The Mike Hammer Collection (53 page)

I ran to her, fell on my knees at her side, my hands going to her face. The hole in her chest bubbled blood and she was still breathing. “Lola....”

Her eyelids fluttered, opened. She saw me and her lips, once so lusciously ripe with the redness of life parted in a pale smile. “God, Lola....”

I tried to help her, but her eyes told me it was too late. Too late. Her hand moved, touched me, then went out in an arc, the effort racking her with pain. The motion was so deliberate I had to follow it. Somehow she managed to extend her forefinger, point toward the phone table, then swing her hand to the door.

She made no sound, but her lips moved and said for the last time, “I love you, Mike.” I knew what she wanted me to do. I bent forward and kissed her mouth gently, and tasted the salt of tears. “Dear God, why did it have to happen to her? Why?”

Her eyes were closed. The smile was still on her face. But Lola was dead. You'll always know one thing, I love you. No matter where you are or when, you will know that wherever I am I'll be loving you. Just you.

The joy was gone. I was empty inside. I had no feeling, no emotion. What could I feel ... how was I supposed to act? It happened so fast, this loving and having it snatched away at the moment of triumph. I closed my eyes and said a prayer that came hard, but started with “Oh, God....” When I opened my eyes again she was still pointing at the door, even now, in death, trying to tell me something.

Trying to tell me that her killer was outside there and I had come up too fast for him to get away. By all that was holy he'd never get away! My legs acted independently of my mind in racing for the door. I stopped in the hall, my ears tuned for the slightest sound ... and I heard it. The soft tread of feet walking carefully, step by step, trying to be quiet. Feet that expected me to do the natural thing and call for the doctor first, then the police, and let just enough seconds go by for the killer to make his escape.

Like hell!

I didn't try to be quiet. I hit the steps, took them two at a time, swinging around the banister at the landing. Below me the killer made no pretense at secrecy any longer and fled headlong into the street. I heard the roar of an engine as I came out the door, saw a car nose out of the line as I was climbing into mine and rip out into the street.

CHAPTER 15

W
hoever drove that car was stark mad with terror, a crazy madness that sent him rocketing down the avenue without the slightest regard for life. Maybe he heard my wild laugh as I closed the distance between us. It could be that his mind pictured my face, eyes bright with the kill, my teeth clamped together and lips drawn back, making me lose all resemblance to a human being.

I was just one tight knot of muscle, bunched together by a rage that wanted to rip and tear. I couldn't breathe; I could only take a breath, hold it as long as I could and let it out with a flat hissing sound. A police car picked up our trail, tried to follow and was lost in the side streets.

Every second saw the distance shorten, every second heaped more coal on the fire that was eating at my guts and blurring my vision until all that was left was a narrow tunnel of sight with that car in front on the other end. We were almost bumper to bumper as we turned across town, and I felt my car start to go over, fighting the speed of the swerve. It was fear that led me out of it and back on four wheels again, fear that I would lose him. The tires slammed back to the pavement, pulled to the side, and when I was straight away the car in front of me had a half-block lead.

The sharp jolt of trolley tracks almost snatched the wheel from my hands, then it was gone and we were going west toward the river and the distance between us closed to yards, then feet. I knew where he was heading ... knew he wanted to make the West Side Highway where he could make a run for it without traffic hazard, thinking he might lose me with speed.

He couldn't lose me now or ever. I was the guy with the cowl and the scythe. I had a hundred and forty black horses under me and an hourglass in my hand, laughing like crazy until the tears rolled down my cheeks. The highway was ahead all of a sudden and he tried to turn into it, brakes slamming the car into a skid.

If the steep pillar hadn't been there he would have done it. I was on my own brakes as I heard the crash of metal against metal and saw glass fly in all directions. The car rolled over once and came to a stop on its wheels. I had to pull out and around it, brakes and tires adding a new note to that unearthly symphony of destruction.

I saw the door of the other car get kicked open. I saw Feeney Last jump out, stagger, then turn his gun at me. I was diving for the ground when the shot blasted over my head, rolling back of the pillar clawing for my gun when Feeney made his break for it.

Run, Feeney, run. Run until your heart is ready to split open and you fall in a heap unable to move but able to see how you are going to die. Run and run and run. Hear the feet behind you running just a little bit faster. Stop for one second and you'll be dead as hell.

He turned and fired a wild one and I didn't bother to answer him. There was panic in his stride, wild, unreasoning panic, as he ran head down to the shadows of the pier, heading for the black throat of the shed there. The darkness was a solid wall that shut him out, then enveloped me because I was right behind him, pitch-black darkness that threw a velvet cloth over your eyes so that you might as well be blind.

I hit a packing case with my hands, stopped, and heard a body trip and fall, curse once and crawl. I wanted to keep my eyes closed because they felt so bright he couldn't miss them in the dark. Things took shape slowly, towering squares of boxes heaped to the ceiling with black corridors between them. I bent down and untied my shoes, kicked them off and eased into a walk without sound.

From the other side of the room came the rasp of hoarse breathing being restrained, Feeney Last, waiting for me to close the interval, step between himself and the gaping doorway where I would be outlined against the blue night of the city.

Hurry, I thought, before he gets wise. He'll know in a minute. He'll understand that rage lasts only so long before giving way to reason. Then he'll figure it. I stepped around the boxes, getting behind them, trusting to luck to bring myself through that maze to the end. I found an alley that led straight to the door, but Feeney wasn't standing there where he should have been. My foot sent a board clattering across the concrete and automatically I pulled back into the protection of the crates.

And I was lucky because Feeney was stretched out on the floor under an overhang of the boxes and the shot he threw back over his shoulder missed me by inches.

But I had him spotted. I fired a snap shot around the corner and heard him scramble farther under the crate. Maybe he thought he was safe because neither one of us could take the chance of making the first break.

My fingers searched for handholds, found them, and I pulled myself up, climbing slowly and silently over the rough frames of the crates. Splinters worked into my flesh and nails tugged at my clothes until I disengaged them. A cat couldn't have been more quiet.

The tops formed a platform and I crept across it, inch by inch, my brain measuring distances. When I looked over the edge I saw Feeney's arm protruding from the shadow, a gun in his hand, slowly sweeping up and down the narrow lane, his finger tensed on the trigger ready to squeeze off a shot.

I leaned over and put a bullet right through his goddamn hand and jumped just as he made a convulsive jerk of pain and writhed out from under the box. My feet hit him in the shoulders and cut off his scream and we were one kicking, gouging mass rolling in the dust.

I didn't want my gun ... just my hands. My fists were slashing into the pale oval of his face, reaching for his throat. He brought his knees up and I turned just in time and took it on my leg. He only had one hand he could use, and he chopped with it, trying to bring the side of his palm against my neck. He kicked me away, pushed with the warm, bloody mess that used to be fingers and swung again, getting me in the ear.

Feeny tried to say “No!”, but my hands had his throat, squeezing ... slamming his head to the concrete floor until he went completely limp. I rolled on top of him and took that head like a sodden rag and smashed and smashed and smashed and there was no satisfying, solid thump, but a sickening squashing sound that splashed all over me.

Only then did I let go and look at Feeney, or what was left of him, before I got sick to my stomach.

I heard the police whistles, the sirens and the shouting around the wreck of the car outside. Dimly, I heard voices calling that we were in the shed. I sat on the floor trying to catch my breath, reaching in Feeney's pockets until my fingers closed about an oblong of cardboard with a rough edge where the stub had been torn off and I knew I had the ticket that had cost Lola's life.

They took me outside into the glare of spotlights and listened to what I said. The radio car made contact with headquarters who called Pat, and after that I wasn't a gun-mad killer any more, but a licensed private cop on a legitimate mission. A double check led to Lola, and the clincher was in Feeny's hip pocket, a bloodstained knife.

Oh, they were very nice about it. In fact, I was some sort of hero. They didn't even bother to take me in for questioning. They had my statement and Pat did the rest. I rode home in a patrol wagon while a cop followed in my car. Tomorrow, they said would be time enough. Tonight I would rest. In a few hours and then the dawn would come and the light would chase the insanity of the night away. My phone was ringing as I reached the apartment. I answered it absently, hearing Pat tell me to stay put, he'd be right over. I hung up without saying a word, my eyes searching for a bottle and not finding it.

Pat was forgotten, everything was forgotten. I stumbled out again and down the stairs, over a block to the back of Mast's joint where he had his own private party bar and banged on the door to be let in.

After a minute a light went on and Joe Mast opened the door in his pajamas. Men can see things in other men and know enough to keep quiet. Joe waited until I was in, closed the door and pulled down the shades. Without a word he went behind the tiny bar and pulled a bottle down from the shelf, pouring me a double hooker while I forced myself onto a stool.

I didn't taste it; I didn't feel it go down.

I had another and didn't taste that one either.

Joe said, “Slow, Mike. Have all you want, but do it slow.”

A voice started speaking and I knew it was mine. It came of its own accord, a harsh, foreign voice that had no tone to it. “I loved her, Joe. She was wonderful and she loved me, too. She died tonight and the last thing she told me was that she loved me.

“It would have been nice. She loved me most, and I had just started to love her. I knew that it wouldn't be long before I loved her just as much. He killed her, the bastard. He killed her and I made a mess of his head. Even the devil won't recognize him now.”

I reached in my pocket for a butt and felt the pawn ticket. I laid it on the bar next to the glass and the cigarettes. The name said Nancy Sanford and the address was the Seaside Hotel in Coney Island. “He deserved to die. He had a murder planned for my redhead and it didn't come off, but it worked out just as well. He was a big guy in the vice racket with sharp ideas and he killed to keep them sharp. He killed a blonde and he killed Lola. He wanted to kill me once but he got talked out of it. It was too soon to kill me then. Murder unplanned is too easily traced.”

My mind went back to the parking lot, then before it when I had walked into Murray Candid's office and seen the door closing and heard the cough. That was Feeney. He had spotted me in the club and put Murray wise. No wonder they wanted to warn me. Feeney was the smart one, he wanted me dead. He knew I wasn't going to be scared out of it. Too bad for him he got talked out of it. He was there that night. Did he have the ring? Damn it, why did that ring present a problem? Where the hell did it tie in? The whole thing started because of it ... would it end without it?

Vacantly, I stared at the back bar, lost in thought. The ring with the battered fleur-de-lis design. Nancy's ring. Where was it now? Why was it there? The beating of my heart picked up until it was a hammer slamming my ribs. My eyes were centered on the bottles arranged so nicely in a long row.

Yeah. YEAH! I knew where the ring was!

How could I have been so incredibly stupid as to have missed it!

And Lola, who sent me after Feeney, had tried to tell me something else too ... and I didn't get it until now!

Joe tried to stop me, but I was out the door before he could yell. I found my car and crawled in, fumbled for the ignition switch. I didn't have to hurry because I knew I had time. Not much, but enough time to get to the Seaside Hotel in Coney Island and do what I had to do.

I knew what I'd find. Nancy had left it there with her baggage. She was broke, she had to hock her camera. And being broke she had to get out of the Seaside Hotel without her baggage. But she knew it would be safe. Impounded but safe, redeemable when she had the money.

I found the Seaside Hotel tucked away on a street flanked by empty concession stands. Maybe from the roof it had a view of the sea. There wasn't any from where I stood. I parked a block away and walked up to it, seeing the peeling walls, the shuttered windows, the sign that read CLOSED FOR THE SEASON. Beneath it was another sign that told the public the building was protected by some obscure detective agency.

I took another drag on the cigarette and flipped it into the sand that had piled up in the gutter.

One look at the heavy timbers across the door and the steel bars on the ground-floor windows told me it was no use trying to get in that way. I scaled a fence beside the concession booth and walked around to the back. While I stood there looking at the white sand underneath the darker layer of wet stuff my feet had kicked up the rain began again and I smiled to myself. Nice rain. Wonderful, beautiful rain. In five minutes the tracks would be wet, too, and blend in with the other.