"Quit worrying about me. Anything turn up yet?"
"One lonely probability. A couple on a honeymoon camping trip spotted a guy wandering around the Ashokan watershed area. He seemed to be sick ... kind of stumbling, fell a couple of times. They were going to go over to him but he wandered up to the road and must have thumbed a ride. The rough description they gave was similar to the guy we found in the subway."
"The Guard in the area?"
"Like a blanket. Boats, divers, foot by foot search. They cut off the water flow from that district and that they can't keep a secret, so they'd better come up with some imaginative excuse before morning."
"Oh, they will," I said casually.
Pat jammed his hands back into his pockets and grimaced in my direction. "They better do better than that. Right now you can realize what it's like to be in death row with no reprieve in sight."
"Yeah, great," I said. "By the way, you ever get tipped to a pickpocket who works in a red vest?"
"Go screw your pickpocket in a red vest," Pat said sourly. He waved an okay sign to the two cops and headed back toward his car.
The ramrod-stiff butler with the bristly gray hair scrutinized the admission card, verified Renée with an inaudible phone call and apparently described me after giving my name. The reply was favorable, because he took our wet clothes, hung them in a closet in the small foyer and led us to the office door in the rear. Unlike my coat, his hadn't been tailored to conceal a heavy gun and it bulged over his left hip. For him, butlering was a secondary sideline. He had been plucked right off an army parade ground.
William Dorn introduced me to the five of them as a friend of his, his eyes twinkling with amusement. They all gave me a solemn handshake, the one-jerk European variety with accented "How-do-you-do's" except Teddy Fin-lay. He waited until Dorn and Renée were exchanging papers and the others talking animatedly over drinks, then pulled me aside to the wall bar and poured a couple of highballs.
He handed me one, let me taste it, then: "How long have you been a 'friend' of William, Mike?" He laid it heavy on "friend" so I'd know he made me.
"Not long," I said.
"Isn't being here an imposition?"
"Why should it bother you? The State Department doesn't work on my level."
"Mr. Robert Crane is my superior. It seems that you were trying to work on his. Nobody is pleased having you know what we do."
"Tough titty, feller. Crane didn't like it because I wouldn't take his crap. I won't take yours either, so knock it off."
"You still didn't answer my question." There was a hard edge in his voice.
"I have a contract to bump the Russian Ambassador. That sound like reason enough?"
"One phone call and you can be where Eddie Dandy is, Mr. Hammer."
I took another pull of my drink, not letting him see how tight my fingers were around the glass. "Oh? Where's that?"
"On vacation ... in protective custody. He was getting a little unruly too."
When I finished the drink I put the glass back on the bar and turned around to face him, the words coming quietly from between my teeth. "Try it, stupid. I'll blast a couple of .45's into the ceiling and bring every damn cop and reporter around in this joint. Then just for fun I'll run off nice and fat at the mouth and really start that panic you're working your ass off to avoid. That loud and clear?"
Finlay didn't answer me. He just stood there with white lines showing around his mouth and his forehead curled in an angry frown. Two of the Czech representatives had been looking curiously in our direction, but when I turned, faking a smile, they stopped watching and went back to their conversation. Dorn and Renée had finished their business and were laughing at some remark Josef Kudak had made and waved me over to join them. Kudak was the new member of the Soviet satellite team, but it was evident that the three of them were old friends despite political differences.
"Good joke?" I asked.
William Dorn chuckled and held a match to a long, thin cigar. "My friend Josef thinks I'm a filthy rich, decadent capitalist and wants to know how he can get that way too."
"Tell him?"
"Certainly not. I bought him out for three million dollars and I'd wager he hasn't spent a penny of it yet."
"You don't know my wife or our tax structure, friend William," the Czech said. He was a small, pudgy man with a wide Slavic face and bright blue eyes. "Between them they have reduced me to poverty."
"There are no poor politicians," I put in.
Renée looked startled, but Dorn laughed again and Kudak's face widened in a broad smile. "Ah," he said, "at last a candid man. You are right, Mr. Hammer. It is all a very profitable business, no? Should it be otherwise? Money belongs to those who can get it."
"Or take it," I said.
"Certainly, otherwise it would rot. The peasants put their gold into little jars and bury it. They die of old age without revealing where they have hidden it, so afraid are they of having it stolen. With it they buy nothing, do nothing. It is for the businessmen, the politicians to see that money is kept circulating."
It was hard to tell if he was joking or serious, so I just grinned back and lit up a smoke. "I wish some of it would circulate my way."
Kudak's eyebrows went up a little in surprise. "You are not a politician?"
"Nor a good businessman," I added.
"But you must have a profitable specialty ..." He looked from me to Dorn and back again.
"Sometimes I kill people," I said.
Dorn let out a long laugh at the expression on Kudak's face and the way Renée grabbed me to make a hurried exit after a quick handshake with everybody I'd met. When she got me outside in the rain she popped her
umbrella open with typical feminine pique and said, "Men. They're all crazy!" She stretched her arm up so I could get in beside her. "What a thing to say to a man in high office. Doesn't anything ever embarrass you?"
"Wait till he finds out it's true," I said.
"I'll never take you with me again."
"Never?"
"Well, at least not where there's people. Now, where are we off to?"
I looked at my watch. It was twenty after eleven and raining. Inside the main building the reception was going full force and the sound of a string quartet was almost drowned out by the steady hum of voices. On the street at least fifty uniformed cops stood uncomfortably in assigned positions waiting for their shift to end. Pat's car was gone, but the pair of harness bulls still stood at the fenced entrance. It was the kind of night when New York slept for a change. At least those who knew nothing of the man in the subway.
And maybe the guy in the red vest.
I turned my coat collar up and threw my cigarette into a puddle where it fizzled out. "Suppose I check my office, then we go out for supper."
"No more prowling?"
"I've had enough for one day."
I signed us in at the night desk and steered Renée to the open elevator on the end of the bank, got in and pushed the button for my floor. She had that impish grin back, remembering the look the night man had given us downstairs, and said, "The direct approach is very fascinating, Mike. Do you have a couch and champagne all ready?"
"No champagne. Might be a six-pack of Pabst beer in the cooler though."
"How about a bathroom? I have to piddle."
"And so ends a romantic conversation," I said as the door slid open noiselessly.
"Well, I really have to," she insisted.
"So go," I told her.
She was taking little mincing steps walking down the corridor to my office, and to make sure nothing would stay between her and the John, I got ahead, stuck my key in the lock and pushed the door open.
Not really pushed. It was jerked open with me leaning on the knob and I tumbled inside knowing that the world would be coming down on my head if all the reflexes hadn't been triggered in time. But there are some things
you never seem to lose. They drilled them into you in the training camps, and made you use t
hem on the firing line and what they didn't teach you, you learned the hard way all at once or you never lived to know about anything at all. I was in a half roll, tucking my head down, one hand cushioning my fall and the other automatically scrabbling for the .45 when heavy metal whipped down the back of my head into my shoulders with a sickening smash. Then you know there's still time because the pain is hot and wet without deadening numbness and the secondary impulses take over immediately and whip you away from the force of the second strike.
I was on my back, the flat of my hand braced for leverage, bringing my foot up and around into flesh and pelvic bone in a high, arching kick that gouged testicles from their baggy sockets with a yell choked off as it was sucked down a throat in wild, fiery agony. I could see the shadowy figure, still poised for another smash at my head, the bulk of a gun in his hand, then it jerked toward me convulsively and the flat of my .45 automatic met frontal bone with all the power I could put behind it. Time was measured in tenths of a second that seemed to take minutes, but it was enough to buy me time. Two blasts of flame went off in my face, pounding into the back of the one on top of me and something tore along the skin of my side, then Renée was screaming in the doorway until another shot rocketed off and cut it off abruptly. I saw the other one run, saw her fall, but couldn't get out from under the tangle of limp arms and legs that smothered my movements in time. Crazy words spilled from my mouth, then I got the body off me, pushed to my feet with the .45 still cocked and staggered into the corridor.
Down the hall the blinking lights of the elevator showed it was almost halfway to the ground floor. None of the others were operating and I could never beat it down the stairway. I shoved the gun back in the speed rig under my coat and knelt down beside Renée. She was unconscious, her eyes half open, a heavy red welt along her temple, oozing blood where the bullet had torn away hair and skin. She was lucky. In her fright she had raised her hands and the heavy ornamental knob of the umbrella handle had deflected the slug aimed for her face and turned sudden death into a minor superficial scratch. I let her lie there for a minute, went back into my office and switched on the light.
The body on the floor was still leaking blood that soaked into the carpet and all I could think of was that
the next time I'd get a rug to match the stains and save cleaning costs. I put my toe under the ribs and turned it over. The two exit wounds had punched gaping holes in the chest and the slash from my rod had nearly destroyed his face, but there was enough left to recognize.
Larry Beers wouldn't be renting his gun out to the highest bidders any more. One slug that had gone right through him and grazed me was still imbedded in the carpet, a misshapen oval of metal standing on edge. There were no alarms, no sirens, no voices; the office building was deserted and we were too high up for gunshot sounds to reach the street.
I stood up and looked around at the absolute destruction of all my new furniture, the mess of cotton batting from torn cushions, papers from the emptied files and remnants of furniture that had been systematically destroyed. But they had started to work from one side to the other and stopped three quarters of the way across. I knew what had happened. They had located the automatic taping system built into the wall behind the street map of New York City. Somebody had played it. Then somebody had destroyed it. The ashes were still warm in the metal wastebasket in the corner of the room.
Like a sucker punch in the belly the picture was clear. There was a call on that tape, probably from Velda. It meant something damn important, enough to kill for. Now one was dead, but the other was still loose and if Velda had identified herself they'd know who to look for and probably where. If she had gotten hold of something she'd want to meet me and would have set a time and a place.
Larry Beers, Ballinger's boy. Out of curiosity I looked at the bottom of his shoes, saw the half-moon-shaped pieces of metal imbedded in the heels that old lady Gostovitch had called clickers and felt good because one was down who deserved it, and the one paying the price would be the guy who ran off and the one who was paying for the hit. It was Woody I had to find before he found Velda. There was one little edge I still had, though. They couldn't be sure I wasn't dead, and if I wasn't I'd be looking for Woody too, and he had to reach me fast because he knew he'd be on my kill list just as sure as hell.
Behind me a small, frightened voice said, "Mike ..."
Renée was standing in the doorway, hands against the frame, her face white and drawn. She saw the body on the floor but was still too dazed to realize what had happened. She tried a painful smile and lifted her eyes. "I ... don't think I like your friends," she said.
CHAPTER 8
There was no way of determining the actual cause of the wound, so the doctor accepted her explanation without question. The tip of an umbrella whipped in a sudden cross-directional gust had caught her, we said. He applied an antibiotic, a small compress she hid behind her hair and had me take her home. She still had a headache, so she took the sedative the doctor had given her, a little wistful at me having to leave, but knowing how urgent it was that I must. She had been caught up in something she had never experienced and couldn't understand, but realized that it wasn't time to ask questions. I told her I'd call tomorrow and went back into the rain again. My shirt was still sticking to my side with dried blood, stinging, but not painful. That could wait. The doctor never saw that one because he would have known it for what it was and a report would go in.
Back in the office a body still sprawled on the floor in its own mess, a note to Velda on its chest to check into the hotel we used when necessary and hold until I contacted her. The door was locked, the "OUT" sign in place, now Woody Ballinger could sweat out what had happened.
The night clerk in the office building had heard the elevator come down, but was at the coffee machine when the occupant left the lobby and all he saw was the back of a man going out the door. Four others had signed the night book going in earlier and he had assumed he was one of those. When I checked the book myself the four were still there on the second floor, an accountancy firm whose work went on at all hours. Woody's boys had it easy. A master key for the door, time to go through my place and time to phone in whatever information they found on the tape. Then they just waited. They couldn't take the chance of me getting that message and knew that if I did I'd want to erase it on the chance that Woody
would make a grab for me after I made it plain enough to his boys that I was ready to tap him out.
Okay, Woody, you bought yourself a farm. Six feet down, six long and three wide. The crop would be grass. You'd be the fertilizer.
I stood under the marquee of the Rialto East on Broadway, watching the after-midnight people cruising the Times Square area. The rain had discouraged all but a few stragglers, driving them home or into the all-night eating places. A pair of hippies in shawls and bare feet waded through the sidewalk puddles and into the little river that flowed along the curb, oblivious to the downpour. One lone hooker carrying a sodden hatbox almost started to give me her sales pitch, then obviously thought better of it and veered away. She didn't have to go far. A pair of loud, heavyset conventioneer types had her under their arms less than a half block away. What they needed around here was the old World War II G.I. pro stations. Nowadays the streetwalkers carried more clap than a thundercloud. Syph was always a possibility and galloping dandruff a certainty.
Earlier, a dozen phone calls to the right people had gotten me the same piece of information. Woody Ballinger had been missing from the scene ever since this morning. Carl, Sammy and Larry Beers were gone too. I had lucked into snagging the apartment Carl and Sammy shared, but the doorman told me they had left in the morning and hadn't returned. He let me confirm it myself by rapping on their door.
And now I was worried. Nobody had seen Velda since four hours ago. Her apartment phone didn't answer and the place she had taken opposite Lippys old place was empty. The small bag she had taken with a few extra clothes was in the closet, two sweaters on hangers
and a few cosmetics on the ancient dresser beside the bed.
When she worked in the field, Velda was a loner. Except for a few personal contacts, she didn't use informants and stayed clear of places she would be recognized. But Woody knew her and if she were spotted it wouldn't be too hard to grab her if they went at it right.
I knew what she was wearing from what was left over in her luggage and had passed the word around. Denny Hill was pretty sure he had seen her grabbing a coffee and a hot dog in Nedick's, but that had been around seven o'clock. I found Tim Slatterly just closing his newsstand and he said, sure he had seen her early in the evening. She
was all excited about something and he had made change for her so she could use the phone in the drugstore on the corner.
"Thought she was a hooker." Tim laughed. "You shoulda seen the getup she had on." He pulled off his cap, whipped the rain off it and slapped it back on again. Then he looked at me seriously. "She ain't really ..."
"No. She was on a job for me."
He let the smile fade. "Trouble?"
"I don't know. You see which direction she came from?"
Tim nodded toward the opposite side of Seventh Avenue going north. "Over there. I watched her cross the street." He paused a second, rubbing his face, then thumbed his hand over his shoulder. "Ya know, this probably was the closest place to call from. Two blocks up is another drugstore and one block down is an outside booth. If this one was closest she probably came from that block right there."
So she was in a hurry. She wanted to make a phone call. That could have been the one to me recorded on the tape that was destroyed. And what she found could have come from that direction.
"You see her come out, Tim?"
"Yeah," he nodded. "She had a piece of paper in her hand. At first she started to flag down a cab, then gave it up and headed back over the West Side again. Look, Mike, if you want I'll call over to Reno's and the guys can
"It'll be okay, buddy. Thanks."
"Oh ... and Mike, she ever find that guy? The one with the fancy vest? She asked me about that too."
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