My knuckles cracked across his jaw so hard he went back over the arm of the chair and spilled in a heap on the floor. He lay there with his eyes wide open and the spit dribbling out of his open mouth started to turn pink. He was the bug caught in the web trying to hide from the spider and he’d backed into the hornet’s nest.
Carmen Trivago would never be the same again.
I used the phone in the lobby again. I buzzed my apartment and the super’s wife answered it. I hadn’t told her not to do so, she was doing me a favor. I told her it was me, asked if everything was okay and she said it was. Lily was asleep with the door locked but she could hear her breathing and talking in there. Her husband was making doubly sure things stayed quiet by pretending to do some work in the hall outside.
There were three other phone calls. A Captain Chambers had called and wanted to see me right away. I thanked her and hung up.
I turned up the collar of my trench coat and stepped out into the rain. The wind was lashing it up the street in waves now, pounding it against the buildings and as the cars went by you had a quick look at the drivers as the wipers ripped it aside before the faces muddled into a liquid haze.
The cab didn’t wait to be called. He pulled into the curb and I hopped in, gave him the address and stuck a smoke in my mouth.
Someplace Velda was looking at the rain. It wouldn’t be a pleasant sound, not this time. She’d be crazy with fear, scared so hard she wouldn’t be able to think. They weren’t the kind you could stall. She could only wait. And hope.
And someplace the people who had her were thinking too. They were thinking of a long string of kills and two fresh ones propped up against a DEAD END sign. They were thinking of the word that went out and before they’d do anything at all they’d think harder still and it wouldn’t be until I was dead that they’d feel right to do what they wanted to her.
I wasn’t the cops and I wasn’t the feds. I was one guy by himself but I was one who could add to the score without giving a damn at all. I was the one guy they were afraid of because the trail of dead men hadn’t stopped yet. It was a trail that had to be walked and they were afraid of stepping on it.
Pat was in his office. You had to look twice to make sure he wasn’t asleep, then you saw the light glinting off his almost-closed eyes and saw the movement of his mouth as he sucked on the dry pipe.
I threw my hat on the desk and sat down. He didn’t say anything. I got out my next-to-last Lucky, held a light to it and let the smoke go. He still didn’t say anything. I didn’t have the time to trade thoughts. “Okay, chum, what is it?”
The pipe came out of his mouth slowly. “You conned me, Mike.”
I started to get warm all over, an angry flush that burned into my chest. “Great. Just like that I gave you the business! You don’t say anything ... you sit there like a dummy then pull the cork. Say what’s eating you or I’ll get the hell out of here.”
What distrust was in his face turned uncertain. “Mike, this thing is a bombshell. The biggest staff that ever operated on one case is out there working. They’re going night and day looking for the answer then you come up with it ready to trade off for something.”
I sat back in the chair. I took a deep, relieved pull on the smoke and grinned. “Thanks for the compliment. I didn’t know it would get back so fast. Where’d you pick it up?”
“Every stoolie we know has his ears open. What are you trading for?”
My grin pulled tight at the edges, flattened across my teeth and stayed that way. “Velda. The bastards have Velda. She suckered Al Affia into a trap that didn’t work and got caught in one herself. She played it too smart and now they have her.”
It was quiet in the room. The clock on the wall hummed over the drone of the rain outside, but that was all.
“You don’t look too worked up about it,” Pat said. Then he saw my eyes and took it back without saying so out loud.
“They’ll want to be sure. They’ll want to know if I have it or not before they cut loose on her. They’ll have to be sure. Right in the beginning they thought Berga Torn passed it on to me, went through my apartment. If it was anybody else they could have taken it easy, but not with me. They knew what was going to happen.”
“Let’s have it, Mike.”
“The answer?” I said. I shook my head. “I don’t have it. Not where I can reach out and touch it yet. I need more details.”
“So do we. I thought we were sharing this thing.”
“I didn’t forget. What have you got?”
Pat stared at me a long time, reached out and fanned a few papers across his desk. “Berga didn’t escape from the sanitarium. She had it planned for her. She had a guest early that evening, a woman. The name and address were phony and we got no description except that she had brown hair. An attendant stated that she was pretty nervous after the guest left.”
I cut in with, “How come you’re just finding this stuff out?”
“It’s a private sanitarium and they were afraid of ruining their reputation. They held off until we scared them. Anyway, we checked everybody in the place that night and came up with a spot from a couple of female visitors in the next room.
“When the closing bell ran they stood outside in the hall a few minutes talking. They were close to Berga’s door and overheard a voice saying ...” He glanced down at the sheet and read from it. “... ‘they’re after you. They were at the house today.’ ” The rest of it we had to put together and when we had it the dame was telling her something about the main gate, to be as casual as possible, and there would be a car waiting for her at the northwest corner.“
Pat stopped and tapped the sheet. He tapped the stem of the pipe against his teeth and said, “On that corner was an F.B.I. wagon so whoever was waiting had to take up another spot. She got scared out of the deal and started hitchhiking when she didn’t see the person she was expecting.”
I said, “She saw the person, all right. He was in another car. She knew damn well she was being followed.”
“There’s something wrong,” Pat said.
“Yeah. Like murders on the books as accidents.”
Pat’s jaw worked. “Proof?”
“No, but that’s the way it happened.” I couldn’t see his face, but I knew what he was thinking. In his own way he had covered every detail I had. “The first one was Nicholas Raymond. That’s where the answer is, Pat.”
His eyes peered out at me. “Nicholas Raymond was a Mafia agent. He ran an import business as an excuse to make frequent overseas trips.”
I didn’t answer so he said, “... He was the guy who ran the stuff into this country that was turned into cash for Mafia operations.”
He was watching me so closely that you couldn’t see anything but the black pupils of his eyes. His face was all screwed up with the intensity of watching me and it was all I could do to hold still in the chair. I covered by dragging in another lungful of smoke and letting it go toward the ceiling so I could do something with my mouth except feel it try to stretch out of shape.
The picture was perfect now. It was the most beautiful piece of art work I had ever seen. The only trouble was I couldn’t make out what it was all about nor who drew it.
I said, “How much would two million in narcotics before the war be worth now, Pat?”
“About double.”
I got up and put on my hat. “That’s what you’re looking for, friend. A couple of shoe boxes that big. If I find them I’ll tell you about it.”
“Do youknow where it is?”
“No. I have a great big fat idea, but if it’s stayed buried this long it won’t hurt anybody staying buried a while longer. All I want is the person who is after it because that person has Velda. If I have to I’ll dig it up and trade for her.”
“Where are you going now?”
“I think I’m going out and kill somebody, Pat,” I said.
CHAPTER 11
The cop at the switchboard told me to go ahead and use the phone. He
plugged in an outside line and I dialed the number that got me Michael Friday. I said, “Your line clear? This is Mike.”
“Mike! Yes ... There’s no one here.”
“Good. Now listen. There’s a place called the Texan Bar on Fifty-sixth Street. Get down there as fast as you can. I’ll be waiting. You got that?”
“Yes, but . . .”
I hung up on her. It was the best thing you could do with a woman when you wanted her to move fast. She’d be a good hour getting there which was just what I needed.
They were changing shifts outside the building and the flow of cops was getting thicker. I stepped outside, flagged down a cab and gave him the address of Al Affia’s place. The rain had thinned traffic down to a minimum and he didn’t take long getting there.
Nothing had changed. The blood was still there on the floor, dried into a crusty maroon. Close to the door the air was a little foul and inside it was worse. I shoved the door open, snapped on the light and there was Al grinning at me from the corner of the room, but it was a horrible kind of grin because somebody had broken him into pieces with the whisky bottle. He wasn’t killed plain. He was killed fancy as a person could be killed. He was killed so that he couldn’t make any sound as he died and whoever did it must have had a great time laughing because Al died slow.
What I came for was gone. There were still two of the blueprints on the table but they showed the layout of the docks. The rest were missing. I picked the phone up, dialed the operator and said very quietly, “Operator ... get me the local office of the F.B.I.”
Somebody said briskly, “Federal Bureau of Investigation, Moffat speaking.”
“You better get down here, Moffat,” I said. I laid the phone down gently alongside the base and walked out.
They’d know. They were lads you never noticed in the crowd, but they were all eyes and ears and brains. They worked quietly and you never read about them in the papers, but they got things done and they’d know. Maybe they knew a lot more than I thought they’d know.
She was waiting for me at the bar. She was a lusty, beautiful woman with a mouth that made you hungry when she smiled at you as you came in. There was humor in her eyes, but the wonder and curiosity showed below in the little lines that radiated from the corners of her lips.
There was nothing in mine. I could feel them flat and dull in their sockets. I nudged my chin to the booths in the back and she followed me. We sat down and she waited for me to say something and all I could think of was the last time I had sat here it was with Velda and now time was getting short.
I took the cigarette she held out from the case, lit it and leaned on the table. “How much do you love your brother, kid?”
“Mike ...”
“I’m asking the questions.”
“He’s my brother.”
“Partially.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“He’s mixed up in one of the dirtiest rackets you’ll ever find. He has a part in it someplace and is paid off in the blood and terror you’ll find wherever you find the Mafia operating. He’s part of a chain of killers and thieves, yet you like what his money can buy. Your love doesn’t stop anyplace, does it?”
She sat away from me as if I held a snake out at her.
“Stop, Mike, please stop!”
“You can stay on his side or mine, kid. The choice is up to you.”
The hysteria was caught in her chest. Her mouth wasn’t pretty any more. One little sob got loose and that was all. “Al Affia is dead. So far he’s the latest. He isn’t the last. Where do you stand?”
It came out slowly. She fought it all the way and won it. “With you, Mike.”
“I need some information. About Berga Torn.” She dropped her head and toyed with the ash tray. “Your brother played around with her some time ago. Why?”
“He ... hated that woman. She was a tramp. He hated tramps.”
“Did she know it?”
Michael shook her head. “In public he seemed fond of her. When we were alone ... he said awful things about her.”
“How far did he go?”
She looked up helplessly. “He kept her. I don’t know why he did it ... he didn’t like her at all. The woman he did care for at the time left him because he spent all his time ... nights ... with Berga. Carl ... was upset about it. One night he had an argument with someone about her in his study. He was so mad afterward he went out and got drunk, but he never saw Berga after that. He had an argument with her, too.”
“You know about Carl’s testifying before a congressional committee?”
“Yes. It ... didn’t seem to bother him. Not until ... he heard that ... she was going to speak against him.”
“That was never made public.”
“Carl has friends in Washington,” she said simply.
“Yet he never worried about it?”
“No.”
“Let’s go back further, sugar. Let’s go back before the war. Was there any time you can remember when something bothered Carl so much it damn near drove him nuts?”
The shadows around her eyes deepened, her hands pressed together tightly and she said, “How did you know? Yes, there was ... a time.”
“Now go over it slowly. Think about it. What did he do?”
Something panicky crossed her face. “I ... nothing. He was hardly ever home. He wouldn’t let me talk to him at all. When he was at home all he did was make long-distance calls. I remember because the phone bill was almost a thousand dollars for the month.”
My breath was coming in hot. It hissed in between my teeth with a whisper and burned into my lungs. I said, “Can you get that bill? Can you get the itemized list that went with it?”
“I ... might. Carl keeps everything ... in the safe at home. Once I saw the combination on the back of the desk blotter.”
I wrote down an address. Pat’s. But all I gave her was the address and the apartment number. “Find it. When you do, bring it here.” I folded the paper into her hand and she dropped it into her bag after looking at it long enough to etch it into her memory.
He’d get it. He’d pass it on and the boys in the blue suits would tie into it. They had the men and the time and the means. They’d do in a day what it would take me a year to do.
I snubbed out my butt, pulled the belt tight on the trench coat and stood up. “You’ll spend the rest of your life hating yourself for doing this. Hating me too. If it gets too much I’ll take you around and show you a lot of dirty little kids who are orphans and some widows your own age. I can show you pictures of bodies so cut up you’ll get sick. I’ll show you reports of kids who have killed and are condemned to death because they were sky-high on dope when they decided to see what it was like to burn a man down. You won’t be stopping it all. You’ll slow it down a little, maybe, but a few people who would have died will go on living because of you.”
For a few seconds she seemed completely empty. If there was any emotion in her it had drained out and all she was left with were her thoughts. They showed on her face, every one of them. They showed when she looked back into the past and brought to life what she had known all along but had refused to acknowledge. They showed when the life came back to her eyes and her mouth. She tilted one eyebrow at me, did something to her head that shook her hair loose down her back.
“I won’t hate you, Mike. Myself, perhaps, but not you.”
I think she knew it then. The thought of it hung in the air like a charged cloud. Michael said, “They’ll finally kill me, won’t they, Mike.” It wasn’t a question.
“What’s left of them ... if they ever find out ... would like to think they will. They’d like to kill me too. You can always remember one thing because they’ll be remembering it too. They’re not as big as they think they are.”
She smiled, a wan, drawn smile. “Mike ...”
I took the hand she held out to me.
“Kiss me again. Just in case.”
The wetness glistened on her lips. They wer
e firm lips, large, ripe, parted slightly over the even lines of her teeth. There was fire there that grew hotter as I came closer. I could see her mouth open even more, the tip of her tongue impatiently waiting, then the impatience broke and it met me before the lips did.
I held her face in my hands, heard the soft moan she made, felt her nails biting into my arms through the coat, then I let her go. She trembled so violently she had to press her hands against the booth and the fiery liquid of her mouth passed on into her eyes.
“Please go, Mike,” she said.
And I went. The rain took me back again, put its arms around me and held tight. I became part of the night, part of the wet, part of the noise and life that was the city. I could hear it laughing at me, a low, dull rumble with a sneer in it.
I walked down the side streets, crossed the avenues and got back to my kind of people again. I drifted through the night while my mind was days away and I was saying it off to myself and wondering how many other people were doing the same things. I was looking at a picture through the rain, knowing what was going on and not being able to make out the details.
It was a picture of a grim organization that stretched out its tentacles all over the world with the tips reaching into the highest places possible. It was an organization fed on the money of destruction and one tentacle was starving. The two million that was sent to feed it never arrived. No, that was wrong. It did arrive, but someplace it sat and was still there. In its sitting it had doubled its worth and the tentacle wanted it bad. It had to feast now to live. It was after the food with all the fury of its hunger, ready to do anything in the final, convulsive gesture of survival.
You could say it started with Berga. She wasn’t the girl in the headlights any longer. She was younger now, a tall luscious Viking with eyes that could draw a man. She was a blonde snare with a body full of playful curves that held out triple challenges, a body full of dares waiting to be taken up. She was coming home from a visit to Italy and in the hidden hours on board that ship she had found a person who was ready to call the dare. He wasn’t a special kind of a man. He was a guy with a small export business who could pass unnoticed in the crowd. He was a guy with a legitimate excuse to travel at certain times. He was a guy who was part of a great plan, a guy named Nicholas Raymond who really wasn’t anything at all and because of it was the one they used as a messenger to bring in the vital food for the tentacle over here.
The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 2 Page 58