Marsha said, “Did he ...”
“The guy has the same idea as you, chick. He thinks there was a one-floor error and for my money you’re both right.”
Her shoulders made a faint gesture of resignation. “Well, I guess there’s little that can be done then. I had hoped to recover the pearls for sentimental reasons. I wore them in my first picture.”
If I grinned I couldn’t have been nice to look at. My lips felt tight over my teeth and I shook my head. “It’s a dirty mess, Marsha. Two guys are dead already and there’ll be another on the way soon. The guy who robbed your place left a baby behind, then went right out to get chopped down. Hell, it isn’t what he took, it’s why he took it. He was on the level for a long time then just like that he went bad and no guy like him is going to pull something that’ll let his own kid get tossed to the dogs.
“Damn it, I was there and saw it! I watched him cry and kiss his kid good-by and go out and cash in his chips. Now I have the kid and I know what he must have felt like. Goddamn it anyway, there’s a reason why these things happen and that’s what I want. Maybe it’s only a little reason and maybe it’s a big one, but by God, I’m going to get it.”
Her eyes were square and steady on mine, a deep liquid brown that got deeper as she stared at me. “You’re a strange kind of guy,” she said. I picked up my hat and stood up. She came forward to meet me, holding her hand out. “Mike ... about the child ... if I can help out with it, well I’m pretty well set up financially ...”
I squeezed her hand. “You know, you’re a strange kind of guy yourself.”
“Thanks, Mike.”
“But I can take care of the kid okay.” She gave me a lopsided smile that made her look good even with the shiner. “By the way ... would you happen to have an extra picture around ... like that one?” I nodded toward the piano.
For a long space of time she held on to my hand and ran her eyes over my face. “What for, won’t I do in person?”
I let my hat drop and it stayed on the floor. My hands ran up her arms until my fingers were digging into her shoulders and I drew her in close. She was all woman, every bit of her. Her body was taut, her breasts high and firm with all the vitality of youth, and I could feel the warm outlines of her legs as I pressed her against me. She raised herself on her toes deliberately, tantalizing, a subtle motion that I knew was an invitation not lightly given.
I wanted to kiss her, but I knew that when I did I’d want to make it so good and so hard it would hurt long enough to be remembered and now wasn’t the time. Later, when her mouth was smooth and soft again.
“You’ll be back, Mike?” she whispered.
She knew the answer without being told. I pushed her away and picked up my hat.
There were things in this city that could be awfully nasty.
There were things in this city that could be awfully nice too.
CHAPTER 3
I stopped by the office that afternoon. The only one in the building to say hello was the elevator operator and he had to look twice to recognize me. It was a hell of a feeling. You live in the city your whole life, take off for six months and you are unknown when you come back. I opened the door and felt a little better when I saw the same old furniture in the same old place. The only thing that was missing was Velda. Her desk was a lonely corner in the anteroom, dusted and ready for a new occupant.
I said something dirty. I was always saying something dirty these days.
She had left a folder of correspondence she thought I might want to see on my desk. It wasn’t anything important. Just a record of bills paid, my bank statements and a few letters. I closed the folder and stowed it away in a drawer. There was a fifth of good whisky still there with the wrapper on. I stripped off the paper, uncorked the bottle and looked at it. I worked the top off and smelled it. Then I put it back and shut the drawer. I felt stinking and didn’t like the feeling.
Outside on Velda’s desk the phone started ringing. I went out in a hurry hoping it might be her, but a rough voice said, “You Mike Hammer?”
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“Johnny Vileck. You know, the super down in Decker’s building. I had a hell of a time tryin’ to get you. Lucky I remembered your name.”
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I was thinking over what we was speaking about this morning. Remember you asked me about Decker needin’ dough?”
“Uh-huh.”
“When I went out to get the paper I got talking to the blind newsie on the corner. The old guy was pretty busted up about it. Him and Decker was pretty good friends. Anyway, one night after the old lady died, he was up there playing chess when this guy come around. He wanted to know when Decker was going to get the cash he owed. Decker paid him something and the guy left and after it he mentioned that he had to borrow a big chunk to cover the wife’s operation. Mentioned three grand.”
I let it jell in my head for a minute, twisting it around until it made sense. “Where could he get that kind of dough?”
Vileck grunted and made a shrug I couldn’t see. “Beats me. He never borrowed nuthing and it’s damn sure he didn’t go to no bank.”
“Anybody in the neighborhood got it?”
“Not in this neighborhood, pal. Once somebody’ll hit a number or a horse, but he ain’t lending it out, you can bet. There’s plenty of tough guys around here who show up with a roll sometimes, but it’s flash money and they’re either gone or in jail the next day. Nope, he didn’t get it around here.”
“Thanks for the dope, John. If you ever need a favor, let me know.”
“Sure, pal, glad to let you know about it.”
“Look ... did you mention this to the cops?”
“Naw. I found out after they left. Besides, they don’t hear from me unless they ask. Cops is okay long as they stay outa my joint.”
I told him so long and put the receiver back. There was the reason for murder and it was a good one. Three grand worth. Now it was coming out right. Decker went into somebody for three grand and he had to bail himself out by stealing it. So he made a mistake when he raided the wrong apartment and his pals didn’t believe it. They thought he was holding out. So they bump him figuring to lift a jackpot and all they got was a measly three hundred bucks and a string of pearls.
Damn it, the whole thing made me boil over! Because a guy couldn’t wait to get his dough back a kid is made an orphan. My city, yeah. How many places around town was the same thing going on?
I sat down on the edge of the desk to think about it and the whole thing hit me suddenly and sharply and way back in my head I could hear that crazy music start until it was beating through my brain with a maddening frenzy that tried to drive away any sanity I had left. I cursed to myself until it was gone then went back to my desk and pulled out the bottle. This time I had a drink.
It took me all afternoon to find what I wanted. I went down to the docks and let my P.I. ticket and my badge get me inside the gates until I reached the right paymaster who had handled William Decker’s card. He was a little guy in his late fifties with an oversize nose built into a face that was streaked with little purple veins.
He made me wait until he finished tallying up his report, then stuck the clipboard on a nail in the wall and swung around in his chair. He said, “What’s on your mind, buddy?”
I offered him a smoke and he waved it away to chew on a ratty cigar. “Remember a guy named Decker?”
He grunted a yes and waited.
“He have any close friends on the docks here?”
“Might have. What‘cha want to know for?”
“I heard he died. I owed him a few bucks and I want to see that it goes to his estate.”
The guy clucked and sucked his tongue a minute. He opened his desk drawer and riffled through a file of cards until he came to the one he wanted. “Well, here’s his address and he’s got a kid. Got him down for two dependents, but I think his wife died awhile back.”
“I found that out.
If I can dig up a pal of his maybe he’ll know something more about him.”
“Yeah. Well, seems like he always shaped in with a guy named Hooker. Mel Hooker. Tall thin guy with a scar on his face. They got paid off today so they’ll be in the joints ‘cross the way cashing their checks. Why don’tcha go over an’ try?”
I stuffed the butt in the ash tray on the desk. “I’ll do that. Give me his address in case I miss him.”
He scratched something on a pad and handed it over. I said thanks and left.
It wasn’t that easy. I thought I hit every saloon on the street until a guy told me about a couple I had missed and then I found him. The place was a rattrap where they’d take the drunks that had been kicked out of other places and make them spend their last buck. You had to go down a couple of steps to reach the door and before you reached it you could smell what you were walking into.
The place was a lot bigger than I expected. They were lined up two deep at the bar and when they couldn’t stand any more they sat down at the bench along the wall. One guy had passed out and was propped up against a partition with his pockets turned inside out.
Mel Hooker was down the back watching a shuffleboard game. He had half a bag on and looked it. The yellow glare of the overhead lights brought out the scar that ran from his forehead to his chin in bold relief almost as if it was still an ugly gash. I walked over and pulled out the chair beside him.
He looked at me enough to say, “Beat it.”
“You Mel Hooker?”
“Who wants to know?” His voice had a nasty drunken snarl to it.
“How’d you like to get the other side of your face opened up, feller?”
He dropped his glass like it was shot out of his hand and tried to get up off his chair. I shoved him back without any trouble. “Stay put, Mel. I want to talk to you.”
His breathing was noisy. “I don’t wanna talk to you,” he said.
“Tough stuff, Mel. You’ll talk if I tell you to. It’s about a friend of yours. He’s dead. His name was William Decker.”
The flesh around the scar seemed to get whiter. Something changed in his eyes and he half twisted his head. One of the guys at the shuffleboard was taking a long time to make his play. Mel unfolded himself and nodded to an empty table over in the corner. “Over ... here. Make it quick.”
I got up and went back to the bar for a pair of drinks and brought them back to the table. When Mel took his his hand wasn’t too steady. I let him take half of it down in one gulp before I asked, “Who’d he owe dough to, Mel?”
He almost dropped this glass, too. In time, he recovered it and set it down very deliberately and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You a cop?”
“I’m a private investigator.”
“You’re gonna be a dead investigator if you don’t get the hell outa here.”
“I asked you a question.”
“His tongue flicked out and whipped over his lips. ”Get this, I don’t know nothing about nothing. Bill was a friend of mine but his business was his own. Now lemme alone.“
“He needed three grand, Mel. He borrowed it from somebody. He didn’t get it around home so he must have got it someplace around here.”
“You’re nuts.”
“You’re a hell of a friend,” I said, “one hell of a friend.”
Hooker dropped his head and stared at his hands. When he looked up his mouth was drawn back tight. His voice came out barely a whisper. “Listen, Mac, you better quit asking questions. Bill was my friend and I’d help him if I could, but he’s dead and that’s that. You see this scar I got? I’d sooner have that than be dead. Now blow and lemme alone.”
He wouldn’t look back at me when he left. He staggered out to the bar and through the mob around it until he reached the door, then disappeared up the stairs. I polished my drink off and waved the waiter over with another. He gave me a frozen look and snatched the buck out of my hand.
The place got too damn quiet. The weights weren’t slamming on the shuffleboard and everybody at the bar seemed to have taken a sudden interest in the television set over the bar. I sat there and waited for my change, but I had the drink gone without seeing it.
This I liked. This I was waiting for because the stupid bastards should have known better. My God, did I look like some flunkey from the sticks or did the wise boys lose their memories too?
I pushed the glass back and got up. I found the men’s room in the back by the smell and did what I had to do and started to wash my hands. That’s how long they gave me.
The guy in the double-breasted suit in the doorway spoke out of the corner of his mouth to somebody behind him. His little pig eyes looked like he was getting ready to enjoy himself. “He’s a big one, ain’t he?”
“Yeah.” The other guy stepped in and seemed to fill up the doorway.
The little guy’s hand came out of his pocket with a sap about a foot long and he swung it against his knee waiting to see if I was going to puke or start bawling. The big guy took his time about slipping on the knucks. Outside the volume on the television went up so loud it blasted its way all the way back there.
I dropped the paper towel and backed off until my shoulders were up against the doors of the pot. The little guy was leering. His mouth worked until the spit rolled down his chin and his shoulder started to draw back the sap. His pal closed in on the side, only his eyes showing that there might be some human intelligence behind that stupid expression.
The goddamn bastards played right into my hands. They thought they had me nice and cold and just as they were set to carve me into a raw mess of skin I dragged out the .45 and let them look down the hole so they could see where sudden death came from.
It was the only kind of talk they knew. The little guy stared too long. He should have been watching my face. I snapped the side of the rod across his jaw and laid the flesh open to the bone. He dropped the sap and staggered into the big boy with a scream starting to come up out of his throat only to get it cut off in the middle as I pounded his teeth back into his mouth with the end of the barrel. The big guy tried to shove him out of the way. He got so mad he came right at me with his head down and I took my own damn time about kicking him in the face. He smashed into the door and lay there bubbling. So I kicked him again and he stopped bubbling. I pulled the knucks off his hand then went over and picked up the sap. The punk was vomiting on the floor, trying to claw his way under the sink. For laughs I gave him a taste of his own sap on the back of his hand and felt the bones go into splinters. He wasn’t going to be using any tools for a long time.
They moved aside and let me get in to the bar. They moved aside so far you’d think I was contaminated. The bartender looked at me and his thick lips rubbed together. I dropped the knucks and the sap on the bar and waved the bartender over with my forefinger. “I got some change coming,” I said.
He turned around and rang up a NO SALE on the register and handed me fifty-five cents.
If somebody breathed before I left I didn’t hear it. I got out of there feeling like myself again and went back to the car. I only had one thing to do before I saw Pat. I checked the slip the timekeeper gave me and saw that Mel Hooker lived not too far from where Decker had lived. I got snarled up in traffic halfway there and it was dark by the time I found his address.
The place was a rooming house with the usual sign outside advertising a lone vacancy and a landlady on the bottom floor using her window for a crow’s nest. She was at the door before I got up the steps waiting to smile if I was a renter or glare if I was a visitor.
She glared when I asked her if Mel Hooker had come in yet. Her finger waved up the stairs. “Ten minutes ago and drunk. Don’t you two raise no ruckus or out you both go.”
If she had been nicer I would have soothed her feelings with a bill. All she got was a sharp thanks and I went upstairs. I heard him shuffling around the room and when I knocked all sound stopped. I knocked again and he dragged across the floor and snapped the lock back. I
don’t know who he expected to see. It sure wasn’t me.
I didn’t ask to come in; I gave the door a shove and he reeled back. His face had lost its tenseness and was dull, his mouth sagging. There was a table in the middle of the room and I perched on it, watching him close the door, then turn around until he faced me!
“Christ!” he said.
“What’d you expect, Mel?” I lit a Lucky and peered at him through the smoke. “You’re a hell of a guy,” I told him. “I guess you knew those boys would tag after me and you didn’t want to stick around to see the blood.”
“Wh ... what happened?”
I grinned at him. “I’ve been messing around with bastards like that for a long time. They should have remembered my face. Now they’re going to have trouble remembering what they used to look like before. Did you pull the same stunt on your friend Decker, Mel? Did you beat it when they went looking for him?”
He staggered over to a chair and collapsed in it. “I don’t ... know ... whatcha talking about.”
I leaned forward on the edge of the table and spit the words out. “I’m talking about the loan shark racket. I’m talking about a guy named William Decker who used to be your friend and needed dough bad. He couldn’t get it from a legitimate source so he hit up a loan shark and got what he needed. When he couldn’t pay off they put the pressure on him probably through his kid so he tries to cop a bank roll from a rich guy’s safe. He miffed the job and they gave him the works. Now do you know what I’m talking about?”
Hooker said, “Christ!” again and grabbed the arms of the chair. “Friend, you gotta get outa here, see? You gotta leave me alone!”
“What’s the matter, Mel? You were a tough guy when I met you tonight. What’s getting you so soft?”
For a minute a crazy madness passed over his face, then he let out a gasp and buried his head in his hands. “Damn it, get outa here!”
The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 2 Page 27
