The Girl Hunters

told you?'

'No.'

'At least I won't have to call you a liar again.'

'Knock it off.'

Rickerby's little smile faded slowly and he shrugged. 'Make your point then.'

'Cole. I want to know about him.'

'I told you once--'

'Okay, so it's secret. But now he's dead. You want a killer, I want a killer and if we don't get together someplace nobody gets nothing. You know?'

His fingers tightened on the cup, the nails showing the strain. He let a full minute pass before he came to a decision. He said, 'Can you imagine how many persons are looking for this--killer?'

'I've been in the business too, friend.'

'All right. I'll tell you this. I know nothing of Richie's last mission and I doubt if I'll find out. But this much I do know--he wasn't supposed to be back here at all. He disobeyed orders and would have been on the carpet had he not been killed.

I said, 'Cole wasn't a novice.'

And for the first time Rickerby lost his composure. His eyes looked puzzled, bewildered at this sudden failure of something he had built himself. 'That's the strange part about it.'

'Oh?'

'Richie was forty-five years old. He had been with one department or another since '41 and his record was perfect. He was a book man through and through and wouldn't bust a reg for any reason. He could adapt if the situation necessitated it, but it would conform to certain regulations.' He stopped, looked across his cup at me and shook his head slowly. 'I--just can't figure it.'

'Something put him here.'

This time his eyes went back to their bland expression. He had allowed himself those few moments and that was all. Now he was on the job again, the essence of many years of self-discipline, nearly emotionless to the casual observer. 'I know,' he said.

And he waited and watched for me to give him the one word that might send him out on a kill chase. I used my own coffee cup to cover what I thought, ran through the possibilities until I knew what I wanted and leaned back in my chair. 'I need more time,' I told him.

'Time isn't too important to me. Richie's dead. Time would be important only if it meant keeping him alive.'

'It's important to me.'

'How long do you need before telling me?'

'Telling what?'

'What Richie thought important enough to tell you.'

I grinned at him. 'A week, maybe.'

His eyes were deadly now. Cold behind the glasses, each one a deliberate ultimatum. 'One week, then. No more. Try to go past it and I'll show you tricks you never thought of when it comes to making a man miserable.'

'I could turn up the killer in that time.'

'You won't.'

'There were times when I didn't do so bad.'

'Long ago, Hammer. Now you're nothing. Just don't mess anything up. The only reason I'm not pushing you hard is because you couldn't take the gaff. If I thought you could, my approach would be different.'

I stood up and pushed my chair back. 'Thanks for the consideration. I appreciate it.'

'No trouble at all.'

'I'll call you.'

'Sure. I'll be waiting.'

The same soft rain had come in again, laying a blanket over the city. It was gentle and cool, not heavy enough yet to send the sidewalk crowd into the bars or running for cabs. It was a good rain to walk in if you weren't in a hurry, a good rain to think in.

So I walked to Forty-fourth and turned west toward Broadway, following a pattern from seven years ago I had forgotten, yet still existed. At the Blue Ribbon I went into the bar, had a stein of Prior's dark beer, said hello to a few familiar faces, then went back toward the glow of lights that marked the Great White Way.

The night man in the Hackard Building was new to me, a sleepy-looking old guy who seemed to just be waiting time out so he could leave life behind and get comfortably dead. He watched me sign the night book, hobbled after me into the elevator and let me out where I wanted without a comment, anxious for nothing more than to get back to his chair on the ground floor.

I found my key, turned the lock and opened the door.

I was thinking of how funny it was that some things could transcend all others, how from the far reaches of your mind something would come, an immediate reaction to an immediate stimulus. I was thinking it and falling, knowing that I had been hit, but not hard, realizing that the cigarette smoke I smelled meant but one thing, that it wasn't mine, and if somebody were still there he had heard the elevator stop, had time to cut the lights and wait--and act. But time had not changed habit and my reaction was quicker than his act.

Metal jarred off the back of my head and bit into my neck. Even as I fell I could sense him turn the gun around in his hand and heard the click of a hammer going back. I hit face down, totally limp, feeling the warm spill of blood seeping into my collar. The light went on and a toe touched me gently. Hands felt my pockets, but it was a professional touch and the gun was always there and I couldn't move without being suddenly dead, and I had been dead too long already to invite it again.

The blood saved me. The cut was just big and messy enough to make him decide it was useless to push things any further. The feet stepped back, the door opened, closed, and I heard the feet walk away.

I got to the desk as fast as I could, fumbled out the .45, loaded it and wrenched the door open. The guy was gone. I knew, he would be. He was long gone. Maybe I was lucky, because he was a real pro. He could have been standing there waiting, just in case, and his first shot would have gone right where he wanted it to. I looked at my hand and it was shaking too hard to put a bullet anywhere near a target. Besides, I had forgotten to jack a shell into the chamber. So some things did age with time, after all.

Except luck. I still had some of that left.

I walked around the office slowly, looking at the places that had been ravaged in a fine search for something. The shakedown had been fast, but again, in thoroughness, the marks of the complete professional were apparent. There had been no time or motion lost in the wrong direction and had I hidden anything of value that could have been tucked into an envelope, it would have been found. Two places I once considered original with me were torn open expertly, the second, and apparently last, showing a touch of annoyance.

Even Velda's desk had been torn open and the last thing she had written to me lay discarded on the floor, ground into a twisted sheet by a turning foot and all that was left was the heading.

It read, Mike Darling--and that was all I could see.

I grinned pointlessly, and this time I jacked a shell into the chamber and let the hammer ease down, then shoved the .45 into my belt on the left side. There was a sudden familiarity with the weight and the knowledge that here was life and death under my hand, a means of extermination, of quick vengeance, and of remembrance of the others who had gone down under that same gun.

Mike Darling

Where was conscience when you saw those words?

Who really were the dead: those killing, or those already killed?

Then suddenly I felt like myself again and knew that the road back was going to be a long one alive or a short one dead and there wasn't even time enough to count the seconds.

Downstairs an old man would be dead in his chair because he alone could identify the person who came up here. The name in the night book would be fictitious and cleverly disguised if it had even been written there, and unless a motive were proffered, the old man's killing would be another one of those unexplainable things that