The Killing Man Read Online Free Page A

lost in the crowd.”
    “Not for long, boy, not for long. I can smell this one about to bust open like an abscessed tooth.”
    “It’s a weirdo.”
    “Weirdo my ass. Wait until you see who wants to meet you.”
    “Oh?”
    “We have a new assistant district attorney who wants to speak to you. With her is somebody from the governor’s office in Albany. He has a pretty heavy letter on embossed stationery that requests we give him full cooperation.”
    “And that he gets.”
    “Certainly,” Pat acknowledged. “Let’s go meet your enemy.”
    New York City has numerous assistant district attorneys, but they aren’t numbered in order of rank or seniority so they can all sound like the top dog on the block. Candace Amory was far from being a dog.
    She was a tall patrician-looking blonde with a cover-girl face and a body that didn’t just happen. Every bit of her was carefully cultivated and when she moved you knew she danced and could ski and in the water could take two-hundred-foot dives in scuba gear. The high-breasted look she had was for real, enhanced by a suit so dramatically underplayed in spectacular design that it reeked of money that could buy whatever it wanted.
    You would never call Candace Amory “Candy.” You would want to kiss the lusciousness of those full lips until the thought occurred that it might be like putting your tongue on a cold sled runner and never being able to get it off.
    One day I would like to catch her off base and tag her with a ball where she would never forget.
    In that one second our eyes touched she knew everything I was thinking and knew I realized it as well. I nodded and said, “Miss Amory,” and held out my hand. It wasn’t lack of etiquette, just a challenge she met without any change of expression at all. I knew she would have a good grip and let her feel mine too.
    “Mr. Hammer,” she said. Her voice even matched the rest of her. Throaty, but not altogether soft. There was a firmness there. A tiny Phi Beta Kappa pin was suspended on a fine golden chain around her neck, nestling between her breasts.
    There was a dominance about her that she was exuding like an invisible veil and I smiled, just barely smiled with my eyes licking hers, and for an instant there was the minutest change of expression, the cat suddenly realizing the mouse was a cobra, and the veil was sucked back in.
    The man from Albany was Jerome Coleman and he didn’t specify what his position was. But he was official, he looked legal and he could have been a cop. We said a brief hello and took Pat’s offer to sit down around the small conference table. The chair I was offered made me the target for all remarks, so I ignored it and sat in the one next to it. If somebody wanted to fence me in they had better book me first. I saw Pat suppress a smile and Coleman seem annoyed. Miss Amory knew I did it deliberately and just as deliberately took the seat opposite me.
    “Who starts?” I said.
    Jerome Coleman felt inside his jacket and took out a folded sheet of paper and spread it out in front of him. It was upside down, but I saw it was a copy of the note left on my desk by the killer. “We don’t like enigmas, Mr. Hammer.”
    I kept my mouth shut and waited.
    Miss Amory said, “You seem to be implicated in a murder. The alibi you gave Captain Chambers checked out, so you weren’t involved with participation in the killing, but nevertheless, you seem to be a principal in the act.”
    “I’m glad you said seem.”
    She ignored my remark. “Apparently the victim was mistaken for you and horribly brutalized. If that was an act of vengeance, the killer certainly must have had a reason.”
    “Miss Amory,” I said, “I’m glad you didn’t read me my rights.”
    “You’re not being arrested, Mr. Hammer.”
    “This is a direct interrogation, you know.”
    “Quite so. And you are a licensed private investigator under the laws of New York State, with a permit to carry a weapon and expected to be in