The Mike Hammer Collection - Mickey Spillane [79]
“Control comes other ways, however. For instance, he could marry a woman who would listen to him as a sounding board and relay his thoughts and secrets to the right persons so that whatever he did could be quickly annulled by some other action. He could marry a woman who, as his official Washington hostess, had the ear of respected persons and could pick up things here and there that were as important to enemy ears as any sealed documents. He could find his work being stymied at every turn.
“Then one day he figured it all out. He pinpointed the enemy and found it within his own house. He baited a trap by planting supposedly important papers in his safe and one night while the enemy, his wife, was rifling his safe with her compatriot who was to photograph the papers and transport the photos to higher headquarters, he came downstairs. He saw her, accused her, but blundered into a game bigger than he was.
“Let’s say she shot him. It doesn’t really matter. She was just as guilty even if it was the other one. At least the other one carried the gun off—a pickup rod traceable to no one if it was thrown away printless. His wife delayed long enough so she and her compatriot could fake a robbery, let the guy get away, then call in the cops.
“Nor does it end there. The same wife still acts as the big Washington hostess with her same ear to the same ground and is an important and inexhaustible supply of information to the enemy. Let’s say that she is so big as to even be part of The Dragon team. He was Tooth, she was Nail, both spies, both assassins, both deadly enemies of this country.”
Behind me the water went on again, a downpour that would rinse the bubbles of soap from her body.
“All went well until Richie Cole was killed. Tooth went and used the same gun again. It tied things in. Like I told you when I let you be my sounding board—coincidence is a strange thing. I like the word ‘fate’ even better. Or is ‘consequence’ an even better one? Richie and Leo and Velda were all tied into the same big situation and for a long time I was too damn dumb to realize it.
“A guy like me doesn’t stay dumb forever, though. Things change. You either die or smarten up. I had The Dragon on my back and when I think about it all the little things make sense too. At least I think so. Remember how when Gorlin shot the radio you shook with what I thought was fear? Hell, baby, that was rage. You were pissed off that he could pull such a stupid stunt and maybe put your hide in danger. Later you gave him hell on the phone, didn’t you? That house is like an echo chamber, baby. Talk downstairs and you hear the tones all over. You were mad. I was too interested in going through your husband’s effects to pay any attention, that was all.
“Now it’s over. Tooth is nailed, but that’s a joke you don’t understand yet, baby. Let’s just say that The Dragon is tethered. He’ll sit in the chair and all the world will know why and nations will backtrack and lie and propaganda will tear up the knotheads in the Kremlin and maybe their satellite countries will wise up and blast loose and maybe we’ll wise up and blast them, but however it goes, The Dragon is dead. It didn’t find Velda. She’ll talk, she’ll open up the secrets of the greatest espionage organization the world has ever known and Communist philosophy will get the hell knocked out of it.
“You see, baby, I know where Velda is.”
The shower stopped running and I could hear her hum as though she couldn’t even hear me.
“The catch was this. Richie Cole did make his contact. He gave Old Dewey, the newsstand operator, a letter he had that told where Alex Bird would take Velda. It was a prepared place and she had orders to stay there until either he came for her or I came for her. He’ll never come for her.
“Only me,” I said. “Dewey put the letter