The Girl Hunters

pulling the trigger. Damn, he'd kill me right where I sit.'

Then I lost sight of Pat entirely because my head was going from side to side and the hole was being filled in again from the doctor's wide-fingered slaps until once more I could see and feel as much as I could in the half life that was left in me.

This time the doctor had lost his disdainful smirk. He pulled the skin down under my eyes, stared at my pupils, felt my pulse and did things to my earlobe with his fingernail that I could barely feel. He stopped, stood up and turned his back to me. 'This guy is shot down, Pat.'

'It couldn't've happened to a better guy.'

'I'm not kidding. He's a case. What do you expect to get out of him?'

'Nothing Why?'

'Because I'd say he couldn't stay rational. That little exhibition was a beauty. I'd hate to see it if he was pressed further.'

'Then stick around. I'll press him good, the punk.'

'You're asking for trouble. Somebody like him can go off the deep end anytime. For a minute there I thought he'd flipped. When it happens they don't come back very easily. What is it you wanted him to do?'

I was listening now. Not because I wanted to, but because it was something buried too far in my nature to ignore. It was something from away back like a hunger that can't be ignored.

Pat said, 'I want him to interrogate a prisoner.'

For a moment there was silence, then: 'You can't be serious.'

'The hell I'm not. The guy won't talk to anybody else but him.'

'Come off it, Pat. You have ways to make a person talk.'

'Sure, under the right circumstances, but not when they're in the hospital with doctors and nurses hovering over them.'

'Oh?'

'The guy's been shot. He's only holding on so he can talk to this slob. The doctors can't say what keeps him alive except his determination to make this contact.'

'But--'

'But nuts, Larry!' His voice started to rise with suppressed rage. 'We use any means we can when the chips are down. This guy was shot and we want the one who pulled the trigger. It's going to be a murder rap any minute and if there's a lead we'll damn well get it. I don't care what it takes to make this punk sober, but that's the way he's going to be and I don't care if the effort kills him, he's going to do it.'

'Okay, Pat. It's your show. Run it. Just remember that there are plenty of ways of killing a guy.'

I felt Pat's eyes reach out for me. 'For him I don't give a damn.'

Somehow I managed a grin and felt around for the words. I couldn't get a real punch line across, but to me they sounded good enough.

Just two words.

Chapter 2

Pat had arranged everything with his usual methodical care. The years hadn't changed him a bit. The great arranger. Mr. Go, Go, Go himself. I felt the silly grin come back that really had no meaning, and someplace in the back of my mind a clinical voice told me softly that it could be a symptom of incipient hysteria. The grin got sillier and I couldn't help it.

Larry and Pat blocked me in on either side, a hand under each arm keeping me upright and forcing me forward. As far as anybody was concerned I was another sick one coming in the emergency entrance and if he looked close enough he could even smell the hundred-proof sickness.

I made them take me to the men's room so I could vomit again, and when I sluiced down in frigid water I felt a small bit better. Enough so I could wipe off the grin. I was glad there was no mirror over the basin. It had been a long time since I had looked at myself and I didn't want to start now.

Behind me the door opened and there was some hurried medical chatter between Larry and a white-coated intern who had come in with a plainclothesman. Pat finally said, 'How is he?'

'Going fast,' Larry said. 'He won't let them operate either. He knows he's had it and doesn't want to die under ether before he sees your friend here.'

'Damn it, don't call him my friend.'

The intern glanced at me critically, running his eyes up and down then doing a quickie around my face. His fingers flicked out to spread my eyelids open for a look into my pupils and I batted them away.

'Keep your hands off me, sonny,' I said.

Pat waved him down. 'Let him be miserable, Doctor. Don't try to help him.'

The intern shrugged, but kept looking anyway. I had suddenly become an interesting psychological study for him.

'You'd better get him up there. The guy hasn't long to live. Minutes at the most.'

Pat looked at me. 'You ready?'

'You asking?' I said.

'Not really. You don't have a choice.'

'No?'

Larry said, 'Mike--go ahead and do it.'

I nodded. 'Sure, why not. I always did have to do half his work for him anyway.' Pat's mouth went tight and I grinned again. 'Clue me on what you want to know.'

There were fine white lines around Pat's nostrils and his lips were tight and thin. 'Who shot him. Ask him that.'

'What's the connection?'

Now Pat's eyes went half closed, hating my guts for beginning to think again. After a moment he said, 'One bullet almost went through him. They took it out yesterday. A ballistics check showed it to be from the same gun that killed Senator Knapp. If this punk upstairs dies we can lose our lead to a murderer. Understand? You find out who shot him.'

'Okay,' I said. 'Anything for a friend. Only first I want a drink.'

'No drink.'

'So drop dead.'

'Bring him a shot,' Larry told the intern.

The guy nodded, went out and came back a few seconds later with a big double in a water glass. I took it in a hand that had the shakes real bad, lifted it and said, 'Cheers.'

The guy on the bed heard us come in and turned his head on the pillow. His face was drawn, pinched with pain and the early glaze of death was in his eyes.

I stepped forward and before I could talk he said, 'Mike? You're--Mike Hammer?'

'That's right.'

He squinted at me, hesitating. 'You're not like--'

I knew what he was thinking. I said, 'I've been sick.'

From someplace in back Pat sucked in his breath disgustedly.

The guy noticed them for the first time. 'Out. Get them out.'

I waved my thumb over my shoulder without turning around. I knew Larry was pushing Pat out the door over his whispered protestations, but you don't argue long with a medic in his own hospital.

When the door clicked shut I said, 'Okay, buddy, you wanted to see me and since you're on the way out it has to be important. Just let me get some facts straight. I never saw you before. Who are you?'

'Richie Cole.'

'Good. Now who shot you?'

'Guy they call...The Dragon. No name...I don't know his name.'

'Look...'

Somehow he got one hand up and waved it feebly. 'Let me talk.'

I nodded, pulled up a chair and sat on the arm. My guts were all knotted up again and beginning to hurt. They