"I'll say what it takes to make you point that heater someplace else."
"You can't talk that loud or that long, friend."
"Do I reach in my pocket for a smoke?"
"There's some on the table beside you. Use those."
I picked one up, almost went for my lighter in my pocket, thought better of it and took the matches that went with the cigarettes. "You're sure not good company, kid." I blew a stream of smoke at the floor and rocked on my toes. That little round hole in the tip of the automatic never came off my stomach.
"The name is Mike Hammer," I told her. "I'm a private investigator. I was with Berga Torn when she got knocked off."
This time the rod moved. I was looking right down the barrel.
"More," her mouth said.
"She was trying to hitch a ride to the city. I picked her up, ran a roadblock that was checking for her, got edged off the road by a car and damn near brained by a pack of hoods who were playing for keeps. I was there with my head dented in when they worked her over and behind the wheel of the car they pushed over the cliff. To them I was a handy,, class-A red herring that was supposed to cover the real cause of her death only it didn't quite happen that way."
"How did it happen?"
"I was thrown clear. If you want I'll show you my scars."
"Never mind."
So we stared at each other for a longer minute and I was still looking down the barrel and the hole kept getting bigger and bigger.
"You loaded?"
"The cops lifted my rod and P.I. ticket."
"Why?"
"Because they knew I'd bust into this thing and they wanted to keep me out."
"How did you find me?"
"It's not hard to find people when you know how. Anybody could do it." Her eyes widened momentarily, seemed to deepen, then narrowed sharply.
"Suppose I don't believe you," she said.
I sucked in a lungful of smoke and dropped the butt to the floor. I didn't bother to squash it out. I let it lie there until you could smell the stink of burned wool in the room and felt my face start to tighten around the edges. I said, "Kid, I'm sick of answering questions. I'm sick of having guns pointed at me. You make the second tonight and if you don't stow that thing I'm going to beat the hell out of you. What'll it be?"
I didn't scare her. The gun came down until it rested in her lap and for the first time the stiffness left her face. Carver just looked tired. Tired and resigned. The scarlet slash of her mouth made a wry grimace of sadness. "All right," she said, "sit down."
So I sat down. No matter what else I could have done, nothing would have been more effective. The bewilderment showed on her face, the way her body arched before sinking back again. Her leg moved and the gun dropped to the floor and stayed there.
"Aren't you..."
"Who were you expecting, Carver?"
"The name is Lily." Her tongue was a lighter pink against the scarlet as it swept across her lips.
"Who, Lily?"
"Just... men." Her eyes were hopeful now. "You . . told me the truth?"
"I'm not one of them if that's what you mean. Why did they come?"
The hardness left her face. It seemed to melt away like a film that should never have been there and now she was pretty. Her hair was a pile of snow that reflected the loveliness of her face. She breathed heavily, the robe drawing tight at regular intervals.
"They wanted Berga."
"Let's start at the beginning. With you and Berga. How's that?"
Lily paused and stared into the past. "Before the war, that's when we met. We were dance-hall hostesses. It was the first night for the both of us and we both sort of stuck together. A week later we found an apartment and shared it."
"How long?"
"About a year. When the Oar came I was pretty sick of things and went into a defense plant. Berga quit too... but what she did for a living was her business. She was a pretty good kid. When I was sick she moved back in and took care of me. After the war I lost my job when the plant closed down and she got a friend of hers to get me a job in a night club in Jersey."
"Did she work there too?" I asked. The white hair made a negative. "She was... doing a lot of things."
"Anybody special?"
"I don't know. I didn't ask. We went back living in the same apartment for a while, though she was paying most of the bills. She seemed to have a pretty good income."
Lily's eyes came off the wall behind my head and fastened on mine. "That's when I noticed her starting to change."
"How?"
"She was... scared." "Did she say why?"
"No. She laughed it off. Twice she booked passage to Europe, but couldn't get the ship she wanted and didn't go."
"She was that scared."
Lily shrugged, saying nothing, saying much. "It seemed to grow on her. Finally she wouldn't even leave the house at all. She said she didn't feel well, but I knew she was lying."
"When was this?"
"Not so very long ago. I don't remember just when." "It doesn't matter."
"She went out once in a while after that. Like to the movies or for groceries. Never very far. Then the police came around." "What did they want?"
"Her."
"Questions or an arrest?"
"Questions, mostly. They asked me some things too. Nothing I knew about. That night I saw someone following me home."
Her face had a curious strained look about it. "It's been that way every night since. I don't know if they've found me here yet or not."
"Cops?"
"Not cops." She said it very simply, very calmly, but couldn't quite hide the terror that tried to scream the answer out. She begged me to say something, but I let her squeeze it out herself. "The police came again, but Berga wouldn't tell them anything." The tongue moistened the lips again. The scarlet was starting to wash away and I could see the natural tones on the wet flesh. "The other men came... they were different from the police. Federal men, I think. They took her away. Before she came back... those men came."
She put something into the last three words that wasn't in the others, some breathless, nameless fear. Her hands were tight balls with the nails biting into the palms. A glassiness had passed over her eyes while she thought about it, then vanished as if afraid it had been seen.
"They said I'd die if I talked to anyone." Her hand moved up and covered her mouth. "I'm tired of being scared," she said. Her head drooped forward, nodding gently to the soft sobs that seemed to stick in her chest.
What's the answer? How do you tell them they won't die when they know you're lying about it because they're marked already?
I got up and walked to her chair, looked at her a second and sat down on the arm of it. I took her hand away from her face, tilted her chin up and ran my fingers through the snow piled on top of her head. It was as soft and as fine as it looked in the light and when my fingers touched her cheek she smiled, dropped her eyes and let that beauty come through all the way, every bit of it that she had kept hidden so long. There was a faint smell of rubbing alcohol about her, a clean, pungent odor that seemed to separate itself from the perfume she wore.
Her eyes were big and dark, soft ovals under the delicate brows, her mouth full and pink, parted in the beginning of a smile. My fingers squeezed her shoulder easily and her head went back, the mouth parting even further and I bent down slowly.
"You won't die," I said.
And it was the wrong thing to say because the mouth that was so close to mine pulled back and everything had changed. I just sat there next to her for a little while until the dry sobs had stopped. There were no tears to be wiped away. Terror doesn't leave any tears. Not that kind of terror.
"What did they want to know about Berga?"
"I don't know," she whispered. "They made me tell everything I knew about her. They made me sit there while they went through her things."
"Did they find anything?"
"No. I... I don't think so. They were horribly mad about it."
"Did they hurt you?" I asked.
An almost imperceptible shudder went through her whole body. "I've been hurt worse." Her eyes drifted up to mine. "They were disgusting men. They'll kill me now, won't they?"
"If they do they've had it."
"But it would still be too late for me."
I nodded. It was all I could do. I got up, took the last smoke out of my old pack and tapped the butt against my knuckle. "Can't I take a look at that suitcase of hers?"
"It's in the bedroom." She pushed her hair back with a tired motion. "The closet."
I walked in, snapped on the light and found the closet. The suitcase was there where she said it was, a brown leather Gladstone that had seen a lot of knocking around. I tossed it on the bed, unfastened the straps and opened it up. But nothing was in there that could kill a person. Not unless a motive for murder was in a couple old picture albums, three yearbooks from high school, a collection of underwear, extra-short bathing suits, a stripper's outfit and a batch of old mail. I thought maybe the mail would do it, but most of them were trivial answers from some friend to letters she had written and were postmarked from a hick town in Idaho. The rest were steamship folders and a tour guide of southern Europe. I shoved everything back in the suitcase, closed it up and dropped it in the closet.
When I turned around Lily was standing there in the doorway, a fresh cigarette in her mouth, one hand holding the robe closed around her waist, her hair a white cloud that seemed to hover about her. When she spoke the voice didn't sound as though it belonged to her at all.
"What am I to do now?"
I reached out and folded my hand over hers and drew her closer to me. The fingers were cold, her body was a warm thing that wanted to search for something.
"Got any place to go?"
"No," faintly.
"Money?"
"Just a little."
"Get dressed. How long will it take?"
"A . . a few minutes."
For the briefest interval her face brightened with a new hope, then she smiled and shook her head. "It... won't do any good. I've seen men like that before. They're not like other people. They'd find me."
My laugh was short and hard. "We'll make it tough for them just the same. And don't kid yourself about them being too different. They're just like anybody else in most ways. They're afraid of things too. I'm not kidding you or me. You know what the score is so all we can do is give it a try."
I stopped for a second and let a thought run through my head again. I grinned down at her and said, "You know... don't be a bit surprised if you live a lot longer than you think you should."
"Why?"
"I have an idea the outfit who worked you over don't really know what they're after and they're not going to kill any leads until they get it."
"But I... don't have any idea..."
"Let them find that out for themselves," I interrupted. "Let's get you out of here as fast as we can."
I dropped her hand and pushed her into the bedroom. She looked at me, her face happy, then her body went tight and it showed in the way her eyes lit up, that crazy desire to say thanks somehow; but I pulled the door shut before she could do what she wanted to do and went inside opening a fresh deck of Luckies.
The gun was still there on the floor, a metallic glitter asleep on a bed of faded green wool. The safety was off and the hammer was still back. All that time in the beginning I was about a literal ounce away from being nice and dead. Lily Carver hadn't been fooling a bit.
She took almost five minutes. I heard the door open and turned around. It wasn't the same Lily. It was a new woman, a fresh and lovely woman who was a taller, graceful woman. It was one for whom the green gabardine suit had been intended, exquisitely molding every feature of her body. Her legs were silken things, their curves flashing enough to take your eyes away from the luxury of her hair that poked out under the hat.
It wasn't a worried or a scared Lily this time. It was a Lily who took my arm and held it tightly, smiling a smile that was real. "Where are we going, Mike?"
It was the first time she had said my name and I liked the way she said it.
"To my place." I told her.
We went downstairs and out on Atlantic Avenue. We played a game of not being seen in case there were watchers and if there were they weren't good enough to keep up with us. We used the subway to go home and took a cab to the door. When I was sure nobody was in the lobby I took her in.
It was all very simple.
When we got upstairs I told her to hop into the sack and showed her the spare bedroom. She smiled, reached out and patted my cheek and said, "It's been a long time since I met a nice guy, Mike."
That strange excitement seemed to be inside her like a coiled spring. I squeezed her wrist and she knew what I was saying without having to use words and her mouth started to part.
I stopped it there.
Or maybe she stopped it. The spring wound tighter and tighter, then I let her go and walked away. Behind me the door closed softly and I thought I heard a whispered "Good night, Mike."
I started it that night. At three-thirty the word went out in the back room of a gin mill off Forty-second and Third. Before morning it would yell and before the night came again it would pay off. One way or another.
Wherever they were, whoever they were, they would hear about it. They'd know me and know what the word meant. They'd sit and think for a little while and if they knew me well enough maybe they'd feel a little bit sweaty and not so sure of themselves any more. They couldn't laugh it off. With anybody else, perhaps, but not with me.
Wise guys. A pack of conniving slobs with the world in their hands and the power and money to buck a government while they sat on their fat tails, yet before morning there wouldn't be one of them who didn't have a funny feeling around his gut.
This time they had to move.
The word was out.
I went back to the apartment and listened at the door of Lily's room. I could hear her regular, heavy breathing. I stood there a minute, took a final drag on the butt, put it out and headed for my sack.
Chapter Seven
She was up when the phone rang in the morning. I heard the dishes rattling and smelt the coffee. She called out, "Any time you're ready, come eat."
I said okay and picked up the phone.
The voice was low and soft, the kind you'd never miss in a million years. It was the best way to wake up and it showed in my voice when I said, "Hi, Velda, what's doing?"
"Plenty is doing, but nothing I want to talk about over the phone."
"Get something?"
"Yes."
"Where are you now?"
"Down at the office. A place you ought to try to get to once a week, at least."
"You know how things are, honey," I said.
Lily looked in the door, waved and pointed toward the kitchen, I nodded, glad that Velda didn't know how things were right then.
"Where were you last night? I called until I was too tired to stay awake and tried again this morning."
"I was busy."
"Oh, Pat called." She tried to keep her voice its natural huskiness but it wanted to get away.
"I suppose he said too much."
"He said enough." She stopped and I could hear her breathing into the phone. "Mike, I'm scared."
"Well don't be, kitten. I know what I'm doing. You ought to know that."
"I'm still scared. I think somebody tried to break into my apartment last night."
That one got a low whistle out of me. "What happened?"
"Nothing. I heard a noise in the lock for a while but whoever was trying it gave up. I'm glad I got that special job now. Are you coming over?"
"Not right away."
"You ought to. A lot of mail is piling up. I paid all the bills, but you have a sackful of personal stuff."
"I'll get to it later. Look, did you make out on that info?" "Somewhat. Do you want it now?"
"Right now, kitten. I'll meet you in the Texa
n Bar in an hour." "All right, Mike."
"And kitten... you got that little heater of yours handy?" "Well..."
"Then keep it handy but don't let it show." "It's handy."
"Good. Grab a cab and get over there."
"I'll be there in an hour."
I slapped the phone back, hopped up and took a fast shower. Lily had everything on the table when I got there, a hopeful smile on her face. The table was spread with enough for a couple of lumberjacks and I ate until I made a dent in the mess, then went for seconds on the coffee.
Lily handed me a fresh pack of Luckies, held out a match and smiled again when I slumped back in my chair. "Have enough?"
"Are you kidding? I'm a city boy, remember?"
"You don't look like a city boy."
"What do I look like?"
Her eyes did it slow. Up and down twice, then a steady scrutiny of my face. For a minute it was supposed to be funny, but the second time there was no humor in it. The eyes seemed to get bigger and deeper with some faraway hungry quality that was past defining. Then almost as quickly as it had come there was a crazy, fearful expression there in its place that lasted the blink of an eye and she forced a laugh out.
"You look like a nice guy, Mike. I haven't seen many nice guys. I'm afraid they make an impression."
"Don't get the wrong impression, Lily," I told her. "I used to think I wasn't much of a sentimentalist, but sometimes I wonder. Right now you're pretty important to me so I may look like a good egg to you. Just don't go walking off with anything while you're here or I'll look different to you."
Her smile got bigger. "You're not fooling me."
I tossed the butt in my empty cup and it fizzled out. "So I'm getting old. You don't stay young in this racket very long."
"Mike..."
I knew what she was going to say before she said it. "I'll be gone for awhile. I don't know how long. The chances are nobody will be up here, but just to keep from sticking our necks out, don't answer that door. If a key goes in the lock it'll be me. Keep the chain on the door until I open it, look for yourself then to make sure and then open up."
"Supposing the phone rings?"
"Let it ring. If I want you I'll call the janitor, have him push the doorbell twice, then I'll call you. Got it?"
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