The Mike Hammer Collection (45 page)

I dragged out my wallet and fingered off some bills. “Here. You'll need taxi fare and grub money, plus what the guy will ask. That is, if you find it.”

She tucked the bills in her pocketbook. “Frankly, what do you think of the chances, Mike?”

“Not too good. Still, it's the only out I know of. It won't be easy to run down, but it's the only lead I have right now.”

“Will you be here while I'm gone?”

“I may be, I don't know” I wrote down my home and office addresses, then added Pat's number as an afterthought. “In case you find anything, call me here or at these numbers. If you're in a jam and I'm not around, call Pat. Now, have you got everything straight?”

She nodded. “I think so. Does the faithful wife off to work get a farewell kiss from her lazy spouse?”

I grabbed her arm and hauled her down to me, bruising her lips with mine and felt the fire start all over again. I had to push her away.

“I don't want to go,” she said.

“Scram.” She wrinkled her nose again and waved to me from the doorway.

As soon as she left I went over to the phone and dialed the office. Velda started with, “I'm sorry, but Mr. Hammer isn't here at the moment.”

“Where is he?”

“I'm not at liberty to say. He should ... Mike! Where the devil are you now? Why don't you stop in and take care of your business? I never ...”

“Off my back, chick. I'm tied up. Look, have I had any calls?”

“I'll say you have. So far I haven't had time to answer the mail!”

“Who called?”

“First off there was a man who wouldn't give his name. Said it was confidential and he'd call back later. Then two prospective clients called, but I told them you were engaged. Both of them thought their business was so urgent you'd drop what you were doing and go with them.”

“Get their names?”

“Yes. Both were named Johnson. Mark and Joseph Johnson, neither related.”

I grunted. Johnson was about the third or fourth most popular name in the phone directory. “Who else?”

“There was a guy named Cobbie Bennett. I had a hard time getting his name because he was almost hysterical. He said he had to see you right away but wouldn't say why. I told him you'd call back as soon as you come in. He wouldn't leave a number. He's called three times since.”

“Cobbie! What could he want? He said nothing at all, Velda?”

“Not a thing.”

“Okay, continue.”

“Your client, Mr. Berin-Grotin, called. He wanted to know if his check got to the bank in time. I didn't know about it so I said you'd check with him. He said not to bother if everything was all right.”

“Well, everything's not all right, but it's too late to bother about now. You hold down the phone, kiddo. Give out the same answers to whoever calls. Keep one thing in mind ... you
don't
know where I am and you
haven't
heard from me since yesterday. Got it?”

“Yes, but ...”

“No buts. The only one you can feel free to speak to is Pat or a girl called Lola. Take their messages. If they have anything for me try to get me at home or here.” I rattled off Lola's number and waited while she wrote it down.

“Mike ... what is it? Why can't you ...”

I was tired of repeating it. “I'm supposed to be dead, Velda. The killer thinks he nailed me.”

“Mike!”

“Oh, quit worrying. I'm not even scratched. The bullet hit my gun. Which reminds me ... I got to get a new one. 'Bye, baby. See you soon.”

I stuck the phone back and sat on the edge of the chair, running my hand across my face. Cobbie Bennett. He was hysterical and he wanted to see me. He wouldn't say why. I wondered which of the Johnson boys was the killer trying to make certain I was gone from the land of the living. And who was the caller with the confidential info? At least I knew who Cobbie was.

I hoped I knew where I could find him.

My coat was wrinkled from lying across the chair, and without a rod under my arm the thing bagged like a zoot suit. The holster helped fill it out, but not enough. I closed the door behind me and walked downstairs, trying to appear like just another resident, maybe a little on the seedy side. In that neighborhood nobody gave me a tumble.

At Ninth Avenue I grabbed a cab and had him drive me over to a gunsmith on the East Side. The guy who ran the shop might have made Daniel Boone's rifle for him, he was that old. At one time guns had been his mainstay, but since the coming of law and order he specialized in locks, even if the sign over the door didn't say so.

He didn't ask questions except to see my license, and when he had gone over it to the extent of comparing the picture with my face, he nodded and asked me what I liked. There were some new surplus Army .45's mounted in a rack on the wall and I pointed them out. He took them down and let me try the action. When I found one that satisfied me I peeled off a bill from my roll, signed the book and took my receipt and a warning to check with the police on the change in gun numbers on my ticket.

I felt a lot better when I walked out of the place.

If the sun had been tucked in bed I would have been able to locate Cobbie in a matter of minutes. At high noon it was going to be a problem. In a cigar store on the corner I cashed in a buck for a handful of nickels and started working the phone book, calling the gin mills where he usually hung out. I got the same answer every time. Cobbie had dropped out of sight. Two wanted to know who I was, so I said a friend and hung up.

Sometimes the city is worse than the jungle. You can get lost in it with a million people within arm's length. I was glad of it now. A guy could roam the streets for a week without being recognized if he were careful not to do anything to attract attention. A cab went by and I whistled at it, waited while it braked to a stop and backed up, then got in. After I told the driver where to go I settled back against the cushions and did exercises to loosen up my neck.

I missed the redhead's ring. I was doing good while I had it. Nancy, a mother ... a blackmailer? A girl down on her luck. A good kid. I could never forget the way she looked at me when I gave her the dough. I'd never forget it because I told her that kind of stuff was murder.

I didn't know how right I was.

She must have had fun shopping for those clothes, being waited on, seeing herself in the mirror as a lady again. What had happened to her attitude, her personal philosophy after that? She was happy, I knew that. Her letter was bubbling over with happiness. What was it that meant so much to her ... and did I help change her mind about it?

Nancy with the grace of a lady, the veneer of a tramp. A girl who should have been soft and warm, staying home nights to cook supper for some guy, was being terrorized by a gun-slinging punk. A lousy greaseball. A girl who had no defense except running forced to sell herself to keep alive. I did her a favor and her eyes lit up like candles at an altar. We were buddies, damn good buddies for a little while.

The driver said, “Here you are, mister.”

I passed a bill through the window and got out, my eyes looked up and down the street until I spotted a familiar blue uniform. I was going to have to do it the quickest way possible. The cop was walking toward me and I stared into a drugstore window until he went by, and when he had a half-block lead I followed him at a leisurely pace.

A lot of people like to run down the cops. They begin to think of them as human traffic lights, or two faces in a patrol car cruising down the street hoping some citizen will start some trouble. They forget that a cop has eyes and ears and can think. They forget that sometimes a cop on a beat likes it that way. The street is his. He knows everyone on it. He knows who and what they are and where they spend their time. He doesn't want to get pulled off it even for a promotion, because then he loses his friends and becomes chained to a desk or an impersonal case. The cop I was following looked like that kind. He was big from the ground up, and almost as big around. There was a purpose in his stride and pride in his carriage, and several times I saw him nod to women sitting in doorways and fake a pass at fresh brats that yelled out something nasty about coppers. Someday those same kids would be screaming for him to hurry up and get to where the trouble was.

When the cop called in at a police phone I picked up on him. He turned into a lunch room, climbed on a stool and I was right beside him. He took off his coat and hat, ordered corn beef and cabbage and I took the same. The plates came and we both ate silently. Halfway through the two guys next to me paid up and left, which was the chance I waited for.

One had left a tabloid on the stool and I propped it up in front of me, using it as a shield while I took my badge and identification card from my pocket. I only had to nudge the cop once and he looked over, saw the stuff I palmed and frowned.

“Mike Hammer, private cop.” I kept my voice low, chewing as I spoke. “Don't watch me.”

The cop frowned again and went back to his lunch. “Pat Chambers will vouch for me. I'm working with him on a case.” This time the frown deepened and lines of disbelief touched his cheeks.

“I have to find Cobbie Bennett,” I said. “Right away. Do you know where he is?”

He took another mouthful of corn beef and threw a dime on the counter. The chef came over and he asked for change. When he had two nickels he got up, still chewing, and walked over to a phone booth up front and shut the door.

About a minute later he was back and working on the corn beef again. He shoved the plate away, drew his coffee to him and seemed to notice me for the first time.

“Done with the paper, feller?”

“Yeah.” I handed it to him. He took a pair of horn-rimmed glasses from his pocket and worked them on, holding the paper open to the baseball scores. His lips worked as if he were reading, only he said, “I think Cobbie's hiding out in a rooming house one block west. Brownstone affair with a new stoop. He looks scared.”

The counterman came over and took the plates away. I ordered pie and more coffee, ate it slowly, then paid up and left. The cop was still there reading the paper; he never glanced up once and he probably wouldn't for another ten minutes.

I found the stoop first, then the house. Cobbie Bennett found me. He peered out of a second-story window just as I turned up the stairs and for a split second I had a look at a pale white face that had terror etched deep into the skin.

The door was open and I walked into the hallway. Cobbie called to me from the head of the stairs. “Here, up here, Mike.” This time I watched where I was going. There were too many nice places for a guy to hide with a baseball bat in those damn hallways. Before I reached the landing Cobbie had me by the lapels of my coat and was dragging me into a room.

“Christ, Mike, how'd ya find me? I never told nobody where I was! Who said I was here?”

I shoved him away. “You're not hard to find, Cobbie. Nobody is when they're wanted badly enough.”

“Don't say that, Mike, will ya? Christ, it's bad enough having you find me. Suppose....”

“Stop jabbering like an idiot. You wanted me. So I'm here.”

He shoved a bolt in the door and paced across the room, running his fingers through his hair and down his face. He couldn't stand still and the fact that I parked myself in the only chair in the place and seemed completely at ease made him jumpier still.

“They're after me, Mike. I just got away in time.”

“Who's they?”

“Look, ya gotta help me out. Jeez, you got me inta this, now ya gotta help me out. They're after me, see? I can't stick around. I gotta get outa town.” He stuck a cigarette in his mouth and tried to light it. He made it with the fourth match.

“Who's they?” I asked again.

Cobbie licked his lips. His shoulder had a nervous twitch and he kept turning his head toward the door as if he were listening for something. “Mike. Somebody saw you with me that night. They passed the word and the heat's on. I—I gotta blow.”

I just sat there and watched him. He took a drag on the cigarette before he threw it on the worn-out carpet and ground it in with his heel. “Damn it, Mike, don't just sit there. Say something!”

“Who's they?”

For the first time it sank in. He got white around the corner of his mouth. “I dunno. I dunno. It's somebody big. Something's popping in this town and I don't know what it is. All I know is the heat's on me because I got seen messing around with you. What'll I do, Mike? I can't stay here. You don't know them guys. When they're out to get ya they don't miss!”

I stood up and stretched, trying to look bored. “I can't tell you a damn thing, Cobbie, not unless you sound off first. If you don't want to speak, then the hell with you. Let 'em get you.”

He grabbed my sleeve and hung on for dear life. “No, Mike, don't ... I'd tell you what I know only I don't know nothing. I just got the sign, then I heard some things. It was about that redhead. Because of you I'm getting the works. I saw some big boys down the street last night. They wasn't locals. They was here before when there was some trouble and a couple guys disappeared. I know why they're here ... they're after me ... and you maybe.”

He was doing better now. “Go on, Cobbie.”

“Th' racket's organized, see? We pay for protection and we pay plenty. I don't know where it goes, but as long as we pay there's no trouble. As long as we make like clams there's still no trouble. But damn it, you came around and somebody saw me shooting my mouth off, now there's plenty of trouble again and it's all for me.”