The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 2 Page 2

  Like eyes and faces. And voices.

  I buried my face in my hands until everything straightened itself out again, wondering what the judge would say if he could see me now. Maybe he’d laugh because I was supposed to be so damn tough, and here I was with hands that wouldn’t stand still and an empty feeling inside my chest.

  He was only a little judge. He was little and he was old with eyes like two berries on a bush. His hair was pure white and wavy and his skin was loose and wrinkled. But he had a voice like the avenging angel. The dignity and knowledge behind his face gave him the stature of a giant, the poise of Gabriel reading your sins aloud from the Great Book and condemning you to your fate.

  He had looked at me with a loathing louder than words, lashing me with his eyes in front of a courtroom filled with people, every empty second another stroke of the steel-tipped whip. His voice, when it did come, was edged with a gentle bitterness that was given only to the righteous.

  But it didn’t stay righteous long. It changed into disgusted hatred because I was a licensed investigator who knocked off somebody who needed knocking off bad and he couldn’t get to me. So I was a murderer by definition and all the law could do was shake its finger at definitions.

  Hell, the state would have liquidated the guy anyway ... maybe he would have pronounced sentence himself. Maybe he thought I should have stayed there and called for the cops when the bastard had a rod in his hand and it was pointing right at my gut.

  Yeah, great.

  If he had let it stay there it would have been all right. I’d been called a lot of things before. But no, he had to go and strip me naked in front of myself and throw the past in my face when it should have stayed dead and buried forever. He had to go back five years to a time he knew of only secondhand and tell me how it took a war to show me the power of the gun and the obscene pleasure that was brutality and force, the spicy sweetness of murder sanctified by law.

  That was me. I could have made it sound better if I’d said it. There in the muck and slime of the jungle, there in the stink that hung over the beaches rising from the bodies of the dead, there in the half-light of too many dusks and dawns laced together with the crisscrossed patterns of bullets, I had gotten a taste of death and found it palatable to the extent that I could never again eat the fruits of a normal civilization.

  Goddamn, he wouldn’t let me alone! He went on and on cutting me down until I was nothing but scum in the gutter, his fists slamming against the bench as he prophesied a rain of purity that was going to wash me into the sewer with the other scum leaving only the good and the meek to walk in the cleanliness of law and justice.

  One day I would die and the world would be benefited by my death. And to the good there was only the perplexing question: Why did I live and breathe now ... what could possibly be the reason for existence when there was no good in me? None at all.

  So he gave me back my soul of toughness, hate and bitterness and let me dress in the armor of cynicism and dismissed me before I could sneer and make the answer I had ready.

  He had called the next case up even before I reached the side of the room. It had all the earmarks of a good case, but nobody seemed to be interested. All they watched was me and their eyes were bright with that peculiar kind of horrified disgust that you see in people watching some nasty, fascinating creature in a circus cage.

  Only a few of them reflected a little sympathy. Pat was there. He gave me a short wave and a nod that meant everything was okay because I was his friend. But there were things the judge had said that Pat had wanted to say plenty of times too.

  Then there was Pete, a reporter too old for the fast beats and just right for the job of picking up human interest items from the lower courts. He waved too, with a grimace that was a combination grin for me and a sneer for the judge. Pete was a cynic too, but he liked my kind of guy. I made bonus stories for him every once in a while.

  Velda. Lovely, lovely Velda. She waited for me by the door and when I walked up to her I watched her lips purse into a ripe, momentary kiss. The rows and rows of eyes that had been following me jumped ahead to this vision in a low-cut dress who threw a challenge with every motion of her body. The eyes swept from her black pumps to legs and body and shoulders that were almost too good to be real and staggered when they met a face that was beauty capable of the extremes of every emotion. Her head moved just enough to swirl her black page-boy hair and the look she sent back to all those good people and their white-haired guardian of the law was something to be remembered. For one long second she had the judge’s eye and outraged justice flinched before outraged love.

  That’s right, Velda was mine. It took a long time for me to find out just how much mine she was, much too long. But now I knew and I’d never forget it. She was the only decent thing about me and I was lucky.

  She said, “Let’s get out of here, Mike. I hate people with little minds.”

  We went outside the building to the sidewalk and climbed in my car. She knew I didn’t want to talk about it and kept still. When I let her out at her apartment it was dark and starting to rain. Her hand went to mine and squeezed it. “A good drunk and you can forget about it, Mike. Sometimes people are too stupid to be grateful. Call me when you’re loaded and I’ll come get you.”

  That was all. She knew me enough to read my mind and didn’t care what I thought. If the whole damn world climbed on my back there would still be Velda ready to yank them off and stamp on their faces. I didn’t even tell her good-by. I just shut the door and started driving.

  No, I didn’t get drunk. Twice I looked in the mirror and saw me. I didn’t look like me at all. I used to be able to look at myself and grin without giving a damn how ugly it made me look. Now I was looking at myself the same way those people did back there. I was looking at a big guy with an ugly reputation, a guy who had no earthly reason for existing in a decent, normal society. That’s what the judge had said.

  I was sweating and cold at the same time. Maybe it did happen to me over there. Maybe I did have a taste for death. Maybe I liked it too much to taste anything else. Maybe I was twisted and rotted inside. Maybe I would be washed down the sewer with the rest of all the rottenness sometime. What was stopping it from happening now? Why was I me with some kind of lucky charm around my neck that kept me going when I was better off dead?

  That’s why I parked the car and started walking in the rain. I didn’t want to look in that damn mirror any more. So I walked and smoked and climbed to the hump in the bridge where the boats in the river made faces and spoke to me until I had to bury my face in my hands until everything straightened itself out again.

  I was a killer. I was a murderer, legalized, I had no reason for living. Yeah, he said that!

  The crazy music that had been in my head ever since I came back from those dusks and dawns started again, a low steady beat overshadowed by the screaming of brassier, shriller instruments that hadn’t been invented yet. They shouted and pounded a symphony of madness and destruction while I held my hands over my ears and cursed until they stopped. Only the bells were left, a hundred bells that called for me to come closer to the music, and when I wouldn’t come they stopped, one by one, all except one deep, persistent bell with a low, resonant voice. It wouldn’t give up. It called me to it, and when I opened my eyes I knew the bell was from a channel marker in the river, calling whenever it swayed with the tide.

  It was all right once I knew where it came from. At least it was real. That judge, that damn white-headed son-of-a-bitch got me like this. I wasn’t so tough after all. It wouldn’t have been so bad ... but maybe he was right. Maybe he was dead right and I’d never be satisfied until I knew the answer myself. If there was an answer.

  I don’t know how long I stood there. Time was just the ticking of a watch and a blend of sound from the ramp behind me. At some point after the sixth cigarette the cold mist had turned into a fine snow that licked at my face and clung to my coat. At first it melted into damp patches on the steel and c
oncrete, then took hold and extended itself into a coverlet of white.

  Now the last shred of reality was gone completely. The girders became giant trees and the bridge an eerie forest populated by white-capped rubber-tired monsters streaking for the end of the causeway that took them into more friendly surroundings. I leaned back into the shadow of a girder and watched them to get my mind off other things, happy to be part of the peace and quiet of the night.

  It came at last, the lessening of tension. The stiffness went out of my fingers and I pulled on a smoke until it caught in my lungs the way I liked it to do. Yeah, I could grin now and watch the faces fade away until they were onto the port and starboard lights of the ships again, and the bell that called me in was only a buoy some place off in the dark.

  I ought to get out of it. I ought to take Velda and my office and start up in real estate in some small community where murder and guns and dames didn’t happen. Maybe I would, at that. It was wonderful to be able to think straight again. No more crazy mad hatred that tied my insides into knots. No more hunting the scum that stood behind a trigger and shot at the world. That was official police business. The duty of organized law and order. And too slow justice. No more sticks with dirty ends on them either.

  That’s what the snow and the quiet did for me. It had been a long time since I had felt this good. Maybe the rottenness wasn’t there at all and I was a killer only by coincidence. Maybe I didn’t like to kill at all.

  I stuck another Lucky in my mouth and searched my pockets for matches. Something jerked my head up before I found them and I stood there listening.

  The wind blew. The snow hissed to the street. A foghorn sounded. That was all.

  I shrugged and tore a match out of the book when I heard it again. A little, annoying sound that didn’t belong on the bridge in the peace and quiet. They were soft, irregular sounds that faded when the wind shifted, then came back stronger. Footsteps, muted by the inch or so of snow on the walk.

  I would have gotten the butt lit if the feet weren’t trying to run with the desperate haste that comes with fatigue. The sound came closer and closer until it was a shadow fifty feet away that turned into a girl wrapped in a coat with a big woolly collar, her hands reaching for the support of a girder and missing.

  She fell face down and tried to pull herself up to run again, but she couldn’t make it. Her breathing was a long, racking series of sobs that shook her body in a convulsion of despair.

  I’d seen fear before, but never like this.

  She was only a few steps away and I ran to her, my hands hooking under her arms to lift her to her feet.

  Her eyes were like saucers, rimmed with red, overflowing with tears that blurred her pupils. She took one look at me and choked, “Lord ... no, please!”

  “Easy, honey, take it easy,” I said. I propped her against the girder and her eyes searched my face through the tears unable to see me clearly. She tried to talk and I stopped her. “No words, kid. There’s plenty of time for that later. Just take it easy a minute, nobody’s going to hurt you.”

  As if that stirred something in her mind, her eyes went wide again and she turned her head to stare back down the ramp. I heard it too. Footsteps, only these weren’t hurried. They came evenly and softly, as if knowing full well they’d reach their objective in a few seconds.

  I felt a snarl ripple across my mouth and my eyes went half shut. Maybe you can smack a dame around all you want and make her life as miserable as hell, but nobody has the right to scare the daylights out of any woman. Not like this.

  She trembled so hard I had to put my arm around her shoulder to steady her. I watched her lips trying to speak, the unholy fear spreading into her face as no sound came.

  I pulled her away from the girder. “Come on, we’ll get this straightened out in a hurry.” She was too weak to resist. I held my arm around her and started walking toward the footsteps.

  He came out of the wall of white, a short, pudgy guy in a heavy belted ulster. His homburg was set on the side of his head rakishly, and even at this distance I could see the smile on his lips. Both his hands were stuck in his pockets and he walked with a swagger. He wasn’t a bit surprised when he saw the two of us. One eyebrow went up a little, but that was all. Oh yes, he had a gun in one pocket.

  It was pointing at me.

  Nobody had to tell me he was the one. I wouldn’t even have to know he had a rod in his hand. The way the kid’s body stiffened with the shock of seeing him was enough. My face couldn’t have been nice to look at right then, but it didn’t bother the guy.

  The gun moved in the pocket so I’d know it was a gun.

  His voice fitted his body, short and thick. He said, “It is not smart to be a hero. Not smart at all.” His thick lips twisted into a smile of mingled satisfaction and conceit. It was so plain in his mind that I could almost hear him speak it. The girl running along, stumbling blindly into the arms of a stranger. Her pleas for help, the guy’s ready agreement to protect her, only to look down the barrel of a rod.

  It didn’t happen like that at all, but that’s what he thought. His smile widened and he said harshly, “So now they will find the two of you here tomorrow.” His eyes were as cold and as deadly as those of a manta ray.

  He was too cocky. All he could see was his own complete mastery of the situation. He should have looked at me a little harder and maybe he would have seen the kind of eyes I had. Maybe he would have known that I was a killer in my own way too, and he would have realized that I knew he was just the type who would go to the trouble of taking the gun out of his pocket instead of ruining a good coat.

  I never really gave him a chance. All I moved was my arm and before he had his gun out I had my .45 in my fist with the safety off and the trigger back. I only gave him a second to realize what it was like to die then I blew the expression clean off his face.

  He never figured the hero would have a gun, too.

  Before I could get it back in the holster the girl gave a lunge and backed up against the railing. Her eyes were clear now. They darted to the mess on the ground, the gun in my hand and the tight lines that made a mask of kill-lust of my face.

  She screamed. Good God, how she screamed. She screamed as if I were a monster that had come up out of the pit! She screamed and made words that sounded like, “You ... one of them ... no more!”

  I saw what she was going to do and tried to grab her, but the brief respite she had was enough to give her the strength she needed. She twisted and slithered over the top of the rail and I felt part of her coat come away in my hand as she tumbled headlong into the white void below the bridge.

  Lord, Lord, what happened? My fingers closed over the handrail and I stared down after her. Three hundred feet to the river. The little fool didn’t have to do that! She was safe! Nothing could have hurt her, didn’t she realize that? I was shouting it at the top of my lungs with nobody but a dead man to hear me. When I pulled away from the rail I was shaking like a leaf.

  All because of that fat little bastard stretched out in the snow. I pulled back my foot and kicked what was left of him until he rolled over on his face.

  I did it again, I killed somebody else! Now I could stand in the courtroom in front of the man with the white hair and the voice of the Avenging Angel and let him drag my soul out where everybody could see it and slap it with another coat of black paint.

  Peace and quiet, it was great! I ought to have my head examined. Or the guy should maybe; his had a hell of a hole in it. The dirty son-of-a-bitch for trying to get away with that. The fat little slob walks right up to me with a rod in his hand figuring to get away with it. The way he strutted you’d think he didn’t have a care in the world, yet just like that he was going to kill two people without batting an eye. He got part of what he wanted anyway. The girl was dead. He was the kind of a rat who would have gotten a big laugh out of the papers tomorrow. Maybe he was supposed to be the rain of purity that was going to wash me down the gutter into the sewer with the re
st of the scum. Brother, would that have been a laugh.

  Okay, if he wanted a laugh, he’d get it. If his ghost could laugh I’d make it real funny for him. It would be so funny that his ghost would be the laughingstock of hell and when mine got there it’d have something to laugh at too. I’m nothing but a stinking no-good killer but I get there first, Judge. I get there first and live to do it again because I have eyes that see and a hand that works without being told and I don’t give a damn what you do to my soul because it’s so far gone nothing can be done for it! Go to hell yourself, Judge! Get a real belly laugh!

  I tore his pockets inside out and stuffed his keys and wallet in my coat. I ripped out every label on his clothes right down to the laundry marks then I kicked the snow off the pavement and rubbed his fingertips against the cold concrete until there weren’t any fingertips left. When I was finished he looked like the remains of a scarecrow that had been up too many seasons. I grabbed an arm and a leg and heaved him over the rail, and when I heard a faint splash many seconds later my mouth split into a grin. I kicked the pieces of the cloth and his gun under the rail and let them get lost in the obscurity of the night and the river. I didn’t even have to worry about the bullet. It was lying right there in the snow, all flattened out and glistening wetly.

  I kicked that over the side too.

  Now let them find him. Let them learn who it was and how it happened. Let everybody have a laugh while you’re at it!

  It was done and I lit a cigarette. The snow still coming down put a new layer over the tracks and the dark stain. It almost covered up the patch of cloth that had come from the girl’s coat, but I picked that up and stuck it in with the rest of the stuff.

  Now my footsteps were the only sound along the ramp. I walked back to the city telling myself that it was all right, it had to happen that way. I was me and I couldn’t have been anything else even if there had been no war. I was all right, the world was wrong. A police car moaned through the pay station and passed me as its siren was dying down to a low whine. I didn’t even give it a second thought. They weren’t going anywhere, certainly not to the top of the hump because not one car had passed during those few minutes it had happened. Nobody saw me, nobody cared. If they did the hell with ‘em.