The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 2 (69 page)

Ten o‘clock. It was still a few hours off.

Ten o‘clock, an exquisite, desirable mouth. Eyes that tried to eat you. Ten o’clock Michael Friday, but I had another appointment first.

I started in the low Forties and picked the spots. They were short stops because I wasn’t after a good time. I could tell when I was getting ripe by the sidewise looks that came my way. In one place they started to move away from me so I knew I was nearing the end. A little pigeon I knew shook his head just enough so I knew they weren’t there and when his mouth pulled down in a tight smile I could tell he wasn’t giving me much of a chance.

Nine-fifteen. I walked into Harvey Pullen’s place in the Thirties. Harvey didn’t want to serve me but I waited him out. He went for the tap and I shook my head and said, “Coke.”

He poured it in a hurry, walked away and left me by the faded redhead to drink it. A plain-clothes man I recognized walked in, had a fast beer at the bar, took in the crowd through the back mirror, finished his butt and walked out. In a way I hoped he had spotted me, but if he did he was better at spotting than I was at keeping from being spotted.

She didn’t move her mouth at all. Sometimes the things they pick up in stir pay off and this was one of them. She said, “Hammer, ain‘tcha?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Long John’s place. They’re settin’ you up.”

I sipped my Coke. “Why you?”

“Take a look, buster. Them creeps gimme the business a long time ago. I coulda had a career.”

“Who saw them?”

“I just came from there.”

“What else?”

“The little guy’s a snowbird and he’s hopped.”

“Coppers?”

“Nobody. Just them. The gang in the dump ain’t wise yet.”

I laid the Coke down, swirled the ice around in the glass and rubbed out my cigarette. The redhead had a sawbuck on her lap when I left.

Long John’s. The name over the door didn’t say so, but that’s what everybody called it. The bartender had a patch over one eye and a peg leg. No parrot.

A drunk sat on the curb puking into the gutter between his legs. The door was open and you could smell the beer and hear a pair of shrill voices. Background music supplied by a jukebox. Maybe a dozen were lined up at the bar talking loud and fast. The curses and filth sifted out of the conversation like minor highlights and the women’s voices shrilled again.

The boys were pros playing it cute.

Sugar Smallhouse was sitting at the corner of the bar, his back facing the door so anybody coming in wouldn’t recognize him.

Charlie Max was in the back corner facing the door so anybody coming in he’d recognize.

They played it cute but they didn’t play it right and Charlie Max took time out to bend his head into the match he held up to light his cigarette and that’s when I came in and stood behind his partner.

I said, “Hello, Sugar,” and thought the glass he held would crumple under his fingers. The little hairs on the back of his neck went up straight like happens to a dog when he meets another dog, only on this mutt the skin under the hair happened to be a pale, pale yellow.

Sugar had heard the word. He had heard other people talk. He knew about the sign marked DEAD END and about me and how things hadn’t happened as they were planned. I could feel the things churning through his head as I reached under his arm for a rod and all the while Sugar never moved a muscle. It was a little rod with a big bore. I flipped the shells out of the cylinder, dropped them in my pocket and put the gun back in its nest. Sugar didn’t get it. He sweated until it soaked through the collar of his shirt but he still didn’t get it.

Long John came up, saw me half hidden behind Sugar and said, “What’ll it be, feller?” Then Sugar got it while Long John’s eye got big and round. I had my hands around his middle in just the right spot, jerked hard and fast with my locked thumbs going into flesh under the breastbone like a kid snapping worms. Hard and fast ... just once, and Sugar Smallhouse was another drunk who was sleeping it off at the bar.

And Charlie Max was a guy suddenly alive and sober coming up out of his chair trying to clear a gun from a hip holster to collect his bonus. Eternity took place right then in the space of about five seconds of screaming confusion. Somebody saw the gun and the scream triggered the action. Charlie’s gun never got quite cleared because the dame beside him pushed too hard getting away and his chair caught him behind the knees. They were all over the joint, cursing, pushing, falling out of the way and fighting to make the door. Then the noise stopped and it was just a tableau of silent panic because the crowd was behind me and there was nothing more to do except stand there with fascinated terror as Charlie Max scrambled for his rod and I closed in with a couple of quick steps.

The gun was there in his fist, coming up and around as I brought my foot up and the things that were in Charlie’s face splashed all over the floor. His face looked soft and squashy a second, became something not at all human and he tried once more with the gun.

Nobody heard that kick because his arm made too much noise.

Somehow his eyes were still there, swelling fast, yet still bright. They were eyes that should have been filled with excruciating pain, but horror pushed it out as he saw what was going to happen to him.

“The job was too big, buddy. Somebody should have told you how many guys I put on their backs with skulls split apart because they were gunning for me.” I said it real easy and reached for the gun.

The voice behind me said, “Don’t touch it, Hammer.”

I looked up at the tall guy in the blue pin-striped suit, straightened and grunted my surprise. His face stayed the way it was. There were two more of them standing in the back of the room. One was trying to wake up Sugar Smallhouse. The other came forward, ran his hands over me, looked at his partner with a startled expression that was almost funny before giving me a stare that you might see coming from a kid watching a ballplayer hit a homer.

There wasn’t a damn thing they could do and they knew it, so I turned around, walked back outside and started crosstown to the Astor.

Washington had finally showed up.

She was waiting there in a corner of the lobby. There were others who were waiting too and used the time just to watch her. Some had even taken up positions where they could move in if the one she was waiting for didn’t show up. She wasn’t wearing a red carnation, but she did smile and I could almost feel that mouth on me across the room.

Her hair was the same swirly mass that was as buoyant as she was. There aren’t many words to describe a woman like Michael Friday as she was just then. You have to look at the covers of books and pick out the parts here and there that you like best, then put them all together and you have it. There was nothing slim about her. Maybe a sleekness like a well-fed, muscular cat, an athletic squareness to her shoulders, a sensual curve to her hips, an antagonizing play of motion across her stomach that seemed unconsciously deliberate. She stood there lazily, flexing one smoothly rounded leg that tightened the skirt across her thigh.

I grinned at her and she held out her hand. My own folded around it, stayed there and we walked out together. “Waiting long?” I asked her.

She squeezed my arm under hers. “Longer than I usually wait for anyone. Ten minutes.”

“I hope I’m worth it.”

“You aren’t.”

“But you can’t help yourself,” I finished.

Her elbow poked me. “How did you know?”

“I don‘t,” I said. “I’m just bragging.”

There wasn’t any smile there now. “Damn you,” she whispered. I could feel her go all tight against me, saw her do that trick with her tongue that left her mouth damp and waiting. I pulled my eyes away and opened the door of the cab that sat at the curb, helped her in and climbed in after her.

“Where to?”

She leaned forward, gave an address on Riverside Drive and eased back into the cushions.

It seemed to come slowly, the way sleep does when you’re too tired, the gradual coming together of two people. Slow, then faster and all of a sudden her arms were around me and my hands were pressing into her back and my fingers curled in her hair. I looked at that mouth that wasn’t just damp now, but wet and she said, “Mike, damn you,” softly and I tasted the hunger in her until the fury of it was too much and I let her go.

Some shake and some cry, some even demand right then, but all she did was close her eyes, smile, open them again and relax beside me. I held out a cigarette, lit it for her, did mine and sat there without saying anything until the cab stopped by the building.

When we were in the lobby I said, “What are we supposed to be doing here, gal?”

“It’s a party. Out-of-town friends of Carl and his business associates get together.”

“I see. Where do you come in?”

“You might call me a greeter. I’ve always been the go-between for my big brother. You might say ... he takes advantage of my good looks.”

“It’s an angle.” I stopped her and nodded toward one of the love seats in the corner. She frowned, then went over and sat down. I parked next to her and turned out the light on the table beside me. “You said you wanted to talk. We’ll never make it upstairs.”

Her fingers made nervous little motions in her lap. “I know,” she said softly. “It was about Carl.”

“What about him?”

She looked at me appealingly. “Mike ... I did what you told me to. I ... found out all about you.”

“So?”

“I ... it’s no use trying to be clever or anything. Carl is mixed up in something. I’ve always known that.” She dropped her eyes to her hands, twining her fingers together. “A lot of people are ... and it didn’t seem to matter much, really. He has all sorts of important friends in government and business. They seem to know what he does so I never complained.”

“You just took whatever he gave you without asking,” I stated.

“That’s right. Without asking.”

“Sort of what you don’t know won’t hurt you.”

Michael stared blankly at her lap for a few seconds. “Yes.”

“Now you’re worried.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The worry seemed to film her eyes over. “Because ... before it was only legal things that gave him trouble. Carl ... had lawyers for that. Good ones. They always took care of things.” She laid her hand over mine. It shook a little. “You’re different.”

“Say it.”

“I ... can’t.”

“All right. You’re a killer, Mike. You’re dirty, nasty and you don’t care how you do it as long as you do it. You’ve killed and you’ll keep killing until you get killed yourself.”

I said, “Just tell me one thing, kid. Are you afraid for me or Carl?”

“It isn’t for you. Nothing will ever touch you.” She said it with a touch of bitterness that was soft and sad at the same time.

I looked at her wonderingly. “You’re not making sense now.”

“Mike ... look at me closely and you’ll see. I ... love Carl. He’s always taken care of me. I love him, don’t you see? If he’s in trouble ... there are other ways, but not you, Mike, not you. I ... wouldn’t want that.”

I took my hand away gently, lit a cigarette and watched the smoke sift out into the room. Michael smiled crookedly as she watched me. “It happened fast, Mike,” she said. “It sounds very bad and very inadequate. I’m a very lovely phony, you’re thinking and I can’t blame you a bit. No matter what I ever say, you’ll never believe me. I could try to prove it but no matter how hard I tried or what I did, it would only make it look worse so I won’t try any more at all. I’d just like to say this, Mike. I’m sorry it had to be this way. You ... hit me awfully hard. It never happened to me before. Shall we go up now?”

I got up, let her take my arm and walked to the elevator. She hit the top button and stood there facing the door without speaking, but when I squeezed her arm her hand closed tighter around mine and she tossed her hair back to start the smile she’d have when we got out.

Carl’s two boys were by the door in the foyer. They wore monkey suits and on them the term was absolutely descriptive. They started their smiling when they saw Michael and stopped when they saw me. You could see them exchange looks trying to figure the next move and they weren’t up to it. We were through the door and a girl was taking my hat while they stood there watching us foolishly.

The place was packed. It was loud with laughs and conversation to the point where the music from the grand piano in the corner barely penetrated. Quiet little men with trays passed through the huddled groups handing out drinks and as heads turned to take them I could spot faces you see in the paper often. Some you saw in the movies too, and there were a few you heard making political speeches over the air.

Important people. So damn important you wondered about the company they kept because in each group were one or two not so important unless you looked at police records or knew what they did for a living.

There were hellos from a dozen different directions. Michael smiled, waved back and started to steer me toward the closest group. Leo Harmody was there in all of his self-assuming importance ready to introduce her to the others. I took my arm away and said, “You go to it, baby. I’ll find the bar and get a drink.”

She nodded, a trace of a frown shadowing the corner of her mouth.

So I went to the bar.

Where Affia was holding Velda’s hand and Billy Mist was giving her a snow job while Carl Evello watched cheerfully.

Velda was good. She showed pleasant curiosity and smiled. Carl wasn’t so good. He got a little white.

Billy Mist was even worse. He got color in his greasy face but most of it was deep red and his lips tightened so much his teeth showed. I said, “If you’re wondering, Carl, your little sister invited me along.”

“Oh?”

“Charming girl,” I said. “You’d never know she was your sister.”

Then I looked at Billy. I was hating his guts inside and out so hard I could hardly stand still. I looked him over real slow like I was trying to find a spot in the garbage pail for the latest load and said, “Hello, stupid.”

They can’t take it. You can tear their heart out with one word and they can’t take it. Billy’s face was something ready to blow up like a land-mine and he wasn’t even thinking of the consequences. He was all alone in the room with me for that brief second and his hand tightened, got ready to grab something under his coat and right at the top of everything he felt I just stood there lazy-like and said, “Go ahead.”