The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 2 (33 page)

“Then he had it tough, eh?”

“Yeah, real tough. Doctors come high and he couldn’t afford much. She was supposed to have an operation and he finally got her lined up for it, but by that time it was too late and she died a few days after they cut her apart. Decker was in bad shape for a while.”

“He drink much?” I asked.

“Nope. Never had a drop all that time. He didn’t want to do nothin’ that might hurt his kid. He sure was crazy about that boy. That’s why he was strictly on the up and up.”

The priest had been listening, nodding occasionally. When Vileck finished he said, “Mr. Hammer, a week ago William came to church to see me and asked me if I would keep his insurance policies. They are all made out to the child, of course, and he wanted to be sure that if ever anything happened to him the child would be well provided for.”

That one stopped me for a second. I said, “Tell me, was he jumpy at the time? I mean, now that you look back, did he seem to have anything on his mind at all?”

“Yes, now that I look back I’d say that he was upset about something. At the time I believed it was due to his wife having died. However, his story was plausible enough. Being that he had to work, he wanted his important papers in safe hands. I never believed that he was intending to ... to ...”

Vileck balled his hands up and knocked his knuckles together. “Nuts. I don’t believe he done it because he was going to rob a joint. The guy was straight as they come.”

“Some things happen to make a guy go wrong,” I said. “Did he need dough at all?”

“Sure he needed dough. He’d get in maybe two, three days a week on the docks ... pier 51 it was, but that was just enough to cover his eats. He lived pretty close, but he got by.”

“Any friends?”

The super shrugged. “Sometimes a guy from the docks would come up awhile. He played chess with the blind newsie down the block every Monday night. Both of ‘em picked it up in the big house. Nope, can’t say that he had any other friends ’cept me. I liked the guy pretty much.”

“No reason why he needed money ... nothing like that?”

“Hell, not now. Before the wife died, sure. Not now though.”

I nodded, finished my coffee and turned to the priest. “Father, did Decker make any tentative plans concerning the boy at all?”

“Yes, he did. It was his intention that the boy be brought up by one of our church organizations. We discussed it and he went so far as to make a will. The insurance money will take care of the lad until he finishes school, and what else Decker had was to be held in trust for his boy. This whole affair is very distressing. If only he had come to me with his problem! Always before he came to the church for advice, but this time when he needed to most he failed. Really, I....”

“Father, I have the boy. He’s being well cared for at present and whenever you’re ready I’ll be glad to turn him over to you. That kid is the reason I’m in this and when I get the guy that made him an orphan they can get another grave ready in potter’s field. This whole town needs its nose wiped bad. I’m sick of having to live with some of the scum that breeds here and in my own little way I’m going to do something about it.”

“Please ... my son! I ...”

“Don’t preach to me now, Father. Maybe when it’s over, but not now.”

“But surely you can’t be serious.”

Vileck studied my face a second, then said, “He is, Father. If I can help ya out, pal ... lemme know, will ya?”

“I’ll let you know,” I said. “When you make arrangements for the boy, Father, look me up in the phone book. By the way, who was the friend of Decker’s ... the one on the docks?”

“Umm ... think his name was Booker. No, Hooker, that’s it. Hooker. Mel Hooker.”

I pushed the cup back and shoved away from the table.

“That’s all then. Any chance of taking a look around the apartment?”

“Sure, go on up. Top floor, first door off the landing. And it won’t do no good to ask them old biddies nothin‘. They was all doing the weekly wash when whoever took the place apart was there. Once a week they get hot water and their noses were all in the sinks.”

“Thanks,” I said. “For the coffee too.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“So long, Father. You’ll buzz me later?”

He nodded unhappily. “Yes, I will. Please ... no violence.”

I grinned at him so he’d feel better and walked down the tunnel to the hall.

Vileck hadn’t been wrong about somebody taking the place apart. They had started at one end of the three tiny rooms and wound up at the other leaving a trail of wreckage behind them that could have been sifted through a window screen. It was one hell of a mess. The bag of garbage beside the door that had been waiting to get thrown out had been scattered with a kick and when I saw it I felt like laughing because whatever they were looking for they didn’t get. There was no stopping place in the search to indicate that the great It had been located.

For a while I prowled through the ruin of poverty, picking up a kid’s toy here and there, a woman’s bauble, a few work-worn things that had belonged to Decker. I even did a little probing in a few spots myself, but there wasn’t a damn thing of any value around. I finished my butt and flipped it into the sink, then closed the door and got out of there.

I had a nasty taste in my mouth because so far it looked like Pat was right all along the line. Decker had gotten himself loused up with a couple of boys and pulled a job that didn’t pay off. The chances were that they had cased the joint so well they wouldn’t have believed him when he gave them the story of the nearly empty safe.

I sat there in the car and thought about it. In fact, I gave it a hell of a lot of thought. I thought so much about it I got playing all the angles against each other until all I could see was Decker’s face with the tears rolling down his cheeks as he bent over to kiss the kid.

So I said a lot of dirty words.

The goon who drove the car was still running around loose and if I had to go after somebody it might as well be him. I stepped on the starter, dragged away from the curb and started back across town.

It was more curiosity than anything else that put me on Riverside Drive. When I finally got there I decided that it might be good idea to cruise around a little bit and see if anybody with a pair of sharp eyes might have spotted the boys who cased the joint before they pulled the job.

I didn’t have any more luck than you could stuff in your eye. That section of town was a money district, and the people who lived there only had eyes for the dollar sign. They were all sheer-faced apartment buildings with fancy doormen doing the honors out front and big, bright Caddies hauled up close to the curb.

One of the janitors thought he remembered a Buick and a couple of men that hung around the neighborhood a week back but he couldn’t be sure. For two bucks he took me through an underground alley to the back court and let me have a look around.

Hell, Decker had had it easy. Every one of the buildings had the same kind of passageway from front to back, and once you were in the rear court it was a snap to reach up and grab the bottom rung of the fire ladder. After I had my look I told the guy thanks and went back to the street.

Two doors down was the building where Decker had pulled the job so I loped in past the beefy doorman and went over the bellboard until I found LEE, MARSHA and gave the button a nudge. There was a phone set in a niche in the wall that gave the cliff dweller upstairs a chance to check the callers before unlocking the door and I had to stand with it at my ear a full minute before I heard it click.

Then heaven answered. What a voice she had. It made the kind of music song writers try to imitate and can’t. All it said was, “Yes?” and I started getting mental images of LEE, MARSHA that couldn’t be sent through the mail.

I tried hard to sound like a gentleman. “Miss Lee?”

She said it was.

“This is Mike Hammer. I’m a private investigator. Could I speak to you a few minutes?”

“Oh ... about the robbery?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Why ... yes. I suppose you may. Come right up.”

So I went up to heaven in a private elevator that let me out in a semi-private foyer where cloud 4D had a little brass hammer instead of a doorbell. I raised it, let it drop and a ponderous nurse with a mustache scowled me in.

And there was my angel in a big chair by the window. At least the right half of her was angel. The left half sported a very human mouse under the eye and a welt as big as a fist across her jaw.

My face must have been doing some pretty funny things trying to keep from laughing, because she tapped her fingers on the end of the chair and said, “You had better be properly sympathetic, Mr. Hammer, or out you go.”

I couldn’t hold it back and I laughed anyway, but I didn’t go out. “Half of you is the most beautiful girl I ever saw,” I grinned.

“I half thank you,” she grinned back. “You can leave if you want to, Mrs. Ross. You’ll be back at five?”

The nurse told her she would and picked up her coat. When she made sure her patient was all right she left. I was hoping she’d get herself a shave while she was out.

“Please sit down, Mr. Hammer. Can I get you a drink?”

“No, I’ll get it myself. Just tell me where to find the makings.”

My angel got up and pulled the filmy housecoat around her like a veil. “Hell, I’ll get it myself. This leading the life of a cripple is a pain. Everybody treats me like an invalid. The nurse is the ‘compliments of the management’ hoping I don’t sue them for neglecting to keep their property properly protected. She’s a good cook, otherwise I would have told them to keep her.”

She walked over to a sideboard and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. None of this fancy hip-swinging business; just a nice plain walk that could do more than all the fancy wriggling a stripper could put out. Her legs brushing the sheer nylon of the housecoat made it crackle and cling to her body until every curve was outlined in white with pink undertones.

She had tawny brown hair that fell loosely about her shoulders, with eyes that matched perfectly, and a mouth that didn’t have to go far to meet mine. Marsha must have just come from a bath, because she smelt fresh and soapy without any veneer of perfume.

When she turned around she had two glasses in her hands and she looked even prettier coming toward me than going away. Her breasts were precocious things that accentuated the width of her shoulders and the smooth contours of her stomach, rising jauntily against the nylon as though they were looking for a way out.

I thought she was too busy balancing the glasses to notice what I was doing, but I was wrong. She handed me a highball and said, “Do I pass?”

“What?”

“Inspection. Do I pass?”

“If I could get my mouth unpuckered I’d let out a long low whistle,” I told her. “I’m getting tired of seeing dames in clothes that make them look like a tulip having a hard time coming up. With all the women wearing crew cuts with curled ends these days it’s a pleasure to see one with hair for a change.”

“That’s a left-handed compliment if ever I heard one. What a lover you’d make.”

I looked at her a long time. “Don’t fool yourself.”

She looked at me just as long. “I’m not.”

We raised the glasses in a silent toast and sipped the top off them. “Now, Mr. Hammer ...”

“Mike.”

Her lips came apart in a smile. “Mike. It fits you perfectly. What was it you wanted to see me about?”

“First I want to know why you seem so damn familiar. Even with the shiner you remind me of somebody I’ve seen before.”

Her hands smoothed the front of the housecoat. “Thank you for remembering.” She let her eyes drift to the piano that stood in the corner and the picture on top of it, I picked up my drink and walked over to it and this time I did let out a long low whistle.

It was a big shot of Marsha in a pre-Civil War dress that came up six inches above her waist before nature took over. The make-up artist had to do very little to make her the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She had been younger when it was taken, but me ... I’d take Marsha like she was now. Time had only improved her. Almost hidden by the frame was a line that said the photo was released by the Allerton Motion Picture Company.

Marsha was familiar because I had seen her plenty of times before. So have you. Ten years ago she was an up-and-coming star in Hollywood.

“Yesteryear, those were the days,” she said.

I put the picture back and sat down opposite her so I could see her better. She was well worth looking at and she didn’t have to cross her legs to attract attention, either. They were nice legs, too.

“It’s a wonder I forgot you,” I said.

“Most people do. The public has a short memory.”

“How come you quit?”

“Oh, it’s a sad but brief story. Perhaps you read about it. There was a man, a bit player but a charming heel if ever I saw one. He played up to me to further his own career by picking up a lot of publicity. I was madly in love with him until I found that he was making a play for my secretary in his spare time. In my foolishness I made an issue of it and he told me how he was using me. So, I became the woman scorned and said if he saw her again I’d see that he was blacklisted off every lot in Hollywood. At the time I carried enough potential importance to let me get away with it. Anyway, he told my secretary that he’d never see her after that and she promptly went out and drove her car off a cliff.

“You know Hollywood. It was bad publicity and it knocked me back plenty. Before they could tear my contract up I resigned and came back East where I stuck my savings in investments that allow me to live like I want to.”

I made a motion with my head to take in the room. The place held a fortune in well-chosen furniture and the pictures on the wall weren’t any cheap copies, either. Every one of them must have cost four figures. If this was plain living, I’d like to take a crack at it myself.

I pulled out a smoke and she snapped the catch on a table lighter, holding the flame out to me. “Now ... you didn’t come up here for the story of my life,” she said. Her eyes danced for me.