Mickey Spillane - [Mike Hammer 13] (3 page)

“I understand the don made several hard remarks about you. Trouble is, he’d have a hard time proving it.” He saw the puzzled look on my face. “You never dropped your gun, Mike. You held onto it until I forced it out of your grasp while you were unconscious.”

“Forget it, doc,” I said. “Ballistics have matching slugs from my piece on file.”

He shook his head slowly. “To match with what? The bullets that hit the Ponti kid penetrated and were never found. The police assume he was shot in the general fighting.”

“That kind of information wasn’t in the papers, doc.”

“I know,” he agreed. “I pulled a few medical strings that led to the autopsy report and there it is. I may have been a drunk, but that knowledge was only for the few intimate cronies I had in the saloon circle. They figured I was a drunk remittance man being paid to stay away from home. Or on social security. It bought them drinks so they couldn’t care less.”

“So I can go back then,” I stated.

“Not yet.” His tone was solemn. I waited a few seconds, knowing he’d start again. “Your prognosis is acceptable. In other words, you will live . . . IF.”

A little of that cold fear touched my belly again. “Great,” I said.

“Three months from now I may be able to give you a definite statement.”

“You haven’t said what the
IF
was.”

He got up, walked to the cooler and slid another Miller Lite out of the ice. My mouth went dry and I could almost taste the brew, but any alcoholic beverage was on my forbidden list. He took a good taste, watching me, enjoying my discomfort. “It’s pretty damn hot down here in Florida, kid.”

“Come on, it’s summertime, man.”

He tilted the can again for a big swallow, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You stay exactly on the schedule I set for you. The prescribed regimen of diet is not to be changed. The exercise will take place as detailed, the medication as specified. If the routine is followed to its minutest specification, there is a good possibility that you will survive. Mess around with what I’ve laid out and you look smack at the big
IF
. You buy the farm. It’s dead time.”

“Your bedside manner gets worse all the time. You talk like me now.”

“I just don’t want to upset you,” he told me with a sour grin. “Your only big point is your psychological outlook, Mike. Nothing seems to put a dent in that.”

“How do you know so much about me?”

“You were big news.”

“Were?”

He sat down and inched his chair forward, his arms propped on his knees. “You are presumed dead. Your good friend in the police department, Patrick Chambers, had a memorial service for you. The place was pretty well packed with an odd assortment of mourners.”

“At least I didn’t leave any clients hanging,” I said. “My work file was pretty well cleaned up.”

“Well, your secretary . . .”

“Velda?”

“Yes. She’s going to keep your office open for now.”

“She’s got her own PI ticket. She can handle it.”

Then, suddenly, I wasn’t feeling good at all. I had a weightlessness, empty sensation and an odd faraway buzzing in my ears. I could feel an involuntary relaxation of my muscles, as if I were melting, and the doctor came out of his chair, felt my pulse and muttered something unintelligible and stretched me out on the floor.

I opened my eyes and he looked at me. “I was wrong, Mike. Something did put a dent in that mental outlook of yours.”

My eyes closed and I lay there, trying to see what it was like to be dead.

It was lousy.

Cold wet towels wiped the sweat away from me and blew the life spark into a small flame, and when it was big enough the doctor asked, “You ready to sit up?”

One blink. Yes.
Talking was a little too much trouble.

Between the two of us I got back to a seated position and took deliberate breaths until I was normal again. “Was that episode bad, doc?”

“Not good, but not threatening. You feel okay?”

“Like a million,” I told him.

“Sure.”

I took a sip of ice water from the glass beside my chair. Just one small sip, that’s all I was allowed. “I think we’re both in the same boat, doc.”

“Which one is that?”

“The one going up crap creek without a paddle.”

“Oh?”

“We’re both supposed to be dead. How do we go back?”

 

The first few weeks drifted by like some casual dream. The lethargy was chemically induced to make any physical action too difficult to bother with, and although my mind could register sight and sound and smells, it did it with an attitude of mild complacency, hardly attempting to record it on a memory circuit.

Some of it made humorous impressions . . . the doctor speaking to someone in banking and arranging for a money transfer. His buddies, the drunks, would really enjoy that one. A little part of me wanted to ask him how he squirreled money away when he left home. Those things could be done, but how? One time there was the gibberish of medical talk I couldn’t understand. A box of pharmaceutical supplies came in the mail.

I woke up before the sun rose, the salt air of the Gulf blowing in the window smelling warm and lazy, with a slight fishy touch. This wasn’t one of those unreal days at all. This was alive and had a texture to it. Then there was another familiar smell that came with a special appreciation because there was more to it than an aroma.

Dr. Morgan came in with a pot of steaming coffee and a fat white mug. “How do you like it?”

“Two Sweet ‘N Lows. No milk.”

“I had you figured for straight black.”

“That’s only for tough guys,” I told him.

He opened his hand and had a few pink packets of the sweetener, dirty and wrinkled lying there. They looked like they had come out of the garbage pail. “Know where I got them?” I didn’t bother to answer him. “They were in your coat pocket.”

“Why’d you figure me black then?”

“Bad diagnosis. You want them?”

“Certainly.”

The paper might have been messy, but the coffee tasted just right. It was the first cup I had had in a long time and I thought I’d be able to finish the whole pot, but halfway through the mug I put it down and looked dubiously at Dr. Morgan.

“No sweat,” he said. “Your body’s talking to you. Don’t force yourself to take more than you need. Hungry?”

“Not really. That half cup of coffee filled me up.”

“Later I’ll get you into some normal groceries.”

“How come you’re being so nice to me?” I asked him.

Once more I got one of his concerned doctor frowns and he said, “You’ve turned a corner. Now you’re entering a new phase.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” I said.

The frown turned into an embarrassed grin. “Well . . . no sense lying to you.”

“So?”

“I need your expertise.” He saw the expression on my face. “Your advice,” he added.

“On what?”

“On how not to go to jail. I’m running around in the old jalopy with stolen New York plates and sure as hell I’m going to get stopped because the wreck is smoking, the tires are bad and the muffler is making a racket.”

It was nice to be needed. I didn’t even have to think hard on that one. “You got any money, doc?”

“Yeah, I was never
that
much of a dummy.”

“Got your old papers?”

“Whatever was in my wallet. Driver’s license, an old voter registration, medical ID from the hospital, stuff like that.”

“Great. Then go buy a car, get it legally registered in your right name, then get licensed in the state. You can prove your identity and just tell them that total retirement didn’t suit you and you want back into the action if they ask you any questions.”

“Mike, I am supposed to be
legally dead
!”

“Look, doc,” I told him roughly, “who’s going to remember a stupid action that took place so many years ago? Besides, you don’t
look
dead at all. Believe me, nobody’s going to bother you. Only first get yourself some decent clothes to make it all believable. Plaid pants, maybe, and a golf shirt with a lizard on it.”

“I don’t play golf.”

“So get a fishing shirt.”

He stood there looking down at me. Then he let out a big smile and said, “Man, I didn’t enjoy being dead at all.”

 

The phone rang. The doctor wasn’t here to answer it. Whenever he did there was something of importance to be said, medical or household needs to be discussed.

I picked the receiver off the cradle and in as growling voice as I could put on, said, “Yes?”

When I heard his first word I felt a chill work its way across my shoulders. He said, “Hi, Mike, feeling better?” His tone was as pleasant as could be, as though there had been no break at all in our relationship, no firefight on the dockside.

For a second I paused, took a breath, then said normally, “How’d you know where to find me, Pat?”

“I’m a cop, remember. Captains have a little clout.”

“Where you calling from?”

“A safe phone in a closed booth in a department store.”

“Then how’d you locate me?”

“It wasn’t easy,” he told me.

“Since you found me, somebody else can.”

“Not unless they have the manpower and electronics we have,” Pat said.

I took another deep, easy breath. “Then tell me this, pal. Why?”

This time he paused a moment. “Somebody shot Marcos Dooley.”

Softly, I muttered, “Damn.”

Pat knew what I was thinking and let me take my time. Old buddy Marcos Dooley had brought Pat and me into the intelligence end of the military before the war ended and steered us to where we were today. Only Pat could still wear the uniform, an NYPD blue. I carried a New York State PI ticket and a permit to keep a concealed weapon on my person. Marcos Dooley had become a wild-ass bum, and now he was dead. But we had backed each other up during the raging times of hot shrapnel and bullets that sang high-pitched songs of destruction, and we had beaten the death game because we’d done it right and covered each other’s tails until our hearts stopped pounding and breathing became easier.

“What happened, Pat?”

“Somebody broke into the house and shot him in the guts.”

“You know who?”

“Not yet. We
may
have a suspect.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Sure. You shot his brother. Ugo Ponti.”

I said something unintelligible. “How is he?”

“Dying. Do you think you can make it up here? He wants to see you.”

“I’ll be there.” Then I added, “How’s Velda, Pat?”

I knew he was grinning into the phone. “Waiting,” he told me. “She never could see you dying.”

 

The doctor had gotten me an early flight into New York and had sprung for a first-class ticket to give me plenty of room to stretch out and rest. I told the stewardess not to awaken me until we were in the traffic pattern, then kicked off my loafers and went to sleep. There were no narcotics this time. It was pure, natural sleep with unnatural dreams so disturbingly real they twisted me back to wakefulness just to get rid of them. Faces were distorted, yet ones I knew, and the dream sounds made banging noises that came out of a past I didn’t want to remember. Somehow time compacted itself and before I could swing at the thing that had grabbed me I opened my eyes and saw the pretty stewardess shaking me awake very gently and made myself smile.

But she knew. “Bad dreams?”

“Terrible,” I told her.

“You wanted to clobber me, didn’t you?”

“Not you.”

“Who then?”

“The bad guys,” I said.

“You military?”

“A long time ago.”

“Now you’re a cop.” The tiny frown between her eyes had a smile to it.

“Of a sort,” I said.

The frown went away but the smile stayed. “Ohooo,” she said, “one of those.” She saw that I was wondering what she was getting at and added, “A terrorist, like.”

This time I grinned and straightened up, bringing the seat back to an upright position as the PA directed. I said, “You might say that.”

The smile I got back said she didn’t believe me at all.

It was off season for the return of the snowbirds to the big city so there weren’t many there to meet the passengers. I slung the single piece of luggage over my shoulder and ambled slowly down the corridor, walking too slowly to be a native New Yorker. Everybody else from the plane passed me by before I reached the gate and that strange thrill of anticipation ran up my spine before I ever spotted Pat Chambers and Velda watching me, not really knowing what to expect, a walking dead man, a ghost from the past, or somebody with a crazy, writhing anger bottled up, not knowing where to spill it.

But something came across that said everything was all right. I saw it in Pat’s expression and in the sparkle of Velda’s eyes. My buddy could read me the way old buddies can, but with Velda there was knowledge that saw other things on the inside and her eyes told me that the many past months were just that . . . past. There was no need for excuses, no need for stories to be told if I didn’t want to tell them. Just that wonderful
glad you’re back
look that said everything without saying anything at all.

If you didn’t look closely, our greeting would have seemed perfunctory. When I shook hands with Pat, we both wanted to do it harder, but knew it wasn’t time yet, and when Velda and I hugged, there was a gentle intensity we both felt. It was only a
hello
kiss to whoever saw it, but to us it was a silent explosion of flaming emotion that was almost frightening. Velda drew back modestly, and when she looked at my eyes, knew that I had felt it too.

There was a time when I would have questioned the feeling, wondering what it was. But not now. This time I knew. Very quietly, so that even Pat couldn’t hear me, I said, “I love you, Velda.”