The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 1 Page 3

  I flipped through the medical record. Name, Myrna Devlin. Attempted suicide while under the influence of heroin. Brought to emergency ward of General Hospital by Detective Jack Williams. Admitted 3-15-40. Treatment complete 9-21-40. No information available on patient’s source of narcotics. Released into custody of Detective Jack Williams 9-30-40. Following this was a page of medical details which I skipped.

  “Here’s one you’ll like, chum,” Velda grinned at me. She pulled out a full-length photo of a gorgeous blonde. My heart jumped when I saw it. The picture was taken at a beach, and she stood there tall and languid-looking in a white bathing suit. Long solid legs. A little heavier than the movie experts consider good form, but the kind that make you drool to look at. Under the suit I could see the muscles of her stomach. Incredibly wide shoulders for a woman, framing breasts that jutted out, seeking freedom from the restraining fabric of the suit. Her hair looked white in the picture, but I could tell that it was a natural blonde. Lovely, lovely yellow hair. But her face was what got me. I thought Velda was a good looker, but this one was even lovelier. I felt like whistling.

  “Who is she?”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you. That leer on your face could get you into trouble, but it’s all there. Name’s Charlotte Manning. She’s a female psychiatrist with offices on Park Avenue, and very successful. I understand she caters to a pretty ritzy clientele.”

  I glanced at the number and made up my mind that right here was something that made this business a pleasurable one. I didn’t say that to Velda. Maybe I’m being conceited, but I’ve always had the impression that she had designs on me. Of course she never mentioned it, but whenever I showed up late in the office with lipstick on my shirt collar, I couldn’t get two words out of her for a week.

  I stacked the sheaf back on my desk and swung around in the chair. Velda was leaning forward ready to take notes. “Want to add anything, Mike?”

  “Don’t think so. At least not now. There’s too much to think about first. Nothing seems to make sense.”

  “Well, what about motive? Could Jack have had any enemies that caught up with him?”

  “Nope. None I know of. He was square. He always gave a guy a break if he deserved it. Then, too, he never was wrapped up in anything big.”

  “Did he own anything of any importance?”

  “Not a thing. The place was completely untouched. He had a few hundred dollars in his wallet that was lying on the dresser. The killing was done by a sadist. He tried to reach his gun, but the killer pulled the chair it hung on back slowly, making him crawl after it with a slug in his gut, trying to keep his insides from falling out with his hand.”

  “Mike, please.”

  I said no more. I just sat there and glowered at the wall. Someday I’d trigger the bastard that shot Jack. In my time I’ve done it plenty of times. No sentiment. That went out with the first. After the war I’ve been almost anxious to get to some of the rats that make up the section of humanity that prey on people. People. How incredibly stupid they could be sometimes. A trial by law for a killer. A loophole in the phrasing that lets a killer crawl out. But in the end the people have their justice. They get it through guys like me once in a while. They crack down on society and I crack down on them. I shoot them like the mad dogs they are and society drags me to court to explain the whys and wherefores of the extermination. They investigate my past, check my fingerprints and throw a million questions my way. The papers make me look like a kill-crazy shamus, but they don’t bear down too hard because Pat Chambers keeps them off my neck. Besides, I do my best to help the boys out and they know it. And I’m usually good for a story when I wind up a case.

  Velda came back into the office with the afternoon edition of the sheets. The kill was spread all over the front page, followed by a four-column layout of what details were available. Velda was reading over my shoulder and I heard her gasp.

  “Did you come in for a blasting! Look.” She was pointing to the last paragraph. There was my tie-up with the case, but what she was referring to was the word-for-word statement that I had made to Jack. My promise. My word to a dead friend that I would kill this murderer as he had killed him. I rolled the paper into a ball and threw it viciously at the wall.

  “The louse! I’ll break his filthy neck for printing that. I meant what I said when I made that promise. It’s sacred to me, and they make a joke out of it. Pat did that. And I thought he was a friend. Give me the phone.”

  Velda grabbed my arm. “Take it easy. Suppose he did. After all, Pat’s still a cop. Maybe he saw a chance of throwing the killer your way. If the punk knows you’re after him for keeps he’s liable not to take it standing still and make a play for you. Then you’ll have him.”

  “Thanks, kid,” I told her, “but your mind’s too clean. I think you got the first part right, but your guess on the last part smells. Pat doesn’t want me to have any part of him because he knows the case is ended right there. If he can get the killer to me you can bet your grand-mother’s uplift bra that he’ll have a tail on me all the way with someone ready to step in when the shooting starts.”

  “I don’t know about that, Mike. Pat knows you’re too smart not to recognize when you’re being tailed. I wouldn’t think he’d do that.”

  “Oh, no? He isn’t dumb by any means. I’ll bet you a sandwich against a marriage license he’s got a flatfoot downstairs covering every exit in the place ready to pick me up when I leave. Sure, I’ll shake them, but it won’t stop there. A couple of experts will take up where they leave off.”

  Velda’s eyes were glowing like a couple of hot brands. “Are you serious about that? About the bet, I mean?”

  I nodded. “Dead serious. Want to go downstairs with me and take a look?” She grinned and grabbed her coat. I pulled on my battered felt and we left the office, but not before I had taken a second glance at the office address of Charlotte Manning.

  Pete, the elevator operator, gave me a toothy grin when we stepped into the car. “Evening, Mr. Hammer,” he said.

  I gave him an easy jab in the short ribs and said, “What’s new with you?”

  “Nothing much, ’cepting I don’t get to sit down much on the job any more.” I had to grin. Velda had lost the bet already. That little piece of simple repartee between Pete and myself was a code system we had rigged up years ago. His answer meant that I was going to have company when I left the building. It cost me a fin a week but it was worth it. Pete could spot a flatfoot faster than I can. He should. He had been a pick-pocket until a long stretch up the river gave him a turn of mind.

  For a change I decided to use the front entrance. I looked around for my tail but there was none to be seen. For a split second my heart leaped into my throat. I was afraid Pete had gotten his signals crossed. Velda was a spotter, too, and the smile she was wearing as we crossed the empty lobby was a thing to see. She clamped onto my arm ready to march me to the nearest justice of the peace.

  But when I went through the revolving doors her grin passed as fast as mine appeared. Our tail was walking in front of us. Velda said a word that nice girls don’t usually use, and you see scratched in the cement by some evil-minded guttersnipe.

  This one was smart. We never saw where he came from. He walked a lot faster than we did, swinging a newspaper from his hand against his leg. Probably, he spotted us through the windows behind the palm, then seeing what exit we were going to use, walked around the corner and came past us as we left. If we had gone the other way, undoubtedly there was another ready to pick us up.

  But this one had forgotten to take his gun off his hip and stow it under his shoulder, and guns make a bump look the size of a pumpkin when you’re used to looking for them.

  When I reached the garage he was nowhere to be seen. There were a lot of doors he could have ducked behind. I didn’t waste time looking for him. I backed the car out and Velda crawled in beside me. “Where to now?” she asked.

  “The Automat, where you’re going to buy me a sand
wich.”

  CHAPTER 3

  I dumped Velda at her hairdresser’s after we ate, then headed north to Westchester. I hadn’t planned to call on George Kalecki until the following day, but a call to Charlotte’s office dealed that one out. She had left for home, and the wench in the reception room had been instructed not to give her address. I told her I’d call later and left a message that I wanted to see her as soon as possible. I couldn’t get that woman off my mind. Those legs.

  Twenty minutes later I was pulling the bell outside a house that must have cost a cool quarter million. A very formal butler clicked the lock and admitted me. “Mr. Kalecki,” I said.

  “Who shall I say is calling, sir?”

  “Mike Hammer. I’m a private detective.” I flashed my tin on him but he wasn’t impressed.

  “I’m rather afraid Mr. Kalecki is indisposed at the moment, sir,” he told me. I recognized a pat standoff when I saw one, but I wasn’t bothered.

  “Well, you tell him to un-dispose himself right away and get his tail down here or I’ll go get him. And I’m not kidding, either.”

  The butler looked me over carefully and must have decided that I meant what I said. He nodded and took my hat. “Right this way, Mr. Hammer.” He led me to an oversize library and I plunked myself in an armchair and waited for George Kalecki.

  He wasn’t long coming. The door banged open and a grey-haired guy a little stouter than his picture revealed came in. He didn’t waste words. “Why did you come in after my man informed you that I was not to be disturbed?”

  I lit a butt and blew the smoke at him. “Don’t give me that stuff, chum. You know why I’m here.”

  “No doubt. I read the papers. But I’m afraid that I can’t help you. I was home in bed when the murder occurred and I can prove it.”

  “Hal Kines came in with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did your servant let you in?”

  “No, I used my own key.”

  “Did anyone else beside Hal see you come in?”

  “I don’t think so, but his word is good enough.”

  I sneered into his face. “Not when the both of you are possible murder suspects, it isn’t.”

  Kalecki turned pale when I said that. His mouth worked a little and he looked ready to kill me. “How dare you say that,” he snarled at me. “The police have not made an attempt to connect me with that killing. Jack Williams died hours after I left.”

  I took a step forward and gathered a handful of his shirt front in my fist. “Listen to me, you ugly little crook,” I spat in his face, “I’m talking language you can understand. I’m not worried about the cops. If you’re under suspicion it’s to me. I’m the one that counts, because when I find the one that did it, he dies. Even if I can’t prove it, he dies anyway. In fact, I don’t even have to be convinced too strongly. Maybe just a few things will point your way, and when they do I’m going after you. Before I’m done I may shoot up a lot of snotty punks like you, but you can bet that one of them will have been the one I was after, and as for the rest, tough luck. They got their noses a little too dirty.”

  Nobody had talked to him like that the past twenty years. He floundered for words but they didn’t come. If he had opened his mouth right then, I would have slammed his teeth down his throat.

  Disgusted with the sight of him, I shoved him back toward an end table in time to push myself aside far enough to keep from getting brained. A crockery vase smashed on my shoulder and shattered into a hundred fragments.

  I ducked and whirled at the same time. A fist came flying over my head and I blocked it with my left. I didn’t wait. I let fly a wicked punch that landed low then came up with the top of my skull and I rammed the point of a jaw with a shattering impact. Hal Kines hit the floor and lay there motionless.

  “Wise guy. A fresh kid that tries to bust me from behind. You’re certainly not training him right, George. Time was when you stood behind a chopper yourself, now you let a college kid do your blasting, and in a houseful of mirrors he tries to sneak up behind me.” He didn’t say anything. He found a chair and slid into it, his eyes narrow slits of hate. If he had a rod right then he would have let me have it. He would have died, too. I’ve had an awful lot of practice sneaking that .45 out from under my arm.

  The Kines kid was beginning to stir. I prodded him in the ribs with my toe until he sat up. He was still pretty green around the gills, but not green enough to sneer at me. “You lousy bastard,” he said. “Have to fight dirty, don’t you.”

  I reached down and grabbed him under the arm and yanked him to his feet. His eyes bugged. Maybe he thought he was dealing with somebody soft. “Listen, pimple face. Just for the fun of it I ought to slap your fuzzy chin all around this room, but I got things to do. Don’t go playing man when you’re only a boy. You’re pretty big, but I’m three sizes bigger and a hell of a lot tougher and I’ll beat the living daylights out of you if you try anything funny again. Now sit down over there.”

  Kines hit the sofa and stayed there. George must have gotten his second wind because he piped up. “Just a moment, Mr. Hammer. This has gone far enough. I am not without influence at city hall....”

  “I know,” I cut in. “You’ll have me arrested for assault and battery and have my license revoked. Only when you do that, keep a picture in your mind of what your face will look like when I reach you. Someone already worked over your nose, but it’s nothing compared to what you’ll look like when I get done with it. Now keep your big mouth shut and give me some answers. First, what time did you leave the party?”

  “About one or a little after,” George said sullenly. That checked with Myrna’s version.

  “Where did you go after you left?”

  “We went downstairs to Hal’s car and drove straight home.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Hal, Myrna and myself. We dropped her off at her apartment and came here after putting the car in the garage. Ask Hal, he’ll verify it.”

  Hal looked at me. It was easy to see that he was worried. Evidently this was the first time he had been mixed up in anything so deep. Murders don’t appeal to anyone.

  I continued with my questioning. “Then what?”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, we had a highball and went to bed. What else do you think we did?” Hal said.

  “I don’t know. Maybe you sleep together.” Hal stood up in front of me, his face a red mask of fury. I put my mitt in his face and shoved him back on the sofa. “Or maybe,” I went on, “you don’t sleep together. Which means that either one of you had plenty of time to take the car back out and make the run to town to knock off Jack and get back here without anyone noticing it. If you do sleep together you both could have done it. See what I mean?

  “If either of you think you’re clean you’d better think again. I’m not the only one that has a mind that can figure out angles. Right now Pat Chambers has it all figured out on paper. He’ll be around soon, so you’d better be expecting him. And if either of you are tapped for the hot seat, you’d do a lot better by letting Pat pick you up. At least that way you’ll live through a trial.”

  “Someone calling me?” a voice said from the doorway. I spun around. Pat Chambers was framed in the hardwood paneling wearing his ever-present grin.

  I waved him over. “Yeah. You’re the main topic of conversation around here at this moment.” George Kalecki got up from the overstuffed cushions and walked to Pat. His old bluster was back.

  “Officer, I demand the arrest of this man at once,” he fairly shouted. “He broke into my home and insulted me and my guest. Look at the bruise on his jaw. Tell him what happened, Hal.”

  Hal saw me watching him. He saw Pat standing ten feet away from me with his hands in his pockets and apparently no desire to stop what might happen. It suddenly hit him that Jack had been a cop and Pat was a cop and Jack had been killed. And you don’t kill a cop and get away with it. “Nothing happened,” he said.

  “You stinking little liar!” Kal
ecki turned on him. “Tell the truth! Tell how he threatened us. What are you afraid of, this dirty two-bit shamus?”

  “No, George,” I said quietly, “he’s afraid of this.” I swung on him with all of my hundred and ninety pounds. My fist went in up to the wrist in his stomach. He flopped to the floor vomiting his lungs out, his face gradually turning purple. Hal just looked. For a second I could have sworn I saw a satisfied leer cross his swollen face.

  I took Pat by the arm. “Coming?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, nothing more to do here.”

  Outside Pat’s car was drawn up under the covered portico. We climbed in and he started it up and drove around the house to the graveled driveway to the highway and turned south toward the city. Neither of us had spoken until I asked him, “Get an earful back there?”

  He gave me a glance and nodded. “Yeah, I was outside the door while you were going through your spiel. Guess you laid it out the same way I did.”

  “By the way,” I added, “don’t get the idea I’m slipping. I was onto the tail you put on me. What did he do, call from the front gate or the filling station where I left my heap?”

  “From the station,” he answered. “He couldn’t catch on to why the hike and called for instructions. By the way. Why did you walk a mile and a half to his house?”

  “That ought to be easy, Pat. Kalecki probably left instructions not to admit me after he read that piece in the papers. I came in over the wall. Here’s the station. Pull up.”

  Pat slid the car off the road to the cindered drive. My car was still alongside the stucco house. I pointed to the grey-suited man sitting inside asleep. “Your tail. Better wake him up.”

  Pat got out and shook the guy. He came to with a silly grin. Pat motioned in my direction. “He was on to you, chum. Maybe you had better change your technique.”