Free [Mike Hammer 03] - Vengeance Is Mine by Mickey Spillane

said.
    When the kid licked his lips a little spit ran down his chin. Connie walked ahead of me and opened the door. I walked past the two of them and they never moved. In a little while they’d be out of a job.
    Not an empty table showed in this first back room. The show was over and the tiny dance floor was packed to the limit. The late tourist crowd was having itself a fling and making no bones about it. I scanned the sea of heads looking for Clyde. It was a hell of a change from Dinky Williams. But he wasn’t around. We picked up our stuff from the hag at the checkroom and I tossed a dime in the spittoon. She swore and I swore back at her.
    The words we used weren’t unusual for the front section of the Bowery Inn, and no heads turned except two at the bar. One was Clyde. I waved my thumb toward the back. “Lousy help you hire, Dink.” His face was livid again.
    I didn’t even look at the babe. It was Velda.

Chapter 5
    I WAS SITTING in the big leather chair in the office when Velda put her key in the lock. She had on a tailored suit that made her look like a million dollars. Her long black page-boy hair threw back the light of the morning sunshine that streamed through the window and it struck me that of all the beauty in the world I had the best of it right under my nose.
    She saw me then and said, “I thought you’d be here.” There was frost in her voice. She tossed her handbag on the desk and sat in my old chair. Hell, it was her joint now anyway.
    “You move pretty fast, Velda.”
    “So do you.”
    “Referring to my company of last night, I take it.”
    “Exactly. Your legwork. They were very nice, just your type.”
    I grinned at her. “I wish I could say something decent about your escort.”
    The frost melted and her voice turned soft. “I’m the jealous type, Mike.”
    I didn’t have to lean far to reach her. The chair was on casters that moved easily. I wound my fingers in her hair, started to say something and stopped. Instead, I kissed the tip of her nose. Her fingers tightened around my wrist. She had her eyes half closed and didn’t see me push her handbag out of reach. It tipped with the weight of the gun in it and landed on the floor.
    This time I kissed her mouth. It was a soft, warm mouth. It was a light kiss, but I’ll never forget it. It left me wanting to wrap my arms around her and squeeze until she couldn’t move. No, I didn’t do that. I slid back into my chair and Velda said, “It was never like that before, Mike. Don’t treat me like the others.”
    My hand was shaking when I tried to light another cigarette. “I didn’t expect to find you down the Bowery last night, kid.”
    “You told me to get to work, Mike.”
    “Finish it. Let’s hear it all.”
    Velda leaned back in the chair, her eyes on mine. “You said to concentrate on Wheeler. I did. The papers carried most of the details and there was nothing to be learned here. I hopped the first plane to Columbus, visited with his family and business associates and got the next plane back again.”
    She picked her handbag off the floor and extracted a small black loose-leaf pad, flipping the cover back to the first page. “Here is the essence of what I learned. Everyone agreed that Chester Wheeler was an energetic, conscientious husband, father and businessman. There has never been any family trouble. Whenever he was away he wrote or called home frequently. This time they had two picture post cards from him, a letter and one phone call. He phoned as soon as he arrived in New York to tell them he’d had a successful trip. He sent one card to his son, a plain penny post card. The next card was postmarked from the Bowery and he mentioned going to a place called the Bowery Inn. Then he wrote a letter to his wife that was quite commonplace. A postscript to his twenty-two-year-old daughter mentioned the fact that he had met an old high school friend of hers working in the city. That was the last they heard until they were