and that someone lost. He turned slowly and took his glasses off, wiping them on a handkerchief. They were all fogged up. “The Dragon is a team.”
“So is Rutgers.”
The joke didn’t go across. Ignoring it, he said, “It’s a code name for an execution team. There are two parts, Tooth and Nail.”
I turned the glass around in my hand, staring at it, waiting. I asked, “Commies?”
“Yes.” His reluctance was almost tangible. He finally said, “I can name persons throughout the world in critical positions in government who have died lately, some violently, some of natural causes apparently. You would probably recognize their names.”
“I doubt it. I’ve been out of circulation for seven years.”
He put the glasses on again and looked at the backbar. “I wonder,” he mused to himself.
“The Dragon, Rickerby, if it were so important, how come the name never appeared? With a name like that it was bound to show.”
“Hell,” he said, “it was
“Sure,” I said, and I watched his face closely. “The Dragon killed Richie.”
Nothing showed.
“Now The Dragon is trying to kill Velda.”
Still nothing showed, but he said calmly, “How do you know?”
“Richie told me. That’s what he told me before he died. So she couldn’t be tied up with the other side, could she?”
Unexpectedly, he smiled, tight and deadly and you really couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “You never know,” Art answered. “When their own kind slip from grace, they too become targets. We have such in our records. It isn’t even unusual.”
“You bastard.”
“You know too much, Mr. Hammer. You might become a target yourself.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
He took a bill from his pocket and put it on the bar. John took it, totaled up the check and hit the register. When he gave the change back Art said, “Thanks for being so candid. Thank you for The Dragon.”
“You leaving it like that?”
“I think that’s it, don’t you?”
“Sucker,” I said.
He stopped halfway off his stool.
“You don’t think I’d be that stupid, do you? Even after seven years I wouldn’t be that much of a joker.”
For a minute he was the placid little gray man I had first met, then almost sorrowfully he nodded and said, “I’m losing my insight. I thought I had it all. What else do you know?”
I took a long pull of the Blue Ribbon and finished the glass. When I put it down I said to him, “Richie told me something else that could put his killer in front of a gun.”
“And just what is it you want for this piece of information?”
“Not much.” I grinned. “Just an official capacity in some department or another so that I can carry a gun.”
“Like in the old days,” he said.
“Like in the old days,” I repeated.
CHAPTER 8
Hy Gardner was taping a show and I didn’t get to see him until it was over. We had a whole empty studio to ourselves, the guest chairs to relax in and for a change a quiet that was foreign to New York.
When he lit his cigar and had a comfortable wreath of smoke over his head he said, “How’s things going, Mike?”
“Looking up. Why, what have you heard?”
“A little here and there.” He shrugged. “You’ve been seen around.” Then he laughed with the cigar in his teeth and put his feet up on the coffee table prop. “I heard about the business down in Benny Joe Grissi’s place. You sure snapped back in a hurry.”
“Hell, I don’t have time to train. Who put you on the bit?”
“Old Bayliss Henry still has his traditional afternoon drink at Ted’s with the rest of us. He knew we were pretty good friends.”
“What did he tell you?”
Hy grinned again. “Only about the fight. He knew that would get around. I’d sooner hear the rest from you anyway.”
“Sure.”
“Should I tape notes?”
“Not yet. It’s not that big yet, but you can do something for me.”
“Just say it.”
“How are your overseas connections?”
Hy took the cigar out, studied it and knocked off the ash. “I figure the next question is going to be a beauty.”
“It is.”
“Okay,” he nodded. “In this business you have to have friends. Reporters aren’t amateurs, they have sources of information and almost as many ways of getting what they want as Interpol has.”
“Can you code a request to your friends and get an answer back the same way?”
After a moment he nodded.
“Swell. Then find out what anybody knows about The Dragon.”
The cigar went back, he dragged on it slowly and let out a thin stream of smoke.
I said, “That’s a code name too. Dragon is an execution team. Our side gave it the tag and it’s a top secret bit, but that kind of stew is generally the easiest to stir once you take the lid off the kettle.”
“You don’t play around, do you?”
“I told you, I haven’t got time.”
“Damn, Mike, you’re really sticking it out, aren’t you?”
“You’ll get the story.”
“I hope you’re alive long enough to give it to me. The kind of game you’re playing has put a lot of good men down for keeps.”
“I’m not exactly a patsy,” I said.
“You’re not the same Mike Hammer you were either, friend.”
“When can you get the information off?” I asked him.
“Like now,” he told me.
There was a pay phone in the corridor outside. The request went through Bell’s dial system to the right party and the relay was assured. The answer would come into Hy’s office at the paper coded within a regular news transmission and the favor was expected to be returned when needed.
Hy hung up and turned around. “Now what?”
“Let’s eat, then take a run down to the office of a cop who used to be a friend.”
I knocked and he said to come in and when he saw who it was his face steeled into an expression that was so noncommittal it was pure betrayal. Behind it was all the resentment and animosity he had let spew out earlier, but this time it was under control.
