The Killing Man

behind the wheel. An old van rattled by and turned the corner up ahead, and that was the end of the traffic. Nobody seemed to be anxious enough about business to open early.

Smiley's Automotive was just another place on the block. It was there. Nothing was happening. Behind the dirty windows in the door was the dull glow of a night bulb. After ten minutes nothing had changed and I walked across the street, and only when I got up close I saw the quarter-inch gap in the personnel door where it hadn't been closed all the way.

When I nudged it with the tip of my toe it swung open, and I went in fast, the .45 in my hand, and flattened out against the wall long enough to get my bearings, then took four steps to the steel lift and crouched down behind it.

Nothing moved.

I inched my way to the other end of the lift and paused there, listening. The tiny scratching noises I heard were coming from the small office in the rear off to my left, minute hurried noises that stopped and started, then were joined by others, and when I heard the brief whistle sound I realized what I was hearing.

I got up, moved to the door quietly and the rats that were running all over the place saw me and dashed across the desk. When I flicked the light switch on with my elbow I saw all the tiny paw prints and tail streaks from the blood they had been gorging themselves on, a thickening deep red pool that oozed out of the balding head that had been smashed open with a two-foot-long Stilson wrench.

The body was still in the swivel chair, the head and arms flopped forward on the desk. Apparently that single blow had taken him out so fast he hadn't moved a muscle afterward. The eyes were still open, half a dead cigar was in the corner of his mouth, extinguished by the blood that puddled around it.

Under the right arm were two bills from a Las Vegas hotel and a used airline ticket. I could see the name on one bill and the ticket. It was Richard Smiley.

I draped a tissue around the phone, dialed 0, and when the operator came on told her I couldn't see without my glasses and gave her Pat's office number. He had just gotten in and I was about to ruin his whole day for him.

'Yeah, Mike. Now what's happened at this time of day?'

'Somebody's polished off Smiley.'

'What?'

'I'm at the garage now.'

'Shit. You stay right there and damn it, don't touch anything.'

'Come off it, pal. All I've done was dial 0 on the phone.'

'You alone?'

'Totally. Whoever did this had time to get away. The blood is congealing enough to make him dead for at least an hour. Consider that an unofficial opinion.'

'You sure it's Smiley?'

'His papers indicate it.' Before he could ask I said, 'They were lying on the desk.'

'Okay,' he told me, 'hang in there. We'll be right down.'

I cradled the phone and looked around. I had probably five minutes before a squad car got there, and if there was anything to know I wanted it firsthand.

For a few seconds I studied the way the body was positioned, as if he had been doing something on the desk. The blow had come down at an angle, carefully placed and forcefully delivered. The killer had been in close, standing there until the right moment, then he came down with the weapon on Smiley's bald skull and demolished him with one terrible whack. The Stilson wrench was simply dropped beside the body and the killer walked out. He didn't even have to bring his own bludgeon. There were enough wrenches, crowbars and lengths of pipe in the office to handle the matter.

Whoever the killer was, Smiley had known him. Had a predawn meeting been set for a payoff? It sure looked that way. Smiley could have had the money in his hands, counting it, probably the way he had before. No reason to be apprehensive. It was a regular business deal and he was just making sure he got what was coming to him. And he got that, for sure. The killer simply retrieved the money and walked out into a lonely night that didn't even have street people to watch him go.

As professional kills go, it was a nice clean one. Just a big bang on the head and it was over. No fancy work, no revenge or bloody messages like the one in my office. Smiley still had all his fingers.

The first squad car got there in four minutes. I held up my ID for the two uniforms to see, but the driver recognized me and nodded. 'You call this in?'

'Yeah. The body's in the back office. I left everything clean. All I touched was the phone under a Kleenex and the light switch with my elbow.'

The officer took out his pad while the other one went inside. 'Let's get the paperwork done first.'

'Sure.' I gave him all the personal information he needed, detailed my entry, the discovery of the body and subsequent events. As I was finishing, two more squad cars pulled in with an unmarked sedan right behind them. Pat was at the wheel, his face tight and drawn, and when Candace Amory and her boss got out, I could see why.

Pat told them to stay right there until the investigation was completed inside, spotted me and came right over. 'Mike, what is this penchant you have for being around dead bodies? To hear the DA sound off you're a walking menace.'

'I didn't kill anybody. Not yet, anyway.'

'Given time, you will, you will. And that's from the mouth of our eminent district attorney. Now what happened?'

I gave it to him the same way I did to the first cop on the scene.

'And you came down here on a hunch?'

I shrugged.

'We had a surveillance unit on Smiley's house last night. He never went home.'

'If he came in on the red-eye he could have come right here.'

'Why?'

'Because he was one of those greedy bastards who wanted his money as fast as he could get it. The office was as good a place as any for a payoff and the time was right.'

The police photographers arrived and went inside. Pat looked at his watch and said, 'You stay put.'

'Where can I go?'

'Go talk to the wheels over there,' he said.

'Pat . . . how come the DA isn't giving you a hassle right now? He usually likes to be right underfoot.'

'I think the Iceberg Lady has a leash on him,' Pat said sourly.

No introductions were necessary. The district attorney and I had met before, and if ever there was an adversarial situation, it was the one between us. He had come up out of the ranks and was in his first term of office, and to him, people like me were legislative errors in licensing who had no business in police work. He was the type who disapproved of using informers or sting techniques or anything that might open a legal case to any type of defense.

I said, 'Hell of a way to start the day.'

'You seem to have a knack for this sort of thing,' he told me. 'Care to recite the details again?'

I said no and went through the routine.

He took it all in, filing away every detail mentally. 'You have a strange position here.'

'You'd better believe it, counselor. I'm a principal, a finder of bodies, an authorized investigator and if the reporters get here soon, source material for a good story.'

Another car drove up and parked in the middle of the street. The medical examiner got out and walked past me. With an amused smile he said, 'You again, eh?'

I nodded. 'Some people have all the luck.'

Candace was watching the exchange closely and waited until the ME had gone inside. 'I think we have things to talk about, Mr. Hammer.' She didn't use my first name this time.

'I'm sure we have.'

Pat called to the pair of them and waved them inside. He pushed his hat back and wiped his face with his hand. 'I guess you got the picture,' he said to me.