“Don’t play games, sucker. My name is Mike Hammer. You ought to know me. I bumped one of your boys and made a mess of the other awhile back. You should see him now. I caught up with him again. Get up.”
“What . . . are you going . . . to do?” I looked down at the .45. The safety was off and it was the nastiest- looking weapon in existence at that moment. I pointed it at his belly.
“Maybe I’ll shoot you. There.” I indicated his navel with the muzzle.
“If it’s money you want, I can give it to you, Hammer. Please, get the rod off me.”
Mallory was the tough guy. He edged away from me, holding his hands out in a futile attempt to stop a bullet if it should come. He stopped backing when he hit the edge of the desk. “I don’t want any of your dough, Mallory,” I said, “I want you.” I let him look into the barrel again. “I want to hear something you have to say.”
“I . . .”
“Where’s Miss Grange . . . or should I say Rita Cambell?”
He drew his breath in a great swallow and before I could move swung around, grabbed the pen set from the desk and sent the solid onyx base crashing into my face.
Fingers clawed at my throat and we hit the floor with a tangle of arms and legs. I brought my knee up and missed, then swung with the gun. It landed on the side of his neck and gave me a chance to clear my head. I saw where the next punch was going. I brought it up from the floor and smacked him as hard as I could in the mouth. My knuckles pushed back his lips and his front teeth popped like hollow things under the blow.
The bastard spit them right in my face.
He was trying to reach my eyes. I tossed the rod to one side and laughed long and loud. Only for that one moment did he possess any strength at all, just that once when he was raging mad. I got hold of both his arms and pinned them down, then threw him sideways to the floor. His feet kicked out and kicked again until I got behind him. With his back on the floor I straddled his chest and sat on his stomach, both his hands flat against his sides, held there by my legs. He couldn’t yell without choking on his own blood and he knew it, but he kept trying to spit at me nevertheless.
With my open palm I cracked him across the cheek. Right, left, right, left. His head went sideways with each slap, but my other hand always straightened it up again. I hit him until the palms of my hands were sore and his cheek split in a dozen places from my ring. At first he flopped and moaned for me to stop, then fought bitterly to get away from the blows that were tearing his face to shreds. When he was almost out, I quit.
“Where’s Grange, Mallory?”
“The shed.” He tried to plead with me not to hit him, but I cracked him one anyway.
“Where’s the Cook girl?”
No answer. I reached for my rod and cradled it in my hand.
“Look at me, Mallory.”
His eyes opened halfway. “My hand hurts. Answer me or I use this on you. Maybe you won’t live through it. Where’s the Cook girl?”
“Nobody else. Grange . . . is the . . . only one.”
“You’re lying, Mallory.”
“No . . . just Grange.”
I couldn’t doubt but what he was telling the truth. After what I gave him he was ready to spill his guts. But that still didn’t account for Cook. “Okay, who does have her then?”
Blood bubbled out of his mouth from his split gums. “Don’t know her.”
“She was Grange’s alibi, Mallory. She was with the Cook dame the night York was butchered. She would have given Grange an out.”
His eyes came open all the way. “She’s a bitch,” he mouthed. “She doesn’t deserve an alibi. They kidnapped my kid, that’s what they did!”
“And you kidnapped him back . . . fourteen years later.”
“He was mine, wasn’t he? He didn’t belong to York.”
I gave it to him slowly. “You didn’t really want him, did you? You didn’t give a damn about the kid. All you wanted was to get even with York. Wasn’t that it?”
Mallory turned his head to one side. “Answer me, damn you!”
“Yes.”
“Who killed York?”
I waited for his answer. I had to be sure I was right. This was one time I had to be sure. “It . . . it wasn’t me.”
I raised the gun and laid the barrel against his forehead. Mallory was staring into the mouth of hell. “Lie to me, Mallory,” I said, “and I’ll shoot you in the belly, then shoot you again a little higher. Not where you’ll die quick, but where you’ll wish you did. Say it was you and you die fast . . . like you don’t deserve. Say it wasn’t you and I may believe you and I may not . . . only don’t lie to me because I know who killed York.”
Once more his eyes met mine, showing pain and terror. “It . . . wasn’t me. No, it wasn’t me. You’ve got to believe that.” I let the gun stay where it was, right against his forehead. “I didn’t even know he was dead. It was Grange I wanted.”
Even with his shattered mouth the words were coming freely as he begged for his life. “I got the news clipping in the mail. The one about the trouble in the hospital. There was no signature, but the letter said that Grange was Rita Cambell and she was a big shot now and if I kidnapped the kid, instead of ransom I could get positive information from York that his kid was my son. I wouldn’t have snatched him if it wasn’t so easy. The letter said the watchman on the gate would be drugged and the door to the house open on a certain night. All I had to do to get the kid was go in after him. I was still pretty mad at York and the letter made it worse. I wanted Myra Grange more than the old man, that’s why when those crazy lugs I sent after the kid lost him I made a try for her. I followed her from her house to another place then waited for her to come out before I grabbed her. She was in there when York was killed and I was waiting outside. Honest, I didn’t kill him. She didn’t know who I was until I told her. Ever since that time when York stole my kid I used the name Nelson. She started to fight with me in the car and hit me over the head with the heel of her shoes. While I was still dizzy she beat it and got in her car and scrammed. I chased her and forced her off the road by the river and she went in. I thought she was dead . . .”
The footsteps coming up the stairs stopped him. I whipped around and sent a shot crashing through the door. Somebody swore and yelled for reinforcements. I prodded Mallory with the tip of the rod. “The window and be quick.”
He didn’t need any urging. The gun in his back was good incentive. That damn warning trip. Either it went off someplace else or the boys on the doors got suspicious. Egghead was starting to groan on the floor. “Get the window up.”
Mallory opened the catch and pushed. Outside the steel railings of the fire escape were waiting. I thanked the good fathers who passed the law making them compulsory for all three-story buildings. We went out together, then down the metal stairs without trying to conceal our steps. If I had a cowbell around my neck I couldn’t have made more noise. Mallory kept spitting blood over the side, trying to keep his eyes on me and the steps at the same time. Above us heavy bodies were ramming the door. The lock splintered and someone tripped over the mug on the floor, but before they could get to the window we were on the ground.
“The boathouse. Shake it, Mallory, they won’t care who they hit,” I said.
Mallory was panting heavily, but he knew there was wisdom in my words. A shot snapped out that was drowned in a sudden blast from the orchestra, but I saw the gravel kick up almost at my feet. We skirted the edge of cars and out in between the fenders, then picked an opening and went through it to the boathouse. The back of it was padlocked.
“Open it.”
“I . . . I don’t have the key.”
“That’s a quick way to get yourself killed,” I reminded him.
He fumbled for a key in his pocket, brought it out and inserted it in the padlock. His hands were shaking so hard that he couldn’t get it off the hasp. I shoved him away and ripped it loose myself. The door slid sideways, and I thumbed him in, closing the door behind us. With the gun in the small of his back I flicked a match with my fingernail.
Grange and Cook were lying side by side in a pile of dirt at the far end of the boathouse. Both were tied up like Thanksgiving turkeys with a wad of cloth clamped between their jaws. They were out cold. Mallory’s mouth
