The Mike Hammer Collection

My hand smashed into bone and flesh and with the meaty impact I could smell the blood and hear the gagging intake of his breath. He grabbed, his arms like great claws. He just held on and I knew if I couldn’t break him loose he could kill me. He figured I’d start the knee coming up and turned to block it. But I did something worse, I grabbed him with my hands, squeezed and twisted and his scream was like a woman’s, so high-pitched as almost to be noiseless, and in his frenzy of pain he shoved me so violently I lost that fanatical hold of what manhood I had left him, and with some blind hate driving him he came at me as I stumbled over something and fell on me like a wild beast, his teeth tearing at me, his hands searching and ripping and I felt the shock of incredible pain and ribs break under his pounding and I couldn’t get him off no matter what I did, and he was holding me down and butting me with his head while he kept up that whistlelike screaming and in another minute it would be me dead and him alive, then Velda dead.

And when I thought of her name something happened, that little thing you have left over was there and I got my elbow up, smashed his head back unexpectedly, got a short one to his jaw again, then another, and another, and another, then I was on top of him and hitting, hitting, smashing—and he wasn’t moving at all under me. He was breathing, but not moving.

I got up and found the doorway somehow, standing there to suck in great breaths of air. I could feel the blood running from my mouth and nose, wetting my shirt, and with each breath my side would wrench and tear. The two bullet burns were nothing compared to the rest. I had been squeezed dry, pulled apart, almost destroyed, but I had won. Now the son of a bitch would die.

Inside the door I found a light switch. It only threw on a small bulb overhead, but it was enough. I walked back to where he lay face up and then spat down on The Dragon. Mechanically, I searched his pockets, found nothing except money until I saw that one of my fists had torn his hair loose at the side and when I ripped the wig off there were several small strips of microfilm hidden there.

Hell, I didn’t know what they were. I didn’t care. I even grinned at the slob because he sure did look like an Indian now, only one that had been half scalped by an amateur. He was big, big. Cheekbones high, a Slavic cast to his eyes, his mouth a cruel slash, his eyebrows thick and black. Half bald, though, he wouldn’t have looked too much like an Indian. Not our kind, anyway.

There was an ax on the wall, a long-handled, double-bitted ax with a finely honed edge and I picked it from the pegs and went back to The Dragon.

Just how did you kill a dragon? I could bury the ax in his belly. That would be fun, all right. Stick it right in the middle of his skull and it would look at lot better. They wouldn’t come fooling around after seeing pictures of that. How about the neck? One whack and his head would roll like the Japs used to do. But nuts, why be that kind?

This guy was really going to die.

I looked at the big pig, put the ax down and nudged him with my toe. What was it Art had said? Like about suffering? I thought he was nuts, but he could be right. Yeah, he sure could be right. Still, there had to be some indication that people were left who treat those Commie slobs like they liked to treat people.

Some indication.

He was Gorlin now, Comrade Gorlin. Dragons just aren’t dragons anymore when they’re bubbling blood over their chins.

I walked around the building looking for an indication.

I found it on a workbench in the back.

A twenty-penny nail and a ball-peen hammer. The nail seemed about four inches long and the head big as a dime.

I went back and turned Comrade Gorlin over on his face.

I stretched his arm out palm down on the floor.

I tapped the planks until I found a floor beam and put his hand on it.

It was too bad he wasn’t conscious.

Then I held the nail in the middle of the back of his hand and slammed it in with the hammer and slammed and slammed and slammed until the head of that nail dimpled his skin and he was so tightly pinned to the floor like a piece of equipment he’d never get loose until he was pried out and he wasn’t going to do it with a ball-peen. I threw the hammer down beside him and said, “Better’n handcuffs, buddy,” but he didn’t get the joke. He was still out.

Outside, the rain came down harder. It always does after a thing like that, trying to flush away the memory of it. I picked up my gun, took it in the house and dismantled it, wiped it dry and reassembled the piece.

Only then did I walk to the telephone and ask the operator to get me New York and the number I gave her was that of the Peerage Brokers. Art Rickerby answered the phone himself. He said, “Mike?”

“Yes.”

For several seconds there was silence. “Mike—”

“I have him for you. He’s still alive.”

It was as though I had merely told him the time. “Thank you,” he said.

“You’ll cover for me on this.”