My Gun Is Quick

Chapter Eleven

It was the sound of coffee bubbling and the smell of bacon and eggs sizzling in a pan that awakened me. I yawned, stretched and came alive as Lola walked in. She was just as lovely in the morning as she had been last night. She crooked her finger at me. "Breakfast is served, my lord."

As soon as she went back to the kitchen I climbed into my clothes and followed. Over the table she told me that she had already called and told her boss that she was sick and was ordered to take the day off. Several, if she needed them. "You're in solid, I guess."

She wrinkled her nose at me. "They're just being nice to a good worker. They like my modelling technique."

When we finished she went into the bedroom and changed into a suit, tucking her hair up under her hat. She deliberately left off most of the make-up, but it didn't spoil her looks any. "I'm trying to look like I can afford only to do my shopping in hock shops," she explained.

"They'll never believe it, honey."

"Stop being nice to me." She paused in front of the mirror and surveyed the effect, making last-minute adjustments here and there. "Now, what do I do and say, Mike?"

I leaned back in the chair, hooking my feet over the rungs. "Take the phone book... the classified section. Make a list of all the joints and start walking. You know the camera... it may be in the window, it may be inside. Tell the guy what you want and look them over. If you see it, buy it. Remember, what you want is the address on the ticket. You can make up your own story as you go along... just make it good, and don't appear overanxious."

I dragged out my wallet and fingered off some bills. "Here! You'll need taxi fare and grub money, plus what the guy will ask. That is, if you find it."

She tucked the bills in her pocketbook. "Frankly, what do you think of the chances, Mike?"

"Not too good. Still, it's the only out I know of. It won't be easy to run down, but it's the only lead I have right now."

"Will you be here while I'm gone?"

"I may be, I don't know." I wrote down my home and office addresses, then added Pat's number as an afterthought. "In case you find anything, call me here or at these numbers. If you're in a jam and I'm not around, call Pat. Now, have you got everything straight?"

She nodded. "I think so. Does the faithful wife off to work get a farewell kiss from her lazy spouse?"

I grabbed her arm and hauled her down to me, bruising her lips with mine, and felt the fire start all over again. I had to push her away.

"I don't want to go," she said.

"Scram!" She wrinkled her nose again and waved to me from the doorway.

As soon as she left I went over to the phone and dialed the office. Velda started with, "I'm sorry, but Mr. Hammer isn't here at the moment."

"Where is he?"

"I'm not at liberty to say. He should... Mike! Where the devil are you now? Why don't you stop in and take care of your business? I never...

"Off my back, chick. I'm tied up. Look, have I had any calls?"

"I'll say you have. So far I haven't had time to answer the mail!"

"Who called?"

"First off there was a man who wouldn't give his name. Said it was confidential and he'd call back later. Then two prospective clients called, but I told them you were engaged. Both of them thought their business was so urgent you'd drop what you were doing and go with them."

"Get their names?"

"Yes. Both were named Johnson. Mark and Joseph Johnson, neither related."

I grunted. Johnson was about the third or fourth most popular name in the phone directory. "Who else?"

"There was a guy named Cobbie Bennett. I had a hard time getting his name because he was almost hysterical. He said he had to see you right away but wouldn't say why. I told him you'd call back soon as you came, in. He wouldn't leave a number. He's called three times since."

"Cobbie! What could he want? He said nothing at all, Velda?"

"Not a thing."

"O.K., continue."

"Your client, Mr. Berin-Grotin, called. He wanted to know if his check got to the bank in time. I didn't know about it so I said you'd check with him. He said not to bother if everything was all right."

"Well, everything's not all right, but it's too late to bother about now. You hold down the phone, kiddo. Give out the same answers to whoever calls. Keep one thing in mind... you don't know where I am and you haven't heard from me since yesterday. Got it?"

"Yes, but..."

"No buts. The only one you can feel free to speak to is Pat or a girl called Lola. Take their messages. If they have anything for me try to get me at home or here." I rattled off Lola's number and waited while she wrote it down.

"Mike... what is it? Why can't you..."

I was tired of repeating it. "I'm supposed to be dead, Velda. The killer thinks he nailed me."

"Mike!"

"Oh, quit worrying. I'm 'not even scratched. The bullet hit my gun. Which reminds me... I got to get a new one. 'Bye baby. See you soon."

I stuck the phone back and sat on the edge of the chair, running my hand across my face. Cobbie Bennett. He was hysterical and he wanted to see me. He wouldn't say why. I wondered which of the Johnson boys was the killer trying to make certain I was gone from the land of the living. And who was the caller with the confidential info? At least I knew who Cobbie was.

I hoped I knew where I could find him.

My coat was wrinkled from lying across the chair, and without a rod under my arm the thing bagged like a zoot suit. The holster helped fill it out, but not enough. I closed the door behind me and walked downstairs, trying to appear like just another resident, maybe a little on the seedy side. In that neighborhood nobody gave me a tumble.

At Ninth Avenue I grabbed a cab and had him drive me over, to a gunsmith on the East Side. The guy who ran the shop might have made Daniel Boone's rifle for him, he was so old. At one time guns had been his mainstay, but since the coming of law and order he specialized in locks, even if the sign over the door didn't say so.

He didn't ask questions except to see my license, and when he had gone over it to the extent of comparing the picture with my face, he nodded and asked me what I liked. There were some new Army .45's mounted in a rack on the wall and I pointed them out. He took them down and let me try the action. When I found one that satisfied me I peeled off a bill from my roll, signed the book and took my receipt and a warning to check with the police on the change in gun numbers on my ticket.

I felt a lot better when I walked out of the place.

If the sun had been tucked in bed I would have been able to locate Cobbie in a matter of minutes. At high noon it was going to be a problem. In a cigar store on the corner I cashed in a buck for a handful of nickels and started working the phone book, calling the gin mills where he usually hung out. I got the same answer every time. Cobbie had dropped out of sight. Two wanted to know who I was, so I said a friend and hung up.

Sometimes the city is worse than the jungle. You can get lost in it with a million people within arm's length. I was glad of it now. A guy could roam the streets for a week without being recognized if he were careful not to do anything to attract attention. A cab went by and I whistled it, waited while it braked to a stop and backed up, then got in. After I told the driver where to go, I settled back against the cushions and did exercises to loosen up my neck.

I missed the redhead's ring. I was doing good while I had it. Nancy, a mother... a blackmailer? A girl down on her luck. A good kid. I could never forget the way she looked at me when I gave her the dough. I'd never forget it, because I told her that kind of stuff was murder.

I didn't know how right I was.

She must have had fun shopping for those clothes, being waited on, seeing herself in the mirror as a lady again. What had happened to her attitude, her personal philosophy after that? She was happy, I knew that. Her letter was bubbling over with happiness. What was it that meant so much to her?... and did I help change her mind about it?

Nancy with the grace of a lady, the veneer of a tramp. A girl who should have been soft and warm, staying home nights to cook supper for some guy, was being terrorized by a gunslinging punk. A lousy greaseball. A girl who had no defense except running, forced to sell herself to keep alive. I did her a favor and her eyes lit up like candles at an altar. We were buddies, damn good buddies for a little while.

The driver said, "Here you are, mister."

I passed a bill through the window and got out, my eyes looking up and down the street until I spotted a familiar blue uniform. I was going to have to do it the quickest way possible. The cop was walking towards me and I stared into a drugstore window until he went by, and when he had a half-block lead I followed him at a leisurely pace.

A lot of people like to run down the cops. They begin to think of them as human traffic lights, or two faces in a patrol car cruising down the street hoping some citizen will start some trouble. They forget that a cop has eyes and ears and can think. They forget that sometimes a cop on a beat likes it that way. The street is his. He knows everyone on it. He knows who and what they are and where they spend their time. He doesn't want to get pulled off it even for a promotion, because then he loses his friends and becomes chained to a desk or an impersonal case. The cop I was following looked like that kind. He was big from the ground up, and almost as big around. There was a purpose in his stride and pride in his carriage, and several times I saw him nod to women sitting in doorways and fake a pass at fresh brats that yelled out something nasty about coppers. Some day those same kids would be screaming for him to hurry up and get to where the trouble was.

When the cop called in at a police phone I picked up on him. He turned into a lunchroom, climbed on a stool and I was right beside him. He took off his coat and hat, ordered corn beef and cabbage and I took the same. The plates came and we both ate silently. Half-way through, the two guys next to me paid up and left, which was the chance I waited for.

One had left a tabloid on the stool and I propped it up in front of me, using it as a shield while I took my badge and identification card from my pocket. I only had to nudge the cop once and he looked over, saw the stuff I palmed and frowned.

"Mike Hammer, private cop." I kept my voice low, chewing as I spoke. "Don't watch me."

The cop frowned again and went back to his lunch. "Pat Chambers will vouch for me. I'm working with him on a case." This time the frown deepened and lines of disbelief touched his cheeks.

"I have to find Cobbie Bennett," I said. "Right away. Do you know where he is?"

He took another mouthful of corn beef and threw a dime on the counter. The chef came over and he asked for change. When he had two nickels he got up, still chewing, and walked over to a phone booth up front and shut the door.

About a minute later he was back and working on the corn beef again. He shoved the plate away, drew his coffee to him and seemed to notice me for the first time.

"Done with the paper, feller?"

"Yeah." I handed it to him. He took a pair of horn-rimmed glasses from his pocket and worked them on, holding the paper open to the baseball scores. His lips worked as if he were reading, only he said, "I think Cobbie's hiding out in a rooming house one block west. Brownstone affair with a new stoop. He looks scared."

The counterman came over and took the plates away. I ordered pie and more coffee, ate it slowly, then paid up and left. The cop was still there reading the paper; he never glanced up once and he probably wouldn't for another ten minutes.

I found the stoop first, then the house. Cobbie Bennett found me. He peered out of a second-story window just as I turned up the stairs and for a split second I had a look at a pale, white face that had terror etched deep into the skin.

The door was open and I walked into the hallway. Cobbie called to me from the head of the stairs. "Here, up here, Mike." This time I watched where I was going. There were too many nice places for a guy to hide with a baseball bat in those damn hallways. Before I reached the landing Cobbie had me by the lapels of my coat and was dragging me into a room.

"Christ, Mike, how'd ya find me? I never told nobody where I was! Who said I was here?"

I shoved him away. "You're not hard to find, Cobbie. Nobody is when they're wanted badly enough."

"Don't say that, Mike, will ya? Christ, it's bad enough having you find me. Suppose..."

"Stop jabbering like an idiot. You wanted me, so I'm here."

He shoved a bolt in the door and paced across the room, running his fingers through his hair and down his face. He couldn't stand still and the fact that I parked myself in the only chair in the place and seemed completely at ease made him jumpier still.

"They're after me, Mike. I just got away in time."

"Who's they?"

"Look, ya gotta help me out. Jeez, you got me inta this, now ya gotta help me out. They're after me, see? I can't stick around. I gotta get outa town." He stuck a cigarette in his mouth and tried to light it. He made it with the fourth match.

"Who's they?" I asked again.

Cobbie licked his lips. His shoulder had a nervous twitch and he kept turning his head towards the door as if he were listening for something. "Mike, somebody saw you with me that night. They passed the word and the heat's on. I-I gotta blow."

I just sat there and watched him. He took a drag on the cigarette before he threw it on the worn-out carpet and ground it in with his heel. "Damn it, Mike, don't just sit there. Say something!"

"Who's they?"

For the first time it sank in. He got white around the corners of his mouth. "I dunno, I dunno. It's somebody big. Something's popping in this town and I don't know what it is. All I know is the heat's on me because I got seen messing around with you. What'll I do, Mike? I can't stay here. You don't know them guys. When they're out to get ya they don't miss!"

I stood up and stretched, trying to look bored. "I can't tell you a damn thing, Cobbie, not unless you sound off first. If you don't want to speak, then the hell with you. Let 'em get you."

He grabbed my sleeve and hung on for dear life. "No, Mike, don't... I'd tell you what I know only I don't know nothing. I just got the sign, then I heard some things. It was about that redhead. Because of you I'm getting the works. I saw some big boys down the street last night. They wasn't locals. They was here before when there was some trouble, and a couple guys disappeared. I know why they're there... they're after me... and you maybe."

He was doing better now. "Go on, Cobbie."

"Th' racket's organized, see? We pay for protection and we pay plenty. I don't know where it goes, but as long as we pay there's no trouble. As long as we make like clams there's still no trouble. But, damn it, you came around and somebody saw me shooting my mouth off, now there's plenty of trouble again and it's all for me."

"How do they know what you said?"

His face grew livid. "Who cares? Think they worry about what I said? Some guys is poison and you're one, because you was on that redhead! Why didn't she drop dead sooner!"

I reached out and grabbed his arm and brought him up to my face. "Shut up," I said through my teeth.

"Aw, Mike, I didn't mean nothin', honest. I'm just trying to tell ya."

I let him go and he backed off a step, wiping his forehead with a sleeve. The light glistened on a tear that rolled down his cheek. "I don't know what it's about, Mike. I don't wanna get knocked off. Can't you do something?"

"Maybe."

Cobbie looked up, hopefully. His tongue passed over his parched lips. "Yeah?"

"Think, Cobbie. Think of the boys you saw. Who were they?"

The lines in his face grew deeper. "Hard boys. They were carrying rods. I think they came outa Detroit."

"Who do they work for?"

"The same guy what gets the pay-off jack, I guess."

"Names, Cobbie?"

He shook his head, the hope gone. "I'm only a little guy. Mike. How would I know? Every week I give a quarter of my take to a guy who passes it along in a chain until it reaches the top. I don't even want to know. I'm... I'm scared, Mike, scared silly. You're the only one I knew to call. Nobody'll look at me now because they know the heat's on, that's why I wanted to see you."

"Anybody know you're here?"

"No. Just you."

"What about the landlady?"

"She don't know me. She don't care, neither. How'd you find me, Mike?"

"A way your pals won't try. Don't worry about it. Here's what I want you to do. Sit tight, don't leave this room, not even to go downstairs. Keep away from the window and be sure your door is locked."

His eyes widened and his hands went to my arms. "You got an out figgered? You think maybe I can get outa town?"

"Could be. We'll have to do this carefully. You got anything to eat in the place?"

"Some canned stuff and two bottles of beer."

"It'll hold you. Now remember this. Tomorrow night at exactly nine-thirty I want you to walk out of this place. Go down the street, turn right one block, then head west again. Keep walking as if you didn't know a thing was up. Take a turn around your neighborhood and say hullo to anyone you want to. Only keep walking. Got that?"

Little beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead. "Christ, ya want me to get killed? I can't leave here and..."

"Maybe you'd sooner get bumped off here... if you don't starve to death first."

"No, Mike. I don't even mean that! But, jeez, walking out like that!..."

"Are you going to do it or not? I haven't got time to waste, Cobbie."

He sank into the chair and covered his face with his hands. Crying came easy for Cobbie. "Y-yeah. I'll go. Nine-thirty." His head jerked up, tears streaking his face. "What're ya thinking or can't you tell me?"

"No, I can't. You just do what I told you. If it works, you'll be able to leave town in one piece. But I want you to remember something."

"What?"

"Don't--ever--come--back."

I left him with his face white and sick-looking. When the door closed I heard him sobbing again.

Outside, a premature dusk was settling over the city as the grey haze of rain clouds blew in from the southeast. I crossed the street and walked north to a subway kiosk. Before I reached it the rain had started again. A train had just pulled out of the station, giving me five minutes to wait, so I found a phone and called Lola's apartment. Nobody answered. No news was good news, or so they say. I tried the office and Velda told me it had been a fairly quiet afternoon. I hung up before she could ask questions. Besides, my train was just rattling past the platform.

At Fifty-ninth I got off, grabbed another cab and had the driver haul me over to where my car was parked. I thought I saw a guy I knew walk past and I went into a knee bend fumbling for my shoelace. It was getting to be a pain in the butt playing corpse.

When I finally got the chance I hopped in and shot away from there as fast as I could. Some chances I couldn't afford, one was being spotted near Lola's place. She was one person I wanted to myself, all nice and safe.

The wind picked up and began throwing the rain around. The few pedestrians left on the sidewalks were huddled under marquees or bellowing for cabs that didn't stop. Every time I stopped for a red light I could see the pale blur of faces behind the glass storefronts, the water running down making them waver eerily. All with that same blank look of the trapped when nothing can be done to help.

I was wondering if Lola was having any trouble. The rain was going to slow her up plenty at a time when speed was essential. That damn camera! Why did Red ever mess with it in the first place?

Lola had said a job, didn't she? A place called Quick Pix or something. It had slipped my mind until now. I spotted a parking place ahead and turned into it, ready to make a dash into a candy store the moment the rain slackened. There was a lull between gusts that gave me a chance to run across the pavement and work my way through the small crowd that had gathered in the doorway out of the wet.

Inside I pulled out the directory and thumbed through it, trying each borough, but nothing like Quick Pix showed up. Not even a variation. I bought a pack of butts and asked the clerk if he had an old directory around and he shook his head, paused, then told me to wait a minute. He went into the back room and came up with a dog-eared Manhattan phone book, covered with dust.

"They usually take 'em back, but this was an extra they forgot," he explained. "Saw it the other day at the back of the shelf."

I thanked him and ran through it. The hunch paid off. Quick Pix had a phone number and an address off Seventh Avenue. When I dialed the number there was a series of clicks and the operator asked me who I was calling. I gave her the number and she said it had been discontinued some time ago.

That was that. Or not quite. Maybe they still had an office, but no phone.

One of the boys asked me if I was going uptown and I nodded for him to come along. For ten blocks he kept up an incessant line of chatter that I didn't hear until he poked me to let him out at a subway station. I pulled over, he opened the door and thanked me and ran down the stairs.

Behind me a line of horns blasted an angry barrage in my direction, and over it a cop's whistle shrilled a warning. I came back to the present with a dirty word and my mind in a spin, because on the newsstand by the subway was a pile of the late evening papers and each one screamed to the world that the police were conducting a city-wide clean-up campaign of vice.

Somebody had talked.

I stopped for another red light, yelling to a newsy to bring one over and I gave him a buck for his trouble. It was there, all right, heads, captions, and sub-captions. The police were in possession of information that was going to lead to the biggest round-up of this, that, and the next thing the city ever saw.

Which was fine, great. Just what we wanted in the pig's neck. Pat must be raving mad. The papers were doing a beautiful civic job of chasing the rats out of town. Damn them, why couldn't they keep quiet!

The light changed and I saw my street coming up. I had to circle the block because it was a one-way, then squeeze in between a decrepit delivery truck and a battered sedan. The number I wanted was a weather-beaten loft building with an upholstery shop fronting on the street. On one side was a narrow entrance with a service elevator in the rear and a sign announcing the available vacancies hanging on the door.

I rang the bell and heard the elevator rattle its way downwards and come to a stop. The door opened and a guy with a week's growth of beard looked at me with rheumy eyes and waited for me to say something.

"Where can I find the super of this building?"

"Whatcha want him fer?" He spat a stream of tobacco juice between the grill of the elevator.

I palmed my badge in one hand and a fin in the other and let him see both. "Private cop."

"I'm the super," he said.

He reached for the fin and tucked it in his shirt pocket. "I'm listening."

I said, "I'm looking for an outfit called Quick Pix. They were listed as being here."

"That was a long time ago, buster. They pulled out in a hurry 'most a year ago."

"Anybody there now?"

"Naw. This place's a dive. Who the hell would want to rent here? Maybe another outfit like Q.P. They was a fly-by-night bunch, I think."

"How about a look at the place?"

"Sure, come on."

I stepped aboard and we crept up to the fourth floor and stopped. He left the elevator there and turned the lights on, pointing to the end of the hall. "Room 209."

The door wasn't locked. Where an ordinary house nightlatch should be was a round hole like an eye in a skull. The super did some trick with a switch box in a closet and the lights went on in the room.

It was a mess, all right. Somebody had packed out of there like the devil was on his tail. Finished proofs and negatives littered the floor, covered with spider webs and long tendrils of dust. The two windows had no shades, and didn't need them, that's how thick the dirt was. Hypo had blown or was knocked from a box, covering one end with once white powder. Even now a few heel prints were visible in the stuff.

I gathered up a handful of snaps and looked them over. They were all two-by-three prints taken on the streets of couples walking arm-in-arm, sitting on park benches, coming out of Broadway theatres grinning at each other. On the backs were numbers in pencil and scrawled notations of the photogs.

A large packing-box served as a filing cabinet, spilling out blank tickets with a slit built for a quarter. The back half of the box contained other tickets that had been sent in with the mailer's name and address written in the right spot. They were tied in groups of about a hundred, and, all in all, there was a couple thousand dollars represented in cash right there. Quick Pix had done all right for itself.

To one side was a shelf running around the wall lined with shoe boxes and inscribed with names. One said, "N. Sanford" and my interest picked up. In it were cards numbered to correspond with the film in the camera, which looked like a three-or four-day supply. A pencilled note was a reminder to order more film. Neat, precise handwriting. Very feminine. It was Nancy's without a doubt. I plucked it out and tucked it in my pocket.

The guy had been standing near the door watching me silently. I heard him grunt a few times, then: "You know something? This place wasn't like this when they moved out."

I stopped what I was doing. "How's that?"

"I came in to see if they left the walls here and all this junk on the floor was stacked in one corner. Looks like somebody kicked it around."

"Yeah?"

He spat on the floor. "Yeah."

"Who ran the business?"

"Forgot his name." He shrugged. "Some character on his uppers. Guess he did pretty good after a while. One day he packs in here with a new convertible, tells me he's moving out and scrams. Never gimme a dime."

"What about the people that worked for him?"

"Hell, they was all out. They came in here that night and raised a stink. What was I supposed to do, pay their wages? I was lucky I tagged the guy, so I got the rent. Never said nothing to nobody, he didn't."

I stuck a match in my mouth and chewed the end off it. When I gave one last quick glance I walked out. "That does it." He shut the door and played with the switch box again, then stepped into the elevator after me and we started down.

"Get what you come for?" he asked.

"I didn't come for anything special. I'm, er, checking on the owner. He owed some money and I have to collect--for films."

"You don't say! Come to think of it, there's some stuff down in the cellar yet. One of the kids what worked there asked me if she could park it there. I let her when she slipped me a buck."

"She?"

"Yeah, a redhead. Nice kid."

He spat through the grill again and it splattered against the wall. "Do you ever read the papers?" I asked him.

"Funnies sometimes. Just the pictures. Broke my glasses four years ago and never got new ones. Why, what's going on?"

"Nothing. Let's see that stuff downstairs."

Before he could suggest it I came across with another five and it went in the pocket with the other. His grin showed teeth that were brown as mud. We passed the main floor and jolted to a stop at the basement. The air was damp and musty, almost like the morgue, but here was the smell of dirt and decay and the constant whirr of rat feet running along the pipes and timbers. There weren't any lights, but the guy had a flashlight stashed in a joint and he threw the beams around the walls. Little beady eyes looked back at me and ran off, to reappear again farther down. I got the creeps.

He didn't seem to mind it at all.

"Down back, I think." He pointed the flash at the floor and we stepped over crates, broken furniture and the kind of trash that accumulates over a span of years. We stopped by a bin and he poked around with a broom handle, scaring up some rats but nothing else. Beyond that was a row of shelves piled to capacity and he knocked the dust off some of the papers with a crack of the stick. Most of them were old bills and receipts, a few dusty ledgers and a wealth of old paper that had been saved up carefully. I opened a couple of boxes to help out. One was full of pencil stubs; the other some hasty sketches of nudes. They weren't very good.

The light got away from me before I could shove them back and the super said, "Think this is it." I held the light while he dragged out a corrugated cardboard box tied with twine. A big SAVE was written across the front in red crayon. He nodded and pursed his mouth, looking for a rat to spit tobacco juice at. He saw one on a pipe and let loose. I heard the rat squeaking all the way to the end, where he fell off and kicked around in some papers. The stuff he chewed must have been poison.

I pulled the twine off and opened the top. Inside was another box tied with lighter cord that broke easily enough. My hand was shaking a little as I bent back the cover and I pulled the light closer.

There were pictures in this one, all neatly sorted in two rows and protected by layers of tissue paper. Both sides of the box were lined with blotters to absorb any moisture, and between each group of shots was an index card bearing the date they were taken.

Perhaps I expected too much. Perhaps it was the thought of the other pictures that were stolen from me, perhaps it was just knowing that pictures fitted in somewhere, but I held my breath expectantly as I lifted them out.

Then I went into all the curse words I knew. All I had was another batch of street photos with smiling couples waving into the camera or doing something foolish. I was so damn mad I would have left them if I hadn't remembered that they cost me five bucks and I might as well get something for my dough. I tucked the box under my arm and went back to the elevator.

When we got to the street floor the super wanted to know if I felt like signing the after-hours book and I scratched J. Johnson in it and left.

At eight-fifteen I called Pat's home. He still hadn't come in, so I tried the office. The switchboard located him and the minute I heard his voice I knew there was trouble. He said, "Mike? Where are you?"

"Not far from your place. Anything new?"

"Yes." His words were clipped. "I want to speak to you. Can you meet me in the Roundtown Grill in ten minutes?"

"I'll be there. What's up?"

"Tell you then. Ten minutes." Someone called to him and he hung up. Ten minutes to the second I reached the Roundtown and threaded my way to the back and found Pat sitting in the last booth. There were lines of worry across his forehead that hadn't been there before, giving him an older look. He forced a grin when he saw me, and waved me to sit down.

Beside him he had a copy of the evening paper and he spread it out on the table. He tapped the headline. "Did you have anything to do with this?"

I shoved a butt in my mouth and fired it. "You know better than that, Pat."

He rolled the paper up into a ball and threw it aside, his mouth twisting into a snarl. "I didn't think so. I had to be sure. It got out some way and loused things up nice."

"How?"

A waiter set two beers down in front of us and Pat polished his off before the guy left and ordered another, quick. "I'm getting squeezed, pal. I'm getting squeezed nice. Do you know how many rotten little jerks there are in this world? There must be millions. Nine-tenths of them live in the city with us. Each rotten little jerk controls a block of votes. Each rotten little jerk wants something done or not done. They make a phone call to somebody who's pretty important and tell him what they want. Pretty soon that person gets a lot of the same kind of phone calls and decides that maybe he'd better do something about it, and the squeeze starts. Word starts drifting up the line to lay off or go slow, and it's the kind of a word that's blocked up with a threat that can be made good.

"Pretty, isn't it? You get hold of something that should be done and you have to lay off." The second beer followed the first and another was on its way. I had never seen Pat so mad before.

"I tried to be a decent cop," he ranted. "I try to stick to the letter of the law and do my duty. I figure the taxpayers have a say in things, but now I begin to wonder. It's coming from all directions--phone calls, hints that travelled too far to trace back, sly reminders that I'm just a cop and nothing but a captain, which doesn't carry too much weight if certain parties feel like doing something about it."

"Get down to cases, Pat."

"The D.A. called Ann Minor's death murder. He's above a fix and well in the public eye, so there's no pressure on him. The murder can be investigated if necessary, but get off the angles. That's the story. Word got out about the book, but not the fact that it's in code."

I tapped the ashes in the tray and squinted at him. "You mean there are a lot of boys mixed up with call-girls and the prostitution racket who don't want their names to get out, don't you?"

"Yes."

"And what are you going to do about it?"

No, Pat wasn't a bit happy. He said, "Either I go ahead with it, dig up the stuff and then get nicely pushed into a resignation, or I lay off and keep my job, sacrificing this case to give the public their money's worth in future cases."

I shook my head pathetically. "That's what you get for being honest. What'll it be?"

"I don't know, Mike."

"You'll have to make up your mind soon.

"I know. For the first time I wish I were wearing your badge instead of mine. You aren't so dumb."

"Neither are you, kid. The answer's plain, isn't it?" I was sneering myself now. He looked up and met my eyes and nodded. A nasty grin split his lips apart and his teeth were together, tight.

"Call it, Mike."

"You take care of your end. I'll brace the boys who give you trouble. If I have to I'll ram their teeth down their throats and I hope I have to. There's more to it than that. I don't have to tell you how big this racket is. The girls in the flashy clothes and the high-price tags are only one side of it. The same group with its hand on them reaches down to the smaller places, too. It's all tied in together. The only trouble is that when you untie one knot the whole thing can come apart.

"They're scared now. They're acting fast. We have that book, but you can bet it isn't much. There other books, too, nicely ducked out of sight where it'll take a lot of looking to dig up. They'll come. We'll get hold of somebody who will sing, and to save their own necks the others will sing, too. Then the proof will pop up."

I slammed my hand against the table and curled my fingers into a tight knot until the flesh was white around the knuckles. "We don't need proof, Pat. All we have to do is look for proof. The kind of boys behind the curtain won't take that. They'll make a move and we'll be ready for them."

"Yeah, but when?"

"Tomorrow night. The big boys are hiring their work done. One of their stoolies is on the list because he sounded off to me. Tomorrow night at exactly nine-thirty, a pimp called Cobbie Bennett is going to walk out of his rooming house and down the street. Some time that night he's going to be spotted and a play will be made. That's all we need. Beat them to the jump and we'll make the first score. It will scare the hell out of them again. Let them know that politics are going to pot. We can get the politicians later if we have to."

"Does this Bennett know about this?"

"He knows he's going to be a clay pigeon of some sort. It's his only chance of staying alive. Maybe he will and maybe he won't. He has to take it. You have your men spotted around ready to wade in when the trouble starts. After it's finished, let Cobbie beat it. He's no good any more. He won't be back."

I wrote the address of the rooming house on the back of an envelope, diagramming the route Cobbie would take, and passed it over. Pat glanced at it and stuck it in his pocket. "This can mean my job, kid."

"It might mean your neck, too," I reminded him. "If it works you won't have any more sly hints and phone calls, and those rotten little jerks with the bloc of votes will be taking the next train out of town. We're not going to stop anything because the game is as old as Eve. What we will do is slow it up long enough to keep a few people alive who wouldn't be alive, and maybe knock off some who would be better off dead."

"And all because of one redheaded girl," Pat said slowly.

"That's right. All because of Nancy. All because she was murdered."

"We don't know that."

"I'm supposing it. I've uncovered a few other things. If it was an accident, she wasn't expected to die that way. Nancy was slated to be killed. Here's something else, Pat. This looks like one thing, the part you can't see is tied in with that same redhead. I can't understand it, but I'm kicking a few ideas around that look pretty good."

"The insurance company is satisfied it was an accident. They're ready to pay off if her inheritors can be found."

"Ah, that's the rub, as the bard once said. That, my chum, is the big step."

My watch was creeping up on itself. I stood up and finished the beer that had turned flat while we talked. "I'll call you early tomorrow, Pat. I want to be in on the show. Let me know what comes out of the little black book."

He still wore his sneer. Back of his eyes a fire was burning bright enough to put somebody in hell.

"Something came out of it already. We paid a call on Murray Candid. Among his belongings we found a few doodles and some notes. The symbols compare with some of those in his book. He's going to have to do some tall explaining when we find him."

My mouth fell open at that. "What do you mean... find him?"

"Murray Candid has disappeared. He wasn't seen by anybody after he left us," he said.