One Lonely Night

helps.'

'So?'

'So now I find myself in one of those situations. I'm a practical cop with a lot of training and experience, but I'm in something that has a personal meaning to me too and I'm afraid of tackling it alone.'

'You don't want advice from me, chum. I'm mud, and whatever I touch gets smeared with it. I don't mind dirtying myself, but I don't want any of it to rub off onto you.'

'It won't, don't worry. That's why you're here now. You think I was taken in by that vacation line? Hell. You have another bug up your behind. It has to do with those green cards and don't try to talk your way out of it.'

He spun around, his face taut. 'Where'd you get them, Mike?'

I ignored the question. 'Tell me, Pat. Tell me the story.'

He threw the drink down and filled the glass again. 'Lee Deamer . . . how much do you know about him?'

'Only that he's the up-and-coming champ. I don't know him personally.'

'I do, Mike. I know the guy and I like him. Goddamn it, Mike, if he gets squeezed out this state, this country will lose one of its greatest assets! We can't afford to have Deamer go under!'

'I've heard that story before, Pat,' I said, 'a political reporter gave it to me in detail.'

Pat reached for a cigarette and laid it in his lips. The tip of the flame from the lighter wavered when he held it up. 'I hope it made an impression. This country is too fine to be kicked around. Deamer is the man to stop it if he can get that far.

'Politics never interested you much, Mike. You know how it starts in the wards and works itself right up to the nation. I get a chance to see just how dirty and corrupt politics can be. You should put yourself in my shoes for a while and you'd know how I feel. I get word to lay off one thing or another . . . or else. I get word that if I do or don't do a certain thing I'll be handed a fat little present. You'd think people would respect the police, but they don't. They try to use the department to push their own lousy schemes and it happens more often than you'd imagine.'

'And you, Pat, what did you do?' I leaned forward in my chair, waiting.

'I told them to go to hell. They can't touch an honest man until he makes a mistake. Then they hang him for it.'

'Any mistakes yet?'

Two streams of smoke spiraled from his nostrils. 'Not yet, kid. They're waiting though. I'm fed up with the tension. You can feel it in the air, like being inside a storage battery. Call me a reformer if you want to, but I'd love to see a little decency for a change. That's why I'm afraid for Deamer.'

'Yeah, you were telling me about him.'

'Twins. You were right, Mike. Lee Deamer was at that meeting the night he was allegedly seen killing this Charlie Moffit. He was talking to groups around the room. I was there.'

I stamped the butt out in a tray and lit another. 'You mean it was as simple as that . . . Lee Deamer had a twin brother?'

Pat nodded. 'As simple as that.'

'Then why the secrecy? Lee isn't exactly responsible for what his brother does. Even a blast in the papers couldn't smear him for that, could it?'

'No . . . not if that was all there was to it.'

'Then . . .'

Pat slammed the glass down impatiently. 'The brother's name was Oscar Deamer. He was an escaped inmate of a sanitarium where he was undergoing psychiatric treatment. Let that come out and Lee is finished.'

I let out a slow whistle. 'Who else knows about this, Pat?'

'Just you. It was too big. I couldn't keep it to myself. Lee called me tonight and said he wanted to see me. We met in a bar and he told me the story. Oscar arrived in town and told Lee that he was going to settle things for him. He demanded money to keep quiet. Lee thinks that Oscar deliberately killed this Charlie Moffit hoping to be identified as Lee, knowing that Lee wouldn't dare reveal that he had a lunatic for a brother.'

'So Lee wouldn't pay off and he got the treatment.'

'It looks that way.'

'Hell, this Oscar could have figured Lee would have an alibi and couldn't be touched. It was just a sample, something to get him entangled. That doesn't make him much of a loony if he can think like that.'

'Anybody who can kill like that is crazy, Mike.'

'Yeah, I guess so.'

Before he could answer me, the bell rang, two short burps and Pat got up to push the buzzer. 'Lee?' I asked.

Pat nodded. 'He wanted more time to think about it. I told him I'd be at home. It has him nearly crazy himself.' He went to the door and stood there holding it open as he had done for me. It was so still that I heard the elevator humming in its well, the sound of the doors opening and the slow, heavy feet of a person carrying a too- heavy weight.

I stood up myself and shook hands with Lee Deamer. He wasn't big like I had expected. There was nothing outstanding about his appearance except that he looked like a schoolteacher, a very tired, middle-aged Mr. Chips.

Pat said, 'This is Mike Hammer, Lee. He's a very special, capable friend of mine.'

His handshake was firm, but his eyes were too tired to take me in all at once. He said to Pat very softly, 'He knows?'

'He knows, Lee. He can be trusted.'

I had a good look at warm gray eyes then. His hand tightened just a little around mine. 'It's nice to find people that can be trusted.'

I grinned my thanks and Pat pulled up a chair. Lee Deamer took the drink Pat offered him and settled back against the cushions, rubbing his hand across his face. He took a sip of the highball, then pulled a cigar from his pocket and pared the end off with a tiny knife on his watch chain.

'Oscar hasn't called back,' he said dully. 'I don't know what to do.' He looked first at Pat, then to me. 'Are you a policeman, Mr. Hammer?'

'Just call me Mike. No, I'm not a city cop. I have a Private Operator's ticket and that's all.'

'Mike's been in on a lot of big stuff, Lee,' Pat cut in. 'He knows his way around.'

'I see.' He was talking to me again. 'I suppose Pat told you that so far this whole affair has been kept quiet?' I nodded and he went on. 'I hope it can stay that way, though if it must come out, it must. I'm leaving it all to the discretion of Pat here. I--well, I'm really stumped. So much has happened in so short a time I hardly know where I'm at.'

'Can I hear it from the beginning?' I asked.

Lee Deamer bobbed his head slowly. 'Oscar and I were born in Townley, Nebraska. Although we were twins, we were worlds apart. In my younger days I thought it was because we were just separate personalities, but the truth was . . . Oscar was demented. He was a sadistic sort of person, very sly and cunning. He hated me. Yes, he hated me, his own brother. In fact, Oscar seemed to hate everyone. He was in trouble from the moment he ran off from home until he came back, then he found more trouble in our own state. He was finally committed to an institution.

Shortly after Oscar was committed I left Nebraska and settled in New York. I did rather well in business and became active in politics. Oscar was more or less forgotten. Then I learned that he had escaped from the institution. I never heard from him again until he called me last week.'

'That's all?'

'What else can there be, Mike? Oscar probably read about me in the papers and trailed me here. He knew what it would mean if I was known to have a brother who wasn't quite . . . well, normal. He made a demand for money and told me he'd have it one way or another.'

Pat reached for the shaker and filled the glasses again. I held mine out and our eyes met. He answered my question before I could ask it. 'Lee was afraid to mention Oscar, even when he was identified as the killer of Moffit. You can understand why, can't you?'

'Now I can,' I said.