Joe Gores - Hammett

‘Jesus Christ,’ grumbled Pronzini. The bartender and the bouncer were already converging on the table. ‘Ya gotta let him in, his daddy’s on the Board of Supes, but I tell ya, he gives the place a bad name. Can’t hold his liquor and can’t hold his dames.’

The girl was down on both knees like a washerwoman, scrabbling after the money. The boy threw the empty wallet at her head. The bouncer grabbed his arm from behind. The boy spun gracefully, yelling, and threw a right-hand lead at the blued jaws. The bouncer kneed him in the crotch. He fell on the floor. The girl was on her feet, backing away, her face composed and sullen.

Pronzini stood up, shaking his head sourly. ‘C’mon, we can’t talk in all this racket.’

Atkinson, carrying the bottle casually by the neck, followed him through the break in the drapes. He was glad to get out of the suddenly stuffy barroom.

Beyond the door was a long narrow room stacked floor to ceiling with wooden crates of liquor. Over his shoulder, Pronzini said, ‘We got a private room back here we won’t be disturbed.’

The door at the far end led to another room, this one small and square with a bed and table and dresser and chairs. Three other doors: bathroom, closet, and one probably opening on stairs down to the dark narrow alley he could see from the window. Pronzini sat down at the table and gestured Atkinson to a seat across from him.

‘Okay, bo, you tell me what sort of financing you’ve got, I’ll tell you whether there’s any chance we can deal.’

‘Maybe you could lay out your setup for me a little first.’

He treated himself to Scotch as Pronzini talked about payoffs and which cops had to be juiced on a regular basis. Atkinson drank and listened and reminded himself to go easy on the hootch; he had a long night ahead, and a lot of details to remember, and he was already getting a heat on.

Only it wasn’t a heat. He started clumsily to his feet as he realized what was happening to him. The bitter edge to the Scotch! He cursed the heavy, grinning, distorted face. He reached across the table for it. Tear it off its fat neck. But the floor moved sideways under his feet to spill him over so his chin struck the edge of the table.

Through waves of nausea, Vic Atkinson could hear a voice that sounded vaguely familiar. Then he placed it. Dominic Pronzini. It came back to him. Like a rube from the sticks. The real stuff, Tony. The real stuff.

‘… he used to hang around North Beach in the old days when I was a kid… Huh?’

Atkinson realized Pronzini was on the phone. ‘Naw, I don’t know his grift, nothing in his poke but a few bucks… Yeah. No. Sure. He ain’t going nowhere…’

Atkinson tried to move his head, but the waves of nausea swept over him again. Chloral hydrate. Probably would have knocked him out for hours if he’d been a smaller man. As it was, hitting his chin had knocked him out. The Mickey Finn had him drifting… paralyzed..

He came back again, maybe a little stronger. Pronzini was back on the phone with the same guy and a different conversation.

‘Who you sending to — no, check that, I don’t want to know. The alley door’ll be open for him. But what difference does it make who this guy is? My boys can make sure he gets the message. He wakes up in an alley somewhere with his teeth in his pocket…’

Away again, drifting. Try to move the head, so he’d know if he was

… gently. Gently, goddamn you! Ohh-h-h…

Sound of door opening. Footsteps approaching. He realized he didn’t even know if he was lying on his back or his face. No feeling. But better now, even so. Not going away and coming back.

Above him, a grunt of surprise. On his back then. The newcomer seeing his face and recognizng him. Had to get eyes open, see who it was had come in from the downstairs alley door Pronzini had left open. Had to. It could be the man. The man. Crack his case before he even got started on it.

Now!

With a supreme effort, Vic Atkinson forced his eyelids open. He was flat on his back, staring straight up. Up, high as the moon, at the elongated, distorted image his eyes gave his foggy brain.

The man, all right. But opening his eyes had been a mistake.

‘Yes, well, that’s it, isn’t it?’ said the man looking down at him. Turned away, regret in his eyes, Atkinson could see him go to the door, open it six inches, call Pronzini and shut it again.

He was standing at the window, overcoat collar turned up, hat pulled low on his head, when Pronzini came in.

‘Yeah?’

‘He opened his eyes. He saw my face.’

Goddamn chloral hydrate. If only Dash had come with him, none of this would have…

‘I’ll need… something… to-’

‘In the closet,’ said Pronzini quickly. ‘I don’t want to know about it.’

‘Just so you get rid of it later,’ said the deliberately muffled voice.

Pronzini’s footsteps, going away. Door closing. Other footsteps to same door, key turning in lock, then footsteps to closet. In the closet. Coming at him.

Atkinson tried, despairing, to move. Couldn’t. God, so sick. Meet it.

With a supreme effort, Vic Atkinson raised his head three inches and opened his eyes.

The bulky man swung the baseball bat. The arc ended with a sickening abruptness on the bridge of the detective’s nose. As the home run exploded against Atkinson’s eyes and into his brain, his bladder and sphincter let loose. The killer leaped back with a little exclamation to avoid the mess. And the blood. Then he stepped back in to use the bat some more. As long as it had to be done, he might as well enjoy it.

It was coming right, now. Felix Weber, the ex-con, was gone. The Primrose Hotel was gone. Hammett’s typewriter clacked. The ashtray was overflowing; flecks of tobacco drifted on the top of black coffee long since gone cold.

He stopped, rubbed bloodshot eyes, tugged his mustache, considered. Aaronia Haldorn. Her husband Joseph. And instead of the run-down hotel, their exclusive Pacific Heights place, the Temple of the Holy Grail. Joseph would work as a character where Weber hadn’t.

He got up and started to pace. Hell, yes. Joseph would believe. That was it. Wield the knife himself. Sure. As for Aaronia…

Aaronia.

Hammett quit pacing to light himself a cigarette. Aaronia. He’d given her the name but not the physical description of his older sister, Reba. Of all his relatives, the only one he still wrote to. He chuckled. Aaronia Rebecca Hammett, as stiff-necked as he was. He’d send her a copy of The Dain Curse when Knopf published it. If he ever got the damned thing revised.

But still he stood, gripped by the past. Philadelphia. He’d been.. what? Two? Three? White house with a little wooden porch and initials carved penknife deep in the railing. Tagging along after Reba to the park to fetch drinking water. Must have been Fairmont Park. And the time the old man took them both — maybe even the baby, Dick, too — to the city dump. There’d been a billy goat with a long white beard and mad eyes, eating tin cans. Or at least the labels off them.

Circle of men around the goat, laughing. Every time one of them would toss a cigarette butt, quick as lightning the goat would piss on it and put it out. Every time. He’d never seen his father laugh so hard.

He became aware that knuckles had been rapping against the front door for some time. He rubbed a hand over his sandpaper jaw and called, ‘I’m asleep.’

‘Sam. It’s me. Goodie. You’ve got another phone call.’

Hammett went to the window and jerked at the bottom of the shade. It shot up to slap twice around the roller. Sunshine burst in to squint his eyes. He threw up the bottom half of the double-hung window and sucked in shocking dawn air. Where the hell had the night gone?