The Mike Hammer Collection

This guy was as talkative as a pea pod. “Say, was much traffic along here night before last?”

He shut off the pump, put the cap back on and looked at me coldly. “Mister, I don’t know from nothing,” he said.

It didn’t take me long to catch on to that remark. I handed him a ten-spot and followed him inside while he changed it. I let go a flyer. “So the cops kind of hinted that somebody would be nosing around, huh?”

No answer. He rang the cash register and began counting out bills. “Er . . . did you happen to notice Dilwick’s puss? Or was it one of the others?”

He glanced at me sharply, curiously. “It was Dilwick. I saw his face.”

Instead of replying I held out my right hand. He peered at it and saw where the skin had been peeled back off half the knuckles. This time I got a great big grin.

“Did you do that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, pal, for that we’re buddies. What do you want to know?”

“About traffic along here night before last.”

“Sure, I remember it. Between nine o’clock and dawn the next morning about a dozen cars went past. See, I know most of ’em. A couple was from out of town. All but two belonged to the upcountry farmers making milk runs to the separator at the other end of town.”

“What about the other two?”

“One was a Caddy. I seen it around a few times. Remember it because it had one side dented in. The other was that Grange dame’s two-door sedan. Guess she was out wolfing.” He laughed at that.

“Grange?”

“Yeah, the old bag that works out at York’s place. She’s a stiff one.”

“Thanks for the info, kid.” I slipped him a buck and he grinned. “By the way, did you pass that on to the cops too?”

“Not me. I wouldn’t give them the right time.”

“Why?”

“Lousy bunch of bastards.” He explained it in a nutshell without going into detail.

I hopped in and started up, but before I drove off I stuck my head out the window. “Where’s this Grange babe live?”

“At the Glenwood Apartments. You can’t miss it. It’s the only apartment house in this burg.”

Well, it wouldn’t hurt to drop up and see her anyway. Maybe she had been on her way home from work. I gunned the engine and got back on the main drag, driving slowly past the shaded fronts of the stores. Just outside the business section a large green canopy extended from the curb to the marquee of a modern three-story building. Across the side in small, neat letters was GLENWOOD APARTMENTS. I crawled in behind a black Ford sedan and hopped out.

Grange, Myra, was the second name down. I pushed the bell and waited for the buzzer to unlatch the door. When it didn’t come I pushed it again. This time there was a series of clicks and I shoved the door open. One flight of stairs put me in front of her apartment. Before I could ring, the metal peephole was pulled back and a pair of dark eyes threw insults at me.

“Miss Grange?”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to speak to you if you can spare a few moments.”

“Very well, go ahead.” Her voice sounded as if it came out of a tree trunk. This made the third person I didn’t like in Sidon.

“I work for York,” I explained patiently. “I’d like to speak to you about the boy.”

“There’s nothing I care to discuss.”

Why is it that some dames can work me up into a lather so fast with so little is beyond me, but this one did. I quit playing around. I pulled out the .45 and let her get a good look at it. “You open that door or I’ll shoot the lock off,” I said.

She opened it. The insults in her eyes turned to terror until I put the rod back under cover. Then I looked at her. If she was an old bag I was Queen of the May. Almost as tall as I was, nice brown hair cut short enough to be nearly mannish and a figure that seemed to be well molded, except that I couldn’t tell too well because she was wearing slacks and a house jacket. Maybe she was thirty, maybe forty. Her face had a built-in lack of expression like an old painting. Wearing no makeup didn’t help it any, but it didn’t hurt, either.

I tossed my hat on a side table and went inside without being invited. Myra Grange followed me closely, letting her wooden-soled sandals drag along the carpet. It was a nice dump, but small. There was something to it that didn’t sit right, as though the choice of furniture didn’t fit her personality. Hell, maybe she just sublet.

The living room was ultramodern. The chairs and the couch were surrealist dreams of squares and angles. Even the coffee table was balanced precariously on little pyramids that served as legs. Two framed wood nymphs seemed cold in their nudity against the background of the chilled blue walls. I wouldn’t live in a room like this for anything.

Myra held her position in the middle of the floor, legs spread, hands shoved in her side pockets. I picked a leather-covered ottoman and sat down.

She watched every move I made with eyes that scarcely concealed her rage. “Now that you’ve forced your way in here,” she said between tight lips, “perhaps you’ll explain why, or do I call the police?”