Free Mickey Spillane - [Mike Hammer 02] by My Gun Is Quick Page A

the chair around. “It’s all right with me,” I told him. “I would have poked around anyway, but this makes it a lot easier.”
    He reached in his jacket pocket for his wallet and thumbed it open. “And what are your rates, Mike?”
    “A flat fifty a day. No expense account. The fifty takes care of it all.”
    “Have you any idea how long it may take?”
    I shrugged my shoulders. “Who can tell. Sometimes chasing a name is easy, sometimes not.”
    “In that case, let me do this....” He laid a sheaf of crisp, new bills on my desk. The top one was a beautiful fifty. “Here is one thousand dollars. Not a retainer ... but payment in full. Please stay with it until you think it has been spent. If you find out about the girl quickly, good. If you don’t locate her history in twenty days, then it is probably a hopeless task and not worth your time. Is that a satisfactory arrangement?”
    “I’m stealing your money, Mr. Berin.”
    His face brightened into an easy smile and the trouble lines were gone. “I don’t think so, Mr. Hammer. I have become familiar with your record and know how far you are capable of going. With an added incentive of having an interest in the girl yourself, you should make excellent progress. I hope so.
    “It isn’t a pleasant thing to see someone go like that ... no one to know or care....”
    “I care.”
    “Yes, I know you do, Mike, and I care too, because yours is a genuine, unselfish interest to restore some touch of decency to her. She couldn’t have been all bad. Do whatever you think is necessary, and in the interim, if there is a need for more money, you will call on me, won’t you?”
    “Certainly.”
    “The whole affair makes me feel so very small. Here I am preparing for a grand exit from this life, spending thousands that will be a memorial to my name and this girl dies as if she had never existed. You see, I know what aloneness is; I know the feeling of having no one to call your own, not even an entombed memory to worship. My wife, as you may know, was an ardent sportswoman. She loved the sea, but she loved it too much. During one of her cruises aboard a yacht that should never have been out of still waters she was washed overboard. My only son was killed in the first World War. His daughter was the dearest thing to my heart, and when she died I knew what it was like to be utterly, completely alone in this world. Like my wife, she loved the sea too dearly too. It finally took her during a storm off the Bahamas. Perhaps you understand now why I have erected a memorial to myself ... for there is not even so much as a headstone for the others, except perhaps a cross over my son’s grave in France. And too, that is why I want no one else to share my burden of having nothing left, nothing at all. I am thankful that there are people like you, Mike. My faith in the kindnesses of man was extremely low. I thought that all people cared about was money, now I know I was quite wrong.”
    I nodded, blowing a streamer of smoke at the ceiling. “Money is great, Mr. Berin, but sometimes a guy gets pretty damn sore and money doesn’t matter any more. A guy can get just plain curious, too... and money doesn’t matter then either.”
    My new client stood up, giving me an old-fashioned bow. “That takes care of the matter then?”
    “Almost. Where do you want me to send my report?”
    “I never gave it a thought. It really doesn’t matter, but if you come across anything you might feel is interesting, call or write to me at my home. It’s entirely up to you. I’m more interested in results than the procedure.”
    “Oh ... one other thing. Is Feeney Last still with you?”
    His eyes twinkled this time and a grin crossed his face. “Fortunately, no. It seems that he had quite a scare. Quite a scare. He saved me the task of discharging him by resigning. At present my gardener is serving in his capacity. Good day, Mike.”
    I stood up and led him to the door and shook hands there.