The Girl Hunters

'You worried about me?'

Hy grunted, lit another cigar and grinned at me. He had his glasses up on his head and you'd never think he could be anything but an innocuous slob, but then you'd be wrong. When he had it lit, he said, 'I gave up worrying about you a long time ago. Now what did you want from me? It has to be big after seven years.'

'Senator Knapp,' I said.

Sure, he was thinking, after seven years who the hell would think you'd come back with a little one? Mike Hammer chasing ambulances? Mike Hammer suddenly a reformer or coming up with a civic problem? Hell, anybody would have guessed. The Mike doesn't come back without a big one going. This a kill, Mike? What's the scoop? Story there, isn't there? You have a killer lined up just like in the old days and don't lie to me because I've seen those tiger eyes before. If they were blue or brown like anybody else's maybe I couldn't tell, but you got tiger eyes, friend, and they glint. So tell me. Tell me hard. Tell me now.

He didn't have to say it. Every word was there in his face, like when he had read it out to me before. I didn't have to hear it now. Just looking at him was enough.

I said, 'Senator Knapp. He died when I was--away.'

Quietly, Hy reminded me, 'He didn't die. He was killed.'

'Okay. The libraries were closed and besides, I forgot my card.'

'He's been dead three years.'

'More.'

'First why?'

'Because.'

'You come on strong, man.'

'You know another way?'

'Not for you.'

'So how about the Senator?'

'Are we square?' he asked me. 'It can be my story?'

'All yours, Hy. I don't make a buck telling columns.'

'Got a few minutes?'

'All right,' I said.

He didn't even have to consult the files. All he had to do was light that damn cigar again and sit back in his chair, then he sucked his mouth full of smoke and said, 'Leo Knapp was another McCarthy. He was a Commie- hunter but he had more prestige and more power. He was on the right committee and, to top it off, he was this country's missile man.'

'That's what they called him, the Missile Man. Mr. America. He pulled hard against the crap we put up with like the Cape Canaveral strikes when the entire program was held up by stupid jerks who went all that way for unionism and--hell, read True or the factual accounts and see what happened. The Reds are running us blind. Anyway, Knapp was the missile pusher.'

'Big,' I said.

Hy nodded. 'Then some louse shoots him. A simple burglary and he gets killed in the process.'

'You sure?'

Hy looked at me, the cigar hard in his teeth. 'You know me, Mike, I'm a reporter. I'm a Commie-hater. You think I didn't take this one right into the ground?'

'I can imagine what you did.'

'Now fill me in.'

'Can you keep your mouth shut?'

He took the cigar away and frowned, like I had hurt him 'Mike--'

'Look,' I said, 'I know, I know. But I may feed you a hot one and I have to be sure. Until it's ended, it can't come out. There's something here too big to mess with and I won't even take a little chance on it.'

'So tell me. I know what you're angling for. Your old contacts are gone or poisoned and you want me to shill for you.

'Natch.'

'So I'll shill. Hell, we've done it before. It won't be like it's a new experience.'

'And keep Marilyn out of it. To her you're a new husband and a father and she doesn't want you going down bullet alley anymore.'

'Aw, shut up and tell me what's on your mind.'

I did.

I sat back and told it all out and let somebody else help carry the big lid. I gave it to him in detail from seven years ago and left out nothing. I watched his face go through all the changes, watched him let the cigar burn itself out against the lip of the ashtray, watched him come alive with the crazy possibilities that were inherent in this one impossibility and when I finished I watched him sit back, light another cigar and regain his usual composure.

When he had it back again he said, 'What do you want from me?'

'I don't know. It could be anything.'

Like always, Hy nodded. 'Okay, Mike. When it's ready to blow let me light the fuse. Hell, maybe we can do an interview with the about-to-be-deceased on the TV show ahead of time.'

'No jokes, kid.'

'Ah, cheer up. Things could be worse.'

'I know,' I quoted, ''So I cheered up and sure enough things got worse.''

Hy grinned and knocked the ash off the stogie. 'Right now--anything--you need?'

'Senator Knapp--'

'Right now his widow is at her summer place upstate in Phoenicia. That's where the Senator was shot.'

'You'd think she'd move out.'

Hy shrugged gently. 'That's foolishness, in a way. It was the Senator's favorite home and she keeps it up. The rest of the year she stays at the residence in Washington. In fact, Laura is still one of the capital's favorite hostesses. Quite a doll.'

'Oh?'

He nodded sagely, the cigar at an authoritative tilt. 'The Senator was all man and what he picked was all woman. They were a great combination. It'll be a long time before you see one like that again.'

'Tough.'

'That's the way it goes. Look, if you want the details, I'll have a package run out from the morgue.'

'I'd appreciate that.'

Two minutes after he made his call a boy came through with a thick Manila envelope and laid it on the desk. Hy hefted it, handed it over and said: 'This'll give you all the background on the murder. It made quite a story.'

'Later there will be more.'

'Sure,' he agreed, 'I know how you work.'

I got up and put on my hat. 'Thanks.'

'No trouble, Mike.' He leaned back in his chair and pulled his glasses down. 'Be careful, Mike. You look lousy.'

'Don't worry.'

'Just the same, don't stick your neck out. Things can change in a few years. You're not like you were. A lot of people would like to catch up with you right now.'

I grinned back at him. 'I think most already have.'

You drive up the New York Thruway, get off at Kingston and take the mountain route through some of the most beautiful country in the world. At Phoenicia you turn off to the north for five or six miles until you come to The Willows and there is the chalet nestling in the upcurve of the mountain, tended by blue spruces forty feet high and nursed by a living stream that dances its way in front of it.

It was huge and white and very senatorial, yet there was a lived-in look that took away any pretentiousness. It was a money house and it should have been because the Senator had been a money man. He had made it himself