The Mike Hammer Collection by Mickey Spillane Page A

window, all right. A space of three feet separated the two walls. I worked myself to the outside sill while the little guy held my belt to steady me. Then I let myself fall forward. The guy let out a shriek and his wife came tearing in. But all I did was stick my hands out and lean against the opposite wall. He thought I was a goner.
    The bathroom window went up easily. I pulled myself across the space, thanked the guy and his wife, and slithered inside. Nothing had been moved around much. The fingerprint crew had left powder tracings on most of the objects that could have been handled, and where Jack’s body had lain were the chalk marks outlining the position. His artificial arm was still on the bed where he had put it. The only thing that was gone was his gun, and stuck in the empty holster was a note. I pulled it out and read it. “Mike,” it said, “don’t get excited over the gun. I have it at headquarters.” It was signed, “Pat.”
    How do you like that? He thought I’d find a way to get in. I put the note back with an addition at the bottom. “Thanks, chum,” I wrote, “I won’t.” I scrawled my name underneath it.
    It was easy to see that the police had been over everything in the place. They had gone at it neatly, but completely. Everything was replaced much the same as it had been. There were just a few things not quite in order that made it possible to tell that it had been searched.
    I started in the living room. After I pushed the chairs to the middle of the floor and examined them, I went around the edges of the carpet. Nothing there but a little dirt. I found three cents under the cushions of the couch, but that was all. The insides of the radio hadn’t been touched for months, as evidenced by the dust that had settled there. What books were around had nothing in them, no envelopes, no bookmarks or paper of any sort. If they had, the police got them.
    When I finished, I replaced everything and tried the bathroom but, except for the usual array of bottles and shaving things in the cabinet, it was empty.
    The bedroom was next. I lifted the mattress and felt along the seams for any possible opening or place where it may have been stitched up. I could have cursed my luck. I stood in the middle of the floor stroking my chin, thinking back. Jack had kept a diary, but he kept it on his dresser. It wasn’t there now. The police again. I even tried the window shades, thinking that a paper might have been rolled up in one of them.
    What got me was that I knew Jack had kept a little pad of notes and addresses ever since he was on the force. If I could find that, it might contain something useful. I tried the dresser. I took every shirt, sock and set of underwear out of the drawers and went through them, but I might as well not have taken the time. Nothing.
    As I emptied the bottom drawer a tie caught and slipped over the back. I pulled the drawer all the way out and picked up the tie from the plywood bottom. I also picked up something else. I picked up Jack’s little book.
    I didn’t want to go through it right then. It was nearly ten o’clock and there was a chance that either the police might walk in on me or the little guy get suspicious enough of my being away so long he’d call a copper. As quickly as I could, I put the stuff back in the drawers and replaced them in the dresser. The book I stuck in my hip pocket.
    The little guy was waiting for me in his own bathroom. I squeezed out Jack’s window and made a pretense of looking for rope marks along the upper sill. His eyes followed me carefully. “Find anything, officer?” he asked me.
    â€œAfraid not. No marks around here at all. I checked the other windows and they haven’t even been opened.” I tried to look up to the roof, but I couldn’t get back far enough until I stepped across to his side, then I wormed my way into the bathroom and poked my head out and