“It’s bound to have a bearing.”
“It’ll come, it’ll come. How about trying to run down Mallory for me? Think you can find anything on him?”
“We should, Mike. Let’s go down to headquarters. If he was pinched at all we’ll have a record of it.”
“Roger.” We were lucky enough to nab a cab waiting for the red light on the corner of Fifth and Forty-second. Pat gave him the downtown address and we leaned back into the cushions. Fifteen minutes later we got out in front of an old-fashioned red brick building and took the elevator to the third floor. I waited in an office until Pat returned bearing a folder under his arm. He cleared off the desk with a sweep of his hand and shook the contents out on the blotter.
The sheaf was fastened with a clip. The typewritten notation read, Herron Mallory. As dossiers go, it wasn’t thick. The first page gave Mallory’s history and record of his first booking. Age twenty in 1927; born in New York City of Irish-Russian parents. Charged with operating a vehicle without a license. That was the starter. He came up on bootlegging, petty larceny; he was suspected of participating in a hijack-killing and a holdup. Plenty of charges, but a fine list of cases suspended and a terse “not convicted” written across the bottom of the page. Mr. Mallory either had a good lawyer or friends where it counted. The last page bore his picture, a profile and front view shot of a dark fellow slightly on the thin side with eyes and mouth carrying an inbred sneer.
I held it under the light to get a better look at it, studying it from every angle, but nothing clicked.
Pat said, “Well?”
“No good, chum. Either I never saw him before or the years have changed him a lot. I don’t know the guy from Adam.”
He held out a typewritten report. One that had never gotten past a police desk. I read it over. In short, it was the charges that Mallory had wanted filed against York for kidnapping his kid. No matter who Mallory was or had been, there was a note of sincerity in that statement. There was also a handwritten note on hospital stationery from Head Nurse Rita Cambell briefly decrying the charge as absolutely false. There was no doubt about it. Rita Cambell’s note was aggressive and assuring enough to convince anyone that Mallory was all wet. Fine state of affairs. I had never participated in the mechanics of becoming a father, but I did know that the male parent was Johnny-the-Glom as far as the hospital was concerned. He saw his baby maybe once for two minutes through a tiny glass plate set in the door. Sure, it would be possible to recognize your child even in that time, but all babies do look alike in most ways. To the nurse actually in charge of the child’s entire life, however, each one has the separate identity of a person. It was unlikely that she would make a mistake . . . unless paid for it. Damn, it could happen unless you knew nurses. Doubt again. Nurses had a code of ethics as rigid as a doctor’s. Any woman who gave her life to the profession wasn’t the type that would succumb to a show of long green.
Hell, I was getting all balled up. First I was sure it was a switch, now I wasn’t so sure. Pat had seen the indecision in my face. He can figure things, too. “There it is, Mike. I can’t do anything more because it’s outside my jurisdiction, but if I can help you in any way, say the word.”
“Thanks, kid. It really doesn’t make much difference whether it was a switch or not. Someplace Mallory figures in it. Before I can go any further I’ll have to find either Mallory or Grange, but don’t ask me how. If Price turns up Grange I’ll get a chance to talk to her, but if Dilwick is the one I’ll be out in the cold.”
Pat looked sour. “Dilwick ought to be in jail.”
“Dilwick ought to be dead. He’s a bastard.”
“He’s still the law, though, and you know what that means.”
“Yeah.”
Pat started stuffing the papers back in the folder, but I stopped him. “Let me take another look at them, will you?”
“Sure.”
I rifled through them quickly, then shook my head.
“Something familiar?”
“No . . . I don’t think so. There’s something in there that’s ringing a bell, but I can’t put my finger on it. Oh, nuts, put ’em away.”
We went downstairs together and shook hands in the doorway. Pat hailed a cab and I took the next one up to Fifty-fourth and Eighth, then out over to the parking lot. The day was far from being wasted; I was getting closer to the theme of the thing. On top of everything else there was a possible baby switch. It was looking up now. Here was an underlying motive that was as deep and unending as the ocean. The groping, the fumbling after ends that led nowhere was finished. This was meat that could be eaten. But first it had to be chewed; chewed and ground up fine before it could be swallowed.
My mind was hammering itself silly. The dossier. What was in the dossier? I saw something there, but what? I went over it carefully enough; I checked everything against everything else, but what did I forget?
The hell with it. I shoved the key in the ignition and stepped on the starter.
CHAPTER 9
Going back to Sidon I held it down to a slow fifty, stopping only once for a quick bite and a tank of gas. Someday I was going to get me a decent meal. Someday. Three miles from the city I turned off the back road to a cloverleaf, then swung onto the main artery. When I reached the state police headquarters I cut across the concrete and onto the gravel.
For once Price was in when I wanted him.
So was Dilwick.
I said hello to Price and barely nodded to Dilwick.
“You lousy slob!” he muttered softly.
“Shut up, pig.”
“Maybe you both better shut up,” Price put in quietly. I threw my hat on the desk and pushed a butt between my lips. Price waited until I lit it, then jerked his thumb toward the fat cop.
“He wants words with you, Mike.”
“Let’s hear ’em,” I offered.
“Not here, wise guy. I think you’d do better at the station. I don’t want to be interrupted.”
That was a nasty dig at Price, and the sergeant took it right up. “Forget that stuff,” he barked, “while he’s here he’s under my jurisdiction. Don’t forget it.”
For a minute I thought Dilwick was going to swing and I was hoping he would. I’d love to be in a two-way scramble over that guy. The odds were too great. He looked daggers at Price. “I won’t forget it,” he repeated.
Price led off. “Dilwick says you broke into the Grange apartment and confiscated something of importance. What about it, Mike?”
I let Dilwick have a lopsided grin. “Did I?”
“You know damn well you did! You’d better . . .”
“How do you know it was important?”
“It’s gone, that’s reason enough.”
“Hell.”
“Wait a minute, Mike,” Price cut in. “What did you take?”
I saw him trying to keep his face straight. Price liked this game of baiting Dilwick.
“I could say nothing, pal, and he couldn’t prove a thing. I bet you never found any prints of mine, did you, Dilwick?” The cop’s face was getting redder. “. . . and the way you had that building bottled up nobody should have been able to get in, should they?” Dilwick would split his seams if I kept it up any longer. “Sure, I was there, so what? I found what a dozen of you missed.”
I reached in my pocket and yanked out the two wills. Dilwick reached a shaking hand for them but I passed them to Price. “This old one was in Grange’s apartment. It isn’t good because this is the later one. Maybe it had better be filed someplace.”
Dilwick was watching me closely. “Where did the second one come from?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I was too slow. The back of Dilwick’s hand nearly rocked my head off my shoulders. The arm of a chair hit my side and before I could spill over into it Dilwick had my shirt front. Price caught his hand before he could swing again.
I kicked the chair away and pulled free as Price stepped between us. “Let me go, Price!”
I yelled.
“Damn it, I said to turn it off!”
Dilwick backed off reluctantly. “I’ll play that back to you, Dilwick,” I said. Nobody was pulling that trick on me and getting by with it. It’s a wonder he had the nerve to start something after that last pasting I gave him. Maybe he was hoping I’d try to use my rod . . . that would be swell. He could knock me off as nice as anything and call it police business.
“Maybe you’ll answer the next time you’re spoken to, Hammer. You’ve pulled a lot of shady deals around here lately and I’m sick of it. As for you, Price, you’re treating him like he’s carrying a badge. You’ve got me hog-tied, but that won’t last long if I want to work on it.”
The sergeant’s voice was almost a whisper. “One day you’re going to go too far. I think you know what I mean.”
Evidently Dilwick did. His lips tightened into a thin line and his eyes blazed, but he shut up just the same. “Now if you have anything to say, say it properly.”
With an obvious attempt at controlling his rage, Dilwick nodded. He turned to me again. “Where did you get the other will?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I repeated.
“You letting him get away with this, Price?”
The trooper was on the spot. “Tell him, Mike.”
“I’ll tell you, Price. He can listen in. I found it among York’s personal effects.”
For a full ten minutes I stood by while the two of them went over the contents of the wills. Price was satisfied with a cursory examination, but not so Dilwick. He read every line, then reread them. I could see the muscles of his mouth twitch as he worked the thing out in his mind. No, I was not underestimating Dilwick one bit. There wasn’t much that went on that he didn’t know about. Twice, he let his eyes slide off the paper and meet mine. It was coming. Any minute now.
Then it was here. “I could read murder into this,” he grated.
Price turned sharply. “Yes?”
“Hammer, I think I’m going to put you on the spot.”
“Swell. You’d like that. Okay, go ahead.”
“Pull up your ears and get a load of this, Price. This punk and the Nichols dame could make a nice team. Damn nice. You didn’t think I’d find out about those pictures, did you, Hammer? Well, I did. You know what it looks like to me? It looks like the Nichols babe blackmailed Grange into making York change his will. Let York see those shots and Grange’s reputation would be shot to hell, she’d be fired and lose out on the will to boot. At least if she came through on the deal, all she’d lose was the will.”
I nodded. “Pretty, but where do I come in?”
“Right now. Grange got hold of those pictures somehow. Only Nichols pulls a fast one and tells York that Grange was the one who was blackmailing her. York takes off for Grange’s apartment in a rage because he had a yen for his pretty little niece, only Grange bumps him. Then Nichols corners you and you bump Grange and get the stuff off her, and the will. Now you turn it up, Nichols comes into a wad of cash and you split it.”
It wasn’t as bad as I thought. Dilwick had squeezed a lot of straight facts out of somebody, only he was putting it together wrong. Yeah, he had gotten around, all right. He had reached a lot of people to get that much and he’d like to make it stick.
Price said, “What about it, Mike?”
I grinned. “He’s got a real sweet case there.” I looked at the cop. “How’re you going to prove it?”
“Never mind,” he snarled, “I will, I will. Maybe I ought to book you right now on what I have. It’ll hold up and Price knows it, too.”
“Uh-uh. It’ll hold up . . . for about five minutes. Did you find Grange yet?”
He said nothing.
“Nuts,” I laughed, “no corpus delicti, no Mike Hammer.”
“Wrong, Hammer. After a reasonable length of time and sufficient evidence to substantiate death, a corpse can be assumed.”
“He’s right, Mike.”
“Then he’s got to shoot holes in my alibi, Price. I have a pretty tight one.”
“Where did you go after you left Alice’s apartment the other night?” Brother, I should have guessed it. Dilwick had put the bee on the Graham kid and the bastard copped a sneak. It was ten to one he told Dilwick he hadn’t seen me.
That’s what I get for making enemies. If the Graham kid thought he could put me on the spot he’d do it. So would Alice for that matter.
But there were still angles. “Go ahead and work on my alibi, Dilwick. You know what it is. Only I’ll give you odds that I can make your witness see the light sooner than you can.”
“Not if you’re in the can.”
“First get me there. I don’t think you can. Even if you did a good lawyer could rip those phonies apart on the stand and you know it. You’re stalling, Dilwick. What’re you scared of? Me? Afraid I’ll put a crimp in your doings?”
“You’re asking for it, punk.”
Price came back into the argument. “Skip it, Dilwick. If you have the goods on him then present it through the regular channels, only don’t slip up. Let you and your gang go too far and there’ll be trouble. I’m satisfied to let Mr. Hammer operate unhampered because I’m familiar with him . . . and you, too.”
“Thanks, pal.”
Dilwick jammed his hat on and stamped out of the room. If I wanted to get anywhere I was going to have to act fast, because my fat friend wasn’t going to let any grass grow under his feet finding enough dope to toss me in the clink. When the door slammed I let Price have my biggest smile. He smiled right back.
“Where’ve you been?”
“New York. I tried to get you before I left but you weren’t around.”
“I know. We’ve had a dozen reports of Grange being seen and I’ve been running them down.”
“Any luck?”
“Nothing. A lot of mistaken identities and a few cranks who wanted to see the police in action. What did you get?”
“Plenty. We’re back to the kidnapping again. This whole pot of stew started there and is going to end there. Ruston wasn’t York’s kid at all. His died in childbirth and another was switched to take its place. The father of the baby was a small-time hoodlum and tried to make a complaint but was dissuaded along the line. All very nicely covered up, but I think it’s a case of murder that’s been brewing for fourteen years.”
During the next half hour I gave him everything I knew, starting with my trip to the local library. Price was a lot like Pat. He sat there saying nothing, taking it all in and letting it digest in his mind. Occasionally he would nod, but never interrupted until I had finished.
He said: “That throws the ball to this Mallory character.”
“Roger, and the guy is completely unknown. The last time he showed up was a few days after the switch took place.”
“A man can change a lot in fourteen years.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” I agreed. “The first thing we have to do is concentrate on locating Grange. Alive or dead she can bring us further up to date. She didn’t disappear for nothing.”
“All right, Mike, I’ll do my share. I still have men dragging the channel and on the dragnet. What are you going to do?”
“There are a few members of the loyal York clan that I’d like to see. In the meantime do you think you can keep Dilwick off my neck?”
“I’ll try, but I can’t promise much. Unfortunately, the law is made up of words which have to be abided more by the letter than the spirit therein, so to speak. If I can sidetrack him I will, but you had better keep him under observation if you can. I don’t have to tell you what he’s up to. He’s a stinker.”
“Twice over. Okay, I’ll keep in touch with you. Thanks for the boost. The way things are I’m going to have to be sharp on my end to beat Dilwick out of putting me up at the expense of the city.”
Dusk had settled around the countryside like a gray blanket when I left headquarters. I stepped into the car and rolled out the drive to the highway. I turned toward t
he full glow that marked the lights of Sidon and pulled into the town at suppertime. I would have gone straight to the estate if I hadn’t passed the library, which was still lit up.
It was just an idea, but I’ve had them before and they’d paid off. I slammed the brakes on, backed up and parked in front of the building. Inside the door I noticed the girl at the desk, but she wasn’t the same one I had spoken to before. This one had legs like a bridge lamp. Thinking that perhaps Legs was in one of the reading rooms, I toured the place, but aside from an elderly gentleman, two school-teacher types and some kids, the place was empty.
Just to be sure I checked the cellar, too, but the light was off and I didn’t think she’d be down there in the dark even if Grange was with her. Not with that musty-tomb odor anyway.
The girl at the desk said, “Can I help you find something, sir?”
“Maybe you can.”
“What book was it?”
I tried to look puzzled. “That is what I forgot. The girl that was here this morning had it all picked out for me. Now I can’t find her.”
“Oh, you mean Miss Cook?”
“Yeah,” I faked, “that’s the one. Is she around now?”
This time the girl was the one to be puzzled. “No, she isn’t. She went home for lunch this afternoon and never returned. I came on duty early to replace her. We’ve tried to locate her all over town, but she seems to have dropped from sight. It’s so very strange.”
It was getting hot now, hotter than ever. The little bells were going off inside my skull. Little bells that tinkled and rang and chimed and beat themselves into shattered pieces of nothing. It was getting hotter, this broth, and I was holding onto the handle.
“This Miss Cook. Where does she live?”
“Why, two blocks down on Snyder Avenue. Shall I call her apartment again? Perhaps she’s home now.”
I didn’t think she’d have any luck, but I said, “Please do.”
She lifted the receiver and dialed a number. I heard the buzz of the bell on the other end, then the voice of the landlady answering. No, Miss Cook hadn’t come in yet. Yes, she would tell her to call as soon as she did. Yes. Yes. Good night.
The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 3 Page 49
