MIKE HAMMER
Mike chose his footing carefully while trudging up the dingy four flights to his walkup overlooking ‘Hell’s Kitchen. A bullet in his left thigh and one to his rib cage, from a slinky blonde named Mona Marie, had left him bitter memories, despite her sexual perversions. Three weeks in a run down hospital didn’t improve his disposition. He should have known better but didn’t. The after glow of filling her body full of lead seemed to ease the pain some.
Inside his secretary waited with a copy of a police report, he begrudgingly scanned.
“What is this all about Dee Dee?”
“They‘re suspicious about your story of Mona Marie‘s connections to Big Jake and have an AP out on you.”
“Damn, so that‘s what the tail‘s all about.”
“Cool it Mike, you know you‘re clear.”
“Yeah, probably but Big Jake has connections, police commissioner connections.”
“Your hear that stomping up the stairs Dee?”
“Yep, fuzz is a comin’.”
Four hours later, Mike left the precinct office, free on his own recognizance. Big Jake ran drugs, girls, numbers and protection in Hell’s Kitchen since the early thirties. The depression only made him stronger, Payoff, booze and broads kept the police away, including Mel Harrison, the commissioner.
‘I’ll have to bring him down myself’, Mike thought, ‘but how?’
Jake ran his operation out of The Easy Sixes, a club located in an old wharf on the Hudson River. Safe and off limits to the police, the club emulated everything grotesque Hell’s Kitchen had to offer. One difference only, customers knew they were okay and that meant a lot to New York’s elite. Mike had been there many times in the mid thirties, now the war was on, New York turned it’s attention to more pressing matters.
Mike finally realized his plan was flawed and called his best friend,
Effie answered Sam’s phone,
“He’s not in Mike, he still mooning over Miss Ruth and took some time off, but I will tell him you called“
‘It‘s no wonder,’ Mike thought. ‘Sam took down the “Fat Man and Ruth Wonderly with him. God what a piece of double dealing, wanton woman.”.
Two days went by, with Mike healing fast, almost to normal. Sam called and they arranged a meeting.
“You old buzzard,” Mike said, “you finally over your tryst?”
“You’re a fine one to talk Mike, at least I didn’t let her plug me twice.”
“Ouch, it still hurts.”
“Your ass or your pride?”
“A little of both, maybe. Enough of this, are you interested in taking Big Jake down?”
“You and what army?”
“I am serious Sam.“
“You have a death wish Mike or just insane?”
Neither, but I do have a plan.”
To Be Continued
