The Mike Hammer Collection

“What . . . are you going . . . to do?” I looked down at the .45. The safety was off and it was the nastiest-looking weapon in existence at that moment. I pointed it at his belly.

“Maybe I’ll shoot you. There.” I indicated his navel with the muzzle.

“If it’s money you want, I can give it to you, Hammer. Please, get the rod off me.”

Mallory was the tough guy. He edged away from me, holding his hands out in a futile attempt to stop a bullet if it should come. He stopped backing when he hit the edge of the desk. “I don’t want any of your dough, Mallory,” I said, “I want you.” I let him look into the barrel again. “I want to hear something you have to say.”

“I . . .”

“Where’s Miss Grange . . . or should I say Rita Cambell?”

He drew his breath in a great swallow and before I could move swung around, grabbed the pen set from the desk and sent the solid onyx base crashing into my face.

Fingers clawed at my throat and we hit the floor with a tangle of arms and legs. I brought my knee up and missed, then swung with the gun. It landed on the side of his neck and gave me a chance to clear my head. I saw where the next punch was going. I brought it up from the floor and smacked him as hard as I could in the mouth. My knuckles pushed back his lips and his front teeth popped like hollow things under the blow.

The bastard spit them right in my face.

He was trying to reach my eyes. I tossed the rod to one side and laughed long and loud. Only for that one moment did he possess any strength at all, just that once when he was raging mad. I got hold of both his arms and pinned them down, then threw him sideways to the floor. His feet kicked out and kicked again until I got behind him. With his back on the floor I straddled his chest and sat on his stomach, both his hands flat against his sides, held there by my legs. He couldn’t yell without choking on his own blood and he knew it, but he kept trying to spit at me nevertheless.

With my open palm I cracked him across the cheek. Right, left, right, left. His head went sideways with each slap, but my other hand always straightened it up again. I hit him until the palms of my hands were sore and his cheek split in a dozen places from my ring. At first he flopped and moaned for me to stop, then fought bitterly to get away from the blows that were tearing his face to shreds. When he was almost out, I quit.

“Where’s Grange, Mallory?”

“The shed.” He tried to plead with me not to hit him, but I cracked him one anyway.

“Where’s the Cook girl?”

No answer. I reached for my rod and cradled it in my hand.

“Look at me, Mallory.”

His eyes opened halfway. “My hand hurts. Answer me or I use this on you. Maybe you won’t live through it. Where’s the Cook girl?”

“Nobody else. Grange . . . is the . . . only one.”

“You’re lying, Mallory.”

“No . . . just Grange.”

I couldn’t doubt but what he was telling the truth. After what I gave him he was ready to spill his guts. But that still didn’t account for Cook. “Okay, who does have her then?”

Blood bubbled out of his mouth from his split gums. “Don’t know her.”

“She was Grange’s alibi, Mallory. She was with the Cook dame the night York was butchered. She would have given Grange an out.”

His eyes came open all the way. “She’s a bitch,” he mouthed. “She doesn’t deserve an alibi. They kidnapped my kid, that’s what they did!”

“And you kidnapped him back . . . fourteen years later.”

“He was mine, wasn’t he? He didn’t belong to York.”

I gave it to him slowly. “You didn’t really want him, did you? You didn’t give a damn about the kid. All you wanted was to get even with York. Wasn’t that it?”

Mallory turned his head to one side. “Answer me, damn you!”

“Yes.”

“Who killed York?”

I waited for his answer. I had to be sure I was right. This was one time I had to be sure. “It . . . it wasn’t me.”

I raised the gun and laid the barrel against his forehead. Mallory was staring into the mouth of hell. “Lie to me, Mallory,” I said, “and I’ll shoot you in the belly, then shoot you again a little higher. Not where you’ll die quick, but where you’ll wish you did. Say it was you and you die fast . . . like you don’t deserve. Say it wasn’t you and I may believe you and I may not . . . only don’t lie to me because I know who killed York.”

Once more his eyes met mine, showing pain and terror. “It . . . wasn’t me. No, it wasn’t me. You’ve got to believe that.” I let the gun stay where it was, right against his forehead. “I didn’t even know he was dead. It was Grange I wanted.”