The Killing Man

But the grain patterns were not identical. Close, but not identical.

There was a famous knot in a rope that nobody could untie until the rough boy took his sword and slashed right through it and that ended that deal.

I picked up the hammer, turned the box over and smashed it into the bottom. I didn't bother to look at how delicately or how cleverly the panel was built into the box . . . I just pulled out the envelope, and three oversize one-hundred-dollar bills from the turn of the century, still redeemable in gold. I handed the bills to Pat and the envelope to Candace.

Pat's face had no expression to it at all. We looked at Candace as she opened the envelope and took out two typed sheets of paper. She glanced at it quickly, her eyes widening abruptly. Then she turned the pages around for us to see.

'It's in code. The whole thing's in code.'

I said, 'Pat . . . ?'

There was no hesitation. 'Let's get Ray Wilson. He can set up the computers and have a go at it.'

'Decoding isn't that easy,' Candace said.

'Ray can get a few hours in on it before we even get it to the experts in Washington. Send them a copy anyway, but Ray gets first crack at it.' He reached for the phone and started to run down Wilson.

'Mike . . .'

'Yeah?'

'You think this is it?'

'What else can it be?'

'If we can locate this cache . . .'

'Don't go getting your hopes up, baby. All you'll get will be the coke. There won't be any line to the buyers or the sellers by now. What you're getting is like digging up a live blockbuster bomb left over from World War II. All it's good for is destruction. You take the potential destructive value away, then everything goes back to square one. The status stays quo. There's no use for the previous owners waiting for the stuff to show up or go on searching for it. It's over.'

'But we haven't found it yet,' she said.

I could feel my stomach tighten up and I said, 'Damn it to hell!'

Pat waved me to stop, but I ignored him and got out of there as fast as I could.

11

Now the rain was making itself felt. It wasn't a clean rain you could shake loose, but a clinging wetness that smelled of concrete and asphalt. This kind of rain hid things you wanted to know and touched all your nerves with an irritating kind of anxiety.

A Yellow Cab with a lady driver pulled over and I got in, giving her the hospital address. Her eyes bounced up to the rearview mirror. 'You want emergency?'

'Right.'

'You got it, mister.' She hauled out into traffic and got heavy on the gas pedal. She made the first light, got right in the sequence and traveled with the green all the way to the turn. She went through a red signal, cut off a truck and went up the ramp as neatly as any ambulance. I handed her a ten-spot and didn't ask for change.

Sickness and injury never stop in the big city. It was a real bloody night in the emergency room, spatters of red on the walls, trails stringing along the floors, smeared where feet had skidded in its sticky viscosity. The walking wounded were crowded by stretchers and wheelchairs and my shortcut to Velda's floor was blocked.

Rather than try to bust on through I ran down the corridor and followed the arrows to the front elevators. I passed a dozen people, doctors and nurses, but running was common in a hospital and nobody questioned me. It was long after visitors' hours and if you were there at this time, you were authorized to be there.

There were three elevators in the bank and all of them were on the upper floors. I wasn't about to wait, found the stairwell and went up them two at a time. I stopped on the third-floor landing, my breath raw in my lungs. I made myself breathe easily and in thirty seconds a degree of normalcy came back. Wasting myself in a wild run up the stairs wouldn't leave anything left, and that I couldn't take a chance on.

When I reached her floor I pushed through the steel fire door into the corridor and the wave of quiet was a soft kiss of relief. The nurse's desk was to my left, the white tip of the attendant's hat bobbing behind the counter. Someplace a phone rang and was answered. Halfway down the hall a uniformed officer was standing beside a chair, his back against the wall, reading a paper.

The nurse didn't look up, so I went by her. Two of the rooms I passed had their doors open and in the half-lit room I could see forms of the patients, deep in sleep. The next two doors were closed and so was Velda's.

Until I was ten feet away the cop didn't give me a tumble, then he turned and scowled at me. This was a new one on the night shift and he pulled back his sleeve and gave a deliberate look at his wristwatch as if to remind me of the time.

There was no sense making waves when there was no water. I said, 'Everything okay?'

For a second the question seemed to confuse him. Then he nodded. 'Sure,' he replied. 'Of course.'

All I could do was nod back, like it was stupid of me to ask, and I let him go back to leaning against the wall, his feet crossed comfortably. At the desk I edged around the side until the nurse glanced up. She recognized me and smiled. 'Mr. Hammer, good evening.'

'How's my doll doing?'

'Just fine, Mr. Hammer. Dr. Reedey was in twice today. Her bandages have been changed and one of the nurses has even helped her with cosmetics.'

'Is she moving around?'

'Oh, no. The doctor wants her to have complete bed rest for now. It will be several days before she'll be active at all.' She stopped, suddenly realizing the time herself. 'Aren't you here a little late?'

'I hope not.' Something was bothering me. Something was grating at me and I didn't know what it was. 'Nothing out of order on the floor?'

She seemed surprised. 'No, everything is quite calm, fortunately.'

A small timer on her desk pinged and she looked at her watch. 'I'll be back in a few minutes, Mr. Hammer . . .'

Now I knew what the matter was. That cop had looked at his watch too and his was a Rolex Oyster, a big fat expensive watch street cops don't wear on duty. But the real kicker was his shoes. They were regulation black, but they were wing tips. The son of a bitch was a phony, but his rod would be for real and whatever was going down would be just as real.

I said, 'How long has that cop been on her door?'

'Oh . . . he came in about fifteen minutes ago.'

It was two hours too soon for a shift change.

'Did you see the other one check out?'

'Well, no, but he could have gone . . .'

'They always take these elevators down, don't they?'

She nodded, consternation showing in her eyes. She got the picture all at once and asked calmly, 'What shall I do?'

'This a scheduled call you make?'

'I have a patient who needs his medication.'

'Where are the other nurses?'

'Madge is on her coffee break. I hold down the fort while she goes.'

'All right, you go take care of the patient and stay there. What room is he in?'

'The last one down on the right.'

'I'll call when I want you. Give me the phone and you beat it. Don't look back. Do things the way you always do.'

She patted her hair in place, went around the counter and stepped on down the hall. She didn't look back. I pulled her call sheet over where I could see it and dialed hospital security. The phone rang eight times and nobody answered. I dialed the operator and she tried. Finally she said, 'I'll put their code on, sir. The guards must be making their rounds.'

Or they're laid out on their backs someplace.