The Mike Hammer Collection (52 page)

“Yes, I've used it for years as you can see. It's my city residence with all the benefits of a hotel. Here, sit down.” He offered me an overstuffed leather chair and I sank into it, feeling the outlines of another person who had made his impression through constant use.

“Cigar?”

“No thanks.” I took out my deck of Luckies and flipped one into my mouth. “Sorry I had to drag you out of bed like this.”

“Not at all, Mike. I must admit that I was rather surprised. That comes of having fixed habits for so many years, I presume. I gathered you had a good reason for wanting to see me.”

I breathed out a cloud of smoke. “Nope, I just wanted to talk to somebody. I have five hundred bucks of yours and that's my excuse for picking you as that somebody.”

“Five hundred ...” he began, “you mean the money I sent to your bank to cover that, ah, expense?”

“That's right. I don't need it now.”

“But you thought it would be worth spending to secure the information. Did you change your mind?”

“No, the girl didn't live to cash it, that's all.” His face showed bewilderment, then amazement. “I was tailed. Like a jerk I didn't think of it and I was tailed. Whoever was behind me killed the girl and fixed it to look like suicide. It didn't work. While I was out the same party went through my room and copped some of the stuff.”

“You know ... ?” his voice choked off.

“Feeney Last. Your ex-hired hand, Mr. Berin.”

“Good Lord, no!”

“Yes.”

His fingers were entwined in his lap and they tightened until the knuckles went white. “What have I done, what have I done?” He sat there with his eyes closed, looking old and shrunken for the first time.

“You didn't do a thing. It would have happened, anyway. What you did do was stop the same thing from happening again.”

“Thank you, Mike.”

I stood up and laid my hand on his shoulder. “Look, come off it. You don't have anything to feel bad about. If you feel anything, feel good. You know what's been going on in town all day and night?”

“Yes, I—I've heard.”

“That's what your money bought, a sense of decency to this place. It's what the town has needed for a long time. You hired me to find a name for the redhead. We found a package of dirt instead, all because a girl lies in the morgue unidentified. I didn't want her buried without a name, neither did you. Neither of us expected what would come, and it isn't over yet by a long shot. One day the sun is going to shine again and when it does it will be over a city that can hold its head up.”

“But the redheaded girl still doesn't have a name, does she?” He glanced at me wryly, his eyes weary.

“No. Maybe she will have soon. Mind if I use your phone?”

“Not at all. It's outside in the living room. I'll mix a drink in the meantime. I believe I can use one. I'm not used to distressing news, Mike.”

There was sadness in his carriage that I hated to see. The old boy was going to take a lot of cheering up. I found the phone and dialed Velda's number at home. She took a long time answering and was mad as hell. “It's me, Velda. Anything doing at the office?”

“Gee whiz, Mike, you call at the most awful hours. I waited in the office all evening for you to call. That girl, Lola was it? ... sent up an envelope by special messenger. There was a pawn ticket in it and nothing else.”

“A pawn ticket?” My voice hit a high note. “She's found it then, Velda! Hot damn, she's found it! What did you do with it?”

“I left it there,” she said, “on top of my desk.”

“Damn, that's wonderful. Look, kid, I left my office keys home. Meet me there in an hour ... make it an hour and a half. I want a drink first to celebrate the occasion. I'll call Pat from there and we can go on together. This is it, Velda, see you in a jiffy!”

I slapped my hand over the bar, holding it a moment before I spun out Lola's number on the dial. Her voice came on before the phone finished ringing. She was breathless with excitement. “Mike, baby....”

“Oh, Mike, where are you? Did you get my envelope?”

“I just called Velda and she has it at the office. I'm going up to get it in a little while. Where did you find it?”

“In a little place just off the Bowery. It was hanging in the window like you said it might be.”

“Great! Where's the camera now?”

“I have it.”

“Then why the rigmarole with the pawn ticket.”

A new note crept into her voice. “Someone else was looking for it too, Mike. For a while they were right ahead of me. Five different clerks told me that I was the second party after a camera like that.”

The chill went up my back this time. “What happened?”

“I figured that whoever he was had been using the same method ... going right from the phone book. I started at the bottom and worked backward.”

Mr. Berin came in and silently offered me a highball. I picked it off the tray with a nod of thanks and took a quick swallow. “Go on.”

“I found it then, but I was afraid to keep the ticket on me. I addressed an envelope to your office and sent the ticket up with a boy”

“Smart girl. I love you to pieces, little chum. You'll never know how much.”

“Please, Mike.”

I laughed at her, happy, bubbling over with a joy I hadn't known in a long time. “You stow it this time, Lola. When this is done you and I will have the world in our hands and a lifetime to enjoy it. Tell me, Lola. Say it loud and often.”

“Mike, I love you, I love you!” She sobbed and said it again.

My voice went soft. “Remember it, sugar . , . I love you, too. I'll be along in just a little while. Wait up for me?”

“Of course, darling. Please hurry I want to see you so much it hurts.”

When I put the phone back I finished the drink in one long pull and went into the den. I wished I could give some of my happiness to Mr. Berin. He needed it badly.

“It's finished,” I said.

There was no response save a slow turn of his head. “Will there be more ... killing, Mike?”

“Maybe. Might be the law will take its course.”

His hand lifted the glass to his lips. “I should be elated, I suppose. However, I can't reconcile myself to death. Not when my actions are partly responsible for it.” He shuddered and put the glass down.

“Care for another? I'm going to have one.”

“Yeah, I have time.”

He took my glass on the tray, and on the way out opened the lid of a combination radio-phonograph. A sheaf of records was already in the metal grippers, and he lowered the needle to the first one. I leaned back and listened to the pounding beat of a Wagnerian opera, watching the smoke curl upward from the red tip of my cigarette.

This time Mr. Berin brought the bottle, the mixer and a bowl of ice in with him. When he handed me the drink he sat on the edge of his chair and said, “Tell me about it, Mike, not the details, just the high points, and the reasons for these things happening. Perhaps if I knew I could put my mind at rest.”

“The details are what count, I can't leave them out. What I want you to realize is that these things had to be and it was good to get rid of them. We chased a name and found crime. We chased the crime and we found bigger names. The police dragnet isn't partial to anyone now. The cops are taking a long chance and making it stick. Every minute we sit here the vice and rot that had the city by the tail gets drawn closer to the wringer.

“You should feel proud, Mr. Berin. I do. I feel damn proud. I lost Nancy but I found Lola ... and I found some of myself, too.”

“If only we could have done something for that girl....”

“Nancy?”

“Yes. She died so completely alone. But it was all her own doing. If it was true, as you said, that she had an illegitimate child and went downward into a life of sin, who can be blamed? Certainly the girl herself.” He shook his head, his eyes crinkling in puzzled wonder. “If only they had some pride ... even the slightest essence of pride, these things would never happen. And not only this girl Nancy ... how many others are like her? No doubt this investigation will uncover the number.

“Mike, there were times when I believed my own intense pride to be a childish vanity, one I could afford to indulge in, but I am glad now to have that pride. It can mean something, this pride of name, of ownership. I can look over my fine estate and say, ‘This is my own, arrived at through my own efforts', I can make plans for the future when I will be nothing but a name and take pride that it will be remembered.”

“Well, it's the old case of the double standard, Mr. Berin. You can't blame these kids for the mistakes they make. I think nearly everyone makes them, it's just a few that get caught in the web. It's rough then, rough as hell.”

Half the bottle was gone before I looked at my watch and came to my feet. I reached for my hat, remembered the check in time and wrote it out. “I'm late already. Velda will chew me out.”

“It has been nice talking to you, Mike. Will you stop back tomorrow? I want to know what happens. You will be careful, won't you?”

“I'll be careful,” I said. We shook hands at the door and I heard it shut as I reached the stairway. By the time I reached the main floor the desk clerk was there, his finger to his lips urging me to be quiet. Hell, I couldn't help whistling. I recovered my car from the lot and roared out to the street. Just a little while longer, I thought.

Velda had nearly given me up. I saw her pacing the street in front of the Hackard Building, swinging her umbrella like a club. I pulled over and honked at her. “I thought you said an hour and a half.”

“Sorry, honey, I got tied up.”

“You're always getting tied up.” She was pretty when she was mad.

We signed the night book in the lobby and the lone operator rode us up to our floor. Velda kept watching me out of the corner of her eye, curiosity getting the better of her. Finally she couldn't hold it any longer. “Usually I know what's going on, Mike.”

I told her as briefly as I could. “It was the redhead. She used her camera to take pictures.”

“Naturally.”

“These weren't ordinary pictures. They could be used for blackmail. She must have had plenty ... it's causing all the uproar. Pat went ahead on the theory we were right in our thinking. We'll need that stuff for evidence.”

“Uh-huh.” She didn't get it, but she made believe she did. Later I'd have to sit down and give her a detailed account. Later, not now.

We reached the office and Velda opened the door with her key and switched on the light. It had been so long since I had been in that the place was almost strange to me. I walked over to the desk while Velda straightened her hair in front of the mirror. “Where is it, kid?”

“On the blotter.”

“I don't see it.”

“Oh, for pity sakes. Here....” Her eyes went from the desk to mine, slowly, widening a little. “It's gone, Mike.”

“Gone! Hell, it can't be!”

“It is. I put it right here before I left. I remember it distinctly. I put my desk in order ...” she stopped.

“What is it?” I was afraid to talk.

Her hand was around the memo pad, looking at the blank sheet on top. Every bit of color had drained from her face.

“Damn it, speak up!”

“A page is torn off ... the one I had Lola's phone number and address on.”

“My God!”

I grabbed the front door and swung it open, holding it in the light. Around the key slot in the lock were a dozen light scratches made by a pick. I must have let out a yell, because the noise of it reverberated in my ears as I ran down the hall. Velda shouted after me, but I paid no attention. For once the elevator was where I wanted it, standing with the door back and the operator waiting to take us back down.

He recognized the urgency in my face, slammed the door shut and threw the handle over. “Who was up here tonight?” I demanded.

“Why, nobody I know of, sir.”

“Could anyone get up the stairs without being seen?”

“Yes, I guess they could. That is, if the attendant or myself happened to be busy.”

“Were you?”

“Yes, sir. We've been swabbing down the floors ever since we came on.”

I had to keep my teeth shut to keep the curses in. I wanted to scream at the guy to hurry, hurry. Get me down. It took an eternity to reach the bottom floor and by then Velda had her hand on the button and wouldn't take it off. I squeezed out before the door was all the way open and bolted for my car.

“Oh, God,” I kept saying over and over to myself. “Oh, God....”

My foot had the accelerator on the floor, pushing the needle on the speedometer up and around. The tires shrieked at the turns protestingly, then took hold once again until another turn was reached. I was thankful for the rain and the hour again; no cars blocked the way, no pedestrians were at the crossings. Had there been I never would have made it, for I was seeing only straight ahead and my hands wouldn't have wrenched the wheel over for anything.

I didn't check my time, but it seemed like hours before I crowded in between cars parked for the night outside the apartment. My feet thundered up the stairs, picking their way knowingly through the semidarkness. I reached the door and threw it open and I tried to scream but it crammed in my throat like a hard lump and stayed there.

Lola was lying on the floor, her arms sprawled out. The top of her dress was soaked with blood.