The Mike Hammer Collection

I had trouble keeping my voice down. “Where did you get that bar rag, Andy?”

His eyes shifted to the blue-striped pajama bottoms that he held in his hand, beer soaked now, but recognizable. The other half to them were in Ruston York’s bedroom hanging on the foot of the bed.

Janie’s mouth was open to scream. I pointed the gun at her and said, “Shut up.” The scream died before it was born. She held the edge of the bar with both hands, shaking like a leaf. Ours was a play offstage; no one saw it, no one cared. “Where, Andy?”

“. . . Don’t know, mister. Honest . . .”

I thumbed the hammer back. He saw me do it. “Only one more chance, Andy. Think hard.”

His breath came in little jerks, fright thickened his tongue. “Some . . . guy. He brought it in. Wanted to know . . . if they were mine. It . . . was supposed to be a joke. Honest, I just use it for a bar rag, that’s all.”

“When?”

“. . . ’s afternoon.”

“Who, Andy?”

“Bill. Bill Cuddy. He’s a clam digger. Lives in a shack on the bay.”

I put the safety back on, but I still held his apron. “Andy,” I told him, “if you’re leveling with me it’s okay, but if you’re not, I’m going to shoot your head off. You know that, don’t you?”

His eyes rolled in his head then came back to meet mine. “Yeah, mister. I know. I’m not kidding. Honest, I got two kids . . .”

“And Janie here. I think maybe you better keep her with you for a while. I wouldn’t want anyone to hear about this, understand?”

Andy understood, all right. He didn’t miss a word. I let him go and he had to hang on to his bar to keep from crumbling. I slid the rod back under my coat, wrung out the pajamas and folded them into a square.

When I straightened my hat and tie I said, “Where is Cuddy’s place?”

Andy’s voice was so weak I could hardly hear it. “Straight . . . down the road to the water. Turn left. It’s the deck . . . deckhouse of an old boat pulled up on the . . . beach.”

I left them standing there like Hansel and Gretel in the woods, scared right down to their toes. Poor Andy. He didn’t have anymore to do with it than I did, but in this game it’s best not to take any chances.

As Janie had said, the road led right to the drink. I parked the car beside a boarded-up house and waded through the wet sand on foot. Ten feet from the water I turned left and faced a line of broken-down shacks that were rudely constructed from the junk that comes in on the tide. Some of them had tin roofs, with the advertisements for soft drinks and hot dogs still showing through.

Every once in a while the moon would shine through a rift in the clouds, and I took advantage of it to get a better look at the homemade village.

Cuddy’s place was easier to find than I expected. It was the only dump that ever had seen paint, and on the south side hung a ship’s nameplate with CARMINE spelled out in large block letters. It was a deckhouse, all right, probably washed off during a storm. I edged up to a window and looked in. All I could see were a few vague outlines. I tried the door. It opened outward noiselessly. From one corner of the room came the raspy snore of a back-sleeper with a load under his belt.

A match lit the place up. Cuddy never moved, even when I put the match to the ship’s lantern swinging from the center of the ceiling. It was a one-room affair with a few chairs, a table and a double-decker bed along the side. He had rigged up a kerosene stove with the pipe shooting through the roof and used two wooden crates for a larder. Beside the stove was a barrel of clams.

Lots of stuff, but no kid.

Bill Cuddy was a hard man to awaken. He twitched a few times, pawed the covers and grunted. When I shook him some more his eyelids flickered, went up. No pupils. They came down ten seconds later. A pair of bleary, bloodshot eyes moved separately until they came to an accidental focus on me.

Bill sat up. “Who’re you?”

I gave him a few seconds to study me, then palmed my badge in front of his face. “Cop. Get up.”

His legs swung to the floor, he grabbed my arm. “What’s the matter, officer? I ain’t been poachin’. All I got is clams, go look.” He pointed to the barrel. “See?”

“I’m no game warden,” I told him.

“Then whatcha want of me?”

“I want you for kidnapping. Murder maybe.”

“Oh . . . No!” His voice was a hoarse croak. “But . . . I ain’t killed nobody atall. I wouldn’t do that.”

He didn’t have to tell me that. There are types that kill and he wasn’t one of them. I didn’t let him know I thought so.

“You brought a set of pajamas into Andy’s place this afternoon. Where did you get them?”

He wrinkled his nose, trying to understand what I was talking about. “Pajamas?”

“You heard me.”

He remembered then. His face relaxed into a relieved grin. “Oh, that. Sure, I found ’em lying on Shore Road. Thought I’d kid Andy with ’em.”

“You almost kidded him to death. Put on your pants. I want you to show me the spot.”