“Who attended you?”
“I knew it was a male. He wasn’t young, at least that was my impression.”
“You do have a bill for services.”
“No. I will probably get one. I said probably. Somebody could have taken care of me out of the goodness of his heart.”
“And
probably
not,” she said, then added, “At least none that I know.”
“What difference does it make?”
“He could be a witness to a murder.”
“Whose?”
“The man who shot you.”
“Lady, I don’t know who that was.” I lied, but there was no way she could prove it. “Besides, I don’t have the slugs that got me.”
“The doctor should. A legitimate doctor wouldn’t destroy evidence like that.”
I didn’t back off. “He could have been a vet, ma’am, or a medical student. Or maybe some old retired guy who decided to keep his hand in but was a little shook up about what had happened.” At least I was closer to the truth there. “I already told you, I was out of it. I was moved down to Florida into something like a rental beach house. Most of the time I was sedated. I was alone for a long while, just healing up.”
“What made you come back?”
Another white lie. “I read
The Daily News
somebody had dropped near the house. A good friend of mine had been murdered. We had been in the army together and I wanted to go to the funeral.”
“Who was the person?” she asked me.
“Marcos Dooley.” Her assistant wrote the name down. Later he would check it out.
For half a minute it was quiet. Nobody spoke and she never took her eyes off me. She retracted the tip of the ballpoint pen she kept in her fingers for effect, then said, “You know, of course, we could take you downtown and hammer all this out in great detail.”
I nodded. “Sure, I know that, but I wouldn’t tell you anything more or different. Besides . . .” and I gave her a big grin again, “with all those cameras doing the local color out there and ready to catch all the action they can get, I don’t think it would be a good idea, do you?”
She forced a smile and stood up. The rest of the coterie was on its feet immediately. “I didn’t know this was going to be a press conference, Mr. Hammer,” she said. “The next time we’ll make it more private.”
You didn’t have to spell it out for the newssharks. They got the picture right away. When the door opened the buzz of conversation died down and the little tight-lipped smiles began. A couple of floodlights went on and their cameras turned, but it was for file copy only unless something really big came out of my return.
When I went out there it wasn’t like that at all and we had a swinging press conference. I told them nothing different or new, but laid it on the way an audience would enjoy it. They got twelve minutes on tape before I ran out of steam and my belly started to hurt again. It showed in my face and they closed the show down with big smiles.
It was great to be back.
I showered unhurriedly, letting the hot water from the needle spray massage fresh life back into me. When I dried off I climbed into fresh underwear and opened the closet door to a rack of suits cleaned and pressed, shoes shined and laid out on the floor rack, shirts and ties in the right places and a new trench coat with a wintery lining still zipped in. All I could think of was that my secretary really knew how to take care of a guy. Then, for a few seconds I just froze, wondering if I could stand all that attention, then thought, what the heck, we both have to give in a little.
Velda never knew where I kept my guns in a built-in hidden compartment inside the closet and they were just as I had left them. The Gold Cup .45 and the Colt Combat Commander lay wrapped side by side, four full clips of ammo ready to go. All the accessories were waiting, but it wasn’t gun time anymore. That hurting place in my gut told me that. I picked up a loaded clip with chrome-cast .45s and slipped it into my pocket. It wasn’t much, but I felt a little more normal with some weight on that side.
But who was I kidding? Carrying slugs without a gun was like wearing a yachting hat without having a boat. Ah, hell, I thought, I felt better so I did it anyway.
Outside, it was cool enough for the trench coat, but without the lining. Florida had gotten me spoiled. For a few minutes I stood in front of the building and watched the traffic go by. It was only six-thirty and the traffic flow seemed normal. I turned right, walking toward the corner where the angled window of a dress shop did a mirror reflection of what was behind me.
Nobody was there at all. I flagged down a cab and gave Velda’s address.
A half hour before I had taken the pill dosage on Frank Morgan’s list. The day had been hectic enough that I felt like I could use the two little pink ones he suggested for the purpose. The only trouble was, he didn’t tell me to stay home afterward. Whatever those little buggers were, they were giving me a funny feeling. I called Velda from the lobby of her building and she came down within two minutes, a big, luscious woman who could turn any man’s head and give every woman a touch of envy. She didn’t have that touch of youthful naïveté any longer. She wore sheer full-bloomed womanhood like a cape, her eyes that same deep brown, reflecting an intelligence that was beautifully female.
We didn’t kiss. She simply hooked her arm under mine and gave me a squeeze that said a lot of things, a muscular, sensual gesture that made me go all shaky. “Cut that out,” I said softly.
“I didn’t do anything,” she answered.
“The heck you didn’t.”
Her smile had a provocative touch to it. “Boy,” she told me, “are
you
going to be easy to please.”
There’s no answering a newly engaged woman who’s filled with gut-churning love. A man can’t seem to respond to that kind of emotion, so I just opened the door to the cab that drove up to the canopy, helped her in and told the cabbie to take us to Le Cirque.
Velda moved closer to me and said, “We’re going fancy tonight, aren’t we?”
“Don’t get too used to it, kitten.”
In ten minutes we were on Sixty-fifth Street and joined the early dinner crowd edging up to the door. Out of habit I took one last look around before we went in, just in time to see two men stepping out of a black limousine, one on each side, speaking to others who hadn’t emerged yet. Both guys were in their early forties, well dressed and styled with class. They were loaded with money and welcome at any place in town, but these two bums worked the legitimate side of Lorenzo Ponti’s business in Manhattan. They had come over the line from the old muscle days when they were young hoods and into an area well protected by professional business personnel and all the legal machinery that money could buy. One was Howie Drago and the other one was Leonard Patterson. But they were still punks.
The captain was an old friend and held out his hand to me. His first look at Velda almost floored him, but his attitude was very appreciative and he gave me one of those
how do you do it
looks and I just winked at him. We got a table upstairs, picking one in a far corner. The early evening news would have splashed me all over the tube again, but Le Cirque’s customers saw enough people on TV sitting next to them and wouldn’t make a big thing of it.
Then while the waiter was taking our drink orders I saw Velda frown, her eyes catching something behind my back. I didn’t look. I waited until she said, “Patterson and Drago just came in. They’re three tables over.”
“I wonder if the company is coincidental or deliberate.”
“Think they come in here often?” Velda queried.
“Maybe,” I told her, “I could ask.”
“Who did you tell about us coming here, Mike?”
“Nobody. I called and got a reservation, that’s all.”
The drinks came, we toasted each other silently, tasted the iced tea and stared at each other, thinking the same thing. As we looked down at the menu she said, “The office phone could have been tapped. Someone in the TV bunch could be doing a big favor.”
“It’s nice to be wanted,” I said. “Somebody is working fast. They’re quicker than the IRS.”
Supper was served and I enjoyed my homecoming meal like turkey on a major holiday. Florida may have a lot of sun and some great seafood restaurants, but this was real New York eating at its best. We went through dessert and were working on the coffee when Velda said, “Can you hear them, Mike?”
“Who?”
“The group who came in the limo.”
There was a quiet hum of conversation going on in the room. The early crowd never was very boisterous so I didn’t have to listen hard to pick them out. It had to be deliberate. Not loud enough to be told to keep it down, but just enough so I would overhear what was being said. My name was clear enough. The nastiness that went with it was even clearer.
I said, “They drinking?”
“Martinis. They’ve been hard at it since they got here.”
“How are the girls taking it?”
“They look a little nervous.”
“I imagine so,” I said.
She reached out and put her hand on top of mine. “Mike . . . what are you going to do?”
“Nothing.”
She was scared now. “Mike, stop it. You never do
nothing
.”
But I couldn’t stop it. I was pushing back my chair and was on my feet before she could say anything else. I took it nice and easy walking across the room to that table and I knew they were watching every step I took. Howie’s face was plain to read. I was just a washed-up PI with a hole in his gut and not enough left to tangle with someone a lot younger. Leonard Patterson was the big mouth and he wore a silent sneer because I had lost a lot of weight and was drained out from the medical treatment.
This had to be a good one. Velda was watching and the hard boys were ready to move. Their two women sat stiff and still, but the panic showed in their immobility. It wasn’t supposed to be like this at all. When I stood over Patterson I saw his expression get a little wary and knew I had him. He had heard too many stories about me. He had read too many newspapers and what was happening right now was putting everything right on the edge.
I didn’t say a word. I slid my hand into my jacket pocket and let them see the clip, then flipped out a chrome-cased .45, turned it in my fingers and set it down on its primer base beside his hand. I looked at Howie, then at Patterson, grinned so they could see the edges of my teeth then walked back to my table.
When I sat down I waved for my check. At the other table the foursome was already getting ready to go. The women seemed furious. The men weren’t looking our way at all. They went out without looking back.
The waiter came with my check and I laid a nice tip on him and picked it up. We detoured past their empty table on the way out. Velda asked, “What did you say to them?”
“Nothing,” I told her. The .45 slug was still there where I left it. I picked it up and dropped it back into my pocket.
“I didn’t have to say a thing.”
She knew what had happened then. All she said to me was, “Damn!”
I had the driver wait while I walked Velda to the apartment. When I gave her a light good night kiss her eyes were asking for more. But I said, “It isn’t going to be easy getting through this engagement, kitten, but let’s keep it cool until we do.”
“I hope you’re saying that because you’re still weak.”
I gave her another grin, flipped out Patterson’s .45 and pressed it into her palm. “Sure I am, doll, sure I am,” I said.
She looked at the slug, smiled and dropped it in her cleavage where it fell into her bra. I suppose.
By the time I got home I knew it was a lie. The day had washed me out and even pushing the button in the elevator was hard work. The pain in my belly was coming back, sharp jabs of it with each beat of my pulse. When I got inside I started the bathwater going, then got undressed so there would be no waiting period before I got covered by the soothing warmth of the suds.
I should have listened to Morgan. My body wasn’t fifteen years old anymore. It was injured and hurting bad and all I could do was sweat it out until nature fused with medication and I could reach a normal peak again. Twice, I had to run more hot water into the tub and an hour later the relief started. I sat there for another ten minutes, then eased out and sat under the infrared light in the ceiling until I was dried off.
Even thinking about what could have happened at Le Cirque gave me the jumps. Either of those guys could have cleaned my plow if they had gotten past my reputation. Luckily, all they could see was that single .45 slug. If I had a bullet, then I had a gun. If I had a gun, then I sure would have used it if those clowns had made a move. That was real positive thinking for them. For me it was stupid. I looked at my face in the mirror over the sink. It was pretty haggard looking. I said, “No more, Mikey boy. Quit being a wise guy.”
4
VELDA WAS ALREADY AT THE OFFICE when Pat and I walked in. It was ten after nine, a breakfast of coffee and hard rolls was ready for us, then we would see Marcos Dooley off at the funeral parlor. I asked Pat about the flowers and he said, “Dooley left orders. No flowers. He said it reminded him of a funeral.”
“Since when did he think ahead, Pat?”
“He’d changed in the last few years. I found out from the director at Richmond’s that he had paid for his own ceremonies in advance, delivered his own urn for his ashes . . .”
“Ashes! Come on, Pat, he hated fire, you know that.”
“The war is past, Mike. He probably got over that phobia. So he opted for cremation. Besides, where the hell can they bury you in the city anymore?”
Getting turned back to pure dust again wasn’t my idea of Dooley’s mentality. Watching him the time we got trapped in a burning building with no way out made me realize how much he hated the kind of fire that could char you to shriveled, roasted meat. Somehow he’d opened a hole in the wall with a grenade, squeezed out and blasted the four enemy infantrymen who had cornered us and we had gotten back to our company without any trouble. It was months after that when Pat and I saw the rippled burn scars on his back while we were showering that it all made sense.