A Long Time Dead Read online

  “That’s not how I’d express it, exactly, but yes …”

  “You wanted to make them living Frankenstein monsters … you wanted to sew the limbs of the dead on ’em …”

  Her eyes lighted up with enthusiasm, and hope. And madness. “Yes! Yes! I learned in South America of Voodoo techniques that reanimated the dead into so-called ‘zombies.’ The scientific community was sure to reject such ‘mumbo jumbo’ and deny the world this wonder, and I have been forced to seek the truth with my mixture of the so-called supernatural and renegade science. With the correct tissue matches, and my own research into electro-chemical transplant techniques …”

  That was when the lights went out.

  God’s electricity had killed man’s electricity, and the cannon roar aftermath of the thunderbolt wasn’t enough to hide the sound of her scurrying in the dark amongst the trays of the dead, trying to escape, heading for that door onto the garage.

  I went after her, but she had knowledge of the layout of the place and I didn’t, I kept bumping into bodies, and then she screamed.

  Just for a split second.

  A hard whump had interrupted the scream, and before I even had time to wonder what the hell had happened, the lights came back on, and there she was.

  On her back, on the floor, her head resting against the metal underbar of one of the dead-body trays, only resting wasn’t really the word, since she’d hit hard enough to crack open her skull and a widening puddle of red was forming below her head as she too stared up at the ceiling with wide-open eyes, just another corpse in a roomful of corpses. Bolo’s dead body, where I’d pushed his dead weight off of me, was—as was fitting—at his mistress’ feet.

  I had to smile.

  Bolo may not have had many brains in that chrome dome of his, but he’d had enough to slip her up.

  So Long, Chief

  The old man was dying, but there was nobody to see him off. In a few more days he’d get the royal farewell, a eulogy by the police chaplain, a cavalcade of motorcycle troops, and a final salute from the fresh young faces to whom he was nothing but a fading legend. He was the last of the old breed who had outlived his friends and his usefulness and he was all alone on his final assignment.

  The nurse said, “Not too long, please.”

  She was a cute brunette in her twenties, well worth flirting with, but I wasn’t in the mood.

  I asked, “Pretty bad?”

  Her answer was only slightly evasive: “He’s almost ninety, tires easily. Are you family?”

  “No,” I said. “He doesn’t have any family.”

  She gave me a little smile and nodded. “I see. Just don’t excite him.”

  I could have told her that there wasn’t much that could ever excite him after the life he’d lived.

  But I just said my thanks and went into the sterile little hospital room with the green walls and the automated bed that seemed to hold him like a waiter balancing a tray. Hard to believe that once he would have dominated a room of any size like the Colossus of Rhodes. Now he was just a textured form under the sheet.

  But the unmistakable quality was there, a strange force as alive as ever, hovering like a protective screen around his withered face.

  I walked to the bed, looked down at him and said, “Hello, Chief.”

  He didn’t open his eyes. He simply let the tone of my voice go through a mental computer check and when it didn’t register, he said, “You one of the new ones?”

  “Not really.”

  When he turned his head he let his eyes slide open and the old tiger was still in there. For a good five seconds he was riffling through the cerebral filing cabinet before he satisfied himself that I was clean … at least up to a point.

  “I don’t know you,” he stated in a curiously noncommital voice.

  “No reason why you should. It’s been a long time, Chief. Forty-some years.”

  The voice still had strength, shrouded though it was in a growly rasp. “You’d have been a little kid then.”

  “Uh-huh. About eleven. A wise-ass young punk in a lousy neighborhood who was prepping himself for all that beautiful mob action he saw around him … the rolls of dough, the fancy cars, a string of lovely broads, just the way Gino Madoni had it.”

  The tiger stirred behind the eyes. It crouched, the lips curling back over huge shiny white fangs.

  “I shot Madoni myself,” the Chief said.

  “Yeah you did. You were a fresh-faced boyo who just made detective wading into something way the hell over his head.”

  “… and you were … ?”

  “I was the little kid you rapped the living shit out of, the twerp who carried policy slips around in his school bag.”

  He was remembering now, and letting the pieces fall into a knowable pattern. The tiger’s tail twitched. “The little kid never forgot, did he?”

  I grinned at him. “Nope. It was a lesson that stuck with him.”

  Maybe it was my grin that did it, but the tiger suddenly hesitated, poised to pounce but curious.

  I said, “That punk kid never forgot a lot of things. Like how Gino tore that girl up in that cellar and then broke old man Kravitch’s arm for him. Or how Gino was always talking about how some day he was gonna kill himself a cop, only when one finally came in after him, for shooting a guard in a hold-up, Gino went all to pieces. Grabbed that kid and held him in front of him, thinking the cop wouldn’t shoot with the kid as a shield, but forgetting the cop was a damn good shot who could take him out, kid or no kid. That cop, that young detective, put a slug in Gino’s head and that kid got splashed with the kind of memory you don’t forget.”

  “… Is that what you came here to say?”

  “In part, Chief. There’s something else, too.”

  “Say it then.”

  “I just came to say so long.”

  The tiger, as wary as age and experience could make it, was not quite sure what it was looking at. The fangs should have been yellowed and broken, but they weren’t. They were still shiny white.

  For some reason, this old stick of a man felt he could still handle me, if need be.

  His voice was like rough steel scraping rougher steel. “Why the visit, after half a lifetime?”

  “Because that kid remembered his lesson and what the detective said.”

  “What did the detective say?”

  “Oh, nothing flowery. Just, ‘Don’t wind up like that dead dago, laddie-buck.’ He could’ve grabbed that kid and shook him till his teeth rattled, shoving fear up the kid’s ass just for the fun of it.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  I shook my head.

  “So. Did the kid get the point?”

  I shrugged. “Well, he didn’t turn out to be another Gino Madoni.”

  “Good to hear. How did he turn out?”

  “He went to the other side, and now he’s here to say thanks and so long to the guy who put him there.”

  “And … that’s all?”

  I shrugged again. “Why else? I’m glad I made it up here in time. We were two eras, Chief, that didn’t overlap that much. But I owe you. Funny, considering you retired before I even got on the job.”

  “You were on the PD, son?”

  “Briefly. Private now. For a long time. An old friend told me your situation, and where you were.”

  “What old friend?”

  “Captain Pat Chambers.”

  Gently, the tiger withdrew, no longer hungry. “You’re pretty big,” the Chief said. “You tough?”

  “I manage.”

  “Married?”

  “No.”

  With the tiger out of them, the eyes were those of an old fighter in his last round, still circling an adversary he knew he couldn’t beat, but wanting to get in one last lick anyway, before the bell rang.

  �
��You appreciate that favor I did you?” He spoke the words as though he were tasting them.

  “I’m here,” I reminded him.

  His left hand came out from under the sheet and he pointed toward the closet across the room. “There’s a box in there. Get it.”

  I could feel something funny happening, some odd charge flickering from the finger to the closet and back to me again. It was something I didn’t particularly like because it wasn’t new to me at all. It made my belly go tight and the skin crawl across my shoulders, but the finger was pointing and I went and got the old metal box and put it on the bed beside him. His fingers shook with age and fatigue as he turned the small combination dial to its three digits, then lifted the lid.

  In the dim light, I could see the papers and knew what they were: select items from a thirty-five year span of active duty, including the citation ribbons and the worn leather wallet that held the badge of the highest rank in the department.

  He was watching my face and I saw a faint smile move his lips. Then he reached in the box, felt in a corner and brought out a key. He looked at it a few seconds, then handed it to me. “This is for you.”

  “What’s it open?”

  “That’s for you to find out,” he said. He wasn’t smiling now. “A lot of people are going to be looking for that key. I thought that was what you came here for.”

  “I only came to say so long, Chief.”

  “Yeah. I know. That’s why I gave it to you. Now get the hell out of here. I’m tired.”

  “Sure, Chief.” But I stood there for a moment, key in my fist, watching with the pride of knowing him, and was almost about to ask the question when he answered me first.

  “They couldn’t have taken it from me,” he said.

  Then he took his right hand out from under the covers, let me look at his old .38 Police Positive before he handed it to me and wrapped his fingers around mine as they held the weapon. “A good piece, son. Take care of it.”

  I checked the load, closed the cylinder and stuck it in my belt. The last time I had seen that gun was when it tore the head off a guy who was risking getting me killed to save his own hide. I started to tell the old boy thanks, but his eyes were closed and his hand slipped away from mine. The rhythm of his breathing was barely perceptible under the sheet.

  Trying to be quiet, I walked to the door, but before I got there, he said, “I didn’t get your name.”

  “Mike,” I told him. “Mike Hammer.”

  “… I should have known. You … made your name after I retired.”

  “I did. I never came around because, well …”

  “You thought I might not approve of your tactics.”

  “Yeah.”

  His smile was a crease among the many creases in the gaunt face. “Guess again.”

  I could hear him chuckling behind me as I closed the door.

  The cute nurse at her counter said, “Does he need anything?”

  “No. Not now.”

  “He was a big man in this city, in his day, wasn’t he?”

  “A great man. Great old guy.”

  It was quiet in a ward that wasn’t the kind that attracted too many visitors. The smell of age and death made this pretty brunette nurse so full of life a vague insult, a shout of youth in a silence that came from being forgotten and left alone in a still place, alone until the priest came around, anyway.

  I asked, “Anybody ever come to see him?”

  “One old man in a wheelchair,” she said.

  “Any idea who he was?”

  “A retired policeman from the nursing home where the patient lived. A male attendant brought him around.”

  “What nursing home?”

  “Long Island Care Center.”

  “Nobody else?”

  “Like you said—he had no family.”

  “Yes he has.”

  “Oh?” Her psychological training was showing in the frown under her cap. Then her business administration side took over and she yanked a drawer open to check her files.

  I saved her the trouble.

  “I meant me,” I told her.

  Her smile remained very businesslike and professional. If I were dying in a hospital ward, and she smiled at me any way at all, I’d bust out crying.

  She said, “Oh, I’m sorry. Are you his son?”

  For fun I gave her a big tiger grin like the Chief used to have.

  “No, doll,” I said. “Just a great big fucking ghost out of the distant past.”

  She blinked long lashes at me. “May I … may I … have your name?”

  “Sure, honey. Mike. Mike Hammer.”

  She frowned. “I’ve heard that name before.”

  “Well, that’ll make me easier to remember, in case I didn’t make an impression.”

  I went downstairs and got in my car.

  Ten minutes later, somebody slipped into the Chief’s room and stuck a knife between his ribs, robbing him of the hours or maybe minutes he had left.

  But at least they didn’t get the key.

  “All this heat’s unnecessary, Pat,” I said to the Captain of Homicide who was sucking himself back in the shadows of his office while the D.A. was riding me. “Tell this big shot I just got back from Florida, and I already have a tan.”

  I’d made an impression on that cute nurse, all right. She’d remembered my name just fine, as her murdered patient’s last visitor, when the cops had asked.

  I was sitting in a hard chair in Pat’s office, ankle on a knee, with my back to his desk where I’d tossed my hat. I gave the D.A. a tight-lipped smile that meant screw the politicians and turned back to Inspector Milroy, who had already read me my rights and was trying like hell to get a confession out of me.

  I said, “Either charge me and book me, or let me go.”

  The D.A. frowned. It gave his blankly handsome face a little character, at least. “Mr. Hammer. …”

  “Talk to my lawyer.”

  He shook his head, threw up his hands and stormed out, shutting the door behind him so hard it gave the window glass the shakes. But Milroy stayed at it. We’d tangled asses many times over the years, and which of us hated the other more was up for grabs. He was in his sixties but still dangerous, blond hair mingled white now, husky and florid, with a scar across his forehead from an automobile crash. When his face got red, it stood out like a vertical lightning bolt. Like now.

  “There was a metal box in that room,” Milroy said. “It was open, and the contents scattered about. Did you take something, Hammer?”

  “What, after I killed him you mean? Yeah, there was a Cadillac in there. I drove it down the hall. Didn’t the nurse tell you?”

  He bared teeth the color of sweet corn, but there wasn’t anything sweet about the two big fists he raised to his chest, hunching as he moved forward, lumbering closer.

  “Please,” I said. “Please do it. I been waiting years for this.”

  Pat was behind him then, his hands latched onto the big cop’s shoulders, holding him back, speaking softly, gently, into his ear: “I know what the Chief meant to you. But you can’t do it this way, Inspector. You can’t throw thirty years away.”

  When Milroy turned toward Pat, they were close enough to kiss, only Milroy was sputtering, spitting. “Why, if I take this monkey apart, you’ll testify on his behalf? Are you two really that tight, Chambers?”

  “Yes,” Pat said.

  Milroy shuddered, shaking his arms till his fists turned into fingers. He seemed to relax, but his face was still bunched up. He straightened his tie. “Shit,” he said.

  “Anyway,” Pat said, “you wouldn’t take him apart. He’s twenty years younger and fifty pounds lighter, Inspector, and I’d be trading this problem for a new one.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Mike would kill you, and
I’d be very unpopular around here when I went on the record saying it was self-defense.”

  I was rocking back in a hard chair, grinning. “I can step outside, if you girls want to be alone.”

  “Some day, Hammer,” Milroy said. “Some day.”

  “Better rush it. You’re retiring soon, right? Make sure I get an invite to the gold watch party.”

  The inspector pushed Pat aside, hard enough that the Homicide Captain damn near lost his balance, and the door slammed again, giving that glass its second stress test in five minutes.

  Pat sighed. Now it was his turn to straighten his tie. “You are a hobby I wish I didn’t have, Mike.”

  “Interesting new interrogation technique. The cops yell at each other. Maybe you should take it up a notch. Rough each other up some.”

  “Not funny, Mike. Not funny.” Pat got behind his desk and fired up a Lucky. He didn’t offer me one—he knew I’d quit. So had he—a dozen times. “Anything you want to tell me that you didn’t want the D.A. and my superior to know?”

  “If that guy’s your ‘superior,’ Liberace’s a better ivory tickler than Van Cliburn.”

  “Liberace’s more popular. Spill, Mike. What are you holding back?”

  Nothing much—just a little metal key.

  “Not a damn thing, Pat. Would I hold out on you?”

  “You wouldn’t give me the time of day if my watch was broken.”

  “Now that’s just unkind. So Milroy is taking this personally, huh? He was that close to the Chief?”

  Pat nodded. “Working out of the Chief’s office till the old boy retired. What was the Chief to you, Mike? He retired before you made your rep. Did he even know who you were?”

  “He didn’t recognize the face, but the name he knew.” I shrugged. “When I was a kid, and he wasn’t the Chief yet, he did me a favor.”

  “So are you going on the warpath like Milroy? Will I have two Mike Hammers to deal with this time around?”

  “Naw. But I am curious about why anybody on his death bed is worth a knife in the ribs.”

  “I don’t have an answer yet.”

  “Yeah, and that Milroy character will get the answer right after you find Judge Crater. Maybe I should take an interest.”