Killing Town Page 15

  But he did better with the second swing, and just great with the third, the snap of a rib damn near echoing in that big space.

  Me, I just hung there, not giving them any satisfaction or excuse for another blow.

  “I still say he’s playing possum,” Sykes said. “Let’s see if he can bluff his way through this.”

  And Sykes gave me what he’d been saving up: a hard fist to the balls.

  The hurt came in waves—searing pain followed by an instant throbbing headache, and the rush of nausea. Together, they made me bend over and cry out. It rang and echoed through the big, high-ceilinged chamber.

  Sykes held his fat pal back with a thoughtful hand. “Keep cool, Sergeant. He might puke. You want that on your uniform? Give him time to compose himself.”

  I was breathing hard, experiencing a symphony of nausea and pain. But at least getting hit in the nuts did distract me from how much my arms and shoulders hurt.

  Removing his restraining hand, Sykes said to the sergeant, “Now he should be fine.”

  Fat lips in a fat, concave face peeled back over crooked yellow teeth, and he barreled toward me, raising that nightstick high, like he was going to splatter the biggest damn cockroach anybody ever saw.

  I raised my left foot and kicked out, giving him the flat of my Florsheim, making that stupid face even more concave.

  He was on the floor, spitting bloody soup with a crouton of a tooth floating in it. Sykes, frowning in a tsk-tsk school-teacherly way, helped him up, saying, “Try again. I’ll hold his legs.”

  Fat boy wiped the blood off his furious face and raised his nightstick, waiting for Sykes to restrain me. Before that could happen, I made a remark.

  “Thirty grand,” I said.

  They both froze, looking up at me like hicks who just spotted a flying saucer in a swamp.

  Sykes pushed Dish Face back a ways, straightened and managed to look down his nose at me despite our relative positions. “What was that you said?”

  My turn to sneer. “These New York boys. They want to question me, between screwing B-girls and giving you a lousy five C’s. Do you know why?”

  Dish Face spluttered, “’Cause you killed two of theirs!”

  “No,” I said. I grinned down at them. “I’m sure they’re not thrilled about that. But no, they want me to tell them where the thirty grand is.”

  Silence, broken only by a drip of water from some distant sink.

  Then, quietly, Sykes asked, “What thirty grand?”

  I said, “The thirty grand one of ‘theirs’ stole from them.”

  I didn’t know how much they knew.

  Well, Dish Face only knew they were doing a job for the New York Mafia. Sykes was another story. But he obviously didn’t know about the money. So he must not have known much.

  Sykes stepped closer, those blue eyes gazing up at me with pinpoint intensity. “ You have it?”

  “I know where it is.”

  “Are you the one who stole it?”

  “No. A friend of mine did. Old army buddy. He sent me here with it, to give to his family.”

  “What’s his name?”

  I nodded toward the rope I was dangling from, as if maybe Sykes hadn’t noticed it. “Get me down from here and we’ll talk.”

  Dish Face shouted, “No!” and it rang off the rafters.

  “Quiet,” Sykes said, as if shushing a child. To me: “What do you have in mind?”

  “Three-way split. Ten grand each.”

  Dish Face was grinning but there was no glee in it. “Yeah, and what do we do about those New York boys?”

  If I hadn’t been hanging from a rope, I’d have shrugged. “Kill them.”

  Dish Face, shaking his head so hard I was surprised it didn’t rattle, turned to Sykes. “He’s crazy! You’re crazy!”

  But Sykes was thinking it over, the pretty eyes in the long cadaverous face slitted in contemplation. “And who gets the blame, Hammer?”

  “Me. I slip out of town, you slip ten grand each in your pockets, and dump the hoods wherever you like. Dealer’s choice. I ain’t choosy.”

  Sykes gave me a wide, thin smile as he peered up at me. “And they come after you, not us?”

  “Right. Only I’m long gone. Me and my ten gees find some friendlier state to steal in.”

  Sykes turned to his sergeant. “Get him down.”

  Dish Face looked like he might bust out crying. “Are you sure about this, Henny?”

  “Get him down. Leave his wrists tied and put him in a chair.”

  The fat cop let me down hard, figuring maybe I’d hurt myself, but I wasn’t that far off the floor. Still, Sykes seemed rather impressed that I stayed on my feet and didn’t tumble to the cement.

  Now it could get tricky. If they tied my feet to that chair, they’d almost certainly run across the hideaway .38 in the ankle holster. In that case, I’d have to make a move and quick. And these were two armed cops, even if one of them was a fat idiot.

  And Sykes was anything but an idiot.

  So they set me in a folding chair under that same yellow cone of light as they went over by the big double garage doors and talked in whispers. They did not tie my ankles to the under-structure of the chair, and they left my tied hands in my lap. I guess I was their partner now. I knew part of their talk was exploring how they’d sell me out. I could have told them—I was going to die as soon as the thirty grand was in their hands. But I wondered if Dish Face would die, too.

  Or maybe Sykes would explain how he was the superior officer and Dish Face had to settle for five grand. Might work. Five grand was a lot of cash, particularly for a dunce like Dish Face, who was used to playing Lou Costello to Sykes’ Bud Abbott.

  In about ten minutes a knock came at a door next to the garage doors. Sykes and Dish Face jumped a little, still in conference. The tall cop sent the fat one to answer it.

  Two hoods strolled in, wearing dark topcoats with padded shoulders, dark pin-striped suits, striped silk ties, and pinch crown fedoras—you could buy a good used car with their combined clothing outlay. I’d seen them around, knew them by name but not well. The small one, Sal, had a toothpick he was working. The big-shouldered other guy, Vinnie, was chewing gum. They both looked bored.

  Sal was in charge. The little guy is usually the smart one in these Mafia combos.

  “You’re Sykes?” he said to Sykes.

  Sykes said he was Sykes.

  Nobody asked who Dish Face was.

  Nobody shook hands.

  Rolling the toothpick around in his mouth, Sal walked over to where I sat and looked at me with no particular interest. “This is Hammer?”

  “That,” Sykes said, “is Hammer.”

  I wasn’t gagged or anything, but no one asked my opinion.

  The two New York guys seemed about as interested in their hosts as they were in the fish-glue boxes piled around the warehouse. But Sykes tried. He trotted out his smile, doing his best to keep the sneer out.

  He said, “We can soften him up for you, if you like. Why work up a sweat?”

  The toothpick roller had his back to Sykes. The gum chewer was several feet behind his companion, standing next to Dish Face.

  Sal said, “No thanks. We can handle this.” He worked his toothpick and reached inside his righthand topcoat pocket and came back with a roll of quarters.

  “You boys wait outside,” Sal advised his hosts.

  Sykes shot him in the back of the head, and a bunch of what had been in it flew over my shoulder in a blur of red, white and green. So close to patriotic, yet so far. Sal made up for it, hitting the pavement and cracking the roll of quarters open, George Washington flying everywhere.

  At the same time Dish Face whapped Vinnie hard on the side of the head with the nightstick. Vinnie spat out his gum and went down on the cement in a pile of confusion, not quite unconscious but not conscious enough to do anything about it, rolling on his back. Sykes walked over and Vinnie craned up just in time to see Sykes shoot him in the fore
head. Vinnie’s head went back and rested on a pillow of his own brains.

  Sykes and Dish Face were facing each other with big smiles, the tall cop putting his revolver in its shoulder holster as he said, “You did fine, Sarge. You did good!”

  That was when I sent my tied wrists down for the .38 and came back shooting, still in my chair, putting two slugs in Dish Face’s fat gut. He flopped on his back like a speared fish on deck. He was whimpering and crying, hands clutching his bloody belly, squirts of red dancing between his fat fingers, autographing his cast. It would take him a while to die. That was the idea.

  Meanwhile, Sykes was trying to decide if he had time to go for his shoulder-holstered rod. But he was smart. He had a calculating machine between his ears, and he added things up and said, “Good, Hammer. That makes us a fifteen-thousand dollar split.”

  “Right,” I said.

  I got to my feet. I surprised myself by how steady I was. Walked over to him.

  Sykes bobbed a head at the scattered carnage. “Where should we dump the bodies?”

  “I think right here is fine.”

  I kneed him in his remaining ball and he went down with a scream that kept going. I plucked the gun from under his arm and stuck it in my waistband, the butt cold against the bare skin of my shirtless stomach.

  He was looking up at me, the pain subsiding. “Look, you… you keep the money. You just… just leave the clean-up to me. I can… I can rig this so we were arresting these two Mafia bums and things… things just got out of hand.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  Not a trace of smugness was in the long, angular face now. “Come on, Hammer. Killing me, what good does it do? I know when I’m beaten. Anyway, you can’t kill me!”

  “Why is that?”

  “Damnit, man! I’m a cop!”

  “Not really,” I said, and shot him in the head.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The air hung thick with cordite. The floor ran red with blood, stippled with brains and general gore and an occasional quarter. I stepped around all that, careful not to slip in it or the vehicular oil, using a handkerchief to rub my prints off anything I’d touched, chiefly weapons.

  Then I did a little cosmetic stage-managing, putting various guns in assorted hands to indicate a falling out, and shoot-out, among thieves. Well, among crooks and cops, if there was a difference in this town.

  This should be the end of New York Mafia boys coming to Killing Town to look for Bob’s thirty grand. This second round of fun included the two crooked cops who’d arranged things for both the Two Tonys and for Sal and Vinnie. And everybody was nicely dead.

  And maybe now Carl Evello would understand how badly things could go wrong when you took on Mike Hammer. If he wanted more when I got back to the city, I’d be ready for round three.

  My things were piled on the workbench, including my .45 in its shoulder sling, so leaving the .38 behind as part of the little melodrama I staged wouldn’t leave me naked. I had my shirt, tie, suitcoat, raincoat, and hat, too. I looked damn near human, even if I didn’t quite feel it.

  By the time I was slipping out of the warehouse onto the waterfront street, where a cool foul wind was blowing in off the bay, a distant siren was wailing its mournful yet accusatory tune. Nice to know that even in this neighborhood, some good citizen had heard gunshots and called it in.

  That gave me an idea, and I crossed to a little diner across the street and down a few doors, went in and ordered coffee. There was apple pie in one of those countertop four-tier displays, but it didn’t look like your mother used to make, unless your mother made it runny.

  So I settled for coffee and a booth by a window that hadn’t seen a post-war cleaning yet. But through the smeary filth, I could see well enough, as a pair of squad cars rolled in with their sirens winding down and roof-mounted beacons glowing red. As the cops climbed out and went inside, pistols drawn, the red spotlights were left on, turning the officers satanic.

  By the time a big black Dodge drew up, with no police markings but a blue-uniformed driver, I was on my second cup of coffee and asking myself, just how bad could that pie be? Then Chief Belden, in a topcoat and no hat hiding his unkempt thinning hair, left the black vehicle and entered the warehouse. He had the disheveled look of a man hauled out of bed on business. Nasty business.

  I tried the pie. Answer: pretty bad. But I’d ordered it à la mode, and a scoop of ice cream is hard to screw up. Fifteen minutes later a glum-looking Belden came out, hands deep in his topcoat pocket. Standing in a bath of red light near a squad car beacon, he looked as if every inch of him was burning with rage, and his weed-patch head of hair seemed to have caught fire.

  He walked out of beacon range and stood talking intensely with a couple of the uniformed officers, chest-thumping one and then the other with a thick forefinger. I dropped a buck on the booth’s tabletop and went outside. The wind still stank but at least it provided some coolness.

  I strolled over and came up behind Belden and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned his head, irritated—he’d been in mid-sentence— and when he saw me, it was like he spotted Banquo’s ghost.

  “A word?” I said, and nodded toward the diner.

  He froze for a moment, as if waiting for me to be an unpleasant mirage that would just float away. When I didn’t, he sighed and gave me the kind of reluctant nod he probably gave his wife when she asked him to take out the garbage.

  I led him to the booth where my coffee cup hadn’t been cleared yet, though the buck was gone. A skinny waitress came over and pretty soon both the chief and I had cups of coffee. He got a cigar going and then put it in an ashtray and promptly forgot about it.

  “What the hell, Hammer?” he said. Even without the cop car beacon, his purplish, mottled complexion had plenty of red in it, and the pouchy eyes were runny and bloodshot. Who could blame him? Late Saturday night and something like this?

  “Could you be more specific?” I asked.

  “What the hell do you know about this, goddamnit?”

  “Nothing really.” I shrugged. “I just heard a rumor somebody shot Henny Sykes in the head.”

  His big hands were on the tabletop, opening and closing; hands, fists, hands, fists, hands…

  “Let’s back up, Chief,” I said, raising a palm as if calling time-out. “Did you tell Sykes where to find me the other day? Because I had callers at the Charles girl’s cottage.”

  The smile he gave me had little to do with the usual reasons for smiling. “Callers from New York? Who turned up dead on a back road this morning?”

  I shook my head. “I wouldn’t know anything about that, Chief. I’m not from here, remember? But you were the only person I told where to find me. Now, I like to think I’m a good judge of character. I got the impression you weren’t a big fan of how Sykes conducted his police work. Was I wrong?”

  “No.”

  “So you didn’t tell him where I was. Did you tell anybody?”

  His mouth tightened and a little embarrassment worked through the boiling rage. “Might have. Might have mentioned it. Not to Sykes.”

  “But somebody at the cop shop could’ve told Sykes. Would you say he was the Senator’s man?”

  He drew in a breath. Police chiefs don’t like to be interrogated. They particularly don’t like it outside a crime scene littered with bodies, half of which are cops’.

  But he said, “I would not. Sykes has done the Senator’s bidding, time to time, sure. But he works for anybody who can pay the price. Worked for anybody. He was dirty as hell, but he was connected.”

  “To the Senator.”

  Belden’s shrug was barely perceptible. “Among others.”

  “Such as gangsters with New York ties?”

  The chief ’s nod was also barely perceptible.

  It was just as that reporter, Jackson, had said.

  “I want to ask you a couple of questions,” I said, lighting up a Lucky, then waving out the match. “I’ll understand if you don’t wa
nt to answer. But I’d appreciate it if you would.”

  “In about two seconds,” Belden said, “the cuffs are coming out and you’ll be answering the questions.”

  “That’s your prerogative. But if you’re implying I had something to do with that terrible tragedy across the street, you might want to consider what can of worms you’ll be opening for you and your department.”

  His chin was tight and his mouth was, too. The eyes had all but disappeared into their pouchy settings. “Is that a threat, Hammer?”

  I eased out some smoke. “Call it an observation. Here’s another. You are free to haul me in on suspicion, obviously…”

  “Because it’s my prerogative,” he said sarcastically.

  “… but this time the gloves will be off, and I don’t mean Sykes’ favorite leather pair. I won’t sit back and take it like a good boy. A powerful criminal lawyer in Manhattan will be my first call, and his first call will be to the top crime reporter with the News. Friends of mine on the NYPD, with their own Mafia connections, will roll into town and the investigation that follows will turn Killington inside out and upside down. Your call, Chief.”

  Hands, fists, hands, fists, hands, fists…

  “Of course,” I went on, “with Sykes gone, you could just go about the business of cleaning things up from within. That is the top cop’s chair you’re sitting in, back at headquarters, right? And the D.A. doesn’t seem like such a bad sort.”

  Hands now. Just hands…

  Quietly Belden asked, “What do you want to know?”

  “Eva Charles says she was with her husband on the night of the Warburton girl’s rape and murder. Is that an alibi you confirmed? Or was the word of any old Charles good enough?”

  He didn’t like the question, but he answered it anyway. “We checked it. Confirmed it.”

  “Where were they? At home?”

  He shrugged. “Eventually.”

  “Well, that sounds like they were somewhere else for a while. What, out for supper? A movie?”

  He shifted in the booth. “Lawrence Charles came in on the train and Eva Charles met him at the station, picked him up. They went home. That’s all there is to it.”

  I was frowning. “What train?”