Black Alley

The phone rang. It was a thing that had been sitting there, black and quiet like a holstered gun, unlisted, unknown to anybody, used only for local outgoing calls, and when it was triggered it had the soft, muted sound of a silenced automatic. I picked up the receiver off the cradle and in as growling a voice as I could put on, said, "Yes?"

When I heard his first word I felt a chill work its way across my shoulders. He said; "Hi, Mike." His tone was as pleasant as could be.

I took another deep, easy breath. "Hi, Pat."

He paused a moment. "Somebody shot Marcos Dooley."

Softly, I muttered, "Damn."

Pat Chambers knew what I was thinking and let me take my time. Old buddy Marcos Dooley had brought Pat and me into the intelligent end of the military before the war ended and steered us to where we were today. Only Pat could still wear the uniform, an NYPD blue. I carried a New York State P.I. ticket and a permit to keep a concealed weapon on my person. Marcos Dooley had become a wild-ass bum, and now he was dead.

"What happened, Pat?"

"Somebody broke in and shot him in the guts."

"You know who?"

"Not yet. We may have a suspect."

"Anyone I know?"

"You shot his brother. Ugo Ponti."

I said something unintelligible. "How is he?"

"Dying. He wants to see you."

"I'll be there."

...

Pat had made the way easy for me. A plainclothesman I recognized met me at Bellevue Hospital and took me in.

I turned the knob, went in and closed the door behind me.

The place was a death room. It hung heavy in the air. Light came from the instrument panel behind the bed, the glow a pale orange yellow. You could smell death.

When my eyes adjusted I saw the mound under the sheet. Quietly, I walked over and stood beside the bed, looking down on something with a hole in it that let life leak out. His breathing was shallow but even, the pain of the wound buried under the weight of narcotics.

While I was trying to figure out a way to wake him he seemed to sense he was not alone, and with an effort his eyes opened, strayed vacantly, then centered on me. "You made it, huh?"

"Sure, for you, Dooley. Why didn't you ask for Pat?"

"He's not a snake like you are."

"Come on -" I started to say, but he cut me off with a shake of his head.

"Mike... you're a mean slob. You're... nasty. You do the damnedest things. Pat's not like you."

"He's a cop, Marcos."

"Uh-huh." He coughed lightly and his face twitched with pain. My eyes were almost fully adjusted to the gloom and I could see him clearly. The years hadn't been good to him at all and the final indignity of getting shot had drained him.

There was a clock ticking behind his eyes. I knew it and he knew it. Each tick took him closer to the end. He strained to see me again, finally found my eyes. "Mike... remember Don Angelo?"

I thought he was drifting back along memory lane. Don Angelo had been dead for 20 years. At the age of 90-something he had died in peace in his Brooklyn apartment, surrounded by his real family. His other family was a hundredfold larger, spread out over the East Coast domain the don called his own.

"Sure, Dooley. What about him?" His expression looked strained and there was shame in his eyes. There was a long pause before he said, "I worked for him, Mike."

It was hard to believe.

"Dooley," I asked him, "what kind of work would you do for the Mob? You were no gunhand. You never messed around in illegal business."

He held his hand up, and I stopped talking. "It was... a different... kind of business." My silent nod asked him a question and he answered it. "Do you know... what the yearly take... of the..." he groped for the words and said, "associated mobs... adds up to?"

"It's a pile of loot," I said.

"Mike," he said very solemnly, "you haven't got the slightest idea."

"What are you getting at, Dooley?" His chest rose under the sheet while he took several deep breaths, his eyes closing until whatever spasm it was had calmed down. When he looked up his mouth worked a bit.

"Mike, remember when the young guys tried to take over... the family business?"

"But they didn't make it, Dooley."

"No... not then." He sucked in another big lungful of air. "But it made the dons think."

"What are you getting to, Dooley?" Once again, he gave out a grunt, this time of satisfaction. "They... were all getting screwed... by their kids. The ones they put through college. The ones they... tapped to run the business... when they handed it over."

"The dons weren't that dumb," I interrupted.

"Computers," Dooley said.

"Computers!"

"They learned... how to use them... in college. They didn't want to wait. They wanted it now... and were getting it. Now shut up and don't talk until I'm finished."

"I don't like it when somebody tells me to shut up," I said with mock indignation. Then added, "But now I'm shut up."

"OK. Stay that way... and listen. All the old dons... never exploited their wealth. They might spend it, but they never looked like they had a dime. Lousy apartments, their wives did the cleaning and cooking. The kids... the bad ones... didn't know where the dons kept it." He was starting to breathe with an unnatural rhythm and I didn't like it, but there was no way to stop him now. "That was when... they got hold of me."

A little red light flashed on the panel behind his head. It stayed on about two seconds, then went off. Nobody came in, so I ignored it.

He said, "Nobody really knows... how they did it. Cash and valuables got moved by truck with different crews so that no one knew where it came from or where it was going. Except the last crew."

"What happened to them?"

"Like the old pirate days. Their skeletons are still there. When their job... was done... so were they." He rolled his eyes up to mine again. "Now stay shut up... OK?"

I gave him the nod again.

"All their heavy money... was in paper. They cashed in everything they had and turned it into dollars. They pulled out all their numbered accounts in Switzerland, the Bahamas, the Caymans. The cash flow was still coming in from gambling and drugs and all that... crap, you know?" I nodded again. "That's what fooled... the young bucks. The walking... walking-around money was there, but the capital had disappeared."

"When did they find out?"

"Maybe a year ago. The computers came up with it. At first they... they thought it was... like a mistake. When the machines said no way, then they... thought they were being ripped off. All those hotshots went nuts."

He made sense. There had been unrest in the upper echelons of the underworld fraternity a couple of years back.

Dooley said, "The dons were getting old by then. When they died off... it all... seemed natural. You know, strokes and heart attacks, falls down stairs."

"I remember that. There was a regular parade of those gaudy funerals."

I looked straight down at Dooley, and he read my thoughts perfectly.

"I was... working for Lorenzo Ponti, Mike. Ponti... was in charge. He moved faster than the kids... he kept ahead of everybody, that guy."

"Did he move right in when the others died?" I asked him.

"Hell, Mike, they didn't... just die. They were killed. All of them. Except Ponti. And when he goes there won't be any more dons... just the young phonies howling mad because their inheritance has disappeared. Poof! Just... like that." He tried to snap his fingers but didn't have the strength.

"Dooley, doesn't Lorenzo Ponti know where this hoard is?"

"He thinks he does."

"But somebody faked him out?"

"Me," Dooley told me. "I faked... him out. I changed the road signs... covered up paths... and I disguised everything."

Suddenly sheer, raw pain flashed across his face and his back arched under the covers. He was beginning to look down his own black alley now, and it was too fearful to believe.

"How much time, Mike?"

I said, "Any minute, kiddo. You're close. They probably think it's better if you just drift off alone. It won't hurt."

His smile was brief and there was a small glow of relief on his face. "Listen to me," he said. "What would you do... if you had... $89 billion?"

"Buy a new car," I told him.

"I said... $89 billion, Mike." Facetious words that started to come out stopped at my lips. His eyes were clear now and hard into mine.

Softly, I said, "Only a government has that kind of money, Dooley."

"That's right," he agreed. "It's a government all right. It's got citizens and taxes and soldiers and more money than anyone... can imagine."

When I scowled at him he knew I had gotten the message. He didn't want me to speak because he had more to say and no time to say it. "They left $89 billion, Mike. Billion, you know? I know where it is. They don't." Before I could speak I saw the spark begin to go out.

His voice was suddenly soft. It had the muted quality of great importance and I leaned forward to hear him better. He said, "You can... find out... where it is." His eyes never closed. They just quietly got dead.

...

I pushed open the office door and there was Velda behind her desk, chin propped in her hands, watching me. I said, "Am I supposed to say good afternoon or kiss you?"

She gave me an insolent moue and pointed at my private quarters. "The arresting officer is in there."

I went over and kissed the top of her head before I went in. Pat Chambers was comfortably folded into my nice, big office chair, his feet up on a half-opened desk drawer, drinking one of my cold Miller Lite beers like he owned the place.

"It's for the clients," I told him.

"Oh. You going to tell me how you did with Dooley?"

I pulled a chair away from the wall and sat down. "He died practically in my arms, Pat. Didn't he have anybody else?"

"You know Dooley. He was a loner. I wondered why he didn't call for me."

I let a few seconds pass, then said, "You really want to know?"

He set down the beer on my blotter and squinted at me. "Sure I do!" he said. "Hell, after all we went through together you'd think -"

"Dooley thought you were too soft."

"For what?"

"To do what has to be done," I said. I sat there and studied my friend. Pat Chambers, a captain in the homicide division. Smart, streetwise, college educated, superbly trained in the nuances of detection. Tough, but not killing tough. His conscience was still finely honed, and that's what Dooley had meant. There was no way I could tell him what Dooley had told me.

Pat picked up the beer can and emptied it in two swallows. There was nothing else in the wastebasket under the desk, so the can made a clanking sound when it hit bottom. "He wants you to nail the guy who shot him," he said flatly.

"Something like that," I replied.

"There's a lot of street talk over who wiped out Azi Ponti, Mike."

"I shot the punk. I took him out with one fat cap-and-ball.45."

"That's what I figured," Pat told me, "but if I were you, I'd keep it to myself."

"By the way," I said, "how big a bundle would a million bucks in hundreds make?"

He looked at me like I was kidding, but my eyes said I wasn't.

"A big carton full. Clothes-drier size."

"Then a billion would take a thousand cartons like that."

Pat was puzzled now. "Yeah, why?"

I chose a smaller number for easier figuring. "Then how big a place would you need to store 80,000 cartons?"

"How about a great big warehouse?"

"That's what I figured." I grinned at him and said, "What would you do with a bundle that big, Pat?"

"Buy a new car," he growled.

"That's what I thought," I said.

...

Downstairs, Pat and Velda and I caught a cab over to Richmond's funeral parlor and saw DOOLEY neatly lettered on a mahogany sign with an arrow pointing to the chapel on the left. The silence was dank. Like a fog.

I was expecting to find the place empty, but there must have been two dozen people there. Four of them were gathered around a chest-high display table that held a graciously curved urn.

I knew what that was. It was Marcos Dooley.

And the guy looking at me was wishing it was me instead. He was almost as tall as I was, and from the way his $600 suit fit you knew he worked out on all the Nautilus equipment and most likely jogged 50 miles a week. He had the good looks of a Sicilian dandy and the composure of a Harvard graduate, but under that high-priced facade he was a street punk named Ponti. The younger.

I walked over. We had never met, but we didn't need an introduction. I said, "Hello. Have you come to pay your respects?"

Under his coat his muscles tightened and his eyes measured me. He was like an animal, the young male in the prime of life who now wanted to challenge the old bull.

I played the old bull's part perfectly. I said, "You haven't answered my question."

His eyes flicked around. "Dooley worked for my father."

"I know that." I got a frown again, strangely concerned this time.

"And how do you know him?"

"We were in the Army together. So was that cop over there." Ugo didn't have to look. He knew who I meant. Pat was looking right at us. He got that twitch again and I knew the young buck had lost the confrontation. But there would be another time, and the young buck would get strong and the old bull would be aging out of the picture. He hoped.

At the display table, I got a close look at Dooley's encapsulation. It was a dull metal urn, modestly decorated at the top and bottom, with a plaque in the middle engraved with gold lettering.

His name, age and birthplace were at the top, then under it a brief history that gave his GI serial number in eight digits and a record of his service aboard the U.S. destroyer Latille. Nothing about his Army time at all. He had served in, and then ducked out of, the U.S. Navy.

The funeral director sidled up to me and asked, "Can I see you a moment, Mr. Hammer?"

I nodded and followed him to the far side of the room. He stood there, wondering how he should explain his situation. "When Mr. Dooley purchased our services, he asked that you see to his remains."

"Be glad to," I told him. "What did he want done with them?"

"He said he had a son named Marvin, and he wanted you to deliver his ashes in the urn to the boy."

"I never knew about a kid."

"Apparently he had one."

"Well," I said to him, "if that's what he wanted, that's what he gets. I sure owe him that much."

He looked at his watch. Half the crowd had signed the register and already left. The others would be out in a few minutes. "I'll box the urn for you and you can pick it up in my office."

As we waited, I said to Velda, "Tomorrow I want you to go down to the Veterans Administration and run down Dooley's service record." I scanned the serial numbers on the urn and wrote them down, then handed the slip to Velda.

"What am I looking for?"

"His kid. He's supposed to have a son. All that information would have been recorded when he signed up. If they want a reason for the query, tell them we're trying to find an inheritor."

The three of us left the parlor with Dooley in my arms, packed in a box.

...

The next day no new business had come in and I was ready to close up shop when Velda returned from the VA.

"What did Dooley tell you?" she asked me shrewdly.

"Eighty-nine billion dollars is stashed somewhere." It was the first time I had mentioned the numbers to her and she opened her mouth in disbelief.

"Mike... you said billion. Each billion is a thousand million."

"I think Dooley wanted to tell me where it is, but all he said was that he had changed the signs so nobody could find it."

"Why did he call you in, Mike?"

Now I grinned real big. "Because I'm not nobody."

"And what do you do with it after you find it?"

"Buy a new car. Hell, you can have some. New dress, shoes, things like that."

"Get serious," Velda told me.

"I am," I said. "Now, what about Dooley's history?"

The change of pace rattled her for a moment, then she stumbled over a page of her notebook. For a moment she frowned at it, and then her eyes drifted up to mine. "Those Navy serial numbers are wrong, Mike. They weren't his."

Before I could answer her she cut me off with a wave of her hand. "Oh, I found him, all right. I ran down the personnel on the destroyer Latille, and there he was. Then I got his proper ID. I had to mention a few names to get his son's name and address, but I knew you wouldn't mind." She ripped a page out of the notebook and handed it to me.

I looked at the address in New Brunswick, memorized it and tucked the paper under my desk blotter. "We still have a problem, kitten."

She waited for me to say it.

"What are those other numbers on the urn, then?"

"Maybe..." she searched for the name, "Marvin can tell you."

A little nerve tugged at my jaw. Nobody ever forgets his military serial number. Nobody. You don't forget where to wear your hat either. Or put on your socks.

...

Velda had charted the run to New Brunswick right on the nose. There were no wrong turns, no stopping to ask directions, just a straight, easy drive. When I stopped in front of the decrepit old building where Marvin Dooley lived, she said, "You like my navigation?"

I grinned. "Beautiful, kitten. I hope you can cook like that."

The place had a common vestibule that housed eight mailboxes, a single overhead bulb and the smell of multiracial cooking. The slots beneath the mailboxes held names, except for one, and since DOOLEY wasn't in any of the others, the blank one had to be Marvin's. I pushed the button and tried the door. It swung open with no trouble. Muted TV voices overlapped and somewhere a radio was tuned in to a rock station that thumped out a monotonous beat. Behind me, Velda closed the door.

To our left was a wooden staircase leading to the second level. A door creaked open, feet clicked across the floorboards and a male voice yelled down over the banister, "Yeah, whaddya want?"

"Marvin?"

There was a moment's hesitation before he answered, "Who wants him?"

But by then I was up the stairs and his head jerked around, not knowing whether to hold his ground or duck back into his room. "I'm Mike Hammer, Marvin. I was in the Army with your father."

"He's dead."

Just then Velda came up the stairs and took his breath away long enough for him to lose his antagonistic attitude. I said, "You mind inviting us inside?"

He glanced at me a few seconds, frowned, then stared at Velda long enough to change his mind and nod toward the door. I waited for him to go in first and followed him closely. Then I waved at Velda to come and close the door.

As I expected, it was a nothing place. One room with a cot that doubled as a sofa, a two-burner stove, small sink and a narrow, old-fashioned refrigerator that took up a corner. The kitchen table had two wooden chairs, and an old canvas beach chair was right in front of a fairly new TV that was on the floor. But he was clean. No dirty dishes, no dust accumulation, no pile of clothes. The only lingering smell was that of antiseptic soap.

He caught my thoughts and said, "I'm poor but neat, Mr. Hammer." His eyes shifted to Velda and he added, "No woman's here, lady. It's something I picked up in the Navy."

"The lady is my associate," I told him. "Her name is Velda."

No surprise showed in his expression. He nodded toward her and said, "The paper mentioned her. At the funeral."

"Why weren't you there, Marvin?"

He shrugged eloquently. "What good would that have done?"

"Marvin - how do you know? When was the last time you saw your father?"

"Before I went in the Navy. We hardly kept in touch. There were a couple of letters and a card that gave me his new address." Shrewdness seemed to touch his eyes and he looked directly at me. "What did the old man leave me, Mr. Hammer?"

"An urn full of ashes, kiddo. What did you expect?"

"Don't give me that crap, buster. You didn't come all the way down here to tell me that. He left you something and you need me to get it."

"I need you like a hole in the head," I said. I took out a notepad and wrote down a name and address, then handed it to him. "His ashes are in this repository. Do you want them?"

He studied me again, his teeth gnawing at his lips. "You said you were in the Army with my father?"

"That's right."

"How the hell did he get in the Army? Damn, that doesn't make sense. All the old man ever wanted was to get out on the ocean."

"He ever do that?"

"Not before he joined the Navy. All he ever did was run that old boat of his up and down the Hudson River."

That was something Dooley had never mentioned to us. "What kind of boat?" I asked him. "Where did he keep it?"

"A Woolsley, in a little marina a few miles north of Newburgh. Nothing much there now, but back in the old days there were about a dozen yachts docked."

Marvin rubbed his hands over his face, then ran his fingers through his hair. "Do you want anything else?" he asked.

"Would you give it to me if I did?"

"Depends."

I handed him one of my cards, some of which Velda had put in my pocket. "Just one thing, Marvin."

"Oh?"

"Your father was killed for a reason. Whoever did it might think he entrusted information to you and -"

"He didn't tell me nothing! He -"

"I know that, but there's a possibility that the quicker we get the killer the longer you'll have to live. Give it a thought, Marvin."

The traffic flow on the Jersey Turnpike was loose and fast, so we got back to the city early enough for me to drop Velda off at her apartment.

...

I was on my way to see Don Lorenzo Ponti, and the odds were going to be on his side. Ponti was getting old, but the game stayed the same. I got out my shoulder holster, slipped into it, put a clip of fresh ammo in the.45 and tucked it in the leather.

All I hoped was that the boneheads Ponti kept around him had good memories and better imaginations.

The local club was straight out of an old television movie, with building blocks of translucent glass to let in light on the main floor while keeping anybody from seeing in. The only thing different about the block was that graffiti artists had not touched a spray of paint to the woodwork.

I got out of the cab half a block away and let them see me walk up to the club. There were two hoods outside the door who came out of the same TV show as the building. For a few seconds it looked like they were going to move right in on me. Then one hood whispered something, and the other seemed puzzled and his face went blank.

I walked too fast for them to flank me, one on either side, and grinned at their consternation at suddenly being vulnerable if any shooting started. To make sure they stayed that way, I ran my fingers under the brim of my porkpie hat and knew they both had a good look at the butt end of the gun on my side.

You don't try to be nice to guys like this. I said, "Go tell your boss I want to talk with him."

"He ain't here," the fat one said.

"Want me to shoot the lock off?" I didn't make it sound like a joke.

The skinny one said, "You got a big mouth, mister."

"I got a big name too. It's Mike Hammer. Now shake your tail and do what your buddy told you to do."

"You're not coming in here wearing a rod, Hammer."

I didn't get to answer him. The dark figure leaning over the banister upstairs yelled down in his softly accented voice and said, "What's going on down there?"

Once again I beat the pair to the punch. "It's Mike Hammer," I called back. "If you don't want to talk with me, I'll beat it. If you want trouble I'll shoot the hell out of your guys here and the cops can mop up the mess."

I think the dialogue came out of that TV movie too.

"He's got a gun on him, Mr. Ponti," the skinny punk yelled.

"In his hand?"

"No. It's under his coat."

Ponti was like a cat. His curiosity was as tight as a stretched rubber band. He didn't even wait a second before he said, "He's always got a gun. Let him up, unless you want to shoot it out down there."

Ponti was a player, all right. When I got to the top of the stairs, he nodded for me to follow him, and he walked in front of me as if it were all one big tea party. He could have been showing off or he could have had men hidden, waiting for me to jump him. But there was no fear in his movements at all. He pushed open a door to an office but didn't go through. I made sure the door flattened against the wall so nobody was behind it, visually scanned the area, then stepped in and edged along the wall to a chair in front of Ponti's desk.

His expression suggested he appreciated my cautiousness. "Are you nervous, Mr. Hammer?"

"Just careful."

"You take big chances."

"Not really."

"Oh?"

"I could have blown those goons you have downstairs right out of their socks if they had tried to play guns."

"You could have lost."

For 30 seconds I stood there staring at him, then moved around the chair and sat down. "Go ahead and ask it," I said.

The don played his role magnificently. He pulled his padded leather desk chair back on its rollers, sat down easily and folded his hands in his lap. When he was ready his eyes met mine and he said, "Did you kill my son Azi, Mr. Hammer?"

There was no waiting time here either. "I shot him right in the head, Don Ponti. He was about to give me one in the face when I squeezed a.45 into his head. You're damn right I shot him, and if you have any more like him who want to try it, I'll do the same thing again."

I didn't know what to expect, certainly not the look of calm acceptance he wore. He seemed to be mentally reviewing the details of that night, and when all the pieces fit into the puzzle, he seemed oddly satisfied. "I do not blame you, Mr. Hammer," he told me quietly. "He's dead now and that is that. You want something from me, then say it."

"I want who killed Marcos Dooley."

"Dooley was a nice man," he said, the accent coming back.

"Yeah, I know."

"Then why did he die, Mr. Hammer?"

"Somebody thought he knew more than he should."

"What could he know?"

"He mentioned trouble in your organization, Don Ponti."

"There is no trouble. Everything has been legal for years."

"Screw the legalities. It's the distribution of wealth that causes a ruckus."

"Do you think I look like a rich man, Mr. Hammer?"

"Cut the crap, Don." I pushed out of the chair. "All I want is the guy who killed Dooley. This time it isn't just me. Captain Chambers is part of this package, and he's got the NYPD behind him. That's one big load of professionalism to buck up against."

"Somehow I think you have a person in mind," Ponti said.

I started toward the door, then turned and said, "I'd keep a close watch on your boy Ugo. He hasn't got the expertise we old-timers have."

Ponti nodded again, but a frown had creased his forehead and I knew his brain was doing mental gymnastics trying to figure out the hidden meaning to my words.

...

Willie the Actor was a skinny little guy with a strange, kidlike voice, a deep love for any kind of booze and no money at all. The job I held out for him was easy and meant a week in a bar if he could handle his money properly. It took a whole morning to get the scene staged, and when I was sure he had it, we got in a cab, went to a certain address and made a call from a cellular phone.

He didn't know who he was talking to, but he said his lines fast and clearly, sounding like a 12-year-old street kid half out of breath and real excited. He didn't even wait for the person on the other end to answer him. He said, "Ugo... Ugo... that you? You know that place where you guys meet? Some guy is watching it. I think he's gonna bust in there. You better get over here, Ugo." He stopped a moment and I could hear shouting in the phone. Then he said, "Gee, he's lookin' over this way. I gotta go."

When he hung up I handed him his pay, let him get out of sight around the corner and went back to the waiting cab. We didn't have to wait very long. Ugo Ponti came out of the garage under his house in a dark blue Buick and took off, screeching his wheels. My driver followed him without difficulty. In New York there are cabs all over the city and one looks just like another. Twice we rode right alongside him, and I got a good look at the glowering face of the prince of the local family.

We got to a part of Greenwich Village where new businesses have renovated dilapidated old areas. There was room at the curb for Ugo's car, so he parked and hopped out. I paid off the cabbie down the block and saw Ugo scan the street, enter a narrow alley between two buildings and disappear. The door was a heavy wooden leftover from a different century. I backed off and waited inside the lobby of a publishing firm until I saw Ugo step out, his face tight with anger. He looked around, shook his head and went back to his car, probably silently cursing the "kid" who passed on a bad tip to him, and drove off.

The lock was as easy as I expected, and I closed the door behind me, locking it again. A pile of empty cardboard boxes and assorted trash blocked the way, so I used my tools on the lock in the door to my left. Enough light came in from the old round window in the wall to let me see what I was doing, and in two minutes I was inside.

Here I could use the lights. The windows were completely blacked out so that whatever was done here was done in secret. The tables were plywood on sawhorses, soda boxes were used for chairs and cardboard cartons were the containers for all the paper that ran through the computers and copiers that lined the room. There was a fortune in electronics and exotic machinery.

There was nothing I could understand. Twice, I made a circuit of the room, poking into anything that might contain what I wanted. Nothing.

I was all set to leave when I heard the stairs outside creak. I flipped the lights off, then squeezed behind a four-drawer filing cabinet just before a key went into the lock and the door opened. The.357 came in first, with Ugo right behind it.

I was in a darkened corner and didn't move, so his eyes went past the cabinets. I stayed as immobile as I could. I could hear his footsteps, the impact as his shoe booted something aside. When he was right up to the cabinet he stopped dead. He saw the possible area, the only place in the room that could conceal a person, and he was about to earn his bones once more.

It was too bad he was right-handed. Had he shifted the.357 to his other hand and come around the corner, he would have nailed me. But he led with a stiffened right arm and before he knew what had happened I had twisted the rod out of his fingers, spun him around and held the muzzle of his own gun to the back of his neck. His breath was sucked in and he couldn't talk, but I could smell the fear that oozed out of him and knew when he wet his pants. I felt his body begin to twitch. Ugo Ponti was looking down his own black alley.

I said, "So, your inheritance is down the drain, kiddo. Even the computer whiz kids don't know where it went. No transactions, no deposits just a big nothing." I let my words sink in, let him measure the timbre of my voice. "But I'm going to find it, Ugo, baby."

I eased the gun away from Ugo's skin and let it run down his back, pressing against his spine. His mind was wondering if he'd feel the shot, not knowing whether or not to hope he'd die fast but realizing that if anything took out his spinal cord he was going to be strapped in a wheelchair for a long time. No parties, no broads, no booze, and just maybe somebody he'd kicked around might come up and plant a slug right in his face where he could see it coming.

Before he could faint on me I belted him in the head with his gun and let him drop. The blood from the gash above his temple made a puddle on the floor. I stuck Ugo's.357 in my belt. Pat could do a ballistics check and maybe get some brownie points if it had been used at a crime scene earlier.

Downstairs, Ugo's Buick was back at the curb, and I looked at the license plate. The first three numbers were 411.

...

On the other side of the George Washington Bridge, Velda and I headed for Route 9W, the scenic trip along the Hudson River. When we passed through Newburgh I pinpointed the marina where Marcos Dooley had kept his boat. The marina was still there, dilapidated and overgrown with weeds, but it had a pier and docking facilities for half a dozen boats. Two well-used sailboats were still in the slips.

A sign outside a small house read JAMES BLEDSOE, PROP. The porch was apparently the office, and the living quarters were behind it. I knocked and waited patiently until an old guy munching on an apple came hobbling out, his knobby knees sticking out of stained khaki shorts. "You don't look like boat people," he said.

"We're not." It didn't surprise him at all. He sat down on a box and laced his fingers behind his head. "You don't want to rent a boat, do you?"

"Not today."

"Didn't think so."

"Mr. Bledsoe, did you know Marcos Dooley?"

His eyes brightened and he took his hands down, leaning on his knees. "Sure did. We had a lot of good times together. Haven't seen him for a few years."

"He's dead, Mr. Bledsoe."

"Damn," he said, frowning. "What happened?"

"He was murdered, but that's kind of an old story now. I understand he had a boat here."

"It's still here," he said. "She's all dried out and needs a lot of work on her, but if you got a few months and some money, it can be done."

"I'd just like to see it."

"Pretty dirty out there."

"That's OK."

And he was right. The old barn held three antique boats with open seams, glass falling out of the frames and rust stains leaking from all the exposed metal parts. Chocks held Dooley's boat upright, streamers of cobwebs and layers of dust making it look like the Flying Dutchman. The hatch cover was off and candy wrappers were scattered around.

"Kids," Bledsoe explained. "They come in and play. I can't keep them out."

I pointed to a ladder that ran up the side. "Mind if I look around?"

"Be my guest."

The ladder was handmade but sturdy enough. I went up slowly, threw a leg over the rail and got on the deck, brushing the cobwebs out of my face. The kids had broken into the small cabin and pulled out anything that would come loose. Light fixtures had been smashed, and dried turds made a mess in the ceramic head. The wheel in the cabin was intact, but behind it were only holes where instruments had been screwed into the mahogany. Old Dooley would have turned green if he could see his boat now.

I shook my head in disgust and looked over the mahogany dashboard where the kids had scratched their names. I had almost turned away when I saw something. Not a scrawl or a scratch, but eight numbers carefully inscribed with an awl so they couldn't be rubbed out.

They were the same eight numbers as on Dooley's urn, his serial number. Damn, those weren't ID digits, they were latitude and longitude markers.

I climbed down, brushed myself off and told Bledsoe there wasn't much we could do but we'd let him know.

When we got to Albany I stopped at a survey outfit.

The guy was young and friendly, glad to see somebody from the Big Apple. When I showed him the numbers he looked up something in a book, then waved us to a wall map. "That wasn't hard," he said.

"You know the place?"

"Sure. Everybody does. There was an old bootlegger ran an operation out there during Prohibition. Not much left up there now. The big house rotted out a long time ago and some old caretaker lives in an outbuilding. Once in a while he cuts some choice slate out of there. You looking to buy the place?"

"It's possible."

Driving there wasn't that simple. After four wrong turns we found the narrow, single-lane dirt road that twisted and turned through the trees toward the rise of the Catskills that marked the area.

We went around a turn and there were no more trees, just a big, empty field on the edge of an overpowering mountainside with three old buildings nestling in the shadows. Small mounds of gray slag dotted the acreage, insolently decorated with purple thistles. The single roadway branched out in five different directions, all but one in total disrepair, so I stayed on the passable road. It brought us to a weather-worn building that had been patched and repatched but still looked livable. There was a brick chimney running up the side, and a shimmer of heat distortion against the clouds, so I knew someone was there.

Rather than take a chance on stirring some irritable old mountaineer waving a shotgun, I beeped the horn and waited. The screen door with paint so thick you couldn't see through it whipped open and the mountaineer was there, all right, old, but not at all irritable. "Y'all step down and come right in," he yelled. His voice was crackly but happy. "Saw you comin' a mile away and put on coffee."

Velda slid out and introduced herself. "You sure a looker," the old man said. "I'm just Slateman. Got a real name, but nobody calls me that." He took my hand too, shook it and squinted up at me.

"What we want to do is see the old bootleg operation."

"Better get your cameras then."

For a minute I felt stupid, but Velda winked at me and went back to the car. She came back with a small 35mm Minolta with a flash attachment. Slateman got an oversize flashlight with a strap that slung over one shoulder, and he led us through the house to the back door.

We followed a path to a ridge of bushes, then around them to where the ground soared up like an overturned teacup and melted into the mountain behind it. When Slateman pointed, we saw the cleft in the side of the hill. He pulled a rack of bushes aside and there was an opening a man on horseback could go through. "Used to have a big, wooden barn door here," Slateman explained. "Couldn't see it, of course. Always kept it covered with real growth. A truck could go in and out easy."

He led the way, flicking on his torch, and we stayed close behind. It was a great natural cave, cool and dry. The dirt under our feet was packed. The cave was so big that we could see only one wall to our left.

Velda's voice had a quaver to it. "Any bats?"

"No bats," Slateman reassured her. "Some caves have 'em, but this one don't. Can't figure it out."

We walked until we reached the perimeter of the space and followed the curve of the walls around it. Even after all these years you could tell what had been there. Old tools and the remains of a truck seat were like artifacts in an antique shop. At the back side we had to circle around a heap of boulders Slateman said had come down from the wall and overhead years ago. He flashed the light above us to make sure we were still safe. Velda kept popping pictures until she ran out of film, but by then we had completed the tour and were back at the entrance.

"Too bad Prohibition went out of style," I remarked.

Slateman chuckled, and Velda and I looked at each other. It was just a big, empty cave of dust and memories and a little old guy glad to have some city slickers visit him. Velda reloaded the camera and shot some footage around the property. We told Slateman so long, and started down the single-lane road.

...

We turned south on the main highway and stopped at the first diner we came to, went in and ordered up sausages and pancakes with plenty of real maple syrup and mugs of steaming coffee.

Halfway through the pancakes Velda said, "What did we miss, Mike?"

I shook my head in annoyance. "Dooley went through a lot of trouble to plant those numbers. He wanted me to find them and locate the spot. OK, I did both."

Velda sat there pensively a minute or so, idly tapping her teeth with a thumbnail. "Mike... Don Ponti is a pretty hotheaded guy, isn't he?"

"Yeah, when he was young."

"Then how come he's lying low? How come he hasn't sent anybody out to put a hit on you? You challenged Ugo, he knows your connection with Dooley - yet he lets you alone."

"Damn, Velda, you talk just like a street cop."

"I carry a gun, too. Now tell me, Mike."

"He's waiting to see how far I get." When we got back to the thruway, I pulled into the left lane and turned onto the ramp heading north. Velda's head jerked around, surprised. "Where are you going, Mike?"

"Back to Slateman's place."

Velda said, "What's the matter?"

"Remember Slateman telling us he spotted the car a mile away?"

"So?"

"The bootlegger probably cut a seethrough opening in the trees."

"What difference does that make?"

"I don't like gimmicks, kitten."

We hadn't gone an eighth of a mile when she held out her hand and said, "Stop!" I hit the brakes quickly, then, with the engine running, got out of the car and walked around the front of it. Velda had spotted it just in time. Running straight as an arrow up the side of the mountain was a path through the tree line. The brush had grown headhigh, but the line of sight was perfect. Anybody up there could spot movement on the road below. A car driving past would never notice that strip of emptiness, and a beautiful ambush would be waiting for him above unless he had a prearranged signal set up.

Very slowly I drove past the opening. It would be movement that attracted the eyes, and at my pace nobody was going to notice. We passed the wreckage of an old chain-drive Mack truck, carefully followed the ruts in the road and finally came out on the edge of the estate.

We got to the door of Slateman's house and stopped. Nothing happened. The only sounds were those of the wind whistling through the trees. Over to the west was a rumble of faraway thunder.

I got out of the car and made Velda walk behind me. There was something left in the old wood and fieldstone that seemed to radiate trouble.

The door was latched, the fire was out and the place was deserted. There were no dirty dishes, the garbage can was empty and everything seemed to be in place. There was just a feeling of aloneness that shouldn't have been there.

Velda had taken it in too. She said, "He must have gone to town, Mike. He didn't leave the stove going."

"That's a long walk, kid. Come on, let's go see the cave."

Slateman had left his heavy-duty torch on the table. I took it and gave Velda the one out of the car.

Finding the entrance was easy this time. Velda balked a moment until I said, "No bats, remember?"

She took a deep breath and walked in behind me. We followed the wall, stepping over the junk on the floor, kicking away things that made small tinkling sounds and avoiding the broken remnants of whiskey bottles that had been sampled, drained and dropped by workers getting a few perks for their labors.

Three quarters of the way around we came to the place I had wanted to see again. It was the rubble from the roof that had come crashing down many years ago and had been pushed out of the way against the back wall. I ran the light up at the ceiling and saw some scars in the stone, then lowered it to cover the angled pile to my left. Dirt and dust were thick on everything. I reached down, picked up a handful and let it sift through my fingers.

Odd, I thought. The dust wasn't dusty. It had an abrasiveness like fine sand. Velda's light hit me right in the eyes.

When she realized it was blinding me, she turned it down to the ground and said, "What are you looking for, Mike?"

I was just about to answer her when another voice said, "Yeah, Mike, tell her what you're looking for."

There was the faintest metallic click and I knew the hammer had gone back on a gun.

Velda sucked in her breath with an audible gasp.

The voice was young and hard, the kind that had death right behind it and wouldn't wait long at all to spring into a killing frenzy.

I said, "It's about time you got here, Ugo."

My tone slowed him down an instant. Ugo Ponti wasn't a fast thinker.

"And why do you suppose that, Hammer?"

"You were chasing us."

"Sure I was. I'm not so dumb."

My legs were starting to cramp up, but I had to keep him talking. "And now you're in a big, empty cave, Ugo."

"Yeah, but I got you and your woman here and you know where the stuff is."

"You don't see it, do you? What makes you think I can get to it?"

"Don't give me that crap, Hammer. Your buddy Dooley told you."

Velda's light was still pointing at the floor. Both of us were in the glow of our own torches and Ugo was in total darkness. Any movement either one of us made would lay us out. There was no telling by that click whether he had a small arm or a shotgun, but if it was a shotgun he could get us both with the first blast.

Without asking, I uncrouched from the floor very slowly, my mind racing, trying to line up the best odds.

Ugo said, "That's right, Mike. Nice and easy. Now, once more, what were you looking for?"

Now if Velda would only get the drift of my thoughts. It had to happen all at once and happen right or we were both dead. There was no way I could flash a sign to her, so she had to work on reflexes and that state of mind that exists between partners who have been together so long they can act in total unison.

I said, "I'm not looking, Ugo. I already found it."

And as I kicked off the torch on the ground, she flipped her switch and we both hit the dirt. Ugo pumped four shotgun rounds in our direction before he knew he hadn't hit either of us. But by then I had my.45 out, the safety off and the hammer back, and I aimed right where I had last seen the muzzle flash and let the deafening roar of the old Colt automatic thunder in the cave. The single bullet smashed into something that clattered but didn't kill, and when I flashed the torch light on, it caught Ugo scrabbling in the dirt for the mangled shotgun my slug had smashed into useless junk. When he saw what it was like, he let out a wild scream and raised the shotgun like a shield. I triggered the.45 again and the slug smashed into the metal breach of his weapon, which crashed into his chin. He went down with his eyes bugging out and his breathing hoarse with pain.

I walked up to the slob and let the torch wash him over. Blood ran from the cut on his chin, and his body made a few involuntary jerks before realization came into his eyes. He didn't know what was coming next, but the hatred that oozed from his pupils was filled with a violent venom that nothing could diminish. His eyes finally dropped to the gun in my hand, and when I started to raise it, his lips drew back with the fierceness of his crazy desire to kill me one way or another while knowing that once I had him looking down that.45, it would be the last thing he would see.

...

The dogs found Slateman. His body had been dumped in an old stone-lined cistern not far from the main house. The weathered wooden cover had been dragged back over the hole and loose dirt and rocks had been piled on top of it. There was a huge contusion on the side of his head and blood matted his hair. His body was hung up on an old oil drum that floated down there too.

It was a good, safe place to hide a body if nobody was going to look for it. And it would be much better if the body were dead.

Slateman hadn't reached that point. The club that Ugo had laid on him had almost but not quite killed him. There was hairline fracturing of his skull, but the prognosis was good. He could still live out his years.

There wouldn't be much use for a commercial outfit to go in and demolish the old buildings. The power of big government went to work and ripped everything apart looking for clues to those billions of dollars. Any standing structure was flattened, every rock pried loose and inspected, the grounds were raked clean and gone over with metal detectors, and for all that work, all they got was a trash pile of rusted cans, old chains from Mack trucks and debris.

A fortune was spent looking for a fortune they didn't find.

But did they ever try. A nice word, try. It meant they failed. I hadn't.

The End