The Mike Hammer Collection

“Maybe you both better shut up,” Price put in quietly. I threw my hat on the desk and pushed a butt between my lips. Price waited until I lit it, then jerked his thumb toward the fat cop.

“He wants words with you, Mike.”

“Let’s hear ’em,” I offered.

“Not here, wise guy. I think you’d do better at the station. I don’t want to be interrupted.”

That was a nasty dig at Price, and the sergeant took it right up. “Forget that stuff,” he barked, “while he’s here he’s under my jurisdiction. Don’t forget it.”

For a minute I thought Dilwick was going to swing and I was hoping he would. I’d love to be in a two-way scramble over that guy. The odds were too great. He looked daggers at Price. “I won’t forget it,” he repeated.

Price led off. “Dilwick says you broke into the Grange apartment and confiscated something of importance. What about it, Mike?”

I let Dilwick have a lopsided grin. “Did I?”

“You know damn well you did! You’d better . . .”

“How do you know it was important?”

“It’s gone, that’s reason enough.”

“Hell.”

“Wait a minute, Mike,” Price cut in. “What did you take?”

I saw him trying to keep his face straight. Price liked this game of baiting Dilwick.

“I could say nothing, pal, and he couldn’t prove a thing. I bet you never found any prints of mine, did you, Dilwick?” The cop’s face was getting redder. “. . . and the way you had that building bottled up nobody should have been able to get in, should they?” Dilwick would split his seams if I kept it up any longer. “Sure, I was there, so what? I found what a dozen of you missed.”

I reached in my pocket and yanked out the two wills. Dilwick reached a shaking hand for them but I passed them to Price. “This old one was in Grange’s apartment. It isn’t good because this is the later one. Maybe it had better be filed someplace.”

Dilwick was watching me closely. “Where did the second one come from?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

I was too slow. The back of Dilwick’s hand nearly rocked my head off my shoulders. The arm of a chair hit my side and before I could spill over into it Dilwick had my shirt front. Price caught his hand before he could swing again.

I kicked the chair away and pulled free as Price stepped between us. “Let me go, Price!” I yelled.

“Damn it, I said to turn it off!”

Dilwick backed off reluctantly. “I’ll play that back to you, Dilwick,” I said. Nobody was pulling that trick on me and getting by with it. It’s a wonder he had the nerve to start something after that last pasting I gave him. Maybe he was hoping I’d try to use my rod . . . that would be swell. He could knock me off as nice as anything and call it police business.

“Maybe you’ll answer the next time you’re spoken to, Hammer. You’ve pulled a lot of shady deals around here lately and I’m sick of it. As for you, Price, you’re treating him like he’s carrying a badge. You’ve got me hog-tied, but that won’t last long if I want to work on it.”

The sergeant’s voice was almost a whisper. “One day you’re going to go too far. I think you know what I mean.”

Evidently Dilwick did. His lips tightened into a thin line and his eyes blazed, but he shut up just the same. “Now if you have anything to say, say it properly.”

With an obvious attempt at controlling his rage, Dilwick nodded. He turned to me again. “Where did you get the other will?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I repeated.

“You letting him get away with this, Price?”

The trooper was on the spot. “Tell him, Mike.”

“I’ll tell you, Price. He can listen in. I found it among York’s personal effects.”

For a full ten minutes I stood by while the two of them went over the contents of the wills. Price was satisfied with a cursory examination, but not so Dilwick. He read every line, then reread them. I could see the muscles of his mouth twitch as he worked the thing out in his mind. No, I was not underestimating Dilwick one bit. There wasn’t much that went on that he didn’t know about. Twice, he let his eyes slide off the paper and meet mine. It was coming. Any minute now.

Then it was here. “I could read murder into this,” he grated.

Price turned sharply. “Yes?”

“Hammer, I think I’m going to put you on the spot.”

“Swell. You’d like that. Okay, go ahead.”

“Pull up your ears and get a load of this, Price. This punk and the Nichols dame could make a nice team. Damn nice. You didn’t think I’d find out about those pictures, did you, Hammer? Well, I did. You know what it looks like to me? It looks like the Nichols babe blackmailed Grange into making York change his will. Let York see those shots and Grange’s reputation would be shot to hell, she’d be fired and lose out on the will to boot. At least if she came through on the deal, all she’d lose was the will.”

I nodded. “Pretty, but where do I come in?”