“What about them? Are they the power in Sidon?”
“Don’t be silly. If there’s anything big going on, it takes more brains than they have collectively to run it. Those guys are stooges, especially the chief. Dekkert is a plain out-and-out strong-arm boy. When the report reaches the top man that there’s an outsider prying around, that’s when the fun will begin. You just watch.”
“Watch my eye,” Velda countered. “I’m tired of sitting still while things go round and round. How about letting me in on something for a change? Don’t forget I have a private op’s license and a permit to carry a gun. I won’t get hurt.”
Some girl, Velda. Next to her compact in her purse nestled a flat. 32 automatic and she knew how to use it. And that wasn’t her only weapon-she could whip off a heel and crack a masher’s skull in a flash.
I patted her hand. “You don’t get the point, honey. If this was an ordinary routine job, I’d say swell, but it’s not. It’s a damn dirty business and I’d hate like hell to see you in over your head.”
“Mike… I’m a big girl.”
“And in all the right places. Look, if you really want to help me, just do as I tell you. Maybe what I ask you might seem insignificant, but I promise it won’t be. I can’t be in two places at the same time, and the little details you take care of help out a lot.”
“Okay, Mike,” Velda said softly, through a pouty smile. “You’re the boss.”
We finished our drinks and ordered another round. I tried to think through what I had so far, but there was really nothing to go on except a disappearance and something that smelt like power politics and graft. I needed more.
“Wait here for a minute,” I said to Velda.
She shrugged and went back to her crossword.
I went over to the bartender and got change for a five spot, mostly quarters, and went to a pay phone booth in the back of the room. I stuck a nickel in and asked for the operator.
When I got her, I said, “Police Headquarters in New York City,” then rattled off the number.
The switchboard at HQ knew to put me right through to the man I’d called.
“Captain Chambers, Homicide Bureau, speaking.”
“Hello, kid. This is Mike. Sober and sassy.”
“Well, about time you gave me a buzz. How goes the getaway?”
“About as well as that time Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson went to that lodge in Wisconsin.”
He laughed, but said, “I hope you’re kidding. How’s Sidon look to you?”
“Dead on its feet, but right now the only tourists in town are Velda and me. It’ll get livelier.”
“You mean when the season opens? Or because you’re in town? I can tell that this is no social call. What’s up?”
“Not very much… yet. Do you have any information on Sharron Wesley dating from after the trial? I mean, has she been booked for anything or been connected with anything shady?”
“So why the sudden interest in Sharron Wesley?”
That guy had a hair-trigger mind that could figure angles faster than I could snap my fingers. I was willing to bet that he had already mentally reviewed the Wesley dame’s entire past including the most recent episodes involving the tabloids’ favorite black widow.
“She seems to be Sidon’s most prominent notorious citizen,” I said. “Humor me.”
“Just a minute,” he said, “let me check my files.”
He was back in seconds and I could hear the rustle of paper as he thumbed through. “Yeah, here’s something. Mrs. Wesley was given a ticket for illegal parking on an express street about a month ago.”
“That it?”
“No. No… then she was arrested for disturbing the peace two days later.”
“Interesting.”
“There’s more. She had a catfight with another babe in a night club. Seems like it continued out onto the street after they were put out of the place and a window got broken. She paid for the window and her fine.”
“She can afford to.”
“The last time she was in the custody of the city was two weeks ago. Mrs. Wesley was picked up when the vice squad raided a high-stakes card game in a suite of rooms in a downtown hotel. She was released along with three other women who apparently weren’t in on the game.”
“Pat, you’re not saying this was prostitution. She’s not a damn call girl.”
“I don’t know what she is, other than not a grieving widow. We’ve had some big-time gamblers in town lately, Mike, and she might have been backing somebody’s play. She can afford that, too.”
“Yes, she can.”
“Anyway, pal, that’s all I have.” I heard the file hit his desk like a slap. “Okay, I showed you mine, now you show me yours-what gives on your end?”
I started from the beginning and took it through to the police station visit this morning.
When I finished, he muttered, “Dekkert, huh?”
“Yup.”
“Would it surprise you to hear I’ve had all kinds of bad reports on that bastard since he was kicked off the force?”
“Nope.”
“Seems Dekkert got in a jam in Miami, working for a security outfit that was burgling its own clients. Somehow he managed not to do any time-maybe he ratted his gang out. Then he wasn’t heard from until we got a teletype from San Francisco requesting his history. He landed a private dick’s license there, and during the course of a case beat a guy to death. When they caught up with him, his license got revoked and he was given twenty-four hours to get out of the state.”
“Sounds like he manages to leave dirty smudges on his record when it should be filthy as hell.”
Pat grunted agreement. “Dekkert’s always had a way of finding some mob angel to cover for him. When the trouble hits, he makes a deal, pays off whoever he has to, and starts somewhere else.”
“But how can he wrangle another police job, even in Sidon?”
“Mike, he was asked to resign from the New York force. The administration at that time had too much dirty laundry to risk exposing every lousy racket Dekkert was tied into. Read his jacket and you’ll see medals of valor, between those dirty smudges. This is one very hard case. Be careful of him, chum.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I laughed. “After the two beatings I gave him, he knows what to expect now.”
“Yeah, but do you?”
“Pat, I’m just in Sidon to take the rest cure, remember? Anyway, thanks for the info. If something develops, I’ll ring you.”
“Always glad to help you out. It’s the least I can do, all the times you come through for me. But the truth is, Mike… I ought to forget I even know you, after the Williams case ^*.”
“Pat, I took this trip to forget about all that, remember?”
“I remember. Do you?”
“Pat…”
“You run into a crooked cop you tangled with before, and stumble into a missing persons case, which incidentally hasn’t come over the teletype as such yet. And you tell a very amusing story about shooting up the Sidon police station.”
“I didn’t shoot it up. I just-”
“Shot a gun out of the deputy chief’s hand. What’s your horse in this race, Mike? You got no murdered friend to avenge this time.”
“Back off, Pat.”
“Okay, I will. And I will help you like I always do. Whatever background info you need, buddy, you got it. You just have to convince me of one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“That you aren’t down at Sidon trying to get yourself killed.”
“Pat,” I said. “I don’t have that big a conscience.”
After I hung up, the operator came on wanting another quarter to cover the call, and I fed it to her.
I returned to Velda’s booth and she looked up and asked, “Now what?”
“That was Pat. He couldn’t give me any help except to provide a little something on Sharron Wesley.”
“A little something good?”
I shook
my head. “She was nabbed on a few minor violations. Dekkert must have picked this podunk as a last resort or else he’s working for something or somebody bigger than the so-called police department.”
“Why last resort?”
“He’s been in a few nasty jams since he was run out of Manhattan. Want another drink?”
“No thanks, Mike.”
“Maybe some lunch?”
“I’m still stuffed from breakfast. There’s a theater down the street with a Saturday matinee double feature.” She scooted out of the booth. “What do you say?”
For the next two and a half hours we sat through a western we’d already seen and a Bowery Boys comedy I wished we never had. I wasn’t really paying any attention to the screen, just sitting there going over everything I’d learned so far, again and again. Finally I fell asleep and Velda punched me in the ribs when it was time to leave.
As we exited, Velda said, “You looked surprised when I woke you.”
“Yeah. I was wondering what Huntz Hall was doing in a Randolph Scott picture.”
We headed across the street to a dingy diner, boxcar-style; but the kitchen behind the counter looked clean and the cutlery didn’t have food caked in the tines of the forks like a lot of such joints. The proprietor was a big jovial Polack who sported a handlebar mustache and a pair of black eyebrows that met in the middle without thinning out in the slightest.
He wiped the counter clean enough for eating, then said, “What’ll it be, folks?”
“I’ll have the veal cutlet,” Velda said. “Home fries and corn.”
I asked, “Got a steak?”
He shook his head and black snakes danced on his scalp. “Naw. Rationing is over, my friend, but there are still shortages.”
“I know. Just asking.”
“Oh, I could have plenty of meat if I wanted to buy black market, but I won’t do it. I lost a son on Iwo and I’ll be damned if I will do business with them sons of…” He hesitated. “…excuse me, miss… dirty bums who made all that filthy dough while our kids were dying over there.”
“Gimme the cutlet then.”
“Okay. You don’t like my speech?”
“Your speech was swell. But it’s not what I came in for. Veal cutlet.”
He looked at me carefully, trying to decide whether we were friends or not. “You in the war, mister?”
“He sure was,” Velda piped up.
I growled, “Velda…”
“With the infantry in the Pacific,” she went on. “He killed more Japs than the Enola Gay.”
A grin bloomed and took the handlebar along for the ride. “No kidding? I was down in Port Moresby, cooking… till they kicked me out.”
I asked, “How come?”
Our plates of food were already in the window behind him.
He went to get them, and said to us over his shoulder, “They found out I was over-age. Ain’t that something? Gee, I worked harder than any two kids in the outfit. Over-age, huh, what a joke. What a bad joke on me.”
“How did they get wise?”
He set the plates in front of us; their steam smelled good. “The pencil pushers did it, but it took a while. See, I was in the first war, only I wasn’t a cook, I was in the tanks. Took ’em a year and a half to catch up, but they did. When I left, the colonel, he shook my hand. Don’tcha think that was nice of him?”
I laughed. The Polack was a good egg. I had met up with his kind before-strictly square shooters. As I dug into the meal, I could see why he did a fairly good business during the day. The cutlets were done to a turn, and there was no skimping on the vegetables. Finally a good guy to know in Sidon.
Between mouthfuls, I asked, “Say, who’s this Wesley woman out on the shore?”
“That whoor…” He looked at Velda again, though she was too busy eating to pay any attention, and not nearly as easily offended as he imagined. “…that trollop,” he continued. “Lots of wild parties, brings her drunken friends to town and they wreck the place. Always a crowd from the city, they are.”
“Can’t the police take care of that?”
“Are you kidding, mister? The cops here, they got the hand out for all they can get and, brother, does Mrs. Wesley play ball with them. One of the guys that was out to her house killed a kid when he was driving his car drunk and he never did a day behind bars. She gave the kid’s folks ten thousand smackers and they had to shut up.”
Velda and I exchanged a troubled glance.
I asked him, “Why don’t the taxpayers object? They appoint the cops around here, don’t they?”
“Sure they do. Like they appoint the mayor. Everyone does just what Rudy Holden wants them to do, or else they find some other town to live in.”
“Rudy who?”
“Holden. Rudolph Holden, Rudy. Hell, mister, he waves the flag around Sidon. The winter people only live here so they can operate during the summer. They own beach houses or have concessions along the street for the visitors. If they don’t play ball with Rudy, they don’t get no license. That’s all there is to it.”
“How about you?”
He grinned again, white teeth flashing through the dark mustache. “Oh, Rudy and his boys, they don’t fool around with me.”
“You’re an exception, huh? How did you pull that off?”
He pounded his chest with a fist. “I come from a big family, mister. I got twelve brothers and four sons left. When the boys in the blue uniforms come around for the summer shakedown, I tell them that maybe I might have a family reunion soon. They know what I mean.” The guy laughed from the bottom of his barrel chest. “And I’m the smallest one in the family. My brothers are pretty big. They raise plenty hell around this place when they get started.”
I grinned at him. “I hear this Dekkert is a pretty tough apple himself.”
“Maybe not no more,” he said, pulling on his mustache, thoughtful and still grinning. “Word around town is, some big guy whopped the devil out of him.”
“You don’t say,” I said.
Velda had a pixie grin going. She caught the Pollack’s eyes and pointed her fork at me.
“Hey!” he blurted. “Are you the guy? Tony said it was some big ugly guy from out of town! Are you him?”
I laughed. “I fit the description.”
“I don’t mean no disrespect.” He stuck out a big hand. “Lemme shake with you.”
We did. His grip didn’t break my fingers, but stopped just short.
“By damn, it’s good to see somebody in this town what ain’t scared of them stinking cops! The meal’s on the house. You and your girl both. Wait’ll I tell little Steve about you! What’s your name, mister?”
“Mike Hammer. I’m a private dick from New York.”
“Good one, too,” Velda said, pointing the fork again. “Pretty famous.”
“Hammer.” His eyes popped. “ Mike Hammer! Well, I’ll be a dirty name. I got it now. I read the Daily News! Ain’t you the one that-”
Velda stopped him again. “Shot down those two hoods in Times Square? That’s him. Showed a couple hundred people in a nightclub what a crook had for dinner, using a steak knife? One and the same. Got in Dutch with the police for making a perfectly good suspect unrecognizable? That’s him.”
“Cut it out, chick.” I nudged her in the ribs. “I’m not so bad.”
“Oh, no,” she said, very sarcastically. “He’s good with the ‘chicks,’ too.”
She just had to tack that on. She always does.
The big man slapped his chest. “Well, me, I’m Steve Kowalski. Just call me Big Steve. Is the pretty lady your wife?”
“Not yet. This is Velda, my secretary and good right arm.”
“She is very beautiful,” he said, “your right arm.”
Velda gave him a warm smile, and then me one-she liked the sound of that “not yet.” I better watch my step or she’d be pinning me down with a proposal and I wasn’t near ready.
Over a piece of pie and a second cup of coffee, Big Steve
told us what he knew about the town. The winter population was about fifteen hundred, but it increased to ten thousand during the summer months, most of the crowd attracted from New York. The beach was nice, and there were few limitations on parties, drinking bouts in saloons, or what have you. From his description, Sidon was the Reno of Long Island.
I asked, “There’s illegal gambling here, Steve?”
“There is.” He held up his hands as if in surrender. “But I don’t know where and don’t want to. I keep apart from that.”
But he knew in general what was going on. He knew Sidon was situated far enough away from everything for visitors to enjoy loosely enforced laws, and yet not far enough away to hamper travel. Dotted along the shore line were the mansions of the wealthy. Some lived here all year round, but most boarded up their fancy pads for use during the summertime only.
These people had nothing to do with the town. Even the bulk of their provisions came in from the outside, and their recreation was on their own private beaches.
Velda said, “Anything for a young couple like us to do after dark, before the season starts around here?”
I could think of something.
Big Steve said, “There’s a nice beer parlor just down the street-jukebox and everything. But you don’t wanna eat there.”
“Okay,” she said. “What else?”
“There’s a place on the highway where you kids can do some serious drinkin’ and dancin’. Only opened up a few days ago-gettin’ the jump on the season. They got a little band. Not bad.”
“Sounds good,” Velda said. Then to me she said, “Let’s try it, after work.”
Big Steve, who was down from us now using the rag on the counter, said, “Work? You two are working?”
“It’s not my idea,” Velda smirked.
“Zip it,” I told her.
A screaming siren grabbed our attention and we spun on our stools to see a Sidon police car shoot by. Simultaneously a little barefooted kid ran into the diner, his hair flying in excitement.
“ Uncle Steve! They found a dead lady in the park! She’s sitting on the stone horse… and she ain’t got no clothes on!”
Lady, go die (mike hammer) Page 4