The Mike Hammer Collection

was holding onto the handle.

“This Miss Cook. Where does she live?”

“Why, two blocks down on Snyder Avenue. Shall I call her apartment again? Perhaps she’s home now.”

I didn’t think she’d have any luck, but I said, “Please do.”

She lifted the receiver and dialed a number. I heard the buzz of the bell on the other end, then the voice of the landlady answering. No, Miss Cook hadn’t come in yet. Yes, she would tell her to call as soon as she did. Yes. Yes. Good night.

“She isn’t there.”

“So I gathered. Oh, well, she’s probably had one of her boyfriends drop in on her. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“Very well, I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”

Sorry, everybody was being sorry. Pretty soon somebody was going to be so sorry they died of it. Snyder Avenue was a quiet residential section of old brownstone houses that had undergone many a face-lifting and emerged looking the same as ever. On one corner a tiny grocery store was squeezed in between buildings. The stout man in the dirty white apron was taking in some boxes of vegetables as he prepared to close up shop. I drew abreast of him and whistled.

When he stopped I asked, “Know a Miss Cook? She’s the librarian. I forgot which house it was.”

“Yeah, sure.” He pointed down the block. “See that car sitting under the streetlight? Well the house just past it and on the other side is the one. Old Mrs. Baxter is the landlady and she don’t like noise, so you better not honk for her.”

I yelled my thanks and went up the street and parked behind the car he had indicated. Except for the light in the first floor front, the place was in darkness. I ran up the steps and looked over the doorbell. Mrs. Baxter’s name was there, along with four others, but only one bell.

I pushed it.

She must have been waiting for me to make up my mind, because she came out like a jack-in-the-box.

“Well?”

“Mrs. Baxter?”

“That’s me.”

“I’m looking for Miss Cook. They . . .”

“Who ain’t been looking for her. All day long the phone’s been driving me crazy, first one fellow then another. When she gets back here I’m going to give her a good piece of my mind.”

“May I come in, Mrs. Baxter?”

“What for? She isn’t home. If she didn’t leave all her things here I’d say she skipped out. Heaven only knows why.”

I couldn’t stand there and argue with her. My wallet slipped into my palm and I let her see the glint of the metal. Badges are wonderful things even when they don’t mean a thing. Her eyes went from my hand to my face before she moistened her lips nervously and stood aside in the doorway.

“Has . . . has there been trouble?”

“We don’t know.” I shut the door and followed her into the living room. “What time did she leave here today?”

“Right after lunch. About a quarter to one.”

“Does she always eat at home?”

“Only her lunch. She brings in things and . . . you know. At night she goes out with her boyfriends for supper.”

“Did you see her go?”

“Yes. Well, no. I didn’t see her, but I heard her upstairs and heard her come down. The way she always takes the stairs two at a time in those high heels I couldn’t very well not hear her.”

“I see. Do you mind if I take a look at her room? There’s a chance that she might be involved in a case we’re working on and we don’t want anything to happen to her.”

“Do you think . . .”

“Your guess is as good as mine, Mrs. Baxter. Where’s her room?”

“Next floor in the rear. She never locks her door so you can go right in.”

I nodded and went up the stairs with the old lady’s eyes boring holes in my back. She was right about the door. It swung in when I turned the knob. I shut the door behind me and switched on the light, standing there in the middle of the room for a minute taking it all in. Just a room, a nice, neat girl’s room. Everything was in its place, nothing was disarranged. The closet was well stocked with clothes including a fairly decent mink coat inside a plastic bag. The drawers in the dresser were the same way. Tidy. Nothing gone.

Son of a bitch, she was snatched too! I slammed the drawer shut so hard a row of bottles went over. Why didn’t I pick her up sooner? She was Myra Grange’s alibi! Of course! And somebody was fighting pretty hard to keep Myra Grange’s face in the mud. She didn’t skip out on her own . . . not and leave all her clothes here. She went out that front door on her way back to work and she was picked up somewhere between here and the library. Fine, swell. I’d made a monkey of myself by letting things slide just a little longer. I wasn’t the only one who knew that she and Grange were on more than just speaking terms. That somebody was either following me around or getting there on his own hook.

A small desk and chair occupied one corner of the room beside the bed. A small letter-writing affair with a flap front was on the desk. I pulled the cover down and glanced at the papers neatly placed in the pigeonholes. Bills, receipted bills. A few notes and some letters. In the middle of the blotter a writing tablet looked at me with a blank stare.

The first three letters were from a sailor out of town. Very factual letters quite unlike a sailor. Evidently a relative. Or a sap. The next letter was the payoff. I breezed through it and felt the sweat pop out on my face. Paragraph after paragraph of lurid, torrid love . . . words of endearment . . . more love, exotic, fantastic.

Grange had signed only her initials at the bottom.

When I slid the letter back I whistled through my teeth. Grange had certainly gone whole hog with her little partner. I would have closed the desk up after rifling through the rest of the stuff if I hadn’t felt that squeegy feeling crawling around my neck. It wasn’t new. I had had it in Pat’s office.

Something I was supposed to remember. Something I was supposed to see. Damn. I went back through the stuff, but as far as I could see there wasn’t anything there that I hadn’t seen before I came into the room. Or was there?”

Roger . . . there was! It was in my hand. I was staring at Grange’s bold signature. It was the handwriting that I had recognized. The first time I had seen it was on some of her papers I had taken from that little cache in her apartment. The next time I had seen it was on the bottom of a statement certifying that Ruston was York’s son and not Mallory’s, only that time the signature read Rita Cambell.

It hit me like a pile driver, hard, crushing. It had been dangling in front of my face all this time and I hadn’t seen it. But I wasn’t alone with the knowledge, hell no. Somebody else had it too, that’s why Grange was dead or missing and Cook on the lam.

Motive, at last the motive. I stood alone in the middle of the room and spun the thing around in my mind. This was raw, bitter motive. It was motive that incited kidnapping and caused murder and this was proof of it. The switch, the payoff. York taking Grange under his wing to keep the thing quiet. Crime that touched off crime that touched off more crime like a string of firecrackers. When you put money into it the thing got bigger and more scrambled than ever.

I had gotten to the center of it. The nucleus. Right on the target were Ruston and Grange. Somebody was aiming at both of them. Winged the kid and got Grange. Mallory, but who the hell was he? Just a figure known to have existed, and without doubt still existing.

I needed bait to catch this fish, yet I couldn’t use the kid; he had seen too much already. That is, unless he was willing. I felt like a heel to put it up to him. But it was that or try to track Grange down. Senseless? I didn’t know. Maybe a dozen cops had dragged the river, and maybe the dragnet was all over the state, but maybe they were going at it the wrong way. Sure, maybe it would be best to try for Grange. She was bound to have the story if anyone had, and I wouldn’t be taking a chance with the kid’s neck either.