The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 3 Page 30

  “You speculating now?”

  She looked at me over her glass. “No, she’s told me that. You can ask her.”

  “I believe it.”

  “What can we do? It’s critical now.”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “Will you, Mike? We need help badly.”

  “You sure love this political crap, don’t you?”

  “My life, Mike. I gave my life to it.”

  “Hell, you’re too young to die. Maybe you should have been born a man.”

  “There’s a place for women in politics.”

  “Bull.”

  “You just like them to be women, don’t you?”

  “That’s what they are.”

  “All right. For you I’ll be a woman.”

  She put her drink down on the coffee table, took mine from my hand and put it next to hers, both unfinished. There was a sudden hunger in her eyes and a warmth to her face that made her mouth seem to blossom into a new fullness. Her fingers went to her throat and one by one she unbuttoned her blouse until it lay open, then with the slightest shrug of her shoulders it slid away so that her fingers could work more magic with the soft fabric of the bra. She whisked it away and it floated to the floor where it lay unnoticed.

  I looked at her, not touching her, taking in the lovely slope of her breasts that were swelled with emotion and tipped with the firm pinkness of passion. I could smell the fragrant heat of her only inches away, and as I watched, her stomach undulated and moved spasmodically against the waistband of her skirt.

  “How am I . . . as a woman, Mike?”

  “Lovely,” I told her. I reached for her, turned her around, then lay her as she was, half naked, across my lap, my fingers caught in her hair, touching her gently at first, then with firm insistence that made her shudder.

  She raised herself against me, twisting her head, searching for my mouth until she found it, then with a small whimper she was part of me, her lips a ripe, succulent fruit, her tongue an alive, vital organ that was a soul seeking another soul. I let her fall away from me reluctantly, her mouth still working as though it were kissing mine yet, her eyes closed, her breath coming heavily.

  Someplace in the house a clock chimed and a dull rumble of thunder outside echoed it. I let my hand run down the naked expanse of her stomach until the tips of my fingers traced a path across her waist under the skirt. She moaned softly and sucked in her breath so there would be a looseness at her belt. I felt her briefly, kneaded the pliant flesh, then took my hand away.

  Her eyes opened, she smiled once and closed them again. Then she was asleep. It had been a hard day for her too. I held her until I was sure she wouldn’t awaken, then raised her, propped a cushion beneath her shoulders, and let her down onto it. I covered her with her blouse and a plaid car blanket that was folded over the back of a chair.

  In the morning she’d feel better. She’d hate me maybe, but then again, maybe not. I went upstairs and checked Sue. She had turned on her side and the oversized stuffed toy was almost crushed beneath her.

  I called a cab in from town, let myself out, and waited by the gate. The cop on the beat asked me if everything was all right and I told him the women were both asleep and to stay on his toes. He still couldn’t read me but with the card I carried he wasn’t taking any chances. He saluted cordially and walked off into the darkness.

  Inspector Grebb should have seen that, I thought. He’d flip. He’d sooner I got a boot in the tail.

  When the cab came he didn’t want to take me clean into the city so I changed cabs at the George Washington Bridge and gave that driver the address of my new apartment. I started to grin, thinking of what Velda would do if she knew where I was an hour ago. Hell, she never would believe me if I told her the truth anyway, so why say a word? But you can’t go through two of those deals in one night and stand up to it. If Velda was there I hoped she was sacked out tight. Right then I needed sleep more than anything I could think of.

  I paid the cab off and went inside. The place was freshly renovated and smelled of paint. I took the automatic elevator to the third floor, found my new apartment at the very end of the hall, and stuck the key in the lock. There was a soft glow from a table lamp at the end of the couch in the living room and a radio was playing softly. From where I stood I could see her stretched out comfortably and laughed to myself. Velda had determination, but sleep had won out. She got the couch and I got the bed this time. Tomorrow she’d sizzle, but she’d still be waiting.

  I went in on the balls of my feet, walking quietly so as not to wake her, but I couldn’t help looking at her as I passed. And when I saw her I turned ice cold inside because she wasn’t just asleep at all. Somebody had brought something down across her temple turning it into a livid welt that oozed dark blood under her ear into her hairline.

  I grabbed her, said “Velda!” once, then she let out a little meowing sound and her eyes flicked open. She tried to talk but couldn’t and it was her eyes that got the message across. I looked up to the side where he stood with one hand holding his belly and the other a gun and he had it pointed right at my head.

  Marv Kania had finally found me.

  His eyes had death in them, his and mine. His belly was bloated and I could smell the stench of a festering wound, the sickening odor of old blood impregnated into cloth. There was a wildness in his face and his mouth was a tight slash that showed all his teeth. Marv Kania was young, but right there he was as old as death itself.

  “I was waiting for you, mister.”

  Slowly, I got up. I was going to have to pull against a drawn gun and there wasn’t a chance I could make it. He was dying, but the gun in his hand was there with the deft skill of the professional and it never wavered an inch. He let the muzzle drift down from my head until it pointed at my stomach.

  “Right where I got it, man, and there’s no coming back after that. Everything inside goes. You’ll live a little while and you’ll hurt like I hurt. You try to move away from it and I put one more in your head.”

  I was thinking fast, wondering how fast I could move away from the shot. He knew what I was going to do and grinned through the pain he felt. Just to let me know it was no good he made two quick wrist motions to show he still had it and I had it, then he thumbed the hammer back.

  “The girl. What about her?”

  “What do you care? You’ll be dead.”

  “What about her?”

  His face was a mask of pain and hate. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. With her she gets one shot. Same as you. Then I go outside and die. Out in the rain, just so long as I don’t die in no crummy room. In the park, that’s where I die. I always wanted to die there.” His eyes half shut momentarily as a spasm of pain took him, then he snapped them open and grinned, his teeth bare against his gums.

  Velda turned on the couch, whispering my name softly. She must have come in when he was there. He held a gun on her, belted her out, and kept on waiting. Now he was going to kill her along with me.

  “You ready, you bastard?”

  I didn’t move. I just stood there hoping Velda could do something while my own body half shielded her from him, hoping she could move fast enough to get the hell out. He saw that too and started to laugh. It was so funny to him with all the hate bottled up inside he laughed even harder as he aimed the rod with every ounce of professional technique he ever had.

  And it was the laugh that did it. The laugh that broke the last thing inside. The laugh that burst the lifeline. He felt it go and his eyes went so wide the whites of them showed the horror he felt because he was still a loser and before he could put that final fraction of pressure on the trigger the gun dropped from his hand and he pitched facedown on the floor with a sickening squashing sound as some ghastly, putrescent fluid burst from his belly.

  I picked Velda up, carried her into the bedroom, and washed the blood from her temple. Then I loosened her clothes and pulled the blanket over her before flopping down on the bed b
eside her.

  Outside I had another dead man at my feet, but he was going to have to wait until morning.

  CHAPTER 8

  Pat was there at nine in the morning. So was Inspector Grebb and Charles Force. Pat’s face told me he had no choice so I threw him a brief nod so he knew I got the picture.

  The police photographers got all the shots they wanted, the body was carried out, Velda had a doctor in with her, and Grebb pointed at a chair for me and sat down himself.

  “You’ve been a thorn in our side, Hammer,” he said pleasantly.

  “Tough.”

  “But I think we have you nailed now.”

  “For failing to report a body?”

  “It’s enough. You don’t step that far outside and still get a gun-carrying privilege. It will break you with that fancy agency because they like closed mouths about their operations. They lift your ticket and you’re back in the ranks again.”

  Charlie Force was standing there with that same old courtroom smile, like his bait had caught the fish. I said, “I warned you, Charlie.”

  “Mr. Force, if you don’t mind?”

  This time I let him see the kind of grin I had, the one with teeth in it. I said, “Okay, buddy, I’ll come to your party, only I’m bringing my friends. I’m bringing in pressures you never heard of. Get something in your goddamn heads . . . you’re two public servants and all you’re looking for is another step up. If you got the idea you’ll get it over me you’re wrong. Don’t think that agency is going to back down a bit. I gave them too much and they’re still paying off for it. I’ll keep giving them more and more until they can’t afford to lose me. The agency is bigger than both you guys and now you’re going to find it out the hard way.

  “As for you, Force, before you were playing in courtrooms I was pushing a legal gun around this town and there are guys I know and friends I made who’d like nothing better than to wipe your nose in a mess. Believe me, buddy, if you ever did one lousy thing in your life . . . and you can bet your ass you did because everybody does, I’ll nail it down and you’ll go with it. It won’t even be a hard job. But I’ll do even better than that to you, kid. I’ll pull the stool right out from under you. This little bugger I’m on now is a hot little bugger and it’s mine. You get no slice of it at all. I’ll make the action and get the yaks.”

  I spun around and looked at Pat. “Tell them, friend.”

  “You did a pretty good job. I’m still a Captain.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll get you raised one after this, okay, Inspector?”

  He didn’t say anything. He sat there glowering at me, not knowing what to think. But he was an old hand and knew when the wind was blowing bad. It showed in his eyes, only he didn’t want me to to see it. Finally he looked at his watch, then up to me. “We’ll wait some more,” he said. “It’s bound to happen sometime.”

  “Don’t hold your breath waiting,” I said.

  “You take care of things here, Captain,” he said to Pat. “I’ll want to see the report later.”

  “I’ll have it on your desk, Inspector.”

  They left then, two quiet men with one idea in their minds nobody was ever going to shake loose. When they were out I said to Pat, “Why the heat?”

  “Because the city is on edge, Mike. They haven’t got the answers and neither have I. Somehow you always get thrown in the middle of things so that you’re the one to pull the switch.”

  “You got everything I know.”

  Pat nodded sagely. “Great. Facts are one thing, but there’s still that crazy mind of yours. You make the same facts come out with different answers somehow.” He held up his hand to shut me up. “Oh, I agree, you’re cooperative and all that jazz. You lay it on the line like you’re requested to do and still make it look like your own idea. But all the time you’re following a strange line of reasoning nobody who looks at the facts would take. I always said you should have been a straight cop in the first place.”

  “I tried it a long time ago and it didn’t work.”

  “You would have made a perfect crook. Sometimes I wonder just what the hell you really are inside. You live in a half world of your own, never in, never out, always on the edge.”

  “Nuts to you, Pat. It works.”

  “The hard way.”

  Pat walked to the window, stared down into the courtyard a moment, then came back. “Kania say anything to you before he died?”

  “Only how he was going to enjoy killing me.”

  “You didn’t ask him any questions?”

  “With a gun on me and him ready to shoot? There wasn’t anything to ask.”

  “There wasn’t any chance you could have taken him?”

  “Not a one.”

  “So I’ll buy it. Now, how’d he find you?”

  “I’m not that hard to find. He did it twice before. He probably picked up Velda at my office and followed her here.”

  “She talk yet?”

  “No,” I told him, “but maybe she will now. Let’s ask her.”

  The doctor had finished with Velda, assuring us both that it was only a minor concussion that should leave no aftereffects, gave me a prescription for a sedative, and left us alone with her.

  She smiled up at me crookedly, her face hurting with the effort.

  “Think you can talk, kitten?”

  “I’m all right.”

  “How’d that punk get in here?”

  She shook her head and winced. “I don’t know. I left the door unlocked thinking you’d be in shortly, then I went to the bathroom. When I went back into the living room he stepped out of the bedroom. He held the gun on me . . . then made me lie on the couch. I knew he was afraid I’d scream or something so he just swung the gun at me. I remember . . . coming awake once, then he hit me again. That’s all I remember until you spoke to me.”

  I glanced at Pat. “That’s how he did it then. He waited at the office.”

  “Did you know Grebb kept a man staked out there?”

  “Didn’t everybody? I told you to stay off my neck.”

  “It wasn’t my idea.”

  “Kania must have spotted him the same as I did. He simply waited outside or across the street until Velda came out. When she came alone he figured she could lead him to me and stayed with her. She made the job easy by leaving the door open.”

  “I’m sorry, Mike.”

  “No sweat, baby,” I said. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Mike . . .”

  “What?”

  “Mrs. Lee. She’d like to see you again.”

  She was bypassing Pat, but he caught it and grinned. “I haven’t heard about her.”

  “An old lady. Sally Devon’s old wardrobe mistress. She was with her when she died. She’ll talk to anybody for company’s sake but she might come up with something.”

  “Still going back thirty years?”

  “Does money get old?” I asked him.

  There was a jack next to the bed so I got the phone from the living room and plugged it in and laid it on the nightstand where Velda could reach it. “You stay put all day, honey. I’ll check in with you every now and then and if you want anything, just call down for it. I’ll leave your key with the super and he can check on anybody who comes in.”

  “Mike . . . I’ll be fine. You don’t have to . . .”

  I cut her off. “Look, if I want you for anything, I’ll call. There’s a lot you can do without getting out of bed. Relax until I need you. Shall I get somebody to stay with you?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll be moving fast. I don’t know where I’ll be. But I’ll check in every couple of hours. Maybe Pat here can give you a buzz too.”

  “Be glad to,” he said. There was restraint in his voice and I knew how he was hurting. It isn’t easy for a guy who loves a woman to see her going down the road with somebody else. War, love . . . somebody’s got to be the loser.

  So I covered her up and went outside with Pat. About twenty minutes later two men
from his division came in, got a rundown on Kania, and started backtracking him. A contract killer wasn’t notorious for leaving a trail, but Marv Kania had a record, he was known. He might have been tight-lipped about his operation, but somewhere somebody was going to know something.

  One thing. That’s all we needed. You could start with dead men, all right, but it won’t do you any good if they only lead to other dead men. Mr. Dickerson had played some smart cards. He had picked his people well. The ones here were clean. The ones who weren’t were dead. The hoods in town could be taken in and questioned, but if they knew nothing because the orders hadn’t been issued yet, they couldn’t say anything. It was still a free country and you couldn’t make them leave the state as long as they stayed clean. The men behind them were power who could still turn on the heat through odd but important channels so you couldn’t roust them too far.

  I told Pat I’d see him sometime after lunch, walked him downstairs, left a key with the super, and gave him a fin for his trouble. Pat went on downtown and I hopped a cab across town to Annette Lee’s place, got the landlady to let me in, and stepped into her living room.

  The old gal was still in her rocker, still going through that same perpetual rhythm, stopping only when her chair had inched against another piece of furniture. Her curtains were drawn back, letting in the early light, and she smiled a big hello when she saw me.

  “How nice of you to come back, young man,” she said. She held out her hand without getting up and I took it. “Sit down, please.”

  I tossed my hat on a table and pulled up another straight-back chair and perched on the end of it.

  “Your young lady was here yesterday. We had a lovely visit. It isn’t often I get company, you know.”

  I said, “She mentioned you wanted to see me.”

  “Yes.” Annette Lee nodded, then leaned her head back against the chair with her eyes half shut. “We were talking. I . . .” She waved her hand vaguely in front of her face. “Sometimes I forget things. I’m going on ninety now. I think I’ve lived too long already.”