'Who'd the shack belong to?'
A frown creased her forehead and she shook her head. 'That's another catch. The place is on state property. It's been there for twenty years. One thing I did learn while I was being questioned was that aside from its recent use the place had no signs of occupancy at all. There were dates carved in the doorpost and the last one was 1937.'
'Anything else?'
Velda shook her head slowly. 'I saw your car. Or what's left of it.'
'Poor old baby. The last of the original hot rods.'
'Mike...'
I finished the beer and put the empty down on the table. 'Yeah?'
'What are you going to do?'
'Guess.'
'Tell me.'
I had a long pull on the smoke and dropped the butt into the can. 'They killed a dame and tried to frame me for it. They wrecked my heap and put me in the hospital. They're figuring us all for suckers and don't give a hang who gets hurt. The slobs, the miserable slobs.' I rammed my fist against my palm until it stung. 'I'm going to find out what the score is, kid. Then a lot of heads are going to roll.'
'One of them might be yours, Mike.'
'Yeah, one of ?em might, but it sure won't be the first to go. And you know something? They're worried, whoever they are. They read the papers and things didn't quite happen like they wanted them to. The law of averages bucked ?em for a change and instead of getting a sucker to frame they got me. Me. That they didn't like because I'm not just the average joe and they're smart enough to figure out an angle.'
Her face pulled tight and the question was in her eyes. 'They were up here looking around,' I said.
'Mike!
'Oh, I don't know what they were after, but I don't think they knew either. But you can bet on this, they went through this place because they thought I had something they wanted and just because they didn't find it doesn't mean they think I haven't got it. They'll be back. The next time I won't be in any emergency ward.'
'But what could it be?'
'Beats me, but they tried to kill two people to find out. Whether I like it or not I'm in this thing as deep as that dame was.' I grinned at Velda sitting there. 'And I like it, too. I hate the guts of those people. I hate them so bad it's coming out of my skin. I'm going to find out who `they' are and why and then they've had it.'
A note of sarcasm crept into her voice. 'Just like always, isn't that right?'
'No,' I said, 'maybe not. Maybe this time I'll do it differently. Just for the fun of it.'
Velda's hands were drawn= tight on the arms of the chair. 'I don't like you this way, Mike.'
'Neither do a lot of people. They know something just like their own names. They know I'm not going to sit on my fanny and wait for something to happen. They know from now on they're going to have to be so careful they won't even be able to spit because I'm going to get closer and closer until I have them on the dirty end of a stick. They know it and I know it too.'
'It makes you a target.'
'Kitten, it sure does and that I go for. If that's one way of pulling ?em inside shooting range I'm plenty glad to be a target.'
Her face relaxed and she sat back. For a long minute neither one of us spoke. She sat there with her head against the cushion, staring at the ceiling, then, 'Mike, I have news for you.'
The way she said it made me look up. 'Give.'
'Any shooting that's to be done won't be done by you.'
A muscle in my face twitched.
Velda reached in her jacket pocket and came out with an envelope. She flipped it across the room and I caught it. 'Pat brought it in this morning. He couldn't do a thing about it, so don't get teed off at him.'
I pulled the flap out and fingered the sheet loose. It was very brief and to the point. No quibbling. No doubting the source. The letterhead was all very official and I was willing to bet that for the one sheet they sent me a hundred more made up the details of why the thing should be sent.
It was a very simple order telling me I no longer had a license to carry a gun and temporarily my state- granted right to conduct private investigations was suspended. There was no mention of a full or partial refund of my two-hundred-buck fee for said license to said state.
So I laughed. I folded the sheet back into the envelope and laid it on the table. 'They want me to do it the hard way, I said.
'They don't want you to do it at all. From now on you're a private citizen and nothing else and if they catch you with a gun you get it under the Sullivan law.'
'This happened once before, remember?'
Velda nodded slowly. There was no expression at all on her face. 'That's right, but they forgot about me. Then I had a P.I. ticket and a license for a gun too. This time they didn't forget.'
'Smart boys.'
'Very.' She closed her eyes again and let her head drop back. 'We're going to have it rough.'
'Not we, girl. Me.'
'We.,,
'Look . . '
Only the slight reflection of the light from her pupils showed
that her eyes were open and looking at me. 'Who do you belong
to, Mike?'
'You tell me.'
She didn't answer. Her eyes opened halfway and there was something sad in the way her lips tried to curve into a smile. I said, 'All right, kid, you know the answer. It's we and if I stick my neck out you can be there to help me get back in time.' I picked the .45 up off the floor beside the chair, slid the clip out and thumbed the shells into my palm. 'Your boy Mike is getting on in years, pal. Soft maybe?'
There was laughter in the sad smile now. 'Not soft. Smarter. We're up against something that's so big pure muscle won't even dent it. We're up against a big brain and being smart is the only thing that's going to move it. At least you have the sense to change your style.'
'Yeah.'
'It won't be so easy.'
'I know. I'm not built that way.' I grinned at her. 'Let's not worry about it. Everybody's trying to step on me because they don't want me around. Some of ?em got different reasons, but the big one is they're afraid I'll spoil their play. That happened before too. Let's make it happen again.'
Velda said, 'But let's not try so hard, huh? Seven years is a long time to wait for a guy.' Her teeth were a white flash in the middle of her smile. 'I'd like him in good shape when he gets ready to take the jump.'
I said, 'Yeah,' but not so loud that she heard me. 'Where do we take it from here, Mike?'
I let the shells dribble from my fingers into the ashtray. They lay there, deadly and gleaming, but helpless without the mother that could give them birth.
'Berga Torn,' I said. 'We'll start with her. I want those sanitarium records. I want her life history and the history of anybody she was associated with. That's your job.'
'And you?' she asked.
' Evello. Carl Evello. Someplace he comes into this thing and he's my job.'
Velda nodded, drummed her fingernails against the arm of the chair and stared across the room. 'He won't be easy.' 'Nobody's easy.'
'Especially Evello. He's organized. While you were under wraps in the hospital I saw a few people who had a little inside information on Evello. There wasn't much and what there was of it was mostly speculation, but it put the finger on a theme you might be interested in.'
'Such as?'
She looked at me with a half smile, a beautiful jungle animal sizing up her mate before telling him what was outside the mouth of the den. 'Mafia,' she said.
