Murder Never Knocks

Chapter Three

A cold front was sticking its tongue out at New York, tasting the edges of it, and — not liking what it found — spitting it back in a short, chilly blast. The rush-hour crowd made shoulder-brushing two-lane traffic on the sidewalks, and the usual batch of arm-wavers were jostling each other in the streets trying to flag down cabs at the worst possible time.

I said the hell with it and crossed Sixth Avenue with the light and headed east back to my apartment, playing city safari until I got past Park Avenue. Manhattan was quite a jungle and not that different from the one in Africa. Every time one faction got out of hand and threatened to destroy the terrain, the game wardens moved in, rounded them up, and moved them to someone else’s domain. In Africa it was various species of animals. In New York it was just one lousy species — people — though with its various sub-species. For instance, now that the cops had confined the whores to the side streets, the girls were waving at you out of the windows, like Amsterdam but without the sexy mood lighting.

When I reached Lexington, I turned north to pick up an evening paper at Billy Batson’s newsstand. Billy is one of the world’s larger little people — he was the tallest of the Singer Midgets, making him easy to spot in The Wizard of Oz — and twenty years ago or so, he’d invested ten years of decent show biz money into a newsstand at a prime spot. His real last name I never knew, but since his stand had always sported the best array of funny books on any Manhattan street corner, he got tagged with the name of Captain Marvel’s alter ego, newsboy Billy Batson.

Now Captain Marvel was gone, sued out of existence by the Superman crowd, while Billy Batson was still here, and so was a colorful display of comic books dominated by newcomers like Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four. Billy was a sharp, streetwise character in a plaid golf cap, a padded quilt jacket, black flannel trousers, and Keds. He spotted me when I first turned the corner and had my paper ready.

“How you hangin’, Mike?”

“By the thumbs, like the guys on the radio say. How about you, Billy?”

He tossed a hand. “Don’t do no good complainin’. Hey, man, that was some lousy picture of you in the News this morning.”

“What can I say? My make-up man had the day off.”

He grunted a laugh, made some change for a customer and turned back to me. “That story stunk worse than the pic. A load of crap, if my sniffer’s still workin’ right.”

“One man’s load of crap is another’s official police version.”

“Come off it, Mike. Who they tryin’ to kid? A hold-up guy in your office building? If they said he was a sex pervert and going after Velda, I mighta gone for it. But busting into a private cop’s office, for money he wouldn’t keep there, even if he had any? Weak, man, real weak.”

“Don’t look to get original fiction out of homicide cops, Billy. They’re not trained that way, and they got limited imaginations.”

He worked the fig leaf of his coin changer for another customer. “So lay the real spiel on me, man. I ain’t the general public.”

“Simple,” I said. “The guy tried to tap me out.”

“Somebody with a grudge?”

“Somebody paid a wad of dough to have the deed done.”

Billy gave me an incredulous look that ended in a laugh. “A hitman... for Mike Hammer?”

“Why not?”

“Well, hell’s bells, Mike... it’s like tryin’ to assassinate the Abominable Snowman.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

“Yeah, well, look what it got the guy. Anyway, that this-gun-for-hire stuff comes high. What did you ever do to deserve that kind of fancy treatment?”

“I wish I knew.”

He eyed me suspiciously. “You ain’t been messin’ around with some other guy’s broad, have you?”

Little Billy had a big yen for Velda, and me cheating on her would just about make a hit justifiable in his mind.

“Nobody’s broad but my own,” I assured him.

“Big beautiful Velda.”

“Big beautiful Velda.”

He made change again for a customer buying two papers, something he could do in his sleep. “Maybe you’re steppin’ on the wrong toes. Mob guys, maybe. I remember when you was pretty good at that.”

“I haven’t rated more than a frown from that bunch or anybody else for a good three years. Those headlines this morning were the first in a long damn time. You know that, Billy.”

His wrinkled puss wrinkled some more. “Then your past is catching up to you, my friend. Maybe somebody you goosed once upon a time finally got enough loot together to get you splashed but good.”

“Yeah? At this rate they’ll run out of money fast.”

Billy shrugged and grunted another laugh, a humorless one. “One killing does not necessarily a bankruptcy make, old buddy.”

“Sounds like you’ve been reading again,” I said. “Stick to the funny books.”

He ignored that, sold another paper, then said, “If you rated a contract, they’ll try again, you know.”

“Should make for an interesting autumn,” I told him. “How are you doing with that identification? Getting anywhere?”

Just shy of a month ago, a hit-and-run driver had killed a customer strolling away from this newsstand. Billy was the only witness who got a good look at the driver.

Billy shrugged, shaking his head, unconcerned. “My eyes are shot from goin’ through mug books lookin’ at ugly faces. Twice last week they took me downtown for a line-up, but it didn’t do no good. The guy I saw wasn’t one of those slobs. I keep tellin’ ’em. He was class, I could see that easy.”

“Too bad nobody got the license plate. That the victim was a regular of yours makes it personal, I bet.”

“Oh yeah, and it’s a damn shame. Dick Blazen. Did you know him, Mike?”

“Naw. Papers said he was some kind of freelance PR guy.”

Billy nodded. “Been around forever. Retired last year. Then retired into that gutter over there and after that a box in the ground. How I would love to help nail the bastard who made road refuse outa that sweet old bird.”

I lifted a shoulder and put it back down. “The cops do all right on that kind of thing. They’ll come up with the right guy for you to ID yet.”

“Hope so.” He passed out a couple more papers, taking correct change, then asked, “What’s up for tonight? Got a hot date with that doll of yours?”

I shrugged. “Not exactly a date. Velda and I are going to put our heads together over dinner. See if we can come up with somebody who doesn’t love me.”

“That’ll be swell for your appetites.” He pointed a stubby finger at me. “You just keep that chick out of the line of fire, Mike. Hear me?”

I stuck my paper under my arm and winked. “I try, kid, I try. But she’s damn near as trigger-happy as I am.”

That got a smile out of the crinkly face, and he waved as I walked off.

When I finished getting dressed, I popped open a cold can of beer and pulled the duplicate hot file out of the closet’s top shelf, stuck behind hats and gloves and scarves.

It was something an old cop had started me doing a long time ago, keeping track of anyone and anything that might want to come back on me, and to do so in duplicate — a set for the office, another at home. The little metal file held my history in the P.I. racket, and a blood-drenched history it was.

Sending me to the boneyard had been tried before and never worked, because each time had been a personal effort and I had been a little smarter and a lot faster and death cures any further trying.

But this time a third party had been involved. A professional killer. That made it a different kind of game, a big all-star game and the other side had the advantage of invisibility, and nobody would be calling foul.

Twice, I went through the card file, going back a full five years; but the only ones who could have had a grudge big enough to kill me over had been dead a long time, or were serving life sentences with no parole. Finally I yanked out two of the cards, copied the information down on my notepad, then slipped the cards back in place. There was always the possibility of a late blooming vendetta, and if one had blossomed, it might well have come from the family or friends of the pair I had selected. It wouldn’t take long to check out.

Before I left I reloaded the .45 with high velocity hollow points and slid it into the shoulder harness. It made one hell of a mean weapon, but if anybody was going to come up against me, I wanted all the odds I could get going my way. Just being tipped by one of those slugs could spin a damn horse around, and a full center shot would make a pretty disgusting picture.

Like the one friend Woodcock left behind him on my office wall.

I caught myself in the mirror just before I left. Other than my morning shave, looking at my reflection was something I didn’t do much any more, because I didn’t like what was there. I’d always been ugly but now I was getting older, and it didn’t help. You start counting all the times you’ve been to the well and know that it had to stop sometime. Time has a way of slowing you down, and making you careless, and when you look at your own face, knowing what it has seen, you wonder how you even have the ability to smile at all any more.

Then I remembered Woodcock in my office and the mechanics of every calculated, seemingly casual move I had made to finally put him down, and let a cold grin split my lips, because expertise and a high survival factor still had the edge on time.

I jammed on my hat, climbed inside my trench-style raincoat and let myself out the door, my hand tucked inside my coat and suit jacket like I was doing a Napoleon routine. The hallway was empty.

The elevator took me down to the basement and I went out the back door and picked up a cab on the street behind the building. It had been a long time since I had to pull any of this garbage, but it had been a long time since anybody had tried to rub me out, too.

The archaic sound of that made me remember just how long I had been around and that such things had been going on around me.

Somehow, I didn’t get the charge out of it that I used to. But I would need to get my head in the game or have it get blown the hell off.

At the venerable Blue Ribbon Restaurant on West Forty-fourth, Velda and I sat in the bar at our usual corner table in a niche overseen by celebrity photos, a good number of whom seemed to be eavesdropping. I’d had the knockwurst plate, Velda a big shrimp salad, and now she was having a Manhattan while I took care of a Four Roses and ginger. She seemed so very businesslike in her gray tailored suit, yet still made every other female in the place look sick.

We’d skipped the business talk during the meal, but now I handed her the two slips of paper with the hot-file leads.

“I’ll look into them,” she said, giving the notes a quick advance scan before slipping them into her purse.

I frowned at her little black leather shoulder-strap number. “Are you packing the .32?”

The big brown eyes met my concerned stare coolly. “What do you think? If the next guy that tries for you isn’t a sharp shooter, I could take the slug. If you’ll excuse me sounding so sentimental.”

I didn’t like having her in this at all, but I knew better than suggesting she get out.

“We’ve had it quiet for a few years,” I said. “The mob guys are mostly new faces, and some of them are grateful to me for getting rid of their old bosses and giving them a path to the good life.”

She was nodding. “I agree. Everybody’s first thought is that the list of those who want rid of Mike Hammer has to be a long one. But between the dead and the incarcerated, you don’t have that many enemies walking around at the moment.”

“Those two leads I gave you are family members who just might be rough enough to go for the revenge angle. Listen, besides the one in your purse, how about re-upping the old blade in the thigh-sheath gimmick?”

“And ruin my fashionable lines? Not on your life. If you’ll excuse the expression.”

I sipped my drink. I knew this was a hopeless fight.

I said, “You have a chance to look into our prospective client?”

“Leif Borensen? No. But I did better than that.” She looked past me with a smile, and pointed a red-nailed finger. “I arranged for somebody in the know to drop by after dinner.”

I glanced at the approaching figure, just another nobody at a glance, a man of average size in glasses and business suit, his face graced by a receding crew cut, but in reality one of America’s most popular, powerful syndicated columnists.

Then I was on my feet grinning and we were shaking hands, Hy Gardner and me.

“What brings you back to town?” I demanded cheerfully. “Seems like you just left.”

He shrugged and took a chair between us. “Just because the Trib is dead doesn’t mean my column isn’t alive and well. A couple of Broadway musicals are opening this week, and I’m here to cover them.”

“Where’s Marilyn?” Velda asked.

Marilyn had been Hy’s secretary till they married a decade or so ago.

“She’s too smart to head north this time of year,” Hy said. “I forgot how damn gray this city is! Marilyn’s back in Florida where the sun is shining and the water is blue.”

Unbidden, head bartender George arrived to bring Hy a bourbon on the rocks. The two old friends exchanged a smile that said more than words, and George vanished.

Velda explained to me, “Hy called this afternoon, to tell you he was in town, and I did what you would have done.”

I grinned. “Gave him a job.” My eyes met the sly, sleepy ones behind the glasses. “So what can you tell me about Leif Borensen?”

He gave me the kind of casual shrug that always preceded his most elaborate briefings. “He’s a big, blond, good-looking guy, kind of a Forrest Tucker or Sonny Tufts type. Gals love him and the feeling’s mutual. There are no smudges on his personal behavior. He was drafted during the Korean War, put his time in and was given an honorable discharge. Started out as an actor here in town. Came to the Apple from the Midwest and started landing secondary roles in plays and early TV. He even made it into my column a couple of times.”

“Anything notable?”

Hy shook his head. “Played a corpse on Climax who got to his feet too soon and walked out of frame. That got him some attention. The wrong kind, maybe... but at least I spelled his name right.”

“So this was, what? Twenty years ago?”

“Around then. There wasn’t a lot of call for walking corpses on TV, and his looks didn’t make up for a stilted delivery. He was landing stage parts based on his strong jaw and muscular physique, but he was strictly straight and lost his appeal with certain casting directors.”

“So the show business background explains why he headed to Hollywood.”

Hy nodded. “But he wasn’t getting cast out there much, either. Second cop from the left, third Indian from the right. He was barely scrounging out an existence when a rich aunt died and left him some dough and he started taking fliers in real estate. There were still bargains to be had in those days, and he did well. A production company he acquired as an offshoot of one land deal or another turned him into a producer, and for fifteen years, give or take, he’s been churning out drive-in fodder and doing well at it. You know, The Monster That Ate Cleveland, I Was a Teenage Zombie. Also some of those half-hour syndicated jobs that come on in the non-network slots before the news and after the Tonight Show. Private eye junk, mostly.”

Velda smiled at that.

I said, “And now he’s back in the big town.”

Hy sipped bourbon and nodded again. “I hear he’s got the bug to be a real producer. The real Broadway deal. His fiancée, Gwen Foster... have you heard of her?”

“No,” I said.

Velda touched my sleeve. “Sure you have, Mike. She had one of the leads in that Dames at Sea revival we saw last year.”

“Too many dames to keep track of in that,” I said with a shrug. “Is she any good, Hy?”

“Very good. Beautiful singing voice, nice comedic touch, and a real stunner. She could go far. She has the genes for it.”

At first I thought he said “jeans,” but then I got the drift. I snapped my fingers. “Martin Foster. Her father?”

The late Foster had been one of the city’s most successful theatrical producers, right in there with David Merrick.

Hy nodded. “But it’s not a nepotism situation. She’s really got it. And her daddy didn’t produce that revival you saw, either.”

“Still,” I said, skeptical. “Connections.”

“No, Mike,” Velda said. “She’s good. Very good.”

“She may be rushing into this marriage,” Hy said, eyebrows climbing over his glasses.

I frowned. “How so?”

He asked Velda if she minded if he smoked a cigar; she said she didn’t, and he withdrew one of his typical Havana pool cues from an inside pocket like a passport.

“Starting maybe four months ago,” Hy said, getting the cigar going, waving out a match, “Borensen and Gwen’s father were exploring mounting a new production, a musical version of an old Maxwell Anderson play, The Star Wagon. They were courting Johnny Mercer and had him within an inch of a contract. Then, two months ago... and you may remember this from the papers, Mike... Foster shot himself at his Long Island summer home.”

“Anything suspicious about it?”

Hy grinned and Velda smirked; they exchanged eye rolls.

“What?” I said.

“It’s just that you’re so predictable, man,” Hy said, and he finished off his bourbon. George was there with another before Hy had set it down.

Velda said, “Mike, the autopsy said Foster was in an advanced stage of lung cancer. He was a who-knows-how-many-packs-a-day smoker. Maybe you should think about that.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” I said, and got out my Luckies and fired one up. But it only made her smile and shake her head a little.

“When did you take those up again?” Hy asked.

“I needed something to soothe my jangly nerves,” I said. “So Borensen and Gwen got to know each other when he and her father were doing business, probably just a friendly, flirtatious bit that turned into something.”

“It turned into something, all right,” Hy said. “An upcoming wedding. And Martin Foster was a very rich, successful guy, Mike. That bridal shower they want you for will be star-studded and diamond-studded, too.”

“What’s the inside word on Borensen?”

Hy shrugged again. “They say he’s tight with a buck and knows just how to squeeze a nickel. His pictures have made money because he doesn’t spend much on them. He racked up his fortune giving talented young guys a break and seasoned old pros much needed work. His TV shows, you’ve seen ’em, always star washed-up Hollywood guys, with just enough name value left to lend Borensen’s productions some credibility.”

I grunted a laugh. “That just says he’s a good businessman. What about personally?”

“He seems well-liked, as far as that goes. He keeps a low profile. Despite his acting background, he’s never given himself a role. His kind of producing hasn’t got him much attention anywhere but the Hollywood trades, and maybe those monster magazines the kids read.”

“You smell an opportunist, Hy? Is he gold-digging that girl?”

The columnist’s smile was small but hugely cynical. “Look, Mike, Gwen Foster’s rich and beautiful and talented. What’s not to love? But Borensen’s already got plenty of dough. On his own terms, he’s a hell of a success. What he doesn’t have is that glow of show business royalty that the Foster name can bring him.”

I blew smoke skyward. “So where is this headed? Maybe he produces a successful Broadway musical with his talented bride, sells the movie rights to a big Hollywood studio, and finagles a producer spot for himself. And suddenly he’s climbing.”

“It’s the American way, Mike,” Hy said with a grin.

I shook my head. “If only I could find a rich, talented, beautiful woman.”

Velda kicked me under the table.

“Well,” I said, wincing just a little, “it all sounds vaguely sleazy to me, but we can use the bread. Velda, first thing tomorrow, set up a meeting for me with our esteemed social-climbing producer. I think we’ll let him produce a thousand dollars for Hammer Investigations.”