Mickey Spillane - [Mike Hammer 02] (10 page)

“Hell,” I said, “I have a date with Lola tonight. Maybe she’s got a girl friend.”

IT WAS NICE to get back to Lola. I found her apartment on West Fifty-sixth Street and walked up two flights to 4-C. Even before I could get my finger off the buzzer she had the door open and stood there smiling at me as if I were somebody. She was dressed in black again and there was no plunging neckline. There didn’t need to be. It was easy to see that not even calico or homespun could be demure on her.

Her voice was soft as kitten’s fur. “Hello, Mike. Aren’t you coming in?”

“Just try to keep me out.”

I walked into the foyer, then followed her into a tiny living room that had been dressed up with all the gimcracks women seem to collect when they live alone. The curtains were starched stiff and the paint was fresh enough to have a lingering smell of turpentine. When I slid into an overstuffed chair I said, “New place?”

She nodded and sat down opposite me and began mixing highballs from a miniature bar set. “Brand new, Mike. I couldn’t stay in ... the old place. Too many sordid memories. I have a surprise for you.”

“Yeah, what?”

“I’m a model again. Department store work at a modest salary, but I love it. Furthermore, I’m going to stay a model.”

There was a newness about her as well as the apartment. Whatever she had been was forgotten now and the only thing worth looking at was the future.

“Your former ... connections, Lola. How about that?”

“No ghosts, Mike. I’ve put everything behind me. What people I knew will never look for me here and it’s a thousand-to-one chance they’ll run into me anywhere else. If they do I can pass it off.”

She handed me the drink and we toasted each other silently. I lit up a Luckie and threw the deck to the coffee table and watched her while she tapped one on a fingernail. As she lit it her eyes came up and caught me watching her.

“Mike,” she said, “it was nice last night, wasn’t it?”

“Wonderful.” It had been. Very.

“But tonight you didn’t come up ... just for that, did you?”

I shook my head slowly. “No. No, it was something else.”

“I’m glad, Mike. What happened was awfully fast for me. I—I like you more than I should. Am I being bold?”

“Not you, Lola. I’m the one who was off on the wrong foot. You got under my skin a little bit and I couldn’t help it. You’re quite a gal.”

“Thanks, pal,” she grinned at me. “Now tell me what you came up for. First I thought you were only fooling about coming to see me and I got kind of worried. Then I thought maybe I was only good for one thing. Now I feel better again.”

I hooked an ottoman with my toe and got it under my feet. When I was comfortable I dragged in on the butt and blew smoke out with the words. “Nancy was killed, Lola. I have to find out why, then I’ll know who. She was in the oldest racket in the world. It’s a money racket; it’s a political racket. Everything about it is wrong. The only ones who don’t give a damn whether school keeps or not are the girls. And why should they? They’re as far down as they can go and who cares? So they develop an attitude. Nothing can hurt them, but they can hurt others very easily ... if they wanted to. I’m thinking of blackmail, Lola. Would Nancy have tried a stunt like that?”

Her hand was shaking so she had to put the glass down. There were tears in her eyes too, but she managed a rueful smile and brushed them away. “That was rough, Mike.”

“It wasn’t meant for you, kid.”

“I know, I’m just being silly. No, I don’t think Nancy would do that. She might have been a ... been no good, but she was honorable. I’d swear to that. If she wasn’t what she was she could have been a decent woman. As far as I know she had no vices, but like I told you, she had a reason for doing what she did. Perhaps it was money. I don’t know. It is a quick way to get rich if you have no moral scruples.”

“Supposing money was her reason. Any idea why she might have needed it?”

“That I can’t tell you. We had no confidences, merely a bond that held us together.”

The circle was getting me dizzy. “Look, let’s go back further. Go back to the call-girl system. Who ran it?”

For the first time her face went white. She looked at me with fear in her eyes and her lips tight against her teeth. “No, Mike!” Her voice was barely audible. “Keep away from them, please.”

“What’s scaring you, honey?”

It was the way I said it that made her shrink back into her seat, her fingers digging into the arms.

“Don’t make me tell you things I don’t want to remember!”

“It isn’t things you’re afraid of, Lola. It’s people ... what people? Why does it scare you to think of them?” I was leaning forward now, anxious, trying to make something out of every word she spoke. She was hesitant at first, turning her head from side to side as though someone else could be listening.

“Mike ... they’re vicious. They don’t care what they do. They ... wreck lives ... as easily as they’d spend a dollar. If they knew I ever said anything they’d kill me. Yes, they would. It wouldn’t be the first time either!”

It might have been Pat talking. The fear left her face and anger took its place, but there was still a quiver in her voice.

“Money is all they’re after and they get it. Thousands ... millions ... who knows. It’s dirty money, but it’s good to spend. It isn’t like the houses ... it’s bigger. One tight little group has it so organized nobody else can move, and if you try to operate alone something happens to you. Mike, I don’t want anything to happen to me!”

I got up and sat on the arm of her chair, then ran my fingers through her hair. “Nothing’s going to happen, baby. Keep talking ... all of it.”

For an answer she buried her face in her hands and sobbed uncontrollably; I could afford to wait. In five minutes she was cried out, but still shaking. There was a haunted look in her eyes that went with the tenseness in her shoulders and her nails had drawn blood from her palms. I lit another butt and handed it to her, watching while she sucked on it gratefully, taking the smoke down deep, seeking a relief of some sort.

Then she turned those haunted eyes on me and said, “If they find out I told you ... or anybody, anything at all, they’ll kill me, Mike. They can’t afford to have people talk. They can’t afford to have people even suspect. I’m afraid! And what could you do ... it’s been going on forever and it will keep going on as long as there are people. I don’t want to die for something like that.”

I picked my words carefully because I was getting mad again. “Kid,” I told her, “you don’t know me very well. You don’t, but there are plenty of guys who do. Maybe they’re able to scare the hell out of decent citizens, but they’ll drop a load when I come around. They know me, see? They know damn well I won’t take any crap from them and if they get tough about it they’ll get their guts opened up for them. I got a gun and I’ve used it before ... plenty. I got a license to use it, which they don’t have and if somebody gets killed I go to court and explain why. Maybe I catch hell and get kicked out of business, but if
they
pull the trigger they sit in the hot seat. I’m calling the plays in this game, kid. I like to shoot those dirty bastards and I’ll do it every chance I get and they know it. That’s why they scare easy.

“And don’t you worry about anything happening to you. Maybe they’ll know where it came from, but they won’t do anything about it, because I’m going to pass the word that I want somebody’s skin and the first time they get rough they’ll catch a slug in the front or back or even in the top of the head. I don’t care where I shoot them. I’m not a sportsman. I’d just as soon get them from a dark alley as not and they know it. I play it their way, only worse, and somebody is going to worry himself into a grave over it.”

My hand was resting on her shoulder, and she turned her head and kissed my fingers. “You’re kind of wonderful, even if you do tell me yourself,” she said.

The haunted look in her eyes was gone now.

Lola took another drag on the cigarette and snubbed it out, then reached for the glasses. When they were filled she handed me mine and we touched them briefly and drank deep. She finished hers with one breath in between, then set it back on the table. She was ready to talk now.

“Nobody seems to know who’s behind the system, Mike. It may be one person or it may be several. I don’t know the details of the pay-off, but I do know how the racket operates. It isn’t a haphazard method at all, and you’d probably fall flat on your face if you knew who was involved. Right now there are some girls with an amazing social standing who were, at one time, no better than me. They got out in time. They made the right contacts between ‘appointments’ and married them.

“You see, the real call system is highly specialized. The girls are of only the highest caliber. They must be beautiful, well educated, with decorum enough to mingle with the best. Their ‘clients’ are the wealthy. Generally an appointment means a week end at some country estate or a cruise along the coast line on some luxurious yacht. Of course, there are other appointments less fancy, but equally as lucrative, as when somebody wants to entertain a business associate. Apparently tactics like that pay off to the extent that the money involved means nothing.

“A girl is carefully investigated before she is approached to take part in the racket. It starts when she is seen around town too often with too many men. In the course of her travels she meets other girls already in the racket who seem to have everything they want without having to do much to earn it. These acquaintances ripen into easy friendships and a few hints are passed and the girl begins to take the attitude of why should she do the same things for free when she can get paid for it.

“So she mentions the fact and introductions are made to the right people. She is set up in a nice apartment, given an advance and listed in the book as a certain type. When a party wants that type he calls, or makes the arrangement with an in-between, and you’re off on your date. Whatever gifts the girl gets she is allowed to keep and some of them make out pretty well. The money that is paid for her services is passed in advance and the girl gets a cut from that, deposited to her account in a bank.

“Oh, it’s all very nice and easy, a beautiful deal. There aren’t any ties on the girl either. If she happens to run across someone she cares for she’s free to quit the racket and get married, and she can expect a juicy bonus for the time in service. That’s one reason why there’s no kickback. The girls never talk because they can’t have anyone know of their associations, and the system won’t force them to stay because there’s nothing more dangerous than a hysterical woman.

“But there are times when one of the girls becomes dangerous. She can develop a conscience, or take to drink and find herself with a loose tongue, or get greedy and want more money on the threat of exposure. Then the system takes care of itself. The girl simply disappears ... or has an accident. If we hear of it it’s a lesson to us to do one thing or another ... keep quiet or get out ... and keep quiet then, too.

“I learned my lesson well. When I got careless and became a disease carrier I lost my place in the system. Oh, they didn’t mention the fact ... one of the other girls did. I suddenly had an expensive apartment on my hands and no income, so I cashed in what I had and moved on down the ladder. I was too ashamed to go to a doctor and I didn’t know what else I could do, so I started drinking. I met some more people again. These people didn’t care what I had. They got me a room in a house and I was in business again. It took me a long time to get smart, but I did, and I went to the hospital. After I came out the house was gone, Nancy was dead and you were there.”

She slumped back in the chair and closed her eyes as though she were exhausted. I said, “Now some names, Lola.”

Her eyes were mere slits, her voice practically a whisper. “Murray Candid. He owns some night clubs, but he’s always at the Zero Zero Club. He is the contact man I met. He made all the arrangements, but he isn’t the top man. The town is worked in sections and he covers the part I worked. He’s dangerous, Mike.”

“So am I.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know, kid. You can’t go in and accuse a guy without proof, even if you know you’re right. The law’s on his side then. I need proof ... what could I use to stick him?”

“There are books, Mike ... if you could find them. They’d love to do without books because they’d be almost clean then, but they can’t because they can’t trust each other.”

“Would this Candid guy have them?”

“I doubt it. He’d keep temporary records, but the big boy has the important data.”

I stood up and finished my drink. “Okay, Lola, you did fine,” I said. “It’s something to work on ... a place to start. You don’t have to worry because I won’t bring you into it. Sit tight around here and I’ll call you from time to time. There are still things you probably know that I don’t, but I can’t tell what they are yet.”

Lola came up from her seat slowly and slid her arms around my waist. She laid her head on my shoulder and nuzzled her face into my neck. “Be careful, Mike, please be careful.”

I tilted her chin up and grinned at her. “I’m always careful, sugar. Don’t worry about me.”

“I can’t help it. Maybe I ought to have my head examined, but I’m crazy about you.”

She stopped me before I could speak by putting her forefinger on my lips. “Not a word, Mike. Let me do the liking. I’m no good and I know it. I’m not going to mess into your life a bit so you can let me go on liking you if I please. No obligations, Mr. Hammer, I’ll just sit on the side lines and throw kisses your way, and wherever you are you’ll always know that where I am is a girl you’ll always have to yourself. You’re a nice guy, you big lug. If I had the sense to lead a normal life you’d never get away from me.”

This time I shut her up. Her body was a warm thing in my hands and I pressed her close to me, feeling tremors of excitement run across her back. Her lips were full and ripe, and whatever she had been was cleansed and there was no past for a brief instant. When I kissed her her mouth was like a flame that fluttered from a feeble glow into a fiery torch.