The Mike Hammer Collection (39 page)

“As much as I could get.”

“How much?”

“That depends on what's in it. What are you going to do with the stake?”

“Take a long trip, maybe. Anything to get away from this town. I'm sick of it.”

I walked over and picked up the bag. It wasn't very heavy. There were paint splotches across the top and long scuffed streaks down the side. Maybe here was the answer. Maybe this was the reason the redhead was killed. I ran my hand across the top, tried the catch, but it was locked. “Yours?” I asked her.

“Nancy's, Mike. I came across it this morning. We have a small prop room behind the bandstand that's full of junk. I was hunting for some stuff for the dressing room when I came across it. There was a bus tag on the handle with Nancy's name on it and I knew it was hers.”

“How did it get in there?”

“A long time ago Murray remodeled the place. Probably Nancy was off at the time and when they cleaned out they tossed all the odds and ends in the prop room. I imagine she figured she lost it.”

Ann went outside and came back with a bottle and two glasses. We both had a drink in silence, then she filled the glasses again and settled into the corner of a sofa and watched me. The way she sat there reminded me of a cat, completely at ease, yet hiding the tension of a coiled spring. Her dress was loose at the shoulders, tapering into a slim waist that was a mass of invitation. She sipped her drink, then drew her legs up under her, letting me see that not even the sheerest nylon could enhance the firm roundness of her thighs. When she breathed her breasts fought the folds of her dress and I waited to see the battle won.

“Aren't you going to open it?” Her voice was taunting.

“I need an ice pick ... a chisel. Something.” It wasn't easy to speak.

She put her drink on the end table and uncoiled from the couch. She passed too close and I reached out and stopped her, but I didn't have to make the effort because she was in my arms, her mouth burning on mine, pulling herself so close that I could feel every part of her rubbing against me deliciously. I tangled my fingers in her hair and pulled her head back to kiss her neck and shoulders, and she moaned softly, her body a live, passionate thing that quivered under my hands.

When I let her go her eyes were smoldering embers ready to flame, then she gave me that quick smile that showed her teeth white and even, and she drew her tongue deliberately over full, ripe lips that wanted to be kissed some more, until they glistened wetly and made me want to reach out and stop her again.

Before I could she went out through an archway and I heard her rummage around in a drawer, pawing through cutlery until she found what she wanted. The drawer closed, but she didn't come right back. When she did the dress was gone and she had on a clinging satin robe and nothing else, and she passed in front of the lamp to be sure I knew it.

“Like it?” she asked me.

“On you, yes.”

“And on someone else?”

“I'd still like it.”

She handed me one of those patented gadgets that was supposed to solve every household mechanical difficulty, even to a stuck window. I took it while she fished in my pocket for a cigarette and fired it from a table lighter. She blew the smoke in my face and said, “Can't that wait?”

I kissed the tip of her nose. “No, honey, it can't.”

When I turned around and stuck the edge of the gadget under the clasp of the lock she walked away from me. I pried at the metal until the tool bent in my hand, then reversed it and used the other end. This time I was in luck. The hasp made a sharp snapping sound and flew open. The outside snaps were corroded where the plating hadn't peeled off, but they opened easily enough, but before I could open the bag the light snapped off and there was only the dim glow from the table lamp at the other end of the room.

Ann whispered, “Mike?”

I looked around to bark something at her but nothing would come out because Ann had thrown the robe over the back of the couch and stood there in the center of the room, a living statue in high-heeled shoes smoking a cigarette that reflected orange-colored lights from her eyes. She stood with her feet spread apart and her hand on her hip, daring me with every muscle in her body. My blonde had a brunette base, but it only made her more intriguing, enough to make me forget about the overnight case and killings and beatings that left you too sore to move.

She stood there until I grabbed her and squeezed so hard she breathed into my mouth, then she bit me on the neck and slid out of my hands to the couch where I had to follow her, and the lamp made undulating shadows across the room that seemed to whisper with the sound of our breathing until it increased to a shout, then was still.

My hand shook when I reached for a cigarette. Ann grinned up at me, and her voice was soft, almost musical. “I was wondering if I could be important to anybody any more.”

I kissed her again. “You can be important any time. You happy now that you steered me right off the track?”

“Yes.”

She didn't say a word when I stood up and went back to the table, but her eyes followed me every second. I dragged on the cigarette again, but it caught on my chest and I put it out. This time I laid the case down and flipped open the lid.

I whistled softly under my breath. The bag was crammed full of baby clothes, every one brand-new. I fingered them slowly, the tiny sweaters, boots, caps, other things I had no name for. At the bottom of the bag were two soft cotton blankets, neatly folded, waiting to be used.

A dozen thoughts were going through my head, but only one made any sense. The redhead was a mother. Somebody was the father. A wonderful, beautiful setup for blackmail and murder if ever I saw one. Only Nancy wasn't that kind of a girl. Then there was one other thing. All the clothes were new. Some of them showed where price tags had been glued on. What about that?

I ran my hand through the pockets of the lining. The ones on the side brought up an assortment of safety pins, a lipstick and a small mirror. The lid pocket held a folder of snapshots. I opened them out and looked at them, seeing a Nancy different from the one I had known. Here was a young girl, sixteen perhaps, on the beach with a boy. Then another with a different boy. Several had been taken on an outing or a picnic, but Nancy seemed to show no special preference for any one fellow.

She was different then, with the freshness of a newly opened flower. There were no harsh lines in her face, no wise look about her eyes. She was new then, new and lovely. Her mouth and eyes seemed to smile at me, as if knowing that someday these pictures would be here in front of me. There were only two that showed her hands clearly, but in each one I saw the same thing. She was wearing her ring.

I looked over the backgrounds carefully, hoping to spot some landmark, but there was none. They showed only stretches of water or sand. When I flipped them over there were no marks indicating date or the outfit that developed them. Nothing. Now my blind alley had a wall at the end. A nice high wall that I couldn't get over without a ladder.

I heard Ann speak to me then. She asked, “Does it help you?”

An idea was beginning to jell and I nodded. I pulled out my check book and wrote in it, then laid the slip on the table. I made up my mind as to the value, but just the same I queried, “What are you asking for it?”

When she didn't answer I turned around and looked at her, still lying there naked and smiling. Finally she said, “Nothing. You've paid for it already.”

I snapped the bag shut and went over to the closet for my hat, then opened the door. The redhead had been right all along the line, but Mr. Berin still owed me five hundred bucks, to be deposited in the morning. Ann would get that trip she wanted.

I winked at her and she winked back, then the door clicked shut behind me.

CHAPTER 8

I
didn't get to sleep that night. Instead, I laid the contents of the bag out in front of me and sat there smoking one cigarette after another trying to figure out what it meant. Baby clothes. Some pictures. A battered overnight bag. All of them the redhead's. How long ago? Where? Why?

There was beer in the refrigerator and I finished off bottle after bottle, sipping it slowly, thinking, letting my mind wander back and forth over the facts I had. They were mighty little when you tried to put them all together.

The sun came up over the window sill chasing the night out and I remembered to call Mr. Berin. He answered the phone himself and this time the sleep was in my voice. “Mike again.”

“Good morning. You're up early.”

“I haven't been to bed yet.”

“You'll pay for lack of self-discipline in later years, young man.”

“Maybe,” I said tonelessly, “but tonight you pay. I left my friend a check for five hundred bucks.”

“Fine, Mike. I'll take care of it at once. Did you learn anything from your ... shall I say source?”

“Not a damn thing, but I will, I will.”

“Then I can consider the money well spent. But please be careful, I don't want you running into any more trouble.”

“Trouble's an occupational hazard in this racket, Mr. Berin. I can usually take care of it one way or another. But what I got here won't mean trouble for me. I haven't got the angle lined up yet, but I can see it coming.”

“Good. You've got my curiosity aroused now. Is it a secret or can you...?”

“No secret. I have an overnight bag that had been packed with baby clothes. That and a folder of pictures.”

“Baby clothes?”

“They were the redhead's ... or her baby's.”

He mulled over it a moment and admitted that it presented quite a puzzle, quite a puzzle. I agreed with him.

“What do you intend to do now?” he asked me.

“I don't know. I'm too sleepy to do much, that's for sure.”

“Then get to bed by all means. Keep in touch with me whenever you think I can be of use.”

I said all right and hung up. My eyes were burning holes in my head and too much beer had me stumbling over things. I took a last drag on the butt and clinched it, then lay back on the couch and let the sleep come, wonderful blessed sleep that pulled a curtain over all the ugly things and left you with nothing but a nebulous dream that had no meaning or importance.

There was a bell. It kept ringing insistently and I tried to brush it away like a fly and it wouldn't leave. Finally I opened my eyes and came back to the present with the telephone going off behind my head. I squirmed around and picked it up, wanting to throw it against the wall.

Velda said hello twice, and when I didn't answer right away, “Mike ... is that you? Mike, answer me!”

“It's me, sugar. What do you want?”

She was mad, but there was relief in her voice. “Where the devil have you been? I've been calling every saloon in town all morning.”

“I've been right here.”

“I called there four times.”

“I've been asleep.”

“Oh, out all night again. Who was she?”

“Green eyes, blue hair, purple skin. What do you want, or aren't I the boss any more?”

“Pat called early this morning. Something to do with Feeney Last. He wants you to call him back when you can.”

“Well, why didn't you say so!” I sat up quickly, my hand over the cutoff bar. “See you later, Velda. I'll buzz him right away.”

I held the bar down, let it up and dialed police headquarters. The guy at the desk said yes, Captain Chambers had been in, but he wasn't now. No, he couldn't say where he was. Official business, and did I want to leave a message. I wanted to swear but I couldn't very well so I told him never mind and hung up.

It was five minutes to twelve and the day was half shot. I gathered up the baby clothes and folded them back into the bag, stuffing the photos in the same top pocket, then I went in and took a shower.

Right in the middle of it the phone rang again and I had to wade back into the living room. It was Pat, but I didn't lace into him for dragging me out of the tub because I was too anxious to get the news.

He chuckled when I answered and said, “What kind of hours do you keep, pal?”

“If you knew you'd want to change jobs with me. Velda said you have something on Feeney. What gives?”

He got right down to cases. “When I put out feelers on him they all came back negative. This morning I had one in the mail from the Coast, a return feeler from an upstate sheriff. It seems like Feeney Last answers the description of a guy who is wanted for murder. The only catch is that the guy who could identify him is dead and they have to go from the poop he gave them.”

“That's something.” I thought it over, knowing that a mug like Feeney wouldn't be hard to describe. A greaseball. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I wrote for the finer details. If it fits we'll put out a call for him. I had copies made of his picture on the gun license and forwarded them to the sheriff to see if Feeney could be identified there.”

“At least it's handy to have, Pat. He can always be held for suspicion if we need him ... and if we can find him.”

“Okay then, I just thought I'd let you know. I have a death on my hands and I have to do the report.”

“Anybody we know?” I asked.

“Not unless you hang around the tourist traps. She was a hostess at the Zero Zero Club.”

My hand tightened around the receiver. “What did she look like, Pat?”

“Bleached blonde about thirty. Nice looking, but a little on the hard side. The coroner calls it suicide. There was a farewell note in her handbag along with complete identification.”