The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 3 Read online

  “The best kind.”

  “Don’t pull that kind of stunt on Grebb, buddy.”

  “You know me.”

  “Sure I know you.”

  I let them out and went back and stretched out on the couch. Velda made me some coffee and had one with me. I drank mine staring at the ceiling while I tried to visualize the picture from front to back. It was all there except the face. Blackie Conley’s face. I knew I was going to see it soon. It was a feeling I had.

  “Mike . . . where are we going?”

  “You’re thinking ahead of me, kiddo.”

  “Sometimes I have to.”

  “You’re not going anyway.”

  “Don’t cut me out, Mike.” Her hand touched the side of my jaw, then traced a tingling line down my chin.

  “Okay, doll.”

  “Want to tell me what you have in your mind?”

  “A thought. The only thing that’s wrong with the picture.”

  “Oh? What?”

  “Why Blackie Conley would want to kill Sim.”

  “Mike . . .” She was looking past me, deep in thought. “Since it was Torrence who engineered that robbery and not Conley as you first thought, perhaps Conley suspected what was going to come off. Supposing he outguessed Torrence. In that case, he would have had the whole bundle to himself. He would have made his own getaway plans and broken out at the right time. Don’t forget, Conley was older than Sonny and he was no patsy. There was no love between the pair either. In fact, Conley might even have guessed who the brain was behind the whole thing and had reasons for revenge.”

  “You might have something there, kitten.”

  “The first try was for Sue,” she went on. “That really was an indirect blow at Sim. The next try was for them both.”

  “There’s a possible flaw in your picture too, but I can supply an answer.”

  She waited. I said, “It’s hard to picture a guy in his eighties going up that trellis. He’d have to hire it done . . . but that’s why the hoods are in town.”

  “I don’t know, Mike. Remember Bernarr Macfadden making his first parachute jump into the river when he was about the same age?”

  “Uh-huh. It could be done.”

  “Then the answer is still to find Blackie Conley.”

  “That’s right.”

  “How?”

  “If we can restore another old man’s memory we might get the answer.”

  “Sonny Motley?”

  “Yup.”

  “Tonight? ”

  “Right now, sugar.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Finding Sonny Motley’s apartment wasn’t easy. Nobody in the gin mills knew where he lived; the cop on the beat around his store knew him but not his address. I checked the few newsstands that were open and they gave me a negative. It was at the last one that a hackie standing by heard me mention the name and said, “You mean that old con?”

  “Yeah, the one who has the shoe shop.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. We need some information about a missing person and he might be able to help us.”

  “Ha, I’d like to see those old cons talk. They won’t give nobody the right time.”

  “You know where he lives?”

  “Sure. Took him home plenty of times. Hop in.”

  We climbed in the cab, went angling up to a shoddy section that bordered on the edge of Harlem, and the cabbie pointed out the place. “He’s downstairs there on this side. Probably in bed by now.”

  “I’ll get him up.” I gave him a buck tip for his trouble and led the way down the sandstone steps to the iron gate at the bottom. I pushed the bell four or five times before a light came on inside.

  A voice said, “Yeah, whatta ya want?”

  “Sonny?”

  “Who’re you?”

  “Mike Hammer.”

  “Oh, fer . . .” He came to the door, opened it, and reached for the grilled gate that held us out. He had a faded old robe wrapped around his body and a scowl on his face as black as night. Then he saw Velda and the sky lightened. “Hey . . . how about that.”

  “This is Velda, my secretary. Sonny Motley.”

  “Hello, Sonny.”

  “Well, don’t just stand there. Come on in. Hot damn, I ain’t had a broad in my joint since before I went to stir. Hot damn, this is great!” He slammed the gate, locked the door, and led the way down the hall. He pushed his door open and said, “Don’t mind the place, huh? So it’s a crummy place and who comes here? I’m a crummy old man anyway. Sure feels good to have a broad in the joint. Want a drink?”

  “I’ll pass,” I said.

  “Not me.” He grinned. “A sexy broad comes in like her and I’m gonna have me a drink.”

  “I thought you were all over the sex angle, Sonny.”

  “Maybe inside I am, but my eyes don’t know it. No, sir. You sit down and let me get dressed. Be right back.”

  Sit down? We had a choice of box seats. Egg boxes or apple boxes. There was one old sofa that didn’t look safe and a chair to match that had no cushion in it. The best bet was the arms of the chair so Velda took one side and I took the other.

  A choice between living here or a nice comfortable prison would be easy to make. But like the man said, at least he was free. Sonny was back in a minute, hitching suspenders over bony shoulders, a bottle of cheap booze in his hand.

  “You sure you don’t want nothing?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “No need to break out glasses then.” He took a long pull from the bottle, ambled over to the couch, and sat down facing us. “Hot damn,” he said, “those are the prettiest legs I ever saw.”

  Velda shifted uncomfortably, but I said, “That’s what I keep telling her.”

  “You keep telling her, boy. They love to hear that kind of talk. Right, lady?”

  She laughed at the impish look on his face. “I guess we can stand it.”

  “Damn right you can. Used to be a real killer with the ladies myself. All gone now though.” He pulled at the bottle again. “’Cept for looking. Guess a man never tires of looking.” He set the bottle down on the floor between his feet and leaned back, his eyes glowing. “Now, what can I do for you?”

  “I’m still asking questions, Sonny.”

  He waved his hands expansively. “Go ahead. If I can answer ’em it’s all free.”

  “I can’t get rid of the idea your old partner’s still alive.”

  His shoulders jerked with a silent laugh. “Can’t, eh? Well, you better, because that no-good is gone. Dead. I don’t know where or how, but he’s dead.”

  “Let’s make like he isn’t.”

  “I got lots of time.”

  “And I got news for you.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Sim Torrence is dead.”

  Briefly, his eyes widened. “True?”

  “True.”

  Then he started to cackle again. “Good. Had it coming, the bugger. He put the screws on enough guys. I hope it wasn’t easy.”

  “He was shot.”

  “Good. Bring the guy in and I’ll fix his shoes free every time. I mean that. Free shine too.”

  “I thought you didn’t care anymore.”

  “Hell, I said I didn’t hate him, not that I didn’t care. So he’s dead. I’m glad. Tomorrow I’ll forget he was even alive. So what else is new?”

  “Sim Torrence was the big brain who engineered your last job.”

  He was reaching for the bottle and stopped bent over. He looked up, not believing me. “Who says?”

  “You’ll read about it in the papers.”

  He straightened, the bottle entirely forgotten. “You mean . . .”

  “Not only that, he engineered it right into a deliberate frame-up. That case made him the D.A. After that coup he was a landslide candidate.”

  “This is square, what you’re telling me?”

  “On the level, Sonny.”

  “The dirty son of a bitch. Sorry, lad
y.”

  “Here’s an added note I want you to think about. If Blackie Conley got wise in time he could have worked the double cross to his own advantage, taking the loot and dumping you guys.”

  Sonny sounded almost out of breath. “I’ll be damned,” he said. Some of the old fire was in his voice. “A real switcheroo. How do you like that? Sure, now I get what the score is. Blackie laid out the getaway route. Hell, he never followed through with the plan. He had something else schemed up and got away.” Abruptly he dropped his head and laughed at the floor. “Boy, he was smarter than I figured. How do you like that?” he repeated.

  “Sonny . . .”

  He looked up, a silly grin on his face. Egg. He couldn’t get over it. I said, “Blackie rented the property you were supposed to hole up in from Howie Green.”

  “That’s right.”

  “He must have bought another place at the same time for his own purpose using another name.”

  “Just like that bastard Green to fall in with him. He’d do anything for a buck. I’m glad Blackie knocked him off!”

  “He did?”

  “Sure he did. Before the heist. You think we wanted somebody knowing where we was headed?”

  I looked at him, puzzled.

  He caught the look and said, “Yeah, I know. There ain’t no statute of limitations on murder. So they could still take me for being in it. Hell, you think I really care? Look around here. What do I have? Nothing. That’s what. I already served life. What could they do that’s worse? Maybe at the best I can live ten years, but what can I do with ten years? Live in a crummy rat hole? Beat on shoes all day? No friends? Man, it was better doin’ time. You just don’t know.”

  I waved him down. “Look, I don’t care about Green. He asked for it, so he got it. I want Blackie Conley.”

  “How you gonna find him?”

  “Did you know Green?”

  “You kiddin’? Him and me grew up together on the same block. I took more raps for that punk when I was a kid . . . aw, forget it.”

  “Okay, now Green was a stickler for detail. He kept records somewhere. He passed on his business to his partner, Quincy Malek.”

  “I knew him too.”

  “Now Quincy kept the records. Wherever they are, they’ll have a notation of the transactions carried out by the business. It will show the property locations and we can run them down one by one until we get the place Blackie bought from him.”

  “You think Blackie’ll still be there?”

  “He hasn’t showed up any place else, has he?”

  “That just ain’t like Blackie.” He rubbed his hands together and stared at them. “Maybe I didn’t know Blackie so good after all. Now what?”

  “Did you know Quincy Malek?”

  “Sure. From kids yet. Him too. He was another punk.”

  “Where would he put something for safekeeping?”

  “Quincy? Man, who knows?” He chuckled and leaned back against the cushions. “He had places all over. You know he operated a couple of houses without paying off? The boys closed him on that one.”

  “The records, Sonny. Right now we’re checking up on all of Quincy’s former properties and every commercial warehouse in the city, but if you remember anything about what he had you can cut the time right down.”

  “Mister, you’re dragging me back thirty years.”

  “What did you have to think about all the time you were in prison, Sonny? Whatever it was belonged back there too because in prison there was nothing to think about.”

  “Broads,” he grinned. “Until I was sixty all I thought about was broads. Not the used ones I had before, but ones that didn’t even exist. Maybe after sixty I went back, but it took some time.”

  “Now you got something to think about.”

  Sonny sat there a long moment, then his mouth twisted into a sour grimace. “Tell me, mister. What would it get me? You it would get something. Me? Nothing. Trouble, that’s all it would bring. Right now I ain’t got nothin’ but I ain’t got trouble either. Nope. Don’t think I can help you. I’ve had my belly full of trouble and now it’s over. I don’t want no more.”

  “There won’t be trouble, Sonny.”

  “No? You think with all the papers down my throat I’d get any peace? You think I’d keep the lease on the shoe shop? It’s bad enough I’m a con and a few people know it, but let everybody know it and I get booted right out of the neighborhood. No business, nothin’. Sorry, mister.”

  “There might be a reward in it.”

  “No dice. I’d have everybody in the racket chiseling it outa me. I’d wind up a drunk or dead. Somebody’d try to take me for the poke and I’d be out. Not me, Mister Hammer. I’m too old to even worry about it.”

  Damn, he was tying me up tight and he was right. There had to be a way. I said, “If I wanted to I could put the heat on you for the Howie Green kill. The way things stand I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if we got some quick and total cooperation from the police.”

  Sonny stared a second, then grunted. “What a guest you are. You sure want me to fall bad.”

  “Not that bad. If you want to push it I’d probably lay back. I’m just trying you, Sonny.”

  Once again his eyes caught Velda’s legs. She had swung them out deliberately and the dress had pulled up over her knee. It was enough to make Sonny giggle again. “Oh, hell, why not? So maybe I can feed you something. What’s it they call it? Public duty or some kind of crap like that.”

  “Quincy Malek, Sonny.”

  He sat back and squinted his eyes shut. “Now let’s see. What would that punk do? He up and died but he never expected to, I bet. He was the kind who’d keep everything for himself if he could. Even if he left something to his family I bet they’d have to dig for it.

  “Quincy owned property around town. Tenements, stuff like that. He’d buy cheap and hold. Got plenty in rentals and he seemed to know what was coming down and what was going up. Always had a hot iron in the fire.”

  “Would he keep any records there?”

  “Nope, don’t think so. Something might happen to ’em. My guess is he’d leave ’em with somebody.”

  “Who?”

  “Something about old Quincy nobody knew. He kept a pair of sisters in an apartment building he owned. Tricky pair that. Real queer for anything different. I got the word once that he had a double deal with them. They owned the apartment with some papers signed so that he could take it back any time he wanted. He couldn’t get screwed that way. Me, I’d look for those sisters. That building would be the only income they had and they couldn’t dump it so they were stuck with it, but since it was a good deal all around, why not, eh?”

  “Who were they, Sonny?”

  “Now you got me, mister. I think if you poke around you’ll find out who. I remember the deal, but not the dames. That any help?”

  “It’s a lead.”

  “Maybe I’ll think of it later. You want me to call if I do?”

  I picked a scrap of paper off the table, wrote down the office and home numbers, and gave them to him. “Keep calling these numbers until you get me or Velda here.”

  “Sure.” He tucked the paper in his pants pocket. Then he got an idea. “Hey,” he said, “if you find that crumb Blackie, you let me know. Hell, I’d even like a feel of that money. Just a feel. I think I’m entitled. It cost me thirty years.”

  “Okay, a feel,” I said kiddingly.

  Then Velda swung her leg out again and he grinned. “You know what I’d really like to feel, don’t you?”

  With a laugh Velda said, “You’re a dirty old man.”

  “You bet, lady. But I’d sure like to see you with your clothes off just once.”

  “If you did you’d drop dead,” I told him.

  “What a way to go,” he said.

  Pat wasn’t bothering to get any sleep either. I reached him at the office and gave him the dope Sonny passed on to me. He thought it had merit enough to start working on and was going to put two
men on it right away. Nothing else had paid off yet, although they had come up with a few former properties Malek had owned. They had made a search of the premises, but nothing showed. A team of experts were on a twenty-four-hour detail in the records section digging up old titles, checking possibles, and having no luck at all so far.

  Offhand I asked for Quincy’s old address and Pat gave me the location of his home and the building the real estate agency was housed in. He had checked them both personally and they were clean.

  I hung up the phone and asked Velda if she wanted something to eat. The Automat was right down the street so she settled for a cup of coffee and a sandwich. We waited for the light, cut over, and ducked inside.

  Right at the front table Jersey Toby was having coffee and when he saw me he simply got up and left with his coffee practically untouched.

  We fed nickels into the slots, got what we wanted, and picked a table.

  Outside the damn rain had started again.

  Velda said, “What’s on your mind?”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Your poker face slipped. You’re trying to think of something.”

  I slammed the coffee cup down. “One lousy thing. I can feel it. One simple goddamn thing I can’t put my finger on and it’s right there in front of me. I keep forgetting things.”

  “It’ll come back.”

  “Now is when I need it.”

  “Will talking about it help?”

  “No.”

  “You’re close, aren’t you?”

  “We’re sitting right on top of it, baby. We’re riding three million bucks into the ground and have a killer right in front of us someplace. The damn guy is laughing all the way too.”

  “Suppose the money isn’t there?”

  “Honey . . . you don’t just lose that kind of capital. You don’t misplace it. You put it someplace for a purpose. Somebody is ready to move in this town and that money is going to buy that person a big piece of action. If that one is as smart as all this, the action is going to be rough and expensive.”

  “Why don’t you call Pat again? They might have something.”

  “I don’t want to bug him to death.”

  “He won’t mind.”