The Mike Hammer Collection

So he waited. Like a good father, which added to his political image, he adopted her into his house. When it was not expedient for him to have her around any longer he arranged for her execution through Levitt. He sure was a lousy planner there. Levitt talked too much. Enough to die before he could do the job.

In one way Sue forced her own near-death with her crazy behavior. Whatever she couldn’t get out of her mind were the things her mother told her repeatedly in her drunken moods. It had an effect all right. She made it clear to Sim that he was going to have to kill her if he didn’t want her shooting her mouth off.

Sim would have known who The Snake was. Sally had referred to him by that often enough. No wonder he ducked it at the trial. No wonder it seared him silly when Sue kept insisting her mother left something for her to read. No wonder he searched her things. That last time in Sue’s little house was one of desperation. He knew that sooner or later something would come to light and if it happened he was politically dead, which to him was death in toto.

But somebody made a mistake. There was a bigger snake loose than Torrence ever was. There was a snake with three million bucks buried in its hole and that could be the worst kind of snake of all. Hell, Sim wasn’t a snake at all. He was a goddamn worm.

I folded the letter and put it back in my pocket when the bell rang. When I opened the door Velda folded into my arms like a big cat, kicked it shut with her heel, and buried her face against my neck.

“You big slob,” she said.

While she made coffee I told her about it, taking her right through from the beginning. She read the letter twice, getting the full implication of it all.

“Does Pat know all this?”

“Not yet. He’d better take first things first.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Call Art Rickerby.”

I picked the unlisted number out of memory and got Art on the phone. It took a full thirty minutes to rehash the entire situation, but he listened patiently, letting me get it across. It was the political side of it he was more concerned with at the moment, realizing what propaganda ammunition the other side could use against us.

One thing about truth . . . let it shine and you were all right. It was the lies that could hurt you. But there were ways of letting the truth come out so as to nullify the awkward side of it and this was what the striped-pants boys were for.

Art said he’d get into it right away, but only because of my standing as a representative of the agency he was part of.

I said, “Where do I go from here, Art?”

“Now who’s going to tell you, big man?”

“It isn’t over yet.”

“It’s never over, Mike. When this is over there will be something else.”

“There will be some big heat coming my way. I’d hate to lose my pretty little ticket. It’s all I have.”

He was silent for a moment, then he said, “I’ll let you in on a confidence. There are people here who like you. We can’t all operate the same way. Put a football player on the diamond and he’d never get around the bases. A baseball player in the middle of a pileup would never get up. You’ve never been a total unknown and now that you’re back, stay back. When we need you, we’ll yell. Meanwhile nobody’s going to pick up your ticket as long as you stay clean enough. I didn’t say legal . . . I said clean. One day we’ll talk some more about this, but not now. You do what you have to do. Just remember that everybody’s watching so make it good.”

“Great, all I have to do is stay alive.”

“Well, if you do get knocked off, let me repeat a favorite old saying of yours, ‘Kismet, buddy.’ ”

He hung up and left me staring at the phone. I grinned, then put it down and started to laugh. Velda said, “What’s so funny?”

“I don’t know,” I told her. “It’s just funny. Grebb and Charlie Force are going to come at me like tigers when this is over to get my official status changed and if I can make it work they don’t have a chance.”

That big, beautiful thing walked over next to me and slid her arms around my waist and said, “They never did have a chance. You’re the tiger, man.”

I turned around slowly and ran my hands under her sweater, up the warm flesh of her back. She pulled herself closer to me so that every curve of hers matched my own and her breasts became rigid against my chest.

There was a tenderness to her mouth that was only at the beginning, then her lips parted with a gentle searching motion and her tongue flicked at mine with the wordless gestures of love. Somehow the couch was behind us and we sank down on it together. There was no restraint at all, simply the knowledge that it was going to happen here and now at our own time and choosing.