She nodded.

"You can help if you do what I ask."

"How will that help?"

"You got big ears, kid. I'm an old soldier who knows his way around this business and you just don't fool me, baby. You can do anything you want to. Go back there and stay with it. Somebody wants you nailed, sugar, and if I can get you in a safe place I can scrounge without having you to worry about."

Sue smiled without meaning to and looked down at her hands. "He wants me dead." wants me dead."

"Okay, we'll play it your way. If If he does there's nothing he can do about it now. There're too many eyes watching you." he does there's nothing he can do about it now. There're too many eyes watching you."

"Are yours, Mike?"

I grinned. "h.e.l.l, I can't take 'em off you."

"Don't fool with me, Mike."

"All right, Sue. Now listen. Your old man paid me five grand to handle this mess. It isn't like he's caught in a trap and is trying to con me because he knows all about me. I'm no mouse. I've knocked over too many punks and broke too many big ones to play little-boy games with."

"Are you really really convinced, Mike?" convinced, Mike?"

"Honey, until it's all locked up, tight, I'm never convinced, but at this stage we have to work the angles. Now, will you go back?"

She waited a moment, then looked up again. "If you want me to." "I want you to."

"Will I see you again?"

Those big brown eyes were a little too much. "Sure, but what's a guy like me going to do with a girl like you?"

A smile touched her mouth. "Plenty, I think," she said.

Sim Torrence was out, but Geraldine King made the arrangements for a limousine to pick up Sue. I waited for it to arrive, watched her leave, then went back to my office. I got out at the eighth floor, edged around the guy leaning up against the wall beside the b.u.t.tons with his back to me, and if it didn't suddenly occur to me that his position was a little too awkward to be normal and that he might be sick I never would have turned around and I would have died face down on the marble floor.

I had that one split-second glance at a pain- and hate-contorted face before I threw myself back toward the wall scratching for the .45 when his gun blasted twice and both shots rocketed off the floor beside my face.

Then I had the .45 out and ready but it was too late. He had stepped back into the elevator I had just left and the doors were closing. There wasn't any sense chasing him. The exit stairs were down the far end of the corridor and the elevator was a quick one. I got up, dusted myself off, and looked up at the guy who stuck his head out of a neighboring door. He said, "What was that?"

"Be d.a.m.ned if I know. Sounded like it was in the elevator."

"Something's always happening to that thing," he said pa.s.sively, then closed his door.

Both slugs were imbedded in the plaster at the end of the hall, flattened at the nose and scratched, but with enough rifling marks showing for the lab to make something out of it. I dropped them in my pocket and went to my office. I dialed Pat, told him what had happened, and heard him let out a short laugh. "You're still lucky, Mike. For how long?"

"Who knows?"

"You recognize him?"

"He's the guy Basil Levitt shot, buddy. I'd say his name was Marv Kania."

"Mike . . ."

"I know his history. You got something out on him?"

"For a month. He's wanted all over. You sure about this?"

"I'm sure."

"He must want you pretty badly."

"Pat, he's got a bullet in him. He's not going to last like he is and if he's staying alive it's to get me first. If we can nail him we can find out what this is all about. If he knows he's wanted he can't go to a doctor and if he knows he's dying he'll do anything to come at me again. Now d.a.m.n it, a shot-up guy can't go prancing around the streets, you know that."

"He's doing it."

"So he'll fall. Somebody'll try to help him and he'll nail them too. He just can't follow me around, I move too fast."

"He'll wait you out, Mike."

"How?"

"You're not thinking straight. If he knows what this operation is about he'll know where you'll be looking sooner or later. All he has to do is wait there."

"What about in the meantime?"

"I'll get on it right away. If he left a trail we'll find it. There aren't too many places he can hole up."

"Okay."

"And, buddy . . ."

"What, Pat?"

"Hands off if you nail him, understand? I got enough people on my back right now. This new D.A. is trying to break your license."

"Can he?"

"It can be done."

"Well h.e.l.l, tell him I'm cooperating all the way. If you look in the downstairs apartment in the building across the street from where Velda was staying you'll find a sniper's rifle that belonged to Basil Levitt. Maybe you can backtrack that."

"Now you tell me," he said softly.

"I just located it."

"What does it mean?"

I didn't tell him what I thought at all. "Got me. You figure it out."

"Maybe I will. Now you get those slugs down to me as fast as you can."

"By messenger service right now."

When I hung up I called Arrow, had a boy pick up the envelope with the two chunks of lead, got them off, then stretched out on the couch.

I slept for three hours, a hard, tight sleep that was almost dreamless, and when the phone went off it didn't awaken me until the fourth or fifth time. When I said h.e.l.lo, Velda's voice said, "Mike . . ."

"Here, kitten. What's up?"

"Can you meet me for some small talk, honey?"

My fingers tightened involuntarily around the receiver. Small talk Small talk was a simple code. was a simple code. Trouble Trouble, it meant, be careful be careful.

In case somebody was on an extension I kept my voice light. "Sure, kid. Where are you?"

"A little place on Eighth Avenue near the Garden . . . Lew Green's Bar."

"I know where it is. Be right down."

"And, Mike . . . come alone."

"Okay."

On the way out I stopped by Nat Drutman's office and talked him out of a .32 automatic he kept in his desk, shoved it under my belt behind my back, and grabbed a cab for Lew Green's Bar. There was a dampness in the air and a slick was showing on the streets, reflecting the lights of the city back from all angles. It was one of those nights that had a bad smell to it.

Inside the bar a pair of chunkers were swapping stories in a half-drunken tone while a TV blared from the wall. A small archway led into the back room that was nestled in semi-darkness and when I went in a thin, reedy voice said from one side, "Walk easy, mister."

He had his hands in his side pockets and would have been easy to take, loaded or not, but I went along with him. He steered me past the booths to the side entrance where another one waited who grinned in an insolent way and said, "He carries a heavy piece. You look for it?"

"You do it," the thin guy said.

He knew right where to look. He dragged the .45 out, said, "Nice," grinned again, and stuck it in his pocket. "Now outside. We got transportation waiting. You're real V.I.P."

The place they took me to was in Long Island City, a section ready to be torn down to make way for a new factory building. The car stopped outside an abandoned store and when the smart one nodded I followed him around the back with the thin one six feet behind me and went on inside.

They sat at a table, three of them, with Velda in a chair at the end. A single Coleman lamp threw everything into sharp lights and shadows, making their faces look unreal.

I looked past them to Velda. "You okay, honey?"

She nodded, but there was a tight cast to her mouth.

The heavy-set guy in the homburg said, "So you're Mike Hammer."

I took a wild guess. "Del Penner."

His face hardened. "He clean?"

Both the guys at the door behind him nodded and the one took my .45 out and showed it. Del said, "You came too easy, Hammer."

"Who expected trouble?"

"In your business you should always expect it."

"I'll remember it. What's the action, Penner?"

"You sent her asking about me. Why?"

"Because I'm getting my toes stepped on. A guy named Kid Hand got shot and I hear you're taking his place. I don't like to get pushed. Now what?"

"You'll get more than pushed, Hammer. Word's around that you got yourself some top cover and knocking you off can make too much noise. Not that it can't be handled, but who needs noise? Okay, you're after something, so spill it."

"Sure. You are stepping up then?"

Penner shrugged elaborately. "Somebody takes over. What else?" "Who's d.i.c.kerson?"

Everybody looked at everybody else before Del Penner decided to answer me. He finally made up his mind. "You know that much, then you can have this. n.o.body n.o.body knows who Mr. d.i.c.kerson is." knows who Mr. d.i.c.kerson is."

"Somebody knows."

"Maybe, but not you and not us. What else?"

"You pull this stunt on your own?"

"That you can bet your life on. When this broad started nosing around I wanted to know why. So I asked her and she told me. She said they were your orders. Now get this . . . I know about the whole schmear with you knocking off Kid Hand and getting Levitt b.u.mped and leaving Marv Kania running around with a slug in his gut. I ain't got orders on you yet but like I said, when anybody noses around me I want to know why."

"Supposing I put it this way then, Penner . . . I'm the same way. Anybody tries to shoot me up is in for a hard time. You looked like a good place to start with and don't figure I'm the only one who'll think of it. You don't commit murder in this town and just walk away from it. If you're stepping into Kid Hand's job then you should know that too."

Penner smiled tightly. "The picture's clear, Hammer. I'm just stopping it before it gets started."

"Then this bit is supposed to be a warning?"

"Something like that."

"Or maybe you're doing a favor ahead of time."

"What's that mean?"

"Like Kid Hand was maybe doing a personal favor and stepped down off his pedestal to look like a big man."

The silence was tight. Del Penner just stared at me, not bothered at all by what I said. His hand reached up and touched his homburg and he sat back in his chair. "Warning then, Hammer. Don't make any more noise around me. I imagine you'd be about a fifteen-hundred-buck job. One thousand five hundred bucks can buy both of you dead and no mud on my hands. Clear?"

I put both hands on the table and leaned right into his face. "How much would you cost, Del?" I asked him. He glared at me, his eyes hard and bright. I said, "Come on, Velda. They're giving us a ride home."

We sat in the front next to the driver, the skinny guy in back. All the way into Manhattan he kept playing with my gun. When we got to my office the one behind the wheel said, "Out, Mac."

"Let's have the rod."