The Mike Hammer Collection

I held the disconnect bar down with my finger. Time. Seven years’ worth just wasted and now there was none left. I let the bar up and dialed Hy Gardner’s private number at the paper, hoping I’d be lucky enough to catch him in. I was.

He said, “Mike, if you’re not doing anything, come on up here. I have to get my column out and I’ll be done before you’re here. I have something to show you.”

“Important?”

“Brother, one word from you and everybody flips. Shake it up.”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“Good.”

I hung up and pushed the phone back. When I did I uncovered a heart scratched in the surface with something sharp. Inside it was a V and an M. Velda and Mike. I pulled the phone back to cover it, climbed into my coat and went outside. Just to be sure I still had the night to myself I walked down, out the back way through the drugstore then headed south on Broadway toward Hy’s office.

Marilyn opened the door and hugged me hello, a pretty grin lighting her face up. She said, “Hy’s inside waiting for you. He won’t tell me what it’s all about.”

“You’re his wife now, not his secretary anymore. You don’t work for him.”

“The heck I don’t. But he still won’t tell me.”

“It’s man talk, sugar.”

“All right, I’ll let you be. I’ll get some coffee—and Mike—” I turned around.

“It’s good to have you back.”

When I winked she blew me a kiss and scurried out the door.

Hy was at his desk inside with his glasses up on his forehead, frowning at some sheets in his hand. They were covered with penciled notations apparently culled from another batch beside his elbow.

I pulled up a chair, sat down and let Hy finish what he was doing. Finally he glanced up, pulling his glasses down. “I got your message across.”

“So?”

“So it was like I dropped a bomb in HQ. Over there they seem to know things we don’t read in the paper here.” He leaned forward and tapped the sheets in his hand. “This bit of The Dragon is the hottest item in the cold war, buddy. Are you sure you know what you’re up to?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, I’ll go along with you. The Reds are engaged in an operation under code name REN. It’s a chase thing. Behind the Iron Curtain there has been a little hell to pay the last few years. Somebody was loose back there who could rock the whole Soviet system and that one had to be eliminated. That’s where The Dragon came in. This one has been on that chase and was close to making his hit. Nobody knows what the score really is.” He stopped then, pushed his glasses back up and said seriously, “Or do they, Mike?”

“They?”

I should have been shaking. I should have been feeling some emotion, some wildness like I used to. What had happened? But maybe it was better this way. I could feel the weight of the .45 against my side and tightened my arm down on it lovingly. “They’re after Velda,” I said. “It’s her. They’re hunting her.”

Hy squeezed his mouth shut and didn’t say anything for a full minute. He laid the papers down and leaned back in his chair. “Why, Mike?”

“I don’t know, Hy. I don’t know why at all.”

“If what I heard is true she doesn’t have a chance.”

“She has a chance,” I told him softly.

“Maybe it really isn’t her at all, Mike.”

I didn’t answer him. Behind us the door opened and Marilyn came in. She flipped an envelope on Hy’s desk and set down the coffee container. “Here’s a picture that just came off the wires. Del said you requested it.”

Hy looked at me a little too quickly, opened the envelope and took out the photo. He studied it, then passed it across.

It really wasn’t a good picture at all. The original had been fuzzy to start with and transmission electrically hadn’t improved it any. She stood outside a building, a tall girl with seemingly black hair longer than I remembered it, features not quite clear and whose shape and posture were hidden under bulky Eastern European style clothing. Still, there was that indefinable something, some subtlety in the way she stood, some trait that came through the clothing and poor photography that I couldn’t help but see.

I handed the photo back. “It’s Velda.”

“My German friend said the picture was several years old.”

“Who had it?”

“A Red agent who was killed in a skirmish with some West German cops. It came off his body. I’d say he had been assigned to REN too and the picture was for identification purposes.”

“Is this common information?”

Hy shook his head. “I’d say no. Rather than classify this thing government sources simply refuse to admit it exists. We came on it separately.”

I said, “The government knows it exists.”

“You know too damn much, Mike.”

“No, not enough. I don’t know where she is now.”

“I can tell you one thing,” Hy said.

“Oh?”

“She isn’t in Europe any longer. The locale of REN has changed. The Dragon has left Europe. His victim got away somehow and all indications point to them both being in this country.”

Very slowly, I got up, put my coat and hat on and stretched the dampness out of my shoulders. I said, “Thanks, Hy.”

“Don’t you want your coffee?”

“Not now.”