But she couldn’t lose. She said, “You’re on.”
I finished the drink and put the glass down. “How many guesses do I get?”
“Just one.”
“Fair enough.” I leaned back in the chair and looked at her. The music playing was Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 5. “You plan to be ... no, you
intend
to be, without a shadow of doubt you know you have to be and will be ...” She wasn’t breathing. She was sitting there with a strange, stark look on her face. “... the president of the United States.”
The back of her hand went to her mouth very slowly. Her eyes were wide, shocked, her lovely mouth opened slightly with astonishment tinged with fear because I was completely inside her mind.
“No!” I could hardly hear her. “It’s impossible. No one knows. I ... I’ve never mentioned it to anyone. Never. You can’t possibly know this.” She got to her feet slowly, putting her glass down before she dropped it. For a moment she almost lost her composure. “How did ... you know?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Experience. I won, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“I’m waiting,” I said.
“You will never mention this to anyone, never.”
“Why should I?”
Her lower lip went between her teeth and she stared at me. She was wondering how she’d lost all control of the situation. Her initial plan had gotten out of hand and now she had to put her integrity on the line.
The dress was a simple but dramatic arrangement. Her hand went to her chest and found the concealed zipper. She pulled it down quickly, not for effect, but because had she not she wouldn’t be able to pay her debt at all.
My Ice Lady was hurting, but determined. She took a deep breath and I knew what she was going to do next.
I said, “Don’t.”
Her hands held the dress she was about to pull open locked to her breasts. “It’s a debt I owe,” she forced out.
“Wrong. It was a dirty trick I pulled.”
“Mike ... don’t lie. What you said was true and no way outside of reading my mind you could have known.”
“Zip up, Candace. If I really wanted you naked, I would have gotten you that way myself.”
“Then why did you ... ?”
“I wanted to see if you’d stick to your word.” Her fingers reached for the zipper and drew it up, slowly this time. A tiny feeling of anger showed in the tightness of her mouth, but there was hurt in her eyes. That was something I didn’t expect to see.
“You really
don’t
want me, do you?”
“Don’t fool yourself, honey. I thought about it the first time I saw you and have ever since. You don’t have to tell me you haven’t been in the sack with anybody yet ... no woman aching for the presidency in these days had better take that chance. That much I know. But now I like what I see better than I did before.” I reached for my hat and pushed out of the chair.
“Mike ... if you had lost ... would you have told me about Penta?”
I didn’t have to lie my way out of that. I said, “The point is moot, kid. I didn’t lose.” I winked at her and stuck my hat on. “Thanks for the drink.”
She smiled when I walked past her toward the door and just as I was reaching for the knob, she said, “Mike ...”
I looked back and suddenly had one of those feelings that I had been here before in another time.
The Ice Lady had let her dress crumple at her feet in soft folds and she had been wearing nothing beneath it. She was nude rather than naked, not icy at all, but warm and beautiful and so alive I could see the gentle movements of her breathing. Very alive. The nipples of her breasts were proudly erect.
She smiled at me. I smiled back and opened the door.
The desk nurse at the hospital was glad to have somebody to talk to, even at midnight. Velda was still under sedation, but definitely improving. The doctors had been in twice that day and were pleased with her progress. Yes, a police officer was still at the door and no, they never wandered off. Officers would relieve each other at regular intervals. I thanked her, hung up and dialed Petey Benson at his apartment.
As I expected, he was having a beer in front of the TV and when he recognized my voice, asked, “How’d you make out?”
“Like brother and sister,” I told him.
“Yeah, I bet. What’s up this time?”
“You have any connections in England?”
“Hey, England’s a big place.”
“Manchester, England.”
“Well, there’s a sportswriter on the
Manchester Guardian
I met in London at a football game. Not like our football, but like soccer ...”
“I know what you mean,” I snapped impatiently. Don’t steer him and Petey would go off into every odd angle. “How can I reach him?”
“Got a pencil?”
“Sure.”
“Then I’ll give you his number.” He rustled some pages in his phone book, then read the number off to me. “I think we’re five hours behind them over there. Call him a little later and you might get him in.”
“Okay. I’m going to use your name.”
“Be my guest. I don’t suppose you want to tell me what this is all about.”
“Later,” I said.
Russell Graves was in and “delighted indeed” to speak to someone in the colonies. Actually, in fact, it was the first overseas call he had ever gotten, as he put it. Petey was some sort of a hero figure to him, an American crime reporter who had a fat expense account and was assigned to the really exciting cases. When I told him I was a real American private eye who was working with Petey and needed an overseas connection he got so worked up I thought he’d cream his jeans. He made sure I knew he was only a sports reporter, but I told him that crime was everywhere, even in sports, so that shouldn’t stop him.
“Well, then, Mr. Hammer, what is it you wish me to do?”
“Sometime back an American was murdered outside Manchester. I don’t know his name and can’t describe him, but he was a federal agent working over there.”
“That sounds awfully vague, Mr. Hammer.”
“Possibly, but murders in your country aren’t all that frequent.”
“Times have changed somewhat, sir.”
“I realize that. But this is an American who was killed. If it happened in the countryside somebody would be aware of it. There’s one other thing ... this kill could have been a vicious one.”
“Vicious?”
“Not a clean kill. There might be something pretty nasty about it. You know what I mean?”
“Yes,” he said, “I believe I do.”
“Now,” I went on, “there’s a possibility that our government and yours are playing this matter down, but we’re looking for a killer who hit over there and here, and likely will try to hit someplace else too. That’s why I suggest you look outside the normal channels for anything on the murder over there.”
“Is there any way I can get a story out of this? I’m sure my editor would see it in my favor ...”
“Guaranteed, Russell. You and Petey can have it together if it works out.”
That was enough for him. I gave him my home and office numbers, told him to call person-to-person and if he could expedite matters any, I’d get him tickets the next time our pro teams staged a preseason football game in a British stadium.
When I hung up, I got a cold beer out of the refrigerator, drank it down in two long draughts, as the British would say, and went to bed.
5
I parked the car a half block down from Smiley’s Automotive, got out and took a look around. Lower Manhattan had a lot of areas like this, old buildings eroding away from lack of maintenance, homes to run-down shops dealing in out-of-date or surplus goods. The smell of Butyl rubber came from a tire-recapping place that had opened early. Outside their doors two guys were unloading casings from a pickup truck.
One place had a TOOL-AND-DIE sign in the window, but didn’t look as if it did any business at all. There was a plate-glass shop that looked stable and another garage, just opening, that specialized in TUNE UP AND REPAIRS. A few other places looked like they were closed for good.
When I passed Smiley’s I thought it was closed, but there was a light in the back and somebody was moving around. I gave the door a bang with my fist, waited, then did it again.
A voice yelled, “Take it easy, I’m coming, I’m coming.” A little old guy opened the door and said, “We ain’t open.”
I stuck my foot in the door and put my hand against it. “You are now, buddy.” I shoved it open, reached in my pocket for my wallet and gave it an empty flash and put it back.
The gesture was enough. “You doggone cops, why don’t you just come down and live here?”
“No TV,” I said. “Where do you live, Pop?”
“The same place I lived when the other cops were here. I already told ‘em.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Right around the corner. Over the grocery store. What do ya think you’re gonna find? There ain’t nothing here.”
“It’s a followup call, Pop. You know what a followup call is?”
“I know you’re gonna tell me, that’s what.”
“It’s in case you remembered something you forgot.”
“Well, I didn’t forget nothing.”
I reached in my coat pocket for a note pad and let him see the gun in the shoulder holster. There’s nothing that impresses people more than seeing a gun. “What’s your name?”
“Jason.” I looked at him. “McIntyre,” he added.
“Address?” He gave that to me. “Who do you work for?”
“I told you guys.”
“Now tell me.”
“When Smiley wants things done, I work.”
“What things?”
“Clean up. Sometimes run errands. Hell, I’m too old for anything else. Had to come in after the cops shoved everything around. What in hell were they looking for anyway? They said somebody beat up on a guy in here. There was some bloody spots on the floor and you know what?”
“No, what?”
“I found a tooth, a whole tooth, by damn. It was right there on the waste pile in a glob of bloody spit. Wires and all still right on it.”
“You show that to the police?”
“Nah, they’d already went.”
“Let’s see it.” He gave me a glance as if it were none of my business and I said, “Get it.”
It was a tooth, all right, a single partial plate holding what seemed to be a lower canine. Part of the plastic holding the tooth had been snapped off, but the wire bracings that attached to adjacent teeth were intact.
I asked him, “What were you holding on to this for?”
The old guy threw up his hands. “Shoot, mister, them things cost money. If that guy came back looking for it, I could work a fiver out of him.”
I shook my head as if I didn’t believe him.
“You think I’m kidding? Last year I had a pair of glasses that got under the hydraulic rig somehow. Glass was broke, but the rims was real gold. I got six bucks for it.”
“When was that?”
“I dunno. It was winter. Cold as hell out.”
“Where was Smiley?”
“He took that week off. I came in before he got back to make sure the heat was up. Smiley don’t like to waste no money.”
“When’s he coming back this time?”
“Tomorrow,” Jason told me. “He don’t like all this crap going on here.”
“Then I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“What about my tooth?”
“Tell you what,” I said. “If I can’t find who it fits, I’ll give it back to you.”
“Cops don’t give nothin’ back.”
“You’re probably right,” I told him.
One block over I found the neighborhood coffee shop. I expected it to be the usual dilapidated slop chute that you come across in these areas, but the little old Italian lady who ran the place had it as neat as her own kitchen. When I walked in I must have had a pleased look on my face because she laughed and said, “Surprise, eh. You are surprise. Everybody new here is surprise.”
I slid onto a stool and ordered an egg sandwich and coffee.
“Bacon?”
“Why not? Sounds good.”
She nodded and turned to her stove. “And the big eggs I got. No little mediums. For the men who work hard, I got extra large.”
“Sounds great.”
“You don’t work here, no?”
“Nope. I had something to do at Smiley‘s, but he’s not there.”
“Ah, fancy man Smiley. I used to tell my Tony, Smiley was a fancy man.”
She poured my coffee and I asked her, “What’s a fancy man?”
She shrugged and wagged her head. “Little man, too big pants. Likes to make a big show. He wants change for a twenty for a doughnut. You want your egg over?”
“Real easy. Don’t break the yolk.”
She buttered the bread, laid four slices of bacon on it and deftly put the egg on top. She watched me tap the yolk with my knife, spread it over the bacon and slap the lid on it. When I took my first bite I could feel the yolk roll down my chin. She laughed. “Only the sexy men, they eat like that.”
“Delicious,” I told her. Then: “Guy over there said Smiley would be back tomorrow.”
“Sure, he come back,” she agreed. “He’ll buy coffee, give me a twenty. Big shot. Him and the ponies. I told my Tony he was a no-good fancy.”
“Doesn’t he ever lose?”
“Smiley the fancy man? Never. He’s the big shot who never loses.”
I finished my sandwich, gave her the right change with a dollar tip and said, “Just so you don’t figure me for a fancy man.”
For another hour I walked around Smiley’s block talking to the guys who worked there. Nobody seemed to care much for Smiley at all. He got some odd jobs in his shop, but nothing that would mean big bucks. It was the track that kept Smiley a step above everybody else.
One of the guys didn’t even believe that. “Shit, man, he goes to the track when there ain’t no track running. He likes to make like he takes a plane somewhere, but shit, he’s broke before he goes. When he gets back he has a bundle.”
“So he goes to OTB.”