The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 2 (10 page)

The street was more deserted now than ever. All that was left was the one yellow light. It seemed to wink at me. I walked toward it and went up the three steps into the building. The door was still standing open, enough light from the front room seeping into the hall so I could find my way.

It wasn’t much of a place, just a room. There was a chair, a closet, a single bed and a washstand. The suitcase on the bed was half filled with well-worn clothes, but I couldn’t tell whether it was being packed or unpacked. I poked through the stuff and found another dollar bill stuffed in the cloth lining. Twenty pages of a mail-order catalog were under everything. Part of them showed sporting goods including all sorts of guns. The others pictured automobile accessories. Which part was used? Did he buy a gun or a tire? Why? Where?

I pulled out the shirts and shook them open, looking for any identifying marks. One had DEA for a laundry tag next to the label, the others had nothing so he must have done his own wash.

That was all there was to it.

Nothing.

I could breathe a little easier and tell Marty Kooperman that his boy was okay and nothing could hurt him now. Pat would be satisfied, the cops would be satisfied and everything was hunky-dory I was the only one who still had a bug up my tail. It was a great big bug and it was kicking up a fuss. I was a hell of a way from being satisfied.

This wasn’t what I was after, that’s why. This didn’t have to do with three green cards except that the dead man had killed a guy who carried one. What was his name ... Moffit, Charlie Moffit. Was he dead because of a fluke or was there more to it?

I kicked at the edge of the bed in disgust and took one last look around. Pat would be here next. He’d find prints and check them against the corpse in his usual methodical way. If there was anything to be found, he’d find it and I could get it from him.

It had only been a few hours since I climbed out of the sack, but for some reason I was more tired than ever. Too much of a letdown, I guessed. You can’t prime yourself for something to happen and feel right when it doesn’t come off. The skin of my face felt tight and drawn, pulling away from my eyes. My back still crawled when I thought of the alley and that thing under the train.

I went into a shabby drugstore and called Velda’s home. She wasn’t there. I tried the office and she was. I told her to meet me in the bar downstairs and walked outside again, looking for a cab. The one that came along had a driver who had all the information about the accident in the subway secondhand and insisted on giving me a detailed account of all the gruesome details. I was glad to pay him off and get out of there.

Velda was sitting in a back booth with a Manhattan in front of her. Two guys at the bar had swung halfway around on their stools and were trying out their best leers. One said something dirty and the other laughed. Tony walked down behind the bar, but he saw me come in and stopped. The guy with the dirty mouth said something else, slid off his stool and walked over to Velda.

He set his drink down and leaned on her table, mouthing a few obscenities. Velda moved too fast for him. I saw her arm fly out, knock away the support of his hand and his face went into the table. She gave him the drink right in the eyes, glass and all.

The guy screamed, “You dirty little . . .” then she laid the heavy glass ash tray across his temple and he had it. He went down on his knees, his head almost on the floor. The other guy almost choked. He slammed his drink down and came off his stool with a rush. I let him go about two feet before I snagged the back of his coat collar with a jerk that put him right on his skinny behind.

Tony laughed and leaned on the bar.

I wasn’t laughing. The one on the floor turned his head and I saw a pinched weasel face with eyes that had quick death in them. Those eyes crawled over me from top to bottom, over to Velda and back again. “A big tough guy,” he said. “A big wise guy.”

As if a spring exploded inside him, he came up off the floor with a knife in his hand, blade up.

A .45 can make an awful nasty sound in a quiet room when you pull the hammer back. It’s just a little tiny click, but it can stop a dozen guys when they hear it. Weasel Face couldn’t take his eyes off it. I let him have a good look and smashed it across his nose.

The knife hit the floor and broke when I stepped on it. Tony laughed again. I grabbed the guy by the neck and hauled him to his feet so I could drag the cold sharp metal of the rod across his face until he was a bright red mask mumbling for me to stop.

Tony helped me throw them in the street outside. He said, “They never learn, do they, Mike? Because there’s two of ‘em and they got a shiv they’re the toughest mugs in the world. It ain’t nice to get took, by a woman, neither. They never learn.”

“They learn, Tony For about ten seconds they’re the smartest people in the world. But then it’s always too late. After ten seconds they’re dead. They only learn when they finally catch a slug where it hurts.”

I walked back to the booth and sat down opposite Velda. Tony brought her another Manhattan and me a beer. “Very good,” I said.

“Thanks. I knew you were watching.”

She lit a cigarette and her hands were steadier than mine. “You were too rough on him.”

“Nuts, he had a knife. I have an allergy against getting cut.” I drained off half of the beer and laid it down on the table where I made patterns with the wet bottom. “Tell me about tonight.”

Velda started to tear matches out of the book without lighting them. “I got there about seven-thirty. A light was on in the front window. Twice I saw somebody pull aside the corner of the shade and look out. A car went around the block twice, and both times it slowed down a little in front of the house. When it left I tried the door, but it was locked so I went next door and tried that one. It was locked too, but there was a cellar way under the stairs and I went down there. Just as I was going down the steps I saw a man coming up the block and I thought it might be Deamer.

“I had to take the chance that it was and that you were behind him. The cellar door was open and led through to the back yard. I was trying to crawl over a mound of boxes when I heard somebody in the back yard. I don’t know how long it took me to get out there, possibly two minutes. Anyway, I heard a yell and somebody came out the door of the next house. I got through into the back alley and heard him running. He went too fast for me and I started yelling for you.”

“That was Oscar Deamer, all right. He saw us coming and beat it.”

“Maybe.”

“What do you mean . . . ‘maybe’?”

“I think there were two people in that alley ahead of me.”

“Two people?” My voice had an edge to it. “Did you see them?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know?”

“I don’t. I just think so.”

I finished the beer and waved to Tony. He brought another. Velda hadn’t touched her drink yet. “Something made you think that. What was it?”

She shrugged, frowning at her glass, trying to force her mind back to that brief interval. “When I was in that cellar I thought I heard somebody in the other yard. There was a flock of cats around and I thought at the time that I was hearing them.”

“Go on.”

“Then when I was running after him I fell and while I lay there it didn’t sound like just one person going down that alley.”

“One person could sound like ten if they hit any of the junk we hit. It makes a hell of a racket.”

“Maybe I’m wrong, Mike. I thought there could have been someone else and I wanted you to know about it.”

“What the hell, it doesn’t matter too much now anyway. The guy is dead and that should end it. Lee Deamer can go ahead and reform all he wants to now. He hasn’t got a thing to worry about. As far as two people in that alley ... well, you saw what the place was like. Nobody lives there unless he has to. They’re the kind of people who scare easily, and if Lee started running somebody else could have too. Did you see him go down the subway?”

“No, he was gone when I got there, but two kids were staring down the steps and waving to another kid to come over. I took the chance that he went down and followed. The train was skidding to a stop when I reached the platform and I didn’t have to be told why. When you scooted me away I looked for those kids in the crowd upstairs but they weren’t around.”

I hoisted my glass, turned it around in my hand and finished it. Velda downed her Manhattan and slipped her arms into her coat. “What now, Mike?”

“You go home, kid,” I told her. “I’m going to take me a nice long walk.”

We said good night to Tony and left. The two guys we had thrown in the street were gone. Velda grinned. “Am I safe?”

“Hell yes!”

I waved a taxi over, kissed her good night and walked off.

My heels rapped the sidewalk, a steady tap-tap that kept time with my thoughts. They reminded me of another walk I took, one that led to a bridge, and still another one that led into a deserted store that came equipped with blackout curtains, light switches on the door and coffee urns.

There lay the story behind the green cards. There was where I could find out why I had to kill a guy who had one, and see a girl die because she couldn’t stand the look on my face. That was what I wanted to know ... why it was me who was picked to pull the trigger.

I turned into a candy store and pulled the telephone directories from the rack. I found the Park Avenue Brightons and dialed the number.

Three rings later a somber voice said, “Mr. Brighton’s residence.”

I got right to the point. “Is Ethel there?”

“Who shall I say is calling, sir?”

“You don’t. Just put her on.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but . . .”

“Oh, shut up and put her on.”

There was a shocked silence and a clatter as the phone was laid on a table. Off in the distance I heard the mutter of voices, then feet coming across the room. The phone clattered again, and, “Yes?”

“Hello, Ethel,” I said. “I drove your car into Times Square last night. Remember?”

“Oh! Oh, but...” Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Please, I can’t talk to you here. What is ...”

“You can talk to me outside, kid. I’ll be standing on your street corner in about fifteen minutes. The northeast corner. Pick me up there.”

“I-I can’t. Honestly ... oh, please ...” There was panic in her voice, a tone that held more than fear.

I said, “You’d better, baby.” That was enough. I hung up and started walking toward Park Avenue. If I could read a voice right she’d be there.

She was. I saw her while I was still a half-block away, crossing nervously back and forth, trying to seem busy. I came up behind her and said hello. For a moment she went rigid, held by the panic that I had sensed in her voice.

“Scared?”

“No—of course not.” The hell she wasn‘t! Her chin was wobbling and she couldn’t hold her hands still. This time I was barely smiling and dames don’t usually go to pieces when I do that.

I hooked my arm through hers and steered her west where there were lights and people. Sometimes the combination is good for the soul. It makes you want to talk and laugh and be part of the grand parade.

It didn’t have that effect on her.

The smile might have been pasted on her face. When she wasn’t looking straight ahead her eyes darted to me and back again. We went off Broadway and into a bar that had one empty end and one full end because the television wasn’t centered. The lights were down low and nobody paid any attention to us on the empty end except the bartender, and he was more interested in watching the wrestling than hustling up drinks for us.

Ethel ordered an Old Fashioned and I had a beer. She held the fingers of her one hand tightly around the glass and worked a cigarette with the other. There was nothing behind the bar to see, but she stared there anyway. I had to give up carrying the conversation. When I did and sat there as quietly as she did the knuckles of her fingers went white.

She couldn’t keep this up long. I took a lungful of smoke and let it come out with my words. “Ethel ...” She jerked, startled. “What’s there about me that has you up a tree?”

She wet her lips. “Really, there’s ... there’s nothing.”

“You never even asked me my name.”

That brought her head up. Her eyes got wide and stared at the wall. “I ... I’m not concerned with names.”

“I am.”

“But you ... I’m ... please, what have I done? Haven’t I been faithful ? Must you go on....” She had kept it up too long. The panic couldn’t stay. It left with a rush and a pleading tone took its place. There were tears in her eyes now, tears she tried hard to hold back and being a woman, couldn’t. They flooded her eyelids and ran down her cheeks.

“Ethel . . . quit being scared of me. Look in a mirror and you’ll know why I called you tonight. You aren’t the kind of woman a guy can see and forget. You’re too damned serious.”

Dames, they can louse me up every time. The tears stopped as abruptly as they came and her mouth froze in indignation. This time she was able to look at my eyes clearly. “We have to be serious. You, of all people, should know that!”

This was better. The words were her own, what was inside her and not words that I put there. “Not all the time,” I grinned.

“All the time!” she said. I grinned at her and she returned it with a frown.

“You’ll do, kid.”

“I can’t understand you.” She hesitated, then a smile blossomed and grew. She was lovely when she smiled. “You were testing me,” she demanded.

“Something like that.”

“But . . . why?”

“I need some help. I can’t take just anybody, you know.” It was true. I did need help, plenty of it too.

“You mean ... you want me to help you ... find out who ... who did it?”

Cripes, how I wanted her to open up. I wasn’t in the mood for more of those damn silly games and yet I had to play them. “That’s right.”

It must have pleased her. I saw the fingers loosen up around the glass and she tasted the drink for the first time. “Could I ask a question?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Why did you choose me?”

“I’m attracted to beauty.”