"Did she have any men here to see her?"
"Mister," he said, "there's twelve apartments in this rat-trap and I can't keep track of who comes in and who goes out so long as they're paid up. If you ask me right off I'd say she wasn't no tramp. She was a dame splitting her quarters with another dame who paid her dough and didn't make trouble. If a guy was keeping her he sure didn't get his money's worth. If you want to know what I think then I'd say yes, she was being kept. Maybe the both of em. The old lady never thought so or she would've given them the boot, that's for sure."
"Okay then," I said, "that's it."
He held the door open for me. "You think anything's going to come of this?"
"Plenty."
The guy was another lip licker. "There won't be..."
"Don't worry about it. You know how I can reach the Carver girl?"
The look he gave me was quick and worried. "She didn't leave no address."
I made it sound very flat and businesslike. "You know... when you step in front of the law there's charges that can be pressed."
"Aw, look, mister, if I knew..." His tongue came out and passed over his mouth again. He thought about it, shrugged then said, "Okay. Just don't let my wife know. She called today. She's expecting some mail from her boyfriend and asked me to send it to her." He pulled in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "She don't want anybody to know where she is. Got a pencil?"
I handed him one with the remains of an envelope and he jotted it down.
"Wish I could do something right for a change. The kid sounded pretty worried."
"You don't want nt to buck the law, do you friend?"
"Guess not."
"Okay, then you did right. Tell you what though... don't bother giving it out to anyone else. I'll see her, but she won't know how I reached her. How's that?"
His face showed some relief. "Swell."
"By the way," I said, "what was she like?" "Carver?"
"Yeah."
"Kind of a pretty blonde. Hair like snow." "I'll find her," I said.
The number was on Atlantic Avenue. It was the third floor over a secondhand store and there was nothing to guide you in but the smell. All the doorbells had names that had been there long enough to get dirtied up, but the newest one said TRENTEN when it didn't mean that at all.
I punched the button three times while I stood there in the dark, heard nothing ringing so I eased myself into the smell. It wasn't just an odor. It was something that moved, something warm and fluid that came down the stairs, tumbling over slowly, merging with other smells until it leaked out into the street.
In each flight there were fourteen steps, a landing, a short corridor that took you to the next flight and at the top of the last one, a door. Up there the smell was different. It wasn't any fresher; it just smelled better. A pencil line of light marked the sill and for a change there was no bag of garbage to trip over.
I rapped on the door and waited. I did it again and springs creaked inside. A quiet little voice said, "Yes?"
"Carver?"
Again, "Yes." A bit tired-sounding this time.
"I'd like to speak to you. I'm pushing my card through under the door."
"Never mind. Just come right in."
I felt for the knob, twisted it and pushed the door open.
She was sitting there swallowed up in a big chair facing me, the gun in her hand resting on her knee in a lazy fashion and there wasn't even the slightest bit of doubt that it would start going off the second I breathed too hard.
Carver wasn't pretty. She was small and full bodied, but she wasn't pretty. Maybe no dame can be pretty with a rod in her mitt, even one with bleached white hair and a scarlet mouth. A black velvet robe outlined her against the chair, seeming like the space of nighttime between the white of her hair and that of the fur-lined slippers she wore.
For a minute she looked at me, her eyes wandering over me
slowly. I let her look and pushed the door shut. Maybe she was satisfied by what she saw, maybe not. She didn't say anything, but she didn't put the gun away either. I said, "Expecting someone else?"
What she did with her mouth didn't make up a smile. "I don't know. What have you to say?"
"I'll say what it takes to make you point that heater someplace else."
"You can't talk that loud or that long, friend."
"Do I reach in my pocket for a smoke?"
"There's some on the table beside you. Use those."
I picked one up, almost went for my lighter in my pocket, thought better of it and took the matches that went with the cigarettes. "You're sure not good company, kid." I blew a stream of smoke at the floor and rocked on my toes. That little round hole in the tip of the automatic never came off my stomach.
"The name is Mike Hammer," I told her. "I'm a private investigator. I was with Berga Torn when she got knocked off."
This time the rod moved. I was looking right down the barrel.
"More," her mouth said.
"She was trying to hitch a ride to the city. I picked her up, ran a roadblock that was checking for her, got edged off the road by a car and damn near brained by a pack of hoods who were playing for keeps. I was there with my head dented in when they worked her over and behind the wheel of the car they pushed over the cliff. To them I was a handy,, class-A red herring that was supposed to cover the real cause of her death only it didn't quite happen that way."
"How did it happen?"
"I was thrown clear. If you want I'll show you my scars."
"Never mind."
So we stared at each other for a longer minute and I was still looking down the barrel and the hole kept getting bigger and bigger.
"You loaded?"
"The cops lifted my rod and P.I. ticket."
"Why?"
"Because they knew I'd bust into this thing and they wanted to keep me out."
"How did you find me?"
"It's not hard to find people when you know how. Anybody could do it." Her eyes widened momentarily, seemed to deepen, then narrowed sharply.
"Suppose I don't believe you," she said.
I sucked in a lungful of smoke and dropped the butt to the floor. I didn't bother to squash it out. I let it lie there until you could smell the stink of burned wool in the room and felt my face start to tighten around the edges. I said, "Kid, I'm sick of answering questions. I'm sick of having guns pointed at me. You make the second tonight and if you don't stow that thing I'm going to beat the hell out of you. What'll it be?"
I didn't scare her. The gun came down until it rested in her lap and for the first time the stiffness left her face. Carver just looked tired. Tired and resigned. The scarlet slash of her mouth made a wry grimace of sadness. "All right," she said, "sit down."
So I sat down. No matter what else I could have done, nothing would have been more effective. The bewilderment showed on her face, the way her body arched before sinking back again. Her leg moved and the gun dropped to the floor and stayed there.
"Aren't you..."
"Who were you expecting, Carver?"
"The name is Lily." Her tongue was a lighter pink against the scarlet as it swept across her lips.
"Who, Lily?"
"Just... men." Her eyes were hopeful now. "You . . told me the truth?"
"I'm not one of them if that's what you mean. Why did they come?"
The hardness left her face. It seemed to melt away like a film that should never have been there and now she was pretty. Her hair was a pile of snow that reflected the loveliness of her face. She breathed heavily, the robe drawing tight at regular intervals.
"They wanted Berga."
"Let's start at the beginning. With you and Berga. How's that?"
Lily paused and stared into the past. "Before the war, that's when we met. We were dance-hall hostesses. It was the first night for the both of us and we both sort of stuck together. A week later we found an apartment and shared it."