The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 3 Page 8

  “It’s the only house around here that has that system, Mrs. Knapp. It’s more or less on a commercial setup.”

  Beside me the cop holstered his gun with a shrug. “That’s that,” he said. “It was a good try.”

  The other one nodded, adjusted his cap and looked across at me. “We’d appreciate your calling first if it happens again.”

  “Sure thing. Mind a question?”

  “Nope.”

  “Were you on the force when the Senator was killed?”

  “We both were.”

  “Did the alarm go off then?”

  The cop gave me a long, deliberate look, his face wary, then, “No, it didn’t.”

  “Then if the killer opened the safe he knew the right combination.”

  “Or else,” the cop reminded me, “he forced the Senator to open it, and knowing there was nothing of real value in there, and not willing to jeopardize his own or his wife’s life by sudden interference, the Senator didn’t use the alarm number.”

  “But he was killed anyway,” I reminded him.

  “If you had known the Senator you could see why.”

  “Okay, why?” I asked him.

  Softly, the cop said: “If he was under a gun he’d stay there, but given one chance to jump the guy and he’d have jumped. Apparently he thought he saw the chance and went for the guy after the safe was open and just wasn’t fast enough.”

  “Or else surprised the guy when the safe was already opened.”

  “That’s the way it still reads.” He smiled indulgently. “We had those angles figured out too, you know. Now do you mind telling me where you fit in the picture?”

  “Obscurely. A friend of mine was killed by a bullet from the same gun.”

  The two cops exchanged glances. The one beside me said, “We didn’t hear about that part yet.”

  “Then you will shortly. You’ll be speaking to a Captain Chambers from New York sometime soon.”

  “That doesn’t explain you.”

  I shrugged. “The guy was a friend.”

  “Do you represent a legal investigation agency?”

  “No longer,” I told him. “There was a time when I did.”

  “Then maybe you ought to leave the investigation up to authorized personnel.”

  His meaning was obvious. If I hadn’t been cleared by Laura Knapp and tentatively accepted as her friend, we’d be doing our talking in the local precinct house. It was a large Keep Off sign he was pointing out and he wasn’t kidding about it. I made a motion with my hand to let him know I got the message, watched them tip their caps to Laura and walk out.

  When they had pulled away Laura said, “Now what was that all about?” She stood balanced on one foot, her hands on her hips in an easy, yet provocative manner, frowning slightly as she tried to sift through the situation.

  I said, “Didn’t you know there was an alarm system built into that box?”

  She thought for a moment, then threw a glance toward the wall. “Yes, now that you mention it, but that safe hasn’t been opened since—then, and I simply remember the police discussing an alarm system. I didn’t know how it worked at all.”

  “Did your husband always keep that combination card in his desk?”

  “No, the lawyer found it in his effects. I kept it in the desk just in case I ever wanted to use the safe again. However, that never happened.” She paused, took a step toward me and laid a hand on my arm. “Is there some significance to all this?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. It was a thought and not a very new one. Like I told you, this was only a wild supposition at best. All I can say is that it might have established an M.O.”

  “What?”

  “A technique of operation,” I explained. “Your husband’s killer really could have gone after those jewels. The other man he killed was operating—well, was a small-time jewel smuggler. There’s a common point here.”

  For a moment I was far away in thought. I was back in the hospital with a dying man, remembering the reason why I wanted to find that link so badly. I could feel claws pulling at my insides and a fierce tension ready to burst apart like an overwound spring.

  It was the steady insistence of her voice that dragged me back to the present, her “Mike—Mike—please, Mike.”

  When I looked down I saw my fingers biting into her forearm and the quiet pain in her eyes. I let her go and sucked air deep into my lungs. “Sorry,” I said.

  She rubbed her arm and smiled gently. “That’s all right. You left me there for a minute, didn’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “Can I help?”

  “No. I don’t think there’s anything more here for me.”

  Once again, her hand touched me. “I don’t like finalities like that, Mike.”

  It was my turn to grin my thanks. “I’m not all that sick. But I appreciate the thought.”

  “You’re lonely, Mike. That’s a sickness.”

  “Is it?”

  “I’ve had it so long I can recognize it in others.”

  “You loved him very much, didn’t you?”

  Her eyes changed momentarily, seeming to shine a little brighter, then she replied, “As much as you loved her, Mike, whoever she was.” Her fingers tightened slightly. “It’s a big hurt. I eased mine by all the social activity I could crowd in a day.”

  “I used a bottle. It was a hell of a seven years.”

  “And now it’s over. I can still see the signs, but I can tell it’s over.”

  “It’s over. A few days ago I was a drunken bum. I’m still a bum but at least I’m sober.” I reached for my hat, feeling her hand fall away from my arm. She walked me to the door and held it open. When I stuck out my hand she took it, her fingers firm and cool inside mine. “Thanks for letting me take up your time, Mrs. Knapp.”

  “Please—make it Laura.”

  “Sure.”

  “And can you return the favor?”

  “My pleasure.”

  “I told you I didn’t like finalities. Will you come back one day? ”

  “I’m nothing to want back, Laura.”

  “Maybe not to some. You’re big. You have a strange face. You’re very hard to define. Still, I hope you’ll come back, if only to tell me how you’re making out.”

  I pulled her toward me gently. She didn’t resist. Her head tilted up, she watched me, she kissed me as I kissed her, easily and warm in a manner that said hello rather than good-bye, and that one touch awakened things I thought had died long ago.

  She stood there watching me as I drove away. She was still there when I turned out of sight at the roadway.

  CHAPTER 6

  The quiet voice at Peerage Brokers told me I would be able to meet with Mr. Rickerby in twenty minutes at the Automat on Sixth and Forty-fifth. When I walked in he was off to the side, coffee in front of him, a patient little gray man who seemingly had all the time in the world.

  I put down my own coffee, sat opposite him and said, “You have wild office hours.”

  He smiled meaninglessly, a studied, yet unconscious gesture that was for anyone watching. But there was no patience in his eyes. They seemed to live by themselves, being held in check by some obscure force. The late edition of the News was folded back to the center spread where a small photo gave an angular view of Old Dewey dead on the floor. The cops had blamed it on terrorists in the neighborhood.

  Rickerby waited me out until I said, “I saw Laura Knapp today,” then he nodded.

  “We covered that angle pretty thoroughly.”

  “Did you know about the safe? It had an alarm system.”

  Once again, he nodded. “For your information, I’ll tell you this. No connection has been made by any department between Senator Knapp’s death and that of Richie. If you’re assuming any state papers were in that safe you’re wrong. Knapp had duplicate listings of every paper he had in his possession and we recovered everything.”

  “There were those paste jewels,” I said.

&
nbsp; “I know. I doubt if they establish anything, even in view of Richie’s cover. It seems pretty definite that the gun was simply used in different jobs. As a matter of fact, Los Angeles has since come up with another murder in which the same gun was used. This was a year ago and the victim was a used-car dealer.”

  “So it wasn’t a great idea.”

  “Nor original.” He put down his coffee and stared at me across the table. “Nor am I interested in others besides Richie.” He paused, let a few seconds pass, then added, “Have you decided to tell me what Richie really told you?”

  “No.”

  “At least I won’t have to call you a liar again.”

  “Knock it off.”

  Rickerby’s little smile faded slowly and he shrugged. “Make your point then.”

  “Cole. I want to know about him.”

  “I told you once—”

  “Okay, so it’s secret. But now he’s dead. You want a killer, I want a killer and if we don’t get together someplace nobody gets nothing. You know?”

  His fingers tightened on the cup, the nails showing the strain. He let a full minute pass before he came to a decision. He said, “Can you imagine how many persons are looking for this—killer?”

  “I’ve been in the business too, friend.”

  “All right. I’ll tell you this. I know nothing of Richie’s last mission and I doubt if I’ll find out. But this much I do know—he wasn’t supposed to be back here at all. He disobeyed orders and would have been on the carpet had he not been killed.”

  I said, “Cole wasn’t a novice.”

  And for the first time Rickerby lost his composure. His eyes looked puzzled, bewildered at this sudden failure of something he had built himself. “That’s the strange part about it.”

  “Oh?”

  “Richie was forty-five years old. He had been with one department or another since ’41 and his record was perfect. He was a book man through and through and wouldn’t bust a reg for any reason. He could adapt if the situation necessitated it, but it would conform to certain regulations.” He stopped, looked across his cup at me and shook his head slowly. “I—just can’t figure it.”

  “Something put him here.”

  This time his eyes went back to their bland expression. He had allowed himself those few moments and that was all. Now he was on the job again, the essence of many years of self-discipline, nearly emotionless to the casual observer. “I know,” he said.

  And he waited and watched for me to give him the one word that might send him out on a kill chase. I used my own coffee cup to cover what I thought, ran through the possibilities until I knew what I wanted and leaned back in my chair. “I need more time,” I told him.

  “Time isn’t too important to me. Richie’s dead. Time would be important only if it meant keeping him alive.”

  “It’s important to me.”

  “How long do you need before telling me?”

  “Telling what?”

  “What Richie thought important enough to tell you.”

  I grinned at him. “A week, maybe.”

  His eyes were deadly now. Cold behind the glasses, each one a deliberate ultimatum. “One week, then. No more. Try to go past it and I’ll show you tricks you never thought of when it comes to making a man miserable.”

  “I could turn up the killer in that time.”

  “You won’t.”

  “There were times when I didn’t do so bad.”

  “Long ago, Hammer. Now you’re nothing. Just don’t mess anything up. The only reason I’m not pushing you hard is because you couldn’t take the gaff. If I thought you could, my approach would be different.”

  I stood up and pushed my chair back. “Thanks for the consideration. I appreciate it.”

  “No trouble at all.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “Sure. I’ll be waiting.”

  The same soft rain had come in again, laying a blanket over the city. It was gentle and cool, not heavy enough yet to send the sidewalk crowd into the bars or running for cabs. It was a good rain to walk in if you weren’t in a hurry, a good rain to think in.

  So I walked to Forty-fourth and turned west toward Broadway, following a pattern from seven years ago I had forgotten, yet still existed. At the Blue Ribbon I went into the bar, had a stein of Prior’s dark beer, said hello to a few familiar faces, then went back toward the glow of lights that marked the Great White Way.

  The night man in the Hackard Building was new to me, a sleepy-looking old guy who seemed to just be waiting time out so he could leave life behind and get comfortably dead. He watched me sign the night book, hobbled after me into the elevator and let me out where I wanted without a comment, anxious for nothing more than to get back to his chair on the ground floor.

  I found my key, turned the lock and opened the door.

  I was thinking of how funny it was that some things could transcend all others, how from the far reaches of your mind something would come, an immediate reaction to an immediate stimulus. I was thinking it and falling, knowing that I had been hit, but not hard, realizing that the cigarette smoke I smelled meant but one thing, that it wasn’t mine, and if somebody was still there he had heard the elevator stop, had time to cut the lights and wait—and act. But time had not changed habit and my reaction was quicker than his act.

  Metal jarred off the back of my head and bit into my neck. Even as I fell I could sense him turn the gun around in his hand and heard the click of a hammer going back. I hit face down, totally limp, feeling the warm spill of blood seeping into my collar. The light went on and a toe touched me gently. Hands felt my pockets, but it was a professional touch and the gun was always there and I couldn’t move without being suddenly dead, and I had been dead too long already to invite it again.

  The blood saved me. The cut was just big and messy enough to make him decide it was useless to push things any further. The feet stepped back, the door opened, closed, and I heard the feet walk away.

  I got to the desk as fast as I could, fumbled out the .45, loaded it and wrenched the door open. The guy was gone. I knew he would be. He was long gone. Maybe I was lucky, because he was a real pro. He could have been standing there waiting, just in case, and his first shot would have gone right where he wanted it to. I looked at my hand and it was shaking too hard to put a bullet anywhere near a target. Besides, I had forgotten to jack a shell into the chamber. So some things did age with time, after all.

  Except luck. I still had some of that left.

  I walked around the office slowly, looking at the places that had been ravaged in a fine search for something. The shakedown had been fast, but again, in thoroughness, the marks of the complete professional were apparent. There had been no time or motion lost in the wrong direction and had I hidden anything of value that could have been tucked into an envelope, it would have been found. Two places I once considered original with me were torn open expertly, the second, and apparently last, showing a touch of annoyance.

  Even Velda’s desk had been torn open and the last thing she had written to me lay discarded on the floor, ground into a twisted sheet by a turning foot and all that was left was the heading.

  It read, Mike Darling—and that was all I could see.

  I grinned pointlessly, and this time I jacked a shell into the chamber and let the hammer ease down, then shoved the .45 into my belt on the left side. There was a sudden familiarity with the weight and the knowledge that here was life and death under my hand, a means of extermination, of quick vengeance, and of remembrance of the others who had gone down under that same gun.

  Mike Darling—

  Where was conscience when you saw those words?

  Who really were the dead: those killing, or those already killed?

  Then suddenly I felt like myself again and knew that the road back was going to be a long one alive or a short one dead and there wasn’t even time enough to count the seconds.

  Downstairs an old man would be dead in his c
hair because he alone could identify the person who came up here. The name in the night book would be fictitious and cleverly disguised if it had even been written there, and unless a motive were proffered, the old man’s killing would be another one of those unexplainable things that happen to lonely people or alone people who stay too close to a terroristic world and are subject to the things that can happen by night.

  I cleaned up the office so that no one could tell what had happened, washed my head and mopped up the blood spots on the floor, then went down the stairwell to the lobby.

  The old man was lying dead in his seat, his neck broken neatly by a single blow. The night book was untouched, so his deadly visitor had only faked a signing. I tore the last page out, made sure I was unobserved and walked out the door. Someplace near Eighth Avenue I ripped up the page and fed the pieces into the gutter, the filthy trickle of rainwater swirling them into the sewer at the corner.

  I waited until a cab came along showing its top light, whistled it over and told the driver where to take me. He hit the flag, pulled away from the curb and loafed his way down to the docks until he found the right place. He took his buck with another silent nod and left me there in front of Benny Joe Grissi’s bar where you could get a program for all the trouble shows if you wanted one or a kill arranged or a broad made or anything at all you wanted just so long as you could get in the place.

  But best of all, if there was anything you wanted to know about the stretch from the Battery to Grant’s Tomb that constitutes New York’s harbor facilities on either side of the river, or the associated unions from the NMU to the Teamsters, or wanted a name passed around the world, you could do it here. There was a place like it in London and Paris and Casablanca and Mexico City and Hong Kong and, if you looked hard enough, a smaller, more modified version would be in every city in the world. You just had to know where to look. And this was my town.

  At the table near the door the two guys scrutinizing the customers made their polite sign which meant stay out. Then the little one got up rather tiredly and came over and said, “We’re closing, buddy. No more customers.”

  When I didn’t say anything he looked at my face and threw a finger toward his partner. The other guy was real big, his face suddenly ugly for having been disturbed. We got eye to eye and for a second he followed the plan and said, “No trouble, pal. We don’t want trouble.”