“Yeah?”
“Maybe something will develop in Sidon, and it would be better if one of us was on hand.”
Once Velda got her teeth into a case, she was as single-minded as a dog with a spare rib.
“You stay here in town then,” I said, climbing back into my coat. “Keep a check on Moody, too.”
“Don’t you trust him?”
“Everybody I trust in this town is in this room. If you see Dekkert or Beales anywhere near Moody—his office and living quarters are over that grocery down from the picture show—you give me a buzz at Pat’s. Try his office first, then his house.”
“Roger.”
“If that happens, maybe you can create a diversion yourself and keep those louses out of there.”
“Okay.”
I sat next to her on the bed. “You might also try dropping in to see Big Steve again. He may have the inside track on things without knowing it. Guy like him, working behind a diner counter, picks up on more than he even realizes.”
She was nodding, taking it all in.
“Get the political angle in town... where these Keystone cops fit in... exactly where Holden stands... get everything and anything. It’ll be fairly quiet, on a Sunday, but do what you can.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll probably be gone before you get up in the morning. If anyone inquires for me, tell them that I’m around town somewhere. Stall ’em off.”
Velda’s business-like expression turned thoughtful. “Did you find the bullet that was fired at you from the shack?”
I shook my head. “No. First, I went after the shooter, with no luck, then hauled ass out of there getting Poochie to the doctor.”
“Understandable.”
“Anyway, that slug can wait. So far, it’s been the only gun used on this case, and it could belong to anyone. Poochie had his eyes right on the window when the shot was fired, remember. I’m more interested in his story than tracing the bullet.”
“You know darn well,” Velda said with a humorless smirk, “that the little guy could never tell that story to a jury and have it believed.”
I looked at her. “When I get whoever fired that bullet, kid, there won’t be any jury trial.”
“Mike...”
“You know how I operate. Nobody tries to kill me and gets to keep breathing.”
She was shaking her head, her expression glum now. “You’re just asking for trouble.”
That was a laugh. “And they aren’t? Don’t forget that one of this outfit has already resorted to murder. If that isn’t trouble, what is?”
“All right, Mike,” she said, with a sigh. “Have it your own way. Just be careful.”
I got up to leave, but she grabbed my coat sleeve and pulled me back onto the edge of the bed, and the springs bounced us some.
I knew what she wanted. Because I wanted it, too.
I tilted her chin with my fingers and kissed her. Just a friendly goodnight kiss, more than a peck, but not much more.
It was enough to get us started, though. It made me hungry for more, and she knew it. Before I could help myself, she was in my arms and I was crushing her to me. Her mouth was on fire, her hands behind my head holding my face to hers. She had those incredible breasts pressed against me like a threat or maybe a promise, and every fibre in my body was jumping with passion.
When it was over, she nuzzled my ear and kissed my neck lightly.
“Sleep tight,” she said.
After a kiss like that, I’d be lucky if I could sleep at all.
So I went out into slumbering Sidon for a little late evening walk on what turned out to be a cool, breezy night. Every storefront was closed except a couple of bars, and I was almost surprised the sidewalks weren’t literally rolled up.
It wasn’t just Velda’s kiss, though, that was keeping me awake and sending me out for a stroll. I had someone to call on and figured that by now the reporters would be done with him.
Mayor Rudolph Holden, if the flimsy little Sidon phone book could be trusted, lived two blocks off the business section in a red-brick turn-of-the-century two-story house. Quaint but well kept-up, with a nice well-trimmed lawn, this was the largest home I had spotted in the community. Across the street was a Baptist church that was only marginally bigger.
There were lights on downstairs, so His Honor was up. But I wasn’t surprised when my two rings of his doorbell got no response. With that pack of reporters in town, who could blame him for ignoring it? So I hammered on the door and kept at it. Either Rudy would answer or the dead would wake. Either way should be interesting.
Rudy didn’t answer, but it wasn’t the dead, either. The woman was very much alive, slender and about fifty in a nice floral frock, and she hadn’t removed her make-up though it was after nine. She was the kind of older-looking dame who could put on an air of respectability without losing her sex appeal. Unless this was the housekeeper, Rudy had done all right for himself.
Even if it was the housekeeper, he’d still done all right for himself.
“Yes?” she said, her tone impatient, letting me know she didn’t appreciate being disturbed. She had nice hazel eyes and her white hair was youthfully arranged.
“Mrs. Holden?”
“Yes,” she said again, even more impatient.
“I’m not a reporter, ma’am.”
This seemed to take some of the starch out of her. But she said one more time, “Yes?”
Like, what the hell is it?
“Would you tell your husband that Mike Hammer is here to see him?”
“My husband is not home.”
“Okay. If he is home, you should tell him I’m here. He’ll want to see me. If he isn’t home, you should tell me where I can find him. It’s important. I’m a detective on the Wesley murder.”
Her irritation turned to alarm, and she said, “Just a moment.”
His Honor received me in his book-lined study. We sat in two comfy chairs before a fireplace that was of course unlighted. His wife had turned friendly, even gracious, and brought us sugar cookies on a plate and glasses of iced tea, which she set on a small table between her husband and me.
“Mr. Hammer,” he said, and he had a warm baritone that was a little odd coming from a small-ish, almost roly-poly individual.
He was in the same short-sleeve white shirt as at the park, but had ditched the too-short tie. He had lost much of his hair, but boyish features kept him young-looking. Minus the pot belly, and plus a full head of hair, he’d have been a nice-looking man. Nice enough to catch that attractive wife, anyway.
Superficially, he seemed calm. But he was eating the cookies nervously. I had one—he had six as we spoke, sugar gathering on his chin like a frost on a winter window.
“We’re lucky to have you in Sidon,” he said, nibbling.
“Really? And why is that?”
“Well, a detective of your abilities. Your renown. We’re a small town, and we’re not well acquainted with murder.”
“Murder gets acquainted with people in all kinds of towns, Your Honor. But you have Deputy Chief Dekkert to lean on, don’t you? He has real big-city experience.”
“Yes, Mr. Hammer, but his background is in vice.”
It sure was.
“Well, I’d be glad to help,” I said.
Was that how they planned to play it? Work with me, and keep an eye on what I was up to? In a pig’s ass that would happen.
On the other hand, the mayor had just opened the door for me to make noises like a cop.
“Mayor Holden, what can you tell me about Sharron Wesley?”
“Call me Rudy, please. Everyone in Sidon knows everyone else, and we like it that way.”
“Swell. But my question...?”
“Well, she was an upstanding citizen, of course. A respected citizen.”
“Really? I understand she had a lot of wild parties out at her digs. And that her guests sometimes came roaring into town causing trouble, like cowboys after a cattle drive.�
�
He shifted in his comfy chair. Nibbled a cookie. “Well, that certainly has elements of truth. But it’s an exaggeration. We are a one-industry town, Mr. Hammer. And that industry is tourism.”
“In other words, showing out-of-towners a good time.”
“That’s not how I’d put it, but I can’t disagree.”
I leaned forward and grinned at him. It was a nasty enough grin to freeze him mid-cookie.
“Listen, Rudy. The Wesley broad was running a casino out there. I’ve only been here since Friday night and I already know that. So let’s not pretend you don’t.”
“Well... again. We’re a one-industry town.”
I glanced around. “You and your lovely wife have a lovely home here.”
“Well, uh, thank you, Mr. Hammer.”
“Pretty much everything about your set-up is lovely.”
“Set-up?”
“Deputy Chief Dekkert got tossed off the New York Police Department for graft, Rudy. That would make it hard for him to get hired on a lot of forces. But I think it was a gold star on his record, where Sidon was concerned.”
He smiled through sugar-flecked lips. “I’m afraid I’m not following you.”
“I know how these small towns operate. You have a casino on the outskirts. I was inside, I saw the lay-out, and it’s big city all the way. Somebody from New York was backing Sharron Wesley’s play.”
He swallowed a bite of cookie. “Suppose that’s true. What does it have to do with her death?”
“Probably everything. She was strangled, Rudy. Somebody would seem to be unhappy with her. I’d like to have a word or two with her silent partner. And yours.”
He shook his head, smiling again, but it was a sick smile. “I’m afraid you’re making an unwarranted assumption, Mr. Hammer. Much as I would like to help you, I simply don’t know.”
He nibbled on a cookie and I slapped it out of his hand. Then I slapped him a couple of times. He looked as startled as a guy in bed with somebody else’s wife when the flashbulbs went off.
“I don’t know the name! There is no name!”
His wife leaned in from the next room. “Dear? Is there a problem?”
“No! No.”
“You’re sure?”
I said, “He’s sure,” and looked at her with my nicest smile till she smiled back and went away.
Holden tried to straighten up and crawl inside the upholstery at the same time. “Are you insane, man? I’m the mayor of this town! You come into my house, uninvited, and threaten me, and rough me up?”
“I didn’t rough you up. You’d know it if I roughed you up.” I raised a hand in a peaceful gesture, but he jerked back, thinking I was going to slap him again. “I’m a little excitable tonight, Rudy. You see, somebody tried to kill me earlier, and I think it was your boy Dekkert.”
Veins stood out on his forehead. “What? My God! What were the circumstances?”
“The circumstances were, he missed. Big mistake. You and Chief Beales and his boys need to steer clear of me, or I will treat them, and you, like the cheap crooks you are. I was just kind of curious about Sharron Wesley and why somebody would strangle her, but you know what? I didn’t even like the dame. I don’t approve of wholesale murder, but I don’t make every killing my business. Only when I see a slobbermouth like Dekkert damn near beat to death an innocent little guy, I get annoyed. And then when somebody tries to put a bullet in my brain, I get mad.”
He was shaking his head and kept on shaking it. “Mr. Hammer—I have no idea who Sharron Wesley’s silent partner was. I will not deny that I had a small piece of her action. But I dealt only with her.”
“Interesting.”
“Interesting?”
“That makes you a suspect.”
I left him there with one last cookie on the plate. I thanked his wife for the iced tea and told her she had a lovely home.
She smiled, as if to say, What a polite young man, and showed me to the door.
CHAPTER SIX
“All right,” Pat Chambers said, “go over it again.”
He leaned back in his swivel chair and listened while I told the story for the third time. This captain of Homicide was careful and crafty, with an adding machine for a brain and the smooth manner of a man-about-town.
But all cop.
We were in his office off the station-house bullpen of the red-brick building where he worked, sometimes even on Sunday, like this afternoon. The place maybe was bustling a little less than on other days, but otherwise, it was business as usual.
My third recitation took longer than the last as I fitted in little details and opinions that had escaped the previous tellings. I ended with my leaving Sidon that morning, after breakfast at Big Steve’s. A man has got to eat.
“You come up with a murder motive yet?” Pat asked.
“For Sharron Wesley or for me? I damn near bought it, you know.”
He shrugged. “Take your pick.”
I gave him a shrug back. “No definite motive. But plenty of reasons for one.”
“What reasons?”
“Start with, that town is as crooked as a corkscrew. Isn’t that reason enough?”
He rocked in the chair, hands locked behind his neck, elbows winged out. “I just love the way you think, Mike. So simple and direct.”
“That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
Now he sat forward, resting his hands on his desk and folding them, as if about to say grace. “Naturally, there’s a motive and it won’t be an obscure one, but based on what you’ve gathered so far, I’d say getting down to it will be tough. What can I do for you?”
That was the line I’d been waiting for.
“First of all,” I said, and I sat forward too, “I want to see if you can get me any info on Rudy Holden. Find out if he is as innocuous as he looks and sounds. When I talked to him last night, he played dumb, but he’s living in the biggest, swellest house in town filled with the kind of furniture you don’t get at the Salvation Army.”
Pat scribbled Holden’s name down on a note pad.
I went on: “Rumor around Sidon is that he’s a little guy in the bigger scheme of things... but in a small town, a little guy can be pretty goddamn big.”
Pat raised a hand for me to hold it a minute, got on the phone, spoke a few words, and before he had even lowered his hand, he passed the note to a uniformed cop who scrambled in, took it, and scrambled back out.
“You realize, Mike, that I can’t get too deep in this thing. If it had started here in the city, I could pull strings to work with you out there in Sidon. But unless some developments carry it back to Manhattan, you’re going to have to do most of the work yourself.”
“I know,” I said through a yawn. “That’s what I’m hoping for.”
“Oh, you’re a one-man cleaning crew now, I suppose?”
I patted the holstered rod under my arm. “Just me and my broom.”
Pat gave me a disgusted smirk. “Then you certainly don’t need my help.”
“But I do. Anyway, there is a tie-up with the city. Most of the clientele at Sharron Wesley’s gambling house are almost certainly New York City residents. Those kind of big spenders don’t limit themselves to one or two shindigs on the weekend. They’ll do plenty during the week, too.”
“Granted.”
“So if you hear of the vice boys pulling any raids on joints around town, try to find out if any of their high-roller arrests had at any time been patrons of Sharron’s shed. How’s that?”
He was rocking again. “Fair enough. I’ll do what I can.” An eyebrow went up. “Now, how about the potshot taken at you? You’re sure it was Dekkert?”
I laughed long and loud. “Natch, chum. Who else but? That punk is laying for me.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
I shrugged. “Make him sweat. Then when I get ready, I’m going to take him down. All the way. As much for what he’s put poor Poochie through as for the shot he sent in
my direction.”
Pat looked at me very seriously and spread his hands on the desk. “How can you be so sure it was Dekkert?”
“Why shouldn’t I be?”
He shook his head slowly. “You could be treading on some mighty sensitive toes here, Mike. After all, you have got yourself a reputation and not a nice one at that. You stand up in front of the wrong judge with one of your self-defense ploys...”
“That’s pleas, Pat.”
“...and you’re going to take a long, hard fall. Say what you will about Dekkert—and I’ll say the same and worse—but he is a cop.”
I blew a half-hearted Bronx cheer.
“Suppose,” Pat went on, “the murderer knew of your antagonism for Dekkert, and used that to remove you both? If Dekkert is not the murderer... and there’s no reason to think he is anything but a bent small-town cop with a grudge against you... then the real murderer could kill you, and suspicion would be thrown on Dekkert. The real killer could take a shot at you and miss, safely knowing you’d go after Dekkert without looking around for anyone else.”
I gave that one some thought. That adding-machine mind of Pat’s again had come up with an analysis that certainly sounded logical enough. But hell, who else but Dekkert would make a sucker play like that? So far I hadn’t garnered anything around Sidon that was worthwhile shooting me over, just some nosing around.
Pat knew enough to let me sit there and mull it over for a while.
Then he said, “After the body was discovered, did the police get over to Sharron Wesley’s place very fast?”
“No. I drove up there immediately. Took fifteen minutes or so getting there, and I fooled around for at least half an hour. After that I was at Poochie’s maybe fifteen minutes before the shot was fired at me, then I carried him back to my car. In all that time there was no sign of the gendarmes.”
“Unless the guy that shot at you was one—like Dekkert, for example.”
“Roger, pal. Now you’re seeing things from my point of view. To me it looks like the local boys didn’t bother going out to Sharron’s, because they knew just what to expect there. According to the leads I got, the entire political regime of Sidon had their fingers in that pie.”
Pat was nodding. “And they couldn’t go out to that casino to investigate without risking exposure of a racket they were into up to their own necks. I get the picture.”
Lady, Go Die! Page 8
