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

once and sat down with a sigh, using me as a breather between courses. I signaled the waiter and he brought her a Manhattan without asking. She said, “It isn’t tea, friend. You’re paying for good whiskey.”
    “Why tell me?”
    “The farmers out there have read too much about hostesses drinking cold tea. They always want to taste it. So we don’t drink at all, or have a small cola.”
    There wasn’t much sense fooling around with chitchat here. I finished my drink, called for another, and while I waited I asked, “Where’s Murray?”
    The blonde squinted her eyes at me a moment, checked her watch and shook her head. “Beats me. He hardly ever gets here before midnight. You a friend of his?”
    “Not exactly. I wanted to see him about something.”
    “Maybe Bucky can help you. He’s the manager when Murray’s away.”
    “No, he couldn’t help me. You remember Nancy Sanford, don’t you?”
    She set her glass down easily and made little rings on the table with the wet bottom. She was looking at me curiously. “Yes, I remember her. She’s dead, you know.”
    “I know. I want to find out where she lived.”
    “Why?”
    “Look, honey, I’m an insurance investigator. We have reasons to believe that Nancy Sanford was actually somebody else. She was using a phony name. Oh, we know all about her, all right. But if she was this somebody else, we have a policy on her we’d like to clear up. The beneficiaries stand to collect five thousand dollars.”
    “But why come here?”
    “Because we heard she used to work here.”
    There was a sad look in the blonde’s eyes this time. “She was working in a house....”
    “It burned down,” I interrupted.
    “Then she moved over to an apartment, I think. I don’t know where, but ...”
    “We checked there. That’s where she lived before she died. Where was she before either one?”
    “I don’t know. I lost track of her after she checked out of here. Once in a while someone would mention seeing her, but I never did. I’m afraid I can’t help you at all. Perhaps Murray could tell you.”
    “I’ll ask him,” I said. “Incidentally, there’s a reward that goes with finding the place. Five hundred bucks.”
    Her face brightened at that. “I don’t get it, Mac. Five bills to find out where she lived and not who she was. What’s the angle?”
    “We want the place because there’s someone in the neighborhood who can positively identify her. We’re having trouble now with people putting in phony claims for the money, and we don’t want to lead them to anybody before we get there first, see?”
    “In other words, keep all this under my hat until I find out. If I can find out.”
    “You got it.”
    “I’ll buy it. Stop back again soon and see if I learned anything. I’ll ask around.” She finished her drink and turned on her “having fun?” smile, waved to me and went back to the rest of the party. The kid wanted money, all right. She’d keep it under her hat and ask around. It wasn’t exactly what I had come for, but it might give me a lead sometime.
    Five drinks and an hour and a half later Murray Candid came in. I had never seen him before, but when the waiters found something to do in a hurry and the farmers started chucking hellos over, looking for a smile of recognition that might impress the girl friend, I knew the boss had come in.
    Murray Candid wasn’t the type to be in the racket at all. He was small and pudgy, with red cheeks, a few chins and a face that had honesty written all over it. He looked like somebody’s favorite uncle. Maybe he was the one to be in the racket at that. The two guys that trailed him in made like they were friends of the family, but goon was the only word that fitted them. They both were young, immaculately dressed in perfectly tailored tuxedos. They flashed smiles around, shook hands with people they knew, but the way they kept their eyes going and the boss under their wing meant they were paid watchdogs. And