Mike Hammer--King of the Weeds Page 8

  The officer stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind him.

  I took Brogan by the wrist; it was thin and brittle. “Your heart is beating like a bunny rabbit’s, buddy. Breathe in, breathe out, nice and steady.”

  “Hammer, you’re as crazy as they say you are!”

  “Did you do those crimes, Henry? Or are you taking the rap for your old buddy Olaf, now that you’re about to buy it anyway? Has he promised you a prize chunk of his settlement?”

  “If he did, what good would that do, you crazy asshole!”

  I said to Pat, “Watch the door, would you, Captain?”

  Pat nodded, went to the door, turned his back to us.

  I grinned at Brogan. “Maybe he said he’d look out for your precious grandkids, after you’re gone. Lot of money’ll be coming in. But how can you be sure you can trust him?”

  “I’m an old man! I’m a sick old man!”

  “I’m an old man, too. We’re about the same age. How about that?”

  “You’re sick!”

  “Yeah, but I’m not dying, Henry. And if you’re the serial killer you claim, why should I show you any mercy? Maybe I have a client who was the brother of one of your victims, and he sent me here to get even. To make sure you die long and hard and nasty. Did you kill those men?”

  “I did. I did. Fuck you, Hammer, I did. Kill me if you want. If you want the goddamn truth, that’s it.”

  “Why did you kill them?”

  “I had a sick daughter. She needed medicine, expensive care. She pulled through, too. I’d do it again! I’d do it again!”

  “Why gays, Henry? Why were they your targets?”

  “Uh… ’cause I hate them fags! Always have! Stinking queers.”

  I let go of his wrist. Patted him on the shoulder, smiled down at him. “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning, Henry.”

  “Fuck you, Hammer! Fuck you!”

  A white-frocked doctor burst through the door, his face pale with concern. Pat, with a very studied gesture, lifted his badge from his pocket and flipped the leather flap up and let the doctor see the gold.

  In a hushed voice Pat said, “Appears the patient’s too disturbed to be interviewed right now.”

  The doctor nodded, and Pat moved past the medic and I followed.

  When we got out of the elevator, Pat said, “You haven’t lost your bedside manner, Mike. What do you think?”

  “Pat, you’re not going to like my diagnosis. I think the odds are strong he did do those killings.”

  “That bit about hating homosexuals sounded forced, though. Something about it was off.”

  “I’d agree. Maybe he was the self-hating gay luring victims into alleys. But I’m starting to think he did those kills, and tried to make it up to his old pal by regular visits and cartons of weed. Now he’s taking one last shot at redemption. And Rudy Olaf, though he doesn’t seem to give a shit, will be out breathing fresh air again.”

  “What, in New York?” Pat grabbed my arm as he spoke and I saw what he was looking at.

  Somebody had left a late edition of the paper on a chair and there was a picture of two pedestrians and a paramedic standing beside a crumpled body on the sidewalk. The body was in shorts and a dark T-shirt and the small caption stated, Police Officer Dies While Jogging.

  Pat said very softly, “Damn—another one!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It had been a long time since I had packed the Colt .45 on me. I took it out of the zippered sleeve and hefted it—clean and oiled with that good gun smell, and when I put the empty clip in, the action was still mechanically beautiful. For now, its brand-new brother—Velda’s early wedding present—would stay here at home in my hidden gun locker, from which I’d retrieved the older gun and its shoulder holster. Like me, this baby had a lot of miles on it, but neither of us was ready to get off the road just yet.

  I thumbed the button, popped the clip out and fingered in a full load of fresh G.I.-style cap-and-ball ammunition. With a weapon like that, you don’t need fancy loads. A graze will spin you around like a top and any kind of a hit at all is a stopping one. Hell, you don’t even have to shoot it to make your point. The thing looks downright intimidating just hanging loose in your hand.

  The shoulder holster was still quiet and limber, no squeaking leather, and the encased spring was still tensed to the degree I liked. I slipped the harness on, adjusted it to the proper snugness and dropped the .45 into its own little hiding place where it nestled like a cat behind its favorite cushion.

  There was no encumbering weight at all. No over-balancing, so there wasn’t any strain on the scar tissue where I took those slugs last year. The bruised area on my chest felt the weight a little, but no big deal. I slipped my jacket on and looked in the mirror. The tailor had done his job again. No bulges. You couldn’t tell I was wearing the rig at all, a real trick with a weapon this size.

  And so we were together again. Maybe I didn’t like it the way I used to like it, but it was a necessity once more. Very casually I’d open my coat somewhere and eyes would see the butt end of the gun and the word would go out so that anybody coming for me would be put off stride just enough for the older, slower me to take evasive action and get into my own attack mode. Maybe.

  I’d lived a long time, a lot longer than I thought I would, and a hell of a lot longer than most people figured. That cop yesterday had been twenty-eight, putting in four years on the force, with several citations for valor, a non-drinker who didn’t smoke. He had been active in youth groups and was a great role model for kids. His latest physical exam showed him to be in top physical shape. By all rights, he should have lived a lot longer than me, even though like me, he carried a gun in his work.

  But a gun didn’t kill him.

  He had an unexpected heart attack and was dead before he hit the ground.

  * * *

  It was fifteen minutes after five and the sun hadn’t come up yet. The streets were empty and a cruising cab saw me wave and stopped outside the apartment house doors. After I gave the driver my office address, I sat back and thought about how the hitman in the pale blue hat and the tailored navy blue suit would have carried out his assignment.

  Until six a.m., everybody at the Hackard Building had to sign in, showing identification to the wary ex-cop at the security desk. He was armed and ready, his hand always near an alarm button that alerted mobile backup. The man in the pale blue hat would have known this if he was any good at all.

  But promptly at six the guard went off duty and the doorman and other lobby personnel came on. The early birds would start coming in at odd intervals, the photographers on my floor, the commercial artists who did their own freelance work before teaching classes later, the group who did telephone solicitations until they were relieved at three in the afternoon.

  I had gotten in just before six-thirty, so the shooter had plenty of time to make his under-the-radar entry. He would have been too ordinary-looking for anyone to have taken special notice of him. On my floor, the eighth, simply by standing near the elevator, he could easily assume the look of someone taking leave after an early morning meeting. If anyone noticed him particularly, he could simply check his watch and act as though he were waiting for someone to join him.

  At five-thirty I paid off the cabbie and stepped out onto the nearly deserted street. The inactivity at this early hour was always a little startling. New York was awake, but like many an early riser, it hadn’t started to really move yet. The people of this city were mostly clawing at sleep-caked eyes or showering or having a buttered hard roll and coffee. It would be another hour before the collective entity that was New York City would be ready to face the competition. Which had made this a great time of day for the man in the pale blue hat to case the workings of an office building.

  Now it was my turn.

  The avenues at each end of the street had a steady but intermittent flow of traffic. Two cars turned toward me but passed by, and I started walking east against the on
e-way occasional traffic. Half-way up I turned around, crossed the street and headed back to the Hackard Building.

  Right ahead of me, a janitor came out of the dark front of a store, dragging two huge plastic bags of garbage. Fortyish, black, with solid shoulders and a modest paunch, he set them on the curb, made sure they were steady, and brushed his hands off on his pant legs.

  I went up to him and said, “How early do the trucks come to pick up your stuff?”

  He looked at me like I had straw sticking out of my ears. “Man, those guys are done before dawn shows off her crack. You see any garbage out now?”

  “Just yours.”

  He squinted up at me, a quick but careful inspection—the suit and tie, the hat worn only by old hardcore types. “You some kind of official, mister?”

  “Naw. Just a curious neighbor.”

  This time he nodded sagely. “Yeah, I shoulda knowed that. Officials don’t get up that early in this city.” He paused and let a grin spread across his face. “You know what’s in them bags?”

  I shook my head. “They didn’t look too heavy.”

  “Paper,” he told me. “All the ends off the spools in the store. They got maybe thirty feet on each roller and when they get low, my cousin picks ’em up, takes a load to Jersey, and we each make a hundred extra bucks a week.”

  “Do the owners know what they’re giving away?”

  “They don’t give a shit. They’re glad to get rid of it.”

  Across the street an old shopping cart gal pushed her load of odd bits and pieces of city flotsam along on wiggly wheels. The janitor saw me watching her and said, “That’s Alma. Sure looks like an old bag lady, don’t she?”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen her around. Why, isn’t she an old bag lady?”

  He yelled out, “Hey Alma, what’s happening?”

  She yelled back, “I’ve been invited to breakfast at the Waldorf to discuss eliminating the capital gains tax!”

  I laughed. “That’s bag lady talk?”

  “Ah, don’t mind Alma,” he said, laughing too. “She’s got a wacky streak.”

  “She sure doesn’t talk like some old bag.”

  “You’d better believe it.” He leaned in. “Tell you a secret. She ain’t what she seems.”

  “No?”

  “She’s great with stage make-up and if she’s talkin’ to somebody she don’t really know, she sounds like she’s got a mouth full of wood chips.”

  “What is she, some Broadway type researching a part?”

  This time he let out a soft chuckle. “Man, have you got that wrong. You must be new in this neighborhood.”

  I shrugged. If thinking that about me kept him talkative, that was just fine.

  “Well, this is New York City, friend. The real New York. That gal over there? A lady cop. Nice broad, too. Decent-looking cleaned up, but even then? Real fuckin’ tough. Took down two pushers who were all set to get into a knife fight last week. Clubbed them out with some little gimmick she swung.”

  “What the hell could that have been?” A hand sap.

  “Who knows? And I ain’t askin’ her.” He gave me that squint again. “Where you from, mister?”

  I didn’t really lie to him. It had been many months since I had been a temporary resident there, but I said, “Florida. Down in the Keys.”

  “But you sound like New York, when I listen close.”

  “I was from here originally. But the Keys has fewer knife fights and the bag ladies aren’t dangerous unless one bites you.”

  He laughed a little, then his eyes got distant. “I should go there someday. The Keys.”

  Somewhere a garbage truck screamed.

  “Just be sure it’s the off-season,” I advised him.

  He started to ask me why, but I had turned and was following Alma down the street, crossing over to catch up to her a hundred feet from the corner.

  She had heard me coming, even though I hardly made any sound in my crepe-rubber-soled shoes. Her subtle turn seemed almost harmless until you noticed that it was a spring coiling, ready to do a deadly unwind in one second.

  I said, “Hiya, Rita.”

  She played it straight and grimaced at me. In that dull light she looked a good seventy years old. “Who you think I am, chump?”

  “I know you’re Rita Callaghan,” I told her. “You gave a great talk at the academy five years ago.”

  She only half-sounded like an old gal when she asked, “You a cop?”

  My answer went around her question. “We didn’t meet, Rita—I was there with Captain Chambers on another matter. He recruited a couple of your attendees for that campus shakedown that spring.”

  Callaghan played it straight right to the end. She held onto the handle of the shopping cart, turned slightly, but deliberately and out of nowhere a pencil light flashed in her hand. The sun was barely up and we were in a concrete canyon and she could use the help. The little beam ran over my face a couple of times, then snapped off.

  It took a moment to get set in her mind, then she said in a much younger, almost melodic voice, “Well, I’ll be damned. You’re Mike Hammer.”

  “Everybody’s gotta be somebody,” I said.

  “You’re somebody all right.”

  I nodded. “Where did ‘Alma’ come from?”

  There was a lovely dark-haired brunette in her late thirties buried under that get-up and stagecraft.

  “That’s my street name,” she said. “Like it?”

  “I like Rita better.”

  “Didn’t you used to be heavier?”

  “Yeah. And younger.”

  Her eyes looked me up and down like a lecher taking in a bathing beauty. “Walkin’ around naked now, are you?”

  I shook my head, opened my trenchcoat and unbuttoned my suitcoat to let her see the big gun in the rig, its butt poking out insolently at her from under my left arm.

  She whistled. “Some damn tailor you got.”

  “You don’t want to know what this suit cost me.”

  “What’re you doing around here?”

  “Working.”

  “I thought you retired after that shoot-out on the waterfront.”

  “Maybe I should have.”

  “Why do you say that, Mike?”

  “Because somebody is shooting at me again.”

  “Damn. You’re walking around. They must have missed.”

  “No, this guy’s aim was pretty good. I caught two twenty-two slugs in the heart area.”

  “Ah. You wear a vest.”

  “No. A dictionary.”

  “Huh?”

  “A nice thick paperback in my raincoat pocket. Stopped those babies on the last few pages.”

  Rita was a streetwise cop, all right. I didn’t have to draw her any diagrams. She was nodding, asking, “What can I do for you?”

  “My office is down the street.” I pointed.

  “The Hackard Building, right?”

  “Right. Somebody has been casing it for at least a week, most likely between five-thirty and six in the morning. There’s a possibility that somebody spotted him. I’d like a description.”

  “He know you’re still alive?”

  “Maybe. It happened two days ago.”

  “And you’re just looking into it now.”

  “I got distracted. Some crazy shit going down lately, Rita. I may be old, but I’m still interesting.”

  “I just bet you are.”

  I described the man in the pale blue hat to her the best I could. “The time delay’s no problem. If he goes true to form, he’s got to make contact with whoever hired him, and that’s probably through a middle man. He’ll be looking for his payoff.”

  “Which he will not get.”

  I grinned. “And that will piss him off no end.”

  “So you figure he’ll make a second trip back, to do the job right this time.”

  “You got it.”

  “Well, Mike. I’m a cop, and I know what your reputation is.”

  “Oh
, I’ll be a good citizen and turn him over to the police.”

  “Dead or alive?”

  Another grin twisted my mouth and I said, “Such details will depend on the circumstances.”

  “Then probably dead.”

  “Probably dead.”

  “Man, you’re just like they said you were.”

  “No, I’m mellow now. And the younger me would have got your phone number.” I handed her my card. “Here’s mine. If you see or hear anything, call me, okay?”

  Her eyes were steady on mine and I answered her unspoken question. “I’m not asking you to go out on a limb for me. Check in with Pat Chambers and get clearance on this. I’d hate to see you have to turn into a real bag lady.”

  “You don’t think I have other skills?” she asked, the prettiness under there making itself apparent, though the fake gunk on her teeth took the edge off.

  We exchanged nods and grins and she and her cart rolled off.

  There was one more contact I wanted to make, and my watch said the squad car would be coming down this street within the next five minutes, if it hadn’t been routed onto a call somewhere else.

  A touch of gray in the sky to the east said the night had given up the fight and almost as if a warning bell had gone off, the day’s public parade began its dreamlike emergence. I didn’t bother to study it because then the familiar blue-and-white from the local precinct was coming toward me and slowed when I waved it down from the curb.

  The driver, Patrolman Steve Gonzales, gave me a grin the way Rita had, once she knew who I was, but this guy already did. He turned his head for a glance at his younger partner.

  “We got ourselves a celebrity, Chuck. Probably on his way home from drinking a bunch of young dudes under the table.”

  Chuck’s smile had some smirk in it as we exchanged nods.

  My pal at the wheel wasn’t through building me up: “This is the guy who whacked out the Bonetti bunch all by himself.”

  I said, “That’s just a rumor, Steve.”

  “Is it a rumor you blew out Azi Ponti’s brains in that waterfront fracas?”

  “More like an urban legend.”

  Steve stuck his hand out the window for a shake. “How you doin’, Mike? Pat told me to be on the lookout for you. I hear you’re popular again.”