The Killing Man

communication, a whole wild emotion expressed in a simple moist touch and when her tongue barely met mine, a silent explosion. We felt, we tasted, then satisfied, separated.

'You know what you do to me?' I asked her.

She smiled.

'Now I'm horny as hell and I can't go out in the hall like this. Not yet.'

'You can kiss me again while you're waiting.'

'No. I'll need a cold shower if I do.' I stood up, still feeling her mouth on mine. 'I'll be back tomorrow, kitten.'

Her smile was crooked and her eye laughed.

'What are you going to do with . . . that?' she asked me.

'Hold my hat over it,' I told her.

The night watchman at the desk told me hello and added, 'Working late tonight?'

I signed the entry list. 'Just picking up some things.'

'How's Velda doin'?'

'Coming along fine.'

'Damn shame, that. The cops got anybody yet?'

'No, but they're working on it.' I gave him back the form and headed for the elevator bank.

Only at night do you realize that an office building is almost alive. Suddenly there is no movement and what sound there is has a hollow ring to it and seems to be amplified far beyond normal. The lighting has changed and you get to thinking about funeral parlors and look for coffins in the darkened corners. What was alive during the day is dead at night.

I pulled the .45 out, threw the safety off and cocked it. I tried the door handle first, making sure it was locked, then slipped the key in and turned it soundlessly. I gave it a full ten seconds, then knelt down, shoved the door open and went in fast, hit the floor in a roll and came up against the cabinets on the far side with the gun in my fist ready to fire.

There still was no sound or movement after thirty seconds, and I felt for the light switch above my head and flipped it on. The room was empty. So was my inner office.

Had anybody been watching it would have been a good show, but I wasn't taking any chances at this point. I closed and locked the door, went to the smaller of the filing cabinets and opened the drawer with Byers' file in it. The miniature spool of tape was in the folder. At Velda's desk I flipped open the recorder and slipped the spool in, then punched the play button.

Three brief messages came on before Velda's voice said, 'Michael Hammer Investigations.'

The man's tone was muffled, as though he held the phone a little away from him and spoke through a handkerchief. 'Yes,' he said. 'Would it be possible for me to see Mr. Hammer today? Noon today would be best.'

'I'm sorry, but Mr. Hammer doesn't come in on Saturday.'

'Is it . . . is it possible to contact him?'

'Well, that all depends. Can you tell me who is calling and the nature of your business?'

There was a brief moment of thoughtful hesitancy before he said, 'My name is Lewison, Bruce Lewison . . . and my business is extremely urgent.'

Velda persisted with: 'Who recommended this agency, sir?'

Politely, the other voice said, 'I'm afraid my business is a little too confidential to discuss. However, if you would relay to Mr. Hammer the urgency I'm sure he would understand. And I can pay for his services in advance if need be.'

I could almost hear Velda's mind working. 'In that case, sir, I'm sure he'd be glad to see you. I'll have him here at noon.'

'I appreciate that, madam. Thank you.'

The conversation ended. The voice was nobody I could recognize, nor could anybody else, most likely, but in this age of electronic technology the experts could pull a voiceprint off that tape that would make identification as exact as if he had left his fingerprints behind. I rewound the tape, took it from the case, put it in a plastic holder and dropped it in my pocket. I got a fresh reel from the drawer and put it on the machine.

When I closed the top my fingers froze to the plastic. There was no way Velda would have left the answering machine without a tape in it. A fresh one would go on before she even filed the old one.

The son of a bitch had come back. He had figured out the remote possibility of having been recorded, did a highly skilled job of opening the door locks and searching the place, the way a real enterprising reporter might. But he had already gotten what he came for . . . the tape from the recorder.

Too bad, sucker, I thought, too bad.

He wasn't up on efficient office procedure at all. He never figured Velda would file his taped message and insert a new reel before he got there.

But then, he didn't know Velda's sensitivity level at all. Bruce Lewison my ass. She knew it was a phony name and red-flagged it for me in an off-file.

I got out of the cab at the rear of my apartment building and went down the garage ramp. I took the service elevator up to my floor, stepped out at the far end of the corridor where I had a good view of the whole area, then went to my door. The splinter I had inserted between the door and the jamb was still there, so nobody had tried to bust in.

The late news was on. I built a drink and sat in front of the TV watching everybody go through the motions of laying the city naked. Local politics was still a mess, but the mayor did his funny bit and made a joke of it. There was a street killing, a multicar accident on the East Side Highway and a tenement fire on One Hundred Twelfth Street. Almost the same as the news last night.

When I was putting some more ice in my drink the phone rang and I picked it up and said hello. A voice in an echo chamber with a British accent said, 'Mr. Hammer, is that you?'

'Russell?'

'Yes, right. This is he. I have some news for you.'

'Great.'

'I must say, it was a bit of a go, y'know. Very difficult to get any information from the authorities except that the case was still under investigation. The people here knew that an American was killed, but didn't know why. The thing that was gruesome was the way he died. A knife in his throat was the murder weapon, but his fingers had been cut off his right hand.'

'Did the press carry that?'

'Afraid not, old boy. The only one here who knew about it was the man who discovered the body. Getting him to talk wasn't easy at all. The constabulary had explicitly forbidden him to mention it to anyone.'

'Then how'd you manage it?'

'Very simply, Mr. Hammer. I offered him twenty-five pounds and my vow of silence.'

'Russell,' I told him, 'you did fine. I'll send you a check at the going rate of exchange.'

'Don't forget my football tickets and the story.'

'You got it, friend.'

I hung up and sat back with my drink. Now Penta had an MO. He liked to chop off fingers. He took five off the agent in England and ten off the poor slob in my office. The numbers seemed to have a significance. And the chances were, Penta had left his trademark in other places as well. There was always a pattern to mutilations, always a reason for them. The big ones that hit the news generally had sexual overtones, breasts and bellies being targets for a deviate's knife, or male castration and on into animal and sometimes human sacrifices. Crazy. They were all crazy . . . but every one of them had a reason for happening.

Penta. Was there a reference to five? Five fingers? But there were ten cut from DiCica's hands.

It was crazy, all right, but that was what was going to trip up Penta. I finished my drink, took a shower and went to bed. I set the alarm for six and set the switch.

At seven thirty I parked two blocks away from Smiley's Automotive and walked back on the opposite side of the street. Outside the tire-recapping place a lone truck loaded with used casings was parked, the driver asleep