The Big Bang Page 18

  His smile was wide now, and he was shaking his head in apparent admiration. His words confirmed that: "Very good, Mr. Hammer. Excellent. It was only after my son's death that I was able to determine that the unbaked ceramic forms in my son's room represented more than just a sudden, unexpected interest by Davy in the welfare of hospitalized children."

  I frowned. "The program at the hospital, for those kids—that was Davy's idea?"

  "Oh yes. He took advantage, after Linda was gone, of my need to get closer to him, and suggested the therapeutic value of such a program in the children's ward. It was the perfect cover for the pieces to be in his room at home, or in a box in his car. You see, he really did have brains, my Davy."

  I grunted a laugh. "So do you, Doc. You had the inspired notion of getting both Junior Evello and the Snowbird himself, your son's old friend Jay Wren, into your personal care at Saxony."

  "I arranged that, did I?"

  "Oh yeah. I was able to dig out the fact that those two 'auto accidents' were staged by insurance scammers hired by someone, but not someone from Syndicate circles—a wealthy straight. You, Doc."

  "And why would I do that, Mr. Hammer?"

  "Because Junior and the Snowbird were at your mercy, even if they didn't realize it." I grinned. "What did you use, Doc? Sodium pentothal? Some drug that would loosen their tongues, without their knowing about it. You found out all sorts of good stuff from those two, key information that you passed along to the cops as an anonymous phone tipster."

  This genuinely surprised him. His head rocked back and he smiled in amazement. "How could you know that? My voice was scrambled electronically beyond recognition."

  "I have friends in high and low places, Doc. I also have the unscrambled tape, and can turn it over to the NYPD and feds any time I please."

  He was frowning now. "Go on, Mr. Hammer...."

  "I'm not sure when you found out about the big shipment—whether that came first, and you used the tips to dry up the streets. Or if after you made those calls, the streets dried up, and the big bang became a Syndicate necessity. Chicken or the egg, huh? Anyway, you saw your way clear to get even with the bastards who caused your son's death. You could take their business away from them, knowing that in their circles, screwing up like that doesn't get you a gold watch. More like cement shoes."

  His face was crinkled with amusement now. "And then what, Mr. Hammer? Become the top drug lord myself? A gangster? A Syndicate man?"

  "You already were a Syndicate man. You wormed your way in as their Dr. Feelgood—that gave you access to your patients, even after the automobile accidents you arranged had been recovered from. You could continue giving them the truth-serum treatments, and tipping off the cops and feds." I shook my head. "You know, I'm starting to think that hypocritical oath you took must've had some loopholes."

  His expression had a dazed quality now. "You ... you know about all that, too? Mr. Hammer, I am impressed. I had no doubt that you were a remarkable man, but this ... this is truly impressive."

  "Meanwhile, back at the ceramics shop, you're needing some details that the big fish, Evello and Wren, didn't keep in their craniums. The kind of stuff middle management files away—and I'm figuring this character Elmain is the conduit here. Product is coming into that innocent little tourist trap, and going out again, so there's information in his file cabinet, about people he does business with, that might not be as routine and innocuous as you'd think."

  "Impressive indeed...."

  "That's why you maintained the ceramics program at the hospital, after Davy's death—so you could maintain contact with the shop, legitimize hanging around the place, actually casing the joint ... because you pulled that robbery there. You got into the files, to fill in the rest of the names you needed for your trip to Europe."

  "You're doing fine, Mr. Hammer. You're doing fine."

  "You've purchased the big shipment. You've come up with some new way to ship the stuff in, doing an end run around Evello and Wren that your football-playing son would be proud of. You've set yourself up as the new kingpin." I shook my head. "But that's what I don't get, Doc—why would you want to take over a business that you despise? A traffic in death that cost your son his life, and that's taken the lives of so many others?"

  His mouth twitched a smile. "Any ideas?"

  "Just one. When we spoke about the drug problem, you said it was a 'vicious circle, impossible to break.' Perhaps you intended to punish Evello and Wren, denying them their business, and planned to use the money you made from this junk for good—maybe plow it into cancer research or something. How am I doing, Doc? Close?"

  "Close, Mr. Hammer. Close." He sat forward. "May I ask you something?"

  "Shoot."

  He laughed, once. "Actually, that's my question—did you come here to shoot me? You're an avenger, Mr. Hammer, a well-known proponent of frontier justice. Is that your prescription for this illness? To kill me?"

  I got out the .45, thumbed back the hammer—the click was sharp and loud in the enclosed space. "How would you put it, Doc? It's one possible avenue of treatment."

  He seemed not at all fazed by the weapon. He said, "What if I asked you to trust me?"

  "What?"

  He sat forward, his manner, his tone, both conciliatory and confidential. "What if I told you that I have a... treatment in mind ... that may well break that vicious circle. That my intent here is not to become a criminal 'kingpin,' but to cripple their organization, perhaps even end it."

  "How in hell?"

  He shook his head. "That's why I must ask you to trust me. The burden of what I have conceived must be mine alone. It's a responsibility, even a guilt, that I alone must bear."

  "I'm not following you...."

  He frowned. "Well, try. Because it shouldn't be hard for you. How many times have you faced killers down, Mr. Hammer, with that very gun in your hand? How many times have you made some monster stare down its barrel and see death coming out to claim him, or her?"

  "Who's counting?"

  His smile was razor thin. "For you, such a choice comes naturally. No soul-searching needed. Perhaps few if any sleepless nights." One black eyebrow arched. "But let me ask you this—would you dream of asking anyone else to join you in shouldering the responsibility, the guilt, the burden? Would you ask any other person on earth to squeeze the trigger on that weapon? Or must it be you alone? You, the judge, the jury, the executioner?"

  My mouth felt dry.

  Not even Velda, I thought.

  Finally I said, "I wouldn't ask anybody to take any of it on. Like somebody said once, vengeance is mine."

  "Right." His voice took on a quiet urgency. "And I ask you, Mr. Hammer, to believe me when I say that I am on a course of action that I must be allowed to complete. It will avenge my son, oh yes, but it will do so much more. So very much more."

  "What are you asking?"

  "For one week."

  "One week?"

  "One week."

  "And what then, Doc?"

  His shrug spoke volumes. "Then I will answer any question you have for me. Pay whatever price. I will accompany you to the police or the federal people or whomever you like. Or I will stand before you and that gun of yours and allow you to play judge and jury and executioner yet again. Without expectation of pity. With no complaint. One week."

  I didn't know what to say.

  "Otherwise," he said, and he flicked a finger at the .45, then did a trigger-pulling gesture, "you can get it over with right here. Life has little meaning to me now, other than a desire to carry out my last, my most radical therapy."

  I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. Maybe he was nuts. Maybe I was nuts. But one thing was certain—I no longer thought the point of all this was for Dr. David Harrin to become top hoodlum in the narcotics racket.

  "Shit," I said, and eased the hammer down. "I hate dealing with people smarter than me."

  I put the gun away, safety on.

  Then I stood and said, "You
want a week, Doc? Well, I need a day to think about your week. How's that for a compromise?"

  He rose and nodded. "Fair enough."

  We shook on it.

  "Here," he said, almost gently, as he got my things from the closet, "I'll walk you out."

  I shrugged into the trench coat, shoved the hat on my head, and we exited the spartan apartment, which he did not lock behind him.

  Soon we were on the front stoop of the building. The rain was over, even the mist gone, though water pooled and glimmered where time had made impressions in the stone steps. The residential street was quiet, the wildness and weirdness of MacDougal Street a block and a half up.

  He put a hand on my shoulder, looming over me, a good three inches, anyway. His expression was serene.

  "Please understand, Mr. Hammer. I cannot tell you precisely what my intentions are. It's not so much that you might disagree with my approach, and try to stop me—"

  "If I did, Doc, I would."

  "I know.... It's more that I do not want you to be implicated, because what I have in mind has far-reaching implications, legally and ethically."

  "Legalities and ethics, Doc, don't always enter in with me."

  His smile turned gentle, almost wistful. "You never know, Mr. Hammer. You never know. Perhaps one day ... you'll see the light." Half turning, he was about to go back in when he added, "Maybe you will see the light."

  Which, as fate would have it, was exactly when light washed over his face, headlights, and the serene look was overtaken by wide-eyed alarm, and the doc stepped in front of me, pushing me down, and the night exploded with gunfire and three slugs stitched their way across his sweater, forming black periods that welled into red commas, and his expression was blank-eyed and slack-jawed as he thumped back against the door, and slid down, leaving three smeary trails on the wood.

  I was in a crouch when I fired at the vehicle, which had slowed initially but now screamed into the night, and I took the seven steps to the street in two bounds and was out in the slick black pavement firing at the car, a late-model green Buick. The rear windshield shattered and the car swerved over to the left and just missed a parked car to go up over the curb and into the side of a brick building.

  A horn blared in loud monotony and I ran almost a block, coat flapping, losing my hat along the way, until I got to the vehicle. The driver was a longhaired kid who had taken one of my .45 slugs in the back of the head, the windshield dripping with gray and red and white material that had exploded out his forehead.

  The shorter-haired rider—in T-shirt and jeans, who'd done the shooting—had broken his forearm against the dashboard, on impact, and I could see jutting white bone glistening with decorative red against brown skin. He was a Puerto Rican kid, and was swearing or praying or something, and I'd have spared him if he hadn't gone one-handed scrambling for the nine millimeter that had fallen in his lap. The .45 slug entered his right temple, splattered blood and brains onto the dead driver, and shut off the rider's chatter like a switch.

  People were yelling and screaming, but I ignored that and, not even stopping to retrieve my hat, ran back to the brownstone, where a hippie girl up on the stoop was holding Dr. Harrin in her arms like the Pietà, and wailing, "Somebody help him!"

  But even if a doctor as good as Harrin had been around, it wouldn't have helped. Nobody had ever found a cure for his condition.

  Chapter Twelve

  THERE WAS NO ducking it.

  No sneaking over to Velda's and avoiding the mess and the time and the trouble, and playing the Little Man Who Wasn't There. Harrin had died next to me, pushing me down to safety, taking three bullets likely intended for me, and maybe that oath he took a long time ago about protecting others from harm had still held some sway over him.

  The only thing that went fast was how long it took for Pat Chambers to get there. He beat the lab boys to the scene, and I met him as he climbed from the rider's side of the unmarked that pulled up in the street, siren blaring and cherry top painting the already shell-shocked bystanders a shade of red rivaling the blood they'd been gawking at.

  "Man," I said, "that's service."

  "Normally," he grumbled, "I'd have left this to the night-tour boys. But I have standing orders that when Mike Hammer's name comes up, I get a call."

  "I'll take that as a compliment."

  He had a rumpled, got-dressed-in-a-hurry look, and something smudgy red under his ear.

  "What's this?" I said, and worked my thumb on the smear. "Looks like Helen DiVay's shade."

  He grinned and damn near blushed and said, "Cut it, man. This is serious."

  "I'll say. You dog."

  That was as light as the banter got for the next six hours. We were at the scene for the first two, and the rest were at Central Headquarters. Pat had gotten the scoop on the street, but of course at HQ, I had to go through chapter and verse for Assistant D.A. Traynor.

  The sharply dressed, sharp-eyed Traynor deposited himself behind Pat's desk again, while its rightful occupant sat behind the same mousy stenog, his arms folded, chin on his chest, possibly half asleep. Helen must have given him a real workout.

  The closest Traynor got to anything significant was when he pressed about why I'd been at Harrin's: "He's been out of the country for a week, Mr. Hammer. And the first day he's back, barely unpacked, he invites you over for the evening?"

  "I told you before. He's taken that boy Billy Blue under his wing. He wanted an update on my investigation into the kid getting jumped."

  "Why, was Harrin your client?"

  "No. Just an interested party. Anyway, my investigation didn't stem from that attack on the Blue kid, which I believe was strictly those freaks getting back at Billy for refusing to be a drug supplier."

  Traynor frowned. "Then what did it stem from, Mr. Hammer?"

  "From Russell Frazer trying to mug and maybe kill me, and then getting killed himself. And from those hit men showing up in my lobby."

  He gaped at me. "You're admitting that was your handiwork?"

  "I'm admitting to known professional killers showing up from out of town, to die in my apartment-house lobby. I thought you said that coincidences bothered you, Mr. Traynor?"

  That went on for over two hours, and got absolutely nowhere. I didn't lie to the guy, I just wasn't forthcoming. What Dr. Harrin and I had discussed, I planned to keep to myself. Other aspects of my inquiries—like Harrin being their inside-the-Syndicate tipster—were in that same column, for now, anyway. Let them do their own damn work.

  Finally Traynor gave up, and Pat accompanied me to the break room, where we had coffee and vending-machine sandwiches, which added up to cruel and unusual punishment as far as I was concerned.

  But Pat didn't grill me, not exactly. He seemed genuinely concerned.

  "That's the third try, Mike," he said, meaning the third murder attempt on me. His gray eyes were melancholy. "You're in over your head, buddy."

  "I learned to swim a long time ago."

  "Not in this river of blood. Years ago, as a young buck, you went up against the old Evello mob, and even then were lucky to come out alive. If the aftermath hadn't been a shakeup between rival Syndicate factions, back then, somebody would've come after you."

  "What makes these slobs any different? The old pistoleros were tougher."

  "Tougher maybe. Not more ruthless. There's so much at stake now—it's going worldwide, with these drug cartels, violence on a scale even you can't picture. It's big business, Mike."

  "What was booze in Prohibition?"

  "A fucking cottage industry by way of comparison."

  Pat rarely swore, so that got my attention.

  I wasn't joking when I said, "I appreciate it, pal. I really do. I'll watch my ass."

  "You better. I can't do it for you. Can't keep up with you in these circles. Best I can do is come in and tell the photographer what to shoot and the morgue wagon boys who to fit for a rubber shroud. And I can't even cover for you on my end, not anymore."


  "Why not?"

  He grimaced. "Because this dope racket is federal—Narcotics Division of the Treasury Department. And you can't go home yet because two of their boys are coming over."

  What Pat didn't know was, it was old home week—Agents Radley and Dawson in their gray tailored suits and black neckties. Tall, thin Radley didn't just take over Pat's chair, he took over the whole damn office and threw the captain of Homicide politely out. This was confidential, between the Treasury Department and a loyal taxpayer.

  I was sitting opposite Radley, with the shorter but just as skinny Dawson standing just behind and to one side of him, like a shadow with clothes on. They weren't unfriendly, just heart-attack serious, giving me stares so unblinking and cold I almost busted out laughing. Almost.

  "Is there any possibility," Radley asked, "that Dr. Harrin was the target?"

  "I don't think so," I said, and I didn't.

  I supposed it was possible that the Syndicate found out the doc had been using sodium pentothal to go fishing for info, but I figured they'd pull him in and question and maybe torture him, before any rubout. Not just order up a drive-by assassination.

  Of course, I didn't share these thoughts with the T-men.

  "Mr. Hammer," Radley said, "we have solid intel that Dr. Harrin was friendly with Syndicate leaders. That he had been a source of narcotics via prescription for select Mafia customers."

  I shrugged. "Evello and maybe Wren. I heard that."

  "Did you discuss it with the doctor?"

  "I might have. Why?"

  Radley and Dawson traded tight glances.

  Then Dawson spoke for the first time tonight: "Harrin just returned from Europe."

  "Yeah, France. That's in Europe."

  Dawson paused, as if selecting words from invisible file cards. "We have reason to believe that Dr. Harrin may have been involved with a certain major shipment of contraband."

  "The big shipment of H, you mean?"

  He drew in a breath, let it out. "Yes, the, uh, big shipment we discussed. In Paris, Harrin was observed talking to individuals who may be part of the French faction that is believed to have supplied the American Syndicate in the past."