Mike Hammer by Mickey Spillane

Author:Mickey Spillane [Max Allan Collins, Mickey Spillane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857689535
Publisher: Titan
Published: 2013-01-15T19:43:00+00:00

* * *

At the Blue Ribbon Restaurant on West Forty-fourth Street, I positioned Des Casey at the bar and went to my regular table in the corner where two walls of autographed celebrity pictures looked over your shoulder while you ate. Velda came gliding in, getting her usual round of amazed silent wolf whistles and wide-eyed stares of male approval. Women were divided on the subject of Velda: some could appreciate what God collaborating with a beautiful woman could accomplish, and the rest flat-out hated her.

She wore a navy-blue tailored suit that but for a near-mini-length skirt couldn’t have been more conservative and yet didn’t hide a single curve. Those crazy long legs of hers were a stimulant more potent than any double martini the bar could serve up.

When she sat down, I said, “They’re looking at you like you should be on the menu.”

She shot me that funny little smile and her eyes crinkled with warmth. “At ease, you.”

“I’m not at attention yet.”

“Give it time.” She passed me a manila folder thick with onionskin second sheets of original reports. “The New York branch of Ralph Marley’s California office was glad to cooperate.”

“They had these on file?”

“Because Marley was killed in New York, these papers were transferred in case the NYPD needed them.”

“But of course they didn’t.”

Velda nodded. “Too open-and-shut.”

“Why is it the open-and-shut cases so often need re-opening? It’s a rhetorical question. Brief me.”

She signaled for a drink, then leaned forward on the table, the dark arcs of the page boy swinging nicely. “Those are Marley’s daily reports to the office on every occasion when he was assigned to the senator.”

“Good.”

“Not really. Every bit of it is routine. All simple watchdog work. No special instructions. There were a few predictable incidents, given Jasper’s conservative leanings. fanatics trying to break up a speech, threatening letters and the like, but nothing really unusual.”

“Okay.”

“I called Mercer, the head man in the California office, and he said Marley was pretty bored with working for the senator. That he didn’t especially enjoy the assignment, but that the senator thought a lot of Marley and requested his services each time.”

“Any tie-ins with other jobs?”

“Nothing, Mike. All of Marley’s other assignments in the same period were in the industrial field—checking out inventory losses, guarding payrolls, that sort of standard stuff. Nothing he did ever brought him into in contact with any of the senator’s associates, at least that we know of.”

“He ever say why he didn’t want to work for Jasper anymore?”

Velda nodded. “Boredom. Nothing personal—apparently he thought the senator was an all right guy. Marley just liked the industrial end better, and staying home in California. He was married, you know, with three kids. Very conservative himself, in the lifestyle sense, anyway.”

“Yeah, I know. Ralph had an eye for the ladies but he never did anything about it that I know of. A real family man. Loved his wife exclusively.”

“A dying breed, I hear,” she said, giving me a look.

“Skip the comedy. What else?”

“Mercer admitted he was irritated with Ralph, because they might lose the gig.

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