Free It's in the Book by Mickey Spillane Page B

strictly for the passerby audience.
    I said, “No wonder you guys are pissed off. With all the expertise of the NYPD, the senator decides to call me in to find a missing geegaw for you. That’s worth a horselaugh.”
    This time Hanson did choke a little bit. “This … ‘geegaw’ may be small in size, Hammer, but it’s causing rumbles from way up top.”
    â€œObviously all the way up to the senator’s office.”
    Hanson said nothing, but that was an answer in itself.
    I asked, “What’s higher than that?”
    And it hit me.
    It was crazy, but I heard myself asking the question: “Not … the president?”
    Hanson swallowed. Then he shrugged again. “I didn’t say that, Hammer. But … he’s top dog, isn’t he?”
    I grunted out a laugh. “Not these days he isn’t.”
    Maybe if they had been feds, I’d have been accused of treason or sedition or stupidity. But these two — well, Hanson, at least — knew the answer already. I gave it to them anyway .
    â€œThese days,” I said, “political parties and bank-rollers and lobbyists call the shots. No matter how important the pol, he’s still a chess piece for money to move around. That includes the big man in the Oval Office.”
    Hanson’s partner chimed in: “That’s a cynical point of view, Hammer.”
    A kid on a skateboard wheeled around the corner. When he’d passed, I said, “What kind of recovery job rates this kind of pressure?”
    We started walking again.
    Hanson said, “It’s there, so who cares. We’re all just pawns, right, Hammer? Come on. Let’s go.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œTo see the senator,” he said.
    We might have been seated in the sumptuous living room of a Westchester mansion, judging by the burnished wood paneling, the overstuffed furnishings, the Oriental carpet. But this was merely the Presidential Suite of the Hotel St. Moritz on Central Park South.
    My host, seated in an armchair fit for a king, was not the president, just a United States senator serving his third consecutive term. And Senator Hugh Boylan, a big pale fleshy man with a Leprechaun twinkle, looked as out of place here as I did. His barely pressed off-white seersucker suit and carelessly knotted blue-and-red striped tie went well with shaggy gray hair that was at least a week past due a haircut. His eyebrows were thick dark sideways exclamation points, a masculine contrast to a plumply sensuous mouth.
    He had seen to it that we both had beers to drink. Bottles, not poured glasses, a nice common-man touch. Both brews rested without coasters on the low-slung marble coffee table between us, where I’d also tossed my hat. I was seated on a nearby couch with more well-upholstered curves than a high-ticket call girl.
    The senator sat forward, his light blue eyes gently hooded and heavily red-streaked. He gestured with a thick-fingered hand whose softness belied a dirt-poor up-bringing. His days as a longshoreman were far behind him.
    â€œOdd that we’ve never met, Mr. Hammer, over all these years.” His voice was rich and thick, like Guinness pouring in a glass. “Perhaps it’s because we don’t share the same politics.”
    â€œI don’t have any politics, Senator.”
    Those Groucho eyebrows climbed toward a shaggy forelock. “You were famously associated with my conservative colleague, Senator Jasper. There was that rather notorious incident in Russia when you accompanied him as a bodyguard.”
    â€œThat was just a job, sir.”
    â€œThen perhaps you won’t have any objection to doing a job for a public servant of … a liberal persuasion.”
    â€œAs long as you don’t try to persuade me, Senator.”
    â€œFair enough,” he said with a chuckle, and settled back in the chair, tenting his fingers. “I would hope as a resident of our great state that