The Mike Hammer Collection

There is no way to describe the immediate aftermath of a sudden shock. If it had come at another time in another year it would have been different, but now the stalk of despondency was withered and brittle, refusing to bend before a wind of elation.

All I could do was sit there, bringing back his words, the tone of his voice, the way his face crinkled as he saw me. Somehow he had expected something different. He wasn’t looking for a guy who had the earmarks of the Bowery and every slop chute along the avenues etched into his skin.

I said, “Who was he, Pat?” in a voice soggy and hollow.

Pat didn’t bother to answer my question. I could feel his eyes crawl over me until he asked, “What did he tell you?”

I shook my head. Just once. My way could be final too.

With a calm, indifferent sincerity Pat said, “You’ll tell me. You’ll get worked on until talking won’t even be an effort. It will come out of you because there won’t be a nerve ending left to stop it. You know that.”

I heard Larry’s strained voice say, “Come off it, Pat. He can’t take much.”

“Who cares. He’s no good to anybody. He’s a louse, a stinking, drinking louse. Now he’s got something I have to have. You think I’m going to worry about him? Larry, buddy, you just don’t know me very well anymore.”

I said, “Who was he?”

The wall in front of me was a friendly pale green. It was blank from one end to the other. It was a vast, meadowlike area, totally unspoiled. There were no foreign markings, no distracting pictures. Unsympathetic. Antiseptic.

I felt Pat’s shrug and his fingers bit into my arm once more. “Okay, wise guy. Now we’ll do it my way.”

“I told you, Pat—”

“Damn it, Larry, you knock it off. This bum is a lead to a killer. He learned something from that guy and I’m going to get it out of him. Don’t hand me any pious crap or medical junk about what can happen. I know guys like this. I’ve been dealing with them all my life. They go on getting banged around from saloon to saloon, hit by cars, rolled by muggers and all they ever come up with are fresh scars. I can beat the hell out of him and maybe he’ll talk. Maybe he won’t, but man, let me tell you this—I’m going to have my crack at him and when I’m through the medics can pick up the pieces for their go. Only first me, understand?”

Larry didn’t answer him for a moment, then he said quietly. “Sure, I understand. Maybe you could use a little medical help yourself.”

I heard Pat’s breath hiss in softly. Like a snake. His hand relaxed on my arm and without looking I knew what his face was like. I had seen him go like that before and a second later he had shot a guy.

And this time it was me he listened to when I said, “He’s right, old buddy. You’re real sick.”

I knew it would come and there wouldn’t be any way of getting away from it. It was quick, it was hard, but it didn’t hurt a bit. It was like flying away to never-never land where all is quiet and peaceful and awakening is under protest because then it will really hurt and you don’t want that to happen.

Larry said, “How do you feel now?”

It was a silly question. I closed my eyes again.

“We kept you here in the hospital.”

“Don’t do me any more favors,” I told him.

“No trouble. You’re a public charge. You’re on the books as an acute alcoholic with a D and D to boot and if you’re real careful you might talk your way out on the street again. However, I have my doubts about it. Captain Chambers is pushing you hard.”

“The hell with him.”

“He’s not the only one.”

“So what’s new?” My voice was raspy, almost gone.

“The D.A., his assistant and some unidentified personnel from higher headquarters are interested in whatever statement you’d care to make.”

“The hell with them too.”

“It could be instrumental in getting you out of here.”

“Nuts. It’s the first time I’ve been to bed in a long time. I like it here.”

“Mike—” His voice had changed. There was something there now that wasn’t that of the professional medic at a bedside. It was worried and urgent and I let my eyes slit open and looked at him.

“I don’t like what’s happening to Pat.”

“Tough.”

“A good word, but don’t apply it to him. You’re the tough one. You’re not like him at all.”

“He’s tough.”

“In a sense. He’s a pro. He’s been trained and can perform certain skills most men can’t. He’s a policeman and most men aren’t that. Pat is a normal sensitive human. At least he was. I met him after you went to pot. I heard a lot about you, mister. I watched Pat change character day by day and what caused the change was you and what you did to Velda.”

The name again. In one second I lived every day the name was alive and with me. Big, Valkyrian and with hair as black as night.

“Why should he care?”

“He says she was his friend.”

Very slowly I squeezed my eyes open. “You know what she was to me?”

“I think so.”

“Okay.”

“But it could be he was in love with her too,” he said.