Together We Kill

The Night I Died A Mike Hammer Story

You walk down the street at night. It’s raining but. The only sound is that of your own feet. Then you hear another sound and you look across the street and see the blonde.

The blonde.

The girl you’ve been looking for for two whole years. She’s blonder now. A little bit heavier but on her it’s okay. And more beautiful than ever. She had to be more beautiful than ever. The girl you’ve been looking for for two years but never wanted to see again in your life.

So you follow her for a little while, then out of force of habit that’s two years old, you cross the street and stay behind her. Yeah, even from there she hadn’t changed. All the grace of a cat was in her walk and maybe some of their animal instincts, too.

Maybe she heard me.

Maybe she just felt me.

That’s the way it always had been. Her steps got slower and shorter then she stopped altogether and there was Helen.

Lovely, lovely Helen who I loved so much — but was going to kill in just another minute.

The gun in my pocket that had gotten warm from my hand felt cold all of a sudden. Cold and almost too heavy to lift, but I got it out of my pocket and had it in front of me when I reached her. She still had those deep green-tinted eyes that could laugh at you... even when you were dying... and now it was Helen who was dying and she could still laugh.

“Hello, Helen.”

A long pause. “Hello, Mike. Do I get it here?”

“That’s right. Here, Helen. Just like I said it would be. The next time I ever saw you, wherever it was... and now it’s here.”

“All right, Mike.”

“It won’t hurt much, but I’m not worried about that kind of pain. What I want you to feel will be right inside your mind. A slow, agonizing pain that wants to scream but can’t make a sound because it’s all inside you. It’s life screaming because death is catching up with it... and all you’ll be able to do is lie there listening to that silent screaming and the last thing you’ll hear will be my feet walking away.”

“Not even a kiss good-bye, Mike?”

“Not even a kiss good-bye. The last one was two years ago. That one will hold me... That was a real kiss... a real kiss of death. Remember it, Helen?”

Sure she remembered it. How could she ever forget it? The kiss of death. Hers. Two years ago was the night I died. But there was a time before that... many nights before. The time we met.

There was a party going on. You know the kind... all the Broadway wheels spilling champagne and someplace in the background a soft piano setting the mood. I said my hellos but I didn’t like the people I was forced to associate with and was ready to leave when I saw her...

There was loneliness in her... loneliness and something else that didn’t belong there. Fear. The kind of fear that didn’t belong at a party like this one, with a crowd like this one.

Then our eyes met over the heads of everybody and suddenly the room seemed to empty slowly until there was nobody there or even in the whole world except the two of us.

And fear.

I walked over to her... looked at her and could feel my spine get crawly.

“I came alone,” I said.

“So did I.”

“Then you’re with me.”

I didn’t expect the mist that flowed into her eyes. A wisecrack maybe, but anything except the mist.

“For how long?” she asked.

“Forever?”

She paused. “I think... I wish it could be... forever.”

“Let’s get out of here.”

Her scared cry overlapped my words:

“What’s scaring you?”

That surprised her.

“Yeah — it shows, kid.” I paused. “Let’s get out, girl. Nobody’ll ever bother you while I’m there. I’m funny that way.”

“Forever?”

“Maybe forever. We have to start sometime.”

So we went, the two of us... and fear. Fear that was there when she told me her name was Helen Venn, fear that was with us in a cab and stayed like an invisible shroud when we walked through the park.

“It’s a pretty night, Mike.”

“Maybe.”

She turned her head and looked at me, the swirl of her hair a golden waterfall in the moonlight.

“There’s something wrong with your eyes, Mike.”

“Yeah, I know. They don’t look at you... they watch you. That what you mean?”

“That’s right. What are they watching?”

“A kid in trouble. It’s all over you. Why, Helen?”

“It’s quite a story.” She hesitated. “I think... Mike!”

Footsteps ran toward us, jostled into us, but the dark shape veered off, into the mess of shrubs. I ran after him, but he was gone.

“He got away,” I said, breathing hard.

“Please don’t go after him!”

“Don’t worry. I couldn’t find him in there anyway. Look... remember I said this could be... forever?”

“I remember.”

“Then we go someplace and sit down. We’ll hear some music and you can talk to me. Whatever it is, I want to hear it all.”

So we went someplace and talked, a little place with soft lights softer music. Then she told me.

“There isn’t too much, Mike, but what there is... well, it’s deadly. Look at me. Big, beautiful... even educated. Some might say I’m lucky. But I’m not. I’m just one of thousands more like me who are caught in this... rat trap of New-York. Then I met a man. He was quite a guy. I went head over heels for the dirty... him. Then he was killed. Shot. It was only then that I found out who he was. Marty Wellman.”

“Marty. He was your guy... That slob was the biggest hood the Syndicate ever turned out.”

“I know that now. Do you know why he was killed?”

“Sure. Someplace he had a couple of tax-free millions stashed away. It’s a good reason for murder.”

“Now do you know why I’m scared?”

“Tell it to me.”

“They... or whoever the killer is thinks I know where it is.” She paused. “Mike... I’m tired of being afraid. I’m tired of walking the street afraid to look back and more afraid to look ahead. I’m tired of looking at my front door night after night, waiting for it to open slowly until I see a killer standing there with a gun in his hand. Mike... I’m tired, do you understand? Tired of living... afraid of living anymore. Mike... I want to die. I want to so bad I’m going to do it myself. I’m...”

“Shaddup!”

“No! I...”

“Shaddup, I said.”

She did.

“I’ll get him for you, girl. He’ll never bother you again.

He’ll never bother anybody again.”

“The police... they never...”

“I’m not the police.”

“Then... it still might be... forever, Mike?”

“We can make it go however we want it to go. But I’ll need some help from you.”

“You can have... anything you want from me, Mike.”

And forever started that night.

It started when Helen took me to the place Marty Wellman used to run, a smooth bistro catering to the uptown trade that ran as far as up to Ossining on the Hudson. Those who were popular that far up made the backroom a gambler’s paradise and a sucker’s grave.

No, she wouldn’t come in. She stayed in the cab and that’s the way I wanted it. There was muted music and indirect lighting. The coatroom was jam-packed but there wasn’t a dozen people at the bar. The rest were digging their graves behind the curtain alongside the bandstand.

I walked up to the bar and sat down.

“Yessir,” the bartender said.

“Gimme a beer.”

“Yessir!”

He brought the beer and moved away.

“Hey, feller. Come here a minute.”

“Yeah?”

“How long have you been here?”

“About two years.”

“You knew Marty Wellman, then, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I knew Marty.”

“What did you know about him?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t walk away, friend.”

He paused. “Friend... look. If you’re just a wise guy... get out by yourself. If you’re a tough guy I’ll toss you out. You know?”

“Friend... look.”

I held my coat open just enough so he could see the leather of the sling that ran across my chest. I didn’t have to show him the .45 that was under it.

“I’m a tough guy, friend. Real tough. Different from the other kind. I’ll tell you my name. Just once. Then you talk... understand. It’s Mike... Mike Hammer.”

“Yeah...”

“Who owns the place now, friend?”

“Me... I do. There’s my license on the wall.”

“Swell. Who runs it?”

“Me... I—”

“Friend... from where you stand maybe I don’t look mad enough to do it, but you’re going to be hurting awful bad with a slug in your leg.”

“Ease off, will you, I’m trying to tell you...”

“Never mind, Joe,” another voice said. “We’ll tell him.”

Whatever the guy behind me had in his pocket pressed hard against my back. The bartender tried to grin but it looked a little sick,

“Much trouble, Joe?” the guy asked.

“Not too much, Dave. He’s got a gun.”

“He won’t have it long. Get up slow, bud. You know where to go or should I steer you a little?”

That was a laugh. Go? I could find it with my eyes closed. Sure, I went... nice and orderly, too... through the crowd at the wheels, around the dice tables, then up to the door marked private and I didn’t even have to knock.

There were four of them in there... plus a languid redhead. But only one of them counted.

His name? Sure, you remember him... Carmen Rich. The boy with all the muscles. The rising star in the world that lived at night. You heard of Buddy Whiteman, too, the slick gunslinger from Miami who was always at Carmen’s arm. And now there they were.

“This the guy?” Carmen asked.

“Troublemaker at the bar,” Dave said.

“They never learn, do they?”

“Not until we teach them, Carmen.”

“Maybe you got a good idea of what’s going to happen to you, feller. You want to speak, say it now.”

“You slimy thick-necked jerk,” I said. “You scrimey punk...”

“Take him, Buddy. Take him good.”

“Yeah, take me,” I said. “But before you start, remember something. There’s a gun at my back but there’s one under my arm and I can get it out a second before I die and in that one second I can plant a slug between your eyes and maybe the Miami boy too and if living is that cheap to you, go ahead and take me.”

Nobody moved.

They sat there watching me... and they knew. That kind could always tell.

Carmen said, “Hold it, Buddy... What’s the angle?”

I laughed. “Me... and a dead man. Marty Wellman. Why did he die? Who killed him? There’s your angle.”

“I’ll pay for that information,” Carmen said.

“So will a killer.”

“I don’t get you, guy.”

“Nobody ever does.”

“Have a cigarette?”

“No thanks. I’ll stick to my Camels.”

Carmen clicked his lighter, puffed his cigarette. “Why’d you come here?”

“Let’s say to see you. The guy at the bar owns the joint and you run it. So Marty left a will.”

“That’s right. Marty left a will.”

“You don’t leave a gambling concession in a will, Carmen.”

“You know me?”

“Yeah. And you know me, too. Mike Hammer. Maybe you heard.”

Carmen paused. “I heard.”

Whiteman said, “I hate these big-mouthed characters. Let me take him, Carmen.”

“I’d like to see you try it, Buddy,” Carmen said. “It’d be real funny. He’d actually die just to pump one into both of us.”

“Nuts,” Buddy said.

“Buddy...” Carmen said. “If you try it... I’ll kill you myself. I know this guy.”

“He’s pulling a bluff and...”

“I’m not, Buddy,” Carmen said. “I’ve seen some of the dead men he left behind him.”

“So you know why I’m here,” I said. “You have any answers?”

“You should know the story,” Carmen said. “Someplace Marty had money stashed away. Two million is a good haul.”

“Where, Carmen?”

“Would I run this joint if I knew?”

“Okay,” I said. “I was just asking. Now I’ll ask around other places. You better be on the square, feller. Otherwise I’ll be back.”

I pulled away from the guy behind me. “Hey... what is this?” he said.

“Let him go, Dave,” Carmen said.

I laughed and shut the door on them.

A croupier was calling out as I slid my barstool into place. “Hey, friend... gimme a beer.”

“Yessir, what can I...”

The bartender’s eyes were wide.

I said, “They didn’t do it to me, feller.”

“I don’t get it,” the bartender said softly.

“You will, feller... if you work that buzzer behind the bar on me again. I said I was different from the other kind of tough guy. You know?”

“Yeah,” the bartender said, dragging it out.

“I’m getting out now... Just remember me if I ever come back.”

Sometimes it’s good to be a guy who doesn’t have to worry about the rules. You can learn things that are clubs to hold over somebody’s head and you can prowl the night until you find the ferrets... human animals who live by invading the dens of the rats.

But first I went to a rat.

He was dressed in grey from his head to his shoes. His hair was mousy color and his eyes were the kind you see peering out of holes in the wall.

Sid Pollack was a rat. On his paper they called him a columnist, but a lot more on the outside called him a rat. He was living by night in a gin mill on Third Avenue that had taken on the taint of respectability lately.

“Hi, Sid.”

“What do you want, Hammer?”

“You.”

“Scram.”

“There was a court case. There was a witness. There was a big lie told and a stinking murderer got off free.” I paused. “There was a night a week later when the killer called on the witness and passed over an envelope with ten grand in it.”

His voice was hushed. “You dirty...”

“Shut up or I’ll break your back right over the bar stool.”

“What do you want?”

“News. Who runs the Syndicate since Marty Wellman got hit?”

“You ought to know.”

I just looked at him.

“Okay... lay off,” he said hurriedly. “So it’s Carmen Rich.”

“How?”

“He moved in. There’s another way?”

“Not without an army, there isn’t.”

Sid smirked. “He’s got an army.”

“Yeah?”

The reporter spoke slowly, with contempt. “You crazy fool. He’s got Buddy Whiteman. He’s got a kill-batty jerk who’ll knock off the whole town if he says so. The Miami Kid is the fastest thing you ever saw with a rod. You stick your head out. I’ll be giving you a two-line obituary in my column and glad to do it.”

“Why haven’t the cops tagged Buddy Whiteman?”

He laughed. “The cops. The only thing they haven’t got to hit him with is evidence, you jerk you. Maybe after you...”

I slapped him.

He dropped his glass and stopped laughing.

“Don’t ever laugh at me, Sid.”

The cops? No, don’t fool yourself. They don’t make any mistakes. They’re good boys to keep on the right side of. One in particular. Meet him yourself. His name is Pat Chambers... Captain of Homicide. We were buddies, so I could speak to him. We were buddies, so he could speak to me.

“You know, Mike,” Pat said, “if anybody but you asked me for information on Wellman, Rich, or Whiteman, I’d hold them for questioning. What are you up to?”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“First you tell me things.”

“A woman is slowly dying because a killer is loose. I like that woman.”

Pat paused. “Helen Venn?”

“You’re a brain, Pat. It’s her.”

“Be careful, friend. She’s marked.”

“I know.”

“We kept a tail on her after Marty’s death. She’s marked... We know that... but we don’t know how, why, or by whom.”

“The paper never said much about Marty catching it.”

He threw the sheaf of papers on his desk; they scattered. “There’s the file on him. A few pictures, too. That one there is the last he ever had taken.”

It was a police photo, a garish head-on shot of Marty Wellman, the muscle kid. Too handsome for his own good. Too big and broad for anybody else’s good either.

He looked pretty sharp sitting there at his desk in a dressing gown that was open to let his chest hair show through. His head was turned to one side and a cigar was tight in his pretty teeth.

Yeah, pretty sharp. The only trouble was that he was pretty dead, too. The bullet hole showed right over his ear.

“ .38 slug did it,” Pat said.

“He got it cold?”

“No... warm, sort of. The desk drawer was open and a snub-nosed .38 was right where he could get it. Notice his hand. It’s still lying almost on the rod. He must have sat there with the thing in his hand.”

“It was a hard two million he had, Pat.”

“I’ll tell you something, kid. We found out about that. The two million was a bluff. He never had it. He called that bluff his insurance dough for retirement and used it to bank himself into control of the Syndicate’s gambling setup in town here.”

“Some use money... some use a bluff... and some use an army.”

“What?”

“Nothing... Helen Venn. What about her?”

“Beautiful... and lonely. Marty cultivated her. That was another bluff, only she didn’t know it.”

“I’m glad he’s dead.”

“Oh, it wasn’t all his fault. You know dames. If she hadn’t been looking for a push ahead, she wouldn’t have hung out with the money boys. First it was Earnie Haver. Then Salvy Slocum. Big Ed Smith got in line and finally it was Marly. She was quite a girl to get a yen for.”

“Yeah.”

“You say it funny, Mike.”

“Yeah. Was she really a pusher, Pat?”

“Oh... I wouldn’t say so. A kid blinded by the bright lights, let’s say. She checked clean.”

“Do we talk about the Syndicate?”

“Do you mean Carmen Rich?”

“That’s right.”

“No, we don’t talk.”

“Carmen too big to talk about?”

“Let’s stay friends, kid.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“We don’t talk because it’s a sealed case. It’s being worked on.”

“Okay, Pat, thanks.” I stood. “I’ll dig around. Anything turns up... I’ll buzz you.”

“Swell,” he said. “Do that.”

I had asked rats first. They didn’t know. Then the cops. They wouldn’t talk. There were still the ferrets... sharp-eyed little people who walked in the shadow of the rats and knew everything they did. All you had to do was get them to open their mouths.

On the Bowery I found my ferret.

He was sleeping in a doorway dreaming big dreams and living under a blue sky someplace that was warm and comfortable... He didn’t like it too much when I woke him up.

“Hello, Jake.”

“Hey... hey... cut it.”

“It’s me, kid — Mike Hammer.”

He scrambled to his feet, scared.

“Come here, come here... what’s the matter with you?”

“Look, lemme alone, Mike. Just lemme alone.”

I held his arm and hauled him in close until the sour whiskey smell of him was right under my nose.

“What’s the matter with you? You want a fin or a train ticket? I’m not too good to speak to, am I?”

He groaned loudly. “Mike... look, lemme say it fast... The word’s out. They’re gunning for you. You ain’t healthy no more.”

“Who?”

“Who knows? The word’s out. Mike... lemme go.”

“Sure, Jake. Just answer me something. Why did Marty Wellman die?”

A long hiss escaped his lips. He was scared. “Mike!”

“Why, Jake... why.”

“There’s talk... it isn’t loud talk because if it gets heard somebody gets killed. Marty... he had to die. You know, the king is dead. Long live the king. He got pushed because somebody else wanted in.”

“Carmen?”

“Honest, Mike, I...”

“Okay, I won’t push you. But the talk I heard had two million bucks in it.”

“Marty was flat. He borrowed fifty grand from a Chicago outfit. That sound like two million?”

“No.” I gave him a fin. “Here buy yourself a steak.”

“Thanks.”

And that was all the ferret had to say. No... he wouldn’t have said another word. He was one more guy the fear had gotten to.

So now the word was out.

Somebody wanted... me.

“Don’t move, mister,” a voice said.

My boy Dave from the bar. The second time he held a gun on me.

“Sucker,” he said. “Sucker. You would’ve had it easy if you didn’t nose around. Come on.”

“Where?”

“There’s a car over there.”

“Suppose I don’t?”

“Try it.”

“Yeah... yeah.”

He wasn’t fast enough.

Somebody should’ve told him. This is New York. You let them find out for themselves here. I stepped past him, 45 in hand, hearing the last little sounds he was making, aware of the complete silence that hung over the Bowery while a hundred eyes saw a kill that a hundred mouths would never speak about except among themselves.

But the dead man proved a point. I was important. Then I knew just how important...

Important enough for two more of Carmen’s boys to be on top of me, and I never saw the other one. I heard the swish and thud of the sap...

“We can’t go out to the island,” a voice was saying.

“Then use the park,” another voice said. “We can pull over, dump him, and blow.”

“Suppose somebody hears the shot?”

“For the kind of dough we’re making, you want Social Security?”

“Aw, shut up.”

“Here’s the place. Pull over.”

They carried me out. They dragged me through the bushes and around a jutting tooth of rock like you find in Central Park, then they dumped me. The fat boy pulled the gun from his pocket, checked the shells, then flipped the cylinder back...

I played it just a little too slow. Too slow. The louse got me with the gun butt and I had it good... just long enough to hear them get away.

But I wasn’t too bad off. One dead man earlier still told the story. I started to get up... then my hand closed around a flat little pad and I thought how I had missed it earlier when I had chased somebody else into these same bushes... somebody who had been waiting for Helen and me ripped it out of his coat pocket when he tried to get me off his back.

I wrapped my handkerchief around it, stuck it in my pocket, and got up. It wouldn’t take long to reach the street... or get a boy to run my package up to Pat’s office.

It was enough for the night. Enough. I called a cab over and gave the driver Helen’s address...

“Hello, Mike,” she said. “It’s so good to see you.”

“Helen... You look different, kid.”

“I... feel different, Mike. I’m... not afraid anymore.”

“You’ll never have to be afraid again.”

“But... you look different, too, Mike.”

“Somebody else told me that once, too. They said they could always tell when I killed somebody.”

“Mike! You killed...”

“What difference does it make. The pressure’s off you now. They turned the heat my way.” I hesitated. “You’re beautiful, kid. Why? Why?”

“Why what, Mike?”

“Why do I love you so fast? What happens to a guy to make it so quick? Why, Helen? Why did a guy have to die tonight? Why is it I love you so much?”

“Maybe it’s because I can love, too. I thought I loved before... but it wasn’t like this. Nothing like this at all. I don’t have to... work to love you, Mike. It’s just there. It’s something that makes you and me the only two people in the world. Something that is life and living... and love. Love... it makes fear seem so small and pitiful. When you love like this there isn’t any room left for fear at all. Mike... remember you said forever?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I said I’d do anything in the world for you?”

“Yeah...”

“And you said forever had to start sometime?”

“And forever starts...”

“Tonight, Mike.”

Then you come into the mist once more because there’s a killer loose and you’re ready to start again. It’s a day and a night later, and another day and a night and all along the way voices whisper to you while you wait.

They’re after you, Alike.

Hey, Mike... watch it.

Pal... pal... a guy with a rod... he was here before...

And you listen without answering... but you listen. You see them. You know their faces... faces that are all alike... faces of hunters... but you move too fast... then you’re ready to move and you watch and wait for a long time before you have him right.

He comes out of a building finally... and for the first time he’s alone. You say...

“Carmen...”

Then he spins around and while the crazy feat is still on his face and the scream in his throat, there’s a crashing thunder of a shot...

And Carmen Rich fell with the blood, a wild angry stream spurting from his throat, and you know the party isn’t over yet...

So you run and run until you’re in the clear and stand there panting your lungs out... then another long day and then you begin to wonder and at last you get an idea... and see Pat again.

He spoke slowly, softly: “Mike... all I know is what they let me know. Sure Carmen is dead. They all die sooner or later, but someone’s ready to fill in. No matter what the papers or the politicians say, we can’t stop the Syndicate from operating.”

“Who filled in, Pat?”

“I wish I knew. I wish I knew.”

“Guess.”

“Somebody who’s here now. A million-dollar enterprise doesn’t go without a president for long. But who? I don’t know yet. By the way... the prints we lifted from that pad of yours. They belong to a guy named Ben Liter. Small-time hood. Mostly petty raps. What’s the pitch?”

I snorted.

“Something?” he asked.

“No...” I said. “No... nothing, Pat.”

Nothing. Always nothing. Even the voices that whispered told me nothing. In a way it was funny, all of it... from a bartender who owned a bar worth a fortune... but didn’t run the business... to dead me... to guys in the bushes... to a new president. Toast. The king is dead. Long live the king. Ahhhh.

The queen.

Helen.

Tonight was rain and Helen and tomorrow the king could live and die but tonight was the queen... and live.

So I went back to the apartment. I got out of the cab. It was quiet... dark... and late, so that’s why I heard him... and maybe why I followed him. Then there he was, going into the same building as I was...

“Buddy!” I said.

He took two shots at me and I clawed my .45 out from under my arm and took pursuit.

And there we were, alone in the darkness, the back fences of the alleys crowding us, the rain a muffler that blanked out sound but we each knew the other was there and someplace where I could hear him breathing was the new king who was ready to kill my queen and for the first time I was the white knight and I laughed...

“Buddy... you won’t get out alive.”

“You’re kidding, feller. You’re just kidding. You know who did it to Carmen? You know why?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Carmen was too big too long. I been small long enough. It’s my turn now. I’m going up. Then you know what? I got everything I ever wanted. Everything. Nobody... understand... nobody... gets in my way. Nobody stops me or gets in my way even. Not you, nobody.” He laughed. “Not even Mata Hari.”

“They were big dreams, Buddy,” I said. “You’ve had it.”

“No,” he said. “You get it. You and anybody in my way.”

There was just that one exploding pain in my belly that smashed me into the ground... hard, wet, and the breath was gone for long seconds. There was that fuzzy feeling that I had known once, a long time ago in the stinking jungles of a Pacific island... but even then it hadn’t been this bad... and then the king stood over me to put the final one in my head.

He shouldn’t have been so gracious...

His laugh was a whisper as he came over and he was still laughing when I shot him.

You could hear sirens someplace... they faded as I stood up, stopped altogether as I walked and all the sound I could hear was the rushing waterfall in my ears... but somehow I got up to her apartment... opened it with the key she had given me and staggered in.

My queen was beautiful... beautiful... standing there in that single light. Beautiful and mine.

And I was dying...

“Mike?” Her voice was querulous.

“They’re dead, Helen. It’s one way of stopping the fear.”

“Dead?”

“Carmen Rich... he didn’t matter. Buddy Whiteman.” I paused. “He mattered. He’s dead, Helen, but I’m the only one who knows. You’ll never have to be afraid of anything again. I’m the only one who knows.”

“Mike...?”

“The death photo of Marty Wellman. He had his hand on a gun, so he was afraid of a killer. But his head was turned to look at something else. Even with a killer in front of him, you’d be the only one he’d look at. The only thing he’d take his eyes off a killer for. And one other thing. It was small and wouldn’t mean much except to me. The guy who watched us in the park... he was a small-timer. A guy with services for rent... but not to a big organization like the Syndicate, Helen. To you, maybe, but not the Syndicate.”

“Yes... it was me, Mike. Me and Marty at first, but he wouldn’t give me what I had earned. He had to die. You know that, don’t you? Carmen?” She shook her head. “He wasn’t the strong one I needed. I wanted someone who could act... quickly, decisively. Someone who could respond to my... love... without anyone knowing it. Someone ready to do whatever I asked him to... no questioning... nothing.” She shrugged. “That was Buddy Whiteman. The Miami Kid, they called him.”

“Forget them, honey,” I said. “It’s over now. There’s only you and me... for a few minutes at least.”

“Mike... there’s not even a few minutes. I’m scared again. I wanted so much. I almost had it... then I did have it... for a little bit. Mike... I’m going to have it for all time. I’m going to have the world at the snap of mv fingers. Not a little bit... everything! Buddy killed Carmen for me.” She laughed shortly. “He was going to kill you, too. Mike... you see, here’s how it is. Buddy got ambitious, too. That was the sad part of it. He and I planned the kill of Marty and did it. But he had ambitions and as long as I knew his part of the murder, I was in his way. Juries seldom convict a woman, you know. So it had to be either Buddy or me. One of us had to die and I didn’t like to kill anyone myself... so I chose you, Mike...”

“But... I... loved you, Helen.”

“And now you have to die, Mike. I can’t even let you have that few’ minutes to speak to the police when they come... and they will come, you know.”

“I know.”

The knife was in her hand... a long slim little thing that came close slowly. It came up closer... and I couldn’t move out of the way at all.

“Mike... believe something. I really love you, Mike.”

“I know, Helen. So now I die. But don’t count on living too long, Helen. Someplace we might meet again... no matter where it is, you’ll die, too, Helen.”

“It will never happen that way, Mike.” She sighed. “Mike... I’m sorry.”

She thrust the blade.

Die? Yeah, that was the night I died. It wasn’t my skin and bones. No, my flesh had to live even though I didn’t want it to.

But something else had died that night. Something more important than what you see when you look in the mirror.

My thumb found the hammer and pulled it back.

“Really here... Mike?”

“Really here, Helen.”

“Not even a kiss good-bye, Mike?”

“Not even a kiss good-bye. The last one was two years ago. That one will hold me. That was a real kiss. A kiss of death. Remember it, Helen?”

Sure, she remembered it, all right. She came closer, with her arms reaching out for me and I wasn’t supposed to see that same sliver of steel that she had used before.

“I really love you, Mike.”

“And I really love you, Helen.”

And then the only sound you hear is the gunshot, and her cry. And the sound of your own feet, walking down the street at night.