. "You look like a perfect biological specimen. Everything's in the right place, the titties are pointing in the right direction, but a little saggy because you're flat out like that. The snatch is cute, very decorous, but for a connoisseur like me, maybe a little bushy. A touch with a pair of scissors might sharpen up the angles and trim it down to size...."

  "Oh, you duty ..."

  "Ah-ah ... you're a sick woman, remember?" I held up my hand to stop her. "But you look kissable and parts of you are wet and inviting and if I didn't have all the moral turpitude I was born with, do you know what I'd do?"

  "I wish you'd just screw me and shut up."

  "You got no class, Renée."

  "You got no dick, Mike Hammer."

  "Want references?" I asked her. "How's the head?"

  She touched her scalp with her fingertips and winced. "Sore, but not that sore. I've been deliberately taking advantage of my ... condition, and staying bedridden."

  "I know. And your boss is up in the air over your disappearance. It seems that he can't get along without you. I'm here on a rescue mission to get you back to work."

  Her mouth formed a fake pout. "I thought you just wanted to see me."

  "Right now I'm seeing all of you there is to see."

  "You've missed the other side."

  "Leave something to the imagination, will you? Besides, suppose that maid of your walks in here?"

  "Oh, she'll understand."

  I shook my head and laughed. Dames. "Get up and get

  dressed. If you hustle I'll have a coffee with you while I use your phone."

  Renée grimaced and tossed a pillow at me. "Your casual treatment is making me feel married, you big slob. How can you resist me like this?"

  "It isn't easy at all, sugar. If I had the time I'd tear you apart."

  "Nothing but promises."

  I threw the pillow back at her and went back to the living room. The chubby little maid with the odd accent had her coat on and asked me to tell Miss Talmage she was leaving for the afternoon, but would be back around five to prepare supper. If she was needed, she could be reached at her sister's. Miss Tahnage had the number.

  When she left I picked up the phone and called Henaghan at the New York City Department of Public Works. His second secretary found him and put him through.

  "Hey, Mike," he yelled. "What's new?"

  "Need some information, Henny."

  "Well, this is a public department."

  "See if you can check and find out what construction units have been issued permits for blasting inside the city limits. Can do?"

  There was a small silence and Henaghan said, "Aw, Mike, have you taken a look around lately? This town is like a beehive. They're putting up stuff all over the place."

  "Yeah, but they only blast during the ground operation. It shouldn't be all that difficult."

  "Look, I'll give you a number ..."

  "No dice. I'll get handed from file clerks to petty officials who'll want explanations and authorizations and still come up with year-old information. I could do better touring the city in a taxi taking notes and I haven't got that much time. You do it for me."

  "Mike ..." Henny sounded harried.

  "Or do you forget me having to run up to Albany to get you out of the can last summer? Or that time in Miami when ..."

  "Okay, okay. Don't remind me. The memories are too painful. Where are you?"

  I gave him the phone number.

  "Stay there. It may take a little while, but I'll expedite things."

  From the bedroom I heard the shower cut off and clothes hangers rattling in a closet. I stared absently at the rain slashing against the window and picked up the phone

  again, dialed my office number and activated the tape recorder.

  And Velda had finally called in. Her voice was crisp and hurried, no words wasted at all. She said, "Suspect located at Anton Virelli's area and running fast. Ballinger’s right behind him with his men but haven't pinpointed his location. If you haven't hit it yet, suspect goes by name of Beaver and knows he's being tracked. He's been working his way uptown and has something on his mind, probably a safe place to hide out. He should be making a move soon if he sticks to his timetable. My guess is he'll come out of the west end of the block so I'm going to take a chance and cover the Broadway side. Ill call back as soon as he shows."

  That was the end of the message and I was about to hang up when another click signaled a further message and a voice said, "Uh, Mike? Like this is you or a machine. Mike?" There was a pause, then, "So you're automated. Everything's gone automated." I felt like telling that silly Caesar Mario Tulley to hurry up and get with it, but you don't rush the new generation. "You know how you was asking about that guy in the red vest? So I split a joint with an old friend and we get to talking and I asked and sure enough, he knows a guy who knows him. I'm going to see him later, so if you get down this way I'll be working around the Winter Garden. Maybe I'll have something for you. Uh ... how the hell do you say so long to a machine anyway?" He mumbled something else and the connection was ended.

  Damn, it was closing in fast. The ends were beginning to meet, but th
ey were all tied up inside a tape recorder and I had to wait for the spool to roll. But Velda had narrowed it down somewhat. Anton Virelli was a bookie who operated from a storefront on Ninety-second Street just off Broadway. At least now I knew what area to concentrate on. I called Pat and rousted him out of bed at home. He hadn't had much sleep, but he softened the growl in his voice and listened when I gave him the information. He thought he could tap a couple of plain-clothesmen to probe the area for Beaver and he could get a warrant out for Woody and his boys that might slow them down long enough for us to reach our man first. I thanked him and hung up,

  A lovely voice behind me said, "Beaver. What an odd name. The people you know."

  I turned around and Renée was standing there, fresh from the shower, her hair piled on top of her head,

  wrapped in a heavy white terry-cloth robe belted tightly enough to make her a living hourglass. She smelled of summery fragrances and bath oils and she pirouetted gracefully so I could see all of her, then wrinkled her nose at me, brought in a tray with a coffee pot and two cups and sat down.

  "Great," she said. "Naked, I get no reaction. Completely covered in an old robe you simper like a kid. What's with you men?"

  I took the coffee she handed me. "We like the mystery better."

  "Liar. Business is more important to you. What have you been so busy about and who is Beaver? Another one of your friends who shoot at people?"

  "I never met the guy."

  She gave me a hurt look. "All right, you don't have to tell me anything. But don't blame me for being curious, please. After all, I did get shot and it was a new experience, one that I wouldn't like to repeat, and I thought some kind of explanation might be in order."

  Wind from the river rattled the window and the rain tried to claw its way in. I looked at her and grinned. Hell, she was entitled. I fished in my pocket and took out the three photos of Beaver, handing her one. I let her look at it while I started from the beginning and brought her up to date. But it was really me I was talking to, trying to jell the details in my mind, picking out the strange little flaws and attempting to force in things that didn't belong or should have.