"No hard evidence?"

After a pause he said, "None."

"What put you on Dooley?"

"Just the fact that he worked for Ponti. He didn't seem to fit the profile of someone who would a.s.sociate with a known mobster. Ponti didn't use casual help like that for very long or as intimately."

"You report all this?"

"Of course."

"And your superiors just brushed it aside as mere speculation."

He didn't want to admit it, but I was right.

"Well," he said, "it was speculative. n.o.body seemed to believe the amounts I had told them, even though they had their own research to look at. The difficulty was they couldn't see the Mafia organizations h.o.a.rding that kind of loot. It had always gone somewhere-into casinos, businesses, union operations."

"So they left you out on your own all that time?"

"I am well paid."

"What made you tie it together?"

"You, Mr. Hammer." He leaned back in his chair and looked at me coolly. "When Marcos Dooley was shot down a memo reached me because I had made a notation about him on my report. What really alerted me was his asking only for you. I knew that this was one of those rare historical times when a door was opened and the end was right in sight."

"So you think he told me something," I stated.

"I know he told you something. You know where ... was it eighty-nine? . . . billion dollars is hidden. Those are billions, Mr. Hammer. That's an incredible amount of money. That's big enough to take a big hunk out of this country's deficit. With it this country can-"

"Tell it to the politicians, Homer. I'm looking for a person who killed my friend."

A baffled hatred touched his eyes a second. He said, "Tell me this then, Mr. Hammer. You can tell the truth, can't you?"

"When necessary."

"Let this be necessary then."

"What, Homer?"

"Do you know where the money is?"

For a good three seconds I stared straight into his eyes. When I said it my voice was direct and straightforward and he knew I wasn't lying.

"No," I told him.

"Why are you here then?" There was defeat in his question.

Again, I told him truthfully, "I thought I knew where to look."

"That cave on Lorenzo Ponti's estate has been in use as a mushroom farm for over thirty years," Watson told me.

I felt Velda's knee twitch against mine, his words surprising the both of us. I didn't let my expression show what I felt, and asked, "How would you know that?"

"Because the area is inspected periodically. He has a healthy business there and the IRS keeps a close watch on those things. Nothing goes on there we don't know about."

"How big is it?"

He smiled indulgently and said, "The cave itself is about sixty feet wide and twenty tall. It goes back approximately one thousand feet. At the moment it is completely filled with a new mushroom crop. The place could hold many billion dollars, but be a.s.sured, there is nothing in there except fungi. Edible, of course."

"And the government agents are welcome on his estate?"

"They go through the proper notification. The process has been in place many years."

Velda and I looked at each other. There was no despair in our glances, just an air that had an "oh, well" att.i.tude to it and Homer Watson took it all in.

"I'm sorry to spoil your expectations, Mr. Hammer. I'd much rather you did know and had told me. Frankly, though, I suspected this would happen. There is no way that a person like Dooley would have a part in a money movement like we are talking about."

"Probably not," I agreed.

"And now, where do you go from here?" he asked.

"To see the don, Homer."

His eyes narrowed again. "Why?"

"Because I'm looking for a killer, not a fortune."

Homer got up and picked up the tab on the corner of the table. I let him have it. It was like getting a rebate on my taxes.

When he left, Velda said, "About going to see Ponti . . ."

"I'm going in, kitten. You're staying on the outside near the phone. Every ten minutes I'm going to call . . ."

"I'll stay in the room."

"Good. When I get ready to come out I'll tell you, then give me thirty minutes to show up. If I don't, you call the state troopers right away. Not the local constabulary . . . the troopers. Then call Pat and get ready to raise h.e.l.l on the Ponti estate."

"You think it might get that bad?"

"Anything can go sour when you're talking about billions."

"Mike . . ."

"What?"

"You have a gun on you?"

"No. I was bluffing poor old Homer."

"Ponti won't buy a bluff, Mike."

"I know. They'll frisk me anyway, so I'll go in without one."

I kept my lights on bright and leaned on the horn. I kept hitting it intermittently until a shotgun came in the open side window and both barrels banged against the side of my head. "What the h.e.l.l do ya think you're doing?" the city-accented voice demanded.

"I want to see the don, that's what I want!" I could be just as demanding and it made the guy think, which wasn't easy for him to do.

"He ain't seeing n.o.body!"

"He'll be seeing me, buddy, and if you don't tell him I'm here he'll rip your tail off."

This time he was real confused. "Who you supposed to be?"

"Hammer, Mike Hammer. Now you get to the don and tell him I'm here."

No way was he going to see Ponti. He let out a yell for Sammy, and when his backup got there, he shouted, "This punk wants to see the don. What're we gonna do with him?"

Sammy looked in the window, stared a second and looked up at his partner. "You know who this dude is?"

"He said he was Hammer."

"Yeah, he's a d.a.m.ned PI. He's the one who knocked off Azi Ponti on the docks."

"Does the don know that?"

"Sure he knows it." Sammy reached in his pocket and took out a walkie-talkie, touched the SEND b.u.t.ton and told somebody what he had. A full minute went by and another city voice said to send him in. Sammy told me, "Go slow, leave your lights on and do what you're told."

The shotgun came away from my head reluctantly and when the pair backed off I put the gearshift in drive and eased on up the road. Every so often a flashlight would bathe the car, lingering on my face a few seconds. Finally I reached the last bend and there was the house awash in lights. The men came out of the dark beside me and escorted the car right up to the door. Four more stood there, guns in their hands. Ordinarily, I'd be flattered to see how they showed their respect, calling out all that firepower, but right now they were holding all the cards and I was going to play it cool, real cool.

I cut the motor, stuck the keys in my pocket and slid out the door. The first frisk was fast, to make sure I didn't have any big equipment to lay on them. The second time it was more detailed, looking for a knife or a hidden razor blade. When they were sure I was clean one waved me to the door, touched the bell and it opened. There was Patterson standing there with a small automatic in his fist and a nasty smile on his face. Had not the don come in at that moment something would have happened, but Ponti said, "Get in here, Hammer."

There were only the two of us in the room, but outside the closed doors there was the army. Somewhere eyes would be watching through concealed apertures to make sure everything stayed calm.

"Drink?" Ponti offered.

I didn't have any wine taster here, so I said, "Whatever you're having."

Don Ponti made two Canadian Club and ginger ale highb.a.l.l.s in tall gla.s.ses with plenty of ice, handed me one and indicated that I take a seat. It looked like a nice, friendly meeting, but both of us had felt guns grow hot in our hands and knew well enough how the system worked. I asked the don if I could use his phone and picked it up even before he nodded that I could. I dialed Velda's number, gave her the digits from the don's phone and hung up.

"She'll keep calling back," Ponti stated.

"Every ten minutes."

"I like that, but it's not necessary."

I shrugged and sipped my drink. "Why take chances?"

"You know, I could have used you in my family," he said.

"Don Ponti, I couldn't take all that excitement."

"You came in here alone."

"Did I?"

He didn't like my tone and frowned. When I grinned he lost the worry lines and smiled back. "By rights I should kill you, Mike. For killing my son I should kill you, even if Azi did a bad thing. I believe you when you said you wanted to warn me of the treachery on the docks, but I was prepared for such a thing. You think I would not know what a target I was, coming off the boat at night like that? You think that when the boss goes away everything stays the same. Someone takes his place for a little while, then gets so he feels like that place is where he really belongs."

"I appreciate your consideration, don," I said flatly.

"Certainly, I couldn't kill you until you tell me where the money is."

"Remember how it was in the old days, Don Ponti? You could take a guy and pull his fingernails out or cut his feet off . . . just about anything to make him talk and believe me, he'd talk. You think I could take that?"

Ponti snorted and sipped his drink. "No, you could not take that, Mike. You would talk. The trouble is, you would not have anything to say that I want to hear."

I looked at him over the top of my gla.s.s.

"Dooley told you, Mike, but you haven't figured it out yet. Am I right?"

"You got it."

"Then why are you here?"

"To find out who put a hit order on Dooley."

"Why do you worry about that man? He was a nothing. He was not with us, and now he's dead." For a moment he stared at the wall, then continued. "For me, it is not worth hating him now. I made a mistake. Because he was not one of us I trusted him. He had no taste for money at all. Many times I showed him how he could make a quick score, but he couldn't be bothered. That's why I trusted him. The heads of the other families went with my reasoning."

"You were going to store that money in that cave of yours, weren't you?"

"That was the original idea. It would go in the back section, then the cave would be closed off in a natural manner with a hidden entrance."

"And you'd keep the mushroom farm going to disguise the operation."

"You have done your homework, Mr. Hammer."

h.e.l.l, if Homer hadn't let it slip I never would have known about it at all. At least I didn't have to do a personal search of the place now. Ponti wasn't lying to me, but he wasn't letting me off the hook either. I looked at my watch, picked up the phone and called Velda again. I told her everything was cool and hung up.

"What about Dooley, Don Ponti . . . did he do something that put you wise to what he was doing?"

Ponti suddenly looked puzzled and a little bit sad. He lost that toughness that used to be a part of him, that constant wariness that kept him aware of every movement an enemy made. It wasn't so much that he lost it as that a degree of acceptance seemed to surround him. He wasn't a young guy anymore. He probably was in his early eighties and the last of a breed that came in on one generation and went out on another.

"I should have remembered not to trust anybody," he said. "These are times when n.o.body has a friend."

"Not in your line of work."

"Why would he do that to me? He should have known what would happen."

"Ponti," I said to him, "Dooley didn't do a thing to you. He didn't even steal your money. He just took it out of circulation and put it where n.o.body could get it. He finally got sick of what happened to the world. He fought a war to save it then watched it go to pot, helped on by the nudging of the crooks of the world. What he did was make a statement, but so far n.o.body has heard that statement. It's buried with that money."