Mike Hammer--Dig Two Graves by Mickey Spillane

Author:Mickey Spillane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags:  
Publisher: Titan

CHAPTER EIGHT

Back at the Adams, our rooms were haunted by the ghost of Velda’s Chanel No. 5 and entwining white sheets on a bed we’d shared that hadn’t yet been made. I felt her absence already, as if a limb had been severed. But despite how skilled and seasoned an investigator Velda was, having her off the firing line was mostly a relief—two men were dead out of what we’d stirred up, with her mother barely surviving a homicidal hit-and-run back home. Then there was Rhino Massey, the long-absent father who had turned up dead of a heart attack after an apparent mugging. Looking into this on my own for a while was exactly how I wanted it.

I gave Pat a call to let him know Velda was heading home. He offered to pick her up at Idlewild and I took him up on it, giving him her flight number and arrival time.

“Just don’t get too frisky with her,” I said.

“If you can’t trust the police, who can you trust?”

“I’ll ask the boys on the Internal Affairs detail.” I figured I better bring him up to speed. “Look, things have gotten a little lively out here.”

I told him about the shooting at Durant’s.

“You make friends everywhere you go,” Pat said.

“I need a favor on your end.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Check on Rhino Massey’s brother Joey. I want to know if he has a criminal background and anything else interesting you can dig up. With the Witness Protection ramifications, you might have to lean on your federal connections.”

“Will do, buddy.”

“Did you give Chief Benson a call, paving the way for me a little?”

He had given me the phone number of Dreamland Park’s Chief of Police, Charles Benson, before Velda and I came out here.

“Oh ye of little faith,” Pat said. “Of course I did. He’s expecting to hear from you. But I didn’t fill him in on the specifics, other than you being in the know about Dreamland Park.”

“Good. I’ll handle the rest, thanks.”

We signed off and I used the Chief’s number.

“Come on out here, Mr. Hammer,” a masculine Western-accented voice said cheerfully. His tone had a rough edge but nonetheless seemed friendly. “I’m familiar with your exploits and would get a kick out of meeting you.”

I gave that a light laugh. “I don’t consider any of what I’ve been through as ‘exploits,’ Chief, but I could sure use your help on something I’m looking into.”

“Be pleased to do what I can. I’ll be here all day, at City Hall.”

“I took a quick ride around Dreamland Park yesterday and didn’t come across City Hall. The town-square plaza seemed taken up by that old ballroom.”

“That old ballroom is the City Hall. Or at least, we’re inside of it. Our office is just inside the ballroom itself, after you come in.”

I said I’d be out shortly. First, however, I checked out of the Adams. I told myself I wanted to find a motel or something closer to Dreamland Park, since that’s where I’d be investigating; but partly I felt Velda’s absence too sharply in the room we’d shared.

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