The Killing Man Read online

  “What are you saving for last, Doctor?”

  The ME gave Pat a sage little smile. “You’re wondering how a grown man would let himself be totally immobilized like that?”

  “Right on,” Pat told him.

  Swinging the swivel chair around so the back of the corpse’s head faced us, the ME lifted up the shaggy hair and fingered a small lump over the ear. “A tap with the usual blunt instrument, hard enough to render the victim unconscious for ten minutes or so.”

  My mouth went dry and something felt like it was crawling up my back. The one he had laid on Velda wasn’t to knock her out. That one was a killing blow, one swung with deliberate, murderous intent. I looked at the phone again. Meg still hadn’t called.

  Pat bent over and examined the body carefully. His arm brushed the dead man’s coat and pushed it open. Sticking up out of the shirt pocket was a Con Edison bill folded in half. When Pat straightened it out he looked at the name and said, “Anthony Cica.” He held it out for me to look at. “You know him, Mike?”

  “Never saw him before.” His address was on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

  “You’re lucky you had a stand-in.”

  “Too bad Velda didn’t have one.” The tightness ran up me again and I began to breathe hard without knowing it.

  Pat was shaking my arm. “Come off it, Mike.”

  I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and nodded.

  The ME was pointing toward the note. “And that’s his ego trip, wouldn’t you say? The dead man can’t read, so who will? And who is Penta?”

  “You’re leaving all the fun stuff for us, Doc.”

  “Keep me informed. I’m very interested. You’ll get my report tomorrow.” As he went to pass me he stopped and gave me those blue eyes again. “Do I know you, sir?”

  “Mike Hammer,” I told him.

  “I’ve heard mention of you.”

  “This is my office,” I said.

  “Yes.” He looked around, curiously critical. “Who is your decorator?”

  “That’s his sense of humor,” Pat said when the ME left. Then he went over and called in two of his people to go over the corpse itself.

  I went to the phone and called Meg. The answering service said she would be back at six. I called the hospital directly, but there was no report on Velda’s condition so far. Nobody would speculate.

  It was another hour before the specialists finished and the body was carted out in its rubberized shroud. Pat was on the phone and when he hung up he turned to me and said tiredly, “The papers just got wind of it. They still on your side?”

  “Hell, most of the old guys are buddies, but some of those young ones are weirdos.”

  “Wait till they read that note.”

  “Yeah, great.”

  “You still haven’t told me who you killed, Mike.” This time there was a quiet seriousness in his tone. It was a question direct and simple.

  I turned and faced him, meeting his eyes square on. “Anybody I ever took down you know about. The last one was Julius Marco, the son of a bitch who was about to kill that kid when I nailed him, and that was four years ago.”

  “How many have you shot since?”

  “A few. None died.”

  “You testified in a couple of Murder One cases, didn’t you?”

  “Sure. So did a few other people.”

  “Recently?”

  “Hell, no. The last one was a few years back.”

  “Then who would want you dead?”

  “Nobody I can think of.”

  “Hell, somebody wants you even better than dead. They want you all chopped up and with a spike through your head. Somebody had a business engagement with you at noon, got here early, took out Velda and didn’t have to wait for you because there was a guy in your office he thought was you and he nailed that poor bastard instead.”

  “I’ve thought of that,” I said.

  “And we’re stuck until we get IDs on everybody and a statement from Velda.”

  “Looks like that,” I told him. “You through here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sealing the place up?”

  Pat shrugged. “No need to.”

  I picked up the phone again and called the building super. I told him what had happened and that I needed the place cleaned up. He said he’d do it personally. I thanked him and hung up.

  Pat said, “Let’s go get something to eat. You’ll feel better. Then we’ll go to the hospital.”

  “No sense in that. Velda was unconscious and in critical condition. No visitors. I’ll tell you what you can do though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Station a cop at her door. That Penta character missed two of us and he just might want another go at somebody when he finds out what happened.”

  Pat picked up the phone in Velda’s office and relayed the message. When he hung up he said to me, “What are your plans?”

  “Hell, I’m going to Anthony Cica’s apartment with you.”

  “Listen, Mike ...”

  “You don’t want me to go alone, do you?”

  “Man, you’re a real pisser,” Pat said.

  Outside it was barely raining. It was more like the sky was spitting at us. It was ending up the way it had started. Bad, real bad.

  Pat had an unmarked car at the curb and we drove across town and headed south on Second Avenue. The pavements were slick, brightly alive with neon reflections and the broad streaks of dimmed headlights. The weather meant nothing to the people who lived here. They never were out in it long enough to annoy them. Pat didn’t bother with his red light, simply moving in and out of the stream of yellow cabs and occasional cars with automatic precision.

  Both of us stayed pretty deep in our thoughts until I mentioned, “You could have had one of the detectives do this.”

  “Don’t get hairy on me, pal. I’m not letting you alone on any primary investigation.”

  “You’re investigating a corpse, not a murder suspect: What the hell could I do?”

  The car in front of us hit the brakes and Pat swore at the driver and cut to the left. “I don’t know what you could do, Mike. There’s no telling what’s ever going to happen with you. There’s something that hangs over you like a magnet that pulls all the crazies right to your door.”

  “No crazy did this.”

  “Any killer is crazy,” he stated.

  “Maybe, but some are more deliberate than others.”

  Pat slowed and turned left, checked the numbers on the buildings when he could find one, then counted down to the tenement he was looking for. Hardly anybody in this area owned a car and whoever did wouldn’t park it on the street. We parked behind a stripped wreck of an old Buick and got out of the car.

  A lot of years ago they talked of condemning areas like this but never got around to it. One by one the buildings lost any rental benefits and were abandoned by their owners. Here and there were a few that somebody had renovated enough to warrant having paying tenants as long as they didn’t mind sharing the space with roaches and rats.

  We went up the sandstone stoop and pushed through the scarred wooden doors. The vestibule light in the ceiling was protected by a wire cage, a forty-watter that turned everything a sickly yellow. As usual, the brass mailbox doors were all sprung open, each one with a cheap paper circular stuck in it. Scrawled on the top of the brass frame were names in black marker ink. The middle two were half rubbed out. Anthony Cica was the one who had the top floor.

  The inner vestibule light only went halfway up the stairs, but Pat had a pocket power light with him and lit our way up among the litter that spilled down the stairs. We stepped over a couple of empty beer cans and some half-pint whiskey bottles to get to the first landing. Apparently visitors never got above the top steps. The rest of the way was clear. The door we were looking for had the number four drawn on it in white paint. It was locked. In fact, it had three locks on it.

  “Think a credit card can get them open, Pat?”r />
  “Hell no. I have a warrant.”

  “Then use it.”

  He kicked the door panel out, reached in and opened the locks, then pushed it open with his foot. Standing to one side, he felt for the light switch beside the jamb, found it and flipped it on. Nothing moved except the roaches.

  The occupant hadn’t been a total slob. There were no dirty dishes and the sink was clean. The furniture was old, probably secondhand, the bed wasn’t made, simply straightened out a little, and the small bathroom had a semblance of order to it. The refrigerator belonged in a museum, but it still worked, the unit on its top humming away. In it were two frozen dinners, half a carton of milk, some butter and a six-pack of beer.

  I said, “What do you think?”

  “Permanent quarters. Lousy, but fixed.”

  Three suits and a sports jacket hung in the closet, all several years old. Two pairs of shoes, one brown, the other black, were on the floor beside a piece of Samsonite luggage that was open and empty. In the corner, almost out of sight, was a small metal rectangle. I picked it up with a handkerchief.

  “Pat ...”

  He came over and I showed him the clip for an automatic. It was loaded with 7.65-millimeter cartridges.

  “Nice,” he muttered. “Let’s find the rest of it.”

  We looked, but that was all there was. No gun was around to fit the clip. Pat said, “That’s damned strange.”

  “Not necessarily. It was kicked in the corner of the closet. It could have been there before he moved in. I almost missed it.”

  In fifteen minutes we had covered every inch of the place. A cardboard box on one of the shelves held a few dozen receipted bills, some paycheck slips and a stack of old two-dollar betting slips from a Jersey track. It was a stupid souvenir, but at least he could count his losses.

  The only thing that didn’t seem to belong there was a handmade toolbox with a collection of chisels, bits and two hammers with well-worn handles. Pat said, “These tools are antiques, all made by Sergeant Hardware back in the twenties.” He fondled one of the long, thin blades, feeling the sharpness with a fingertip. “Somebody did precision work with these babies. Real sculpture.”

  “Think they’re stolen?”

  “What for? No fast cash value in it. Looks more like a keepsake to me.” He turned the box upside down. Neatly carved into the bottom were the initials V.D.

  “You’d better handle that with rubber gloves.” I grinned.

  “I’ll get a penicillin shot later.” He gave the place a last look around. “Anthony Cica didn’t leave much of a legacy. I wonder who inherits?”

  I was fitting the broken panel back in the hole Pat’s foot had made. “Well, take the toolbox for whoever the relative is. Nothing else is worthwhile.”

  He shut off the light and closed the door. When we felt our way down the stairs and got to the street we stood there a minute, both wondering what would make a guy like Anthony Cica live in a place like this, his only treasure an antique toolbox.

  Pat finally hunched his shoulders against the rain and we got into the car. Deliberately, he looked across at me. “That killer couldn’t have wanted Cica, Mike.”

  “Why the hell would he want me?”

  He started the car. “Guess we’ll have to find that out.”

  2

  It was a dreamless night, but I awoke tired. I felt as if I had been running and to awaken was an effort. Only for a few seconds was there a blankness in time before the whole scenario of the day before came crashing down in front of me.

  My hand grabbed for the phone and I hit the buttons for the hospital. I was overanxious, got the wrong number and had to hit them again. This time the switchboard put me through to the nurse on Velda’s floor. Calmly, she told me Velda had had a quiet night, was still in critical condition, but improving. No, she could have no visitors yet.

  The relief I felt was like a cool wave of water washing over me. Hospitals never wanted to sound optimistic, so the report was a favorable one. I called Burke Reedey at home and got him out of bed. All he could say was “Damn it, I’ve been up all night. Who is this?”

  “It’s Mike, Burke. What’s with Velda?”

  “Oh,” he said. “You. Wait a minute.” I heard him pour something, heard him swallow it, then he said, “She had a close one that time. One hell of a concussion. That blow was delivered with enough force to kill her, but her hair bunched under the instrument and blunted the impact. I was afraid we’d find a fracture there but we didn’t. All her vital signs are coming up and we’re keeping her isolated for another day.”

  “She regain consciousness?”

  “About four this morning. It was just a brief awakening and she went back to sleep.”

  “When can I see her?”

  “Probably this evening, but I want no communication. She is going to be highly sedated or have one hell of a headache. Either way she won’t want to talk.”

  “What was she hit with?”

  “Someday they’ll find another term for the usual ‘blunt instrument.’ However, it wasn’t a hard object like a pipe. This had a soft crushing effect and from what I’ve seen of leather black-jacks, this was what her attacker used. Incidentally, this is what I gave the police in my report.” He paused a moment, then went on: “Meg told me there was a dead man in the other office.”

  “Burke, you couldn’t have helped. He was real dead. Velda was alive and that’s all that counted.”

  “You’re a sentimental bastard, you know that?”

  “Just realistic, pal.”

  “I want to know what this is all about.”

  “You’ll get it.”

  “I hope so. You’re the only excitement I ever get anymore.”

  “Excitement I don’t need,” I told him. “And Burke ...”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  “No trouble. You’ll get a bill.”

  I hung up, made coffee in the kitchen and had a leftover roll from yesterday. When I turned on the news I had to wait fifteen minutes before local events came on and the announcer mentioned a torture murder in the office of a Manhattan businessman. The case was under investigation and no names were made public. As yet, the victim was unidentified.

  I just finished pouring my second cup of coffee when the phone rang. Pat said, “I think you ought to come on down to my office.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “For one thing, we had an ID on our victim.”

  “What’s the other?”

  “We have some strange company here.”

  “Bad?”

  “It’s not good.”

  “Well. I’ll change my underwear,” I said. After the good news from the hospital, nothing was going to spoil my day.

  Sunday morning in New York is like no other time. From dawn until ten the city is like an unborn fetus. There are small sounds and stir-rings that are hardly noticeable, then little movements take place and forms emerge, but nothing is happening. It is a time when you could get anywhere quickly and quietly because of the strange emptiness.

  The lonely cabbie who picked me up would be going off shift shortly and, fortunately, didn’t want to talk. He took me to Pat’s building, took my money, switched on the OFF DUTY light and went back uptown.

  Sunday had even infiltrated the police department. On the ground floor it was coffee-and-doughnuts time with a minimum crew at work. Everybody was friendly including Sergeant Klaus who winked and told me Captain Chambers and company were expecting me upstairs.

  Pat was in the corridor when I got off the elevator and without a word, steered me into his office. When he closed the door he said, “You told me you didn’t know the guy who got killed.”

  “That’s right, I didn’t.”

  Something had hold of Pat and he was mad. “You sure?”

  “Look, Pat, what’s the deal here? I told you I didn’t know him.”

  “He was a delivery guy from a stationery store who brought up some letterhead
samples for you to okay.”

  “Velda took care of that stuff.”

  “The guy called the store and told the boss to go ahead with the order.”

  “So that’s what he was doing at my desk. You get the time?”

  “Around ten twenty or so.”

  “That fixes it then.”

  “But there’s a little more to it.”

  “Oh?”

  “His name was Anthony DiCica. Mean anything to you?”

  I shook my head. “So someplace he dropped the ‘Di’ part of his name.”

  “Seems that way.”

  “That accounts for the V.D. initials on that toolbox. It must have been his old man’s. So where does that leave us?”

  “We have a package on him in New York. He went down twice for minor crimes fifteen years ago. Petty stuff, but at least he has a record. That much we got when we ran his driver’s license through.”

  “How about prints?”

  “Those first knuckle joints came back from the lab this morning. We rolled them and got them on the computers.”

  “Then what’s on your mind, Pat?”

  “Usually we can handle our own homicides here without any interference. Suddenly some first-class interest shows up ... the DA’s office.”

  I shrugged. “So, he’s got a right.”

  “This is not a general occurrence, pal. When I got back here word had already come down. That note stays confidential until the DA decides to release it. What I think shook them up is that signature, Penta. Hell, it couldn‘t’ve been anything else.”

  “What did they give you on it?”

  “They gave me a lot of shit, that’s all. I raised hell upstairs, but when the inspector says to go along, we go along.”

  I gave Pat a friendly rap on the shoulder. “If those squirrels want to play games, let them. A nice screwball case like this can make some interesting headlines.”

  “Their attitude stinks, Mike.” He paused, then glanced at me anxiously. “You mention that note at all?”