Mickey Spillane - [Mike Hammer 13] (24 page)

“Try?” Velda’s voice sounded lame.

“The word itself implies failure,” Morgan explained to her. “You
try
to jump over the obstacle means you didn’t make it. You either do it or you don’t. Just trying doesn’t count.”

I said, “That’s stressful talk, doctor.” I glanced at Velda and winked.

She winked back.

Another day passed before I got out of the bed. I was shaky as a newborn colt for a half hour, but after a shower I got dressed and made it around the room by myself. Nobody had to tell me that this was a waiting period. Velda and Morgan were making sure I was all right before they laid something else on me. So I had another cup of hot coffee, finished it slowly, then said, “Okay, what happens next?”

 

The courthouse had a conference room that could hold twenty people and it was filled completely. I had been introduced to all the bureau personnel but forgot their names as fast as I heard them. The only ones who mattered were Homer Watson and the governmental heavyweight who sat beside him at the head of the table.

No preliminaries were necessary here. Nobody read me my rights, but I didn’t expect them to. It wasn’t that kind of interrogation. The head man’s name was Austin Banger and twice he had been a senator from his home state. The papers called him the watchdog of the American economy and he had enough clout to rip the guts out of some lousy governmental programs and twice flipped industrial giants into prison for fleecing the public. Nobody liked him at all. The good guys despised him; the bad guys hated him.

Now he aimed right at my head.

“Mr. Hammer, do you know why you are here?”

Stress I knew all about. I said, “Tell me, Mr. Banger.”

He sensed the odd tone in my voice and picked up the challenge. He made a movement in his chair and all his chairman-of-the-board instincts showed. His hands were flat on the table and the glint in his eyes was almost artificial. “Do you know how simple it would be to have us put you in prison for twenty years?”

I said one word to him and his face grew red.

This time he leaned forward, and although I was ten feet away it was like having his face right in mine. “Don’t play games with me, Mr. Hammer.”

“Then say what you have to say. I haven’t got time for conversation.”

Homer took him off the hook. The money mouse knew the score better than he did. “Mike . . . we had teams of experts in that cave on Harris’ property. It was empty.”

“I could have told you that.”

“Ugo Ponti told us about the trail your friend Dooley left.”

“It was a blind trail, Homer.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Dooley was making suckers of you.”

“But you were his friend, Mr. Hammer. Were you made a sucker too?”

“No . . . I was just a tool to make sure you were really suckered. Dooley got you really entangled in one hell of a wild-goose chase. He was a nothing guy who didn’t like the way the world treated him and decided to play a joke on it.”

“Those billions of dollars were real!” He sounded as if I had them in my pocket.

“Don’t be an idiot. You think the mobs would let that kind of loot get away from them?”

“If Lorenzo Ponti hadn’t gotten killed . . .”

“But he’s dead, Homer,” I reminded him. “All of the families are very much in business. They still have their storefront headquarters around the cities. They still control the rackets and make deals with the narcotics cartels around the world. Their money will keep piling up, and although the tax men may tap into it once in a while, the big bulk will be free and clear in the strange places the families want to put it.”

“Whose side are you on, Hammer?” Austin Banger broke in.

“Don’t be a jerk. I’m only one guy. What good would it do to take sides?”

They all sat there like puppets. I didn’t scare at all. Hell, I wasn’t even stressed out. They had tried, but it didn’t work. I got up from my chair and just to be a little snotty I opened my coat and hitched up my pants so they could catch a glimpse of the empty .45 holster. The real piece was out in the car but I made a statement. Not that it would have mattered. This was New York state, not Washington. The money mice all looked confused. It probably was the shortest meeting they had ever been to.

THE DOGS HAD FOUND SLATEMAN. His body had been dumped in an old stone-lined cistern not far from the main house. The weathered wood cover had been dragged back over the hole and loose dirt and rock had been piled on top of it. There was a huge contusion on the side of his head and blood matted his face. His body was hung up on an old oil drum that floated down there too.

It was a good safe place to hide a body if nobody was going to look for it. Especially dogs. And it would be much better if the body were dead.

Slateman never reached that point. The club that Ugo Ponti had laid on him had almost but not quite killed him. There was a hairline fracture of his skull but the prognosis was good. He could still live out his years.

There wouldn’t be much use for a commercial outfit to go in to demolish Harris’ old buildings. The power of big government had gone to work and ripped everything apart looking for any kind of clue to those billions of dollars. Any standing structure had been flattened, every rock pried loose and inspected, the grounds were raked clean and gone over with metal detectors, and for all that work all they got was a trash pile of rusted cans, old chains from Mack trucks and a nice pile of assorted debris.

A fortune had been spent in looking.

A fortune they didn’t find.

But did they ever try, and that was a nice word:
try.
It meant they failed.

They let Velda and me visit Slateman in the Albany hospital. He looked pretty small and pitiful, lying there in the bed. His head was bandaged and there was a swelling on one side of his jaw, but his mouth smiled when he saw us and he croaked out a weak hello.

I said, “The doctor told me you’re going to be on your feet before long. You were pretty lucky, you know that?”

“Hell, I’m tough,” he mumbled.

“How did he get to you?” Velda asked him.

“Snuck up on me, he did. I was getting ready to go down the road and hitch a ride to town.” He took a deep breath before going on. “Then, blam, there he was. Didn’t even say hello. Just swung something at my head and that’s all I knew.”

“You recognize him, Slateman?”

His head bobbed an affirmative. “Those cops . . . they had a picture. It was him, all right. You know who he was?”

“Yeah, we know.”

“What happened to him?”

“Right now he’s in the county jail medical facility here in Albany with the police guarding him every minute.” I gave him a big grin. “Don’t worry about him anymore. He’s got murder one charges going against him now. He is going to fall.”

“Good,” Slateman wheezed.

“What are you going to do?” I asked him.

“Y’mean after Medicare stops takin’ care of me?”

I nodded.

“Sure beats me,” he said. “I saw on TV where they wrecked my house and everything else.”

“If somebody built a place up there would you like to take care of it?”

“Now, who’d do that?”

“Wait until you’re on your feet, old-timer. We’ll talk again, okay?”

“Sure thing.”

We shook hands and left. I could feel his eyes on my back until we got in the elevator.

On the way down, Velda said, “Are you getting the jitters, Mike?”

“We have the blood tests, we have the license, now all we have to find is someone to tie the knot.”

She paused and squeezed my arm. “You going to fink out on me?”

“I’m thinking about it, so stop bugging me.”

“Mike . . .”

“Not long ago you told me to finish this thing. Remember?”

She didn’t get annoyed because I jostled her memory. She suddenly became my business partner again and realized that the job came first and there was no way to talk me out of it.

Her smile came slowly. It wasn’t grim. It said she understood and was ready to go along with my decision. “Okay, boss,” she said.

You can’t just leave things like that. I looked at that beautiful face and wondered how Hollywood hadn’t picked up on it years ago. She was dressed the way a business executive should be dressed, but there was that way clothes filled and swerved around unmistakable bodily outlines that couldn’t be concealed and I realized why the clients and the CEO’s in the restaurants and the college kids on the street looked at me the way they did.

I said, “Come with me, kid, and I’ll get you some candy.”

Velda stayed in the car around the corner from the store I went into. The manager gave me the big smile he saved for men getting ready to enter into the state of matrimony, though how he could tell his customers’ intentions was beyond me.

I said, “I want a two-carat diamond, emerald cut, set in gold. I want top quality, and when you show it to me, I want your loupe so I can check the stone myself. I’ll pay by check and I have plenty of identification. Can you handle that?”

His smile never faded. He nodded and went behind the counter. I could see what was on display, but he didn’t pick one from the case. What he showed me came from a small rack, separately locked, beneath my line of vision. His fingers flipped open the small box and nested in a black velvet bed was the engagement ring. He handed me the loupe, watched as I inspected the quality of the gem, and when I put it back in its container I said, “Very nice.”

“It’s very expensive,” he told me.

“About fifteen thousand, I’d say.”

“Quite right. Actually, you’re five hundred under the asking price, but given the circumstances, fifteen will do it.”

If you’re going to play the game, you might as well enjoy it. After this check I’d have about two thousand left in the office account, but the bills were all paid and there still was another week to refurbish my economic future.

I dug out my driver’s license and handed it to him with the check. He took down my license number after ascertaining that I matched the photo in the plastic and handed me the box his clerk had packaged so neatly.

When I was putting my cards back in my wallet he saw my New York state PI ticket in the folder and gave me a scrutinizing look. “You’re that Michael Hammer . . . the one who caught that mobster on the old Harris place?”

“Everybody’s got to be somebody,” I said.

“You were just on television, right before you came in here.”

“Come on, no cameras were at Harris’.”

“I don’t mean there. The police were looking for you.”

“What for?”

“Something’s happened. They didn’t say, but they want you to call any precinct station. You’re to ask for . . . a Mr. Holmes?”

“Mr. Watson.”

“Yes, that’s it. You can use my phone here if you’d like.”

I didn’t need a phone book. The police and fire department numbers were printed on stickers glued to the phone itself and I dialed the top number. I asked for Homer Watson, gave my name and waited through a patch to a radio in his car. He asked me where I was and he told me to stay in my car until he got there.

Velda saw me coming and jumped out to meet me. She started to say, “There was an announcement about you on the radio . . .”

“I know. It came over TV too. This town has a wild communication system.”

“What’s it all about?”

“Beats me, but Homer’s coming right over. Get back in the car.”

Once we were seated she said, “Where have you been?”

“Buying you some candy, kitten.” I took the box out of my pocket and handed it to her. Only for one second was there a question on her face, because candy wasn’t wrapped like that. There was just that thing about the size and shape and weight of the package that shouted to the world what it was and she tore into the fancy wrappings with nails like a tiger’s and yanked it out of the paper. She stared at it for a few seconds, looked at me with the expression that said that this had better not be a joke, then she opened the box.

The kiss was different this time. It was a brand-new experience, a once-in-a-lifetime feeling of fleshly heat and a wild promise of total satisfaction that had waited long enough and now was ready to explode into reality. Her mouth was soft and wet, a hungry lusciousness I didn’t want to stop tasting, but did so I could take the ring and slide it on her finger. It was just a little loose, but Velda didn’t care at all. Those deep brown eyes caressed mine and got foggy with the tears women get at times like this.

Homer Watson pulled up to snap the moment back to
now.
He hopped out of his car and got in the backseat of mine. “I wish you’d let me know where you are. We’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Hell, I’m not under arrest.”

“It could be worse, Hammer. You’re under a death threat.”

“What else is new?”

“This one’s different.”

His voice had strange overtones and he kept scanning the streets outside. When he was satisfied that we were clear, he said, “Ugo Ponti is loose. He broke out last night and hasn’t been located.”

“Come on, Homer. He had a police guard. What happened?”

“A military operation is what happened. We haven’t got accurate figures, but from what we put together, eight men came in, subdued the guards, cut the phone lines, herded building personnel into a room and locked it, then got Ugo out of there. They had cutters with them that freed him from the bed frames, clothes to go over his pajamas and they were gone.”

“Ugo wouldn’t have contacts like that up here,” I stated. “I doubt if he could pull that off in his own neighborhood.”

“And you’d be right. This wasn’t Ugo’s show at all.”

“Okay, who—”

“The long arm of the Mafia, friend. Lorenzo Ponti was top dog in this area and the local capo decided that he owed his former don a debt of gratitude and arranged for the bust out.”