Kill Me, Darling Page 8

We went back to our little table. I ordered her another champagne cocktail, but I was still nursing my beer. It was only my second of the day, but the rule was never two at the same time.

  She was telling me how boring modeling work could be when I noticed Quinn threading through the tables, pausing briefly along the way to nod and exchange pleasantries with patrons. He had a raffish smile and oozed charm like pus from a boil.

  Was he heading our direction?

  I’d never met the louse, but he could easily know what I looked like, and maybe Velda had told him about me…

  Two tables over, he stopped and leaned in to speak to a middle-aged gent whose back was to me. Despite wearing what looked like an off-the-rack suit, the gent must have been money, because he had a platinum blonde baby doll at his table who was not likely his niece.

  The middle-aged gent gestured for Quinn to sit down, and he did. Then the two were bending in close in confidential conversation, the older man turning his head sideways to do so.

  That’s when I realized who Quinn’s friend was.

  Mandel Meyers.

  Mandy Meyers, the Jewish gangster who sat high up in a powerful Italian mob family in New York. Mandy Meyers, the strategic financial mastermind whose knowledge and skill in operating illegal gambling was second to none. Mandy Meyers, a modest-looking little man who could have you killed with a glance.

  Quinn’s silent partner in the casino here, maybe?

  “Erin,” I said, “would you excuse me? I just recognized a friend, and I really should say hello.”

  “Oh, that’s fine.”

  “I might be a while. Order yourself another cocktail if you like.”

  “Listen, Mike, we can part company here. We’re not on a date or anything. We’re just a couple of people doing each other a favor.”

  “No, honey, stick around.” I grinned. “Who knows? We’re friends now. And friendship can lead to lots of things.”

  She smiled warmly at that, then blew me a little kiss as I headed across the room.

  But if you think I was on my way to pay my respects to Mandy Meyers, you’re wrong. And I wasn’t interested in chatting with Nolly Quinn just yet, either…

  When I sat down next to Velda, she jumped a little. Coming from a cool customer like her, that was equivalent to a nervous breakdown.

  “Mike,” she said. Her eyes were wide. “What are you doing here?”

  “You first.”

  The sight of her, the smell of her, was making me drunker and crazier than anything a bartender could have served me up. My fists were taut and I could feel the things in my neck tighten and stand out.

  “You need to leave,” she said.

  “I just got here, kitten.”

  “This isn’t about you, Mike. You need to go.”

  I leaned closer. “Is it about Wade Manley? You do know he’s dead, don’t you?”

  She swallowed. “I know he’s dead. It’s not about him. It’s not about anything, Mike. I’ve just gone another way. What we had was swell, but it’s over. You need to leave. You need to move on.”

  I rolled out the nasty grin that she knew so well. “Did you rehearse that, baby? Sorry it took me a while to get here. I took a detour into the drunk tank for a few months. But Pat hepped me about your location and status. Interesting. Wasn’t I dangerous enough for you, kitten? Did you need a killer with no morals at all to satisfy your needs? You should have let me know. I would have tried harder.”

  She gripped my hand and squeezed it hard. Hard enough to hurt. “You need to go, Mike. You have got to go.”

  “Mike Hammer!”

  I hadn’t heard him coming up behind me, not over the latest rhumba. I turned and there he was, looming over me like a wax museum Cary Grant that the sculptor got just a little wrong. The cigarette holder was between two fingers at a jaunty angle. Like the way he held his head. Teeth gleaming white under the black strip of mustache. Eyes as dark and dead as a shark’s.

  His upper lip curled in something approaching a smile. “Welcome to Nolly Q’s, Mr. Hammer.”

  He held a hand out for me to shake and I ignored it.

  “Quite a place, Mr. Quinn. I don’t remember a beer ever costing me a buck before.”

  He chuckled and reeled his hand back in, then resumed his seat next to Velda, putting her between us. He gestured with the cigarette holder, making figure-eight smoke trails. “Your money is no good here, Mr. Hammer. I’ll make sure you’re comped all down the line. Any friend of Velda’s, after all.”

  “Oh,” I said pleasantly, thinking about strangling him, “she’s mentioned me.”

  “Yes, Mr. Hammer. Not frequently, I admit. But yes. She has. She said it was interesting working for you. I imagine it was. Notorious figure that you are.”

  “I guess I don’t think of myself that way.”

  The sneer-smile resumed. “And I don’t feel that way about myself, either, yet that’s how the gutter press characterizes me. People can’t know what it’s like to live inside somebody else’s skin, after all.”

  There was an idea: skin the bastard alive. That was one I’d never tried. Yet.

  “Well,” I said, “Miss Sterling may not have mentioned it, but I gave her that ring she’s wearing.”

  “Oh, that cute little sapphire? Precious little thing. No, I did get the impression that you two had been… close. But all of us have our disappointments in love, Mr. Hammer. Or may I call you Mike?”

  “Sure. Why not.”

  He lifted his chin as if to give me a better look at its cleft. “I understand you’re an impulsive individual, Mike. I have a bad habit of giving in to emotionalism myself. But it’s best for all concerned, when a love affair has run its course, to just… move on. I’m going to ask you to do that, Mike. Oh, I’m not asking you to leave town on the noon stage or any such nonsense. No. Enjoy yourself for a few days. Take a week. Take two. A lot to do in Miami Beach. Knock yourself out.” The lilt left his voice. “But then go, Mike. Go, man. Go.”

  “When Velda tells me to,” I said.

  “Listen to him, Mike,” she said, turning to me with urgency, a wildness in her eyes.

  “I catch the words, baby,” I said. “But I don’t hear the music.”

  Quinn rested his cigarette-in-holder in an ashtray. He folded his hands, which were heavy with diamonds riding heavy gold rings that really did put that sapphire to shame, and he said, “I am treating you with patience and respect, Mike. Out of courtesy to Miss Sterling. But if you do anything else that intrudes upon us—”

  “Is that what I’m doing, Slick?”

  He sighed in strained patience. “I’m not referring to you dropping by this club, which is after all a public place. I refer instead to you dropping by Miss Sterling’s apartment today—one of my boys is in the hospital with a concussion, and the other one is laid up at home in bed, I’ll have you know. If you—”

  “Nolly!” The voice came from behind me, this time a feminine one: “Nolly? Can we please talk? In private?”

  I glanced back and she was standing there, the beautiful waif in the green gown and all that crazy red hair. The lovely green eyes were shimmering with tears, her mascara trailing down her face, turning her tears black.

  “Erin,” Quinn said firmly, “you need to leave.”

  She came quickly around the table and hovered over him like a Christmas angel hanging on a string. “Don’t let her move in with you, Nolly. She’s not what you need. I’m what you need. You know I’m right.”

  His voice was flat. Merciless. “Erin. You’re embarrassing yourself. Leave.”

  “Nolly, darling, please,” she said, and she put her arm around him.

  He rose, pushing her away. She was trying to keep her balance when he slapped her and she fell, knocking her into the next table, startling two couples who scooted back in alarm.

  I was there before he even saw me move and I pasted him one in the mouth and bloodied up his handsome face. When he just stood there like a puppet whose strings
went loose, I smacked him again, on the chin, and he went down like kindling.

  I was on top of him, choking him, his face red and his eyes bulging, when two bouncers in tuxes pulled me off and dragged me out, my knees bumping down the short flight of steps before they dropped me on the sidewalk.

  The only reason they didn’t go to work on me right then was that several well-dressed couples were standing nearby frowningly reevaluating their choice of nightspots. When Nolly appeared at the top of the steps, the bouncers held me up by either arm and he waved his finger like a scolding parent.

  “Next time you die, Hammer,” he said through a bloody smear of a mouth.

  “Somebody will,” I said.

  The customers scurried away and the bouncers hauled me around the side of the building, as if taking me to my car, but then worked me over instead.

  I’ve taken worse beatings, but this was a thorough professional job of it, anyway. Several fists to the face but no broken nose or teeth, enough punches to the breadbasket to drop me to my knees, and finally a few kicks in the ribs just to make sure I knew they weren’t kidding. Somebody stuffed my hat on me and they dropped me in a pile and it was over before I’d even got a decent look at them. How the hell could a guy get even that way?

  Then she was at my side, little Erin, her face a runny mess but her hair perfect, the angel hovering over me protectively. She helped me up and walked me the rest of the way to the parking lot. I managed to point her to my car and she helped me get in and behind the wheel.

  We sat in the darkness a while regaining our breath and our dignity.

  “Your place or mine?” I asked, only half-joking.

  She only heard the other half, shaking her head, all that red hair moving like a choppy sea. “No… I can’t… bad time.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  The impish grin came back. “No. I mean… of the month.” She reached a hand over and it settled in my lap. “There are other ways, Mike. Would serve them both right, them in there, us right behind them.”

  Her hand was moving expertly but nothing was happening. Sometimes a guy is just not in the mood.

  I sent her hand back to her gently. Smiled at her. “Rain check, baby?”

  “Rain check,” she said, smiling, nodding, and slipped out of the car into the night.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The nightstand phone woke me. I fumbled for the thing, blinking at bright sun coming in through sheer curtains. With my other hand I grabbed my watch—half-past one. Hell! I’d slept twelve hours again.

  “Good mornin’, Mr. Hammer,” Duffy’s wife Martha whispered in my ear. She had a southern lilt that was more Carolina than Florida. “Or good afternoon, I guess I should say. Would you care to take a call from New York City?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.”

  This was no surprise. Last night, before I hit the rack, I’d left word at Centre Street for Pat to call when he got in today.

  I sat up, groaning some. It wasn’t that the after-bender glow had worn off, like Duff predicted. The way I felt had nothing to do with booze. This was the aftermath of that expert beating I’d taken last night at Nolly Q’s. None of my ribs seemed broken but I had purple blossoms on both sides, and polka dots of blue and yellow and purple on my chest and stomach. My upper torso looked like a sport shirt in terrible taste.

  Martha put me through, and I said, “Hello, Pat?”

  “Yeah. Sorry not to get back to you sooner, Mike.”

  It was a good connection. I stuffed a pillow between me and the headboard. “That’s okay, pal. I slept in.”

  “Out on the town, huh? The Miami nightlife must suit you. Getting enough to drink, old buddy?”

  “I’m sober as a parish priest, pal.”

  “So you say, but have you been hitting the sacramental wine?”

  That made me laugh, which hurt a little. “Shit, man, I haven’t had anything stronger than a brew since you saw me last.”

  A pause. Then: “You don’t sound like it. You’re breathing hard. You’re like a dirty phone call.”

  “Yesterday I was floating on air. All the garbage was drained out of me and the world welcomed me back. Then I took a beating last night.”

  “How bad?” Was that actual concern in his voice?

  “They were good. Real pros. Nothing shows on my face, no teeth missing, nothing broken, but I feel like a thumb that got caught in a car door.”

  “That’s what they make aspirin for. So. If you’re sober and a new man and all, how did you wind up rating a shellacking?”

  “I’m still Mike Hammer, buddy. I was always able to get in jams drunk or sober.”

  I filled him in about the doings last night at Nolly Q’s, including my brief conversation with Velda.

  “Mike,” he said, and the friend was back in his voice, “maybe she was playing it straight with you. Maybe she’s just… moved on. It happens.”

  “No. She’s up to something. I swear she’s in Vice Squad mode. I think Wade Manley recruited her for an undercover assignment.”

  “Or maybe you just want to think that. Mike, Wade Manley’s dead as hell and she’s still down there. Who’s she working for, if the boss already had his funeral?”

  I put a shrug in my voice. “Herself maybe. I don’t know. I have to get her alone and away from Quinn and his cronies, to really find out. She wasn’t free to talk last night. Maybe she’s got a program lined up and I don’t fit in. But I’m going to.”

  “Mike. Are you sure you’re not kidding yourself? We both know the lady has a thing for bad boys. A lot of dames do. And this Quinn character is even badder than you, buddy.”

  “No. He just thinks he is.”

  But Pat rattled on: “Nolly Quinn was a Murder Incorporated killer in his damn teens. When we were sweating it out in the jungle, he was running the top call girl operation in the city. And if anybody crosses him, he takes care of it personal.”

  “You know this for a fact, do you? Then why didn’t you boys in Homicide ever arrest his ass and slam it in Old Sparky? It’s just talk, Pat. I had a steak yesterday tougher than that twerp. He slaps little girls around. He smokes with a cigarette holder, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Don’t underestimate him, pal. Hitler painted watercolors.”

  I was shaking my head at the phone, as if he could see me through it. “Pat, I don’t underestimate Nolly Quinn’s ability to be an evil prick. And while we both know Velda can take care of herself, I’m not sure she realizes what kind of danger she’s in.”

  His tone went hushed. “You really think she’s in danger?”

  “Nolly Quinn runs through fluffs faster than Errol Flynn—only in Nolly’s case, some of ’em wind up dead.”

  I told him how two of the gangster’s recent girl friends had wound up a suicide and hit-and-run respectively.

  His voice took on a somber note. “Mike, you get close to Velda fast. Get her the hell away from this bastard.”

  “You talked me into it. What have you come up with on your end? Anything?”

  He let out something that was half-laugh, half-sigh. “I’ll tell you one thing—the Big Man sure picked a lousy part of town to die in. Trying to canvass that area is like dropping the soap in a jailhouse shower—slippery and you can get nasty surprises.”

  “Nothing then?”

  “I didn’t say that. There must be a dozen rathole taverns down there, and I wanted to handle the interviews myself. So it took a while to turn anything. But in a charming joint called Dirty Dick’s, a bartender finally made Manley’s picture.”

  “Not as a regular customer surely?”

  “Hell no. One time only, and while the apron couldn’t be sure about the date, the timing seemed about right. Either around or on the night of his death, Wade Manley was seen talking to somebody in a back booth at Dirty Dick’s.”

  “Talking to who, Pat?”

  “Bartender didn’t get a look at the guy.”

  “Was there a barmaid who might have?” />
  “Dirty Dick’s doesn’t have that rarefied level of service. You go up to the bar and cart your drinks back to wherever you’re sitting. Our only shot is working our way through the colorful group that represents Dirty Dick’s regular clientele. That fun job I turned over to two of my best men, who may never speak to me again.”

  Finally, a sliver of light…

  I said, “If you can get a decent description, and maybe even a police artist’s rendering, we may have a suspect.”

  “That’s the idea. Mike, you and I should probably stay in touch. Daily calls. So, uh… really no cravings?”

  “Yeah. And I quit smoking, too.”

  “The hell you say.”

  “I do say.”

  “And you aren’t clawing the walls for a Lucky?”

  “No. It helps when you get the shit beat out of you. A hell of a useful distraction.”

  He laughed. It was good to hear. The ease of this conversation was a relief. I had plenty of friends and more friendly acquaintances than a happy hound dog. But there was only one guy worthy of the “best friend” designation, and that was Pat. His only rival for that title was a woman who was more than a best friend. Or maybe not a friend now at all, if I took her words at face value.

  “Listen, Mike,” he said, a shift in his tone, “what you told me about Quinn stopping at Mandy Meyers’ table at that club last night? Could be significant.”

  “Shitbirds of a feather stink up the joint together, is what I take from it. Mandy’s probably backing the casino play at Nolly Q’s.”

  “Probably, but it could be more. You probably know Mandy Meyers is the reputed architect of the transfer of open gambling from Miami to Cuba. And Cuba is useful in other ways to guys like Meyers and the mob he represents.”

  “You mean like setting up a narcotics trafficking network,” I said. “City editor at the Herald says word’s already out that Quinn is involved in dope smuggling. Partners with Meyers? Rivals?”

  “Did the conversation look tense?”

  “No, but it seemed serious. Business, not social.”

  Another sigh. “Well, Mike, the word’s out up here about something, too. It seems one of the five Mafia families… not sure which one yet… is jockeying to create a drug conduit from Cuba to Miami. Could be Mandy’s the point man.”