“Crane, Crane,” he parrotted with irritation. “You must know him by another name.”
“Yes, I do,” I said with a tight smile. “But I won’t tell you what that name is until tonight.”
In spite of Melissa Mercer being in the office, Mike Monks cursed fluently. But in the end, I had my way.
After all, even Hamlet staged a murder show for his uncle’s benefit. And the clock was racing toward the hour when The Evil Evelyn went into her ghastly charade of Death.
The Green Cellar had a changeless aspect every time you entered the place. The unwholesome green bombarded your eyes. The noises never changed either. The joint rang with laughter, shrill voices and unwholesome tension. I checked my hat and Melissa Mercer’s coat, drew a slip for the candles-out time agreed on by the management and looked around for Howie. He was maneuvering among the crowded barrel tables balancing his tray of drinks again. I nudged Melissa forward as the hatcheck girl marveled at her trim figure and lovely face. Howie spotted us through a haze of smoke and green colors. He smiled and minced over like a ballet dancer.
“Tiger,” he purred. “And friend.”
“Table for two, Howie. Close to the floor.”
He shook his head. “My. You seem to like the floor-show, don’t you?”
I laughed, watching the catlike play of his eyes.
“In the midst of Life, we are in Death,” I quoted. Melissa Mercer laughed musically. Howie shrugged.
“Noon, spoon, moon, June.” Sighing, he led the way past tables with sloppy drunks, heatedly arguing beatniks and dreamy-eyed lovers. I steered Melissa through it all until we had a table about two feet from where The Evil Evelyn would come back from the grave.
“Scotch-on for you, I know,” Howie smirked. “But what is this dark delight drinking?”
“Rum and coke,” Melissa smiled.
“Howie, before you fill that order, is Fats around? I’d like to see him.”
He giggled. “Fats is out. Evelyn gave him the gate after that ruckus of last night. Poor Fats.”
I was surprised. “Where did he go?”
“Who knows, Tiger? It’s none of my business. Evelyn will find a replacement for him, soon enough.”
“You, Howie?”
“Please, Tiger.” He sniffed and moved off. Melissa Mercer watched him go. She smiled at me, self-consciously.
“It’s so funny to hear a man talk like a girl. He’s one of those, isn’t he?”
I nodded. “Like this place?” I said to her.
She shivered. “Creepy. Never did like green this much unless it was all money.” She studied me closely. “Why didn’t you tell Captain Monks who the killer was if you know? That wasn’t fair. I don’t wonder he’s mad. I wouldn’t talk to you myself except you’re my Boss and you pay me.”
I laughed. “It’s the sadist in me. It’s my story so I want to save the punch line for myself. Is that bad?”
“It could get you killed,” she said warningly.
“No,” I said. “The killing is over.”
We whiled away an hour’s time, soaking up our drinks and the atmosphere of the room. During which time, Monks’ men began to drift into the club in ones and twos and threes until The Green Cellar was overrun with Headquarters. And then finally, big, breezy Dr. Simon Mertz shouldered out from the foyer looking for me. When he spotted my wave, he lumbered between the tables and joined us.
“H’lo,” he piped, sitting down. He smiled wide at Melissa Mercer. “I don’t know the lady, I’m sorry to say.”
“Melissa Mercer, Dr. Simon Mertz.”
They shook hands. Mertz looked around. “Abnormal place. A proper atmosphere for Ted Crane.” He looked at me guardedly and the breezy demeanor vanished under his chair. “He’s here?”
“He is.”
“Where, might I ask?”
“You’ll see him soon enough.” I sipped my Scotch.
“Why all the mystery?”
I shook my head. “It depends on a lot of things. I want to see how you react to each other.”
He laughed. “It could backfire.”
“In what way?”
“If he has a gun, he might start shooting. Or throwing things, at any rate.”
“Not very likely, Doc. Besides, the joint’s overflowing with Law. He couldn’t get two feet wihout being stopped.”
Melissa Mercer coughed. We both looked at her. She was shivering. But she had coughed to alert us. Howie was coming over, since he had seen another chair at our table.
He smiled down at us. “Well, another guest. What’ll it be for you, sir?” He started to mop at the table with his towel, rubbing slowly.
Dr. Simon Mertz looked up. “I’ll have a gin and tonic and —” He stopped. Howie stopped rubbing. Their eyes locked over a sea of years and memories.
“Hello, Ted,” Dr. Simon Mertz said quietly. “Long time no see.”
18 — Farewell to a Maniac
Dr. Simon Mertz was right. There was no acounting for a maniac’s mind. To have traveled so smoothly for years and gone so thoroughly into a timetable of murder in which every detail had been worked out with an architect’s precision, there was no workable explanation for Howie’s reaction to a simple statement from a man he hadn’t seen in three years. But then, that could be it. The appearance of Dr. Mertz in The Green Cellar at such a time was the incalculable tiny atom of truth that triggered off the brain that had plotted Death In Ecstasy.
Howie whipped into action like somebody whose tiny button of control activates like a mechanical man. A bottle in his hand crashed down on poor Mertz’s skull before he could even rise to say hello. Long before I scrambled to my feet, clawing out my .45, Howie had rocketed away from the table vaulting like a monkey over startled patrons and shrieking women. Melissa Mercer got in one good scream before he left us. By that time, every cop that was planted in the joint converged on Howie.
They caught him somewhere between the curtain that closed off the club and the dressing room. He was kicking, scratching, mouthing obscenities and cursing the world. When they finally subdued him and dragged him back to Evelyn Eleven’s dressing room, he was thoroughly whipped. The plainclothes brigade decided to hold him there until Monks arrived from Headquarters.
When Howie saw Evelyn Eleven in her death’s head makeup for her number, he started all over again until a big detective sat on him. Then they manacled him to a vertical pipe and left him to Dr. Simon Mertz’s queries. Mertz’s head had bled a little but other than that he was all right. There was no doubt about Howie now. He was Ted Crane of Korea and Hollywood and Murder. The poor little guy who had lost all his marbles and tried to pick them up again with a murder timetable that included five pretty girls whom he had found out about while working in Bellevue.
His eyes were sad and accusing when I came into the dressing room with Mike Monks.
“Tiger,” he moaned. “Don’t let them do this to me.”
“It’s better this way, Howie. You need help.”
“Help,” he sneered, looking at Mertz. “Nobody can help me. Did I need help to plan these murders? Clever, huh? Real clever.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “You sure fooled us.”
He chuckled. A raspy little laugh. “Slobs. All of them slobs. And women. Bitches. All of them bitches.” His face softened. “But not you, Tiger. You were kind to me. Even though I was pretending to be homosexual for a cover-up, you were kind to me. I like you.”
“Thanks, Howie.”
He glowed. “You weren’t like those slobs in the Army. I like you, Tiger. I was coming to see you that night when I saw Evelyn with you in your house. I sneaked in. I wanted to talk to you. But then I saw she was naked. She was with you. I hated her then and you. So I killed her. The bitch.” His face transformed. “But it wasn’t Evelyn, was it? It was poor Ada. Why did she have to look like Evelyn so much? I didn’t want to hurt her. She was nice to me too —”
“Howie,” I said in a low voice. “Ada made love to me because
she thought she loved me.” Dr. Mertz nudged my elbow warningly. I looked at him. He shook his head. He was right, of course. Why go into that now? It was there for everybody to hear. Unhappy, mixed-up Howie had come to see me because he was lonely and he’d found a naked woman in my apartment who he thought was Evelyn, a woman he’d obviously despised. And the switchblade knife had compounded the error and Howie had skulked off into the night to return to his original timetable of murder.
Mike Monks lit a cigarette.
“Howie, we’re going to take you down to Headquarters now. I’d appreciate it very much it you cooperate and don’t give us a hard time. I know how you feel but the doctor is here and he’ll come along with us to see you are treated right. Okay?”
Howie nodded, clanking the manacles. His eyes were filling with tears. “I would have been all right if they’d left me alone. Wouldn’t I, Tiger? A man has to be left alone when there are books to read and things to understand —”
“Yes, Howie.”
“You’ll come to talk to me sometime? Promise, Tiger.”
“I promise.”
I went out to the empty club where Melissa Mercer was waiting for me. She let me take her by the arm and lead her up the steps out of the place. We found an early morning cab.
“Do you have to go home?” I asked. “Though it’s a fine time to ask you.”
“No,” she said simply. “My folks aren’t expecting me. I told them I was with you.”
“Good. You still are. Can you cook?”
She nodded.
I gave the driver the address of my apartment. Pete Lynch goggled when he saw me with Melissa Mercer but I didn’t bother explaining anything. To him. Or myself.
I just wanted to sit up all night with some woman I liked, talking and trying to understand what the whole world was all about. I wasn’t looking for any answers with Melissa Mercer. I just wanted her to listen.
She listened. And I didn’t spoil any of it by feeding my ego or hers. That could come later when she didn’t have to answer to the folks who trusted her. I owed her, them, and myself that much.
Sure, cheap moralizing. But all I could think of that morning was Howie and how the dream of love had screwed up his tortured little life.
Later that week, I ironed out a few more things as well as a few people. Like Evelyn Eleven for instance. Monks had read her the riot act, scaring her thoroughly, since he had been unable to find any criminal connection between her and Howie. Insane Howie had merely played her along, knowing her penchant for the bizarre. She was just a ghoul who had tried to capitalize on murder. As for Howie’s own willingness to play dangerously with outsiders, it was Dr. Simon Mertz’s considered opinion that maniacs like to show off.
Evelyn took the lecture from Monks and went back to her screwy life and another long line of mixed-up women and poor slobs like Fats. Sanderson had been reinstated, Monks preferring to wash the Department’s dirty linen in private. Having been married to Evelyn was punishment enough as far as Monks was concerned.
But Evelyn Eleven tried me one more time. Only Ada’s ghost prevented me from being the good neighbor and sympathetic friend. My last contact with the Garbo of the Graveyard was by phone.
“You will come to the crematorium, Mr. Noon?”
“No, thanks. There won’t be a funeral, I take it?”
Her tone was spectral. “I will spread Ada’s ashes over the harbor from a rented plane. She’d like it that way.”
“It’s against the law but who am I to give you advice.” I rubbed my nose. I don’t know why I’d been picturing a quiet, green-grassed grave where you could bring flowers. I never did like funerals anyhow but the idea of the ashes left me even colder. My memories of Ada couldn’t be matched by an oven in a crematory.
“I know what my sister would have preferred, Mr. Noon.”
“Sure. You made her a liar and a partner in your phony story about Burt Orelob who was really Sanderson, James T. all the time. I hope you’re happy, you ghoul.”
“Death makes me happy. The thought that it comes to all of us. Even so-called full-of-life people such as yourself.”
“Touché. I’ll save my goodbyes for Ada. She’d understand. I think she’d rather I toasted her health whenever I remember her.”
“As you wish, Mr. Noon.”
“If you like dying so much, Evelyn, why don’t you drop dead?”
She hung up with a click like skeleton bones and I never saw her again. I never wanted to. There had been only one real woman in the sister act called Grabowski. And that woman was dead.
I also found time to invite Miss Fenson, the walking jewelry store, down to the office. She showed up one morning, bright and shining in her furs and looking smug as if her bankbook had won the day. It had, in a way.
“Hubby still bothering you, Miss Fenson?”
She looked harried or tried to. It didn’t match the glorious mink or the designed-by-Tiffany’s look.
“Yes,” she said meekly.
“Glad to hear it. You need bothering.”
She frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
I laughed and opened the center drawer of my desk. I held up the unwrinkled, green tinted one hundred dollar check which she had sent by messenger. The one Melissa Mercer had signed for.
“You can’t have my pardon, Miss Fenson. Why the Miss, by the way? Back to your maiden name, I guess. After all, why carry his name as long as you got all his money as well as the divorce?”
“You’re not making sense,” she said coldly.
“Oh, yes I am. I’m keeping the hundred and signing you off. You hired three goons to jump me and make insulting remarks about my secretary. Don’t bother denying it. I don’t care. The lesson was worth it. But I’m still keeping the dough for my trouble.”
She slithered to her feet and snaked across the floor toward me. “I could make things awfully difficult for you but I’m somehow attracted to you. You’re a slob and uncouth but with the proper trimmings, I could make you shine.” She leaned across the desk, opened her mink and let me see her size 38 bust. “Come, now. Let’s forget your pride and what you think of me. What do you say?”
“Out,” I said.
“Be sensible,” she purred. “I admit you hurt my feelings. I admit hiring those men. But you came through beautifully. Now why don’t you come through for me?”
“Miss Fenson, I never hit a woman in anger before. But there is a first time for everything and this looks like it.” I got up slowly from behind the desk. She tried to laugh.
“Wouldn’t you rather get to know me better?”
I drew back my right arm and she stopped smiling, let out a whelp of fright and backed off. She was out of the office with a flash of jewelry and bristling mink. Melissa Mercer came in a few seconds later, looking worried.
“What happened?”
“I just got rid of the common cold. But it will be back. It will always be back.”
She nodded. “You could have written your own ticket with that woman.”
“Did you want me to, Mel?”
“No,” she said simply. Then she brightened. “I’m having lunch with Flo Cooper again today. Any messages for her?”
“You two have gotten real buddy-buddy, huh?”
“Sort of. She’s a real regular gal. I like her.”
I had to agree with that but I begged off and sat quietly in my chair by the window staring at the sky over West Forty-Fourth Street long after Melissa had gone. The clouds were thinning and solid layers of smoky blue were filling out in large square panelings like a big checkerboard.
No matter what the circumstances had been, the D.A.’s office had made its point. The People Vs. Crane had been a walkaway. A man clever enough to plan the Bolero murders was not insane enough to escape the death penalty. Ted Crane had been sentenced to the electric chair in Sing Sing on a day that was still six months away.
Call him Howie or call him poor bastard, he’d had a lousy time of everything. Not even Dr. Simon
Mertz’s considerable testimony in his behalf had altered the outcome. The four girls had been murdered viciously. The chair would end it all but it wouldn’t solve anything.
I thought of red rooms, running Q’s of cheap electric lights that hadn’t meant a damn thing and the low, throbbing beat of Ravel’s incredible Bolero.
Ted Crane’s tortured mind would probably be full of the rhythmic pound of the music even as the generator hummed and the wires pulsated with the high-powered electrical lightning that would murder him by law.
“You’ll write me, won’t you, Tiger?”
It was justice, I suppose. Crane had been mentally crippled, blinded by hate and physically handicapped. And an outsider, to boot. An unbeatable combination in the Hard Breaks League. The Army hadn’t helped a damn little bit.
But, Ted Crane was also a murderer. The worst kind.
“I didn’t mean to kill Ada, Tiger. She was good to me. Why did she have to look so much like that bitch Evelyn?”
He had killed in the disguise of love. And there isn’t anything worse than that.
There couldn’t be.
“Why didn’t they leave me alone to read my books? Why did they have to take Soo Seng from me?”
Why anything, Howie?
The End of an Ed Noon novel of suspense
The Bedroom Bolero Page 13
