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

the redhead who was murdered the other night, Cobbie?”
    This time his eyes went wide and he twitched the comer of his mouth. “Who says she was murdered?”
    “I do.” The bartender drew a beer and shoved it at me. While I sipped it I watched the pimp. Cobbie was scared. I could see him try to shrink down inside his clothes, making himself as unobtrusive as possible, as though it weren’t healthy to be seen with me. That put him in a class with Shorty... he had been scared, too.
    “The papers said she was hit with a car. You call that murder?”
    “I didn’t say what killed her. I said she was murdered.”
    “So what am I supposed to do?”
    “Cobbie ... you wouldn’t want me to get real sore at you, would you?” I waited a second, then, “Well ... ?”
    He was slow in answering. His eyes sort of crawled up to meet mine and stayed there. Cobbie licked his lips nervously, then he turned and finished with his drink with a gulp. When he put the glass down he said, “You’re a dirty son of a bitch, Hammer. If I was one of them hop-heads I’d go get a sniff and a rod and blow your goddamn guts out. I don’t know who the hell the redhead was except another whore and I don’t give a damn either. I worked her a couple of times, but mostly she wasn’t home to play ball and I got complaints from the guys, so I dropped her. Maybe it was lucky for me that I did, because right after it I got word that she was hot as hell.”
    “Who passed the word?”
    “How should I know? The grapevine don’t come from one guy. Enough people said it, so I believed it and forgot her. One of the other babes told me she wasn’t doing so good. The trade around here ain’t like it is uptown. We don’t get no swells... some kids maybe, like them you loused up for me, but the rest is all the jerks who don’t care what they get so long as they get it. They heard the word and laid off too. She wasn’t making a nickel.”
    “Keep talking.” He knew what I was after.
    Cobbie rapped on the bar for another drink. He wasn’t talking very loud now. “Get off me, will you! I don’t know why she was hot. Maybe some punk gun slinger wanted her for a steady and was getting rough. Maybe she was loaded three ways to Sunday. All I know is she was hot and in this business a word is good enough for me. Why don’t’cha ask somebody else?”
    “Who? You got this end sewed up pretty tight, Cobbie. Who else is there to ask? I like the way you talk. I like it so much that I might spread it around that you and me have been pretty chummy and you’ve been yapping your greasy little head off. Why should I ask somebody else when I got you to tell me. Maybe I don’t know who to ask.”
    His face was white as it could get. He hunched forward to get his drink and almost spilled that one too. “... Once she said she worked a house....” He finished the highball and muttered the address as he wiped his mouth.
    I didn’t bother to thank him; it was favor enough to throw my drink down silently, pick up my change and walk out of there. When I reached the street I crossed over and stood in the recess of a hallway for a few minutes. I stuck a butt between my lips and had just cupped my hands around a match when Cobbie came out, looked up and down the street, jammed his hands in his pockets and started walking north. When he rounded the comer I got in the car and sat there a few minutes, trying to figure just what the hell was going on.
    One redheaded prostitute down on her luck. She was killed, her room was searched, and her ring was missing.
    One trigger-happy greaseball who searched her room because she stole his blackmail setup. He said.
    One ex-con who ran a hash house the redhead used for a hangout. He was scared.
    One pimp who knew she was hot but couldn’t say why. Maybe he could, but he was scared, too.
    It was a mess no matter how you looked at it, and it was getting messier all the time. That’s why I was so sure. Death is like a bad tooth... no