[Mike Hammer 03] - Vengeance Is Mine Read Online Free PDF

a fortune in jewels stuck in his tie and flashing on his fingers. He was talking to somebody out of sight and licking his lips between every word.
    You should have seen his face. He was scared silly.
    I let the knocker down easy and eased back into the shadows. When I looked at my watch ten minutes had gone by and nothing happened. I could see the window through the shrubs and the top of the fat man’s head. He still hadn’t moved. I kept on waiting and a few minutes later the door opened just far enough to let a guy out. There was no light behind him so I didn’t see his face until he was opposite me. Then I grinned a nasty little grin and let my mind give Pat a very soft horse-laugh.
    The guy that came out only had one name. Rainey. He was a tough punk with a record as long as your arm and he used to be available for any kind of job that needed a strong arm.
    I waited until Rainey walked down the street and got in a car. When it pulled away with a muffled roar I climbed into my own heap and turned the motor over.
    I didn’t have to see Mr. Perry after all. Anyway, not tonight. He wasn’t going anywhere. I made a U-turn at the end of the street and got back on the main drag that led to Manhattan. When I reached the Greenwood Hotel a little after midnight the night clerk shoved the register at me, took cash in advance and handed me the keys to the room. Fate with a twisted sense of humor was riding my tail again. The room was 402.
    If there was a dead man in it tomorrow it’d have to be me.

    I dreamt I was in a foxhole with a shelter half dragged over me to keep out the rain. The guy in the next foxhole kept calling to me until my eyes opened and my hand automatically reached for my rifle. There was no rifle, but the voice was real. It came from the hall. I threw back the covers and hopped up, trotting for the door.
    Joe slid in and closed it behind him. “Cripes,” he grunted, “I thought you were dead.”
    “Don’t say that word, I’m alone tonight. You get it?”
    He flipped his hat to the chair and sat on it. “Yeah, I got it. Most of it anyway. They weren’t very co-operative at the hotel seeing as how the cops had just been there. What did you do to ’em?”
    “Put a bug up his behind. Now the honorable Captain of Homicide, my pal, my buddy who ought to know better, thinks I’m pulling fast ones on him as a joke. He even suspects me of having tampered with some trivial evidence.”
    “Did you?”
    “It’s possible. Of course, how would I know what’s evidence and what’s not. After all, what does it matter if it was a suicide?”
    Joe gave a polite burp. “Yeah,” he said.
    I watched him while he felt around in his pocket for a fistful of notes. He tapped them with a forefinger. “If I charged you for this you’d of shelled out a pair of C’s. Six men lost their sleep, three lost their dates and one caught hell from his wife. She wants him to quit me. And for what?”
    “And for what?” I repeated.
    He went on: “This Wheeler fellow seemed pretty respectable. By some very abstract questioning here and there we managed to backtrack his movements. Just remember, we had to do it in a matter of hours, so it isn’t a minute-by-minute account.
    “He checked in at the hotel immediately upon arriving eight days ago. His mornings were spent visiting merchandising houses here in the city where he placed some regular orders for items for his store. None of these visits were of unusual importance. Here are some that may be. He wired home to Columbus, Ohio, to a man named Ted Lee asking for five thousand bucks by return wire. He received it an hour later. I presume it was to make a special purchase of some sort.
    “We dug up a rather sketchy account of where he spent his evenings. A few times he returned to the hotel slightly under the influence. One night he attended a fashion show that featured a presentation of next year’s styles. The show was followed by cocktails and he may have been one of