My Gun Is Quick

Chapter Fourteen

Seeing a job well done can bring a feeling of elation whether you did it yourself or not. There was a sense of pride in me when I climbed behind the wheel of my heap, satisfaction extraordinary because the bastards were being beaten at their own game. I switched on the radio a few minutes later in time to catch the interruption of a program and a news flash of the latest coup. I went from station to station, but it was always the same. The noses for news were right in there following every move. Scattered around town would be other tough boys hearing the same thing. Money wouldn't mean a damn thing now, not if the cops were going to play it their way. It's one thing to jump the law, but when the law is right behind you, ready to jump back even harder, it's enough to make even the most stupid, hopped-up killer think twice.

Ha! They wouldn't be wearing their metallic smiles tonight. The ball was piling up force as it rolled along. The half-ways were jumping on the wagon, eager to be on the winning side. Political injustice and string-pulling were taking one hell of a beating. I knew where I stood and I felt good about it.

My route uptown was taking me within a few blocks of the Sunic House, and late as it was I wanted to stop off and see my client. This the old boy would like. He was paying for it. At least he was getting his money's worth. The name of Berin-Grotin would be remembered in places long after the marble tomb was eaten away by the sands of time, and that's what he wanted... someone to remember him.

There was a driveway beside the old brownstone structure that curved into a parking space in back. I pulled half-way in and handed the keys over to a bellboy old enough to be my father. As I walked to the door I heard him grind it into gear, then jerk out of sight. I waited to hear him hit something else, but apparently he made it.

The Sunic House was a well-kept relic of yesteryear, reserved for gentlemen guests only. The hushed atmosphere wasn't due to the late hour: it probably was that way all day. The lobby was done in plush, gilt and leather. From the ceiling ancient gas fixtures had been converted to electric whose yellow bulbs did little to brighten the mortuary effect of the mahogany-panelled walls. The pictures spotted around the place showed the city of long ago when it was at peace with itself, and the Sunic House was a name to hold honor among the best.

I asked the desk-clerk if Mr. Berin was in.

He nodded slowly and knit his eyebrows. "I'm certain Mr. Berin does not care to be disturbed, sir. He has been coming here these many years and I know his preferences well."

"This is a very unusual circumstance, pop. Give him a call, will you?"

"I'm afraid that... really, now, sir. I don't think it proper to..."

"If I suddenly stuck my fingers between my teeth and whistled like hell, then ran up and down the room yelling at the top of my lungs, what would you do?"

His eyebrows ran up to where his hairline used to be. He craned his head to the wall where an old guy was nodding in a chair. "I'd be forced to call the house detective, sir!"

I gave him a great big grin and stuck my fingers between my teeth. With the other hand I pointed to the phone and waited. The clerk got pale, flushed, went white again as he tried to cope with the situation. Evidently, he figured one upset customer would be better than a dozen and picked up the house phone.

He tugged the call bell while watching me nervously, jiggled it again and again until a voice barked hard enough in his ear to make him squirm. "I beg your pardon, sir, but a man insists he should see you. He... he said it was very urgent."

The phone barked again and the clerk swallowed hard. "Tell him it's Mike Hammer," I said.

It wasn't so easy to get it in over the tirade my client was handing out. At last he said bleakly, "It's a Mr. Hammer, sir... a Mr. Hammer. Yes, sir,. Mike Hammer. Yes, he's right here, sir. Very well, sir. I'll send him right up."

With a handkerchief the clerk wiped his face and gave me his look reserved for the most inferior of persons. "Room 406," he said. I waved my thanks and climbed the stairs, ignoring the elevator that stood in the middle of the room, working through a well in the overhead.

Mr. Berin had the door open waiting for me. I pushed it in and closed it behind me, expecting to find myself in just another room. I was wrong, dead wrong. Whatever the Sunic House looked like on the outside, its appearance was deceiving. Here was a complete suite of rooms, and as far as I could see executed with the finest taste possible.

A moment later my client appeared, dressed in a silken smoking jacket, his hair brushed into a snow-white mane, looking for all the world like a man who had planned to receive a guest rather than be awakened out of a sound sleep by an obnoxious employee.

His hand met mine in a firm clasp. "It's good to see you, Mike, very good. Come inside where we can talk."

"Thanks." He led me past the livingroom, that centered around a grand piano, into a small study that faced on the street, a room banked with shelves of books, mounted heads of animals and fish, and rows of framed pictures showing himself in his younger days. "Some place you have here, Mr. Berin."

"Yes, I've used it for years as you can see. It's my city residence with all the benefits of a hotel. Here, sit down." He offered me an overstuffed leather chair and I sank into it, feeling the outlines of another person who had made his impression through constant use.

"Cigar?"

"No, thanks." I took out my deck of Luckies and flipped one into my mouth. "Sorry I had to drag you out of bed like this."

"Not at all, Mike. I must admit that I was rather surprised. That all comes of having fixed habits for so many years, I presume. I gathered you had a good reason for wanting to see me."

I breathed out a cloud of smoke. "Nope, I just wanted to talk to somebody. I have five hundred bucks of yours and that's my excuse for picking you as that somebody."

"Five hundred..." he began, "you mean that money I sent to your bank to cover that, ah, expense?"

"That's right. I don't need it now."

"But you thought it would be worth spending to secure the information. Did you change your mind?"

"No, the girl didn't live to cash it, that's all." His face showed bewilderment, then amazement. "I was tailed. Like a jerk I didn't think of it and was tailed. Whoever was behind me killed the girl and fixed it to look like suicide. It didn't work. While I was out the same party went through my room and copped some of the stuff."

"You know... ?" his voice choked off.

"Feeney Last. Your ex-hired hand, Mr. Berin."

"Good Lord, no!"

"Yes."

His fingers were entwined in his lap and they tightened until the knuckles went white. "What have I done, what have I done?" He sat there with his eyes closed, looking old and shrunken for the first time.

"You didn't do a thing. It would have happened anyway. What you did do was stop the same thing from happening again."

"Thank you, Mike."

I stood up and laid my hand on his shoulder. "Look, come off it. You don't have anything to feel bad about. If you feel anything, feel good. You know what's been going on in town all day and night?"

"Yes, I--I've heard."

"That's what your money bought, a sense of decency to this place. It's what the town has needed for a long time. You hired me to find a name for the redhead. We found a package of dirt instead, all because a girl lies in the morgue unidentified. I didn't want her buried without a name, neither did you. Neither of us expected what would come, and it isn't over yet by a long shot. One day the sun is going to shine again and when it does it will be over a city that can hold its head up."

"But the redheaded girl still doesn't have a name, does she?" He glanced at me wryly, his eyes weary.

"No. Maybe she will have soon. Mind if I use your phone?"

"Not at all. It's outside in the livingroom. I'll mix a drink in the meantime. I believe I can use one. I'm not used to distressing news, Mike."

There was sadness in his carriage that I hated to see. The old boy was going to take a lot of cheering up. I found the phone and dialed Velda's number at home. She took a long time answering and was mad as hell. "It's me, Velda. Anything doing at the office?"

"Gee whiz, Mike, you call at the most awful hours. I waited in the office all evening for you to call. That girl, Lola, was it?... sent up an envelope by special messenger. There was a pawn ticket in it and nothing else."

"A pawn ticket?" My voice hit a high note. "She's found it then, Velda! Hot damn, she's found it! What did you do with it?"

"I left it there," she said, "on top of my desk."

"Damn, that's wonderful. Look, kid, I left my office keys home. Meet me there in an hour... make it an hour and a half. I want a drink first to celebrate the occasion. I'll call Pat from there and we can go on together. This is it, Velda, see you in a jiffy!"

I slapped my hand over the bar, holding it a moment before I spun out Lola's number on the dial. Her voice came on before the phone finished ringing. She was breathless with excitement. "Mike, baby!... Oh, Mike, where are you? Did you get my envelope?"

"I just called Velda, and she has it at the office. I'm going up to get it in a little while. Where did you find it?"

"In a little place just off the Bowery. It was hanging in the window like you said it might be."

"Great! Where's the camera now?"

"I have it."

"Then why the rigmarole with the pawn ticket."

A new note crept into her voice. "Someone else was looking for it, too, Mike. For a while they were right ahead of me. Five different clerks told me that I was the second party after a camera like that."

The chill went up my back this time. "What happened?"

"I figured that whoever he was had been using the same method going right from the phone book. I started at the bottom and worked backwards."

Mr. Berin came in and silently offered me a highball. I picked it off the tray with a nod of thanks and took a quick swallow. "Go on."

"I found it then, but I was afraid to keep the ticket on me. I addressed an envelope to your office and sent the ticket up with a boy."

"Smart girl! I love you to pieces, little chum. You'll never know how much."

"Please, Mike."

I laughed at her, happy, bubbling over with joy I hadn't known in a long time. "You stow it this time, Lola. When this is done you and I will have the world in our hands and a lifetime to enjoy it. Tell me, Lola. Say it loud and often."

"Mike, I love you, I love you!" She sobbed and said it again.

My voice went soft. "Remember it, sugar... I love you, too. I'll be along in just a little while. Wait up for me?"

"Of course, darling. Please hurry. I want to see you so much it hurts."

When I put the phone back I finished the drink in one long pull and went into the den. I wished I could give some of my happiness to Mr. Berin. He needed it badly.

"It's finished," I said.

There was no response save a slow turn of his head. "Will there be more... killing, Mike?"

"Maybe. Might be the law will take its course."

His hand lifted the glass to his lips. "I should be elated, I suppose. However, I can't reconcile myself to death. Not when my actions are partly responsible for it." He shuddered and put the glass down. "Care for another? I'm going to have one."

"Yeah, I have time."

He took my glass on the tray, and on the way out opened the lid of a combination radio-phonograph. A sheaf of records was already in the metal grippers, and he lowered the needle to the first one. I leaned back and listened to the pounding beat of a Wagnerian opera, watching the smoke curl upwards from the red tip of my cigarette.

This time Mr. Berin brought the bottle, the mixer and a bowl of ice with him. When he handed me the drink he sat on the edge of his chair and said, "Tell me about it, Mike, not the details, just the high points, and the reasons for these things happening. Perhaps if I knew I could put my mind at rest."

"The details are what count, I can't leave them out. What I want you to realize is that these things had to be, and it was good to get rid of them. We chased a name and found crime. We chased the crime and we found bigger names. The police dragnet isn't partial to anyone now. The cops are taking a long chance and making it stick. Every minute we sit here the vice and rot that had the city by the tail gets drawn closer to the wringer.

"You should feel proud, Mr. Berin. I do. I feel damn proud. I lost Nancy but I found Lola... and I found some of myself, too."

"If only we could have done something for that girl..."

"Nancy?"

"Yes. She died so completely alone. But it was all her own doing. If it was true, as you said, that she had an illegitimate child and went downwards into a life of sin, who can be blamed? Certainly the girl herself." He shook his head, his eyes crinkling in puzzled wonder. "If only they had some pride... even the slightest essence of pride, these things would never happen. And not only this girl Nancy... how many others are like her? No doubt this investigation will uncover the number.

"Mike, there were times when I believed my own intense pride to be a childish vanity, one I could afford to indulge in, but I am glad now to have that pride. It can mean something, this pride of name, of ownership. I can look over my fine estate and say, 'This is my own, arrived at through my own efforts.' I can make plans for the future when I will be nothing but a name and take pride that it will be remembered."

"Well, it's the old case of the double standard, Mr. Berin. You can't blame these kids for the mistakes they make. I think nearly every one makes them, it's just a few that get caught in the web. It's rough then, rough as hell."

Half the bottle was gone before I looked at my watch and came to my feet. I reached for my hat, remembered the check in time and wrote it out. "I'm late already. Velda will chew me out."

"It has been nice talking to you, Mike. Will you stop back tomorrow? I want to know what happens. You will be careful, won't you?"

"I'll be careful," I said. We shook hands at the door and I heard it shut as I reached the stairway. By the time I reached the main floor the desk-clerk was there, his finger to his lips urging me to be quiet. Hell, I couldn't help whistling. I recovered my car from the lot and roared out to the street. Just a little while longer, I thought.

Velda had nearly given me up. I saw her pacing the street in front of the Hackard Building, swinging her umbrella like a club. I pulled over and honked at her. "I thought you said an hour and a half."

"Sorry, honey, I got tied up."

"You're always getting tied up." She was pretty when she was mad.

We signed the night book in the lobby and the lone operator rode us up to our floor. Velda kept watching me out of the corner of her eye, curiosity getting the better of her. Finally she couldn't hold it any longer. "Usually I know what's going on, Mike."

I told her as briefly as I could. "It was the redhead. She used her camera to take pictures."

"Naturally."

"These weren't ordinary pictures. They could be used for blackmail. She must have had plenty... it's causing all the uproar. Pat went ahead on the theory we were right in our thinking. We'll need that stuff for evidence."

"Uh-huh."

She didn't get it, but she made believe she did. Later I'd have to sit down and give her a detailed account. Later, not now.

We reached the office and Velda opened the door with her key and switched on the light. It had been so long since I had been in, that the place was almost strange to me. I walked over to the desk while Velda straightened her hair in front of the mirror.

"Where is it, kid?"

"On the blotter."

"I don't see it."

"Oh, for pity sakes. Here..." Her eyes went from the desk to mine, slowly, widening a little. "It's gone, Mike."

"Gone! Hell, it can't be!"

"It is. I put it right here before I left. I remember it distinctly. I put my desk in order..." She stopped.

"What is it?" I was afraid to talk.

Her hand was around the memo pad, looking at the blank sheet on top. Every bit of color had drained from her face.

"Damn it, speak up!"

"A page is torn off... the one I had Lola's phone number and address on."

"My God!"

I grabbed the front door and swung it open, holding it in the light. Around the key slot in the lock were a dozen light scratches made by a pick. I must have let out a yell, because the noise of it reverberated in my ears as I ran down the hall. Velda shouted after me, but I paid no attention. For once the elevator was where I wanted it, standing with the door back and the operator waiting to take us back down.

He recognized the urgency in my face, slammed the door shut and threw the handle over. "Who was up here tonight?" I demanded.

"Why, nobody I know of, sir."

"Could anyone get up the stairs without being seen?

"Yes, I guess they could. That is, if the attendant or myself happened to be busy."

"Were you?"

"Yes, sir. We've been swabbing down the floors ever since we came on."

I had to keep my teeth shut to keep the curses in. I wanted to scream at the guy to hurry. Get me down. It took an eternity to reach the bottom floor and by then Velda had her hand on the button and wouldn't take it off. I squeezed out before the door was all the way open and bolted for my car.

"Oh, God!" I kept saying over and over to myself. "Oh, God!..."

My foot had the accelerator on the floor, pushing the needle on the speedometer up and around. The tires shrieked at the turns protestingly, then took hold once again until another turn was reached! I was thankful for the rain and the hour again; no cars blocked the way, no pedestrians were at the crossings. Had there been I never would have made it, for I was seeing only straight ahead and my hands wouldn't have wrenched the wheel over for anything.

I didn't check my time, but it seemed like hours before I crowded in between cars parked for the night outside the apartment. My feet thundered up the stairs, picking their way knowingly through the semi-darkness. I reached the door and threw it open and I tried to scream but it crammed in my throat like a hard lump and stayed there.

Lola was lying on the floor, her arms sprawled out. The top of her dress was soaked with blood.

I ran to her, fell on my knees at her side, my arms going to her face. The hole in her chest bubbled blood and she was still breathing. "Lola..."

Her eyelids fluttered, opened. She saw me and her lips, once so lusciously ripe with the redness of life, parted in a pale smile. "God, Lola!'..."

I tried to help her, but her eyes told me it was too late. Too late! Her hand moved, touched me, then went out in an arc, the effort racking her with pain. The motion was so deliberate I had to follow it. Somehow she managed to extend her forefinger, point towards the phone table, then swing her hand to the door.

She made no sound, but her lips moved and said for the last time, "I love you, Mike." I knew what she wanted me to do. I bent forward and kissed her mouth gently, and tasted the salt of tears. "Dear God, why did it have to happen to her? Why?"

Her eyes were closed. The smile was still on her face. But Lola was dead. You'll always know one thing. I love you. No matter where you are or when, you will know that wherever I am I'll be loving you. Just you.

The joy was gone. I was empty inside. I had no feeling, no emotion. What could I feel... how was I supposed to act? It happened so fast, this loving and having it snatched away at the moment of triumph. I closed my eyes and said a prayer that came hard, but started with, "Oh, God!...

When I opened my eyes again she was still pointing at the door, even now, in death, trying to tell me something.

Trying to tell me that her killer was outside there and I had come up too fast for him to get away. By all that was holy he'd never get away! My legs acted independently of my mind in racing for the door. I stopped in the hall, my ears tuned for the slightest sound... and I heard it. The soft tread of feet walking carefully, step by step, trying to be quiet. Feet that expected me to do the natural thing and call for the doctor first, then the police, and let just enough seconds go by for the killer to make his escape.

Like hell!

I didn't try to be quiet. I hit the stairs, took them two at a time, swinging around the banister at the landing. Below me the killer made no pretense at secrecy any longer and fled headlong into the street. I heard the roar of an engine as I came out the door, saw a car nose out of the line as I was climbing into mine and rip out into the street.