Mickey Spillane - The Big Bang

"Like what day it's coming in, you mean, and at what pier?"

The eyes on the two T-men popped; it was comical, like one of those rubber dolls you squeeze.

Radley, a tremor in his voice, asked, "What do you know, Mr. Hammer?"

"Not a damn thing."

Radley's voice grew hushed and it grew tight. "Listen to me. We've been patient with you. We've not subjected you to a recitation of your record with its alarming number of killings."

"Justifiable homicides, you mean."

"Self-defense cannot excuse the outrageous number of vigilante actions you've taken... yes, vigilante actions, Mr. Hammer, and we will not suffer such foolishness, not in a situation so dire, so critical."

I grinned. "Few days ago, you guys were encouraging me to keep investigating. You were saying how I could go places and get away with things you couldn't. Why is my fan club turning on me?"

Radley ignored that. "Never in history has a shipment of this magnitude been in the offing. We can save lives, and we can put a real dent in the Syndicate with this one. It's important. If you learn anything, anything at all, you need to share it with us. It's your patriotic duty, Mr. Hammer."

Whenever they start talking to me about my patriotic duty, I check my wallet.

"I served in the Pacific," I said. "Draft somebody younger." I stood. "Is that all, gentlemen? I like to get in bed before sunup—otherwise I have trouble nodding off."

Radley swallowed thickly. "You know where to reach us. If you learn anything, bring the information to us. Do not take it upon yourself to deal with this situation, Mr. Hammer. You really are in over your head on this one."

Second time I'd been told that tonight.

"Then I better go home," I said, "and put on my water wings."

On my way out through the bullpen, Pat came up and took me by the arm. With his back to the rest of the room, he carefully slipped me a manila folder. "I could get my ass in a wringer, helping you."

"Sounds like a safe bet. What are these?"

"The Jay Wren surveillance shots you asked for, courtesy of the Miami PD. Nothing from the feds, but maybe these'll tell you something."

"Thanks, buddy."

I didn't look at the photos till I got to my car. They showed Wren in the walled-in pool area of a fancy Spanish stucco villa with the expected palm trees. The angle was high, from one of those palms maybe or an adjacent house.

In the earlier dated photos, Wren started out with his leg in a cast, and then after it came off, he was just another skinny tanned dude lounging by his pool. Nothing remarkable about it, except the blonde in the bikini, who was only in some of the shots. In two, she was giving the Snowbird mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, below the belt. Mostly she just worked on her tan.

It was a tan I was familiar with—I'd even seen the white flesh and dark snatch under the skimpy two-piece.

Jay Wren's bikini babe was Shirley Vought.

I didn't make it in till midmorning. I'd phoned Velda a couple times the night before, from Central Headquarters, so she knew what I was in for and that I'd drag in late. I came in without a coat because the day was sunny, and Velda gave me a wide-eyed look and bobbed her head to her left, at the couch where clients waited when business was really good.

Seated there, on the edge of a cushion like an expectant father waiting for the word, was Dr. Alan Sprague, Harrin's round little gray-haired, bespectacled colleague. He wore a brown suit and red bow tie and a constipated expression. On the floor next to him, leaning against the couch, was an oblong butcher-paper-wrapped package, not thick at all.

On seeing me, Sprague shot to his feet. "I don't have an appointment, Mr. Hammer. I do apologize."

"No problem," I said, gesturing to the door of my inner office, and he scurried ahead of me and let himself in.

I followed and shrugged at Velda and gave her a what-the-hell look, and she shrugged at me and did the same. She started to get up, reaching for her pad, but I shoved a palm at her and shook my head. She sat back down, and I closed myself in with my guest.

Sprague was already in the client's chair. His eyes were spider-webbed red, his bristly hair even bristlier than usual, and he had a rumpled, haphazard look.

I got behind the desk and asked, "How can I help you, Doctor?"

"I don't know if you can." He had the awkward butcher-paper package on his lap, held with two hands like some weird musical instrument. "From what I understand, what I read and hear, you ... you were there last night."

"Yes," I said. "You have my condolences, sir. I know you and Dr. Harrin were close."

His shell-shocked expression was pretty pitiful. "Yes ... yes, he was my closest friend. And yet sometimes I feel that I didn't know him at all." He placed the package on the desk. "I had instructions from Dr. Harrin—he asked me, yesterday afternoon, right after he got back, to give this to you, should anything... unexpected ... happen to him."

"Only then?"

His eyes widened, then returned to normal—bloodshot normal, anyway. "Well, I suppose he meant, he'd give it to you himself, otherwise."

"Are you saying he anticipated something might happen to him?"

Sprague shook his head, shrugged, a frustrated mess. "I don't know. I really don't. There's so much I don't understand. Perhaps ... would you mind opening it, before I go?"

"You haven't seen it?"

"No." He pointed a tentative finger at the package. "He left it for me ... for you ... wrapped like that."

I could feel through the paper what it was—there was no box, and the wood and the glass of it were apparent: one of his framed sayings. I tore the paper off, and the fancy lettering on parchment-style paper said: " At the darkest moment comes the light. " The attribution was to Joseph Campbell.

"I don't know him," I said, pointing to the name under the saying. "What is he, the soup guy?"

"No. He's an author David admired."

"What does it mean?"

"That it's darkest before the storm, I suppose. That eventually light will follow. I don't know. I really don't."

I leaned forward. "Would you like something to drink, Doctor? Some coffee? Some water, maybe?"

"No. No, thank you. I wonder if ... no."

"What?"

"There is something troubling me. I don't know who to share it with. It may be nothing, nothing at all. But when I heard about this, this ... shooting ... for some reason, what David told me, just yesterday afternoon, came rushing back, and I felt a chill. An awful chill to my very soul. How, how very silly, how stupid that sounds...."

"What did he tell you, Dr. Sprague?"

Sprague, looking every bit the absent-minded professor, flopped back in the chair, his eyes dazed behind wire-framed glasses. "He told me a story. He said it was just a story, anyway. A kind of fantasy of his. Purely hypothetical."

"Go on."

"He said ... suppose there was a doctor whose son took an overdose, and that doctor became so angry over his tragic loss that he decided to go into the drug business himself. Not for profit, mind you, but ... for revenge. Maybe ... maybe I will have that water, Mr. Hammer."

I didn't call for Velda. I went out and got him a cup from the cooler myself. From her desk, Velda gave me another wide-eyed look and I gave her the palm again, and went back in, shut the door, and gave the guy his water. He sipped it greedily.

"Now go on, Doctor."

"Well. In David's story ... the doctor goes to Europe, and he acquires this huge load of heroin. The method of smuggling is strange but I would say credible. The heroin has been fashioned into molds, the kind of molds they use in ceramics. They look just like ordinary molds, for dishes, for statuettes. They would easily pass Customs. But these molds, when crushed down, would become pure heroin."