Vengeance Is Mine

I awoke and the room was still. My watch had stopped and no light filtered in under the shade. When I looked out the sky was black, pinpointed with the lights of the stars that reflected themselves from the snow-covered street below.

I picked up the phone and the desk answered. I said, “This is Hammer in 541. What time is it?”

The clerk paused, then answered, “Five minutes to nine, sir.”

I said thanks and hung up. The clock had come mighty close to going around twice at that. It didn’t take me more than ten minutes to get dressed and checked out. In the restaurant that adjoined the hotel I ate like I was famished, took time for a slow smoke and called Velda. My hand trembled while I waited for her to answer.

I said, “Hello, honey, it’s Mike.”

“Oh . . . Mike, where have you been? I’ve been frantic.”

“You can relax, girl. I’ve been asleep. I checked into a hotel and told them not to disturb me until I woke up. What happened with you and Clyde? Did you learn anything?”

She choked back a sob and my hand tightened around the receiver. Clyde was dying right then. “Mike . . .”

“Go on, Velda.” I didn’t want to hear it but I had to.

“He almost . . . did.”

I let the phone go and breathed easier. Clyde had a few minutes left to live. “Tell me,” I said.

“He wants me in the worst way, Mike. I--I played a game with him and I was almost sorry for it. If I hadn’t gotten him too drunk . . . he would have . . . but I made him wait. He got drunk and he told me . . . bragged to me about his position in life. He said he could run the city and he meant it. He said things that were meant to impress me and I acted impressed. Mike . . . he’s blackmailing some of the biggest men in town. It’s all got to do with the Bowery Inn.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“Not yet, Mike. He thinks . . . I’m a perfect partner for him. He said he’d tell me all about it if . . . if I . . . oh, Mike, what shall I do? What shall I do? I hate that man . . and I don’t know what to do!”

“The lousy bastard!”

“Mike . . . he gave me a key to his apartment. I’m going up there tonight. He’s going to tell me about it then . . . and make arrangements to take me in with him. He wants me, Mike.”

A rat might have been gnawing at my intestines. “Shut up! Damn it, you aren’t going to do anything!”

I heard her sob again and I wanted to rip the phone right off the wall. I could barely hear her with the pounding of the blood in my head. “I have to go, Mike. We’ll know for sure then.”

“No!”

“Mike . . . please don’t try to stop me. It isn’t nearly as . . . serious as what you’ve done. I’m not getting shot at . . . I’m not giving my life. I’m trying to give what I can, just like you . . . because it’s important. I’m going to his apartment at midnight and then we’ll know, Mike. It won’t take long after that.”

She didn’t hear me shout into the phone because she had hung up. There was no stopping her. She knew I might try to, and would be gone before I could reach her.

Midnight. Three hours. That’s all the time I had.

It wasn’t so funny any more.

I felt in my pocket for another nickel and dialed Pat’s number. He wasn’t home so I tried the office and got him. I told him it was me without giving my name and he cut me off with a curt hello and said he’d be in the usual bar in ten minutes if I wanted to see him. The receiver clicked in my ear as he hung up. I stood there and looked at the phone stupidly.

The usual bar was a little place downtown where I had met him several times in the past and I went there now. I double-parked and slid out in front of the place to look in the windows, then I heard, “Mike . . . Mike!”

I turned around and Pat was waving me into my car and I ran back and got in under the wheel. “What the hell’s going on with you, Pat?”

“Keep quiet and get away from here. I think there’s been an ear on my phone and I may have been followed.”

“The D.A.’s boys?”

“Yeah, and they’re within their rights. I stopped being a cop when I lied for you. I deserve any kind of an investigation they want to give me.”

“But why all the secrecy?”

Pat looked at me quickly, then away. “You’re wanted for murder. There’s a warrant out for your arrest. The D.A. has found himself another witness to replace the couple he lost.”

“Who?”

“A local character from Glenwood. He picked you out of the picture file and definitely established that you were there that night. He sells tickets at the arena as a sideline.”

“Which puts you in a rosy red light,” I said. Pat muttered, “Yeah. I must look great.”

We drove on around the block and on to Broadway. “Where to?” I asked.

“Over to the Brooklyn Bridge. A girl pulled the Dutch act and I have to check it myself. Orders from the D.A. through higher headquarters. He’s trying to make my life miserable by pulling me out on everything that has a morgue tag attached to it. The crumb hopes I slip up somewhere and when I do I’ve had it. Maybe I’ve had it already. He’s checked my movements the night I was supposed to have been with you and is getting ready to pull out the stops.”

“Maybe we’ll be cellmates,” I said.

“Ah, pipe down.”

“Or you can work in my grocery store . . . while I’m serving time, that is.”

“I said, shut up. What’ve you got to be cheerful about?”

My teeth were clamped together, but I could still grin. “Plenty, kid. I got plenty to be cheerful about. Soon a killer will be killed. I can feel it coming.”

Pat sat there staring straight ahead. He sat that way until we reached the cutoff under the bridge and pulled over to the curb. There was a squad car and an ambulance at the wharf side and another squad car pulling up when Pat got out. He told me to sit in the car and stay there until he got out. I promised him I’d be a good boy and watched him cross the street.

He took too long. I began to fidget with the wheel and chain-smoked through my pack of butts. When I was on the last one I got out myself and headed toward the saloon on the corner. It was a hell of a dive, typically waterfront and reeking with all the assorted odors you could think of. I put a quarter in the cigarette machine, grabbed my fresh deck and ordered a beer at the bar. Two guys came in and started talking about the suicide across the street.

One was on the subject of her legs and the other took it up. Then they started on the other parts of her anatomy until the bartender said, “Jeez, cut it out, will ya! Like a couple ghouls ya sound. Can the crap.”

The guy who liked the legs fought for his rights supported by the other one and the bartender threw them both out and put their change in his pockets. He turned to me and said, “Ever see anythin’ like that? Jeez, the dame’s dead, what do they want of her now? What ghouls!”

I nodded agreement and finished my beer. Every two minutes I’d check my watch and find it two minutes later and start cursing a slimy little bastard named Clyde.

Then the beer would taste flat.