Mike Hammer--King of the Weeds Page 17

  She asked him, “Have you brought Mr. Hammer up to speed?”

  “No. Be my guest, Ms. Clark.”

  She gave me a direct stare and a tight smile. “You suggested to Captain Chambers that we might want to explore the original case file of the so-called Bowery Bum slayings, and beyond that, dig into records for the year or so previous to the first victim, to look for precursor crimes.”

  I started nodding half-way through that. “That’s right, Ms. Clark. Have you come up with something?”

  “Well, Captain Chambers has, or at any rate his staff, who should be commended. We found reports of similar robberies on that particular block, on that same side of the street that was a notorious section of gay bars at the time.”

  “Did these reports involve two assailants or one?”

  She smiled, glanced at Chambers, who smiled and shrugged, as if to say, I told you so. “Two, Mr. Hammer,” she said.

  I had to grin. “They were a team, weren’t they? One of them, my guess is Olaf, lured a victim into an alley for some quick pants-around-the-ankles fun, then Brogan came around with a gun and robbed the guy instead. Before the killings, was there any violence?”

  She nodded. “Yes, they roughed their victims up and intimidated them.”

  “Do you think that just escalated into killing?”

  “Actually, no. But we think we know at what point the modus operandi shifted. One of the victims fought back, took the gun away from Brogan, or at least we assume it was Brogan, and pistol-whipped him.”

  I looked at her over the edge of my highball glass. “You can prove this?”

  “The victim is alive and well, Mr. Hammer, and willing to testify.”

  “Forty years later?”

  “Forty years later. There were half a dozen earlier incidents where we had complainants who later declined to aid investigators in their work. But we hope we might track them down and find them alive and willing to help.”

  Pat said, “Like you say, Mike, this is forty years ago. Being identified as gay meant a man’s life was over, professionally and even personally. Many of these men were successful businessmen, with wives and children.”

  “And when they travelled for business, they sometimes indulged a secret side of themselves. I get that.”

  “Mike, if it hadn’t been for their sexual interests, many of these men would never have set foot in a Bowery bar. So after they’d been robbed and roughed up, they came in initially, indignant about the experience, but then in the light of day decided not to cooperate any further.”

  “That was Olaf’s genius,” I said.

  Mandy Clark frowned. “How so?”

  “Well, I assume he was the brains. They are both smart men, Brogan and Olaf. But whichever of them chose that area as their hunting ground took a page out of Jack the Ripper’s book—the Bowery, Skid Row, who cared what became of its denizens? Add to that victims who were homosexual, and you’ve paved the way for a psychotic killer’s fun and profit.”

  She gave me a very pretty smile. “Well, we caught a break with our witness—the one who fought back? He’s in his eighties, sharp as a tack. His wife is dead, and their two children are grown with their own families, and he says he doesn’t ‘give a diddly damn what anybody thinks’ about his ‘sexual recreational inclinations.’ Interesting phrase from an interesting man.”

  Pat said, “But one witness isn’t enough. Even that sharp, a guy in his eighties might be impeached by a lawyer with the skills of Rufus Tomlin.”

  I asked, “What are you going to do about it, Pat?”

  “We’re looking at the other incidents in the same time frame. Mike, you sent us in the right direction. Thanks.”

  The assistant D.A. said, “Yes, Mr. Hammer. We’re grateful.”

  “No problem. I love it when other people do my work for me. So what’s the plan?”

  She said, “The plan… and this is as confidential as it gets, Mr. Hammer… is to prove that Henry Brogan and Rudy Olaf entered into a conspiracy to defraud the city of New York of… a considerable amount. That figure is one even I am not privy to.”

  I gestured with an open palm. “Why not just throw Rudy’s ass back in the slam on the old murder charge?”

  Pat said, “Part of the terms of his release was a full pardon from the governor. It was the only way to avoid a new trial and a lot of embarrassment.”

  “Shit,” I said. “And he can’t be tried on the Bowery Bum slayings again because it would constitute double jeopardy.”

  That got glum nods from both of them.

  “We could go after Brogan,” she said, “but he wouldn’t live to reach trial. Our only real option, Mr. Hammer, is proving conspiracy between Olaf and Brogan to defraud the city. That accomplishes two things—it gets the city its money back, and it redeems the reputation of a fine public servant.”

  “That would be me,” Pat said with a quiet smile.

  I grunted a humorless laugh. “It’s sort of like putting Capone away on income tax evasion… but it’s better than nothing.”

  Our waiter came over and asked if we’d like another round. We said yes.

  Pat said, “Do you mind, Ms. Clark, if I fill Mike in on that other matter?”

  She frowned in momentary thought, but then said, “I have no objection. I don’t believe there’s a tie-in to the Olaf case, but be my guest.”

  Pat took a breath, let it out, and said, “These ‘coincidental, accidental’ cop fatalities that have been hanging over our head—that cop who was wounded interrupting a burglary died in the hospital this morning, Mike. That makes ten.”

  I smiled mirthlessly at the assistant D.A. “And the city’s statistician doesn’t like those odds… right, Ms. Clark?”

  “No, he doesn’t,” she said. “But Captain Chambers may have evidence that somebody is fixing the game.”

  Pat said, “As I told you earlier, Mike, I have two top homicide teams working these deaths. We have three so far that look suspicious. This stays here, Mike, got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “The driver of the delivery van that blew a tire and rammed a squad car, killing the driver, has a record that includes drug dealing and assault with a deadly weapon. The robbery where the two cops were shot down with rifles from the getaway car may have been timed for those officers to be in the wrong place at a designated right time. And that young cop whose funeral we went to, who was caught in the gangbanger crossfire? He was on his way home on a route he always took at a time he always travelled.”

  “That,” I said, “would be easy to put in motion, as well.”

  He nodded. “And we’re exploring the other deaths. The old mob guy who went to that restaurant to commit suicide may have been on a kamikaze mission—we’re looking at whether his family is being particularly well looked after. Of course, some of these deaths may really be purely coincidental, feeding the notion of a rash of fatalities—like an officer off-duty, out jogging, who dies of a heart attack. But the majority of these deaths may have been… arranged.”

  The assistant D.A. said, “I am pleased that Captain Chambers is delving into these tragedies, but I have to admit that I am not as sanguine about the possibility that they are linked somehow. That they might be part of a… master plan by some criminal genius out of Sherlock Holmes. Frankly, it’s ridiculous on the face of it.”

  Pat shrugged. “I admit, it sounds wild. But somebody who hated cops might take real pride and pleasure in sitting back and pulling off something like this.”

  She was shaking her head. “But who could manage it? Who could reach out to enough disparate criminals… from gangbangers to armed robbers to outright thugs… in such a sophisticated, complicated manner?”

  “The King of the Weeds,” I said.

  They both looked at me like I was out of my mind. Not the first time I’d been looked at that way. Likely not the last.

  In any case, I told them what I had learned from Tim Darcy and his source Danny Dixon. I didn’t provide name
s, though I said I would do so when I felt it wasn’t a compromise of trust. A P.I. has to protect his sources the same way a journalist does.

  I said, “Rudy Olaf is a chess master, Ms. Clark, both literally and figuratively. And if my source isn’t just yanking my chain, then Sing Sing’s answer to Professor Moriarty has been running the criminal power structure within the most famous prison in America for decades. From his post as de facto head librarian, he can communicate with anyone on the inside or outside he wishes, and he has money to burn—just like the cigarettes his kingdom uses for currency.”

  Pat looked like he’d been slapped. “If what you’ve heard is true, Mike, then Rudy Olaf is just the man to put something this complicated in play.”

  The assistant D.A. still wasn’t sold. “But why in hell would he do it, Mr. Hammer?”

  “For fun, Ms. Clark.” She had a right to see the nasty grin, so I showed it to her. “To exercise his power. Maybe in anticipation of getting out of stir after four decades, he saw this as his crowning touch, the final achievement of the King of the Weeds.”

  She was shaking her head, though I could tell she was getting on board. “How would we ever prove it?”

  Pat said, “You’d only need to prove one murder and link it to him. We have four Red Commando punks in custody right now, from that young officer’s killing, and if you swung a deal with one, Ms. Clark, maybe…?”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said. Her expression had gone unreadable. “I’ll think about it.”

  We had another drink, and I asked Ms. Clark a few questions about her background. She answered them in an affable manner, and I was starting to wonder if after all these years I finally had a friend in the D.A.’s office.

  “Let me get this, Mike,” Pat said, reaching for the check.

  I snagged it. “Nope. You’re about to be fired, old buddy, and need to save your shekels. You got a rocking chair to save up for.”

  “Screw you, pal,” he said with a grin.

  And we headed out of the place, with Pat in the lead.

  * * *

  Velda found me at Bellevue. She came running down the corridor in her black raincoat, dodging nurses and orderlies who gave her irritated looks, and finally flung herself into my arms. We were in a waiting area at the end of the hall down from Pat’s room in Intensive Care.

  “Oh, Mike,” she said, hugging me desperately. “Tell me. Tell me.”

  I held her away from me. Tears streaked her face. She already knew what had gone down, from when I called her at home; what she wanted was the medical update. She hadn’t bothered with make-up and her hair was an uncombed tumble, and she had never looked better to me.

  “He’s in surgery,” I said. “The medic I talked to said the bullet went straight in and out, which is good. Didn’t go bouncing around inside him like a pinball. Did not knick his spinal cord.”

  She nodded, arms loose around my waist now. “Then no danger of paralysis…?”

  “No. But a lot got torn up on that slug’s way out.” Anger tightened my gut. “If he makes it, he could be shitting in a bag for the rest of his life.”

  “Mike! Don’t talk that way.”

  “I’m not going to pull any punches, kitten. This is bad. He lost a lot of blood… but it could have been worse—the ambulance boys got there in a hurry, anyway. The docs give him about a one in three chance.”

  We sat down on a metal-frame couch with thin cushions, a big window at our backs. Matching chairs were at right and left separated by metal tables with last year’s magazines. This was a designated smoking area—the tobacco stench hung like death.

  She said, “You have blood all over your coat.”

  “It was on my hands and face, too. I looked like I stepped out of a war zone.”

  Her dark eyes flashed. “Well, didn’t you? Mike, why Pat this time? Why was he the target?”

  “He wasn’t,” I said, and explained why I thought as much.

  “If you’re right,” she said, and her eyes were clear now, emotion replaced by professionalism, “then something doesn’t track. You have both the feds and the mob very much wanting you alive, needing you alive—you are the keeper of the keys, Mike, the only one who can lead them to those billions.”

  I squeezed her hand. “You could.”

  She shook her head. “They don’t know that. And I think you were right before, when you said most people would assume an old-fashioned hard-ass like Mike Hammer would never share that kind of secret with a woman. No, I’m sure I’m safe.”

  “I’m not so sure. Doll, we’re going to get you fitted for a vest first thing tomorrow.”

  She didn’t object. “Then the question is the same one we were asking after that dictionary saved your life—who wants you dead?”

  As if in answer to that question, a tall skeletal figure moved down the hall toward us, in no hurry, like a wraith floating through fog. At first I didn’t make him out and then when I did, I wondered if I was hallucinating. In my mind he was still in prison, even though I knew he’d been recently released.

  But there he was, Rudy Olaf, the King of the Weeds himself, in a gray off-the-rack suit a little big for him, the narrow oval of his blue-eyed face damn near as gray as the suit, white shirt buttoned up to the throat but no tie, his cheekbones sharp and high, adding to his walking-skeleton appearance. He was getting something out of his suitcoat’s breast pocket, and my hand drifted near the .45 under my arm.

  But Rudy didn’t seem to see us. His expression was distant, distracted, oblivious to doctors and nurses and the intercom announcements and dings of bells and rattle of carts and the two people seated in the waiting area, too. From that breast pocket, he withdrew a pack of cigarettes, and removed a book of matches from where it was tucked in the cellophane wrapper.

  He was two-thirds of the way to us when the sky did a tympani number and that wet gray blanket hanging over the city finally let go. Thunder shook the blinds behind us like a disobedient child and for a moment I wondered if the power would go and a generator kick in. Hospitals had damn good ones. The rain was immediate and hard, unrelenting, not quite torrential, just insistent, like the drumming of a drum-and-bugle corps preceding invading troops.

  Then just a few yards from us, he stopped. He said through the slash in his face that was his smile, “Well, Mr. Hammer… imagine running into you here.”

  It had just been “Hammer” at Sing Sing. Now I was “Mr. Hammer.” Now he was polite, a friendly but respectful old acquaintance.

  I got to my feet. “I’m visiting a sick friend.”

  “We have that in common. Henry Brogan is one floor down. I suppose you know that.”

  Actually I had known that, planning to go downstairs and slip in for a little private talk with Brogan, while I waited for Pat to get out of surgery. But I sure as hell didn’t want Olaf around when I did.

  I asked, “What are you doing on this floor, Rudy?”

  He shrugged knobby shoulders. “This is one of the few smoking areas left in this facility. They make the doctors and nurses smoke outside now, you know. Barbaric. What do they do in rain like this?”

  He lighted up a cigarette and drew smoke in, held it a long time, then politely blew it out to one side. The gray-blue smoke went well with his suit and his skin. He re-pocketed the deck of smokes with the tucked-away matches.

  Through a grin that was half-hidden by my upper lip, I said, “Paying respects to your old pal Brogan, huh?”

  “Yes. You may find that difficult to fathom, Mr. Hammer, since one might think I would resent Henry for letting me serve so many years for the crimes he committed. But I understand his behavior. He had a sick wife he was caring for, and then later, a family. His daughter was no great shakes, just a junkie really, but she gave him those two grandkids, who became the lights of his life.”

  I shook my head, still grinning. “So you expect me to believe you willingly served forty years so your pal could enjoy his grandkids.”

  “Oh, I didn’
t know that’s what was going on. For all those years when Henry would visit me each week, I just thought he was a good friend. We were old chess opponents, you know.”

  “I know.”

  Olaf shrugged again. “I had no idea he was the real Bowery slayer.” He pulled in smoke, held it, then let it out dreamily. “Perhaps I would have a different attitude if my stay at Ossining had been more… trying. But I am an adaptable type, Mr. Hammer. I make the best of whatever situation I find myself in… What’s that on your coat? My, is that blood?”

  “That’s what it is.”

  His smile was a ghastly thing as gray as his suit and his skin and his cigarette smoke. “Surely not yours, Mr. Hammer. You look healthy as a horse.”

  “Some drive-by punk shot Pat Chambers tonight, outside a restaurant. Or do you know about that already, Rudy?”

  He frowned and did a passable imitation of someone hearing sad news and responding sympathetically. “Is that why you’re here? Oh dear. How badly was he hurt?”

  “Fighting for his life in an operating room right now, Rudy.”

  Smoke came out his nostrils and his eyes were half-hooded, cobra-like. “Well, I’ll send up a special prayer for him… Is this lovely woman your fiancée, Mr. Hammer? Sorry to be rude, my dear, I didn’t mean to ignore you—I’m Rudolph Olaf.”

  The King of the Weeds held a bony gray hand out to her, but Velda ignored it, looking right through him.

  He shrugged to himself, withdrew the hand, then turned icy blue eyes on me. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “That we would both be here on this dreadful night, visiting friends in Intensive Care. I just hope your luck is better than mine.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. Henry Brogan lapsed into a coma this morning, and died fifteen minutes ago.”

  Olaf gave me a patronizing smile and took several long drags on his cigarette, exhaled smoke grandly, stuffed the butt into the sand of a canister nearby, and strode off.