Somebody in the restaurant must have seen the fun out the tinted-glass windows, because Pete and a few patrons and, of course, Sheila Ryan came bounding out onto the street. Nothing so impressive as a hit-and-run to gawk at this time around, just a scuffle that had ended in pain for the shit who started it.

Only then I got greedy. I leaned in and straddled him and grabbed him by his white shirt and pulled him up to where I could grin into his face.

“Not as easy,” I said, getting ready to smack him one more time, “as hitting women, is it?”

But he was younger than me, and for all his pain he managed to swing a fist into my side. The bartender had some power left because it was enough to knock me off him. He was just getting up, ready to come at me again, when his eyes opened wide.

He could feel the snout of the little .32 automatic at his temple.

Velda said through a lovely terrible smile, “Of course with some women, it’s not easy at all.”

Then she thumped him on the head with the barrel and he went down on his knees, trying not to cry but not making it.

The diminutive Pete was looming over his fallen bartender now. “Your ass is fired, you dumb bastard!”

Then the restauranteur came over to apologize as his hostess and the handful of patrons trailed back inside.

“He must not know,” Pete said, “who Mike Hammer is.”

“I forgot for a minute there myself,” I said, smoothing my coat, looking around for my hat.

CHAPTER FIVE

The next morning, behind the door with CAPTAIN PAT CHAMBERS, HOMICIDE DIVISION lettered in gold-outlined black, I was sitting across from my old friend in his painfully modern, glassed-in office at One Police Plaza. I was sipping coffee laced with my usual milk and sugar, my coat and hat hung up with his on a metal tree. We were waiting for a call from a guy he knew on the Accident Investigation Squad.

With his own cup of coffee going, black, Pat was in shirt sleeves and loose tie, and he was scratching at his blond head of hair as he studied me. Cops were wearing their hair way too damn long for my taste these days.

“Mike,” Pat said, leaning back in the old anomaly of a brown-leather swivel chair he’d brought over with him from the ancient Centre Street HQ, “you stay up on things. Always seem to know what’s going on in your field. Right on top of whatever new tricks the bad guys are up to.”

“I try, buddy. Thanks for noticing.”

Then came the zinger: “So how is it you’re so backward when it comes to making use of modern technology?”

My laugh was short but not sweet. “What are you talking about, Pat? I have a top private forensics lab where I can get things checked out when need be. I have connections with the FBI and CIA and alphabet soup guys you don’t even know exist, and all their resources. I consult with top security company experts. And I have an in with a high-ranking cop who gets me access to what I need from his lab and other sources. Maybe you saw him in the mirror this morning.”