penthouse somewhere, or in a crummy dive someplace else one of the kings would swallow hard and make other plans and begin to get curious about footsteps behind him and the people around him. Curiosity that would put knots in their stomach first, tiny lumps that would harden into balls of terror before too long.
Ten o'clock. It was still a few hours off.
Ten o'clock, an exquisite, desirable mouth. Eyes that tried to eat you. Ten o'clock Michael Friday, but I had another appointment first.
I started in the low Forties and picked the spots. They were short stops because I wasn't after a good time. I could tell when I was getting ripe by the sidewise looks that came my way. In one place they started to move away from me so I knew I was nearing the end. A little pigeon I knew shook his head just enough so I knew they weren't there and when his mouth pulled down in a tight smile I could tell he wasn't giving me much of a chance.
Nine fifteen. I walked into Harvey Pullen's place in the Thirties. Harvey didn't want to serve me but I waited him out. He went for the tap and I shook my head and said, 'Coke.'
He poured it in a hurry, walked away and left me by the faded redhead to drink it. A plainclothesman I recognized walked in, had a fast beer at the bar, took in the crowd through the back mirror, finished his butt and walked out. In a way I hoped he had spotted me, but if he did he was better at spotting than I was at keeping from being spotted.
She didn't move her mouth at all. Sometimes the things they pick up in stir pay off and this was one of them. She said, 'Hammer, ain't ?cha?'
'Uh-huh.'
'Long John's place. They're settin' you up.' I sipped my Coke. 'Why you?'
'Take a look, buster. Them creeps gimme the business a long time ago. I coulda had a career.'
'Who saw them?'
'I just came from there.'
'What else?'
'The little guy's a snowbird and he's hopped.' 'Coppers?'
'Nobody. Just them. The gang in the dump ain't wise yet.'
I laid the Coke down, swirled the ice around in the glass and rubbed out my cigarette. The redhead had a sawbuck on her lap when I left.
Long John's. The name over the door didn't say so, but that's what everybody called it. The bartender had a patch over one eye and a peg leg. No parrot.
A drunk sat on the curb, puking into the gutter between his legs. The door was open and you could smell the beer and hear a pair of shrill voices. Background music supplied by a jukebox. Maybe a dozen were lined up at the bar talking loud and fast. The curses and filth sifted out of the conversation like minor high lights and the women's voices shrilled again.
The boys were pros playing it cute.
Sugar Smallhouse was sitting at the corner of the bar, his back facing the door so anybody coming in wouldn't recognize him.
Charlie Max was in the back corner facing the door so anybody coming in he'd recognize.
They played it cute but they didn't play it right and Charlie Max took time out to bend his head into the match he held up to light his cigarette and that's when I came in and stood behind his partner.
I said, 'Hello, Sugar,' and thought the glass he held would crumple under his fingers. The little hairs on the back of his neck went up straight like what happens to a dog when he meets another dog, only on this mutt the skin under the hair happened to be a pale, pale yellow.
Sugar had heard the word. He had heard other people talk. He knew about the sign marked DEAD END and about me and how things hadn't happened as they were planned. I could feel the things churning through his head as I reached under his arm for the rod and all the while Sugar never moved a muscle. It was a little rod with a big bore. I flipped the shells out of the cylinder, dropped them in my pocket and put the gun back in its nest. Sugar didn't get it. He sweated until it soaked through the collar of his shirt but he still didn't get it.
Long John came up, saw me half hidden behind Sugar and said, 'What'll it be, feller?' Then Sugar got it while Long John's eye got big and round. I had my hands around his middle in just the right spot, jerked hard and fast with my locked thumbs going into flesh under the breastbone like a kid snapping worms. Hard and fast... just once, and Sugar Smallhouse was another drunk who was sleeping it off at the bar.
And Charlie Max was a guy suddenly alive and sober coming up out of his chair, trying to clear a gun from a hip holster to collect his bonus. Eternity took place right then in the space of about five seconds of screaming confusion. Somebody saw the gun and the scream triggered the action. Charlie's gun never got quite cleared because the dame beside him pushed too hard getting away and his chair caught him behind the knees. They were all over the joint, cursing, pushing, falling out of the way and fighting to make the door. Then the noise stopped and it was just a tableau of silent panic because the crowd was behind me and there was nothing more to do except stand there with fascinated terror as Charlie Max scrambled for his rod and I closed in with a couple of quick steps.
The gun was there in his fist, coming up and around as I brought my foot up and the things that were in Charlie's face splashed all over the floor. His face looked soft and squashy a second, became something not at all human and he tried once more with the gun.
Nobody heard that kick because his arm made too much noise.
Somehow his eyes were still there, swelling fast, yet still bright.
They were eyes that should have been filled with excruciating pain, but horror pushed it out as he saw what was going to happen to him.
'The job was too big, buddy. Somebody should have told you how many guys I put on their backs with skulls split apart because they were gunning for me.' I said it real easy and reached for the gun.
The voice behind me said, 'Don't touch it, Hammer.'
I looked up at the tall guy in the blue pin-striped suit, straightened and grunted my surprise. His face stayed the way it was. There were two more of them standing in the back of the room. One was trying to wake up Sugar Smallhouse. The other came forward, ran his hands over me, looked at his partner with a startled expression that was almost funny before giving me a stare that you might see coming from a kid watching a ballplayer hit a homer.
There wasn't a damn thing they could do and they knew it, so I turned around, walked back outside and started crosstown to the Astor.
Washington had finally showed up.
She was waiting there in a corner of the lobby. There were others who were waiting too and used the time just to watch her. Some had even taken up positions where they could move in if the one she was waiting for didn't show up. She wasn't wearing a red carnation, but she did smile and I could almost feel that mouth on me across the room.
Her hair was the same swirly mass that was as buoyant as she was. There aren't many words to describe a woman like Michael Friday as she was just then. You have to look at the covers of books and pick out the parts here and there that you like best, then put them all together and you have it. There was nothing slim about her. Maybe a sleekness like a well-fed, muscular cat, an athletic squareness to her shoulders, a sensual curve to her hips, an antagonizing play of motion across her stomach that seemed unconsciously deliberate. She stood there lazily, flexing one smoothly rounded leg that tightened the skirt across her thigh.
I grinned at her and she held out her hand. My own folded around it, stayed there and we walked out together. 'Waiting long?' I asked her.
She squeezed my arm under hers. 'Longer than I usually wait for anyone. Ten minutes.'
'I hope I'm worth it.'
'You aren't.'
'But you can't help yourself,' I finished.
Her elbow poked me. 'How did you know?'
'I don't,' I said. 'I'm just bragging.'
There wasn't any smile there now. 'Damn you,' she whispered. I could feel her go all tight against me, saw her do that trick with her tongue that left her mouth damp and waiting. I pulled my eyes away and opened the door
