It started when Helen took me to the place Marty Wellman used to run, a smooth bistro catering to the uptown trade that ran as far as up to Ossining on the Hudson. Those who were popular that far up made the backroom a gambler’s paradise and a sucker’s grave.
No, she wouldn’t come in. She stayed in the cab and that’s the way I wanted it. There was muted music and indirect lighting. The coatroom was jam-packed but there wasn’t a dozen people at the bar. The rest were digging their graves behind the curtain alongside the bandstand.
I walked up to the bar and sat down.
“Yessir,” the bartender said.
“Gimme a beer.”
“Yessir!”
He brought the beer and moved away.
“Hey, feller. Come here a minute.”
“Yeah?”
“How long have you been here?”
“About two years.”
“You knew Marty Wellman, then, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I knew Marty.”
“What did you know about him?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t walk away, friend.”
He paused. “Friend... look. If you’re just a wise guy... get out by yourself. If you’re a tough guy I’ll toss you out. You know?”
“Friend... look.”
I held my coat open just enough so he could see the leather of the sling that ran across my chest. I didn’t have to show him the .45 that was under it.
“I’m a tough guy, friend. Real tough. Different from the other kind. I’ll tell you my name. Just once. Then you talk... understand. It’s Mike... Mike Hammer.”
“Yeah...”
“Who owns the place now, friend?”
“Me... I do. There’s my license on the wall.”
“Swell. Who runs it?”
“Me... I—”
“Friend... from where you stand maybe I don’t look mad enough to do it, but you’re going to be hurting awful bad with a slug in your leg.”
“Ease off, will you, I’m trying to tell you...”
“Never mind, Joe,” another voice said. “We’ll tell him.”
Whatever the guy behind me had in his pocket pressed hard against my back. The bartender tried to grin but it looked a little sick,
“Much trouble, Joe?” the guy asked.
“Not too much, Dave. He’s got a gun.”
“He won’t have it long. Get up slow, bud. You know where to go or should I steer you a little?”
That was a laugh. Go? I could find it with my eyes closed. Sure, I went... nice and orderly, too... through the crowd at the wheels, around the dice tables, then up to the door marked private and I didn’t even have to knock.
There were four of them in there... plus a languid redhead. But only one of them counted.
His name? Sure, you remember him... Carmen Rich. The boy with all the muscles. The rising star in the world that lived at night. You heard of Buddy Whiteman, too, the slick gunslinger from Miami who was always at Carmen’s arm. And now there they were.
“This the guy?” Carmen asked.
“Troublemaker at the bar,” Dave said.
“They never learn, do they?”
“Not until we teach them, Carmen.”
“Maybe you got a good idea of what’s going to happen to you, feller. You want to speak, say it now.”
“You slimy thick-necked jerk,” I said. “You scrimey punk...”
“Take him, Buddy. Take him good.”
“Yeah, take me,” I said. “But before you start, remember something. There’s a gun at my back but there’s one under my arm and I can get it out a second before I die and in that one second I can plant a slug between your eyes and maybe the Miami boy too and if living is that cheap to you, go ahead and take me.”
Nobody moved.
They sat there watching me... and they knew. That kind could always tell.
Carmen said, “Hold it, Buddy... What’s the angle?”
I laughed. “Me... and a dead man. Marty Wellman. Why did he die? Who killed him? There’s your angle.”
“I’ll pay for that information,” Carmen said.
“So will a killer.”
“I don’t get you, guy.”
“Nobody ever does.”
“Have a cigarette?”
“No thanks. I’ll stick to my Camels.”
Carmen clicked his lighter, puffed his cigarette. “Why’d you come here?”
“Let’s say to see you. The guy at the bar owns the joint and you run it. So Marty left a will.”
“That’s right. Marty left a will.”
“You don’t leave a gambling concession in a will, Carmen.”
“You know me?”
“Yeah. And you know me, too. Mike Hammer. Maybe you heard.”
Carmen paused. “I heard.”
Whiteman said, “I hate these big-mouthed characters. Let me take him, Carmen.”
“I’d like to see you try it, Buddy,” Carmen said. “It’d be real funny. He’d actually die just to pump one into both of us.”
“Nuts,” Buddy said.
“Buddy...” Carmen said. “If you try it... I’ll kill you myself. I know this guy.”
“He’s pulling a bluff and...”
“I’m not, Buddy,” Carmen said. “I’ve seen some of the dead men he left behind him.”
“So you know why I’m here,” I said. “You have any answers?”
“You should know the story,” Carmen said. “Someplace Marty had money stashed away. Two million is a good haul.”
“Where, Carmen?”
“Would I run this joint if I knew?”
“Okay,” I said. “I was just asking. Now I’ll ask around other places. You better be on the square, feller. Otherwise I’ll be back.”
I pulled away from the guy behind me. “Hey... what is this?” he said.
“Let him go, Dave,” Carmen said.
I laughed and shut the door on them.
A croupier was calling out as I slid my barstool into place. “Hey, friend... gimme a beer.”
“Yessir, what can I...”
The bartender’s eyes were wide.
I said, “They didn’t do it to me, feller.”
“I don’t get it,” the bartender said softly.
“You will, feller... if you work that buzzer behind the bar on me again. I said I was different from the other kind of tough guy. You know?”
“Yeah,” the bartender said, dragging it out.
“I’m getting out now... Just remember me if I ever come back.”
Sometimes it’s good to be a guy who doesn’t have to worry about the rules. You can learn things that are clubs to hold over somebody’s head and you can prowl the night until you find the ferrets... human animals who live by invading the dens of the rats.
But first I went to a rat.
He was dressed in grey from his head to his shoes. His hair was mousy color and his eyes were the kind you see peering out of holes in the wall.
Sid Pollack was a rat. On his paper they called him a columnist, but a lot more on the outside called him a rat. He was living by night in a gin mill on Third Avenue that had taken on the taint of respectability lately.
“Hi, Sid.”
“What do you want, Hammer?”
“You.”
“Scram.”
“There was a court case. There was a witness. There was a big lie told and a stinking murderer got off free.” I paused. “There was a night a week later when the killer called on the witness and passed over an envelope with ten grand in it.”
His voice was hushed. “You dirty...”
“Shut up or I’ll break your back right over the bar stool.”
“What do you want?”
“News. Who runs the Syndicate since Marty Wellman got hit?”
“You ought to know.”
I just looked at him.
“Okay... lay off,” he said hurriedly. “So it’s Carmen Rich.”
“How?”
“He moved in. There’s another way?”
“Not without an army, there isn’t.”