“Goddamn it, say something! Don’t give me one word.”
“One guy says they was uptown boys. They was roughs ... strong-arm boys. The little guy ... I heard the other one call him Nocky.”
“What else?”
“That’s all. I swear to God I don’t know no more.”
I slid my elbows off the bar and gave him a tight grin. “Okay, friend, you did fine. Let me give you a word of advice. If either of those boys come in here again you pick up the phone and call the nearest precinct station.”
“Sure. I’ll ask ‘em to blow my crazy head off, too.”
“They might do it before you reach the phone, mister. Those lads were after Hooker and it might have been them who got to him. They won’t like anybody who can put the finger on ‘em. Remember what I told you.”
He started to sweat again. All along his neck the cords were standing out against the layer of fat. He didn’t look a bit happy. A couple of longshoremen pushed in through the door and lined up at the rail and he had one hell of a time trying to keep the glasses under the beer tap. He didn’t want to look up when I left, but he had to and I could feel his eyes on my back.
So they were private dicks and one’s name was Nocky. Anybody could pick up a badge to flash if he wanted to, but there was just the chance that they were the real thing, so the first pay station I came to I changed two bucks into nickels and started dialing all the agencies I knew of.
None of them picked up the description, but one of them did hear of a Nocky something-or-other but was sure it was a nickname. He couldn’t give me any further information so I tried a couple of precincts uptown where I had an in at the desk. A Sergeant Bellew came on and told me the name was familiar, but that was all. He had the idea that the guy was a private dick too but couldn’t be sure.
On the off-chance that Pat might know, I called his office. He picked up his phone on the first ring and his voice had a snap to it that wasn’t too nice. I said, “It’s Mike, Pat. What’s eating you now?”
“Plenty. Listen, I’m pretty busy now and ....”
“Nuts. You’re not that busy.”
“Damn it, Mike, what is it now?”
“Ever hear of a private cop called Nocky? It’s a nickname.”
“No.”
“Can you check on it for me?”
“Hell no!” His voice had an explosive crack to it. “I can’t do a damn thing except obey orders. The D.A.’s working up another stink ever since this afternoon and he’s got us nuts up here.”
“What happened, another raid go sour?”
“Ah, they all go sour. He closed down a wire room and pulled in a couple of punks when he was looking for something big. Ed Teen came down with a lawyer and a bondsman and got them both out within the hour.”
“No kidding? So Ed’s taking a personal interest in what goes on now.”
“Yeah. He doesn’t want ‘em to talk before he does a little coaching first. You know, I think we’re on to something this time. We had to pull a Gestapo act and check on our own men, but I think we have that leak located.”
“How does it look?”
“Lousy. He’s a first-grade detective and up to his ears in hock. He’s one of three who have been in on every deal so far and money might be a powerful persuader to get him to pass a sign along somehow.”
“Have you picked up the tip-off yet?”
“Nope. If he’s doing it he’s got a damn good system. Keep shut about this. The only reason I mentioned it is because I may need you soon. The guy knows all the other cops and I may have to stick a plant along the line to see who’s picking up the flash from him.”
“Okay, I’ll be around any time you need me. If you run into anything on that Nocky character, let me know.”
“Sure, Mike. Wish I could help you out now, but we’re all tied up.”
I said so long and hung up. I still had a handful of nickels to go so I made a blind stab at a barroom number downtown and asked if Cookie Harkin was there. I had to wait while the guy looked and after a minute or so a voice said, “Cookie speaking.”
“Mike Hammer.”
“Hey, boy. Long time no see. How’s tricks?”
“Good enough. You still got wide-open ears?”
“Sure. See all, hear all and say plenty if the pays right. Why?”
“Ever hear of a private dick named Nocky? He’s a wise runt who has an oversize partner. Supposedly a couple of tough boys from somewhere uptown.”
I didn’t get any answer for a minute, so I said, “Well?”
“Wait a minute, Mike. You know what you’re asking about, don’t you?” He spoke in next to a whisper. I heard him pull the door of the booth closed before he said anything else. “What’re you working on?”
“Murder, friend.”
“Brother!”
“Who is he?”
“I’ll have to do a little checking around first. I think I know who you mean, all right. I’ll see what I can do, but if it’s the guy I think it is, I’m not sticking my neck out too far, understand?”
“Sure, do what you can. I’ll pay you for it.”
“Forget the pay. All I want is some inside stuff I can pass along for what it’s worth. You know my angle.”
“How long will it take?”
“Gimme a coupla hours. Suppose I meet you at the Tucker Bar. It’s a dive, but you can get away with anything in there.”
It was good enough. I told him I’d be there and put the rest of the nickels back in my pocket. They make a big lump and a lot of noise so I went across town to an Automat and spent them all on a supper I needed bad.
It was dark when I finished and had started to rain again.
The Tucker Bar was built under a neon sign that put out more light in advertising than was used up inside. It was off on a side street in a place nobody smart went to even on a slumming party, but it was a place where people who knew people could be found and gotten drunk enough to spill over a little excess information if the questions were put right.
I saw Cookie in the back room edging through the tables with a drink in his hand, stopping at a table here and there to say hello. He was small and skinny with a big nose, bigger ears and loose pockets that could spill out the right kind of dough when he needed it. The guy looked and acted like a cheap hood when he was the head legman for one of the biggest of the syndicated columnists. I waited at the bar nursing a beer until the act on the dance floor was finished. A couple of strippers were trying to see how fast they could shed their clothes in time to the same music. They got down to bare facts in a minute’s time and there was a lot of noise around the ringside. The rest of the crowd was having a hard time trying to see what they were paying for.
There was a singer and a solo pianist after that before the management decided to let the customers go back to drinking. I picked up my glass and squeezed through the bunch standing under the arch that let to the back room and worked my way to the table where Cookie was sitting.
He had two chicks with him, a pair of phony blondes with big bosoms and painted faces and he was showing them a coin trick so they had to lean forward to see what he was doing and he could leer down their necklines. He was having himself a great time. The blondes were drinking champagne. They were having a great time too.
I said, “Hello, ape man.”
He looked up and grinned from one big ear to another until he looked like a clam just opened. “How do ya like that, my old pal, Mike Hammer! What’re you doin’ down here where people are?”
“Looking for people.”
“Well, sit right down, sit right down. Here’s one all made to order for you. Meet Tolly and Joan.”
I said, “Hi,” and pulled out the fourth chair.
“Mike’s a friend of mine from way back, kids. A real good skate.” He nodded at the blonde who was giving me the eye already. “You take Tolly, Mike. Joan and me’s already struck up a conversation. She’s a French maid from Brooklyn who works for the Devoe family. Wait’ll you catch her
accent. She sure fooled them. Gawd, what a family of jerks they are!”
I caught his expression and the slight wink that went with it. Tomorrow the stuff Joan was handing out would turn up in print and hell would get raised in the Devoe household. She gave us a demonstration of her accent with giggles and launched into a spiel of how the old man had tried to make her and how she refused and I almost wanted to ask her how she got the mink cape that was draped over the back of her chair on a maid’s salary.
Tolly turned out to be the better of the two. She was a juicy eyeful with a lot of skin showing and nothing on under the dress she wore just to be conventional. She told me she had been posing for an artist down in the Village until she caught him using a camera instead of a paintbrush. She found he was peddling the prints and made him kick in with a fifty-fifty cut or get the pants knocked off him by an ex-boy friend in the Bronx, and now she was living off the cream of the land.
“Your artist friend sure mixes pleasure with business, honey,” I told her. “Hell, I wouldn’t mind seeing you undraped a bit.”
She snapped open her purse and tossed me a wallet-sized print with a laugh. “Get right to it.” She had a body that would make a statue drool, and with the poses the artist got her into it was easy to see why she wasn’t hurting for dough. She let me look at it a little while, asked me if I wanted to dance and laughed when I said maybe later, but not right then.
Finally we got up and danced while Cookie sat and yapped with the French maid from Brooklyn. Tolly didn’t have any trouble giving me the business because the mob on the dance floor had us pressed together like the ham in a sandwich.
Every bit of her was pressed against every bit of me and her mouth was right next to my ear. Every once in a while she’d stick her tongue out and send something chasing down my spine. “I like you, Mike,” she said.
I gave her a little squeeze until her eyes half closed and she said something through her teeth. I slapped her fanny for it. We got back to the table and played kneesies while we talked until the girls decided to hit the powder room.
As they walked away Cookie said, “Cute kids, hey?”
“Real cute. Where the devil do you find them?”
“I get around. I don’t look like much, but I get around. With a pair like them on my arms it’s a ticket to anyplace I want to go so long as a guy’s taking up the tickets.”
I picked a smoke out of my pack and handed one to him. “What about our deal?”
His eyes crawled up my arm to my face. “I know them. The boys are hurting right now. You do that?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What a mess. The little one wants your guts.”
“Who are they?”
“Private dicks. That’s what the little piece of paper says in their wallets. They’re hoods who’ll do anything for some cash.”
“If they’re cops they aren’t making any money unless they’re hired to protect somebody.”
“They are. You know anything about the rackets, Mike?”
“A little.”
“The town’s divided into sections, see. Like the bookies. They pay off to the local big boy who pays off to Ed Teen.”
The cigarette froze in my fingers. “Where’s Teen in this?”
“He’s not, but one of his local boys is the mug who uses your two playmates for a bodyguard. His name is Toady Link. Ever hear of him?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you didn’t hear much. He keeps his nose clean. The bodyguards are to keep the small-timers moving and not to protect him. As bookies go, the guy’s okay. Now how about coming across with something I can sell.”
I squashed the butt out and started on another. Cookie’s ears were pinned and he leaned across the table with a grin like we were telling dirty stories. I said, “There was a little murder the other night. Then there was another. In the beginning they looked little, but now they’re starting to look pretty big. I haven’t got a damn thing I can tell you ... yet. When it happens you’ll get it quick. How’s that?”
“Fair enough. Who got killed?”
“A guy named William Decker, Arnold Basil, then the next day Decker’s friend Mel Hooker.”
“I read about that.”
“You’ll be reading more about it. Where’ll I find this Toady Link?”
Cookie rattled off a couple of addresses where I might pick him up and I let them soak in so I wouldn’t forget them. “Just one thing, Mike,” he added, “you don’t know from nothing, see? Keep me out of it. I stay away from them boys. My racket takes dough but no rough stuff, and when it comes to rods or brass knucks you can count me out. I don’t want none of them hoods after my hide.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. I stood up and threw a fin on the table to cover some of Tolly’s champagne.
Cookie’s eyebrows went up to his hairline. “You aren’t going now, are you? Hell, what about Tolly? She’s got a yen for you already and I can’t make out with two dames.”
“Sure you can. Nothing to it.”
“Aw, Mike, what a guy you are, and after I hand you such a sweet dish too.”
My mouth twisted into a lopsided smile. “I can get all the dishes I want without having them handed to me. Tell Tolly that maybe I’ll look her up someday. She interests me strangely.”
He didn’t say anything, but he looked disappointed. He sat there wiggling those big ears and I cleared out of the place before the blonde came back and twisted my arm into staying.
Dames.
It was turning into a night just like that first one. The sidewalks and pavements were one big wet splash reflecting the garish lights of the streets and throwing them back at you. I pulled my raincoat out of the back and slipped into it, then climbed behind the wheel.
My watch read a few minutes after nine and it was tonight. Marsha said tonight. But there were other things first and Marsha could wait. It would be all the better for the waiting.
So I got in line behind the other cars and headed uptown. On the edge of the Bronx I turned off and looked for the bar that was one of the addresses Cookie had given me and found it in the middle of the block. I left the engine going while I asked around inside, but neither the bartender nor the manager had seen the eminent Mr. Link so far that night. They obliged with his home address and I thanked them politely even though I already had it.
Toady Link was at home.
Maybe it would be better to say he was occupying his Bronx residence. That’s the kind of a place it was. All fieldstone and picture windows on a walled-in half-acre of land that would have brought a quarter-million at auction. There were lights on all three floors of the joint and nobody to be seen inside. If it weren’t for the new Packard squatting on the drive I would have figured the lights to be burglar protection.
I slid my own heap in at the curb and walked up the gravel to the house and punched the bell. Inside there was a faraway sound of chimes and about a minute later the door opened on a chain and a face looked at me waiting to see what I wanted.
You could see why he was called Toady. It was a big face, bigger around the jowls than it was on top with a pair of protruding eyes that seemed to have trouble staying in their sockets.
I said, “Hello, Toady. Do I get asked in?”
Even his voice was like a damned frog. “What do you want?”
“You maybe.”
The frog face cracked into a wide-mouthed smile, a real nasty smile and the chain came off the lock. He had a gun in his hand, a big fat revolver with a hole in the end big enough to get your finger into. “Who the hell are you, bub?”
I took it easy getting my wallet out and flipped it back so he could see the tin. I shouldn’t have bothered. His eyes never came off mine at all. I said, “Mike Hammer. Private Investigator, Toady. I think you ought to know me.”
“I should?”
“Two of your boys should. They tried to take me.”
“If you’re looking for them ...”
“I’m not. I’m looking for you. Ab
out a murder.”
The smile got fatter and wider and the hole in the gun looked even bigger when he pointed it at my head. “Get in here,” he said.
I did like he said. I stood there in the hall while he locked the door behind me and I could feel the muzzle of that rod about an inch behind my spine. Then he used it to steer me through the foyer into an outsized living room.
That much I didn’t mind. But when he lowered the pile of fat he called a body into a chair and left me standing there on the carpet I got a little bit sore. “Let’s put the heater away, Toady.
“Let’s hear more about this murder first. I don’t like people to throw murder in my face, Mr. Investigator. Not even lousy private cops.”
Goddamn, that fat face of his was making me madder every second I had to look at it.
“You ever been shot, fat boy?” I asked him.
His face got red up to his hairline.
“I’ve been shot, fat boy,” I said. “Not just once, either. Put that rod away or I’m going to give you a chance to use it. You’ll have time to pump out just one slug and if it misses you’re going to hear the nastiest noise you ever heard.”
I let my hand come up so my fingertips were inside my coat. When he didn’t make a move to stop me I knew I had him and he knew it too. Fat boy didn’t like the idea of hearing a nasty noise a bit. He let the gun drop on the chair beside him and cursed me with those bug eyes of his for finding out he was as yellow as they come.
It was better that way. Now I liked standing in the middle of the room. I could look down at the fat slob and poke at him with a spear until he told me what I wanted to hear. I said, “Remember William Decker?”
His eyelids closed slowly and opened the same way. His head nodded once, squeezing the fat out under his chin.
“Do you know he’s dead?”
“You son-of-a-bitch, don’t try tagging me with that!” Now he was a real frog with a real croak.
“He played the ponies, Toady. You were the guy who picked up his bets.”
“So what! I pick up a lot of bets.”
“I thought you didn’t fool around with small-time stuff.”
“Balls, he wasn’t small-time. He laid ‘em big as anybody else. How’d I know how he was operating? Look, you ...”
The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 2 Page 32