The Mike Hammer Collection

“A little here and there.” He shrugged. “You’ve been seen around.” Then he laughed with the cigar in his teeth and put his feet up on the coffee table prop. “I heard about the business down in Benny Joe Grissi’s place. You sure snapped back in a hurry.”

“Hell, I don’t have time to train. Who put you on the bit?”

“Old Bayliss Henry still has his traditional afternoon drink at Ted’s with the rest of us. He knew we were pretty good friends.”

“What did he tell you?”

Hy grinned again. “Only about the fight. He knew that would get around. I’d sooner hear the rest from you anyway.”

“Sure.”

“Should I tape notes?”

“Not yet. It’s not that big yet, but you can do something for me.”

“Just say it.”

“How are your overseas connections?”

Hy took the cigar out, studied it and knocked off the ash. “I figure the next question is going to be a beauty.”

“It is.”

“Okay,” he nodded. “In this business you have to have friends. Reporters aren’t amateurs, they have sources of information and almost as many ways of getting what they want as Interpol has.”

“Can you code a request to your friends and get an answer back the same way?”

After a moment he nodded.

“Swell. Then find out what anybody knows about The Dragon.”

The cigar went back, he dragged on it slowly and let out a thin stream of smoke.

I said, “That’s a code name too. Dragon is an execution team. Our side gave it the tag and it’s a top secret bit, but that kind of stew is generally the easiest to stir once you take the lid off the kettle.”

“You don’t play around, do you?”

“I told you, I haven’t got time.”

“Damn, Mike, you’re really sticking it out, aren’t you?”

“You’ll get the story.”

“I hope you’re alive long enough to give it to me. The kind of game you’re playing has put a lot of good men down for keeps.”

“I’m not exactly a patsy,” I said.

“You’re not the same Mike Hammer you were either, friend.”

“When can you get the information off?” I asked him.

“Like now,” he told me.

There was a pay phone in the corridor outside. The request went through Bell’s dial system to the right party and the relay was assured. The answer would come into Hy’s office at the paper coded within a regular news transmission and the favor was expected to be returned when needed.

Hy hung up and turned around. “Now what?”

“Let’s eat, then take a run down to the office of a cop who used to be a friend.”

I knocked and he said to come in and when he saw who it was his face steeled into an expression that was so noncommittal it was pure betrayal. Behind it was all the resentment and animosity he had let spew out earlier, but this time it was under control.

Dr. Larry Snyder was sprawled out in a wooden desk chair left over from the gaslight era, a surprised smile touching the corner of his mouth as he nodded to me.

I said, “Hy Gardner, Dr. Larry Snyder. I think you know Pat Chambers.”

“Hi, Larry. Yes, I know Captain Chambers.”

They nodded all around, the pleasantries all a fat fake, then Hy took the other chair facing the desk and sat down. I just stood there looking down at Pat so he could know that I didn’t give a damn for him either if he wanted it that way.

Pat’s voice had a cutting edge to it and he took in Hy with a curt nod. “Why the party?”

Hy’s got an interest in the story end.”

“We have a procedure for those things.”

“Maybe you have, but I don’t and this is the way it’s going to be, old buddy.”

“Knock it off.”

Quietly, Larry said, “Maybe it’s a good thing I brought my medical bag, but if either one of you had any sense you’d keep it all talk until you find the right answers.”

“Shut up, Larry,” Pat snarled, “you don’t know anything about this.”

“You’d be surprised at what I know,” he told him. Pat let his eyes drift to Larry’s and he frowned. Then all his years took hold and his face went blank again.

I said, “What did ballistics come up with?”

He didn’t answer me and didn’t have to. I knew by his silence that the slug matched the others. He leaned on the desk, his hands folded together and when he was ready he said, “Okay, where did you get it?”

“We had something to trade, remember?”

His grin was too crooked. “Not necessarily.”

But my grin was just as crooked. “The hell it isn’t. Time isn’t working against me anymore, kiddo. I can hold out on you as long as I feel like it.”

Pat half started to rise and Larry said cautioningly, “Easy, Pat.”

He let out a grunt of disgust and sat down again. In a way he was like Art, always thinking, but covering the machinery of his mind with clever little moves. But I had known Pat too long and too well. I knew his play and could read the signs. When he handed me the photostat I was smiling even dirtier and he let me keep on with it until I felt the grin go tight as a drum, then pull into a harsh grimace. When I looked at Pat his face mirrored my own, only his had hate in it.

“Read it out loud,” he said.

“Drop dead.”

“No,” he insisted, his voice almost paternal, a woodshed voice taking pleasure in the whipping, “go ahead and read it.”