The Big Kill mh-5 Page 17

  "He was."

  Pat said it so flatly that I almost missed it.

  "What'd you say?"

  "He drove the car when Decker was killed."

  It was like a wave washing up the beach, then receding back into itself, the way my body was suddenly flushed before it was drained completely dry. I couldn't get my hands unclenched. They were the only live part of me, balled up in my lap doing the cursing my throat wanted to do. The killer was supposed to be mine, goddamn it. I promised the kid and I promised myself. He wasn't supposed to die in bed never knowing why he died. He should have gone with his tongue hanging out and turning black while I choked the guts out of him!

  "How do you know?"

  "Cole and Fisher were apprehended in Philadelphia. They decided to shoot it out and lost. Cole lived long enough to say a few things."

  "What things?"

  "You were right about Hooker and Decker. Toady gave the orders to get Mel. He was going to put Cole and Fisher out with Decker, changed his mind and went himself instead. That was all they knew."

  "You mean they were supposed to bump Decker?"

  "No... just go with him when they pulled the job.

  I got up slowly. I put my hat back on and dropped my butt in the ash tray on the desk. "Okay, Pat, get Teen your own way. I still want you to give me a break with the D.A. I want to get some sleep. I need it bad."

  "If Grindle's dead he'll stay dead. Make yourself scarce. When you wake up give me a ring. I'll hold things as long as I can."

  "Thanks."

  "And Mike..."

  "Yeah?"

  "Do something about your face. You look like hell."

  "I'll cut it off at the neck and get a new one," I said.

  Pat said seriously, "I wish you would."

  Chapter Ten

  I had company again. I had a whole hall full of company. Everybody was coming to see me. I was the most popular guy in town and everybody was standing in front of my door dying to get a look at me. One of my company gasped in a huge breath of air before she said, "Oh... oh, thank heavens, there he is."

  The super's wife was a big fat woman no corset could contain properly and with all that air in her she looked ready to burst. But she was smiling as she recognized my walk and then the smile froze on her face. The super stopped poking a key in the lock on my door, pushed through the small knot and he froze too.

  Then there was Marsha. She shoved them all out of the way. The laugh she had ready for me twisted to dismay and she said, "Mike!"

  "Hello, sugar."

  "Oh, Mike, I knew something happened to you!" She ran into my arms and the tears welled into her eyes. Her fingers touched my cheek gently and I felt them tremble. "Darling, darling... what was it..."

  "Oh, I'll tell you about it sometime. What's all the excitement about?"

  She choked and gasped the words out. "I kept calling you and calling you all last night and this morning. I... thought something happened... like that last time in your apartment. Oh, Mike..."

  "It's all right now, honey. I'll be back to normal soon."

  "I... came up and you didn't answer. I told the superintendent you might be hurt... and he... he was going to look. Mike, you scared me so."

  The super was nodding, licking his lips. The others crowded in for a last look at me before going back to their apartments. His wife said, "You scared us all, Mr. Hammer. We were sure you were dead or something."

  "I almost was. Anyway, thanks for thinking of me. Now if you don't mind, I'd just like to be left alone for a while. I'm not feeling any too hot."

  "Is there anything..."

  "No, nothing, thanks." I took out my key and opened the door. I had to prop myself against the sill for a minute before I could go in. Marsha grabbed my arm and held me steady, then guided me inside to a chair and helped me down.

  The day had been too long... too much to it. A guy can't take days like that one and stay on his feet. I let my head fall back and closed my eyes. Marsha sobbed softy as she untied my shoes and slid them off. The aches and pains came back, a muted throbbing at first, taking hold slowly and biting deeper with each pulse beat.

  Marsha had my tie off and was unbuttoning my shirt when the knock came. It didn't make any difference any more who it was. I heard her open the door, heard the murmur of voices and the high babble of a child's voice in the background.

  "Mike... it's a nurse."

  "The superintendent asked me to look in on you," the other voice said.

  "I'm all right."

  Her voice became very efficient. "I doubt it. Will you watch the child, please? Thank you." Her hand slipped under my arm. "You'll do better lying down."

  I couldn't argue with her. She had an answer for everything. Marsha was on the couch still crying, playing with the kid. I got up and went to the bedroom. She had me undressed and in bed before I realized it. The sting of the iodine and the cold compresses on my face jerked me out of immediate sleep and I heard her telling Marsha to call a doctor. It seemed like only seconds before he was there, squeezing with hands that had forgotten how to be gentle, then gone as quickly as he had come. I could hear the two women discussing me quietly, deciding to stay until I had awakened. The kid squealed at something and it was the last thing I heard.

  There were only snatches of dreams after that, vague faces that had an odd familiarity and incomprehensible mutterings about things I didn't understand. It took me away from the painful present and threw me into a timeless zone of light and warmth where my body healed itself immediately. It was like being inside a huge beautiful compound where there was no trouble, no misery and no death. All that was outside the transparent walls of the compound where you could see it happen to everyone else without being touched yourself.

  They were all there, Decker with his child, listening intently to what Mel Hooker had to say, and Toady Link in the background watching and nodding to make sure he said it right, his boys ready to move in if he said the wrong thing. Lou and Teen were there too, standing over the body of a man who had to be Fallon, their heads turned speculatively toward Toady. A play was going on not far away. Everybody was dressed in Roman togas. Marsha and Pat held the center of the stage with the D.A. and Ellen was standing in the open wings waiting to come on. They turned and made motions to be quiet to the dozens of others behind them... the women. Beautiful women. Lovely women with faces you could recognize. Women whose faces I had seen before in photographs.

  When the players moved it was with deliberate slowness so you could watch every move. I stood there in the center of the compound and realized that it was all being done for my benefit without understanding why. It was a scene of impending action the evil of it symbolized by the lone shadow of the vulture wheeling high above in a gray, dismal sky.

  I waited and watched, knowing that it had all happened before and was going to happen again and this time I would see every move and understand each individual action. I tried to concentrate on the players until I realized that I wasn't the only audience they had. Someone else was there in the compound with me. She was a woman. She had no face. She was a woman in black hovering behind me. I called to her and received no answer. I tried to walk to her, but she was always the same distance away without seeming to move at all. I ran on leaden feet without getting any closer, and tiring of the chase turned back to the play.

  It was over and I had missed it again.

  I said something vile to the woman because she had caused me to miss it and she shrank back, disappearing into the mist.

  But the play wasn't over, not quite. At first I thought they were taking a curtain call, then I realized that their faces were hideous things and in unreal voices of pure silences they were all screaming for me to stop her and bring her back. Teen and Grindle and Link were slavering in their fury as they tried to break through the transparent wall and were thrown back to the ground. Their faces were contorted and their hands curved into talons. I laughed at them and they stopped, stunned, then withdrew out of
sight.

  The gray and noiseless compound dissolved into sound and yellow light. I was rocked gently from side to side and a voice said, "Mike... please wake up."

  I opened my one eye and the other came open with it a little bit. "Marsha?"

  "You were talking in your sleep. Are you awake, Mike?"

  She looked tired. The nurse behind her looked tired too. The boy in her arms was smiling at me. "I'm awake, honey." I made a motion for her to pull down the shade. "Same day?"

  "No, you slept all through yesterday, all night and most of today."

  I rubbed my face. Some of the puffiness had gone down. "Lord. What time is it?"

  "Almost four-thirty. Mike... that Captain Chambers is on the phone. Can you answer him?"

  "Yeah, I'll get it. Let me get something on."

  I struggled into my pants, swearing when I hit a raw spot. I was covered with adhesive tape and iodine, but the agony of moving was only a soreness now. I padded outside and picked up the phone. "Hello..."

  "Where've you been, Mike? I told you to call me."

  "Oh, shut up. I've been asleep."

  "I hope you're awake now. The D.A. found Grindle."

  "Good."

  "Now he wants you."

  "What's it this time, a homicide charge?"

  "There's no charge. I explained that away. He wants Teen and he thinks you're pulling a fast one again."

  "What's the matter with the guy?"

  "Put yourself in his shoes and you'll see. The guy is fighting to hang onto his job."

  "Christ, I gave him enough. What does he want... blood? Did he expect me to get Teen the hard way for him?"

  "Don't be a jerk, Mike. He doesn't want Teen dead. He doesn't want a simple obit in the papers. He wants Teen in court so he can blow the whole thing wide open before the public. That's the only thing that will keep him in office."

  "What happened to tin ear?"

  "All the guy had was the telephone number of a booth in Grand Central Station. If he didn't call in every hour it meant there was trouble. We traced the number and there was nobody around. The guy worked through an intermediary who passed the information on to the right people. Both of them got paid off the same way... a bundle of cash by mail on the first of every month."

  "I suppose Ed Teen's laughing his head off."

  "Not exactly, but he's grinning broadly. We checked his alibi for the night before last and it's perfect. You know and I know that it's phoney as hell, but nobody is breaking it down in court. According to Teen the entire thing is preposterous. He was playing cards with a group of friends right through the night."

  "Nuts. His story is as old as his racket. One good session under the lights and he'll talk."

  "You don't put him under lights."

  "There're other things you can do," I suggested.

  "You don't do that either, Mike. Teen's going around under the watchful eye of a battery of lawyers well protected by a gang of licensed strong-arm boys. You try anything smart and it'll be your neck."

  "Great. Now what's with the D.A.?"

  It was a moment before he said anything. "Mike... are you on the level with me?"

  "You know everything I know, Pat. Why?"

  "You're going to be tied up with our boy for a long time if you don't get a move on," he said. "And by the way, call Ellen when you have time. She wants to talk to you."

  "She there now?"

  "No, she left a little while ago. I got something else for you.

  The playboy is back."

  "Marvin Holmes?"

  "Yeah. Customs passed the word on to us but it was too late to stop him. We traced him as far as New York and lost him here. The last lead we had said he was with a foreign-looking blonde and was doing his damnedest to stay under cover."

  I let it run through my mind a minute. "He's still scared of something."

  "It looks that way. I'm hoping to pick him up some time today. He's too well known to stay hidden long. Look, you give me a call when you have time. I have to get going now. This place is a madhouse. I wish the D.A. would operate out of his own office for a change."

  I heard the click of his receiver cutting off the connection. Good old Pat. We still played on the same ball team. He was still worrying about me enough to want me to pick my own time and place when I had a long talk with the District Attorney.

  Marsha was propped against the corner of the couch yawning. "We have to scram, kid."

  Her mouth came shut. "Something wrong?"

  "People want to talk to me and I can't afford the time. I want to go someplace and think. I want to be where nobody'll bother me for a week if I don't feel like seeing them."

  "Well... we can go to my place. I won't bother you, Mike. I just want to crawl in bed and sleep forever."

  "Okay. Get your things on. I'll get dressed."

  I went back to the bedroom and finished putting on my clothes. There was a light tap on the door and I yelled come on in. The nurse opened the door and stood there holding the boy's hand. He would have been content to stay there, only he spotted the sling of the shoulder holster dangling from the dresser and made a dash for it.

  This time she grabbed him before he was halfway there and dragged him back.

  "I wish he liked his toys that way," she said.

  "Maybe he'll grow up to be a cop."

  I got a disapproving look for that. "I hope not!" she paused. "Miss Lee tells me you have to leave again."

  "That's right."

  "Then perhaps you'll do me a favor."

  "Sure."

  "They came to repaint my apartment this morning. I was wondering if you'd mind my staying here tonight."

  "Go right ahead. You'll be doing me the favor if you stay. If anybody calls tell them I'm out, you don't know where I am, nor when I'll be back. Okay?"

  A frown creased her forehead. "You... expect callers?" There was a tremulous note in her voice.

  I laughed at her and shook my head. "Not that kind. They'll be respectable enough."

  She sighed uncertainly and took the kid back to the living room with her. I finished tying my shoes, strapped the gun around my chest and picked my jacket off a coat hanger in the closet. My other suit was draped over the back of the chair and a quick inspection said that it wasn't worth wearing any more. I emptied out the pockets on the dresser, rolled them up in a tight ball and carried them out to the kitchen. I stuffed them into the garbage can on top of the kid's old clothes, pressed the lid down tight and shoved the can back into the corner.

  Marsha was waiting for me inside trying to hide her red-rimmed eyes with some mascara. We said good-by to the nurse and the kid and picked up the elevator going down. She fell asleep almost immediately and I had a hell of a time trying to wake her up when we got to her place.

  I tried shaking her, pinching her and when that didn't work I bent over and kissed her.

  That worked.

  She wrinkled her nose and fought her eyes open. I said. "We're here. Come on, snap out of it."

  "You did this to me," she smiled.

  "That mustached bodyguard you got upstairs will wring my neck for it."

  Her lips crinkled in a grin. "So that's why you came so readily. You thought you were going to be chaperoned. I'm sorry, Mike, but I'm all alone. The nurse is gone."

  I gave her a playful rap on the chin and scooted her out of the car. She took my hand and we went up together. The guy on the elevator gaped at me until I said, "Up," twice, then he swallowed hard and slid the door shut. It was too bad he didn't see me yesterday.

  We were so far away from everything up there. The evening filtered through the blinds, the late, slanting rays of the sun forming a crosshatch pattern on the rug. She settled me back in a big chair and disappeared in the kitchen where she made all the pleasant sounds of a woman in her element. I smelled the coffee and heard the bacon and eggs sizzling in the pan. My stomach remembered how long it was since it had been filled, and churned in anticipation.

  I was
out there before she called me, trying to be helpful by making the toast. She said, "Hungry?"

  "Starving."

  "Me too, I finished a box of stale crackers in your place and haven't eaten since."

  That was all we said. You just don't talk when you don't leave room between bites. The coffee was hot and strong the way I like it and I finished it before I picked up a smoke.

  Marsha turned the small radio on to a local station and picked up a supper orchestra and everything was perfect. It stayed that way until the band went off on the hour and a news commentator came on. It was the same boy who got all worked up over affairs in the city and this time he was really running over.

  He gushed through his usual routine of introducing himself to the public and said, "Tonight has seen the end of an era. The man known to the police, the press, and the underworld as Lou Grindle has been found dead in a summer cottage near Islip, Long Island. Two men known to have been Grindle's associates were found shot to death, one in the same house and another twenty miles east of the spot. The house was the scene of violent gunplay and according to police ballistics experts, it was a bullet from Grindle's own gun that killed one of his men. An early reporter on the scene claims that the house had been used as some sort of inquisition chamber by Grindle and his men, but when questioned on the point the police refused to comment. Because of the significance of Grindle's death, the District Attorney has issued a No comment statement, but it is hinted that he is in full possession of the facts.

  "Lou Grindle was a product of the racketeering of the early Twenties. Since the repeal of Prohibition he has been suspected of being a key figure in..."

  I reached out and tuned in another station. I got a rhumba band that was all drums filling in behind a piano and let it beat through the room. But Marsha wasn't listening to it. Her mouth held a fixed position of surprise that matched the startled intensity of her eyes.

  "Mike... that was... you?"

  So I grinned at her. My mouth twisted up on the side and I said, "They were going to kill me. They worked me over then took me for a ride."