Mike Hammer--Masquerade for Murder, page 16
“No idea what you’re talking about, man.”
“You need to think this through. The kind of trouble you’re in.”
His lip curled back taking some mustache with it. “You’re the one in trouble. Break in here and fuckin’ shoot everybody! You’re out of your freaking mind, Hammer!”
I raised my free hand. “First of all, your friends all had guns and were about to use them on me. Second, I’m a licensed private investigator in New York State and heard you fellas planning a robbery. I have nothing to fear from this. But you do.”
He tried not to look alarmed. “What do I have to fear?”
“I’m going to guess your Wall Street pal Vincent has greased your palm but good. You may be figuring that rich-guy money’s gonna just keep flowing. But think about it.”
“You think about it.”
“I have. I think about how Roger Kraft was on the payroll and got killed. I think about how a cop named Shannon looking into young Colby’s homicidal ways got himself killed, too, and you know how much the cops love it when one of their own buys it.”
“Nothing to do with me.”
“A hooker blackmailing Colby got killed last night, and so did a bartender who beat up Vincent’s girl. Anybody who crosses that Golden Boy is on the chopping block. All this went down within a few days. And you’re likely next.”
He sneered again. “More likely you, Hammer. And maybe Roger tried to blackmail Colby or some shit, and got what blackmailers get.”
“Is that what happened?”
He raised his palms shoulder high. “Just sayin’ what might be. I have nothing for you, Hammer. And I’m not afraid of you.”
That was hard to buy, with the coppery smell of his associates’ blood wafting in on cordite waves with just a hint of the fragrance of human excrement.
I said, “If the cops bag your ass, Harry, you won’t be just some guy who trained a rich kid for a prank. You’ll be an accomplice. Probably to murder.”
His smile in the nest of beard was not convincing. “How do you figure, Hammer? Suppose that was a phony accident I helped along. That’s no murder rap.”
“Kraft getting his makes it felony murder, sonny boy.” That was a little thin but I didn’t think Harry here knew much about the finer points of the law. “And for sure you’re obstructing justice in a murder investigation by not coming forward.”
His eyes narrowed. “That’s what you want. Me to come forward.”
“That’s what I want.”
What Pat Chambers would want.
“Okay.” He swallowed. “I’ll do it.”
I had lowered the .45 a little, while we talked, and that must have encouraged him, because he came forward, all right. He dove off that sofa and right at me, taking the chair back and me with it, then with one powerful hand grabbed me by the right wrist and shook the rod out of my grasp, sending it tumbling on the shag carpet. Meanwhile that chair hit the floor, hard, and powerful fists were at me, a right hand to the face, a left hand to the kidneys.
I pushed him off and to one side, onto the floor, then twisted to throw myself on top of him, giving him a knee in the balls and then a right to the nose, breaking it, and a left to the jaw, jarring it on its hinges. He was wincing with the pain only a groin blow can bring, but he was, after all, a stunt man and obviously a muscle builder, so his testicles were probably the size of peas anyway, thanks to steroids. In any case, he had the will and presence of mind to shove his right forearm into my chest with enough power to send me tumbling back.
Then he jumped on me like a wrestler in the ring only not phony, and he was pinning me with a knee and strangling me with two powerful hands. For a moment I wondered if he was the killer with the deadly knee move, but he smelled like pot, not Obsession. Gasping, I caught his pony tail with one hand and jerked his head back while with the other I hit him in the side, and busted a couple ribs because their snap was unmistakable. He cried out and his hands loosened, and I head-butted his chin, which rocked him back, and he stumbled off me and got to his feet and put a little distance between us.
I was still down low and I threw a tackle into him and he went backward, hitting his head hard on the edge of the projection TV. His eyes rolled back and he slid down to the floor and lay in a pile of random bones and muscles in a bag of flesh. Very quiet, but for some dripping blood.
I bent over and checked his pulse. Both his wrist and neck.
Then I stood staring down at him, thinking about what to do. Thinking about my situation.
I had a phone call to make. It would take going to a gas station and making a call, but I would be back.
I wasn’t done here.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Meatpacking District on a Sunday night was dead, the businesses for which the area took its name shuttered till tomorrow, the weathered buildings wearing graffiti like scars. Refuse blew down the cobblestone street like tumbleweed except where slowed by fetid-surfaced puddles.
No inhabitants were showing themselves. Even the underground gay scene with its leather shops, bathhouses and notorious sex clubs (The Manhole, The Hellfire Club) were, like God Almighty, taking a day of rest or anyway a night of recuperation. The rain stopped yesterday but the sky was still a dirty gray, not ready to turn loose of the world below. The block where Velda and I had visited the bustling movie location was a sinister ghost town now, the production having moved on.
My farmhouse visit had been Friday and yesterday was a day of prep, for what I faced tonight. The only development on Saturday had been the press reporting that the Ulster County Sheriff’s Department, operating on an anonymous tip, discovered four bodies in a farmhouse, carnage that appeared to be the result of a falling-out among thieves.
The spate of bank robberies in upstate New York was being tentatively tied to this event, according to unnamed sources within the PD, and the whereabouts of the rented farmhouse’s occupant, Harold P. Strutt, were not known. Meanwhile, New York State Police were looking for Strutt, who had a criminal record and whose 1978 white Camaro’s license number was included in the All Points Bulletin seeking him and it. Identification of the other fatalities was being withheld, but registration of vehicles at the property matched identification on the bodies of the shooting victims. No fingerprints were found at the scene other than those of the victims and the missing occupant.
Velda, reading the Daily News in her pink terrycloth robe at her kitchen table over a breakfast I’d cooked, gave me an arched eyebrow. “Sounds like you had fun last night. You got in at what…four?”
“What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”
“Risk it.”
So I filled her in. I hated making an accessory out of her, but it couldn’t be helped—I would need her with me on the next phase of the job.
Nibbling at a naked slice of toast, she said, “Then it really is Vincent Colby who’s our killer. It’s not a frame job.”
“Not a frame job, no.”
She gestured with a crust, fairly insistently. “What I don’t understand is…why? Does Silver Spoon get his kicks out of murder? Is he some uniquely twisted spin on the serial killer concept? And why would he stage his own hit-and-run?”
I shrugged as I chewed my toast with its butter and strawberry jam. Politely swallowed before saying, “There’s method to his madness, doll. Vincent Colby worked out at that Yuppie gym with sensei Sakai, got himself fit and learned some moves. He trained with a stunt man until he knew just how to roll with that Ferrari’s punch. No, he knew just what he was doing.”
“Fine. But, damnit, Mike—again…why? ”
I smiled; the jam was sweet. “I think I know. Won’t be easy to prove, though.”
“Since when do you need proof?”
“Since I promised Pat.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I get that. Casey Shannon was Pat’s friend. And you owe the guy that much. So how do we make that happen?”
I told her.
Her eyes seemed to have forgotten how to blink. “That’s a little out there, isn’t it?”
“Open to suggestions.”
She had none.
And she wasn’t with me Sunday night, while I waited outside the warehouse where that little Satan’s spawn actress got saved several times by a movie star named Burt. Me, I was in costume, trenchcoat and hat and .45 in its speed rig, ready for my starring role as a hardboiled dick. The rod had a fresh shiny new barrel, the old one tossed down a sewer, having left its signature all over the dead guests at that farmhouse.
The lonely, ugly street, with its puddled cobblestones and crumbling brick and filthy sidewalks, made the perfect setting—even in color, this was a black-and-white movie. The only sign of life besides the occasional scurrying rat were the lights of the Florent a few blocks down, a coffee shop with great burgers and zany drag waitresses and a clientele out of Fellini.
A cab rolled up and its passenger climbed out with easy confidence. Vincent Colby—in a black silk t-shirt, lagoon blue two-button blazer, and loose matching slacks—paused to give the hackie a C-note, which explained how he got the guy to come here. The cab made its exit quickly, as if its driver knew being seen in these parts on a night like this would be embarrassing or maybe dangerous.
Young Colby strolled over, hands in his pockets, casual, a little smirky, the long, rather feminine eyelashes and product-dampened dark curly hair reminding me (as I’d observed the first time we met) of a Roman Emperor. I’d wondered if he was more Julius Caesar or Caligula.
Now I thought I knew the answer.
We didn’t bother with a handshake.
“What’s the joke?” he asked, hands on his hips now. He was smiling but irritation was in it.
“I didn’t know there was one.”
He gestured with contempt to his surroundings. “Why meet here, Mike? In the asshole of the city?”
“Privacy. Not exactly paparazzi around. Hey, can you think of any place more out of the way?”
He shrugged, smirking again. “Coney Island off-season. Which is now.”
“I didn’t think of that. You should’ve suggested it, when I called.” My turn to shrug. “This’ll have to do.”
I went over and unlocked a door with a key I’d borrowed and gestured for him to step inside.
He did, and froze as he took in a room full of darkness but for a card table and two chairs in a circle of white courtesy of a spotlight beam from a klieg light high up.
He muttered, “What in the shit…”
I put a chummy hand on his shoulder. “They were shooting a movie here last week, and I visited. They haven’t picked up some of the equipment yet. Thought this might be fun.”
His sideways look included a curled upper lip over perfect teeth. “Fun?”
I gestured grandly. “I know how you like theatrics, Vincent. Melodrama. Well, that’s disappointing. Thought you’d get a kick out of this place. More mood than anything the Tube offers up, that’s for sure. Except for maybe the Dungeon Room.”
He pointed to the table and chairs in the spotlight; they almost glowed in the otherwise stygian space. “What is this?”
“We’re going to talk. Just the two of us. Unseen by anyone or anything, but for the ghosts of dead steers and butchered pigs and slaughtered lambs.”
He started to bolt but I had him by the arm.
“No,” I said, fingers tight on his sleeve. “You’re staying. We have a lot to talk about. Your cab isn’t waiting, remember? None out there to flag down, either.”
“Hammer…”
“And you don’t want me talking to anybody else, before you hear what I have to say…do you?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Do I have to drag you?”
He shook his arm from my grasp. “No.”
“Good. After you, then?”
He looked stricken, but then he swallowed, straightened and complied—whether from fear, curiosity or both, I couldn’t say. At any rate, he strolled into the darkness, hands in his pockets again, heading toward the circle of light and the waiting table and two chairs. I followed close, but not too close. The last time I’d been in the dark with him, he’d tried to cave my little chest in.
The lighting gave us both an ivory cast, and the situation an unreal feel. Our chairs were opposite each other, as if I were about to tell his fortune.
Maybe I was.
I said, “I will make you a promise.”
“Will you?”
“Let me put your mind at ease. I’m not greedy. I have no interest in any ongoing blackmail. You will pay me a flat fee, for services rendered. Considering your tax bracket, it’ll be cheap at twice the cost. One hundred grand. You spend more on your yearly fitness club fee.”
His chin came up. “You’re right. I can afford it. But what I can’t do is imagine what you could have to sell to me.”
I tossed a hand. “Just your life.”
His head went back an inch.
“Well,” I said off-handedly, “there’s no death penalty now. But your life of luxury, your exciting career of high finance, your clubbing and your latest conquest and your fun little hobby of killing people…which I think has been going on longer than anyone might imagine, except perhaps the late Casey Shannon… all that will be over.”
“Will it.”
“Yes. But they’ll love you inside. Good-looking boy like you. My advice is, partner up right away, with some big strong bruiser—you don’t want to get passed around. And you probably know about soap and showers.”
He thumped the tabletop with a forefinger. “If you have something to sell me, Hammer, put it on the table.”
“What I have isn’t tangible. It’s the results of my investigation into your hit-and-run and the various killings that followed.”
He huffed a laugh. “You can’t use anything you may have found. You work through an attorney, so you’d be violating the client confidentiality privilege.”
“Not at all. Oh, it’d be shaky ethically, I grant you…but you’re not my client, Vincent. Daddy is.”
His blank expression was all the response I got, or needed.
“Your first line of defense,” I said, “is not terribly impressive. You have alibis for the killings of Kraft, Jordan, and Mazzini. All performed over the span of a few days, by the way, and that is impressive. But back to your alibis. Your father? Your current squeeze? Weak, Vincent. Thin. Parents, wives, lovers, the most worthless alibis in the book. Now, you may be rich enough, successful enough, respectable enough, to make that play, just the same. I mean, I’ll bet your pater would hire one hell of an attorney. Gerry Spence, maybe. How about F. Lee Bailey? Dershowitz would be perfect!”
For the first time a frown had its way with that smooth skin. “Why would I need a defense lawyer? I didn’t do a damn thing.”
I raised a gently lecturing forefinger. “What’s interesting to me, Vincent, is that while you’re clearly deranged, your victims are never random, as is so often the case with someone who gets off on murder the way you do. No, you always pick out someone…deserving. Someone who’s done you dirty—like Sheila Ryan’s abusive ex, for instance. Or like the prostitute who blackmailed you…oh, I know, I know, not established, but that will come out. And I’m guessing Roger Kraft tried to squeeze more money out of you, too, although you may just have been tying off a loose end. And Shannon—a decent man, but he hounded you unmercifully even after he was no longer a cop. Why should you have to put up with that? By the way, did he have anything? On that floppy disk you stole, I mean…and after all the trouble I went to in finding it!”
He stood. “That’s enough of this bullshit. You don’t have anything to say that even vaguely interests me. There’s a coffee shop a few blocks from here. I’ll call for a ride from there. Goodbye, Hammer. I’ll tell my father to fire you first thing tomorrow.”
I raised a “stop” palm and smiled. “Sit down and I’ll tell you what does impress me. Not your pitiful line-up of alibis. No. I’m talking about your Plan B, Vinnie. You don’t mind if I call you Vinnie, do you? It’s a better name for a murderer than ‘Vincent’—unless your last name is Price, maybe.”
He thought about it. Then he smoothed his jacket—Armani again, I’d wager—and sat. “Plan B…?”
“Yeah. That’s what the hit-and-run fakery was about. You really trained for that—getting into shape with a ten-degree black-belt sensei. Really going for it, learning techniques from an actual movie stunt man.”
“I don’t know any movie stunt man.”
“Sure you do. Oh, I admit I don’t have anything on those earlier kills—the secretary you undoubtedly raped and strangled, and the broker at your firm you ran down in that parking ramp. How many like them have happened over the years? Now, how you used the hit-and-run episode—that was cute.”
“Cute?”
I corrected myself: “Ingenious. You devised a Plan B that covers every murder since you had your personality-twisting concussion. You played it to the hilt, the whole Jekyll and Hyde bit—plenty of witnesses to your uncontrollable outbursts to contrast with your otherwise normal behavior. I saw it myself, more than once. All the time you logged with doctors, who assigned meds, which I bet you didn’t take, and constant psychiatrist visits… that’s the Plan B—the groundwork for the insanity plea from the best lawyers Daddy’s money can buy. Might take a year or two before convincing doctors you’re well. Maybe you’d stage another accident with a blow to the head that ‘cures’ you. Clever. Sicker than hell, but clever.”
Colby had started smiling halfway through my little speech. Then he stood and began to clap and laugh, the laughter sounding crazed to me, ringing off the brick walls.
He leaned toward me, hands on his thighs, his smile mocking. “I hear a bunch of theorizing, Hammer. I don’t see a scrap of evidence. And I haven’t confirmed a damn thing you’ve said, and why should I? You want a hundred k for that?”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing I don’t want, and it’s a hug. I know how that kind of hug can end up. Of course, the last time you tried it on me didn’t work out for you. You got flipped on your ass.” I gave him a nasty smile. “Here’s a tip—don’t wear a distinctive cologne to a killing. Detectives pick up on subtle little clues like that.”
