He passed a hand over his face, then looked up slowly. “Mr. Hammer ... could I help in some way ... for instance, could I take care of decent funeral arrangements for her? I ... would appreciate it if you would allow me to. Somehow I feel as though I should. Here I have everything, while she....”
I interrupted with a shake of my head. “I’d rather do it, but thanks anyway. Still, it won’t be like having her family take care of her.”
“If you do need assistance of any sort, I wish you would call on me, Mr. Hammer.”
“I might have to do that.” The butler came in then with a tray of brandy. We both took one, toasted each other with a raised glass and downed it. It was damn good brandy. I put the glass on a side table hating myself because it looked like everything stopped here. Almost I should say. The greaseball was still in it, because he might possibly know who the redhead was. So I made one last stab at it.
“Where did you get this Last character?”
“He came well recommended to me by a firm who had used his services in the past. I investigated thoroughly and his record is excellent. What connection could he have had with the deceased girl, do you suppose?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he was only making use of her services. Where is he now, Mr. Berin?”
“He left for the cemetery with the name plate for the tomb early this morning. I instructed him to stay and see that it was properly installed. I doubt if he will be back before late this afternoon.”
There was as much here as I wanted to know. I said, “Maybe I’ll run out and see him there. Where’s the cemetery?”
He stood up and together we started walking toward the door. The little old butler appeared from out of nowhere and handed me my hat. Mr. Berin said, “Go back toward the city for ten miles. The cemetery lies west of the village at the first intersection. The gatekeeper will direct you once you reach it.”
I thanked him for his time and we shook hands again. He held the door open for me and I ran down the steps to the car. He was still there when I pulled away and I waved so long. In the rear-view mirror I saw him wave back.
The gatekeeper was only too happy to show me all the pretty tomb-stones and the newly dug graves. He took over the right seat of the car like a tour guide on a sight-seeing bus and started a spiel that he hardly interrupted by taking a breath. It was quite a joint, quite a joint. From the names on all the marble it seemed as if only the rich and famous died. Apparently there were three prerequisites necessary before they’d let you rot under their well-tended sod: Fortune, Fame or Position. Nearly everyone had had all three. At least very few went to their reward with just one.
It was easy to see that the winding road was leading to a grand climax. In the northeast corner of the grounds was a hillock topped by a miniature Acropolis, and the guide was being very particular to keep my attention diverted the other way so it would come as a complete surprise. He waited until we were at the foot of the hill, then pointed it out with a flourish, speaking with awed respect in his voice.
“This,” he said, “is to be a great tribute to a great man ... Mr. Arthur Berin-Grotin. Yes, a fitting tribute. Seldom has one man done so much to win a place in the hearts of the people.” He was almost in tears.
I just nodded.
“A very sensible man,” he continued. “Too often those final preparations are hurried and a person’s name is lost to posterity. Not so with Mr. Berin-Gratin....”
“Mr. Berin,” I corrected.
“Ah, you know him then.”
“Somewhat. Do you think it would be okay if I looked at the place close up?”
“Oh, certainly.” He opened the door. “Come, I’ll take you there.”
“I’d rather go alone. I may never have another chance to get back, and ... well, you understand.”
He was sympathetic at once. “Of course. You go right ahead, I’ll walk back. I must see to certain plots at this end, anyway.”
I waited until he was lost among the headstones, then lit a cigarette and walked up the path. The men were working on the far side of the scaffolding and never saw me come up. Or else they were used to sight-seers. The place was bigger than it looked. Curved marble columns rose upward for fifteen feet, overshadowing huge solid-bronze doors that were embellished with hand-crafted Greek designs.
The lintel over the doors was a curved affair held in place with an engraved keystone. Cut in the granite was the three-feather emblem of the royal family, or a good bottle of American whiskey. Each plume, the tall center one and the two outward-curving side plumes, was exact in detail until they could have passed for fossil impressions. There were words under it in Latin. Two of them were Berin-Grotin. Very simple, very dignified. The pride of a name, and the public could draw its own conclusions from the grandeur of the structure.
I started to walk around the side, then flattened against a recess in the wall. The greaseball was there, jawing out the workman for something or other. His voice had the same nasty tone that it had had the other night, only this time he had on a brown gabardine chauffeur’s uniform instead of a sharp suit. One of the workmen told him to shut up and he threw a rock at the scaffolding.
Just on a hunch I reached in my pocket and took out the plastic comb, and slid it down the walk so that it stopped right by his feet. He didn’t turn around for a minute, but when he did he kicked the comb and sent it skittering back in my direction. Instinctively, his hand went to his breast pocket, then he bent over and picked it up, wiped it on his hand and ran it through his hair, then returned it to his shirt.
I didn’t need any more after that. The greaseball was the guy who made a mess out of the redhead’s room.
He didn’t see me until I said, “Hello, Feeney.”
Then his lips drew back over his teeth and his ears went flat against the side of his head. “You dirty son of a bitch,” he snarled.
Both of us saw the same thing at the same time. No guns. Feeney must have liked it that way because the sneer turned into a sardonic smile and he dropped his hand casually into his pocket. Maybe he thought I was dumb or something. I was just as casual when I flicked open the buttons of my nice new jacket and slouched back against the wall.
“What do you want, shamus?”
“You, greaseball.”
“You think I’m easy to take?”
“Sure.”
He kept on grinning.
I said, “I went up to the redhead’s room last night. What were you looking for, Feeney?”
I thought he’d shake apart, he got so mad. There was a crazy light going in his eyes. “There was a comb on the floor by the window When you doubled over to get out it dropped out of your pocket. That comb you just picked up.”
He yanked his hand out of his pocket and the partially opened blade of the knife caught on cloth and snapped into place. I had my jacket off one arm and flipped it into his face. For a second it blinded him and the thrust missed my belly by an inch. He jumped back, then came in at me again, but my luck was better. The knife snagged in the jacket and I yanked it out of his hand.
Feeney Last wasn’t easy. He ripped out a curse and came into me with both fists before I could get the coat all the way off. I caught a stinger on the cheek and under the chin, then smashed a right into his face that sent him reeling back to bounce off one of the columns. I tore the sleeve half off the jacket shucking it, and rushed him. That time I was a damn fool. He braced against the pillar and lashed out with a kick that landed in my gut and turned me over twice. If I hadn’t kept rolling his heels would have broken my back. Feeney was too anxious; he tried it again. I grabbed his foot and he landed on the stone flooring with a sickening smash.
No more chances. I could hardly breathe, but I had enough strength left to get a wristlock and make him scream with pain. He lay like that, face down and yelling, while I knelt across his back and dragged his hand nearly to his neck. Little veins and tendons stretched in bas-relief under his skin, and the screams died to a choking for air.
> “Who was she, Feeney?”
“I dunno!”
The arm went up another fraction. His face was bleeding from pressing it into the stone. “What were you after, Feeney? Who was she?”
“Honest to God ... I dunno. God ... stop!”
“I will ... when you talk.” A little more pressure on the arm again, Feeney started talking. I could barely hear him.
“She was a whore I knew from the Coast. I went up there and fell asleep. She stole something from me and I wanted it back.”
“What?”
“Something I had on a guy. He was paying off and she stole it. Pitchers of the guy and a broad in a hotel room.”
“Who was the redhead?”
“I swear it, I dunno! I’d tell you, only I dunno. Oh, God, oh, God!”
For the second time Feeney fainted. I heard footsteps behind me and looked up to see the two workers standing there in coveralls. One had a newly smashed nose and a black eye and he was carrying a stonemason’s hammer. I didn’t like the way he held it.
“You in on this, chums?”
The guy with a black eye shook his head. “Just wanted to make sure he got it good. He’s a wise guy ... too quick to use his hands. Always wants to play boss. If we weren’t getting plenty for this job we would have chucked it long ago.” The other agreed with a nod.
I stood up and pulled on what remained of my new suit, then picked Feeney up and hoisted him on my shoulder. Just across from my car was a newly opened grave with a canopy up and chairs all set, waiting for a new arrival. I leaned forward and Feeney Last dropped six feet to the bottom of the grave and never moved. I hope they’d find him before they lowered the coffin, or somebody was going to get the hell scared out of him.
The gatekeeper came to the side of my car as I was pulling out to say a friendly word and be complimented on his handiwork. He took one look at me and froze there with his mouth open. I put the car in gear. “Mighty unfriendly corpses you have in this place.” I said.
CHAPTER 3
I hit New York in the middle of a rainstorm and drove straight to my apartment to change my clothes and down a bottle of beer. As soon as I finished I grabbed a quick bite in a luncheonette and headed back toward the office. The rain was still coming down when I found a parking space two blocks away, so I hopped a cab to save my only remaining suit.
It was after five, but Velda was still there. So was Pat. He looked up with a grin and waved hello. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Oh, just stopped by to give you some news. Velda makes good company. Too bad you don’t appreciate her more.”
“I do, but I don’t have a chance to show it.” She wrinkled her nose at me. “What news?”
“We found the guy that killed the redhead.”
My heart started hammering against my ribs. “Who?”
“Some young kid. He was drunk, speeding and beat out the red light. He remembered hitting somebody and knew he was in the wrong, whole hog, and kept on going. His father turned him in to us.”
I had to sit down after that. “You sure, Pat?”
“As sure as you were that she was killed deliberately.” He laughed, and said, “I was all hopped up for a while, but it’s been turned over to another department and I can relax. Every time I’m on the same trail as you I get the jumps. You ought to be a city cop, Mike. We could use you.”
“Sure, and I’d go bats trying to stay within all the rules and regulations. Look, what makes you so sure the kid did it?”
“Well, as far as we can determine, it was the only accident along the avenue that night. Then, too, we have his confession. The lab checked the car for fender dents and paint chips on her clothing, but the kid had anticipated that before he confessed and did a good job of spoiling any traces that might have been left. We had a good man on the job and he seems to think that the unusual nature of the accident was caused because she was hit a glancing blow and broke her neck when she struck the edge of the curb.”
“It would have broken her skin then.”
“Not necessarily. Her coat collar prevented that. All the indications point that way. The only abrasions were those caused by the fall and roll after she was hit. Her cheek and knees were skinned up, but that was all.”
“What about identification?”
“Nothing yet. The Bureau of Missing Persons is checking on it.”
“Horse manure!”
“Mike,” he said, “just why are you so damn upset about her name? There are thousands of kids just like her in the city and every day something happens to some of them.”
“Nuts, I told you once. I liked her. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know, but I’ll be damned if I’m not going to find out. You aren’t going to stick her in a hole in the ground with an ‘X’ on a slab over her head!”
“Okay, don’t get excited. I don’t know what you can do about it when there’s a full-staffed bureau working on it.”
“Horse manure to the bureaus, too.”
I jammed a butt in my mouth and Pat waited until I lit it, then he got up and walked over to me. He wasn’t laughing any more. His eyes were serious and he laid an arm on my shoulder and said, “Mike, I kind of know you pretty well. You still got a bug up your tail that says she’s been murdered, right?”
“Uh-huh!”
“Got the slightest reason why?”
“No.”
“Well, if you find out, will you let me know about it?”
I blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling and nodded my head. I looked up at him and the old friendship was back. Pat was one of those guys with sense enough to know that other people had hunches besides the cops. And not only hunches. There’s a lot of experience and know-how that lies in back of what people call hunches.
“Is she in the morgue now?” I asked him. Pat nodded. “I want to see her.”
“All right, we’ll go down now.”
I looked at Velda, then the clock, and told her to blow. She was putting on her coat when we went out the door. On the way Pat didn’t say much. I fought the traffic up to the old brick building and slid out to wait for Pat.
It was cold inside there. Not the kind of cold that comes with fresh air and wintry mornings, but a stale cold that smelt of chemicals and death. It was quiet, too, and it gave me the creeps. Pat asked the attendant for the listing of her personal belongings, and while he riffled through a desk drawer we waited, not speaking.
There wasn’t much. Clothes, but everybody wears clothes. Lipstick, powder and some money; a few trinkets of no account every girl totes in a handbag. I handed the listing back. “Is that all?”
“All I got, mister,” the attendant yawned. “Want to see her?”
“If you don’t mind.”
The attendant went down the row of file cases, touching them with his finger like a kid does with a stick on a picket fence. When he came to the “Unidentified” row he checked a number with a slip in his hand and unlocked the second case from the bottom. For all he was concerned, Red could have been a stack of correspondence.
Death hadn’t changed her, except to erase some of the hardness from her face. There was a bruise on the side of her neck and abrasions from the fall, neither seemingly serious enough to be fatal. But that’s the way it is. People go under subway cars and get back on the platform, scared but laughing; others pile a car over a cliff and walk away. She gets clipped lightly and her neck is broken.
“When’s the autopsy, Pat?”
“There won’t be one now. It hardly seems necessary when we have the driver. It isn’t murder any more.”
Pat didn’t see me grimace then. I was looking at her hands folded across her chest, thinking of the way she held that cup of coffee. Like a princess. She had had a ring, but there wasn’t one now. The hand it had graced was scratched and swollen, and the marks where some bastard had forced the ring off went unnoticed among the others.
No, it wasn’t stolen. A thief would have taken the handbag and not the ring while
she had lain in the gutter. And girls aren’t ones to forget to wear rings, especially when they’re dressed up.
Yeah, Pat was wrong. He didn’t know it and I wasn’t about to tell him ... yet. It was murder if ever I saw one. And it wasn’t just a guess now.
“Seen enough, Mike?”
“Yep. I’ve seen everything I want to see.” We went back to the desk and for a second time I checked the listing of her belongings. No ring. I was glad to get out of there and back into the fresh air. We sat in the car a few minutes and I lit up a cigarette.
“What’s going to happen to her now, Pat?”
He shrugged. “Oh, the usual thing. We’ll hold the body the regular time while we check identification, then release it for burial.”
“You aren’t burying her without a name.”
“Be reasonable, Mike. We’ll do everything we can to trace her.”
“So will I.” Pat shot me a sidewise look. “Anyway” I said, “whatever happens, don’t put her through the disposal system. I’ll finance a funeral for her if I have to.”
“Uh-huh. But you’re thinking you won’t have to again. All right, Mike, do what you want to. It’s officially out of my hands now, but damn it, man ... if I know you, it will be back in my hands again. Don’t try to cut my throat, that’s all. If you get anything, let me know about it.”
“Of course,” I said, then started up the car and pulled away from the curb.
The letter was three days late. The address had been taken from the telephone book, which hadn’t been revised since I moved to my new apartment. The post office had readdressed it and forwarded it to me. The handwriting was light and feminine, touched with a gracious Spencerian style.
My hand was shaking when I slit it open; it shook even more when I started to read it, because the letter was from the redhead.
Dear Mike (it read), What a lovely morning, what a beautiful day and I feel so new all over I want to sing my way down the street! I can’t begin to tell you “thank you” because words are so small and my heart is so big that anything I could write would be inadequate. When I met you, Mike, I was tired... so tired of doing so many things... only one of which had any meaning to me. Now I’m not tired at all and things are clear once more. Someday I may need you again, Mike, Until now there has been no one I could trust and it has been hard. It isn’t a friendship I can impose upon because we’re really not friends. It’s a trust, and you don’t know what it means to me to have someone I can trust.
The Mike Hammer Collection Page 22