The phone woke me.
I fumbled for it. “Yeah?”
“Pat,” the phone said. “You asleep?”
“Not now.”
The clock radio said 1:10 and a high-up sun was filtering through the windows.
“Well, some of us keep regular hours,” he said. “You know, like working from eight in the morning till two the next morning? It’s Sunday, chum, but no day of rest for either of us. Wipe the sleep from your eyes, because I found out something that will interest you.”
Wide awake now, I sat up, stuffed a pillow behind me and leaned back against the headboard. “Go, man, go.”
“Borensen owns a vehicle that matches the one your friend Billy described. According not only to Billy but several other witnesses — who did not see the driver well but did see the hit-and-run go down — the vehicle was a dark green late-model Cadillac... with no license plates.”
“That says premeditation right there, removing the plates. Homicide by hit-and-run, intentional.”
“Yes it does. Now here’s the really interesting thing. The same day that Richard Blazen got run down by a dark green Caddy, Leif Borensen reported his car stolen.”
“Before or after the hit-and-run?”
“After. Not much after, though.”
“He probably pulled over and removed those license plates before he did the deed. Then ducked in somewhere, a parking garage maybe, and put them back on.”
“No argument.”
“Was the ‘stolen’ car ever found?”
“Nope,” Pat said. “I’m guessing it never will be.”
“Leif probably turned it over to some chop shop crew. Or left it on the street with the keys in and let the laws of human nature do his dirty work for him.”
“Mike, if we can get that ID out of Billy, we’ve got the real beginnings of a case against Borensen here. So how about you letting your tax dollars work for you? Tell me where you’re keeping Billy. And then stay out of this one, okay?”
I hung up on him.
A hot shower and a shave under the spray turned me human again. Toweling off, I caught my reflection in the mirror and saw a patchwork of healed bullet and blade wounds and other residual scar tissue. The Frankenstein monster had nothing on me.
In my jockey shorts and T-shirt, I got into a fresh white shirt, then slipped on the shoulder holster. I dripped a few drops of oil into the .45’s slide mechanism and checked the clip before easing the rod in. Safety off, one in the chamber. When a hired gun is on your tail, certain precautions need to be sacrificed.
I picked out a clean suit, cut to conceal the weapon of course, a medium gray number that would look pretty sharp with a darker gray tie.
After all, I was calling on millions of dollars and wanted to look my Sunday best.
Outside the Blue Ribbon, where I’d caught up with lunch, I flagged a cab, getting a wide-eyed look from the Puerto Rican driver who must have read the papers or maybe watched the local TV news, because his reaction said he not only recognized me, but knew what had happened to another recent cabbie who’d pulled over for me.
To his credit, he just took the address, nodded, and got going, through light traffic. Like the song says, the big city was taking a nap. Before long the cab pulled up at the fancy Park Avenue apartment building across from which Central Park, courtesy of a sunny Sunday, was showing a good time to couples, families and tourists.
Of course, immediately opposite us was the stone wall where a shooter, not long ago, had perched.
The cabbie said, “Isn’t this where...?”
“Yup. Right here.”
“Ea diablo! I would have to draw Mike Hammer for a fare.”
I already had the rider’s side rear door open, and handed him up a ten. “You’re a good man, panna. Keep the change.”
He grinned at me, then at the sawbuck, and got instant amnesia about what had happened to his fellow hackie.
“You welcome in my cab any time, Mr. Hammer!”
The doorman in his comic-opera livery recognized me, too, and gave me a nod and a “Good afternoon, sir.”
I told the guy I was just dropping by to see how the Borensens were doing after that nasty business at the Waldorf-Astoria the other day.
He gave me a look that said people didn’t just “drop by” this kind of apartment building, no matter how well-meaning.
“You’ll have to phone up there,” I said, “and make sure I’m welcome.”
That he could handle, and he stepped inside to use the house phone on the entryway wall. I couldn’t hear him on the other side of the glass, but he was nodding as he listened.
Soon he came out, opened the door for me, gave me the respectful head lowering routine, and said, “Miss Foster said to go on up, Mr. Hammer.”
I nodded to him and went in and crossed the marble-floored ballroom of a lobby to the bank of elevators. When I stepped off into the apartment’s entry area, the rush of its waterfall sounding like somebody forgot to turn off a big spigot, Gwen was already waiting for me.
This was neither the pop-art girl in red nor the bride-to-be in a yellow cocktail dress. This was the kind of fresh-faced collegiate type that made a high school dropout sorry.
Her honey-blonde hair was swept back off her forehead and brushed the shoulders of a white turtle-neck sweater interrupted by the perk of perfect handfuls on the way down to low-slung gray trousers with a wide black leather belt with a big buckle that would have looked just right on a pirate. She wore dark brown moccasins with no socks, and her only make-up was some pink gloss on lips that, years before she was born, would have been characterized as bee-stung.
Gwen Foster was a doll, the living variety, and she sure as hell deserved better than Leif Borensen.
She bounced up to me and gripped both of my hands as if I were a favorite uncle and gave me a lovely smile, the blue eyes catching light and tossing it around. “Mike... so wonderful to see you.”
“I just wanted to check up on you and Leif. See how you two were doing in the aftermath of that bridal shower interruptus.”
Gwen rolled her eyes. “I’m just glad you and Miss Sterling were there.”
She accompanied me into and across the high-ceilinged foyer with its marble floor and crystal chandelier. Her voice echoed a little now. Our footsteps, too.
“I admit I had some trouble sleeping that first night, Mike, but I’ve been fine since. I just got back from brunch with some of my girl friends, who were there at the Waldorf, and assured me it was a shower no one would ever forget.”
When she followed this with some brittle laughter, it seemed a little forced to me. But at least she wasn’t freaked out over the incident.
“I think Leif is probably in the study,” she said, as we went down the landing strip of a hallway with its wall-hugging antiques and museum’s worth of pricey paintings. Once again she looped her arm in mine. Her perfume had a sparkling brightness about it and I recognized it as one Velda had been wearing lately — Oh! De London.
“I just got back a little while ago from my luncheon,” she said, as we neared the door. “I know Leif will be pleased to see you. We owe you some money, don’t we?”
“That’s not why I’m here. I just wanted to check up on you, you know, since that shower didn’t go exactly as planned.”
Or had it gone exactly as Borensen had planned it?
I said, “But I do have some business matters I need to go over with Mr. Borensen. Much as your company would surely help relieve the boredom, I’d suggest you take a pass.”
I really didn’t want her there when I spoke to her husband-to-be. I hoped the future bride would be somewhere else in this vast apartment, and far enough away not to hear me interrogate the future groom by beating the living shit out of him.