Complex 90 Page 3

  “Senator, make it ‘Mike,’ and Mrs. Jasper, I am very pleased to meet you.”

  “Emily,” she said, touching a bosom that had gotten out of hand, though there are worse sins. “I guess you’d call me a fan, Mr. Hammer.”

  “Mike.”

  “Mike. I’ve followed your... what would call them? Exploits?”

  “How about misjudgments?”

  Her laugh was another reminder of her younger lovely self. But even after all those kids, she was not hard to look at, no matter how hard the French designers tried. She had a sweetness that made you fall for her right away.

  “Well,” she said, “I followed you in the papers and just so admired you for... well, like Allen here, you’re a man with principles. You stand up for what you believe in. You let the... what’s the expression? Chips fall where they may.”

  “Cow chips, sometimes,” I said.

  This somewhat tasteless gag only made her laugh and she just kept rising in my estimation.

  Jasper said, “We’re both grateful to you for what you did, last election. You made monkeys out of the other side.”

  “Well, it was really just a blackmail scheme. Two of their boys are still inside, getting good at making license plates.” I nodded toward the festivities. “Thanks for calling me in tonight. This is a nice party.”

  “Thank you,” Jasper said, “for lending Ralph a hand. He’s a good man but I’m hoping I can retain you on a more permanent basis.”

  “How permanent? I wouldn’t take a job away from a friend, and Ralph is—”

  “No, Mike, I would still travel with Ralph as my bodyguard, when his other work allowed. But when I’m back in New York, maybe you could step in.”

  “Okay. I’ll consider it. I’m complimented.”

  “Does that mean I have your vote?”

  “Last time I voted was for Dewey, back when he beat Truman, remember that? It was in the papers.”

  Emily laughed at this crack, too—she was an easy mark—then took my hand and squeezed it.

  “You’re a lucky man,” I said to him, as they moved away to mingle. He smiled in response, but there was something sad about it.

  “You’re Mike Hammer.” This voice was definitely not male, but it was deep enough to almost qualify. It was a purr. The kind a pussycat makes in your lap when you’re scratching its ear just right. Of course, if you don’t, you get clawed...

  I turned to her.

  She looked better than Liz Taylor’s imaginary sister. Smelled better, too.

  “‘Evening in Paris,’” I said.

  She almost blushed. “Am I wearing too much of it?”

  “No. Just right. I sniff things out. I’m a detective.”

  She offered her hand. It was small and warm, the nails the same blood red as her full, sensuous lips. My God those dark brown eyes were big, almost too big.

  Almost.

  Reluctantly I gave her hand back, and said, “How is it a kid like you recognizes me? I’m ancient history, honey.”

  “Well, I’m a student of history. Among other things.”

  “Such as?”

  She shrugged and black curls bounced. “I have a doctorate in physics. How’s that for a start?”

  She was already too smart for me, but that didn’t keep me from wanting to play doctor.

  “I’m impressed,” I said. “You don’t look old enough.”

  “Never a bad thing to say to a girl. I’m twenty-nine. Does it show?”

  “Only in the right places. Okay. We’ve established I’m Mike Hammer. Who are you, Doctor?”

  She almost blushed again and touched my arm, squeezing it a little by way of apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m Lisa Contreaux.”

  “Canadian?”

  “Dual citizenship, now. I work with Dr. Giles. I’m his top assistant.”

  “I can tell I’m supposed to be impressed, but I don’t know the name.”

  “Dr. Harmon Giles. The neurosurgeon? He was the top consulting physician on Gadfly.”

  The Gadfly space shot had gone off successfully last week.

  “So why aren’t you with him down at Cape Canaveral?”

  “Well, because he’s here. He semi-retired a year ago, but goes back down there as a consultant from time to time. He has a limited practice in the city. That’s him over there.”

  She was pointing to the sixty-some pipe smoker I had seen her talking with earlier.

  “I’ll introduce you,” she said, and took me by the crook of the arm and hauled me over.

  Soon I was shaking hands with the amiable doctor, who removed his pipe from his lips so they could smile big at me. He was wearing a lightweight suit with a vest and a string tie.

  “Mike Hammer,” he said, and his voice was even lower than the doll’s, with a burr in it, probably from smoking those damn pipes. At least the smoke cloud around him smelled like expensive tobacco. “You’ve been keeping a low profile of late, my friend.”

  His grip was on the lackadaisical side.

  “Have we met, Dr. Giles?”

  “No. But any Manhattan native feels like he knows Mike Hammer. I remember when you took out that Commie cell, what, ten or twelve years ago? Russian agents on American soil. They haven’t tried it since.”

  Actually they had, but that was classified.

  “I was sick for a while,” I said.

  “Anything serious?”

  “Acute alcoholism.”

  This made both of them blink. When you speak the truth, it tends to shake people up.

  “I spent seven years in slop chutes and the gutters outside of ’em,” I said cheerfully, “but that’s over.”

  “How did you manage it?” Lisa asked. “AA meetings?”

  “Perhaps you took the cure at a sanitarium?” Dr. Giles offered.

  “No.”

  Lisa asked, “What then?”

  “I stopped drinking so damn much.”

  That froze time for about two seconds, then the black-haired beauty smiled, showing off slightly oversize, very white teeth, and the doctor chuckled around his pipe stem. His teeth weren’t white at all.

  He said, “You have a reputation for being a no-nonsense individual. It would seem well-earned.”

  “Thanks. So when are we going to make it to the moon, Doc?”

  “One day,” he said, eyebrows arched, “and sooner than some might think.”

  “So what makes a neurosurgeon a space consultant?”

  “Probably my research work in the biological realm is more relevant, although the kind of physical examinations required for our astronauts necessitates the highest levels of skill from the consulting physician.”

  “Should I pretend I followed that?”

  He grinned around the pipe. “As we enter space, biological concerns come into play. You mentioned the moon, Mike, but Mars will be next. What if some organism awaits us?”

  “What, a monster with tentacles and twelve eyes?”

  “Perhaps. But perhaps a ‘monster’ that can only be seen under a microscope. Who can say? Dangerous organisms might even exist in space.”

  “Germs.”

  “If you will, germs.”

  I grinned back at him. “My advice to these space jockeys? Pack a ray gun, and shoot anything that moves.”

  “Ah. Frontier diplomacy. Manifest destiny.”

  “Some call it kismet, Doc.”

  That gangly kid in the seersucker suit came stumbling up with a mixed drink in either hand. “Lisa! There you are. Here’s your highball.”

  “Girl after my own heart,” I said to her.

  “I thought you weren’t drinking anymore,” she said to me, accepting her glass from Henry Aldrich.

  “It’s not that I’m not drinking anymore,” I said, “it’s that I’m drinking less... I’m Mike Hammer, son.”

  He frowned and the tortoiseshell-framed glasses slipped down onto the bulb of his nose. “Have I heard of you?”

  “I don’t know. Hav
e you?”

  “Mike,” Lisa said, her smile embarrassed, “this is my fiancé, Dennis Dorfman.”

  She had to be shitting me.

  “How are you, Denny?” I said, sticking my hand out. The moist limp fish shake I got back was not a surprise.

  “Actually,” he said, tasting his tongue, “I prefer Dennis. That is, if you don’t mind. You can call me that if you want, but I just... I never felt like a ‘Denny.’”

  “Okay, son,” I said, and I gave his girl a look that said, What the hell are you thinking?

  She answered the unspoken question. “Dennis is quite a brilliant scientist, Mike. He works with Dr. Perry Gleason, who’s attached to the organic science division of Manheim University.”

  “Manheim University,” I said. “I’ve heard of it.”

  “Small but important,” Lisa said, smiling, giving her guy a proud smile.

  Dr. Giles put in, “The government subsidizes some of its work. Most of it in agricultural development.”

  Dennis said, “Dr. Giles has been good enough to consult with us from time to time, gratis. A great man, Dr. Giles.” This last seemed odd, since Giles was standing right there and that sounded almost like a eulogy.

  “Pleasure to meet you both,” I said, nodding first to Giles and then to the innocuous kid who’d somehow landed the best-looking dame here. Maybe she liked intellectual discourse. Or maybe he was hung like a horse.

  I let my eyes meet those big dark ones that seemed to be laughing at me as she sipped her highball.

  “We should get together,” I said, directly to her. I was fine about it if her fiancé wanted to make something of it. “But for right now, I have to circulate. I’m on the clock.”

  Eyebrows going up again, Dr. Giles said, “Ah, so that’s why you’re here. Security detail. But you aren’t armed, are you?”

  I unbuttoned the suit coat and swung it open just enough to provide a glimpse of the gun of Navarone under my left arm. Lisa’s big eyes got even bigger.

  “It’s all in the cut,” I said, nodded to them all, and drifted away.

  The expensively modern penthouse furniture had been moved to the periphery with some of it likely just plain stored someplace, making of the already large living room a space that could accommodate all these guests. Marley and I kept an eye on each other, and made sure we kept our distance. Each of us was glancing at the door whenever a new guest arrived. I’m sure Marley was wondering what was taking the famous Miss Carroll, who lived in the Wentworth, so long to arrive. Her and all her fabled gems.

  I should have made the guy immediately, right when he was presenting his invitation at the door. He had an easy, comfortable manner, limber, loose, and a nice smile. Was he foreign? Anyway he was the only guest with a suntan courtesy of God, a small, almost skinny character with hair too long and a Fu Manchu mustache. Of course Senator Jasper had dealings with certain of the U.N. crowd. And this late arrival’s tan suit was beautifully tailored, another Italian number, which fit right in and sold me momentarily. Like I said—all in the cut....

  The latecomer made a beeline for the senator and his wife, who were standing with their backs to that big plate-glass window on Manhattan, attended by sycophants. A guest seeking out the host upon arrival was hardly unusual, but this swarthy character was moving faster than I liked, and Ralph Marley, closer to the senator than I, picked up on it too, and when the little slob yanked the Luger out from under his suit coat, Marley stepped in front of the senator, Secret Service-style, shoving Jasper out of harm’s way, Jasper knocking into his wife the same way, and the bullet meant for the senator caught Marley in the chest and my colleague had the same expression of surprise shared by civilian and pro alike when they know they’ve been shot, when they suspect correctly that they’ve been shot all the way, and Marley surely was dead before he hit the parquet floor.

  I had forgotten to button my suit coat, after showing the .45 off to Lisa and company, which was a happy accident in this unhappy circumstance, and I was coming across at an angle with the gun already in hand, shouting, “You!”

  The little bastard turned to me, spinning on his Italian heels, his back to the window now, and he was quick, goddamn quick, because as my finger squeezed the trigger I felt the impact of his slug in my thigh. My shot had been sent before I hit the floor, but when I did hit, I fired some more, and maybe he was dying already, but the stage was his, everybody had cleared away making it just him and that window at his back and I emptied the .45 at him, the window taking several slugs, spiderwebbing the glass, and he took the rest, the bullets punching a red-welling ellipsis in his chest, knocking him backward into that already compromised glass, which gave way, shattering like an icicle on cement, and then he was windmilling as he fell into the night, holding onto that Luger tight for all the good it would do him, and I hoped he didn’t die until he hit the pavement, because he deserved to enjoy the big splash.

  Then Lisa Contreaux was kneeling over me on one side. I could see Dr. Giles bending over Ralph Marley a few feet away. I had already made my diagnosis.

  So it was no shock when Giles came glumly over, knelt by me opposite Lisa and said, “He’s gone, Mike. He was dead before he hit the floor.”

  “I know.” I felt slightly dazed. “What’s all that racket?”

  “Women screaming,” she said.

  “But not you.”

  “No,” she said, smiling. Then she frowned. “You’re shot, Mike.”

  “I’ve been shot before. It isn’t much.”

  Giles was down there looking at the wound. He’d ripped my pants leg away from where blood bubbled but I hadn’t heard it over the racket of yowling females, which was winding down at least.

  “I’m going to give you some temporary treatment right here,” Giles said, “then we’ll get you over to my office and dig that slug out. It’s not far, but we’ll take a cab.”

  “Or we could go to the nearest emergency room,” Lisa suggested.

  “What, and bleed to death waiting three hours?” I shook my head. “I’m with you, Doc. Patch me up.”

  Then Senator Jasper was hovering. He looked pale as death, but he was alive, thanks to Ralph Marley.

  “My God, Mike,” he said, “how can I ever repay you?”

  “Get me a glass of Four Roses,” I said.

  * * *

  “So Jasper hired you for the Russian trip because of that,” Rickerby stated flatly.

  I raised a cautionary hand. “Let’s just say it influenced his decision. He already had clearance for Marley, but like Dickens said.... Anyway, Jasper checked into me all the way down the line before he handed me Marley’s job. Then the government did its security clearance number... ultimately through you, right, Art?”

  “Right.” He had the expression of a priest who’d been hearing one boring confession after another. “Mind telling me what he paid you?”

  “Five hundred a week. Senator could afford that.”

  “What would Marley have got?”

  “The same.”

  “Did he explain the details of the prospective job?”

  I nodded. “Just a glorified bodyguard.”

  “You’d helped him before on that election matter.”

  “Right. What about your people, Art? Any dealings with Senator Jasper?”

  “Our office was called in several times to, ah, adjust certain situations.”

  “And he always came up clean, didn’t he?”

  Rickerby agreed with a frown. “In the ways that mattered Mike, it was his policies his opponents attacked. The man himself wasn’t important.”

  “When a man takes the national stage, he is his policies.”

  “And here I thought you were apolitical.” Rickerby studied his hands a few seconds, then raised his eyes to mine. “I’m curious to know why Senator Jasper used a private individual to intercede for him when government options were at his fingertips.”

  I leaned on the table and folded my fingers together. “He didn’t want a
ny connection with agencies that might have possible political controls dictating their actions.”

  Rickerby’s eyes hardened slightly. “Mike... our agency doesn’t cater to either political party and you know it. We’ve lost a lot of men in the field proving it.”

  “Sure, buddy,” I said. “I know it... but I said possible political overtones. That’s the way the senator sees it.”

  “Still doesn’t make sense. You’re a one-man operation, and we—”

  I didn’t let him finish. “The job didn’t have long-range implications. It was a simple business of keeping him clear of any personal harassment on a glorified sightseeing tour. What little trouble we ran into was easy enough to handle. Hell, I’ve had assignments ten times as tough working with small industrialists.”

  “Ummm.” Rickerby ran his fingertips lightly along the edge of the table. “You’re trouble, Mike.”

  “Spell it out.”

  “You know what you did upstairs just now?”

  “Hung everybody by their cojones,” I laughed. “They don’t have a case against me, and neither do the Russians. I wasn’t over there as some political hack carrying an attaché case full of state secrets. I’m nothing but a private investigator who was on a straight-forward contract job that would have terminated when we were back in New York.”

  “Never mind New York, Mike.”

  “Is that right?”

  “That’s right. Tell me about Moscow.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  If you had been flying from Chicago to New York, the nighttime view from your window seat would find the darkness occasionally interrupted by the shimmer of hamlets and towns below, not to mention the streaks of headlights on highways. But judging by the view from Riga en route to Moscow, we might have been gliding over the dark side of the moon. Then across the eastern sky came a glow as if of an enormous forest fire. Soon the silhouettes of the spires and skyscrapers of the fifth largest city on the planet made themselves known, though the sense of Moscow was breadth not height, its presence seeming to consume the horizon.

  Riga—which had risen from the mist like a ghost of its former unconquered Latvian self—had been our first stop in the Soviet Union. We were a party of two, flying via SAS, the Scandinavian airline.