The Mike Hammer Collection Read Online Free Page A

at her. Not that I didn’t want to, but it would be striking too close to home.
    Velda picked up her pad and sat down. I plunked myself in the old swivel chair, then swung around facing the window. Velda threw a thick packet on my desk.
    â€œHere’s all the information I could get on those that were at the party last night.” I looked at her sharply.
    â€œHow did you know about Jack? Pat only called my home.” Velda wrinkled that pretty face of hers up into a cute grin.
    â€œYou forget that I have an in with a few reporters. Tom Dugan from the Chronicle remembered that you and Jack had been good friends. He called here to see what he could get and wound up by giving me all the info he had—and I didn’t have to sex him, either.” She put that in as an afterthought. “Most of the gang at the party were listed in your files. Nothing sensational. I got a little data from Tom who had more personal dealings with a few of them. Mostly character studies and some society reports. Evidently they were people whom Jack had met in the past and liked. You’ve even spoken about several yourself.”
    I tore open the package and glanced at a sheaf of photos. “Who are these?” Velda looked over my shoulder and pointed them out.
    â€œTop one is Hal Kines, a med student from a university upstate. He’s about twenty-three, tall, and looks like a crew man. At least that’s the way he cuts his hair.” She flipped the page over. “These two are the Bellemy twins. Age, twenty-nine, unmarried. In the market for husbands. Live off the fatta the land with dough their father left them. A half interest in some textile mills someplace down South.”
    â€œYeah,” I cut in, “I know them. Good lookers, but not very bright. I met them at Jack’s place once and again at a dinner party.”
    She pointed to the next one. A newspaper shot of a middle-aged guy with a broken nose. George Kalecki. I knew him pretty well. In the roaring twenties he was a bootlegger. He came out of the crash with a million dollars, paid up his income tax, and went society. He fooled a lot of people but he didn’t fool me. He still had his finger in a lot of games just to keep in practice. Nothing you could pin on him though. He kept a staff of lawyers on their toes to keep him clean and they were doing a good job. “What about him?” I asked her.
    â€œYou know more than I do. Hal Kines is staying with him. They live about a mile above Myrna in Westchester.” I nodded. I remembered Jack talking about him. He had met George through Hal. The kid had been a friend of George ever since the older man had met him through some mutual acquaintance. George was the guy that was putting him through college, but why, I wasn’t sure.
    The next shot was one of Myrna with a complete history of her that Jack had given me. Included was a medical record from the hospital when he had made her go cold turkey, which is dope-addict talk for an all-out cure. They cut them off from the stuff completely. It either kills them or cures them. In Myrna’s case, she made it. But she made Jack promise that he would never try to get any information from her about where she got the stuff. The way he fell for the girl, he was ready to do anything she asked, and so far as he was concerned, the matter was completely dropped.
    I flipped through the medical record. Name, Myrna Devlin. Attempted suicide while under the influence of heroin. Brought to emergency ward of General Hospital by Detective Jack Williams. Admitted 3-15-40. Treatment complete 9-21-40. No information available on patient’s source of narcotics. Released into custody of Detective Jack Williams 9-30-40. Following this was a page of medical details which I skipped.
    â€œHere’s one you’ll like, chum,” Velda grinned at me. She pulled out a full-length photo of a gorgeous blonde. My heart jumped when I saw it. The picture