Vengeance Is Mine

Then my legs got tangled in the lamp cord and I went flat on my face. My head hit something with a sharp crack that was all noise and no pain because there’s a point at which pain stops and unconsciousness takes over, and in that second between I knew the killer was deciding between killing me or making a break for it. Doors started to slam and he decided to run and I let my eyes close and drew in the darkness like a blanket around me and slept an unnatural sleep that was full of soft golden hair and billowy white nightgowns I could see through and Velda in a dress she was more out of than in.

The man bending over me had a serious round face with an oval-shaped mouth that worked itself into funny shapes. I began to laugh and the serious face got more serious and the mouth worked more furiously than before. I laughed at that funny little mouth going through all those grotesque distortions for quite a while before I realized he was talking.

He kept asking me my name and what day it was. At last I had sense enough to stop laughing and tell him my name and what day it was. The face lost its seriousness and smiled a little bit. “You’ll be all right,” it said. “Had me a bit worried for a minute.” The head turned and spoke to somebody else. “A slight concussion, that’s all.”

The other voice said it was too bad it wasn’t a fracture. I recognized the voice. In another minute or two the face came into focus. It was the D.A. He had his hands in his coat pockets trying to look superior like a D.A. should look because there were people around.

I wormed into a sitting position that sent knives darting through my brain. The crowd was leaving now. The little man with the funny mouth carrying his black bag, the two women with their hair in curlers, the super, the man and woman who seemed to be slightly sick. The others stayed. One had a navy blue uniform with bright buttons, two wore cigars as part of their disguise. The D.A., of course. Then Pat. My pal. He was there too almost out of sight in the only, chair still standing on its own legs.

The D.A. held out his palm and let me look at the two smashed pellets he was holding. Bullets. “They were in the wall, Mr. Hammer. I want an explanation. Now.”

One of the cigars helped me up on my feet and I could see better. They all had faces with noses now. Before they had been just a blur. I didn’t know I was grinning until the D.A. said, “What’s so funny? I don’t see anything funny.”

“You wouldn’t.”

It was too much for the bright boy. He reached out and grabbed me by the lapels of my coat and pushed his face into mine. Any other time I would have kicked his pants off for that. Right now I couldn’t lift my hands.

“What’s so funny, Hammer? How’d you like . . .”

I turned my head and spit. “You got bad breath. Go ‘way.”

He half threw me against the wall. I was still grinning. There was white around his nostrils and his mouth was a fine red line of hate. “Talk!”

“Where’s your warrant?” I demanded easily. “Show me your warrant to come in my house and do that, then I’ll talk, you yellow-bellied little bastard. I’m going to meet you in the street not long from now and carve that sissified pasty face of yours into ribbons. Get out of here and kiss yourself some fat behinds like you’re used to doing. I’ll be all right in a few minutes and you better be gone by then and your stooges with you. They’re not cops. They’re like you . . . political behind-kissers with the guts of a bug and that’s not a lot of guts. Go on, get out, you crummy turd.”

The two detectives had to stop him from kicking me in the face. His legs, his knees, his whole body shook with coarse tremors. I’d never seen a guy as mad as he was. I hoped it’d be permanent. They took him out of there and with their rush they never noticed that Pat stayed on, still comfortably sunk in the chair.

“I guess that’s telling him,” I said. “A man’s home is his castle.”

“You’ll never learn,” Pat said sadly.

I fumbled for a butt and pushed it between my lips. The smoke bit into my lungs and didn’t want to let go. I got a chair upright and eased into it so my head wouldn’t spin. Pat let me finish the butt. He sat back with his hands folded in his lap and waited until I was completely relaxed. “Will you talk to me, Mike?”

I looked at my hands. The knuckles were skinned all to hell and one nail was torn loose. A piece of fabric was caught in it. “He was here when I came in. He took two shots at me and missed. We made such a racket he ran for it after I fell. If I hadn’t fallen the D.A. would have had me on a murder. I would have killed the son-of-a-bitch. Who called him in?”

“The neighbors called the precinct station,” Pat told me. “Your name was up and when it was mentioned the desk man called the D.A. He rushed right over.”

I grunted and kneaded my knuckles into my palm. “Did you see the slugs he had?”

“Uh-huh. I dug ‘em out myself.” Pat stood up and stretched. “They were the same as the ones in the windows on Broadway. That’s twice you’ve been missed. They say the third time you aren’t so lucky.”

“They’ll be matching the bullets from one of those rods.”

“Yeah, I expect they will. According to your theory, if they match the one from the Broadway window, the guy who attacked

you was Rainey. If they fit the one from the Thirty-third Street incident it’s Clyde.”

I rubbed my jaw, wincing at the lump and the scraped flesh. “It couldn’t be Rainey.”

“We’ll see.”

“See hell! What are you waiting for? Let’s go down and grab that louse right now!”

Pat smiled sorrowfully. “Talk sense, Mike. Remember that word proof Where is it? Do you think the D.A. will support your pet theory . . . now? I told you Clyde could pull strings. Even if it was Clyde he didn’t leave any traces around. No more traces than the guy who shot Rainey and the other punk at the arena. He wore gloves too.”

“I guess you’re right, kiddo. He could even work himself up a few good alibis if he had to.”

“That’s still not the answer,” Pat said. “If we were working on a murder case unhampered it would be different. On the books Wheeler is still a suicide and we’d be bucking a lot of opposition to make it look different.”

I was looking at my hand where my thumb and forefinger pinched together. I was still holding a tiny piece of fabric. I held it out to him. “Whoever he was left a hunk of his coat on my fingernail. You’re a specialist. Let the scientists of your lab work that over.”

Pat took it from my fingers and examined it closely. When he finished he pulled an envelope from his pocket and dropped it in. I said, “He was a strong guy if ever I met one. He had a coat on and I couldn’t tell if he was just wiry-strong or muscle-strong, but one thing for sure, he was a powerhouse.

“Remember what you said, Pat . . . about Wheeler having been in a scuffle before he died? I’ve been thinking about it. Suppose this guy was tailing Wheeler and walked into the room. He figured Wheeler would be in bed but instead he was up going to the bathroom or something. He figured to kill Wheeler with his hands and let it look like we had a drunken brawl. Because Wheeler was up it changed his plans. Wheeler saw what was going to happen and made a grab for my gun that was hanging on the chair.”

“Picture it, Pat. Wheeler with the gun . . . the guy knocks it aside as he fires and the slug hits the bed. Then the guy forces the gun against Wheeler’s head and it goes off. A scrap like that would make the same kind of marks on his body, wouldn’t it?”

Pat didn’t say anything. His head was slanted a little and he was going back again, putting all the pieces in their places. When they set just right he nodded. “Yes, it would at that.” His eyes narrowed. “Then the killer picked up one empty shell and dug the slug out of the mattress. A hole as small as it left wouldn’t have been noticed anyway. It would have been clean as a whistle if you didn’t know how many slugs were left in the rod. It would have been so pretty that even you would have been convinced.”