"Good. Then I'm clear?" "As far as we're concerned."
"I suppose they have a warrant out for me upstate." "We'll take care of it."
"Thanks."
"There's just one thing..." "Yeah?"
"From your record you seem to be a pretty astute sort of person.
What's your opinion on this thing?"
"Since when do you guys deal in guesswork?" "When that's all we have to go on."
I dropped the cigarette into the ashtray on the desk and looked at him. "The dame knew something she shouldn't have. Whoever pulled it were smart cookies. I think the sedan that waited for us was one that passed us up right after I took her aboard. It was a bad spot to try anything so they went ahead and picked the right one. She wouldn't talk so they bumped her. I imagine it was supposed to look like an accident."
"That's right, it was."
"Now do you mind if I ask one?"
"No. Go right ahead."
"Who was she?"
"Berga Torn." My eyes told him to finish it and he shrugged his shoulder. "She was a taxi dancer, nightclub entertainer, friend of boys on the loose and anything else you can mention where sex is concerned."
A frown pulled at my forehead. "I don't get it."
"You're not supposed to, Mr. Hammer." A freeze clouded up his eyes. It told me that was as much as he was about to say and I was all through. I could go now and thanks. Thanks a lot.
I got up and pulled my hat on. One of the boys held the door open for me. I turned around and grinned at him. "I will, feller," I said.
"What?"
"Get it." My grin got bigger. "Then somebody else is going to get it."
I pulled the door closed and got out in the hall. I stood there a minute leaning up against the wall until the pounding in my forehead stopped and the lights left my eyes. There was a dry sour taste in my mouth that made me want to spit, a nasty hate buzzing around my head that pulled my lips tight across my teeth and brought the voices back in my ears and then I felt better because I knew that I'd never forget them and that some day I'd hear them again, only this time they'd choke out the last sound they'd ever make.
I took the elevator downstairs, called a cab and gave him Pat's office address. The cop on the desk told me to go ahead up and when I walked in Pat was sitting there waiting for me, trying on a friendly smile for size.
He said, "How did it go, Mike?"
"It was a rotten pitch." I hooked a chair over with my foot and sat down. "I don't know what the act was for, but they sure wasted time."
"They never waste time."
"Then why the ride?"
"Checking. I gave them the facts they hadn't already picked up."
"They didn't seem to do anything about it."
"I didn't expect them to." He dropped the chair forward on all four legs. "I suppose you asked them some things too."
"Yeah, I know the kid's name. Berga Torn."
"That's all?"
"Part of her history. What's the rest?"
Pat dropped his eyes and stared at his hands. When he was ready to speak he looked up at me, his face a study in caution. "Mike... I'm going to give you some information. The reason I'm doing it is because you're likely to fish around and find it yourself if I don't and interference is one thing we can't have."
"Go ahead."
"You've heard of Carl Evello?"
I nodded.
"Evello is the boy behind the powers. The last senatorial investigations turned up a lot of big names in the criminal world, but they never turned up his. That's how big he is. The others are pretty big too, but not like him."
I felt my eyebrows go up. "I didn't know he was that big. Where does it come from?"
"Nobody seems to know. A lot is suspected, but until there's plenty of concrete evidence, no charges are going to be passed around even by me. Just take my word for it that the guy is big. Now... they want him. They want him bad and when they get him all the other big boys are going to fall too."
"So what."
"Berga Torn was his mistress for a while."
It started to make sense now. I said, "So she had something on the guy?"
Pat shrugged disgustedly. "Who knows? She was supposed to have had something. She can't talk. When they were giving her the business as you said they were trying to get it out of her."
"You figure they were Carl's men then."
"Evidently."
"What about the sanitarium she was in?"
"She was there under the advice of her doctor," Pat said. "She was going to testify to the committee and under the strain almost had a nervous breakdown. All the committee hearings were tied up until she was released."
I said, "That's a pretty picture, kid. Where do I come in?"
Little light lines seemed to grow around his eyes. "You don't. You stay out of it."
"Nuts."
"Okay, hero, then let's break it down. There's no reason for you to mess around. It was just an accident that got you into it anyway. There's nothing much you can do and anything you try to do is damn well going to be resented by all the agencies concerned."
I gave him my best big grin. All the teeth. Even the eyes. "You flatter me."
"Don't get smart, Mike."
"I'm not."
"All right, you're a bright boy and I know how you work. I'm just trying to stop any trouble before it starts."
"Pal, you got it wrong," I said, "it's already started, remember? I got patted between the eyes, a dame got bumped and my car is wrecked." I stood up and looked down at him, feeling things changing in my smile. "Maybe I have too much pride, but I don't let anybody get away with that kind of stuff. I'm going to knock the crap out of somebody for all that and if it gets up to Evello it's okay with me."
Pat's hand came down on the edge of the desk. "Damn it, Mike, why don't you get a little sense in your head? You..."
"Look... suppose somebody took you for a patsy. What would you do?"
"That didn't happen."
"No... but it happened to me. Those boys aren't that tough that they can get away with it. Damn it, Pat, you ought to know me better than that."
"I do, that's why I'm asking you to lay off. What do I have to do, appeal to your patriotism?"
"Patriotism, my back. I don't give a damn if Congress, the President and the Supreme Court told me to lay off. They're only men and they didn't get sapped and dumped over a cliff. You don't play games with guys who pull that kind of stuff. The feds can be as cagey as they like, but when they wrap the bunch up what happens? So they testify. Great. Costello testified and I can show you where he committed perjury in the minutes of the hearing. What happened? Yeah... you know what happened as well as I do. They're too big to do anything with. They got too much dough and too much power and if they talk too many people are going to go under. Well, the hell with em. There are a bunch of guys who drove a sedan I want to see again. I don't know what they look like, but I'll know them when I see them. If the feds beat me to em it's okay with me, but I'll wait, pal. If I don't reach them first I'll wait until they get through testifying or serving that short sentence those babies seem to draw and when I do you won't be having much trouble from them again ever." "You have it all figured?"
"Uh-huh. Right down to the self-defense plea." "You won't get far."
I grinned at him again. "You know better than that, don't you?"
For a moment the seriousness left his face. His mouth cracked in a grin. "Yeah," he said, "that's what I'm afraid of."
"That wasn't any ordinary kill." "No."
"They were a bunch of cold-blooded bastards. You should have seen what they did to that kid before they killed her." "Nothing showed on her body... or what was left of it after the fire."
"It was there. It wasn't very pretty." I stared at him hard. "It changes something in the way you were thinking."
His eyes came up speculatively.
"They didn't give her the works to see how much she knew. They were after something she knew
and they didn't. She was the key to something."
Pat's face was grave. "And you're going after it?" "What did you expect?"
"I don't know, Mike." He wiped his hand across his eyes. "I guess I didn't expect you to take it lying down." He turned his head and glanced out of the window at the rain. "But since it's going to be that way you might as well know this much. Those government boys are shrewd apples. They know your record and how you work. They even know how you think. Don't expect any help from this end. If you cross those boys you're going to wind up in the can."
"You have your orders?" I asked him.
"In writing. From pretty high authority." His eyes met mine.
"I was told to pass the news on to you if you acted up."
I stood up and fiddled with my pack of butts. "Great guys. They want to do it all alone. They're too smart to need help."
"They have the equipment and manpower," Pat said defensively.
"Yeah, sure, but they don't have the attitude." A grimace pulled at my mouth. "They want to make a public example out of those big boys. They want to see them sweat it out behind bars. Nuts to that. Those lads in the sedan don't give a hoot for authority. They don't give a damn for you, me or anybody besides themselves. They only respect one thing."
"Say it."
"A gun in their bellies that's going off and splashing their guts around the room. That kind of attitude they respect." I stuck my hat on my head, keeping it back off the blue lump between my eyes. "See you around, Pat," I said.
"Maybe, maybe not," he said to my back.
I went downstairs into the rain and waited there until a cab came along.
Unless you knew they were there you'd never notice it. Just little things out of place here and there. A streak through the dust where a coat sleeve dragged, an ashtray not quite in place, the rubber seal around the refrigerator door hanging because they didn't know it was loose and had to be stuffed back by hand.
The .45 was still hanging in the closet, but this time there was a thumbprint on the side where I knew I had wiped it before I stuck it away. I picked the rig off the hook and laid it on the table. The Washington boys were pretty good at that sort of thing. I started to whistle a tuneless song as I climbed out of my jacket when I noticed the wastebasket beside the dresser. There was a cigarette butt in the bottom with the brand showing and it wasn't my brand. I picked it up, stared at it, threw it back and went on whistling. I stopped when the thought of it jelled, picked up the phone and dialed the super's number downstairs.
I said, "This is Mike Hammer, John. Did you let some men in up here?"
He hedged with, "Men? You know, Mr. Hammer, I..."
"It's okay, I had a talk with them. I just wanted to check on it."
"Well, in that case... they had a warrant. You know what they were? They were F.B.I. men."
"Yeah, I know."
"They said I shouldn't mention it."
"You're sure about it?"
"Sure as anything. They had a city cop along too." "What about anybody else?"
"Nobody else, Mr. Hammer. I wouldn't let a soul in up there, you know that."
"Okay, John. Thanks." I hung up the phone and looked around again.
Somebody else had gone through the apartment. They had done a good job too. But not quite as good as the feds. They had left their trademark around.
The smoke that was trouble started to boil up around me again. You couldn't see it and you couldn't smell it, but it was there. I started whistling again and picked up the .45.
Chapter Four
She came in at half-past eleven. She used the key I had given her a long time ago and walked into the living room, bringing with her the warmth and love for life that was like turning on the light.
I said, "Hello, beautiful," and I didn't have to say anything more because there was more in the words than the sound of my voice and she knew it.
She started to smile slowly and her mouth made a kiss. Our lips didn't have to touch. She flung that warmth across the room and I caught it. Velda said, "Ugly face. You're uglier now than you were but I love you more than ever."
"So I'm ugly. Underneath I'm beautiful."
"Who can dig down that deep?" She grinned. Then added, "Except me, maybe.
"Just you, honey," I said.
The smile that played around her mouth softened a moment, then she slipped out of the coat and threw it across the back of a chair.
I could never get tired of looking at her, I thought. She was everything you needed just when. you needed it, a bundle of woman whose emotions could be hard or soft or terrifying, but whatever they were it was what you wanted. She was the lush beauty of the jungle, the sleek sophisticate of the city. Like I said, to me she was everything, and the dull light of the room was reflected in the ring on her finger that I had given her.
I watched her go to the kitchen and open a pair of beer cans. I watched while she sat down, took the frosted can from her and watched while she sipped the top off hers and felt a sudden stirring when her tongue flicked the foam from her lips.
Then she said what I knew she was going to say. "This one's too big, Mike."
"It is?"
Her eyes drew a line across the floor and up my body until they were staring hard into mine. "I was busy while you were in the hospital, Mike. I didn't just let things wait until you got well. This isn't murder as you've known it before. It was planned, organizational killing and it's so big that even the city authorities are afraid of it. The thing has ballooned up to a point where it's federal and even then it's touching such high places that the feds have to move carefully."
"So?" I let it hang there and pulled on the can of beer.
"It doesn't make any difference what I think?"
I set the can on the endtable and made the three-ring pattern on the label. "What you think makes a lot of difference, kitten, but when it comes to making the decisions I'll make them on what I think. I'm a man. So I'm just one man, but as long as I have a brain of my own to use and experience and knowledge to draw on to form a decision I'll keep on making them myself."
"And you're going after them?"
"Would you like me better if I didn't?"
The grin crept back through the seriousness on her face. "No." Then her eyes laughed at me too. "Ten million dollars' worth of men and equipment bucking another multi-million outfit and you elect yourself to step in and clean up. But then, you're a man." She sipped from the beer can again, then said, "But what a man. I'll be glad when you step off that bachelorhood pedestal and move over to where I have a little control over you."
"Think you ever will?"
"No, but at least I'll have something to bargain with." She laughed. "I'd like to have you around for a long time without worrying about you."
"I feel the same way myself, Velda. It's just that some things come first."
"I know, but let me warn you. From now on you're going to be up against a scheming woman."
"That's been tried before."
"Not like this."
"Yeah," I said, and finished the beer. I waited until she put hers down too, then shook out a Lucky and tossed the pack over to her. "What did you pick up?"
"A few details. I found a trucker who passed your car where they had it parked with the flares fore and aft. The guy stopped, and when he saw nobody around he went on. The nearest phone was three miles down the road in a diner and he was surprised when nobody had shown up there because he hadn't seen anyone walking. The girl in the diner knew about an abandoned shack a few hundred yards from the spot and I went there. The place was alive with feds."
"Great."
"That's hardly the word for it." She squirmed in the chair and ran her fingers through her hair, the deep ebony of it rubbed to a soft glow in the pale lamplight. "They held me for a while, questioned me, and released me with a warning that had teeth in it."
"They find anything?"
"From what I could see, nothing. They backtracked the same way that I did and a
nything they found just supported what you had already told them.
"There's a catch in it though," she said. "The shack was a good fifty yards in from the highway and covered with brush. You could light the place up and it wouldn't be seen, and unless you knew where to look you'd never find it."
"It was too convenient to be coincidental, you mean?"
"Much too convenient."
I spit out a stream of smoke and watched it flow around the empty beer can. "That doesn't make sense. The kid was running away. How'd they know which direction she'd pick out?"
"They wouldn't, but how would they know where that shack was?"
"Who'd the shack belong to?"
A frown creased her forehead and she shook her head. "That's another catch. The place is on state property. It's been there for twenty years. One thing I did learn while I was being questioned was that aside from its recent use the place had no signs of occupancy at all. There were dates carved in the doorpost and the last one was 1937."
"Anything else?"
Velda shook her head slowly. "I saw your car. Or what's left of it."
"Poor old baby. The last of the original hot rods."
"Mike..."
I finished the beer and put the empty down on the table. "Yeah?"
"What are you going to do?"
"Guess."
"Tell me."
I had a long pull on the smoke and dropped the butt into the can. "They killed a dame and tried to frame me for it. They wrecked my heap and put me in the hospital. They're figuring us all for suckers and don't give a hang who gets hurt. The slobs, the miserable slobs." I rammed my fist against my palm until it stung. "I'm going to find out what the score is, kid. Then a lot of heads are going to roll."
"One of them might be yours, Mike."
"Yeah, one of em might, but it sure won't be the first to go. And you know something? They're worried, whoever they are. They read the papers and things didn't quite happen like they wanted them to. The law of averages bucked em for a change and instead of getting a sucker to frame they got me. Me. That they didn't like because I'm not just the average joe and they're smart enough to figure out an angle."
Her face pulled tight and the question was in her eyes. "They were up here looking around," I said.
Kiss Me, Deadly mh-6 Page 3
