The Mike Hammer Collection (18 page)

Russell Hilbar backed up and grabbed the edge of a chair for support. His face had gone pasty white and he looked ready to faint. “I—I never thought ...” he stammered, “... Mr. Kines' room is on the lower floor in the east wing. The room number is 107, right on the southeast corner. But the county police have closed it pending a further investigation and I have no key.”

“The hell with the county police. I'll get in. Turn these lights off and don't move out of the house. And stay away from the phone.”

“But the students—will they ... ?”

“I'll take care of them,” I said as I closed the door.

Outside I had to orientate myself to find the east wing. I picked a low rectangular building out to be the dorms and I wasn't wrong. The grass muffled any sounds I made, and I crept up on the corner of the wing. I prayed silently that my hunch wasn't wrong and that I wasn't too late. As much as possible, I stayed in the shadows, working my way behind the bushes set against the wall.

The window was shoulder high, and down all the way. I took off my hat and put my ear close to the pane, but I couldn't detect any sound from inside. I took the chance. My fingers went under the sash and I pushed the window up. It slid without a creak. I jumped, and pulled myself into the room, then slid off the sill and landed on my face.

That fall saved my life. Two shots blasted from the corner of the room. The slugs smashed into the window sill behind me and threw splinters in my face. For a brief moment the room was lit up with the weird red glow of the gunflash.

My hand darted under my coat and came out with my rod. Our shots came almost together. I let three go as fast as my finger could pull the trigger. Something tugged at my jacket and I felt my ribs burn. There was another shot from across the room, but it wasn't directed at me. It went off into the floor of the room and the guy that fired it followed it down.

This time I didn't take a chance. I jumped the gap between us and landed on a body. I kicked for the gun and heard it skid across the floor. Only then did I switch on the lights.

George Kalecki was dead. My three shots had all caught him in the same place, right in the chest around the heart. But he had time to do what he came to do. In one corner, and still warm, was a pile of ashes in a green metal box.

CHAPTER 11

T
he next second there was a furious pounding on the door and voices raising cain outside. “Get away from that door and shut up,” I yelled.

“Who's in there?” a voice demanded.

“Your uncle Charlie,” I shot back. “Now can that chatter and get the dean up here fast as you can and tell him to call the police.”

“Watch the window, fellows,” the voice hollered. “The door is still sealed and he must have gone in that way. That's it, Duke, take the rifle. No telling who it is.”

These crazy college kids. If one of them got jumpy with that rifle I'd be a dead duck. I stuck my head out the window as four of them came tearing around the corner at top speed. When they saw me they stopped in a flurry of dust. I waved to the big tow-headed kid carrying a .22 repeater. “Come here, you.”

He marched up to the window with the gun out in front of him like he was going to bayonet somebody. He was scared stiff. I palmed my tin and shoved it under his nose. “See this badge?” I said. “I'm a cop, New York. Now keep your noses out of here. If you want to do something, post a guard around the campus until the cops get here and don't let anyone out. Understand?”

The kid bobbed his head eagerly. He was glad to get away from there. The next second he was shouting orders all over the place. Good ROTC material. The dean came running up blowing like a sick horse. “What happened?” His voice nearly broke when he spoke.

“I just shot a guy. Call the cops and be sure the kids stay out of here.” He took off like a herd of turtles and I was left alone save for the curious voices outside the door. What I had to do had to be done before a lot of hayseed county cops took over.

I let George lay where he had fallen, taking time only to notice the gun. It was a .45, same as mine, and the one he had in his room when I searched it. I recognized a scratch on the butt.

The green box was my next step. I sifted the ashes carefully, trying to determine what they had been. The blackened cover of a note pad lay on the bottom, but it dissolved into dust at my touch. These ashes had been one or more books. I would have given a million dollars to know what they had had in them.

Not a word was visible, so thoroughly had George burned them. I looked around the spot on the floor where the box was originally. A few ashes were there, too. One was larger than the rest and not as well burned through. It had a string of numbers on it. I wondered how he concealed the fire. From outside it would have lit the room up as much as the overhead light would have.

I found out in a moment. A throw rug lay on the floor. When I turned it over the underside was blackened. Stuck to the mesh of the weave was a half-page leaf of the paper. It would have gone well at a murder trial. George was named as the trigger man in a murder, and where the proof could be found was also revealed—in a safe-deposit box in an uptown bank. It even gave the number and the code word. The key was in trust with the bank officer.

So George was a murderer. I had always thought he went that far back in the old days. Well, here was something to prove it. At least it more than justified my self-defense act in gunning him down. I tucked the charred bit into a small envelope I carry for things like this, addressed it to myself and put a stamp on it. This time I used the door. I broke the seal with my shoulder and nearly bowled over a half-dozen kids. When I shooed them away I looked around for a post box and found one at the end of the corridor. I dropped it in and went back to wait for the arrival of the cops.

It was coming out now. Heretofore I thought Kalecki was the big wheel behind the syndicate, but now I could see that he was only a small part of it. Hal Kines had been the big shot. His methods were as subtle as those he used in obtaining his women. He went to enough trouble, but it was worth it. First he picked on guys with a dubious past, and ones against whom he wouldn't run into much trouble obtaining evidence. When he compiled it, he presented the stuff, or a photostat, and made the guy work with him. If I could have gotten the information that was burned we could have broken the filthiest racket in the world. Too late now, but at least I had a start. Maybe there were duplicates in the strong box, but I doubted that. Hal probably kept his evidence in different boxes for different people. That way, if he had to put the pressure on the group, he could send a note to the cops to investigate such and such a box without having any of his others disturbed. Nice thinking. Very farsighted.

I felt sort of good over having nailed Kalecki, but he still wasn't the one I wanted. If this kept up there wouldn't be anyone left at all. There was an outsider in this case. There had to be. One that nobody knew about, except, perhaps, those that were dead.

The county police arrived with all the pomp and ceremony of a presidential inaugural address. The chief, a big florid-faced farmer, pranced into the room with his hand on the butt of a revolver and promptly placed me under arrest for murder. Two minutes later, after a demonstration of arm waving, shouting and bulldozing of which I did not think myself capable, he retreated hastily and just as promptly un-arrested me. However, to soothe his ruffled feelings I let him inspect my private operator's license, my gun permit and a few other items of identification.

I let him listen to me put in the call to Pat. These county cops have no respect for authority outside their own limits, but when he got on the phone, Pat threatened him with calling the governor unless he cooperated with me. I gave him what details were necessary to keep him busy awhile, then took off for New York.

Going back I took it easier. It was early morning when I stopped outside of Pat's office and my eyes wouldn't stay open. He was waiting for me nevertheless. As quickly as I could I gave him the details of the shooting. He dispatched a car upstate to get photographs and see if there was anything to be learned from the ashes of the burned notebooks.

I didn't feel like going home, so I called Charlotte. She was up and dressed for an early appointment.

“Can you stay put until I get there?” I queried.

“Certainly, Mike. Hurry up. I want to hear what happened.”

“Be there in fifteen minutes,” I said, then hung up.

It took thirty, traffic was pretty heavy. Charlotte was in the door while Kathy was dusting. She took my coat and hat and I headed for the sofa. I relaxed with a sigh, and she bent down and kissed me. I hardly had enough energy to kiss her back. With her there beside me I told the whole story. Charlotte was a good listener. When I finished she stroked my forehead and my face.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked.

“Yeah. Tell me what makes a nymphomaniac.”

“So? You've been to see her again!” Her answer was indignant.

“Business, darling.” I wondered when I'd be able to stop using that line.

Charlotte laughed. “That's all right. I understand. As for your question, a nymphomaniac can be either a case of gradual development through environment or born into a person. Some people are oversexed, a glandular difficulty. Others can be repressed in childhood, and when they find themselves in an adult world, no longer the victim of senseless restrictions, they go hog wild. Why?”

I evaded the why and asked, “Can the ones with emotional difficulty go bad?”

“You mean, will they kill as a result of their emotional overload? I'd say offhand, no. They find an easier out for their emotions.”

“For instance,” I parried.

“Well, if a nymphomaniac showers a great deal of emotion on a person, then is rebuffed, instead of killing the one who spurned her, she simply finds another with whom to become emotionally entangled. It's quicker, besides being more effective. If she suffers a loss of prowess from the rebuff, this new person renews her. See?”

I got what she was driving at, but there was still something else. “Would it be likely for both the twins to be nymphomaniacs?”

Charlotte gave me that delightful laugh. “Possible, but it doesn't happen to be so. You see, I know them rather well. Not too well, but enough to determine their characters. Mary is beyond help. She likes to be the way she is. I daresay she has more fun than her sister, but Esther has seen so many of her escapades and helped her out of trouble, that she has a tendency to turn away from love affairs herself. Esther is a charming enough person, all right. Just about everything her sister has without the craze for men. When a man does drop into Esther's life, she'll take it naturally.”

“I'll have to meet her,” I said, sleepily. “By the way, are you going up to their place this weekend?”

“Why yes, Mary invited me. I'll be late getting there, but I won't miss the game. However, I have to come back right after it. Are you going?”

“Uh-huh. I'm going to drive Myrna up. That is, I still have to call her so she'll know about it.”

“Swell,” she said. That was the last word I heard. I fell into a sleep as deep as the ocean.

When I awoke I glanced at my watch. It was nearly four in the afternoon. Kathy heard me stir and came into the room with a tray of bacon and eggs and coffee.

“Heah's yo' breakfast, Mistah Hammah. Miss Charlotte tell me to take good care of y'all till she comes home.” Kathy gave me a toothy white smile and waddled out after setting the tray down.

I gulped the eggs hungrily and polished off three cups of coffee. Then I called Myrna and she told me that it was okay to pick her up at ten A.M. Saturday. I hung up and poked around the bookshelves for something to read while I waited. Most of the fiction I had read, so I passed on to some of Charlotte's textbooks. One was a honey called
Hypnosis as a Treatment for Mental Disorders.
I skimmed through it. Too wordy. It gave the procedure for putting a patient into a state of relaxation, inducing hypnosis, and suggesting treatment. That way, the patient later went about effecting his own cure automatically.

That would have been a nice stunt for me to learn if I could do it. I pictured myself putting the eye on a beautiful doll and—hell, that was nasty. Besides, I wasn't that bad off. I chose one that had a lot of pictures. This one was titled, Psychology of Marriage. Brother, it was a dilly. If it weren't for the big words I would have enjoyed it. I wished they would write stuff like that in language for the layman.

Charlotte came in when I was on the last chapter. She took the book out of my hand and saw what I was reading. “Thinking of anything special?” she asked.

I gave her a silly grin. “Better get the low-down now while I'm able to. Can't say how long I'm going to have the strength to hold off.” She kissed me and whipped me up a Scotch and soda. When I downed it I told Kathy to get my hat and coat. Charlotte looked disappointed.

“Have to leave so soon? I thought you'd stay to dinner at least.”

“Not tonight, honey. I have a job for my tailor and I want to get cleaned up. I don't suppose
you'd
have a razor handy.” I pointed to the bullet hole in my coat. Charlotte got a little white when she saw how close it had come.

“Are ... are you hurt, Mike?”

“Hell, no. Got a bullet burn across the ribs but it never broke the skin.” I pulled up my shirt to confirm it, then got dressed. The phone rang just then and she took it.

She frowned once or twice, said, “Are you sure? All right, I'll look into it.” When she hung up I asked her what the matter was. “A client. Responded to treatment, then lapsed into his former state. I think I'll prescribe a sedative and see him in the morning.” She went to her desk.