Read Online The Body Lovers by Mickey Spillane - Free Book Online Page B

“You think too much, Mike,” he said. “Sure, we’re on it, the Washington agencies have been notified, but the possibilities of getting a lead are so remote I’m not hoping we’ll get the answer that way. The M.E. got off some letters to friends in the profession who share the same hobby. He thinks they might be able to supply the answers if anybody has imported that particular drug.”
    “This deal has some peculiar sexual connotations,” I said.
    “Most of them have.”
    “But not like this.”
    “So far nobody knows they’re tied in yet. We’re not even sure ourselves. Luckily, the papers are cooperating.”
    “What happens if they break it first?”
    “All hell breaks loose. Think you can use a partner?”
    “Any time,” I laughed.
    “Which brings us to why you came up here in the first place.”
    I said, “Remember Harry Service?”
    Pat nodded.
    “He wants me to find his sister. She hasn’t contacted him in a long time.”
    “You? He wants you to do this?”
    “Come on, Pat, he isn’t the kind to go to the cops.”
    “How’d he reach you?”
    “Supposing I forget you asked that question.”
    Pat gave me a disgusted look and said, “Okay, okay. What do you want from me?”
    “A letter from the brass getting me in to see Harry. Somebody in the front office has got to be the friendly type.”
    “Not as far as you’re concerned.”
    “I can push it if I have to.”
    “I know you can. Just don’t. Let me see what I can do.” He gave me a quizzical glance and stuck his hands deep into his pockets. “One thing, old buddy. And tell me true. Harry contacted you, right?”
    “If you don’t believe it I can show you how.”
    “Never mind.”
    “Why?” I asked him.
    “Because if you initiated the contact I’d say it was tying into my immediate business.”
    My laugh didn’t sound too convincing, but Pat bought it “You know me,” I said.
    “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
     
    The attendant at the morgue file of the paper was a crackly little old guy who used to be one of the best rewrite men on the staff until the demands of age caught up with him. Now he was content to spend his time among the artifacts of journalism, complaining about the new generation and how easy they had it.
    I said, “Hi, Biff,” and he squinted my way, fished for his glasses and got them on his nose.
    “Mike Hammer, I’ll be damned.” He held out a gnarled hand and I took it. “Nice of you to visit an old man,” he said with a smile. “I sure used up a lot of adjectives on you in the old days.”
    “Some of them weren’t very nice.”
    “Company policy,” he laughed. “You always made a great bad guy. But how the hell did you always come out clean?”
    “That’s my policy,” I said.
    He came around the counter lighting the stub of a chewed cigar. “You got it made, Mike. Now, what can I do for you?”
    “Mitch Temple was in the other day....”
    He coughed in the cigar smoke and regarded me with amazement. “You’re in this?”
    “Sideways. Can you keep it quiet?”
    “Sure. I’m not on a beat.”
    I gave him a quick picture of my meeting with Mitch Temple and the possibility that his death might be involved in something I was working on. Biff knew I wasn’t putting it all on the line, but it was to be expected and he didn’t mind. Let him alone and he’d put some of the pieces together himself.
    Biff said, “All I can do is tell you what I told the others. Mitch came down and spent a while here going through the files. I was busy at the desk and didn’t pay any attention to him. He didn’t ask for anything and didn’t check anything out.”
    “His column doesn’t often carry photographs.”
    “That’s right. When it did they were usually new ones supplied by some press agent. Then they were filed away down here.”
    “What section was he working in?”
    “Hell, Mike, I can’t see beyond that first tier. He was out of sight all the time. All the rest asked me that same