The Mike Hammer Collection

Silently, I read it again. Velda had been an active agent for the O.S.I. during the war, certain code numbers in the Washington files given for reference, and her grade and time in that type of service had qualified her for a Private Investigator’s ticket in the State of New York.

Pat waited, then finally, “Well?”

I handed back the photostat. It was my turn to shrug, then I gave him the address in Brooklyn where Cole had lived and told him where he could find the hole the slug made. I wondered what he’d do when he turned up Velda’s picture.

He let me finish, picked up the phone and dialed an extension. A few minutes later another officer laid a folder on his desk and Pat opened it to scan the sheet inside. The first report was enough. He closed the folder and rocked back in the chair. “There were two shots. They didn’t come from the same gun. One person considered competent said the second was a large-bore gun, most likely a .45.”

“How about that,” I said.

His eyes were tight and hard now. “You’re being cute, Mike. You’re playing guns again. I’m going to catch you at it and then your ass is going to be hung high. You kill anybody on this prod and I’ll be there to watch them strap you in the hot squat. I could push you a little more on this right now and maybe see you take a fall, but if I do it won’t be enough to satisfy me. When you go down, I want to see you fall all the way, a six-foot fall like the man said.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

“No trouble,” he smiled casually.

I glanced at Larry, then nodded toward Pat. “He’s a sick man, Doctor. He won’t admit it, but he was in love with her too.”

Pat’s expression didn’t change a bit.

“Weren’t you?” I asked him.

He waited until Hy and I were at the door and I had turned around to look at him again and this time I wasn’t going to leave until he had answered me. He didn’t hesitate. Softly, he said, “Yes, damn you.”

On the street Hy steered me toward a bar near the Trib Building. We picked a booth in the back, ordered a pair of frigid Blue Ribbons and toasted each other silently when they came. Hy said, “I’m thinking like Alice in Wonderland now, that things keep getting curiouser and curiouser. You’ve given me a little bit and now I want more. It’s fun writing a Broadway column and throwing out squibs about famous people and all that jazz, but essentially I’m a reporter and it wouldn’t feel bad at all to do a little poking and prying again for a change.”

“I don’t know where to start, Hy.”

“Well, give it a try.”

“All right. How about this one? Butterfly Two, Gerald Erlich.”

The beer stopped halfway to his mouth. “How did you know about Butterfly Two?”

“How did you know about it?”

“That’s war stuff, friend. Do you know what I was then?”

“A captain in special services, you told me.”

“That’s right. I was. But it was a cover assignment at times too. I was also useful in several other capacities besides.”

“Don’t tell me you were a spy.”

“Let’s say I just kept my ear to the ground regarding certain activities. But what’s this business about Butterfly Two and Erlich? That’s seventeen years old now and out of style.”

“Is it?”

“Hell, Mike, when that Nazi war machine—” Then he got the tone of my voice and put the glass down, his eyes watching me closely. “Let’s have it, Mike.”

“Butterfly Two isn’t as out of style as you think.”

“Look—”

“And what about Gerald Erlich?”

“Presumed dead.”

“Proof?”

“None, but damn it, Mike—”

“Look, there are too many suppositions.”

“What are you driving at, anyway? Man, don’t tell me about Gerald Erlich. I had contact with him on three different occasions. The first two I knew him only as an allied officer, the third time I saw him in a detention camp after the war but didn’t realize who he was until I went over it in my mind for a couple of hours. When I went back there the prisoners had been transferred and the truck they were riding in had hit a land mine taking a detour around a bombed bridge. It was the same truck Giesler was on, the SS Colonel who had all the prisoners killed during the Battle of the Bulge.”

“You saw the body?”

“No, but the survivors were brought in and he wasn’t among them.”

“Presumed dead?”

“What else do you need? Listen, I even have a picture of the guy I took at that camp and some of those survivors when they were brought back. He wasn’t in that bunch at all.”

I perched forward on my chair, my hands flat on the table. “You have what?”

Surprised at the edge in my voice, he pulled out another one of those cigars. “They’re in my personal stuff upstairs.” He waved a thumb toward the street.

“Tell me something, Hy,” I said. “Are you cold on these details?”

He caught on quick. “When I got out of the army, friend, I got out. All the way. I was never that big that they called me back as a consultant.”

“Can we see those photos?”

“Sure. Why not?”