For a second a flash of annoyance creased his eyes, then disappeared into a wry smile. 'You may be right. I've heard that before.' He picked up a pencil and tapped it against the polished wood of the desk. 'Mike ... do me a favor.'
I nodded.
'Check on her. She won't answer the phone and I'd rather not bother her after what you just told me.'
'Be glad to.'
'And Mike ...'
'If it can be avoided, don't expose her to ... well, anything more in your line. I'd appreciate that.'
'I didn't expose anybody. It just happened. She wanted to see how we lived on the other side of the tracks. I could have told her it could be just as rough where she came from too because I've been on the other side of the bridge myself. Nobody ever seems to learn anything, do they?'
The seconds ticked by while he looked at me, finally nodding agreement. 'And you, Mike. Do you ever learn?'
'Always something new,' I said. I got up and took a last look at all the money that surrounded me. 'I'll check in on Renee for you. She'll be fine, so quit worrying.'
Dorn held out his hand and I took it. 'Sorry you couldn't get me at the office. I didn't mean for you to go out of your way. I guess it really wasn't that important after all.'
'No trouble,' I said.
He walked me to the door and behind me the hum of voices had grown louder. One was edgy and hoarse, but I recognized it as Crane's from the State Department. The one he was talking to said, 'Nyet, nyet!' then subsided while Crane finished talking. I said 'So long' to Dorn at the door, took the elevator back down again and looked for Spud. He was gone, and a tall kid with a sad face had replaced him. He had his hair tucked under the back of his visored cap and didn't look happy about it. They probably even made him shave off his beard. He couldn't have run off a Bowery panhandler.
Rain. Someday they'd cover New York like the Astrodome and you wouldn't have to worry about it. The computers had predicted partly cloudy and had sat back in their oiled compartments with all the whirring and clacking, giving off with mechanical laughter at the idiots who had believed their programming. The smart one knew the city. Never predict New York. Never try to outthink it. The damn octopus could even control the weather and when it wanted everybody to be miserable, everybody was miserable.
I looked up at the tops of the buildings and watched the gray blanket of wet sifting down to slick the streets and fog the windows, wondering why the hell I didn't get out like Hy Gardner did. A cab pulled up and disgorged a fat little man who threw a bill at the driver and trotted across the sidewalk to the protection of the building entrance and
before the elderly couple frantically waving at the cabbie from the corner could make the run, I hopped in and closed the door. The driver saw my face in the rearview mirror and didn't try for the Sweetest Cabbie of the Year award. I gave him Renee's address and sat back while he pulled out into the traffic and U-turned at the corner to head north.
The ends. Why the hell don't they meet? It wasn't all that complicated, just a simple rundown of a lousy pickpocket who lost his haul to an honest guy who tried to keep him straight and killed to get it back. A lousy pickpocket who had hit the wrong pockets and now there were others looking for him too, but why? What did Woody Ballinger have to lose? Heidi Anders had a compact with her life wrapped up in white powder in a false bottom. She would have done anything for a single pop of the junk and damn near did until I creamed her out. Now it was Woody trying to beat me to Beaver.
The driver's radio blared out another of those special bulletins the networks loved to issue. In Buffalo, New York the police had shot and killed Tom-Tom Schneider's killers. The hostages were unharmed. Tomorrow the papers and TV would carry the full account and Pat Chambers could count on another day free of panic. But where the hell was Velda? Where was that lousy dip Beaver in the red vest and where were Woody Ballinger and his boys? The rain splattered against the windows and the radio went back to Dow-Jones averages and the cab pulled into the curb. I peeled off a five from my roll and handed it through the window to the driver.
The little patch on her head around the shaved area of her scalp was nearly unnoticeable, her hair covering it with the usual feminine vanity. I grinned at her, lying there under the covers and she smiled back, her eyes twinkling, 'I know,' she said, 'under the covers, the nightgown . . . I'm stark naked.'
'Lovely,' I said.
'X-ray eyes?'
'Absolutely. I walk down Fifth Avenue and all those broads in their fancy clothes think they're hiding something? Hell, I look right through them and all I see is skin and hair and toenails that need cutting. Everybody's naked, sugar.'
'Am I naked?'
'My X-ray eyes are out of order.'
Renee looked at me and smiled, then pushed the covers down to her midriff, then all the way to her feet with a quick flip of her hand. Without taking her eyes off mine, she tugged at the nightgown, then slipped it over her head and tossed it to the floor.
'Now you'e naked,' I said.
'You don't sound excited.'
'I'm an old dog, kid. I had this happen before lunch.' I lit up a butt and took a deep drag, then let the smoke blow across the bed.
'I could kill you.'
'You are.'
'How can you resist me?'
'It isn't easy. Luckily, you're a sick woman.'
'Horse manure,' Renee said. 'Tell me how pretty I am.'
I looked at her lying there. 'You look like a perfect biological specimen. Everything's in the right place, the titties are pointing in the right direction, but a little saggy because you're flat out like that. The snatch is cute, very decorous, but for a connoisseur like me, maybe a little bushy. A touch with a pair of scissors might sharpen up the angles and trim it down to size....'
'Oh, you duty ...'
'Ah-ah ... you're a sick woman, remember?' I held up my hand to stop her. 'But you look kissable and parts of you are wet and inviting and if I didn't have all the moral turpitude I was born with, do you know what I'd do?'
'I wish you'd just screw me and shut up.'
'You got no class, Renee.'
'You got no dick, Mike Hammer.'
'Want references?' I asked her. 'How's the head?'
She touched her scalp with her fingertips and winced. 'Sore, but not that sore. I've been deliberately taking advantage of my ... condition, and staying bedridden.'
'I know. And your boss is up in the air over your disappearance. It seems that he can't get along without you. I'm here on a rescue mission to get you back to work.'
Her mouth formed a fake pout. 'I thought you just wanted to see me.'
'Right now I'm seeing all of you there is to see.'
'You've missed the other side.'
'Leave something to the imagination, will you? Besides, suppose that maid of your walks in here?'
'Oh, she'll understand.'
I shook my head and laughed. Dames. 'Get up and get
dressed. If you hustle I'll have a coffee with you while I use your phone.'
Renee grimaced and tossed a pillow at me. 'Your casual treatment is making me feel married, you big slob. How can you resist me like this?'
'It isn't easy at all, sugar. If I had the time I'd tear you apart.'
'Nothing but promises.'
