My little friend, you have had it, I said to myself. I went down on the gas, the car leaped ahead, we rubbed fenders. For a split second I was looking into those eyes and remembering that night, before I cut across his hood. He took to the shoulder, fought the wheel furiously but couldn’t control it. The back end skidded around and the car went over on its side like a pinwheel. I stood on the brake, but his car was still rolling as I stopped.
I backed up and got out without shutting the engine off. The punk was lucky, damn lucky. His car had rolled but never upended, and those steel turret top jobs could take it on a roll in soft earth. He was crawling out of the door reaching under his coat for a rod when I jumped him. When I slapped him across that bandage he screamed and dropped the gun. I straddled him and picked it up, a snub-nosed .38, and thrust it in my waistband.
“Hello, pal,” I said.
Little bubbles of pink foam oozed from the corners of his mouth. “Don’t . . . don’t do nothing . . .”
“Shut up.”
“Please . . .”
“Shut up.” I looked at him, looked at him good. If my face said anything he could read it. “Remember me? Remember that night in the shack? Remember the kid?”
Recognition dawned on him. A terrible, fearful recognition and he shuddered the entire length of his body. “What’re ya gonna do?”
I brought my hand down across his face as hard as I could. He moaned and whimpered, “Don’t!” Blood started to seep through the bandage, bright red now.
“Where’s the guy I shot?”
He breathed, “Dead,” through a mouthful of gore. It ran out his mouth and dribbled down his chin.
“Who’s Mallory?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. All right, don’t talk. Make me make you. This would be fun. I worked my nails under the adhesive of the bandage and ripped it off with one tug. Clotted blood pulled at his skin and he screamed again. A huge half-open tear went from the corner of his mouth up his jawline, giving him a perpetual grin like a clown.
“Open your eyes.” He forced his lids up, his chest heaved for air. Twitches of pain gripped his face. “Now listen to me, chum. I asked you who Mallory was. I’m going to put my fingers in your mouth and rip out those stitches one by one until you tell me. Then I’m going to open you up on the other side. If you’d sooner look like a clam, don’t talk.”
“No! I . . . I don’t know no Mallory.”
I slapped him across the cheek, then did as I promised. More blood welled out of the cut. He screamed once more, a short scream of intolerable agony. “Who’s Mallory?”
“Honest . . . don’t know . . .”
Another stitch went. He passed out cold.
I could wait. He came to groaning senselessly. I shook his head until his eyes opened. “Who do you work for, pal?”
His lips moved, but no sound came forth. I nudged him again. “The boss . . . Nelson . . . at the casino.”
Nelson. I hadn’t heard it before. “Who’s Mallory?”
“No more. I don’t know . . .” His voice faded out to nothing and his eyes shut. Except for the steady flow of blood seeping down his chin he looked as dead as they come.
It was getting dark again. I hadn’t noticed the cars driving up until the lights of one shone on me. People were piling out of the first car and running across the field, shouting at each other and pointing to the overturned car.
The first one was all out of breath when he reached me. “What happened, mister? Is he dead? God, look at his face!”
“He’ll be all right,” I told him. “He just passed out.” By that time the others were crowded around. One guy broke through the ring and flipped his coat open to show a badge.
“Better get him to a hospital. Ain’t none here. Nearest one’s in Sidon.” He yanked a pad out of his pocket and wet the tip of a pencil with his tongue. “What’s your name, mister?”
I almost blurted it out without thinking. If he heard it I’d be under his gun in a second, and there wasn’t much I could do with this mob around. I stood up and motioned him away from the crowd. On the other side of the upturned car I looked him square in the eye.
“This wasn’t an accident,” I said, “I ran him off the road.”
“You what?”
“Keep quiet and listen. This guy is a kidnapper. He may be a killer. I want you to get to the nearest phone and call Sergeant Price of the state police, understand? His headquarters is on the highway outside of Sidon. If you can’t get him, keep trying until you do.”
His hands gripped my lapels. “Say, buster, what are you trying to pull? Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“My name is Mike . . . Mike Hammer. I’m wanted by every crooked cop in this part of the state and if you don’t get your paws off me I’ll break your arm!”
His jaw sagged, but he let go my coat, then his brows wrinkled. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “I always did want to meet you. Read all the New York papers y’ know. By damn. Say, you did kill that Sidon cop, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“By damn, that’s good. He put a bullet into one of our local lads one night when he was driving back from the casino. Shot him while he was dead drunk because he didn’t like his looks. He got away with it too, by damn. What was that you wanted me to tell the police?”
I breathed a lot easier. I never thought I’d find a friend this far out. “You call Price and tell him to get out to the casino as fast as his car will bring him. And tell him to take along some boys.”
“Gonna be trouble?”
“There’s liable to be.”
“Maybe I should go.” He pulled at his chin, thinking hard. “I don’t know. The casino is all we got around here. It ain’t doing us no good, but the guy that runs it runs the town.”
“Stay out of it if you can help it. Get an ambulance if you want to for that guy back there, but forget the hospital. Stick him in the cooler. Then get on the phone and call Price.”
“Okay, Mike. I’ll do that for you. Didn’t think you shot that cop in cold blood like the notices said. You didn’t, did you?”
“He was sitting on top of me about to bash my brains out with a billy when I shot the top of his head off.”
“A good thing, by damn.”
I didn’t hang around. Twenty pairs of eyes followed me across the field to my car, but if there was any explaining to be done the cop was making a good job of it. Before I climbed under the wheel he had hands helping to right the car and six people carrying the figure of The Face to the road.
Nelson, the Boss. Another character. Where did he come in? He wasn’t on the level if rat-puss was working for him. Nelson, but no Mallory. I stepped on the starter and ran the engine up. Nelson, but no Mallory. Something cold rolled down my temple and I wiped it away. Sweat. Hell, it couldn’t be true, not what I was thinking, but it made sense! Oh, hell, it was impossible, people just aren’t made that way! The pieces didn’t have to be fitted into place any longer . . . they were being drawn into a pattern of murder as if by a magnet under the board, a pattern of death as complicated as a Persian tapestry, ugly enough to hang in Hitler’s own parlor. Nelson, but no Mallory. The rest would be only incidental, a necessary incidental. I sweated so freely that my shirt was matted to my body.