The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 1

by Mickey Spillane

  CHAPTER 1

  The guy was dead as hell. He lay on the floor in his pajamas with his brains scattered all over the rug and my gun was in his hand. I kept rubbing my face to wipe out the fuzz that clouded my mind but the cops wouldn’t let me. One would pull my hand away and shout a question at me that made my head ache even worse and another would slap me with a wet rag until I felt like I had been split wide open.

  I said, “Goddamn it, stop!”

  Then one of them laughed and shoved me back on the bed.

  I couldn’t think. I couldn’t remember. I was wound up like a spring and ready to bust. All I could see was the dead guy in the middle of the room and my gun. My gun! Somebody grabbed at my arm and hauled me upright and the questions started again. That was as much as I could take. I gave a hell of a kick and a fat face in a fedora pulled back out of focus and started to groan, all doubled up. Maybe I laughed, I don’t know. Something made a coarse, cackling sound.

  Somebody said, “I’ll fix the bastard for that!” but before he could the door opened and the feet coming in stopped all the chatter except the groan and I knew Pat was there.

  My mouth opened and my voice said, “Good old Pat, always to the rescue.”

  He didn’t sound friendly. “Of all the damn fool times to be drunk. Did anyone touch this man!” Nobody answered. The fat face in the fedora was slumped in a chair and groaned again.

  “He kicked me. The son of a bitch kicked me ... right here.”

  Another voice said, “That’s right, Captain. Marshall was questioning him and he kicked him.”

  Pat grunted an answer and bent over me. “All right, Mike, get up. Come on, get up.” His hand wrapped around my wrist and levered me into a right angle on the edge of the bed.

  “Cripes, I feel lousy,” I said.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to feel a lot worse.” He took the wet rag and handed it to me. “Wipe your face off. You look like hell.”

  I held the cloth in my hands and dropped my face into it. Some of the clouds broke up and disappeared. When the shaking stopped I was propped up and half pushed into the bathroom. The shower was a cold lash that bit into my skin, but it woke me up to the fact that I was a human being and not a soul floating in space. I took all I could stand and turned off the faucet myself, then stepped out. By that time Pat had a container of steaming coffee in my hand and practically poured it down my throat. I tried to grin at him over the top of it, only there was no humor in the grin and there was less in Pat’s tone.

  His words came out of a disgusted snarl. “Cut the funny stuff, Mike. This time you’re in a jam and a good one. What the devil has gotten into you? Good God, do you have to go off the deep end every time you get tangled with a dame?”

  “She wasn’t a dame, Pat.”

  “Okay, she was a good kid and I know it. There’s still no excuse.”

  I said something nasty. My tongue was still thick and unco-ordinated, but he knew what I meant. I said it twice until he was sure to get it.

  “Shut up,” he told me. “You’re not the first one it happened to. What do I have to do, smack you in the teeth with the fact that you were in love with a woman that got killed until you finally catch on that there’s nothing more you can do about it?”

  “Nuts. There were two of them.”

  “All right, forget it. Do you know what’s outside there?”

  “Sure, a corpse.”

  “That’s right, a corpse. Just like that. Both of you in the same hotel room and one of you dead. He’s got your gun and you’re drunk. What about it?”

  “I shot him. I was walking in my sleep and I shot him.”

  This time Pat said the nasty word. “Quit lousing me up, Mike. I want to find out what happened.”

  I waved my thumb toward the other room. “Where’d the goons come from?”

  “They’re policemen, Mike. They’re policemen just like me and they want to know the same things I do. At three o’clock the couple next door heard what they thought was a shot. They attributed it to a street noise until the maid walked in this morning and saw the guy on the floor and passed out in the doorway. Somebody called the cops and there it was. Now, what happened?”

  “I’ll be damned if I know,” I said.

  “You’ll be damned if you don’t.”

  I looked at Pat, my pal, my buddy. Captain Patrick Chambers, Homicide Department of New York’s finest. He didn’t look happy.

  I felt a little sick and got the lid of the bowl up just in time. Pat let me finish and wash my mouth out with water, then he handed me my clothes. “Get dressed.” His mouth crinkled up and he shook his head disgustedly.

  My hands were shaking so hard I started to curse the buttons on my shirt. I got my tie under my collar but I couldn’t knot it, so I let the damn thing hang. Pat held my coat and I slid into it, thankful that a guy can still be a friend even when he’s teed off at you.

  Fat Face in the fedora was still in the chair when I came out of the bathroom, only this time he was in focus and not groaning so much. If Pat hadn’t been there he would have laid me out with the working end of a billy and laughed while he did it. Not by himself, though.

  The two uniformed patrolmen were from a police car and the other two were plain-clothes men from the local precinct. I didn’t know any of them and none of them knew me, so we were even. The two plain-clothes men and one cop watched Pat with a knowledge behind their eyes that said, “So it’s one of those things, eh?”

  Pat put them straight pretty fast. He shoved a chair under me and took one himself. “Start from the beginning,” he said. “I want all of it, Mike, every single detail.”

  I leaned back and looked at the body on the floor. Someone had had the decency to cover it with a sheet. “His name is Chester Wheeler. He owns a department store in Columbus, Ohio. The store’s been in his family a long time. He’s got a wife and two kids. He was in New York on a buying tour for his business.” I looked at Pat and waited.

  “Go on, Mike.”

  “I met him in 1945, just after I got back from overseas. We were in Cincinnati during the time when hotel rooms were scarce. I had a room with twin beds and he was sleeping in the lobby. I invited him up to share a bed and he took me up on it. Then he was a captain in the Air Force, some kind of a purchasing agent, working out of Washington. We got drunk together in the morning, split up in the afternoon, and I didn’t see him again until last night. I ran into him in a bar where he was brooding into a beer feeling sorry for himself and we had a great reunion. I remember we changed bars about half a dozen times, then he suggested we park here for the night and we did. I bought a bottle and we finished it after we got up here. I think he began to get maudlin before we hit the sack but I can’t remember all the details. The next thing I knew somebody was beating my head trying to get me up.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Every bit of it, Pat.”

  He stood up and looked around the room. One of the plain-clothes men anticipated his question and remarked, “Everything is untouched, sir.”

  Pat nodded and knelt over to look at the body. I would like to have taken a look myself, but my stomach wouldn’t stand it. Pat didn’t speak to anyone in particular when he said, “Wound self-inflicted. No doubt about it.” His head jerked up in my direction. “You know, you’re going to lose your license over this, Mike.”

  “I don’t know why I didn’t shoot him,” 1 said sourly.

  Fat Face sneered, “How do you know you didn’t, wise guy?”

  “I never shoot people when I’m drunk,” I snarled, “unless they push me around and make like they’re tough.”

  “Wise guy”

  “Yeah, real wise.”

  “Cut it out, the both of you,” Pat snapped. Fat Face shut up and let me alone with my hangover. I slouched across the room to a chair in the corner and slid down into it. Pat was having a conference over by the door that wound up with everyone but Fat Face leaving. The door hadn’t closed shut before the co
roner came in, complete with wicker basket and pallbearers.

  The little men in my head started up with their hammers and chisels, so I closed my eyes and let my ears do the work. The medical examiner and the cops reached the same conclusion. It was my gun that shot him. A big round .45 fired at very close range. The fingerprint boys picked my prints off the rod and the other guy’s too. His were on top.

  A call came in for Pat right then and while he was on the phone I heard Fat Face suggest something to the M.E. that brought me straight up in the chair.

  Fat Face said, “...Murder just as easy. They were drunk and had an argument. Bright eyes plugged him and put the gun in his hand to make it look like suicide. Then he soused himself up with liquor to make it look good.”

  The M.E. bobbed his head. “Reasonable enough.”

  “You dirty fat slob, you!” I came out of the chair like a shot and spun him around on his heels. Cop or no cop, I would have caved his nose in for him if Pat hadn’t dropped the phone and stepped in between us. This time he took my arm and didn’t let go until he finished his phone call. When the body had been hoisted into the basket and carted off Pat unbuttoned his coat and motioned for me to sit on the bed.

  I sat.

  He had his hands in his pockets and he spoke as much to the plain-clothes man as to me. His words didn’t come easy, but he didn’t stumble over them exactly. “I’ve been waiting for this, Mike. You and that damn gun of yours were bound to get in trouble.”

  “Stow it, Pat. You know I didn’t shoot the guy.”

  “Do I?”

  “Hell, you ought to ... ?”

  “Do you know you didn’t?”

  “It was a closed room and I was so far gone I didn’t even hear the gun go off. You’ll get a paraffin test on the body that will prove it anyway. I’ll go for one myself and that will settle that. What are we jawing about?”

  “About you and that rod, that’s what! If the guy was a suicide you’ll be up the creek without a license. They don’t like for people to be carrying firearms and a load of liquor too.”

  He had me cold on that one. His eyes swept the room, seeing the clothes on the backs of the chairs, the empty whisky bottle on the windowsill, the stubs of cigarettes scattered all over the floor. My gun was on the desk along with a spent casing, with the white powder clotting in the oil, still showing the prints.

  Pat closed his eyes and grimaced. “Let’s go, Mike,” he said.

  I put on my coat over the empty holster and squeezed between the two of them for the ride down to headquarters. There was a parking-lot ticket in my pocket, so I didn’t worry about my heap. Fat Face had that look in his eyes that said he was hoping I’d make a break for it so he could bounce me one. It was rough having to disappoint the guy.

  For once I was glad to have a friend in the department. Pat ran the tests off on me himself and had me stick around downstairs until the report was finished. I had the ash tray half filled before he came back down. “What did it show?” I asked him.

  “You’re clean enough. The corpse carried the powder burns all right.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Is it? The D.A. wants to have a little talk with you. It seems that you managed to find an awfully fussy hotel to play around in. The manager raised a stink and carried it all the way upstairs. Ready?”

  I got up and followed him to the elevators, cursing my luck for running into an old buddy. What the hell got into the guy anyway? It would have been just as easy for him to jump out the damn window. The elevator stopped and we got out. It would have been better if there was an organ playing a dirge. I was right in the spirit for it.

  The D.A. was a guy who had his charming moments, only this time there weren’t any photographers around. His face wore a tailor-made look of sarcasm and there was ice in his words. He told me to sit down then perched himself on the edge of the desk. While Pat was running through the details he never took his eyes off me nor let his expression change one bit. If he thought he was getting under my skin with his professional leer he had another think coming. I was just about to tell him he looked like a frog when he beat me to it.

  “You’re done in this town, Mr. Hammer. I suppose you know that.”

  What the hell could I say? He held all the cards.

  He slid off the desk and stood at parade rest so I could admire his physique, I guess. “There were times when you proved yourself quite useful ... and quite trying. You let yourself get out of hand once too often. I’m sorry it happened this way, but it’s my opinion that the city is better off without you or your services.” The D.A. was getting a big whang out of this.

  Pat shot him a dirty look, but kept his mouth shut. I wasn’t a clam. “Then I’m just another citizen again?”

  “That’s right, with no license and no gun. Nor will you ever have one again.”

  “Are you booking me for anything?”

  “I can’t very well. I wish I could.”

  He must have read what was coming in the lopsided grin I gave him because he got red from his collar up. “For a D.A. you’re a pain in the behind,” I said. “If it wasn’t for me the papers would have run you in the comic section long ago.”

  “That will be enough, Mr. Hammer!”

  “Shut up your yap or arrest me, otherwise I’ll exercise my rights as a citizen, and one of ’em happens to be objecting to the actions of any public official. You’ve been after my hide ever since you walked into this office because I had sense enough to know where to look for a few killers. It made nice copy for the press and you didn’t even get an honorable mention. All I have to say is this ... it’s a damn good thing the police are civil service. They have to have a little bit of common sense to get where they are. Maybe you were a good lawyer ... you should have kept at it and quit trying to be king of the cops.”

  “Get out of here!” His voice was a short fuse ready to explode any second. I stood up and jammed on my hat. Pat was holding the door open. The D.A. said, “The very first time you so much as speed down Broadway, I’m going to see to it personally that you’re slapped with every charge in the book. That will make good press copy too.”

  I stopped with my hand on the knob and sneered at him, then Pat jerked my sleeve and I closed the door. In the hallway he kept his peace until we reached the stairs; it was as long as he could hold it. “You’re a fool, Mike.”

  “Nuts, Pat. It was his game all the way.”

  “You could keep your trap closed, couldn’t you?”

  “No!” I licked the dryness from my lips and stuck a cigarette in my mouth. “He’s been ready for me too long now. The jerk was happy to give me the shaft.”

  “So you’re out of business.”

  “Yeah. I’ll open up a grocery store.”

  “It isn’t that funny, Mike. You’re a private investigator and a good cop when you have to be. There were times when I was glad to have you around. It’s over now. Come on in my office ... we might as well have a drink on it.” He ushered me into his sanctum sanctorum and waved me into a chair. The bottom drawer of his desk had a special niche for a pint bottle and a few glasses, carefully concealed under a welter of blank forms. Pat drew two and handed one over to me. We toasted each other in silence, then spilled them down.

  “It was a pretty good show while it lasted,” Pat said.

  “Sure was,” I agreed, “sure was. What happens now?”

  He put the bottle and glasses away and dropped into the swivel chair behind his desk. “You’ll be called in if there’s an inquest. The D.A. is liable to make it hard on you out of meanness. Meanwhile, you’re clear to do what you please. I vouched for you. Besides, you’re too well known to the boys to try to drop out of sight.”

  “Buy your bread and butter from me, will you?”

  Pat let out a laugh. “I wish you wouldn’t take it so lightly. You’re in the little black book right now on the special S-list.”

  I pulled out my wallet and slid my license out of
the card case and threw it on his desk. “I won’t be needing that any more.”

  He picked it up and examined it sourly. A large envelope on the filing cabinet held my gun and the report sheet. He clipped the card to the form and started to put it back. On second thought he slid the magazine out of the rod and swore. “That’s nice. They put it in here with a full load.” He used his thumb to jack the shells out of the clip, spilling them on the desk.

  “Want to kiss old Betsy good-by, Mike?”

  When I didn’t answer he said, “What are you thinking of?”

  My eyes were squinted almost shut and I started to grin again. “Nothing,” I said, “nothing at all.”

  He frowned at me while he dumped the stuff back in the envelope and closed it. My grin spread and he started to get mad. “All right, damn it, what’s so funny? I know that look ... I’ve seen it often enough. What’s going through that feeble mind of yours?”

  “Just thoughts, Pat. Don’t be so hard on a poor unemployed pal, will you?”

  “Let’s hear those thoughts.”

  I picked a cigarette out of the container on his desk, then put it back after reading the label. “I was just thinking of a way to get that ticket back, that’s all.”

  That seemed to relieve him. He sat down and tugged at his tie. “It’ll be a good trick if you can work it. I can’t see how you can.”

  I thumbed a match and lit up a smoke. “It won’t be hard.”

  “No? You think the D.A. will mail it back to you with his apologies?”

  “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

  Pat kicked the swivel chair all the way around and glared at me. “You haven’t got your gun any more, you can’t hold him up.”

  “No,” I laughed, “but I can make a deal with him. Either he does mail it back with his apologies or I’ll make a sap out of him.”

  His palms cracked the desk and he was all cop again. This much wasn’t a game. “Do you know anything, Mike?”

  “No more than you. Everything I told you was the truth. It’ll be easy to check and your laboratory backs up my statements. The guy was a suicide. I agree with you. He shot himself to pieces and I don’t know why or when. All I know is where and that doesn’t help. Now, have you heard enough?”