Mickey Spillane - [Mike Hammer 13] (11 page)

“That’s right.”

“He was in the navy,” he challenged.

I nodded. “We found that out when Velda contacted the Veterans Bureau in Washington.”

“How the hell did he get in the army? Damn, that doesn’t make sense. All the old man ever wanted was to get out on the ocean.”

“He ever do that?”

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

That was something Dooley had never mentioned to us at all. In all the tight pockets we had been in, when going over details of your lifetime with your buddies in the same foxhole kept the tension down and the awareness high, never had Dooley told us about a boat. His old Rollfast bicycle, the Flexible Flier sled, the Union Hardware roller skates, those things we knew. But nothing about a boat.

“What kind of a boat?” I asked him.

He ran it through his head trying to determine its importance, then figuring it had none, said, “A Woolsey.”

The name didn’t mean anything to me. “What did it look like?”

“Hey, boats aren’t my thing, Hammer. It was pretty old. He was always repairing the wood, kind of like it was his hobby.”

“He ever take it out?”

“Sure. Like when the weather was right. He didn’t trust the boat enough to get into any rough water. Most of the time he went up and down the river.”

“You ever go with him?”

“When I was a kid, sure. I didn’t like it though. That was his bag, not mine.”

I had to keep probing into this little side venture of Dooley’s. “He have any special places to tie up?”

“Nah. He’d just cruise around and tell me how he always wanted to get out to sea. If we stopped it was to gas up or grab a sandwich.”

“Then where did you go to?”

Marvin gave me an annoyed smirk. “Where can you go on the Hudson? Twice we got as far as Albany. Big deal. Most of the time we’d go north to Poughkeepsie or south below Bear Mountain. If I started to get sick he’d head for home.”

“Where was that?”

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

“You know who owns it?”

“Come on, I was a kid then. Some old man had it. He must have been eighty, so he’s probably dead now.” He paused and his head jerked around so he could look straight at me. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Your old man wasn’t a deserter, Marvin. He just traded in being a lousy sailor for a damn good soldier. Either way, he volunteered. All he did was beat the paperwork.”

Again, I got a hard stare. “And you came all the way down here to tell me where his ashes are?”

“Only because your father left those instructions.”

Knowingly, he asked, “What else?”

“To find out if you could tell me any details that could have gotten him shot.”

“You should do better than that, Mr. Hammer.” I waited and let him add the rest himself. “He was killed for a reason. He was a nobody. There wasn’t any property except his house, he didn’t have a big job, he didn’t get into any trouble, but
something
got him murdered. He didn’t get killed accidental-like.”

“I think this was an accident waiting a long time to happen,” I said. “You know any of his friends at all?”

“Nah. I never knew he had any. The only one I ever saw him around was old Harris.”

“Who?”

“Some old swampie they called Slipped Disk Harris.”

“Who?”

Velda answered me from across the room. “He was a bootlegger back in the prohibition days. They say he got his name from tossing too many cases of illegal whiskey into trucks.”

“Now how would you know that?” I demanded.

“I read a lot,” she told me. “Want more?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I want more.”

“Fine. He was very successful, always a great supplier, never got caught and became very rich. He was alleged to have been a
made man,
but that was never proven. However, he
did
have a great deal of influence with known big-time racketeers.”

I looked at Marvin. “That sound like him?”

Velda’s recitation had left him with a surprised expression. “Yeah,” he agreed, “that was him, all right. He holed up with the old man a couple of times when some of the guys were after his tail.”

“Why?”

Marvin gave a casual shrug. “What it sounded like to me was that Slipped Disk was still selling booze down in the big city, but his prices knocked the regular retailers to hell and gone.”

“Look, you’re talking about a time long after prohibition. Hijacking went out of style when they brought the U.S. government down on them.”

I got another shrug. “So who knows. I was only a little kid. I just remember them laughing about it.”

“You think your father was in on it?”

“My old man? Get outa here. He couldn’t be bothered getting into big business. All he wanted was to play it day by day. Now look what happens. He’s a handyman for mobsters and he gets gunned down like an informer. For what? Nothing, that’s what.” Marvin rubbed his hands over his face, then ran his fingers through his hair. “You want anything else?” he asked.

“Would you give it to me if I did?”

“Depends.”

I handed him one of my old cards Velda had put in my pocket. “Just one thing, Marvin.”

“Oh?”

“Your father was killed for a reason. Whoever did it might think he entrusted information to you and—”

“He didn’t tell me nothing! He—”

“I know that and you know that, but the killer is up in the air so there’s a possibility that the quicker we get that guy the longer you’ll have to live. Give it a thought, Marvin.”

I took Velda’s arm and steered her toward the door. When she reached the downstairs entrance she stopped and her hand slid under her coat. I knew she had her hand on the butt of the .38 she carried and reached out and grabbed her wrist. Darkness had settled in and we were in a strange area where security was null and patrol cars rarely cruised by.

“Nobody followed us,” I told her.

“Mike, you’ve been in bad shape . . .”

“Nothing’s happened to my instincts, doll. After that bomb bit I kept my eyes open.” I stepped out onto the stoop, checked both ways and waved for Velda to come on. The car was still there, nobody had scratched it, kicked it or dented it. And the tiny bit of paper was still in the door hinge as a telltale.

“Clean,” I said.

“Why don’t you check under the hood anyway?”

I got the flashlight out, popped open the hood and inspected around the motor. “See, clean,” I said. We got in, I inserted the key and turned the engine on. There was no explosion and we both let our breaths out at the same time.

“Damn it, Mike, you were expecting something!” Velda charged.

This time my laugh was real. And relieved.

 

The traffic flow on the Jersey Turnpike was loose and fast, so we got back to the city early enough for me to drop Velda off at her apartment and let me change shirts at mine. I didn’t want her where I had to go and before I put on my jacket I went back on what I had told Pat.

I was going to see Don Lorenzo Ponti and all the odds were going to be on his side. But in these games of going face-to-face, I didn’t want to start looking like a pathetic slob hoping for a handout. Ponti was getting old, but the game stayed the same. I got out my old shoulder holster, slipped into it, put a clip of fresh ammo in the .45 and tucked it in the leather. It rode in a bad spot and hurt like mad, but after a few adjustments it felt better even if it sat where a quick draw wasn’t likely.

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

The local club was straight out of an old television movie.
No class
had been deliberately set in 1920’s brick and concrete, with building blocks of translucent glass to let in light on the main floor while keeping anybody from seeing in. The nondescript stores flanking the club were owned by Ponti, but kept unoccupied to protect the club itself. The only thing different was that no graffiti artists had touched a spray can of paint to the concrete.

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

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

You don’t try to be nice to guys like this. I said, “Go tell your boss I want to talk to him.”

“He ain’t here,” the fat one said.

“Want me to shoot the lock off?” I didn’t make it sound like a question.

Thinking wasn’t something either one of these two was good at. They sure knew who I was but couldn’t get the picture at all. The fat one tried to snarl and said to his partner, “Why don’t you go get Lenny, Teddy.”

“If that’s Leonard Patterson, tell him I still have a present he didn’t pick up.”

The guy called Teddy said, “You got a big mouth, mister.”

“I got a big name too, Teddy boy. It’s Mike Hammer and you remember it. Now shake your tail and do what your buddy told you to do.” And the look I got was what I wanted. That Teddy character was going to be another snake to look out for. He sure didn’t buy being put down in front of a punk like the fat boy.

Leonard Patterson didn’t come out alone. Howie Drago was right beside him and a big nickel-plated revolver dangled from his right hand. The game was still going strong because the other players still didn’t know the rules. Hell, they didn’t even know what game it was. What was on their faces wasn’t puzzlement. They’d look like that if they were halfway across the Atlantic Ocean in a canoe and a storm was brewing.

You don’t let them talk first either. “You going to take me to see the don or do I go up alone?”

Howie reacted first. “He’s carrying, Patti.”

“And I got a license for it, kiddo. You got one of those?”

“You’re not coming in here wearing a rod, Hammer.”

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

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

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

“He’s got a gun on him, Mr. Ponti,” Patterson yelled.

“In his hand?”

“No. It’s under his coat.”

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

Ponti was a player, all right. Two old school kids were meeting on the dirty playground to duke it out and the rest of the gang could go kiss their tails. When I got to the top of the stairs Ponti just nodded for me to follow him and he walked in front of me as if it were all one big tea party. He could have been showing off or he could have men hidden waiting for me to jump him, but there was no fear in his movements at all. He pushed through a door to an office, but I didn’t go through. I made sure the door flattened against the wall so nobody was behind it, visually scanned the area, then stepped in and edged along the wall to a chair in front of Ponti’s desk.

His expression seemed to appreciate my cautiousness. “Are you nervous, Mr. Hammer?”

“Just careful.”

“You take big chances.”

“Not really.”

“Oh?”

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

“You could lose. There were a lot of them.”

“I’ve been there before,” I reminded him.

A hardness flushed his face. “Yes. I know.”

For thirty seconds I just stood there staring at him, then moved around the chair and sat down. “Go ahead and ask it,” I said.

The don played his role magnificently. He pulled his leather padded desk chair back on its rollers, sat down easily and folded his hands in his lap. It was taking an effort, but he was keeping his face in repose. When he was ready his eyes met mine and he said, “Did you kill my son, Mr. Hammer?”

There was no waiting this time either. “I shot him right in the head, Don Ponti. He had put two into me and was about to give me one right in the face when I squeezed a .45 into his head. You’re damn right I shot him and if you have any more like him who want to try that action on me I’ll do the same thing again.”

I didn’t know what to expect, certainly not the look of calm acceptance he wore. He seemed to be mentally reviewing the details of that night and when all the pieces fit into the puzzle he seemed oddly satisfied. “I do not blame you, Mr. Hammer,” he told me quietly. “Of course, the public does not know what really happened, do they?”

“I wasn’t around for any discussion.”

“No, to them it was a gang war. The police were quite willing to let it go at that.”

“What was it, Mr. Ponti?” I asked.

“A gang war,” he told me amicably. “They happen, you know.”

“Not like that. Not when the businesses are going along smoothly and the boss of bosses can take a vacation. Not when some of them who were shot up during the battle didn’t belong there to start with. There was no street talk about a rumble about to happen and if you hadn’t taken the normal precautions you would have been a total casualty when it was over.”