My face was in the gravel, my hands stretched out in front of me, the fingers curled into stiff talons that took excruciating effort to straighten. By the time I had dragged myself out from under the car the sweat that bathed my face brought down rivulets of dried blood, mixing with the flesh as cuts reopened under the strain.
I sat there, swaying to the beat of thunder in my head, trying to bring my eyes into focus. Perception returned slowly, increasing proportionately with the ache that started all over and ended nowhere. I could think now, and I could remember, but remembering brought a curse that split my swollen lips again so I just sat there and thought.
The weight that was dragging me down was my gun. It was still there under my arm. A hell of a note. I never had a chance to get to it. What a damn fool I was, running into a trap like that! A plain, stupid jerk who deserved to get his head knocked off.
Somehow my watch survived with nothing more than a scratched crystal, and the hands were standing at six-fifteen A.M.; I had been there the whole night. Only then did it occur to me that the cars parked there were all-nighters. Those boys had picked their spot well. Damn well.
I tried to get up, but my feet didn’t move well enough yet, so I slumped back to the gravel and leaned against the car gasping for breath. It hurt like hell to move even so much as an inch. My clothes were a mess, torn by their feet and the gun. One whole side of my face had been scraped raw and I couldn’t touch the back of my head without wincing. My chest was on fire from the pounding my ribs had taken. I couldn’t tell if any were broken ... they felt as if there wasn’t a whole one left.
I don’t know how long I sat there sifting the gravel through my fingers and thinking. It might have been a minute, maybe an hour. I had a little pile of stones built up at my side, then I picked them off the pile and flicked them at the chrome wheel hub of the car opposite me. They made ping sounds when they hit.
Then one of them didn’t make a ping sound and I reached out and picked it up to try again. But it wasn’t a stone. It was a ring. A ring with a peculiar fleur-de-lis design, scratched and battered where it had been ground into the gravel and trampled on.
Suddenly I wasn’t tired any more. I was on my feet and my lips were split into a wide-mouthed grin because the ring I was holding was the redhead’s ring and somebody was going to die when they tried to get it away from me. They were going to die slower and harder than any son of a bitch had ever died before, and while they died, I’d laugh my god-damn head off!
My car was where I had left it, against the back wall. I opened the door and climbed in, easing myself into a comfortable position where it wouldn’t hurt so much to drive. I jerked it out of the slot and turned around, then when I went past the gate I threw two bucks into the window to pay for the overtime. The guy took the dough and never even looked up.
I thought I could make it home. I was wrong. Long before I had reached the Stem the knifing pains in my side started again and my legs could barely work the pedals. Somehow, I worked the heap across town without killing anybody and cut up Fifty-sixth Street. There was a parking space outside Lola’s place and I swung into it and killed the motor. When a couple of early risers got past me I squirmed out of the seat, slammed the door and clawed my way into the building.
The steps were torture. I was wishing I could die by the time I got to the door and punched the bell. Lola opened the door and her eyes went wide as saucers.
“My God, Mike, what happened?” She grabbed my arm and steered me inside where I could slide down on the couch. “Mike ... are you all right?”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah. It’s okay now.”
“I’ll call a doctor!”
“No.”
“But, Mike....”
“I said no, damn it. Just let me rest up. I’ll be all right.” The words came out hard.
She came over and unlaced my shoes, then lifted my feet onto the cushions. Except for the worried expression she was at her loveliest best, with another black dress that looked painted on. “Going somewhere, kid?”
“To work, Mike. I won’t now.”
“The hell you won’t,” I said. “Right now that’s more important than me. Just let me stay here until I feel better. I’m in one piece as far as I can tell and it isn’t the first time I’ve been this way either. Go on, beat it.”
“I still have an hour yet.” Her hands went to my tie and unloosened it and took it off. She got me out of the wreck of my jacket and shirt without doing me much damage and I looked at her with surprise. “You got a professional touch, honey,” I told her.
“Patriotism. I was a nurse’s aid during the war. I’m going to clean you up.”
She lit a cigarette and stuck it between my lips, then went out to the kitchen and I heard water splashing in a pan. When she came back she carried a bowl of steaming water and an arm of towels.
My muscles were beginning to stiffen up and I couldn’t take the butt out of my mouth until she did it for me. When I had a couple of deep drags she snubbed it out, then took a pair of scissors and cut through my undershirt. I was afraid to look but I had to. There were welts along my side that were turning a deep purple. There were spots where the flesh was bruised and torn and still oozing blood. She pressed above the ribs, searching for breaks, and even that gentle pressure made me tighten up. But when she got done we both knew there were no sharp edges sticking out and I wasn’t quite ready for a cast or casket yet.
The water was hot and bit deep, but it was soothing too. She wiped my face clean and touched the cuts with a germicide, then patted it dry. I just lay there with my eyes closed and let her rub my shoulders, my arms, then my chest, grimacing when she hit a soft spot. I was almost asleep again when I felt her fingers open my belt, then my eyes opened halfway.
I said, “Hey ... nix ...” but it was an effort to speak and she wouldn’t stop. It hurt too much to move and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do but let her undress me, so I closed my eyes again until even my socks were on the pile in the chair and her fingers were magic little feathers that were brushing the dirt and the pain away in a lather of hot, soapy water being massaged in with a touch that was almost a caress.
It was wonderful. It was so good that I fell asleep at the best part and when I woke up it was almost four o’clock in the afternoon and Lola was gone. There was a sheet over me and nothing else. At the table by my elbow was a pitcher of water with nearly melted ice cubes, a fresh deck of Luckies and a note.
When I reached out and plucked it from the ash tray I wasn’t hurting so bad. It said: “Mike Dear, Stay right where you are until I get home. All but your unmentionables went in the trash can anyway, so don’t expect to run off from me. I took your keys and I will pick up clothes for you from your apartment. Your gun is under the sofa, but please don’t shoot it off or the super will put me out. Be good. Love, Lola.”
The clothes! Hell, she couldn’t have thrown them away ... that ring was in the pocket! I tossed back the sheet and pushed myself up and began to ache again. I should have stayed there. My wallet, change and the ring were in a neat little huddle on the table behind the water pitcher.
But at least I was in a position to reach for the phone without any extra effort. I dialed the operator, asked for information, then gave her my client’s name and address. The butler took the call, then put me on an extension to Mr. Berin-Grotin.
His voice was cheery and alive; mine sort of crackled. “Mike Hammer, Mr. Berin.”
“Oh ... good evening, Mike. How are you?”
“Not what you’d call good. I just had the crap beat out of me.”
“What ... what was that?”
“I fell for a sucker trap and got taken but good. My own fault ... should have known better.”
“What happened?” I heard him swallow hard. Violence wasn’t up his alley.
“I was steered to a guy named Murray Candid. I didn’t get what I was looking for, so I followed him to a parking lot and got jumped. One of the punks thought he was being kind when he let me go on living, but I’m beginning to doubt his kindness. I’d be better off dead.”
He exploded with, “My goodness! Mike ... perhaps you had better not ... I mean....”
If I put a laugh in my voice I was faking it “No dice, Mr. Berin. They hurt me but they didn’t scare me. The next time I’ll be on my toes. In one way I’m glad it happened.”
“Glad? I’m afraid I don’t enjoy your viewpoint, Mike. This sort of thing is so ... so uncivilized! I just don’t understand ....”
“One of the bastards was the guy who killed the redhead, Mr. Berin.”
“Actually? Then you have
made
progress; but ... how do you know?”
“He dropped the ring that he took from Red’s finger before he killed her. I have it now.”
There was eagerness in his voice this time. “Did you see him, Mike? Will you be able to identify him?”
I hated to give him the bad news. “The answer is no to both. It was darker than dark, and all I saw was stars.”
“That
was
too bad. Mike ... what do you intend doing now?”
“Take it easy a while, I guess.” I was beginning to get tired. I said, “Look, I’ll call you back again later. I want to think about this a little while, okay?”
“Certainly, Mike. But please ... this time be more careful. If anything should happen to you I would feel directly responsible.”
After I told him to quit worrying I hung up and flopped back on the couch again, this time with the phone in my hand so I could do my talking on my back. I dialed Pat at his office, was told he had left, then picked him up at home. He was glad to hear from me and kept quiet while I went through the story for him. I gave him everything except the news of the ring.
Even at that he guessed at it. “There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”
“What makes you think so, Pat?” I asked him.
“You sound too damn satisfied for a guy who was cleaned.”
“I’m satisfied because I think I’m getting into something now.”
“Who were the guys ... Candid’s boys?”
“Could be, Pat, but I’m not sure. Maybe they had it figured out and got there ahead of us, but maybe that wasn’t it at all. I have another idea.”
“Go on.”
“When I went into his office someone was just leaving ... someone who saw me. I was following Murray and the other was following me. When he knew where Murray was going he scooted ahead in a cab with some boys and waited.”
Pat added, “Then why didn’t Murray horn in when things started to pop?”
“Because he’s in a position ... I think ... where he has to keep his nose clean and strictly out of anybody else’s business. If he knew what was going to happen he didn’t care. Of course, that’s figuring that he had nothing to do with it in the first place.”
“Could be,” Pat agreed. “If we were working on more than a vague theory we could move in and find out for sure. Listen
... you’re getting more help with this than you expected.”
He made me curious. “Yeah?”
“Uh-huh. The kid who ran into her with the car was insured. The company is positive of the cause of death and wants to pay off. Right now they’re tracking down the next of kin.”
“Did you tell them anything, Pat?”
“Not a thing. They looked for themselves, got the official police report and that’s that. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself by telling them I let a jerky private eye talk me into murder. Those boys are pretty sharp, too. And something else. I’ve had tracers out on your pal.”
“Pal ... who?”
“Feeney Last.”
I was tingling all over and I damn near dropped the phone. Even the mention of the greaseball’s name set me off.
Pat said, “He’s got a good rep ... as far as we can tell not even an arrest. We found two cities on the West Coast where he was known. In both cases he was employed by businesses who needed strong-arm boys. Feeney’s a trouble kid, but good. The local cops informed me that the lesser punks in town were scared stiff of him because somehow they got the notion he was a gun slinger from the old school and would go out of his way to find something to shoot at. Right out of a grade B western. Feeney played it smart by carrying a license for the gun and the only time he was ever fingerprinted was for the application.”
“But nothing you can hang on him, eh?”
“That’s right, Mike.”
“What happened to the license he had for the job with Berin-Grotin?”
“He even thought of that. It was returned in the mail. The lad isn’t taking any chances.”
“So now he sticks to a chiv.”
“What?”
“You don’t need a license for a knife, chum, and Feeney likes cold steel.”
My back was aching and I was getting too tired to talk any more so I told Pat I’d call him later and hung up. I put the phone on the table and rolled into a more comfortable position, then lay there a while trying to think. The redhead’s ring was in my hand and her face was in my mind, but now all the hard lines were gone and it was a pretty face that could smile with relief and anxiety.
The ring was large enough to fit my little finger. I slipped it on.
At half past four I heard a key slide into the lock and I came out of my half-sleep with a gun in my hand and the safety kicked off. Across the knuckles was a thin red line of blood where I had caught on a nail under the sofa going for it.
But it was only Lola.
My expression scared the hell out of her and she dropped the package she was carrying. “Mike!”
“Sorry, kid. I’m jumpy.” I dropped the rod on the table.
“I ... brought your clothes.” She picked up the package and came over to me. When she sat down on the edge of the sofa I pulled her head down and kissed her ripe lips.
She smiled, running her fingers across my forehead. “Feel all right?”
“Fine, honey. That sleep was just what I needed. I’ll be sore for a few days, but nothing like somebody else is going to be. It’s been a long time since I was jumped like that, but maybe it did me good. I’ll keep my eyes open the next time and sink a slug into somebody’s gut before I run up a blind alley.”