Mickey Spillane - [Mike Hammer 13] (25 page)

“You sure of this?”

“Absolutely. Two of those hoods were recognized by one of the people they locked up. He told us, but no way will he make that identification official. The cops got the word on the street about it too. Now, the debt’s been paid, so the heat is not on you from the mob up here. It’s Ugo . . . he’s gone completely nuts. All he wants is you, and from the threats he made earlier, he wants your hide.”

“What do you want, Homer?”

“I want you to stay alive until we get our hands on that money.”

“In other words, you still think I know where it is?”

He didn’t answer me, but he didn’t have to.

I told him, “Homer, how would anybody know if I had all those billions?”

“You tell me, Hammer,” he said.

I let my head move in a slow nod. “I’d have to
show rich
first, wouldn’t I?”

His eyes said that I was right.

“My Ford would have to get turned in for a BMW or a Mercedes and I’d move into an apartment on Fifth Avenue.” I paused, savoring the picture. “A couple of the agencies could furnish me bodyguards.”

Velda let out a chuckle and Homer gave her a concerned look. She said, “You have to get rid of your Hush Puppies and other crepe-soled shoes and carry a smaller gun.”

Then it was my turn to laugh. “You know, Homer, the mob doesn’t want me. It wants their money, and if there’s a chance that I
can
point them to it, I’m safe. If the good old U.S. Department of the Treasury or the IRS or any of those clowns think I have the key, they’ll guard me like Fort Knox.”

“That leaves Ugo Ponti as the loose cannon. Knowing him, nothing’s going to change until he kills you. Or Velda here.”

I got that sudden squeeze again. It wrapped itself around my middle, then centered on my side, like a flint arrowhead being pushed into a suppurated wound very slowly, stopping just before the pain got great enough to make you choke on your own breath.

Velda saw my face tighten and knew what was happening.

Homer frowned and said, “What are your plans?”

I knew what I had to do. For too long I had ignored it, but now I knew. I said, “I’m going back to the city, Mr. Watson. There’s nothing more I can do here.”

“We can run unmarked cars in front and in back of you if you want.”

Velda didn’t give me a chance to answer. “That will be fine, Mr. Watson.” He looked at me and I agreed with a nod.

“I’ll call Captain Chambers. Our teams will escort you back to the city limits and his men can cover you back to your apartment. Is that all right with you?”

“Sure.” I breathed slowly a few seconds until the pain receded a little. “But isn’t all this interdepartmental cooperation a little unusual?”

“Perhaps, but necessary. It makes bookkeeping easier. The prize involved demands it.”

“Baloney,” I said sourly, “the prize is all that counts.”

Velda drove going back, staying a little above the posted speeds like everyone else. The unmarked cars took turns leading our convoy and twice plain vans and a pickup with a camper top joined us to relieve the monotony in case we were being followed. All the cars were in communication by radio and when Pat’s men joined us I felt better. The other vehicles seemed to melt away and we made the apartment building without an incident. Bill Raabe was on duty, spotted us, and knew that something was up and didn’t ask any questions. When we got upstairs, Velda called Ralph Morgan and told him to get over as fast as he could.

My front door was fireproof, steel faced and solidly bolted and I didn’t want an armed guard outside, but Pat insisted and settled for a plainclothesman down in the lobby to keep Bill Raabe company. The patrol cars would make routine stops to check the situation periodically.

Velda wasn’t a hysterical female. She was as businesslike as she could get and got into my small arms cabinet and laid out three automatics with full loads at hidden but strategic places around the rooms. I let her play while I slipped into a tub of warm, soothing water and let the pain soften like the dirt on me and got out, dried off and dressed as the good doctor came in.

His face registered pure disgust. There was no small talk until he had gotten all my vital signs down on his pad, a new bandage on me and had a brief conversation with Velda out of my sight. When he came back he said, “You’ll live. How long, however, is in your hands. Your general condition is good, but it could have been much better. That wound of yours could erupt at any time. It’s right on the edge this minute. I’m not going to preach to you, Mike. It wouldn’t do any good. You made me well, for which I thank you, but you’ll do nothing for yourself. You haven’t got a death wish, have you?”

“Not likely.”

“Why don’t you retire?”

“From whom, pal? I’m self-employed. I can’t quit.”

The doctor looked over at Velda and she shrugged in resignation.

“When is this thing going to end?” he asked me.

“When it’s over,” I said.

Three days went past like a soft dream. I ate, I slept, I watched the weather channel on TV and fell asleep during two movies. Velda whispered around my apartment, keeping things clean and answering the phone. At regular intervals I took what medication she gave me and finally I began to think the doctor had slipped in something to keep me channelled in peaceful paths. There was no company and no noise and on the morning of the fourth day my eyes snapped open to total reality. There was no drug hangover, no pain in my side, and when I touched the bandaged area there was a soreness but nothing more. I was awake, I was alert and I felt great.

Velda had been watching and waiting. I didn’t eat in the bed again. I sat up in a chair and had breakfast spread out before me on a small table. The vitamins and the calories were all there, but I wasn’t smothered with huge portions. Something had happened to my appetite and the small portions she had doled out were just right.

She had my ring on her finger and I was feeling that being married wouldn’t be cutting a hole in my life at all.

That girl was reading my mind again. She deliberately waved the diamond in front of me and smiled. Then she told me to go shave and get cleaned up. Pat had called earlier and would be up to see me in another hour.

Something critical had cropped up.

 

“This is pure rumor,” Pat told me. “It’s straight off the streets and not documented at all, but I trust the sources.”

“Good news?”

“For you, yeah. The Albany mob that broke Ugo out of the jail hospital found out that he iced his father. The capo of that bunch was tight with old Lorenzo, that’s why he did the big favor, but when he got word of Ugo pulling the trigger, he hit the roof. There’s a contract out on Ugo like you can’t believe. The few old-timers who have their organizations in line are lending a hand and there’s no way Ugo is going to get out of this.”

“Have they located him yet?”

“Nobody has shown up yet, and his will be one corpse they won’t bury under concrete pilings in Jersey. Ugo is going to be a real example.”

“He already is, Pat. He’s still on the loose.”

“The families have tightened the net around New York. They’d sooner have him dead than controlling that money.”

“What money, Pat?” I asked him lightly.

“Knock it off, Mike.” He got up from his chair and paced the room twice. “His odds are bad. If the police nail him, he goes to prison. He’ll be killed there before they could get him in the chair. Keeping him alive for trial will be harder than trying to locate him.”

“What kind of a net have you got out?”

Pat glared out the window. “Every escape route is covered. Local police and the feds are searching the Albany area, but he had all the time in the world to break out of there. We heard the capo in the state capital laid ten grand on him and got him a nondescript car with straight plates, so he had transportation.”

“You got the plate numbers?”

“No. That was another rumor from a reliable source. We’re waiting for that capo to get sore enough to release the information so we can get an APB out on him.”

“They don’t do it that way, Pat.”

“Maybe this time they might.” He turned slowly and looked down at me sipping my second cup of coffee. “Mike, they all know about you. I think they hired historical researchers because Dooley, you and me are pieces of gossip coming out of the sides of mob mouths. I’ve been called in twice by my superiors to give an explanation of all this, but what do I know? If we were dealing with legitimate business it would be different, but mob money is as elusive as a will-o’-the-wisp. It’s there, but it’s not there. It’s not in use, but the mob business goes on. Nobody seems to know a thing, yet everybody knows all those billions are boxed and stored and a crazy is out there starting up even more trouble for the families.”

I said, “Get to your point, Pat.”

He hooked the chair with his foot and pulled it under him. “I just want you to tell me the truth, Mike. No fancy speculations. Like Jack Webb used to say, ‘Just the facts.’ ”

“Okay, you got it, Pat.”

“Is there really that much money stashed somewhere?”

“Dooley intimated that there was.”

“That’s not an answer, Mike.”

“That’s all he told me.”

Pat took a deep breath, stared up at the ceiling a moment, then said, “Do you know where it is?”

“No.”

Pat was a cop and I didn’t fool him a bit. “Do you think you know where it is?”

“I’ve been studying on that, pal.”

“What are your conclusions?”

“So far I haven’t gotten to that point. At least we know one thing: nobody else has recovered it. I assume you have alerted every warehouse in the state and have contacted all the hunting clubs to pinpoint cave sites in the Adirondack mountain range, right?”

“Among other efforts. The feds are laying out a barrel of loot to run this thing down. If Ugo turns up in their net it will only be coincidental.” His fingers drummed on the arm of the chair. “Tell me, Mike, did you ever figure Dooley for this kind of action?”

“Remember when he ambushed that patrol? He made them think he had a full company behind him.”

“We were all young then. That was war.”

“So is this, Pat, and it’s not over yet.”

Pat nodded sagely and said, “I’m restricted to the city, Mike, but you’re mobile. Someplace in your head you’ve schemed something up. You have plans and you are about to start working them out. Am I right?”

“You’re close.”

“Do I come into this or not?”

“Do you want to?”

“No, not really, but I know I will, so clue me in.”

I leaned forward and looked at him. I wasn’t about to string him along and jeopardize his job and he knew it. We were back on hostile ground facing an armed enemy who had more troops than we did and who could disappear into the civilized bushes of a city without a trace.

I said, “Stick by your phone, Pat. I’ll call at the right time.”

 

New York had turned gray again. There was a chill to the wind that blew from the Hudson River and dust devils rose from the sidewalks and blew in your face so you could actually taste what the city was like. It was nasty and indigestible. There was nothing in common with the smell that loped around the soft rises of the mountains. There, you could smell the trees and the green things and windows didn’t vibrate from the street noises and exhaust emissions followed the thruway and didn’t intrude on the countryside. Acid rain touched the pines on the mountain peaks, but that was a disorder born in industrial cities far from the mellow foliage of the real New York, the part they call the North Country now.

Leaving the city without a tail was no trouble. Just to be sure, I doubled my little tricks and got on the New York Thruway with nobody in sight. At the restaurant area by the Middletown cutoff we pulled into the parking lot and sat there, surveying the traffic. Only two cars stopped, each one with big families. One had Pennsylvania plates and the other Ontario.

So far it had been a clean run. We locked the car, throwing an old khaki jacket over the two cellular phones on the seat. There was no more demand for CB radios. Personal telephones were the big deal for vandals. Then we went inside and got a booth where we had a clear vision of traffic on Route 87.

Over a bowl of hot oatmeal Velda said, “When do you tell me what’s going on?”

“We’re going to find the money, doll.”

“And what are you going to do with it?”

“Nothing. I’m just going to find it.”

“Do you know where it is?”

I grinned at her. “I think so.” Her eyes narrowed and she waited for me to tell her. I shook my head. “You wouldn’t want to know, honey.”

“Why not?”

“Too many bats.”

Her mouth twitched and she said sharply, “Stop it, Mike.” Then her eyes grew grimmer for an instant. “You
are
going back to Harris’ cave again, aren’t you?”