Shirley Eaton

            On Tuesday my whole morning was wasted arguing about Socialism versus Capitalism on Twitter. I’ve fallen so far behind on my writing that even though there was no forecast for rain, I didn’t take a bike ride.

In the late afternoon I looked out and there was a young woman on the corner ranting like a preacher. Nearby was what looked like a janitor’s cart which would normally carry the things that custodians use as they move from room to room while cleaning a building, The only thing on her cart that was for cleaning was a new looking straw broom that fit vertically, handle down in a slot on a corner of her cart. The rest of the things on the cart looked like her personal possessions. From what I could make out, one of the things she was speaking about was the language barrier and she was using pretty good English but in an eastern European accent so thick that I couldn’t understand most of what she said, so I guess she was right. From time to time she would stop shouting and walk over to her cart to pick up her canned beverage, take a drink, put it down and walk back to the corner to shout again. She was saying something about landlords and I speculated that, judging from her emotional state and her cart, she might be recently homeless. She didn’t seem to be just spewing things incoherently and I got the impression that she was delivering a lecture to passersby. She called out “You have democratic rights!” “Develop the sector!” “Mathematical number of buildings for people!” “I am sorry that I cannot shout anymore!” “Thank you! Thank you very much!” Then she went to her cart and began pushing it down Dunn Avenue.

That night I watched the 1963 film noir, “The Girl Hunters” based upon Mickey Spillane’s 1962 Mike Hammer novel of the same name, and starring Mickey Spillane as Mike Hammer.

There were ten years between the previous Mike Hammer novel, “Kiss Me Deadly” and this story. It begins with Mike Hammer drunk in an alley, which has been pretty much his situation after his secretary, Velda, whom he’d finally asked to marry him, was killed. The cops find Hammer and take him to Pat Chambers’s house. Hammer and Past are no longer friends and when Hammer insults Pat the police captain begins beating Hammer. Pat is willing to put Hammer back in the gutter but there is a prisoner named Cole who is dying and the only way he’ll give any information is if he can talk to Mike Hammer. Pat wants Mike to find out who shot Cole. They take Hammer to the hospital but he demands a drink before he talks with Cole, so they give him one. When they are alone in the room together it’s clear that Hammer and Cole have never seen each other before. Cole mentions Velda. Hammer asks, “You knew her?” Cole says, “I know her!” “Alive?” “Alive!” “Where is she?” “She’ll be killed if I … Grey is looking for her too. Get her first!” “Where?” “I gave directions to old Dewey Busick on Lexington.” “Where is she?” “Get the dragon before he gets her!” “Why me?” “Need someone terrible, someone ruthless!” Then Cole dies. From that moment on Hammer doesn’t touch another drop of liquor. Pat demands to know what Cole told him but Hammer wants to know who Cole was. Pat threatens torture and begins beating Hammer.

Because of the beatings Hammer is in the hospital. The doctor tells Hammer that Pat was in love with Velda too and blames Hammer for her death. Hammer tells him that he’d had a job protecting a rich woman and her jewels and since Velda could go with her into places like the ladies room he put her on the case. The woman was found shot and dead in the river with her jewels gone but Velda was never seen again.

The doctor leaves and a federal agent named Rickerby comes in with a big cigar. Her tells Hammer that Cole was also a fed and a good friend and he needs to find out who killed him. Hammer says he needs a day and he needs to be released from custody. Rickerby agrees and gives Hammer some money.

Hammer goes to Dewey’s newspaper stand but the kid that helps the old man says Dewey hasn’t been there for two days. He goes to Dewey’s place and finds him dead.

Hammer goes to the building where his office had been and goes to see the building manager who tells him that they kept his office for him and the phones are still connected. Hammer tries to thank him but he says, “Don’t talk, just take! Remember when you gave? For you I’ll lower the rent to a dollar a year!”
            From his office he calls Rickerby to come over to talk. He finds his old Colt 45 automatic in the place where he’d hidden it under his desk.
            Rickerby arrives and Hammer asks what Cole’s cover had been. He says Cole was a seaman.

Hammer goes to a newspaper reporter named Hyde who’s an old friend. He asks him about Senator Nap. He’s told he was the country’s number one missile man and he was murdered. Hammer goes to Nap’s country estate to talk to Nap’s widow and finds the beautiful Laura Nap in the back, sleeping on a floating pillow in the pool. He wakes her and after pleasantries he tells her that Cole was shot with the same gun that killed her husband and so he might be able to find the killer. Laura tells Hammer what happened the night her husband was killed. The safe was robbed and the thief must have forced the combination from the senator. Hammer asks to see the safe and she gives him the combination. He opens it and deliberately pushes the alarm. Armed private security officers arrive and Hammer apologizes. He asks if the alarm had gone off the night the senator died and they say no.

Hammer meets Rickerby in a restaurant and finds that Cole was disobeying orders and would have been in trouble if he hadn’t been killed. Hammer asks for another week before he tells him what Cole told him. He agrees but warns him that if he doesn’t spill by that time he’ll get the information out of him by other means.

Hammer goes back to his office and someone slugs him and leaves. When Hammer gets up he sees that his office has been turned upside down. On the way out he finds the desk clerk for his building dead.

Hammer goes to Joe Grissi’s bar on the waterfront. A guy tells him to blow and threatens him with a dagger. Hammer drops a bullet on the bar, slips his hand inside his coat and tells him to eat the bullet. He eats it and walks away. Grissi comes up and tells him to leave. Hammer pulls a gun on him, removes the bullets onto the bar and puts the gun in Grissi’s pocket and orders a beer. An old newspaper reporter named Henry approaches him. Hammer asks if he knows Cole. Henry says, he has a room under his and they’re good friends. Cole makes good money from smuggling. Hammer tells him Cole is dead and that he was a federal agent. Henry takes Hammer to Cole’s room where he finds a photo album containing a picture of a woman sitting with her legs crossed. The top is torn off but he recognizes Velda’s legs. They leave through the back but someone in a car shoots at them in the alley.

Hammer meets Rickerby in a bar. He asks if Cole had any friends and he gives him a couple of names. After Rickerby leaves, Hammer wraps his gun in a newspaper and asks the headwaiter to mail it to his office. He goes back to the alley behind Cole’s place and pries from a fence the bullet that had been fired at him. Back at his office, Pat and Laura are waiting for him. He gives pat the bullet to check on and asks him to check on Velda’s P.I. license. New York law says one has to have three years in an accredited police agency before becoming a private investigator. Hammer had never bothered to check on whom Velda had worked for. Pat leaves. Laura tells Hammer that she’d been at Pat’s office when he got the call about the death in hammer’s building, so she’d asked to come. She offers to put money at Hammer’s disposal to find her husband’s killer.

Hammer goes to Pat’s office and find’s that the bullet that had been shot at him came from the same gun that killed Cole and Nap. Pat says that another bullet found in that alley was from a 45 and warns Hammer that if he kills someone without a license he’ll be in deep trouble. Pat has Velda’s information too. She was an active member of the OSI during the war.

Hammer meets Rickerby again who tells him that Cole was a commander of the 17 Group during the war. He asks Hammer if he’s heard of Butterfly 2. Hammer knows it was a spy ring that backed up the political powers in Europe just before WWI. Rickerby says that Cole used to meet Velda on his trips home. A man name Urlich who was head of Butterfly 2 was Cole’s prime target at the time. Cole met Velda for the first time in Paris in connection with that case. Urlich organized a huge espionage ring in 1910 with a plan for world conquest that the central powers had developed to take over every nation one after the other until the world was under a single dictatorship. The reds uncovered the organization and took it over. Hammer asks who the Dragon is. Rickerby says it’s the code name for an executioner for the communists. Hammer says that Cole told him the Dragon is the one that shot him but that he told him something else that would stop the Dragon. Hammer says he’ll give him that information in exchange for getting his gun license back.

Hammer goes to his newspaper connection and asks him to find out all he can on The Dragon. He asks also for a picture of Urlich, which he gives him. Hammer drives to Laura’s place and asks what her husband did during the war. She tells him he was a general. “Was he ever in intelligence?” “I don’t think so.” She offers to let Hammer look through her husband’s effects. Just then a silenced shot is fired between that hits Laura’s radio. A car speeds away. Laura takes Hammer to a trunk containing her husband’s things but he finds nothing.

When Hammer comes back to his office Rickerby is waiting inside with a permit allowing Hammer to carry a gun in any state. He tells him that when he finds the Dragon not to kill him because he wants him. He informs him that Urlich has been dead for five years. The Dragon killed him when the Reds took over. Every time Hammer has met Rickerby he’s had a big cigar in his mouth. Hammer finally strikes a match and says, “Will you light that damn thing?” “Oh, no, no!” Rickerby blows out the match and says, “I can’t stand the smell of cigar smoke!”

Hammer goes to the newspaper and his friend tells him that the Dragon is the hottest thing in the Cold War. Velda is a target for the Dragon but he missed.

Laura comes into town and Hammer meets her at a restaurant. She’s also invited Pat, who arrives says there’s a gem connection running through the whole investigation going back to the jewelry robbery that Hammered was supposed to have prevented when Civic’s wife was killed and Velda and Civic disappeared. Pat shows hammer a picture of Civic and it matches the one that Hammer has of Urlich. Pat leaves and Hammer says he needs a place to think and so Laura takes him to her house. They spend the night together and the next day he tells Laura that Urlich and Civic are the same man and that he was abducted with Velda and taken to Russia but they are both back in the States somehow. They decide to go for a swim and Laura says she has a suit for him in the pool house. They go in and hammer finds a double barrel shotgun standing nose down in a planter. He balls her out for it because she’s plugged up the barrels with clay and they would have backfired on her if she’d ever had to use it to protect herself. He cleans it out for her.

Hammer goes to Dewey’s newspaper stand and asks the kid if Dewey left an envelope for him but he says he never saw one. The kid shows him a stack of Cavalier magazines had he’d ordered and Hammer says he’ll pick them up in a few days. Hammer walks away but when the kid is moving the magazines an envelope falls out.

Hammer goes back to Grissi’s to see Henry. He asks him what the name of Cole’s ship was. He tells him it was the Vanessa but it’s already sailed. He adds though that half the sailors didn’t sign back on. Hammer asks if there was anyone that Cole hung out with and Henry tells him about a guy that Cole used to play chess with. He lives in a flophouse and Henry takes him there. They wake Red up and hammer asks him if he knew about the girl on the ship. “Sure, we hid her in the hold. Dennis Wallace put her in a crate and then he and a friend of his took her off the ship.” Henry says he knows where Dennis lives. Red asks, “How come everybody wants Dennis?” Hammer asks, “Who else wanted him?” “A big guy. Mean looking. He gave me this bottle.” Hammer says, “The Dragon!” and leaves. They find Dennis dead.

Hammer drives to see Alex Bird at his house in the country and finds him dead but he knows the killer is upstairs. He switches on the light and catches him on the stairs. Hammer shoots his gun out of his hand but the Dragon jumps him, knocks him over and runs. Hammer catches him in the barn and their fight takes them all through two levels of the building, knocking various things over and using other things as weapons. A rotary saw gets turned on and the Dragon almost manages to cut Hammer in half. After a long fight they are both exhausted by the time Hammer manages to knock him out. Hammer nails the Dragon’s hand to the wooden floor with a spike so he won’t get away. Hammer calls Rickerby to tell him where the Dragon is but he tells him that the Dragon is not one person. It’s a team. Hammer sees an old copy of Cavalier Magazine in the barn and suddenly remembers that he and Velda had always had a way of connecting.

Hammer goes to see Laura. She sees his beaten face and says she’ll take care of him as soon as she changes out of her bathing suit. They go to the beach house and while she’s showering behind the glass he tells her what he thinks. Her jewels were red herrings. Decoys. “Your husband was a frightening political figure. But he was smart and realized his work was being stymied. He bated a trap by casually remarking that important military papers were in his safe. Then he caught the enemy opening his safe and they shot him. The burglar alibi was beautiful. As a widow she could still have her ear to the ground at important Washington functions with her secret identity safe.” While Hammer is talking he takes Laura’s shotgun and puts it nose down in the dirt in order to fill the barrels with clay again. “Then came Velda who was accidentally abducted with Urlich. She got to know the big thing about Butterfly 2 before she escaped. She made contact with Cole and got smuggled back to the States with her secret. Alex delivered her to an address that Cole gave to Dewey and it’s in a copy of a magazine I pick up every month. What she’ll have to say will open up the secrets of the greatest espionage organization the world has ever known. I may be wrong, but now there’s only one way left to find out!” Mike leaves the pool house and Laura calls after him. He turns and Laura is pointing the shotgun at him. She fires and blows her own head off.

Mickey Spillane’s performance really wasn’t bad. He’d done a bit of acting in films since the mid 50s. Around that time he became a Jehovah’s Witness and people could open their doors to have Mickey Spillane trying to sell them The Watchtower.

Laura was played by British actor Shirley Eaton, one of the most famous Bond girls of all time, because of her performance in Goldfinger.