The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 2 (7 page)

“Of course.” It was the first time I had said anything, but you might have thought I gave the Gettysburg Address. Overcoat came over immediately, his hand reaching out for mine.

“I am Henry Gladow, you know. Certainly you know.” His chuckle was nervous and high-pitched. “We had been expecting you, but not so quickly. Of course we realize the party works quickly, but this is almost faith-inspiring! You came with incredible speed. Why, only tonight I picked up the telegram from our messenger uptown announcing your arrival. Incredible.”

That was the reason for the bodyguards and the guns. My new chum was receiving party instructions from somebody else. That was why the Trench Coats closed in around the soldier, in case it had been a trap to intercept the message. Real cute, but dumb as hell.

“... happy to have you inspect our small base of operation, comrade.” I turned my attention back to him again and listened politely. “Rarely do we have such an honor. In fact, this is the first time.” He turned to Trench Coat, still smiling. “This is my, er, traveling companion, Martin Romberg. Very capable man, you know. And my secretary,” he indicated a girl in thick-lensed glasses who was just out of her teens, “Martha Camisole.”

He went around the room introducing each one and with every nod I handed out I got back a smile that tried hard to be nice but was too scared to do a good job of it.

We finished the coffee, had another and a smoke before Gladow looked at his watch. I could see damn well he had another question coming up and I let him take his time about asking it. He said, “Er, you are quite satisfied with the operation at this point, comrade? Would you care to inspect our records and documents?”

My scowl was of surprise, but he didn’t know that. His eyebrows went up and he smiled craftily. “No, comrade, not written documents. Here, in the base, we have experts who commit the documents ...” he tapped the side of his head, “here.”

“Smart,” I grunted. “What happens if they talk?”

He tried to seem overcome with the preposterous. “Very funny, comrade. Quite, er ... yes. Who is there to make them talk? That is where we have the advantage. In this country force is never used. The so-called third degree has been swept out. Even a truthful statement loses its truth if coercion is even hinted at. The fools, the despicable fools haven’t the intelligence to govern a country properly! When the party is in power things will be different, eh, comrade?”

“Much, much different,” I said.

Gladow nodded, pleased. “You, er, care to see anything of special importance, comrade?” His voice had a gay tone.

“No, nothing special. Just checking around.” I dragged on the butt and blew a cloud of smoke in his face. He didn’t seem to mind it.

“Then in your report you will state that everything is satisfactory here?”

“Sure, don’t give it another thought.”

There was more sighing. Some of the fear went out of their eyes. The Camisole kid giggled nervously. “Then may I say again that we have been deeply honored by your visit, comrade,” Gladow said. “Since the sudden, untimely death of our former, er, compatriot, we have been more or less uneasy. You understand these things of course. It was gratifying to see that he was not identified with the party in any way. Even the newspapers are stupid in this country.”

I had to let my eyes sink to the floor or he would have seen the hate in them. I was an inch away from killing the bastard and he didn’t know it. I turned my hand over to look at the time and saw that it was close to midnight. I’d been in the pigsty long enough. I set the empty cup down on the table and walked to the door. The crumbs couldn’t even make good coffee.

All but two of the lesser satellites had left, their desks clear of all papers. The guy on the photography rig was stuffing the microfilm in a small file case while a girl burned papers in a metal waste basket. I didn’t stop to see who got the film. There was enough of it that was so plain that I didn’t need any pictures drawn for me.

Gladow was hoping I’d shake hands, but he got fooled. I kept them both in my pockets because I didn’t like to handle snakes, not of their variety.

The outside door slammed shut and I heard some hurried conversation and the girl at the desk say, “Go right in.” I was standing by the inside door when she opened it.

I had to make sure I was in the right place by taking a quick look around me. This was supposed to be a Commie setup, a joint for the masses only, not a club for babes in mink coats with hats to match. She was one of those tall, willowy blondes who reached thirty with each year an improvement.

She was almost beautiful, with a body that could take your mind off beauty and put it on other things. She smiled at Gladow as soon as she saw him and gave him her hand.

His voice took on a purr when he kissed it. “Miss Brighton, it is always a pleasure to see you.” He straightened up, still smiling. “I didn’t expect you to come at this hour.”

“I didn’t expect you to be here either, Henry. I decided to take the chance anyway. I brought the donations.” Her voice was like rubbing your hand on satin. She pulled an envelope out of her pocketbook and handed it to Gladow unconcernedly. Then, for the first time, she saw me.

She squinted her eyes, trying to place me.

I grinned at her. I like to grin at a million bucks.

Ethel Brighton grinned back.

Henry Gladow coughed politely and turned to me. “Miss Brighton is one of our most earnest comrades. She is chiefly responsible for some of our most substantial contributions.”

He made no attempt to introduce me. Apparently nobody seemed to care. Especially Ethel Brighton. A quick look flashed between them that brought the scowl back to her face for a brief moment. A shadow on the wall that came from one of the Trench Coats behind me was making furious gestures.

I started to get the willies. It was the damnedest thing I had ever seen. Everybody was acting like at a fraternity initiation and for some reason I was the man of the moment. I took it as long as I could. I said, “I’m going uptown. If you’re going back you can come along.”

For a dame who had her picture in most of the Sunday supplements every few weeks, she lost her air of sophistication in a hurry. Her cheeks seemed to sink in and she looked to Gladow for approval. Evidently he gave it, for she nodded and said, “My car ... it’s right outside.”

I didn’t bother to leave any good nights behind me. I went through the receptionist’s cubicle and yanked the door open. When Ethel Brighton was out I slammed it shut. Behind me the place was as dark as the vacant hole it was supposed to be.

Without waiting to be asked I slid behind the wheel and held out my hand for the keys. She dropped them in my palm and fidgeted against the cushions. That car ... it was a beauty. In the daylight it would have been a maroon convertible, but under the street lights it was a mass of mirrors with the chrome reflecting every bulb in the sky.

Ethel said, “Are you from ... New York?”

“Nope. Philly,” I lied.

For some reason I was making her mighty nervous. It wasn’t my driving because I was holding it to a steady thirty to keep inside the green lights. I tried another grin. This time she smiled back and worried the fingers of her gloves.

I couldn’t get over it, Ethel Brighton a Commie! Her old man would tan her hide no matter how old she was if he ever heard about it. But what the hell, she wasn’t the only one with plenty of rocks who got hung up on the red flag. I said, “It hasn’t been too easy for you to keep all this under your hat, has it?”

Her hands stopped working the glove. “N-no. I’ve managed, though.”

“Yeah. You’ve done a good job.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, no thanks at all, kid. For people with intelligence it’s easy. When you‘re, er, getting these donations, don’t people sorta wonder where it’s going?”

She scowled again, puzzled. “I don’t think so. I thought that was explained quite fully in my report.”

“It was, it was. Don’t get me wrong. We have to keep track of things, you know. Situations change.” It was a lot of crap to me, but it must have made sense to her way of thinking.

“Usually they’re much too busy to listen to my explanations, and anyway, they can deduct the amounts from their income tax.”

“They ought to be pretty easy to touch, then.”

This time she smiled a little. “They are. They think it’s for charity.”

“Uh-huh. Suppose your father finds out what you’ve been doing?”

The way she recoiled you’d think I smacked her. “Oh ... please, you wouldn‘t!”

“Take it easy, kid. I’m only supposing.”

Even in the dull light of the dash I could see how pale she was. “Daddy would ... never forgive me. I think ... he’d send me someplace. He’d disinherit me completely.” She shuddered, her hands going back to the glove again. “He’ll never know. When he does it will be too late!”

“Your emotions are showing through, kid.”

“So would yours if ... oh ... oh, I didn’t mean ...” Her expression made a sudden switch from rage to that of fear. It wasn’t a nice fear, it was more like that of the girl on the bridge.

I looked over slowly, an angle creeping into the corner of my mind. “I’m not going to bite. Maybe you can’t say things back there in front of the others, but sometimes I’m not like them. I can understand problems. I have plenty of my own.”

“But you ... you’re ...”

“I’m what?”

“You know.” She bit into her lip, looking at me obliquely.

I nodded as if I did.

“Will you be here long?”

“Maybe,” I shrugged. “Why?”

The fear came back. “Really, I wasn’t asking pointed questions. Honest I wasn’t. I just meant ... I meant with the ... other being killed and all, well...”

Damn it, she let her sentence trail off as if I was supposed to know everything that went on. What the hell did they take me for anyway? It was the same thing all night!

“I’ll be here,” I said.

We went over the bridge and picked a path through the late traffic in Manhattan. I went north to Times Square and pulled into the curb. “This is as far as I go, sugar. Thanks for the ride. I’ll probably be seeing you again.”

Her eyes went wide again. Brother, she could sure do things with those eyes. She gasped, “Seeing me?”

“Sure, why not?”

“But ... you aren’t ... I never supposed ...”

“That I might have a personal interest in a woman?” I finished.

“Well, yes.”

“I like women, sugar. I always have and always will.”

For the first time she smiled a smile she meant. She said, “You aren’t a bit like I thought you’d be. Really. I like you. The other ... agent ... he was so cold that he scared me.”

“I don’t scare you?”

“You could ... but you don’t.”

I opened the door. “Good night, Ethel.”

“Good night.” She slid over under the wheel and gunned the motor. I got one last quick smile before she pulled away.

What the hell. That’s all I could think of. What the hell. All right, just what the hell was going on? I walked right into a nest of Commies because I flashed a green card and they didn’t say a word, not one word. They played damn fool kids’ games with me that any jerk could have caught, and bowed and scraped like I was king.

Not once did anyone ask my name.

Read the papers today. See what it says about the Red Menace. See how they play up their sneaking, conniving ways. They’re supposed to be clever, bright as hell. They were dumb as horse manure as far as I was concerned. They were a pack of bugs thinking they could outsmart a world. Great. That coffee-urn trick was just great.

I walked down the street to a restaurant that was still open and ordered a plate of ham and eggs.

It was almost two o‘clock when I got home. The rain had stopped long ago, but it was still up there, hanging low around the buildings, reluctant to let the city alone. I walked up to my apartment and shoved the key in the lock. My mind kept going back to Gladow, trying to make sense of his words, trying to fit them into a puzzle that had no other parts.

I could remember his speaking about somebody’s untimely death. Evidently I was the substitute sent on in his place. But whose death? That sketch in the paper was a lousy one. Fat boy didn’t look a bit like that sketch. All right then, who? There was only one other guy with a green card who was dead, the guy Lee Deamer was supposed to have killed.

Him. He’s the one, I thought. I was his replacement. But what was I supposed to be?

There was just too much to think about; I was too tired to put my mind to it. You don’t kill a fat man and see a girl die because of the look on your face and get involved with a Commie organization all in two days without feeling your mind sink into a soggy ooze that drew it down deeper and deeper until it relaxed of its own accord and you were asleep.

I sat slumped in the chair, the cigarette that had dropped from my fingers had burned a path through the rug at right angles with another. The bell shrilled and shrilled until I thought it would never stop. My arm going out to the phone was an involuntary movement, my voice just happened to be there.

I said hello.

It was Pat and he had to yell at me a half-dozen times before I snapped out of it. I grunted an answer and he said, “Too late for you, Mike?”

“It’s four o‘clock in the morning. Are you just getting up or just going to bed?”

“Neither. I’ve been working.”

“At this hour?”

“Since six this evening. How’s the vacation?”

“I called it off.”

“Really now. Just couldn’t bear to leave the city, could you? By the way, did you find any more green cards with the ends snipped off?”

The palms of my hands got wet all of a sudden. “No.”

“Are you interested in them at all?”

“Cut the comedy, Pat. What’re you driving at? It’s too damn late for riddles.”

“Get over here, Mike,” his voice was terse. “My apartment, and make it as fast as you can.”

I came awake all at once, shaking the fatigue from my brain. “Okay, Pat,” I said, “give me fifteen minutes.” I hung up and slipped into my coat.

It was easier to grab a cab than wheel my car out of the garage. I shook the cabbie’s shoulder and gave him Pat’s address, then settled back against the cushions while we tore across town. We made it with about ten seconds to spare and I gave the cabbie a fin for his trouble.