The Complete Mike Hammer Anthology by Mickey Spillane

Author:Mickey Spillane
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Hammer, Private investigators, Mike (Fictitious character)
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Pat was in his office. You had to look twice to make sure he wasn’t asleep, then you saw the light glinting off his almost-closed eyes and saw the movement of his mouth as he sucked on the dry pipe.

I threw my hat on the desk and sat down. He didn’t say anything. I got out my next-to-last Lucky, held a light to it and let the smoke go. He still didn’t say anything. I didn’t have the time to trade thoughts. “Okay, chum, what is it?”

The pipe came out of his mouth slowly. “You conned me, Mike.”

I started to get warm all over, an angry flush that burned into my chest. “Great. Just like that I gave you the business! You don’t say anything ... you sit there like a dummy then pull the cork. Say what’s eating you or I’ll get the hell out of here.”

What distrust was in his face turned uncertain. “Mike, this thing is a bombshell. The biggest staff that ever operated on one case is out there working. They’re going night and day looking for the answer then you come up with it ready to trade off for something.”

I sat back in the chair. I took a deep, relieved pull on the smoke and grinned. “Thanks for the compliment. I didn’t know it would get back so fast. Where’d you pick it up?”

“Every stoolie we know has his ears open. What are you trading for?”

My grin pulled tight at the edges, flattened across my teeth and stayed that way. “Velda. The bastards have Velda. She suckered Al Affia into a trap that didn’t work and got caught in one herself. She played it too smart and now they have her.”

It was quiet in the room. The clock on the wall hummed over the drone of the rain outside, but that was all.

“You don’t look too worked up about it,” Pat said. Then he saw my eyes and took it back without saying so out loud.

“They’ll want to be sure. They’ll want to know if I have it or not before they cut loose on her. They’ll have to be sure. Right in the beginning they thought Berga Torn passed it on to me, went through my apartment. If it was anybody else they could have taken it easy, but not with me. They knew what was going to happen.”

“Let’s have it, Mike.”

“The answer?” I said. I shook my head. “I don’t have it. Not where I can reach out and touch it yet. I need more details.”

“So do we. I thought we were sharing this thing.”

“I didn’t forget. What have you got?”

Pat stared at me a long time, reached out and fanned a few papers across his desk. “Berga didn’t escape from the sanitarium. She had it planned for her. She had a guest early that evening, a woman. The name and address were phony and we got no description except that she had brown hair. An attendant stated that she was pretty nervous after the guest left.

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