The Mike Hammer Collection (71 page)

“All right ... but please hurry.”

I hurried. I passed red lights and full-stop intersections and heard whistles blowing behind me twice, but I got up there in fifteen minutes. The work-it-yourself elevator still wasn't working so I ran up the stairs and rapped on the door.

Connie's eyes were red from crying and she threw herself into my arms and let me squeeze the breath out of her. A lingering perfume in her hair took the cold out of my lungs and replaced it with a more pleasant sensation. “Lovely, lovely,” I said. I laughed at her for crying and held her at arm's length so I could look at her. She threw her head back and smiled.

“I feel so much better now,” she said. “I had to see you, Mike. I don't know why I was so worried but I was and couldn't help it.”

“Maybe that's because I remind you of your brothers.”

“Maybe but that's not it.” Her lips were soft and red. I kissed them gently and her mouth asked for more.

“Not in the doorway, girl. People will talk.” She reached around behind me and slammed it shut. Then I gave her more. Her body writhed under my hands and I had to push her away to walk into the living room.

She came in behind me and sat down at my feet. She looked more like a kid who hated to grow up than a woman. She was happy and she rubbed her cheek against my knees. “I had a lousy time last night, Mike. I wish I could have gone with you.”

“Tell me about it.”

“We drank and danced and gambled. Ralph won over a thousand dollars then he lost it all back. Anton was there and if we had gone with him he wouldn't have lost it.”

“Was Anton alone again?”

“He was while he stayed sober. When he got a load on he began pinching all the girls and one slapped his face. I didn't blame her a bit. She didn't have anything on under the dress. Later he singled out Lillian Corbett—she works through the agency—and began making a pass at her in French. Oh, the things he was saying!”

“Did she slap him too?”

“She would have if she understood French. As it was the dawn began to break and she gave him the heave-ho. Anton thought it was all very funny so he switched back to English and started playing more games with Marion Lester. She didn't have any objections, the old bag.”

I reached down and ran my fingers through her hair. “So Marion was there too?”

“You should have seen her switching her hips on the dance floor. She got Anton pretty well worked up and he isn't a man to work up easily. A guy about a half a head shorter than she was moved in on Anton and outplayed him by getting him soused even worse. Then he took Marion over and Anton invited everyone up to his place. What a time they must have had.”

“I bet. What did you do then?”

“Oh, some more gambling. I wasn't having much fun. Ralph would rather gamble than dance or drink any day. I sat and talked to the bartender until Ralph lost the money he had won, then we went back to a table and had a couple of champagne cocktails.”

Her head jerked up and that look came back on her face. “That was when those men came in. They talked about the shooting and about Rainey and you. One said he read about you in the papers not so long ago and how you were just the type to do something like that and then they started betting that the cops would have you before morning.”

“Who lost the bet?”

“I don't know. I didn't turn around to look. It was bad enough sitting there hearing them talk about it. I ... I started to get sick and I guess I cried a little. Ralph thought it was something he did to me and began pawing me to make up for it. I made him take me home. Mike ... why didn't you call me?”

“I was busy, sugar. I had to explain all that to the cops.”

“You didn't shoot him, did you?”

“Only a little bit. Not enough to kill him. Somebody else did that.”

“Mike!”

I rocked her head and laughed at her. “You got there early, didn't you?” Connie nodded yes. “Did you see Clyde at all during that time?”

“No ... come to think of it, he didn't show up until after midnight.”

“How'd he look?”

Connie frowned and bit her thumb. Her eyes looked up into mine after a while and she grimaced. “He seemed ... strange. Nervous, sort of.”

Yes, he would seem nervous. Killing people leaves you like that sometimes. “Did anyone else seem interested in the conversation? Like Clyde?”

“I don't think he heard about it. There was just those men.”

“Who else was there, Connie? Anybody that looked important?”

“Quit kidding. Everybody is important. You don't just walk into the Bowery Inn. Either you're pretty important or you're with somebody who is.”

I said, “I got in and I'm a misfit.”

“Any beautiful model is better than the password,” she grinned.

“Don't tell me they have a password.”

“Clyde used to ... to the back rooms. A password for each room. It's gotten so you don't need it now. That's what those little rooms are for between the larger rooms. They're soundproof and they're lined with sheet steel.”

I tightened my fingers in her hair and pulled her head back so I could look into her face. “You found out a lot in a hurry. The first time you were there was with me.”

“You told me I had brains too, Mike. Have you forgotten already? While I sat on my fanny at the bar while Ralph gambled the bartender and I had a very nice discussion. He told me all about the layout including the alarm and escape system. There are doors in the wall that go off with the alarm in case of a raid and the customers can beat it out the back. Isn't that nice of Clyde?”

“Very thoughtful.”

I gave the hassock she was sitting on a push with my foot. “Gotta go, sugar, gotta go.”

“Oh, Mike, not yet, please.”

“Look, I have things to do much as I'd like to sit here. Someplace in this wild, wild city, there's a guy with a gun who's going to use it again. I want to be around when he tries.”

She tossed her hair like an angry cat and said, “You're mean. I had something to show you, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Will you stay long enough to see it?”

“I guess I can.”

Connie stood up, kissed me lightly on the cheek and shoved me back in the chair. “We're doing a series for a manufacturing house. Their newest number that they're going to advertise arrived today and I'm modeling it for a full-page, four-color spread in the slick mags. When the job is done I get to keep it.”

She walked out of the room with long-legged strides and into the bedroom. She fussed around in there long enough for me to finish a cigarette. I had just squashed it out when she called out, “Mike ... come here.”

I pushed open the door of the bedroom and stood there feeling my skin go hot and cold then hot again. She was wearing a floor-length nightgown of the sheerest, most transparent white fabric I had ever seen. It wasn't the way the ad would be taken. Then the lights would be in front of her. The one in the room was behind her and she didn't have anything on under it.

When she turned the fabric floated out in a billowy cloud and she smiled into my eyes with a look that meant more than words.

The front of it was wide open.

“Like me, Mike?”

My forefinger moved, telling her to come closer. She floated across the room and stood in front of me, challenging me with her body. I said, “Take it off.”

All she did was shrug her shoulders. The gown dropped to the floor.

I looked at her, storing up a picture in my mind that I could never forget. She could have been a statue standing there, a statue molded of creamy white flesh that breathed with an irregular rhythm. A statue with dark, blazing eyes and jaunty breasts that spoke of the passion that lay within. A statue that stood in a daring pose that made you want to reach out to touch and pull so close the fire would engulf you too.

The statue had a voice that was low and desiring. “I could love you so easily, Mike.”

“Don't,” I said.

Her lips parted, her tongue wet them. “Why?”

My voice had a rough edge to it. “I can't take the time.”

The coals in her eyes jumped into flame that burned me. I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her against my chest, bruising her lips against mine. Her tongue was a little spear that flicked out, stabbing me, trying to wound me enough so I wouldn't be able to walk away.

I didn't let it stab me deep enough. I shoved her back, tried to talk and found that my voice wasn't there any more.

So I walked away. I walked away and left her standing there in the doorway, standing on a white cloud stark naked, the imprints of my fingers still etched in red on her shoulders.

“You'll get the person you're after, Mike. Nothing can stop you. Nothing.” Her voice was still husky, but there was a laugh behind it, and a little bit of pride, too. I was closing the door when I heard her whisper, “I love you, Mike. Really and truly, I do.”

 

Outside, the snow had started again. There was no wind, so it drifted down lazily, sneaking up on the city to catch it by surprise. What few stragglers were left on the street stuck close to the curb and looked back over their shoulders for taxis.

I got in the car and started the wipers going, watching them kick angrily through the snow that had piled up on the windshield. At least the snow made all cars look alike. If anybody with a gun was waiting for me he'd have a fine time picking out my head from the others.

Thinking about it made me mad. One gun was in an exhibit folder at police headquarters and the other was probably hanging in a locker if it hadn't been thrown away. It gave me an empty, uneasy feeling to be traveling without a rod slung under my arm. Sullivan Law? Hell, let me get picked up. It was all right for some harmless citizen to forget there were kill-crazy bastards loose, but one of them was looking for me.

There was a .30-caliber Luger sitting home in the bottom drawer of my dresser with a full clip of shells. It was just about the same size as a .45 too, just the right size to fit in my holster.

A plow was going by in front of my apartment house when I got there, so I figured it would be another hour at least before it would be around again and safe enough to park there.

I took the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator and didn't bother to shuck my coat when I opened the door. I felt for the light switch, batted it up, but no light came on. I cursed the fuse system and groped for a lamp.

What is it that makes you know you're not alone? What vague radiation emanates from the human body just strongly enough to give you one brief, minute premonition of danger that makes you act with animal reflexes? I had my hand around the base of the lamp when I felt it and I couldn't suppress the half-scream half-snarl that came out of my throat.

I threw that lamp as hard as I could across the wall, letting the cord rip loose from the socket as it smashed into a thousand pieces against the wall. There were two muffled snorts and a lance of flame bit into the darkness, bracketing me.

I didn't let it happen again. I dived toward the origin of the snorts and crashed into a pair of legs that buckled with a hoarse curse and the next moment a fist was smashing against my jaw driving my head against the floor. Somehow I got out of the way of that fist and slugged out with my forearm trying to drive him off me.

My feet got tangled in the table and kicked it over. The two vases and the bar set splintered all over the room with a hellish racket and somebody in the next apartment shouted to somebody else. I got one arm under me then and grabbed a handful of coat. The guy was strong as a bull and I couldn't hold it. That fist came back and worked on my face some more with maniacal fury I couldn't beat off. I was tangled in my coat and there were lights in the room now that didn't come from the lamps.

All I knew was that I had to get up ... had to get my feet under me and heave to get that thing off my back. Had to get up so I could use my hands on any part of him I could grab. I did it without knowing it and heard him ram into a chair and knock it on its side.

My teeth must have been bared to the gums and I screamed when I went in for the kill because I had him cold.

Then my legs got tangled in the lamp cord and I went flat on my face. My head hit something with a sharp crack that was all noise and no pain because there's a point at which pain stops and unconsciousness takes over, and in that second between I knew the killer was deciding between killing me or making a break for it. Doors started to slam and he decided to run and I let my eyes close and drew in the darkness like a blanket around me and slept an unnatural sleep that was full of soft golden hair and billowy white nightgowns I could see through and Velda in a dress she was more out of than in.

The man bending over me had a serious round face with an oval-shaped mouth that worked itself into funny shapes. I began to laugh and the serious face got more serious and the mouth worked more furiously than before. I laughed at that funny little mouth going through all those grotesque distortions for quite a while before I realized he was talking.

He kept asking me my name and what day it was. At last I had sense enough to stop laughing and tell him my name and what day it was. The face lost its seriousness and smiled a little bit. “You'll be all right,” it said. “Had me a bit worried for a minute.” The head turned and spoke to somebody else. “A slight concussion, that's all.”

The other voice said it was too bad it wasn't a fracture. I recognized the voice. In another minute or two the face came into focus. It was the D.A. He had his hands in his coat pockets trying to look superior like a D.A. should look because there were people around.