She was a gentle, lovely flower that budded slowly, then erupted into a wild blossom of incredible delight. Her hands were tight on my wrists, directing their motion, controlling pressures to her own satisfaction, then, knowing I understood, began a searching of their own. Her mouth was a delectable pillow of warmth that moaned with pleasure when I kissed her, her entire body a writhing masterpiece of sensuality.
When the gray light of the false dawn touched the city outside, I left and took a cab to the Carter-Layland Hotel. I got the key to my room, went in quietly and kicked off my shoes. The door to the adjoining bedroom was closed, so I lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling, my hands under my head.
All I could think of...was it over or just beginning?
Chapter 7
I never remembered having fallen asleep. I awoke with the fading light of day suffusing the room and the mice feet of rain on the window beside the bed. My watch said ten minutes to four and I swore under my breath for letting time get away from me.
When I rolled out of the sack a note fell off my chest. Blue Ribbon at six, stinker, it read and was signed with Velda's elaborate V. A quick shower straightened me out. I shaved the stubble off my face and pawed through the suitcase of clothes she had brought for me and got dressed. Automatically, I checked the action on the .45, slipped it into the holster and pulled my coat on.
Last night had been a rough one. I grinned, reached for the phone and dialed Dulcie's office number. The one who answered was Miss Tabor, the old maid I had ruffled so badly the first time around. When I asked for Dulcie she said Miss McInnes had left for Washington on the ten o'clock plane and would be out of town for several days. She asked who was calling and when I told her I could hear her quick gasp and she stammered that she would tell Miss McInnes that I had called.
I hung up the phone and started to get up when it rang. I picked it up again and said, "Yes?"
"This Mike Hammer?"
"You got him."
"Ray Tucker, Mike. I'm the cab driver you told to follow that girl last night."
I had damn near forgotten about that. "Sure, Ray. Where'd she go?"
"Well, it's hard to say. She came out and flagged me down and I took her to that five-story public parking lot on Eighth and Forty-sixth. She hopped out and went inside. The gate was closed on one side so I cruised around the other and waited a few minutes, then a car came out I think was her. I was going to follow her a ways, but a passenger boarded me and I was laying back too far to really tail her. She drove down to Seventh, then turned right again on the block where there's a southbound entrance to the West Side Highway. That's the best I could do."
"Get the make of the car?"
"A light blue Chevy sedan. A new one. Couldn't spot the plates," he said. Then suddenly he added, "Oh, yeah, there was a dent in the right rear fender. Just a little one."
"Okay, Ray, thanks. Let me know where to reach you and I'll send you a check."
"Forget it, Mike. Them things are kind of fun." He hung up and I put the phone back.
There it was again. Something that didn't belong there. You don't own a new car while you're bedding down in the squalid quarters of the Sandelor Hotel. But Ray Tucker wasn't sure, either, and if the driver in the car wasn't Greta Service, she could have used the parking lot as a cute gimmick to check on anyone following her. I knew the place, and while one side was open to traffic, the gate on the other merely admitted a person and not a car. If she thought I might have been on her tail it would have been a perfect spot to dump me.
I grabbed my hat and raincoat, went downstairs, checked for messages, then went out and waited five minutes before a cab pulled over for me. I gave him the address of the Sandelor Hotel and sat back. I don't usually get mistaken for a tourist, but the cabbie took a chance on it. He caught my eyes in the rear-view mirror and said, "If anybody steered you to the broads in that place, buddy, drop it."
"No good." I asked absently.
"Crap. You'd do better with a pick-up from one of the joints. That's real gook stuff there."
The tautness started across my mouth. "Oh?"
"Sure, foreign seamen, weirdie boys, all that. Maybe half a dozen broads work outa that place and I wouldn't pay five cents to throw a rock at it."
"I'm not after a dame. There may be a friend of mine there."
He shook his head sympathetically. "Tough," he muttered. "That's a real bughouse."
There was a new man on the desk this time, a tall sallow-faced guy in a worn blue serge suit with rodent eyes that seemed to take everything in at once without moving at all. When I passed the desk he said, "Say..." in a whispery voice and I turned, walked back again and stood there for a good ten seconds without taking my eyes off him.
He tried to bluster it out, but it was the kind of situation he didn't like. "Can I...help you?"
"Yeah. You can stay right there and keep your mouth shut. Is that plain enough?"
Those narrow little eyes half shut and the rodent look turned snakelike. He passed it off with a shrug and went back to his bookkeeping. I went up the stairs and down the corridor to the room I had been in last night.
This time the light was already on, and inside a man's hoarse voice was spitting obscenities at a girl. She came back at him with some vile language, then there was the fleshy sound of a hand cracking across a jaw and I shoved the door open.
She sprawled on the floor against the wall, momentarily stunned, one hand pressed against her cheek, a dirty blonde life had prematurely aged. The guy was a big one, heavy under the sport coat and slacks, his face showing the signs of a losing ring career. His nose was flattened and twisted, one ear lumpy and a scar dragged down one comer of his mouth.
He looked at me with A sneer and said, "You got the wrong room, buster."
"I got the right one."
Surprise turned the sneer into a half-smile of anticipation. "Out, out. Like maybe you don't know any better?"
I just stood there. He let two seconds go by, then dropped into a familiar crouch and came at me. He started to feint with his left to cross one over to my jaw, only I never let him get that far. I put a straight jab in his mouth that jarred him back, then hooked him in the gut and again under the chin before he realized what had happened. His legs went rubbery and he went into a sagging dance of defeat. I made sure of it with another right that almost snapped his head off and he crashed against the lone dresser and knocked the lamp off it.
The girl was looking up at me with outright fear, wide awake now. "What...did you do...that for?"
"Be happy, kid. He belted you, didn't he?"
She started to struggle to her feet. I yanked her up, led her to the bed and let her sit down. "We...hell, he's my...we work together." Anger flooded her face and she spoke through clenched teeth. "You damn fool, now he'll beat the hell out of me. You crazy or something? What did you make trouble for? Why don't you go...?"
I held out my wallet so she could see the glint of metal inside. Like I figured, she wasn't the kind who wanted to question a badge so far as even take a good look at it. Tiny white lines etched the corners of her mouth and she threw a nervous glance at the guy on the floor. "Let's start with names," I said.
There wasn't any anger in her voice any more. "Listen, mister..."
"Names, kid. Who are you?"
She looked down at her feet, her fingers twisting at the bedclothes. "Virginia Howell."
"Where's Greta Service?"
I saw her frown, then she looked up at me. "I don't know any Greta Service."
Too many times I had put up with lying broads and I could tell when they were spinning one off. This one wasn't. Now it was all back to where it started again.