The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 2 (30 page)

It only took two of them and the guy slammed forward on his face. The back door flew open and another shadow ran under the light and from where I was I could see him bend over and frisk the guy with a blurred motion of his hands.

I should have waited, damn it. I shouldn’t have tried a shot from where I was. A .45 isn’t built for range and the slug ripped a groove in the pavement and screamed off down the block. The guy let out a startled yell and tore back toward the car with the other guy yelling for him to hurry. He damn near made it, then one of the ricochets took him through the legs and he went down with a scream.

The other guy didn’t wait. He jammed the gas down and wrenched the wheel over as hard as he could and the guy shrieking his lungs out in the gutter forgot the pain in his legs long enough to let out one final, terrified yell before the wheels of the car made a pulpy mess of his body. My hand kept squeezing the trigger until there were only the flat echoes of the blasts that were drowned out by the noise of the car’s exhaust and the futile gesture as the gun held opened, empty.

And there I was standing over a dead little guy who had two holes in his back and the dried streaks of tears on his face. He didn’t look tired any more. He seemed to be smiling. What was left of the one in the gutter was too sickening to look at.

I opened the cigarettes and stuck one in my mouth. I lit it and breathed out the smoke, watching it sift through the rain. The guy couldn’t hear me, but I said, “It’s a hell of a city, isn’t it, feller?”

A jagged streak of lightning cut across the sky to answer me.

The police cars took two minutes getting to the spot. They converged from both ends of the street, howling to a stop under the light and the boys next to the drivers were out before the tires stopped whining.

One had a gun in his hand. He meant business with it too. It was pointed straight at my gut and he said, “Who’re you?”

I pointed my butt at the thing on the sidewalk. “Eyewitness.”

The other cop came behind me and ran his hand over my pockets. He found the gun, yanked it out of the holster and smelled the barrel. For a second I thought he was going to clip me with it, but this cop had been around long enough to ask questions first. He asked them with his eyes.

“Look in my side pocket,” I said.

He dipped his hand in my coat and brought out my wallet. The badge was pinned to the flap with my P.I. ticket and gun license inside the cardcase. He looks them both over carefully, scrutinizing my picture then my face. “Private Investigator, Michael Hammer.”

“That’s right.”

He scowled again and handed the gun and wallet back. “What happened?”

“This guy came in the bar back there a few minutes ago. He looked scared as hell, had two drinks and ran out. I was curious so I tagged after him.”

“In this rain you were curious,” the cop with the gun said.

“I’m a curious guy.”

The other cop looked annoyed. “Okay, go on.”

I shrugged. “He ran out and a Buick came after him. There were two shots from the car, the guy fell and one punk hopped out of the car to frisk him. I let loose and got the guy in the legs and the driver of the car ran over him. Purposely.”

“So you let loose!” The lad with the gun came in at me with a snarl.

The other cop shoved him back. “Put that thing away and call the chief. I know this guy.”

It didn’t go over big with the young blood. “Hell, the guy’s dead, isn’t he? This punk admits shooting, don’t he? Hell, how do we know there was a Buick?”

“Go take a look at the corpse over there,” the cop said patiently.

Laddie boy with the gun shoved it back on his hip and walked across the street. He started puking after his first look and crawled back in the prowl car.

So at one o‘clock in the morning Pat got there with no more fanfare than the winking red light on the top of the police car. I watched him step out and yank his collar up against the rain. The cops looked smart when he passed because there wasn’t anything else to do. A killing in this neighborhood was neither important nor interesting enough to drag out the local citizenry in a downpour, so the harness bulls just stood at attention until the brass had given his nod of recognition.

The cop who had frisked me said, “Good evening, Captain Chambers.”

Pat said hello and was led out to look over the pair of corpses. I stayed back in the shadows smoking while he bent over to look at the one on the sidewalk. When he finished his inspection he straightened up, listened to the cop a minute and wrinkled up his forehead in a perplexed frown.

My cigarette arched through the night and fizzled out in the gutter. I said, “Hi, Pat.”

“What are you doing here, Mike?” Two cops flanked him as he walked over to me. He waved them away.

“I’m the eyewitness.”

“So I’ve heard.” Behind Pat the eager beaver cop licked his lips, wondering who the hell I was and hoping I didn’t sound off about his gun-waving. “What’s the whole story, Mike?”

“That’s it, every bit of it. I don’t know any more about it than you do.”

“Yeah.” He made a sour face. “Look, don’t screw me. Are you on a case?”

“Chum, if I was I’d say so then keep my trap closed. I’m not on a case and I don’t know what the hell happened. This guy got shot, I nicked the other guy and the boy in the car finished him off.”

Pat shook his head. “I hate coincidence. I hate it especially when you’re involved. You smell out murder too well.”

“Sure, and this one stinks. You know either one of them?”

“No. They’re not carrying any identification around either.”

The morgue wagon rolled up with the Medical Examiner about fifty feet in the rear. The boys hopped out and started cleaning up the mess after the verdict was given and the pictures taken. I ambled out to the middle of the street and took a look at the body that was squashed against the roadbed.

He looked like an hourglass.

Fright and pain had made a distorted death mask of his face, but the rain had scrubbed away the blood leaving him a ghostly white in contrast with the asphalt of the street. He was about forty-five and as medium as you can get. His clothes had an expensive look about them, but one shoe had a hole in the bottom and he needed a haircut bad.

The driver of the wagon splashed the light of a flash over him and gave me a toothy grin. “He’s a goodie, ain’t he?”

“Yeah, a real beaut.”

“Not so much, though. You shoulda seen what we had last week. Whole damn trailer truck rolled over that one and we had to scrape him away from between the tires. Coulda put him in a shoe box.”

“Do you sleep good nights?” I gave him my best disgusted look.

“Sure, why?” He even sounded surprised.

“Forget it. Put that light on his face again.”

The guy obliged and I had a close look this time. I walked around and had a squint from the other side then told him to knock off the light. Pat was a vague figure in a trench coat, watching me closely. He said, “Know him?”

“I’ve seen him before. Small-time hardcase, I think.”

“The M.E. remembered him. He was a witness at a coroner’s inquest about twelve years ago. The guy was one of Charlie Fallon’s old outfit.”

I glanced at Pat then back to the corpse again. The guy had some odd familiarity I couldn’t place and it wasn’t Fallon I was thinking of. Fallon died of natural causes about the same time I was opening up shop and what I knew of him came strictly from the papers.

“Nope, can’t quite place him,” I said.

“We’ll get him tagged. Too bad they couldn‘t’ve had the decency to carry a lodge card or something. The one on the sidewalk there only had forty cents in change and a house key in his pocket. This guy had a fin and two ones and nothing else.”

I nodded. “A buck must have been all that first lad had then. He bought two drinks in the bar before he left.”

“Well, let’s go back there and check. Maybe somebody’ll know him there.”

“Nobody will,” I said.

“Never can tell.”

“Nuts. They didn’t know him when he came in, I’m telling you. He just had two drinks and left.”

“Then what’re you getting excited about?” He had his hands shoved down in his pockets and was watching me with eyes that were half shut.

“Skip it.”

“The hell I’ll skip it. Two guys are murdered and I want to know what the hell goes on. You got another wild hair up your tail, haven’t you?”

“Yeah.” The way I said it brought the scowl back to his face.

“Spill it, Mike.”

“Let’s go back to the bar. I’m getting so goddamn sick of the things that happen in this town I have to take a bath every time I even stick my head out the door.”

The rain stopped momentarily as if something had amazed it, then slashed down with all the fury it could muster, damning me with its millions of pellets. I took a look around me at the two rows of tenements and the dark spots on the pavement where the dead men were a minute ago and wondered how many people behind the walls and windows were alive today who wouldn’t be alive tomorrow.

Pat left a moment, said something to the M.E. and one of the cops, then joined me on the sidewalk. I nudged a brace of Luckies out of the pack, handed him one and watched his face in the light. He looked teed off like he always did when he came face to face with a corpse.

I said, “This must gripe the pants off you, Pat. There’s not one blasted thing you can do to prevent trouble. Like those two back there. Alive one minute, dead the next. Nice, huh?” The cops get here in time to clear up the mess, but they can’t move until it happens. Christ, what a place to live!“

He didn’t say anything until we turned into the bar. By that time most of the customers were so helplessly drunk they couldn’t remember anything anyway. The bartender said a guy was in for a few minutes awhile back, but he couldn’t help out. Pat gave up after five minutes and came back to me. I was sitting at the booth with my back to the bundle in the corner ready to blow up.

Pat took a long look at my face. “What’s eating you, Mike?”

I picked the bundle up and sat it on my knee. The coat came away and the kid’s head lolled on my shoulder, his hair a tangled wet mop. Pat pushed his hat back on his head and tucked his lip under his teeth. “I don’t get it.”

“The dead guy... the one who was here first. He came in with the kid and he was crying. Oh, it was real touching. It damn near made me sick, it was so touching. A guy bawling his head off, then kissing his kid good-by and making a run for the street.

“This is why I was curious. I thought maybe the guy was so far gone he was deserting his kid. Now I know better, Pat. The guy knew he was going to die so he took his kid in here, said so long and walked right into it. Makes a nice picture, doesn’t it?”

“You’re drawing a lot of conclusions, aren’t you?”

“Let’s hear you draw some better ones. Goddamn it, this makes me mad! No matter what the hell the guy did it’s the kid who has to pay through the nose for it. Of all the lousy, stinking things that happen....”

“Ease off, Mike.”

“Sure, ease off. It sounds real easy to do. But look, if this was his kid and he cared enough to cry about it, what happens to him?”

“I presume he has a mother.”

“No doubt,” I said sarcastically. “So far you don’t know who the father is. Do we leave the kid here until something turns up?”

“Don’t be stupid. There are agencies who will take care of him.”

“Great. What a hell of a night this is for the kid. His old man gets shot and he gets adopted by an agency.”

“You don’t know it’s his father, friend.”

“Who else would cry over a kid?”

Pat gave me a thoughtful grimace. “If your theory holds about the guy knowing he was going to catch it, maybe he was bawling for himself instead of the kid.”

“Balls. What kind of a kill you think this is?”

“From the neighborhood and the type of people involved I’d say it was pretty local.”

“Maybe the killer hopes you’ll think just that.”

“Why?” He was getting sore now too.

“I told you he ran over his own boy deliberately, didn’t I? Why the hell would he do that?”

Pat shook his head. “I don’t think he did.”

“Okay, pal, you were there and I wasn’t. You saw it all.”

“Damn it, Mike, maybe it looked deliberate to you but it sounds screwball to me! It doesn’t make sense. If he did swerve like you said he did, maybe he was intending to pick the guy up out of the gutter and didn’t judge his distance right. When he hit him it was too late to stop.”

I said something dirty.

“All right, what’s your angle?”

“The guy was shot in the legs. He might have talked and the guy in the car didn’t want to be identified for murder so he put the wheels to him.”

Suddenly he grinned at me and his breath hissed out in a chuckle. “You’re on the ball. I was thinking the same thing myself and wanted to see if you were sure of yourself.”

“Go to hell,” I said.

“Yeah, right now. Let’s get that kid out of here. I’ll be up half the night again on this damn thing. Come on.”

“No.”

Pat stopped and turned around. “What do you mean ... ‘no’?”

“What I said. I’ll keep the kid with me ... for now anyway. He’ll only sit down there at headquarters until morning waiting for those agency people to show up.”

Maybe it’s getting so I can’t keep my face a blank any more, or maybe Pat had seen that same expression too often. His teeth clamped together and I knew his shoulders were bunching up under the coat. “Mike,” he told me, “if you got ideas about going on a kill-hunt, just get rid of them right now. I’m not going to risk my neck and position because of a lot of wild ideas you dream up.”

I said it low and slow so he had to listen hard to catch it. “I don’t like what happened to the kid, Pat. Murder doesn’t just happen. It’s thought about and planned out all nice and neat, and any reason that involves murder and big fat Buicks has to be a damn good one. I don’t know who the kid is, but he’s going to grow up knowing that the guy who killed his old man died with a nice hot slug in the middle of his intestines. If it means anything to you, consider that I’m on a case. I have me a legal right to do a lot of things including shooting a goddamn killer if I can sucker him into drawing first so it’ll look like self-defense.