"And what do you do with it after you find it?"
"Buy a new car. Hell, you can have some. New dress, shoes, things like that."
"Get serious," Velda told me.
"I am," I said. "Now, what about Dooley's history?"
The change of pace rattled her for a moment, then she stumbled over a page of her notebook. For a moment she frowned at it, and then her eyes drifted up to mine. "Those Navy serial numbers are wrong, Mike. They weren't his."
Before I could answer her she cut me off with a wave of her hand. "Oh, I found him, all right. I ran down the personnel on the destroyer Latille, and there he was. Then I got his proper ID. I had to mention a few names to get his son's name and address, but I knew you wouldn't mind." She ripped a page out of the notebook and handed it to me.
I looked at the address in New Brunswick, memorized it and tucked the paper under my desk blotter. "We still have a problem, kitten."
She waited for me to say it.
"What are those other numbers on the urn, then?"
"Maybe..." she searched for the name, "Marvin can tell you."
A little nerve tugged at my jaw. Nobody ever forgets his military serial number. Nobody. You don't forget where to wear your hat either. Or put on your socks.
...
Velda had charted the run to New Brunswick right on the nose. There were no wrong turns, no stopping to ask directions, just a straight, easy drive. When I stopped in front of the decrepit old building where Marvin Dooley lived, she said, "You like my navigation?"
I grinned. "Beautiful, kitten. I hope you can cook like that."
The place had a common vestibule that housed eight mailboxes, a single overhead bulb and the smell of multiracial cooking. The slots beneath the mailboxes held names, except for one, and since DOOLEY wasn't in any of the others, the blank one had to be Marvin's. I pushed the button and tried the door. It swung open with no trouble. Muted TV voices overlapped and somewhere a radio was tuned in to a rock station that thumped out a monotonous beat. Behind me, Velda closed the door.
To our left was a wooden staircase leading to the second level. A door creaked open, feet clicked across the floorboards and a male voice yelled down over the banister, "Yeah, whaddya want?"
"Marvin?"
There was a moment's hesitation before he answered, "Who wants him?"
But by then I was up the stairs and his head jerked around, not knowing whether to hold his ground or duck back into his room. "I'm Mike Hammer, Marvin. I was in the Army with your father."
"He's dead."
Just then Velda came up the stairs and took his breath away long enough for him to lose his antagonistic attitude. I said, "You mind inviting us inside?"
He glanced at me a few seconds, frowned, then stared at Velda long enough to change his mind and nod toward the door. I waited for him to go in first and followed him closely. Then I waved at Velda to come and close the door.
As I expected, it was a nothing place. One room with a cot that doubled as a sofa, a two-burner stove, small sink and a narrow, old-fashioned refrigerator that took up a corner. The kitchen table had two wooden chairs, and an old canvas beach chair was right in front of a fairly new TV that was on the floor. But he was clean. No dirty dishes, no dust accumulation, no pile of clothes. The only lingering smell was that of antiseptic soap.
He caught my thoughts and said, "I'm poor but neat, Mr. Hammer." His eyes shifted to Velda and he added, "No woman's here, lady. It's something I picked up in the Navy."
"The lady is my associate," I told him. "Her name is Velda."
No surprise showed in his expression. He nodded toward her and said, "The paper mentioned her. At the funeral."
"Why weren't you there, Marvin?"
He shrugged eloquently. "What good would that have done?"
"Marvin - how do you know? When was the last time you saw your father?"
"Before I went in the Navy. We hardly kept in touch. There were a couple of letters and a card that gave me his new address." Shrewdness seemed to touch his eyes and he looked directly at me. "What did the old man leave me, Mr. Hammer?"
"An urn full of ashes, kiddo. What did you expect?"
"Don't give me that crap, buster. You didn't come all the way down here to tell me that. He left you something and you need me to get it."
"I need you like a hole in the head," I said. I took out a notepad and wrote down a name and address, then handed it to him. "His ashes are in this repository. Do you want them?"
He studied me again, his teeth gnawing at his lips. "You said you were in the Army with my father?"
"That's right."
"How the hell did he get in the Army? Damn, that doesn't make sense. All the old man ever wanted was to get out on the ocean."
"He ever do that?"
"Not before he joined the Navy. All he ever did was run that old boat of his up and down the Hudson River."
That was something Dooley had never mentioned to us. "What kind of boat?" I asked him. "Where did he keep it?"
"A Woolsley, in a little marina a few miles north of Newburgh. Nothing much there now, but back in the old days there were about a dozen yachts docked."
Marvin rubbed his hands over his face, then ran his fingers through his hair. "Do you want anything else?" he asked.
"Would you give it to me if I did?"
"Depends."
I handed him one of my cards, some of which Velda had put in my pocket. "Just one thing, Marvin."
"Oh?"
"Your father was killed for a reason. Whoever did it might think he entrusted information to you and -"
"He didn't tell me nothing! He -"
"I know that, but there's a possibility that the quicker we get the killer the longer you'll have to live. Give it a thought, Marvin."
The traffic flow on the Jersey Turnpike was loose and fast, so we got back to the city early enough for me to drop Velda off at her apartment.
...
I was on my way to see Don Lorenzo Ponti, and the odds were going to be on his side. Ponti was getting old, but the game stayed the same. I got out my shoulder holster, slipped into it, put a clip of fresh ammo in the.45 and tucked it in the leather.
All I hoped was that the boneheads Ponti kept around him had good memories and better imaginations.
The local club was straight out of an old television movie, with building blocks of translucent glass to let in light on the main floor while keeping anybody from seeing in. The only thing different about the block was that graffiti artists had not touched a spray of paint to the woodwork.
I got out of the cab half a block away and let them see me walk up to the club. There were two hoods outside the door who came out of the same TV show as the building. For a few seconds it looked like they were going to move right in on me. Then one hood whispered something, and the other seemed puzzled and his face went blank.
I walked too fast for them to flank me, one on either side, and grinned at their consternation at suddenly being vulnerable if any shooting started. To make sure they stayed that way, I ran my fingers under the brim of my porkpie hat and knew they both had a good look at the butt end of the gun on my side.
You don't try to be nice to guys like this. I said, "Go tell your boss I want to talk with him."
"He ain't here," the fat one said.
"Want me to shoot the lock off?" I didn't make it sound like a joke.
The skinny one said, "You got a big mouth, mister."
"I got a big name too. It's Mike Hammer. Now shake your tail and do what your buddy told you to do."
"You're not coming in here wearing a rod, Hammer."
I didn't get to answer him. The dark figure leaning over the banister upstairs yelled down in his softly accented voice and said, "What's going on down there?"
Once again I beat the pair to the punch. "It's Mike Hammer," I called back. "If you don't want to talk with me, I'll beat it. If you want trouble I'll shoot the hell out of your guys here and the cops ca
n mop up the mess."
I think the dialogue came out of that TV movie too.
"He's got a gun on him, Mr. Ponti," the skinny punk yelled.
"In his hand?"
"No. It's under his coat."
Ponti was like a cat. His curiosity was as tight as a stretched rubber band. He didn't even wait a second before he said, "He's always got a gun. Let him up, unless you want to shoot it out down there."
Ponti was a player, all right. When I got to the top of the stairs, he nodded for me to follow him, and he walked in front of me as if it were all one big tea party. He could have been showing off or he could have had men hidden, waiting for me to jump him. But there was no fear in his movements at all. He pushed open a door to an office but didn't go through. I made sure the door flattened against the wall so nobody was behind it, visually scanned the area, then stepped in and edged along the wall to a chair in front of Ponti's desk.
His expression suggested he appreciated my cautiousness. "Are you nervous, Mr. Hammer?"
"Just careful."
"You take big chances."
"Not really."
"Oh?"
"I could have blown those goons you have downstairs right out of their socks if they had tried to play guns."
"You could have lost."
For 30 seconds I stood there staring at him, then moved around the chair and sat down. "Go ahead and ask it," I said.
The don played his role magnificently. He pulled his padded leather desk chair back on its rollers, sat down easily and folded his hands in his lap. When he was ready his eyes met mine and he said, "Did you kill my son Azi, Mr. Hammer?"
There was no waiting time here either. "I shot him right in the head, Don Ponti. He was about to give me one in the face when I squeezed a.45 into his head. You're damn right I shot him, and if you have any more like him who want to try it, I'll do the same thing again."
I didn't know what to expect, certainly not the look of calm acceptance he wore. He seemed to be mentally reviewing the details of that night, and when all the pieces fit into the puzzle, he seemed oddly satisfied. "I do not blame you, Mr. Hammer," he told me quietly. "He's dead now and that is that. You want something from me, then say it."
"I want who killed Marcos Dooley."
"Dooley was a nice man," he said, the accent coming back.
"Yeah, I know."
"Then why did he die, Mr. Hammer?"
"Somebody thought he knew more than he should."
"What could he know?"
"He mentioned trouble in your organization, Don Ponti."
"There is no trouble. Everything has been legal for years."
"Screw the legalities. It's the distribution of wealth that causes a ruckus."
"Do you think I look like a rich man, Mr. Hammer?"
"Cut the crap, Don." I pushed out of the chair. "All I want is the guy who killed Dooley. This time it isn't just me. Captain Chambers is part of this package, and he's got the NYPD behind him. That's one big load of professionalism to buck up against."
"Somehow I think you have a person in mind," Ponti said.
I started toward the door, then turned and said, "I'd keep a close watch on your boy Ugo. He hasn't got the expertise we old-timers have."
Ponti nodded again, but a frown had creased his forehead and I knew his brain was doing mental gymnastics trying to figure out the hidden meaning to my words.
...
Willie the Actor was a skinny little guy with a strange, kidlike voice, a deep love for any kind of booze and no money at all. The job I held out for him was easy and meant a week in a bar if he could handle his money properly. It took a whole morning to get the scene staged, and when I was sure he had it, we got in a cab, went to a certain address and made a call from a cellular phone.
He didn't know who he was talking to, but he said his lines fast and clearly, sounding like a 12-year-old street kid half out of breath and real excited. He didn't even wait for the person on the other end to answer him. He said, "Ugo... Ugo... that you? You know that place where you guys meet? Some guy is watching it. I think he's gonna bust in there. You better get over here, Ugo." He stopped a moment and I could hear shouting in the phone. Then he said, "Gee, he's lookin' over this way. I gotta go."
When he hung up I handed him his pay, let him get out of sight around the corner and went back to the waiting cab. We didn't have to wait very long. Ugo Ponti came out of the garage under his house in a dark blue Buick and took off, screeching his wheels. My driver followed him without difficulty. In New York there are cabs all over the city and one looks just like another. Twice we rode right alongside him, and I got a good look at the glowering face of the prince of the local family.
We got to a part of Greenwich Village where new businesses have renovated dilapidated old areas. There was room at the curb for Ugo's car, so he parked and hopped out. I paid off the cabbie down the block and saw Ugo scan the street, enter a narrow alley between two buildings and disappear. The door was a heavy wooden leftover from a different century. I backed off and waited inside the lobby of a publishing firm until I saw Ugo step out, his face tight with anger. He looked around, shook his head and went back to his car, probably silently cursing the "kid" who passed on a bad tip to him, and drove off.
The lock was as easy as I expected, and I closed the door behind me, locking it again. A pile of empty cardboard boxes and assorted trash blocked the way, so I used my tools on the lock in the door to my left. Enough light came in from the old round window in the wall to let me see what I was doing, and in two minutes I was inside.
Here I could use the lights. The windows were completely blacked out so that whatever was done here was done in secret. The tables were plywood on sawhorses, soda boxes were used for chairs and cardboard cartons were the containers for all the paper that ran through the computers and copiers that lined the room. There was a fortune in electronics and exotic machinery.
There was nothing I could understand. Twice, I made a circuit of the room, poking into anything that might contain what I wanted. Nothing.
I was all set to leave when I heard the stairs outside creak. I flipped the lights off, then squeezed behind a four-drawer filing cabinet just before a key went into the lock and the door opened. The.357 came in first, with Ugo right behind it.
I was in a darkened corner and didn't move, so his eyes went past the cabinets. I stayed as immobile as I could. I could hear his footsteps, the impact as his shoe booted something aside. When he was right up to the cabinet he stopped dead. He saw the possible area, the only place in the room that could conceal a person, and he was about to earn his bones once more.
It was too bad he was right-handed. Had he shifted the.357 to his other hand and come around the corner, he would have nailed me. But he led with a stiffened right arm and before he knew what had happened I had twisted the rod out of his fingers, spun him around and held the muzzle of his own gun to the back of his neck. His breath was sucked in and he couldn't talk, but I could smell the fear that oozed out of him and knew when he wet his pants. I felt his body begin to twitch. Ugo Ponti was looking down his own black alley.
I said, "So, your inheritance is down the drain, kiddo. Even the computer whiz kids don't know where it went. No transactions, no deposits just a big nothing." I let my words sink in, let him measure the timbre of my voice. "But I'm going to find it, Ugo, baby."
I eased the gun away from Ugo's skin and let it run down his back, pressing against his spine. His mind was wondering if he'd feel the shot, not knowing whether or not to hope he'd die fast but realizing that if anything took out his spinal cord he was going to be strapped in a wheelchair for a long time. No parties, no broads, no booze, and just maybe somebody he'd kicked around might come up and plant a slug right in his face where he could see it coming.
Before he could faint on me I belted him in the head with his gun and let him drop. The blood from the gash above his temple made a puddle on the floor. I stuck Ugo's.357 in my belt. Pat
could do a ballistics check and maybe get some brownie points if it had been used at a crime scene earlier.
Downstairs, Ugo's Buick was back at the curb, and I looked at the license plate. The first three numbers were 411.
...
On the other side of the George Washington Bridge, Velda and I headed for Route 9W, the scenic trip along the Hudson River. When we passed through Newburgh I pinpointed the marina where Marcos Dooley had kept his boat. The marina was still there, dilapidated and overgrown with weeds, but it had a pier and docking facilities for half a dozen boats. Two well-used sailboats were still in the slips.
Mickey Spillane - Black Alley Page 2
