I stopped and stared at the door. “The pictures ... Clyde’s gone after those pictures. If he gets them he’ll have the protection he needs and he’ll get out of this sure as grass grows in the springtime!”
I found the gun and leveled it at the lock, pulling the trigger until the room reeked with the fumes of burned powder. Damn his soul! Those pictures ... they weren’t in Anton’s apartment and they weren’t here ... the outside door had slammed shut too fast to give him time to pick anything up on the way. That left only one other place, the agency office.
Thinking about it gave me the strength I needed to bash it with my shoulder until it budged. Velda pushed with me and the furniture on the other side moved. We leaned against the dead weight, harder, working until the cords stood out in our necks. Something toppled from the pile and the door moved back far enough to let us out.
There was utter silence.
I threw the revolver on a chair and picked the Luger off the floor and stuffed it under my arm. I waved my thumb to the phone. “Call Pat. Try until you get him and if you can’t, call the D.A.’s office. That’ll get action quick enough. Make them put out a call for Clyde and we might be able to stop him in time.” I half-ran, half-stumbled to the door and held it open. Velda shouted something after me that I didn’t hear and I scrambled out to the lobby. The elevator pointer was at the bottom floor, the basement. But the service car was still in place. It took its own, agonizing time about going down and I stopped it at the main hall and ran out the front. The admiral gave me a queer look, tried to grab me and got a fist in the mouth. He lost me in the snow before he could get up, but I could hear him yelling as I got in my car. I was two blocks away from the apartment building when the first squad car shot by. I was five blocks farther on when I remembered that Connie had gone up to the office that night.
I got that funny feeling back in my stomach again and jammed my foot down on the throttle and weaved across town so I could intersect Thirty-third Street without wasting a minute.
When I came to the cemetery of buildings I slowed down and parked. A light was on behind the entrance doors and an old fellow sat under it reading a paper. He was just checking his turnip watch when I pulled the door open. He shook his head and waved for me to go away.
I kicked the door so hard it shook violently. The old guy threw his paper down and turned the lock. “It’s too late. You can’t go in. We closed up half-hour ago. Not even late visitors. Go on, scram.”
He didn’t get a chance to close it on me. I rammed it with the heel of my hand and stepped inside. “Anybody been here in the last few minutes?”
His head jerked nervously. “Ain’t been nobody here for over an hour. Look, you can’t come in, so why don’t you ...”
Clyde hadn’t shown up. Hell, he had to come here! He should be here! “Is there another way in this place?”
“Yes, the back way. That’s locked up tight. Nobody can get in that way unless I unbolt it. Look, mister ...”
“Oh, keep quiet. Call the cops if you want to.”
“I don’t understand ... what you after?”
I let him have the nastiest look I could work up. “A killer. A guy with a gun.”
He swallowed hard. “Nobody’s been in ... you’re kidding, ain’t you?”
“Yeah, I’m kidding so hard it hurts. You know who I am, Mac? My name is Mike Hammer. The cops want me. The killer wants me. Everybody wants my skin and I’m still walking around loose. Now answer my question, who was in here tonight?”
This time he gulped audibly. “Some ... a guy from the first ... floor. He came back and worked. A few people from the insurance came in. Some others were with Roy Carmichael when he came in. They got some likker out of the office and left. I saw some others standing around the register later. Maybe if you looked there ...”
“Sure, he wrote his name down. Take me upstairs, pop. I want to get in the Anton Lipsek Agency.”
“Oh, say now. Young girl went in there while back. Nice kid. Sure I let her in there. Don’t remember seeing her come back. Must’ve been making my rounds.”
“Take me upstairs.”
“You better use the self-service elevator ...”
I shoved him in one of the main cars and he dropped his time clock. He glared at me once and shut the door. We got out and walked down the hall to the office and my gun was in my hand. This time there wouldn’t be anybody coming up behind me.
The light was on and the doors were open, wide open. I went in running with my gun waist-high and covered the room. The watchman was wheezing in the doorway, bug-eyed with fright. I combed the rooms until the place was lit up like it was a working day. There were dressing rooms and minor offices, closets for supplies and closets for clothes. There were three neat darkrooms and one not so neat. I found the room I was looking for branching off a layout studio.
I found it and I opened the door and stood there with my mouth open to let me breathe up all the insane hatred that was stored up in my chest.
Connie was lying in the middle of the room with her eyes wide open. Her back had been bent to form aV and she was dead.
The room was ceiling-high with storage cabinets, covered with dust that revealed its infrequent use. The drawer of one of those cabinets gaped wide open and a whole section of folders had been removed.
I was too late again.
The watchman had to hold on to me to keep from fainting. He worked his mouth, trying to keep his eyes from the body. He made slobbering noises and shouted his fear and he held on tighter. He was still holding my arm when I kneeled down to look at Connie.
No marks, just that look of incredible pain on her face. The whole thing had been done with one swift, clean stroke. I opened her fingers gently and lifted out the piece of shipping tag she had clutched so tightly. The part that was left said, “To attach magnifier to screen ...” the rest had been torn off. In the dust of the floor was the outline of where a crate had stood. Another fine line in the dust showed where the same crate had been tipped on end and dragged out in the hall. There were no marks after that and no crate either.
I left the door open and went back to the foyer, the little watchman blubbering behind me. After I tried a half-dozen combinations in the switchboard I got an outside wire. I said, “Give me the police.” The watchman sat down and trembled while I told the desk man at the precinct station where to look for a body. When I hung up I steered the little guy back to the elevator and made him run me down to the basement.
It was just what I had expected. The door that was supposed to have been bolted so tightly to keep people out was swinging wide where a killer had gotten out.
The watchman didn’t want to be left alone, and begged me not to go. I shoved him away and walked up the stairs and around the building.
I knew where the killer was hiding now.
CHAPTER 13
The snow that had tried so hard to block me wasn’t something to be fought any longer. I leaned back against the cushions of the car in complete relaxation and had the first enjoyable cigarette I’d had in a long time. I sucked the smoke down deep into my lungs and let it go reluctantly. Even the smoke looked pretty as it drifted out the window into the night.
Everything was so white, covering up so much filth. Nature doing its best to hide its own. I drove slowly, carefully, staying in the tracks of the cars ahead. When I turned on the radio I heard my name mentioned on the police broadcast band and turned the dial until I had some late music.
When I reached my destination I backed in between two cars and even went to the trouble of locking the door like any good citizen would who expects to go home and to bed for the rest of the night. There were a few lights on in the apartment building, but whether they came from the one I wanted or not, I couldn’t tell.
I took one last drag on the butt and flipped it into the gutter. It lay there a moment fizzling before it went out. I walked in the lobby and held my finger on the buzzer until the door clicked, then I walked in.
Why hurry? Time had lost its value. My feet took each step carefully, one after the other, bringing me to the top. I walked straight down the hall to the door that stood open and said, “Hello, Juno.”
I didn’t wait for her answer. I brushed right past her and walked inside. I walked through the room and pulled chairs from their corners. I walked into the bedroom and opened the closet doors. I walked into the bathroom and ripped the shower curtain down. I walked into the kitchen and poked around the pantry.
My hands were ready to grab and my feet were ready to kick and my gun was ready to shoot. But nobody was there. The fires began in my feet and licked up my body until they were eating into my brain. Every pain that had been ignored up to this moment gave birth to greater pains that were like teeth gripping my flesh apart. I held the edge of the door and spun around to face her with all that pain and hatred laid bare on my face.
My voice was a deadly hiss. “Where is he, Juno?”
The hurt that spoke to me from her eyes was eloquent. She stood there in a long-sleeved gown, her hands clutching her throat as my madness reached her. “Mike ...” that was all she could say. Her breasts rose under the gown as her breath caught.
“Where is he, Juno?” I had the Luger in my hand now. My thumb found the hammer and dragged it back.
Her lips, her beautiful lips, quivered and she took a step away from me. One step then another until she was standing in the living room. “You’re hiding him, Juno. He came here. It was the only place the crazy bastard could come. Where is he?”
Ever so slowly she closed her eyes, shaking her head. “Oh, please, please, Mike. What have they done to you! Mike ...”
“I found Connie, Juno. She was in the storeroom. She was dead. I found the files gone. Clyde might have had just enough time to get in and tear those files out after he killed Connie. I found something else, the same thing she found. It was part of a shipping ticket for a television set. That was the set you were supposed to deliver to Jean Trotter, but you knew she wasn’t going to need that so you had it stacked in the storeroom until you could get rid of it. You were the only one who knew it was there ... until tonight. Did Clyde find it and take it away so you wouldn’t get tied into this?”
Her eyes opened wide, eyes that said it wasn’t true, not any part of it. I didn’t believe them. “Where is he, Juno?” I grabbed the gun up until it pointed at a spot midway between those laughing, youthful breasts under the gown.
“Nobody is here, Mike. You saw that. Please ...”
“Seven people are dead, Juno. Seven people. In this whole crazy scheme of things you have a part. It’s a beautiful scheme though, hand-tailored to come apart whenever you try to get a look at it. Don’t play games with me, Juno. I know why they were killed and how they were killed. It was trying to guess who killed them that had me going in circles. Your little blackmail cycle would have remained intact. Just one of those seven would have died if I hadn’t been in the room with Wheeler that night. Who knew that I’d do my damndest to break it open?”
She watched me, her hands still at her throat. She shook her head and said, “No, Mike, no!” and her knees trembled so she fought to keep her balance. It was too much. Juno reached out her hand to steady herself, holding the back of a chair. Slowly, gracefully even now, she sat down on the edge of it, her lower lip between her teeth.
I nodded yes, Juno, yes. The gun in my hand was steady. The hatred I had inside me bubbled over into my mouth and spilled out. “I thought it was Anton at first. Then I found a mail receipt to Clyde. Anton had sent him some pictures. The Bowery Inn was a great place to draw the girls. It was designed specifically for that. It got the girls and with them the suckers.
“Who led the girls there in the first place, Juno? Who made it a fad to hang out down there where Clyde could win at his gambling tables and insure his business with photos that gave him the best coverage in the world? Did you do that, Juno? Did Clyde have a crush on you at one time and figure a good way of being able to stay in business? Was it Clyde who saw the possibilities of getting blackmail evidence on the big shots? Or was it you? It wasn’t Anton, for sure. That goon had rocks in his head. But he co-operated, though, didn’t he? He co-operated because he saw a way to purchase all those expensive paintings he had in his place.”
Her eyes were dull things, all the life gone from them. She sat with her head down and sobbed, one hand covering her face.
I spit the words out. “That’s the way it was, all right. It worked fine for a while. Clyde had his protection and he was using it for all he was worth. But you, Juno ... you wanted to go on with it. It wasn’t so hard to do because money is easy to like. You were the brains of the outfit ... the thinking brains. Clyde was the strong-arm boy and he had his little army to help him out.”
I stopped and let it sink in. I waited a full minute.
“Juno ...”
She raised her head slowly. Her eyes were red, the mascara streaking her cheeks. “Mike ... can’t you ...”
“Who killed them all, Juno? Where is he?”
Her hands dropped to her lap, folded across her stomach in despair. I raised the gun. “Juno.” Only her eyes looked at me. “I’m going to shoot you, Juno, then I’m going to go out and get him all by myself. I’m going to shoot you where it will hurt like hell and you won’t die quickly ... if you don’t tell me. All you have to do is tell me where I can find him and I’ll give him the chance to use his hands on me like he tried to do before and like he did to some of the others. Where is he, Juno?”
She didn’t speak.
I was going to kill her, so help me God. If I didn’t she could fake her way out because I was the only one who knew what had happened. There wasn’t a single shred of evidence against her that could be used in court and I knew it. But I could kill her. She had a part in this! The whole thing was her doing and she was as guilty as the killer!
The gun in my hand wavered and I clamped down on the butt to keep it lined up. It was in my face, I could feel it. She could see it. The poison that is hate was dripping out of me and scoring my face. My eyes burned holes in my head and my whole body reeled under the sickening force that pulled me toward her.
I pointed the gun at her head and sighted along the barrel and said, “My God, I can’t!” because the light was in her hair turning it into a halo of white that brought the dead back to life and I was seeing Charlotte’s face instead of hers.
I went crazy for a second. Stark, raving mad. My head was a throbbing thing that laughed and screamed for me to go on, bringing the sounds out of my mouth before I could stop it. When the madness went away I was panting like a dog, my breath coming in short, hot gasps.
“I thought I could do it. I thought I could kill you, Juno. I can’t. Once there was another woman. You remind me of her. You’ve seen me when I was hating something ... I was hating her. I loved her and I killed her. I shot her in the stomach. Yeah, Juno ... I didn’t think it would be this much trouble to kill another woman but it is.
“So you don’t die tonight. I’ll take you down to the police and do what I said. Go on, sit there and smile. You’ll get out of it, but I’m going to do everything I can to see that you don’t.”
I stuck the gun back under my arm and reached for her hand. “Come on, Juno. I have a friend on the force who will be happy to book you on my word, even if it means his job.”
She came up out of the chair.
Then all hell broke loose. She grabbed my arm and a fist smashed into my nose and I staggered back. There wasn’t time to get my hands up before I crashed into the wall, stunned. A devil had me by the throat and a knee came up into my groin. I screamed and doubled over, breaking the grip on my neck. Something gave me the sense to lash out with my feet and the next second she was on top of me clawing for my eyes.
I jerked my head away feeling the skin go with it and brought my fist up and saw it split her nose apart. The blood ran into her mouth and choked off a yell. She tried to get away, fought, kicked and sq
uirmed to get away, but I held on and hammered until she rolled off me.
She didn’t stay off. The room echoed with a torrent of animal noises and my arm was wrenched back in a hammerlock that pulled me completely off my feet. A knee went into my spine and pushed, trying to split me in half. My madness saved me. It flowed into my veins giving me the strength for a tremendous, final effort that hurled me out of her arms and tumbled her in front of me. She came back for another try and I leaped in to meet her and got my hands on her clothes to jam her in close.
But she twisted away and there was a loud whispering tear of cloth and the gown came away in my hands. Juno went staggering across the room stark naked except for the high-heel shoes and sheer stockings. She rammed an end table, her hands reaching for the drawer, and she got it open far enough for me to see the gun she was trying to get at.
I had mine out first and I said harshly, “Stand still, Juno.”
The Mike Hammer Collection Volume 1 Page 65
