The Mike Hammer Collection Part 63

"I think you'll be able to get up today. I'll have Billy take you for a stroll around the house. I'd do it myself only I have some work to clean up."

"Mike . . . how is everything coming? I mean . . ."

"Don't think about it, Ruston."

"That's all I can do when I lie here awake. I keep thinking of that night, and Dad and Miss Grange. If only there was something I could do I'd feel better."

"The best you can do is stay right here until everything's settled."

"I read in books . . . they were books of no account . . . but sometimes in cases like this the police used the victim as bait. That is, they exposed a person to the advantage of the criminal to see if the criminal would make another attempt. Do you think . . ."

"I think you have a lot of s.p.u.n.k to suggest a thing like that, but the answer is no. You aren't being the target for another s.n.a.t.c.h, not if I can help it. There're too many other ways. Now how about you hopping into your clothes and getting that airing." I peeled the covers back and helped him out of bed. For a few seconds he was a bit unsteady, but he settled down with a grin and went to the closet. I called Billy in and told him what to do. Billy wasn't too crazy about the idea, but it being daylight, and since I said that I'd stick around, he agreed.

I left the two of them there, winked at Roxy and went downstairs in time to lift a pair of sandwiches and a cup of coffee from Harvey's tray. Grunting my thanks through a mouthful of food I went into the living room and parked in the big chair. For the first time since I had been there a fire blazed away in the fireplace. Good old Harvey. I wolfed down the first sandwich and drowned it in coffee. Only then did I take the envelope out of my pocket. The flap was pasted on crooked, so it had to be the morning dew that had held it shut. I remembered that look on Junior's face when he had seen what was in it. I wondered if it it was so good mine would look the same way. was so good mine would look the same way.

I ran my finger under the flap and drew out six pictures.

Now I saw why Junior got so excited. Of the two women in the photos, the only clothes in evidence were shoes. And Myra Grange only had one on at that. Mostly, she wore a leer. A big juicy leer. Alice Nichols looked expectant. The pictures were p.o.r.nography of the worst sort. Six of them, every one different, both parties fully recognizable, yet the views were of a candid sort, not deliberately posed. No, that wasn't quite it, they were posed, yet unposed . . . at least Myra Grange wasn't posing.

I had to study the shots a good ten minutes before I got the connection. What I had taken to be a border around the pictures done in the printing was really part of the shot. These pics were taken with a hidden camera, one concealed behind a dresser, with the supposed border being some books that did the concealing. A hidden camera and a time arrangement to trip it every so often.

No, Myra Grange wasn't posing, but Alice Nichols was. She had deliberately maneuvered for position each time so Grange was sure to be in perfect focus.

How nice, Alice. How very nicely you and York framed Grange. A frame to neutralize another frame. So?

I fired up a b.u.t.t and shoved the pics back in my pocket. The outer rim of the puzzle was falling into the grooves in my mind now. Grange had an old will. Why? Would York have settled his entire estate on her voluntarily? Or could he have been forced into it? If Grange had something on her boss . . . something big . . . it had to be big . . . then she could call the squeeze play, and be reasonably sure of making a touchdown, especially when York didn't have long to go anyway. But sometime later York had found out about Grange and her habits and saw a way out. d.a.m.n, it was making sense now. He played up to Rhoda Ghent, plied her with gifts, then asked her to proposition Grange. She refused and he dropped her like a hot potato then started on Alice. York should have talked to her first. Alice had no inhibitions anyway, and a cut of York's will meant plenty of action to her. She makes eyes at Grange, Grange makes eyes at Alice and the show is on with the lights properly fed and the camera in position. Alice hands York the negatives, York has a showdown with Grange, threatening to make the pictures public and Grange folds up, yet holds on to the old will in the hope something would happen to make York change his mind. Something like a meat cleaver perhaps? It tied in with what Roxy told me. It could even explain the big play after the pictures. Junior had found out about them somehow, possibly from his sister. If he could get the shots in a law court he could prove how Alice came by her share and get her kicked right out of the show. At least then the family might have some chance to split the quarter of the estate. One hostile camp taken care of. Alice had to be the other. She had to have the pictures before Junior could get them . . . or anybody else for that matter. What could be better than promising a future split of her quarter if they agreed to get the pictures for her? That fit, too. Except that they came too late and saw Junior, knew that he had beaten them to it, so they waylay him, take the stuff and blow. Only I happened in at the wrong time and in the excitement the package gets lost.

I dragged heavily on the cigarette and ran over it again, checking every detail. It stayed the same way. I liked it. Billy and Ruston yelled to me on their way out, but I only waved to them. I was trying to reason out what it was that Grange had on York in the beginning to start a s...o...b..ll as big as this one rolling downhill.

Flames were licking the top of their sooty cavern. Dante's own inferno, hot, roasting, destroying. It would have been so nice if I could only have known what York had hidden in the pillar of the fireplace. York's secret hiding place, that and the chair bottom. Why two places unless he didn't want to have all his eggs in one basket? Or was it another ease of first things first? He could have put something in the fireplace years ago and not cared to change it.

With a show of impatience I flipped the remains of the b.u.t.t into the flames, then stretched my legs out toward the fireplace. Secrets, secrets, so d.a.m.n many secrets. I moved my head to one side so I could see the brick posts on the end of the smoke-blackened pit. It was well concealed, that cache. Curiosity again. I got up and looked it over more closely. Not a brick out of line, not a seam visible. Unless you saw it open you would never guess it to be there.

I went over every inch of it, rapping the bricks with my bare knuckles, but unlike wood, they gave off no sound. There had to be a trip for it somewhere. I looked again where the stone joined the wall. One place shoulder-high was smudged. I pressed.

The tiny door clicked and swung open.

Nice. It was faced with whole brick that joined with a fit in a recess of the concrete that the eye couldn't discern. To get my hand in I had to hold the door open against the force of a spring. I fished around, but felt nothing except cold masonry until I went to take my hand out. A piece of paper caught in the hinge mechanism brushed my fingers. I worked it out slowly, because at the first attempt to dislodge it, part of the paper crumbled to dust. When I let the door go it snapped shut, and I was holding a piece of an ancient newspaper.

It was brown with age, ready to fall apart at the slightest pressure. The print was faded, but legible. It bore the dateline of a New York edition, one that was on the stands October 9, fourteen years ago. What happened fourteen years ago? The rest of the paper had been stolen, this was a piece torn off when it was lifted from the well in the fireplace. A dateline, nothing but a fourteen-year-old dateline.

I'm getting old, I thought. These things ought to make an impression sooner. Fourteen years ago Ruston had been born.

CHAPTER 8.

Somehow, the library had an unused look. An ageless caretaker shuffled up the aisle carrying a broom and a dustpan, looking for something to sweep. The librarian, untrue to type, was busy painting her mouth an unholy red, and never looked up until I rapped on the desk. That got me a quick smile, a fast once-over, then an even bigger smile.

"Good morning. Can I help you?"

"Maybe. Do you keep back copies of New York papers?"

She stood up and smoothed out her dress around her hips where it didn't need smoothing at all. "This way, please."

I followed her at a six-foot interval, enough so I could watch her legs that so obviously wanted watching. They were pretty nice legs. I couldn't blame her a bit for wanting to show them off. We angled around behind ceiling-high bookcases until we came to a stairwell. Legs threw a light switch and took me downstairs. A musty odor of old leather and paper hit me on the last step. Little trickles of moisture beaded the metal bins and left dark stains on the concrete walls. A h.e.l.l of a place for books.

"Here they are." She pointed to a tier of shelves, stacked with newspapers, separated by layers of cardboard. Together we located the old Globe Globe editions then began peeling off the layers. In ten minutes we both looked like we had been playing in coal. Legs threw me a pout. "I certainly hope that whatever you're after is worth all this trouble." editions then began peeling off the layers. In ten minutes we both looked like we had been playing in coal. Legs threw me a pout. "I certainly hope that whatever you're after is worth all this trouble."

"It is, honey," I told her, "it is. Keep your eyes open for October 9."

Another five minutes, then, "This it?"

I would have kissed her if she didn't have such a dirty face. "That's the one. Thanks."

She handed it over. I glanced at the dateline, then at the one in my hand. They matched. We laid the paper out on a reading desk and pulled on the overhead light. I thumbed through the leaves, turning them over as I scanned each column. Legs couldn't stand it any longer. "Please . . . what are you looking for?"

I said a nasty word and tapped the bottom of the page.

"But . . ."

"I know. It's gone. Somebody ripped it out."

She said the same nasty word, then asked, "What was it?"

"Beats me, honey. Got any duplicates around?"

"No, we only keep one copy. There's rarely any call for them except from an occasional high school history student who is writing a thesis on something or other."

"Uh-huh." Tearing that spot out wasn't going to do any good. There were other libraries. Somebody was trying to stall me for time. Okay, okay, I have all the time in the world. More time than you have, brother.

I helped her stack the papers back on their shelves before going upstairs. We both ducked into washrooms to get years of dust off our skin, only she beat me out. I half expected it anyway.

When we were walking toward the door I dropped a flyer. "Say, do you know Myra Grange?" Her breath caught and held. "Why . . . no. That is, isn't she the one . . . I mean with Mr. York?"

I nodded. She had made a good job of covering up, but I didn't miss that violent blush of emotion that surged into her cheeks at the mention of Grange's name. So this was why the vanishing lady spent so many hours in the library. "The same," I said. "Did she ever go down there?"

"No." A pause. "No, I don't think so. Oh, yes. She did once. She took the boy . . . Mr. York's son down there, but that was when I first came here. I went with them. They looked over some old ma.n.u.scripts, but that was all."

"When was she here last?"

"Who are you?" She looked scared.

My badge was in my hand. She didn't have to read it. All she needed was the sight of the shield to start shaking. "She was here . . . about a week ago."

Very carefully, I looked at her. "No good. That was too long ago. Let's put it this way. When did you see see her last?" Legs got the point. She knew I knew about Myra and guessed as much about her. Another blush, only this one faded with the fear behind it. her last?" Legs got the point. She knew I knew about Myra and guessed as much about her. Another blush, only this one faded with the fear behind it.

"A . . . a week ago, I told you." I thanked her and went out. Legs was lying through her teeth and I couldn't blame her.

The water was starting to bubble now. It wouldn't be long before it started to boil. Two things to do before I went to New York, one just for the pleasure of it. I made my first stop at a drugstore. A short, squat pharmacist came out from behind the gla.s.s part.i.tion and murmured his greetings. I threw the pills I had taken from Henry's bottle on the counter in front of me.

"These were being taken for aspirin," I said. "Can you tell me what they are?"

He looked at me and shrugged, picking up one in his fingers. He touched a cautious tongue to the white surface, then smelled it. "Not aspirin," he told me. "Have you any idea what they might be?"

"I'd say sleeping pills. One of the barbiturates." The druggist nodded and went back behind his gla.s.s. I waited perhaps five minutes before he came back again.

"You were right," he said. I threw two five-dollar bills on the counter and scooped up the rest of the pills. Very snazzy, killer, you got a lot of tricks up your sleeve. A very thorough guy. It was going to be funny when I had that killer at the end of my rod. I wondered if he was thorough enough to try to get rid of me.

Back and forth, back and forth. Like a swing. From kidnapping to murder to petty conniving and back to the kidnapping again. Run, run, run. Shuttle train stuff. Too many details. They were like a shroud that the killer was trying to draw around the original motive. That, there had to be. Only it was getting lost in the mess. It could have been an accident, this eruption of pointless crimes, or they might have happened anyway, or they could have been foreseen by the killer and used to his own advantage. No, n.o.body could be that smart. There's something about crime that's like a disease. It spreads worse than the flu once it gets started. It already had a good start when Ruston was kidnapped. It seemed like that was months ago, but it wasn't . . . just a few short days.

I reviewed every detail on my way to Wooster, but the answer always came up the same. Either I was dumb or the killer was pretty cagey. I had to find Mallory, I had to find Grange, I had to find the killer if he wasn't one of those two. So far all I found was a play behind the curtain.

Halfway there I gave up thinking and concentrated on the road. With every mile I'd gotten madder until I was chain-smoking right through my deck of b.u.t.ts. Wooster was alive this time. People walked along the streets in noisy contentment, limousines blared indignantly at lesser cars in front of them, and a steady stream of traffic went in and out of the shop doors. There was plenty of room in front of Alice's house. I parked the car and went into the foyer, remembering vividly the crack on my skull.

This time the buzz was a short one. I took the stairs fast, but she was faster. She stood in the door with a smile, ready to be kissed. I said, "h.e.l.lo, Alice," but I didn't kiss her. Her smile broke nervously.

"What's the matter, Mike?"

"Nothing, kid, nothing at all. Why?"

"You look displeased about something." That was putting it mildly.

I went inside without lifting my hat. Alice went to reach for the decanter, but I stopped her by throwing the envelope on the coffee table. "You were looking for these, I think."

"I?" She pulled one of the pictures out of the wrapper, then shoved it back hastily, her face going white. I grinned.

Then I got nasty. "In payment for last night."

"You can go now."

"Uh-uh. Not yet." Her eyes followed mine to the ashtray. There were four b.u.t.ts there, two of them had lipstick on them and the other two weren't my brand.

Alice tried to scream a warning, but it never got past her lips. The back of my hand caught her across the mouth and she rolled into the sofa, gasping with the sting of the blow. I turned on my heels and went to the bedroom and kicked the door open. William Graham was sitting on the edge of the bed as nice as you please smoking a cigarette. His face was scratched in a dozen places and hunks torn out of his clothes from the briars in the woods.

Every bit of color drained out of his skin. I grabbed him before he could stand up and smashed him right in the nose. Blood spurted all over my coat. His arms flailed out, trying to push me away, but I clipped him again on the nose, and again, until there was nothing but a soggy, pulpy ma.s.s of flesh to hit. Then I went to work on the rest of his puss. Slapping, punching, then a nasty cut with the side of my hand. He was limp in my grasp, his head thrown back and his eyes wide open. I let him go and he sagged into a shapeless heap on the floor. It was going to take a thousand dollars worth of surgery to make his face the same.

Alice had seen and heard. When I went into the living room she was crouched in terror behind a chair. That didn't stop me. I yanked her out; her dress split down the middle. "Lie to me, Alice," I warned, "and you'll look just like him. Maybe worse. You put him up to b.u.mping me, didn't you?"

All she could do was nod soundlessly.

"You told him he wasn't in the will, but if he and his brother found the pictures and gave them to you you'd cut them in for your share?"

She nodded again. I pushed her back. "York made the will," I said. "It was his dough and I don't care what he did with it. Take your share and go to h.e.l.l with it. You probably will anyway. Tell Arthur I'll be looking for him. When I find him he's going to look like his brother."

I left her looking eighty years old. William was moaning through his own blood when I went out the door. Good party. I liked it. There would be no more rides from that enemy camp. The redskins have left, vamoosed, departed.

There was only one angle to the Graham boys that I couldn't cover. Which one of them took the shot at Roxy and why? I'll be d.a.m.ned if I heard a shot. They didn't stop long enough to say boo far less than snap off a quickie. And they certainly would have shot at me, not toward the window. I wasn't sure of anything, but if there was money on the table I'd say that neither one had used a gun at all that night. It was details like that that creased me up. I had to make a choice one way or the other and follow it to a conclusion. All right, it was made. The Graham boys were out. Someone else fired it.

New York was a dismal sight after the country. I hadn't thought the gra.s.s and the trees with their ugly bilious color of green could have made such an impression on me. Somehow the crowded streets and the endless babble of voices gave me a dirty taste in my mouth. I rolled into a parking lot, pocketed my ticket, then turned into a chain drugstore on the stem. My first call was back to Sidon. Harvey answered and I told him to keep the kid in the room with Roxy and Billy until I got back and take any calls that came for me. My next dime got Pat Chambers, Captain of Homicide.

"Greetings, chum," I said, "this is Uncle Mike."

"It's about time you buzzed me. I was beginning to think you cooled off another citizen and were on the fly. Where are you?"

"Right off Times Square."

"Coming down?"

"No, Pat. I have some business to attend to. Look, how about meeting me on the steps of the library. West Forty-third Street entrance. It's important."

"Okay. Say in about half an hour. Will that do?"

I told him fine and hung up. Pat was tops in my book. A careful, crafty cop, and all cop. He looked more like a gentleman-about-town, but there it ended. Pat had a mind like an adding machine and a talent for police work backed up by the finest department in the world. Ordinarily a city cop has no truck with a private eye, but Pat and I had been buddies a long time with one exception. It was a case of mutual respect, I guess.

At a stand-up-and-eat joint I grabbed a couple dogs and a lemonade then beat it to the library in time to see Pat step out of a prowl car. We shook hands and tossed some remarks back and forth before Pat asked, "What's the story?"

"Let's go inside where we can talk."

We went through the two sets of doors and into the reading room. Holding my voice down I said, "Ever hear of Rudolph York, Pat? "

"So?" He had.

I gave him the story in brief, adding at the end, "Now I want to see what was attached to the rest of this dateline. It'll be here somewhere, and it's liable to turn up something you can help me with."

"For instance?"

"I don't know yet, but police records go back pretty far, don't they? What I want to know may have happened fourteen years ago. My memory isn't that good."

"Okay, let's see what we can dig up."

Instead of going through the regular library routine, Pat flashed his shield and we got an escort to where the papers were filed. The old gentleman in the faded blue serge went unerringly to the right bin, pulled out a drawer and selected the edition I wanted all on the first try. He pointed to a table and pulled out chairs for us. My hands were trembling with the excitement of it when I opened the paper.

It was there. Two columns right down the side of the page. Two columns about six-inches long with a photo of York when he was a lot younger. Fourteen years younger. A twenty-four-point heading smacked me between the eyes with its implications.

FATHER ACCUSES SCIENTIST OF BABY SWITCHHerron Mallory, whose wife gave birth to a seven-pound boy that died two days later, has accused Rudolph York, renowned scientist, of switching babies. Mallory alleged that it was York's son, not his, who died. His claim is based on the fact that he saw his own child soon after birth, and recognized it again when it was shown to York, his own having been p.r.o.nounced dead earlier. Authorities denied that such a mistake could have happened. Head Nurse Rita Cambell verified their denials by a.s.suring both York and Mallory that she had been in complete charge during the two days, and recognized both babies by sight, confirming identification by their bracelets. Mrs. York died during childbirth.

I let out a long, low whistle. The ball had moved up to midfield. Pat suggested a follow-up and we brought out the following day's sheet. On page four was a small, one-column spread. It was stated very simply. Herron Mallory, a small-time petty thief and former bootlegger, had been persuaded to drop the charges against Rudolph York. Apparently it was suspected that he couldn't make any headway against a solid citizen like York in the face of his previous convictions. That was where it ended. At least for the time being.

York had a d.a.m.n good reason then to turn green when Mallory's name was mentioned. Pat tapped the clipping. "What do you think?"