I paid the cab off and went inside. The place was freshly renovated and smelled of paint. I took the automatic elevator to the third floor, found my new apartment at the very end of the hall, and stuck the key in the lock. There was a soft glow from a table lamp at the end of the couch in the living room and a radio was playing softly. From where I stood I could see her stretched out comfortably and laughed to myself. Velda had determination, but sleep had won out. She got the couch and I got the bed this time. Tomorrow she’d sizzle, but she’d still be waiting.
I went in on the balls of my feet, walking quietly so as not to wake her, but I couldn’t help looking at her as I passed. And when I saw her I turned ice cold inside because she wasn’t just asleep at all. Somebody had brought something down across her temple turning it into a livid welt that oozed dark blood under her ear into her hairline.
I grabbed her, said “Velda!” once, then she let out a little meowing sound and her eyes flicked open. She tried to talk but couldn’t and it was her eyes that got the message across. I looked up to the side where he stood with one hand holding his belly and the other a gun and he had it pointed right at my head.
Marv Kania had finally found me.
His eyes had death in them, his and mine. His belly was bloated and I could smell the stench of a festering wound, the sickening odor of old blood impregnated into cloth. There was a wildness in his face and his mouth was a tight slash that showed all his teeth. Marv Kania was young, but right there he was as old as death itself.
“I was waiting for you, mister.”
Slowly, I got up. I was going to have to pull against a drawn gun and there wasn’t a chance I could make it. He was dying, but the gun in his hand was there with the deft skill of the professional and it never wavered an inch. He let the muzzle drift down from my head until it pointed at my stomach.
“Right where I got it, man, and there’s no coming back after that. Everything inside goes. You’ll live a little while and you’ll hurt like I hurt. You try to move away from it and I put one more in your head.”
I was thinking fast, wondering how fast I could move away from the shot. He knew what I was going to do and grinned through the pain he felt. Just to let me know it was no good he made two quick wrist motions to show he still had it and I had it, then he thumbed the hammer back.
“The girl. What about her?”
“What do you care? You’ll be dead.”
“What about her?”
His face was a mask of pain and hate. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. With her she gets one shot. Same as you. Then I go outside and die. Out in the rain, just so long as I don’t die in no crummy room. In the park, that’s where I die. I always wanted to die there.” His eyes half shut momentarily as a spasm of pain took him, then he snapped them open and grinned, his teeth bare against his gums.
Velda turned on the couch, whispering my name softly. She must have come in when he was there. He held a gun on her, belted her out, and kept on waiting. Now he was going to kill her along with me.
“You ready, you bastard?”
I didn’t move. I just stood there hoping Velda could do something while my own body half shielded her from him, hoping she could move fast enough to get the hell out. He saw that too and started to laugh. It was so funny to him with all the hate bottled up inside he laughed even harder as he aimed the rod with every ounce of professional technique he ever had.
And it was the laugh that did it. The laugh that broke the last thing inside. The laugh that burst the lifeline. He felt it go and his eyes went so wide the whites of them showed the horror he felt because he was still a loser and before he could put that final fraction of pressure on the trigger the gun dropped from his hand and he pitched facedown on the floor with a sickening squashing sound as some ghastly, putrescent fluid burst from his belly.
I picked Velda up, carried her into the bedroom, and washed the blood from her temple. Then I loosened her clothes and pulled the blanket over her before flopping down on the bed beside her.
Outside I had another dead man at my feet, but he was going to have to wait until morning.
CHAPTER 8
Pat was there at nine in the morning. So was Inspector Grebb and Charles Force. Pat’s face told me he had no choice so I threw him a brief nod so he knew I got the picture.
The police photographers got all the shots they wanted, the body was carried out, Velda had a doctor in with her, and Grebb pointed at a chair for me and sat down himself.
“You’ve been a thorn in our side, Hammer,” he said pleasantly.
“Tough.”
“But I think we have you nailed now.”
“For failing to report a body?”
“It’s enough. You don’t step that far outside and still get a gun-carrying privilege. It will break you with that fancy agency because they like closed mouths about their operations. They lift your ticket and you’re back in the ranks again.”
Charlie Force was standing there with that same old courtroom smile, like his bait had caught the fish. I said, “I warned you, Charlie.”
“Mr. Force, if you don’t mind?”
This time I let him see the kind of grin I had, the one with teeth in it. I said, “Okay, buddy, I’ll come to your party, only I’m bringing my friends. I’m bringing in pressures you never heard of. Get something in your goddamn heads . . . you’re two public servants and all you’re looking for is another step up. If you got the idea you’ll get it over me you’re wrong. Don’t think that agency is going to back down a bit. I gave them too much and they’re still paying off for it. I’ll keep giving them more and more until they can’t afford to lose me. The agency is bigger than both you guys and now you’re going to find it out the hard way.
“As for you, Force, before you were playing in courtrooms I was pushing a legal gun around this town and there are guys I know and friends I made who’d like nothing better than to wipe your nose in a mess. Believe me, buddy, if you ever did one lousy thing in your life . . . and you can bet your ass you did because everybody does, I’ll nail it down and you’ll go with it. It won’t even be a hard job. But I’ll do even better than that to you, kid. I’ll pull the stool right out from under you. This little bugger I’m on now is a hot little bugger and it’s mine. You get no slice of it at all. I’ll make the action and get the yaks.”
I spun around and looked at Pat. “Tell them, friend.”
“You did a pretty good job. I’m still a Captain.”
“Well, maybe we’ll get you raised one after this, okay, Inspector?”
He didn’t say anything. He sat there glowering at me, not knowing what to think. But he was an old hand and knew when the wind was blowing bad. It showed in his eyes, only he didn’t want me to to see it. Finally he looked at his watch, then up to me. “We’ll wait some more,” he said. “It’s bound to happen sometime.”
“Don’t hold your breath waiting,” I said.
“You take care of things here, Captain,” he said to Pat. “I’ll want to see the report later.”
“I’ll have it on your desk, Inspector.”
They left then, two quiet men with one idea in their minds nobody was ever going to shake loose. When they were out I said to Pat, “Why the heat?”
“Because the city is on edge, Mike. They haven’t got the answers and neither have I. Somehow you always get thrown in the middle of things so that you’re the one to pull the switch.”