The Girl in the Cockpit

by Michael Avallone

  There was a healthy glow of Technicolor all over Frankie's pale body. The darkish hair which belied his age was no longer plastered down. It was stringy and tousled. And no wonder. He'd been pumping like a steam engine not too long ago. His eyes held disbelief that I could walk in on him like this. Perspiration filmed his muscles.

  "Noon, for Crissakes," he whined, starting to get his temper back. "You lost all your marbles or something——" He couldn't finish.

  "The sleep of murderers," I said, evenly, without raising my own voice. "So I stopped the love-making. So you'll get dressed. I've got some news for you. You should be interested in it."

  Frankie sat up, still shaking, snarling at me. Terry lay still.

  "You dumb slob. I'll toss you to Fargo for this——"

  "Bella Baldwin is on her way over, Frankie. Fact is, she ought to be here any old minute. How does that grab you?"

  It didn't grab him. It sledge-hammered him back in terror.

  It didn't make sense but Napoleon had been afraid of Josephine.

  "Bella?" His eyes barrel-rolled and popped. "Here? Ohmygodno-o-o-o——" His voice strangled; he galvanized and like the man in the old joke about the wife who came home too early, he flung out of the love-bed and began rummaging around on the floor on his side, flying at his clothes. He must have been in some hurry, earlier, too. All his fancy duds were laid out on the floor, a few feet from where he had tangoed. Terry Ricco still had not moved. She just kept staring up at me, the Lolita of last night—and what was she today?

  "Don't give us that, Ed," she said in a dead whisper. "You didn't come here just to save Frankie from Bella. Though why he's so damn scared of her is way over my head. What do you really want? If it's bread, I've got all you'll ever need."

  My answering smile was as lifeless as her voice, even though Frankie Conroy, dressing in a hurry, was funnier than an Abbott and Costello routine. His striped suit was fluttering wildly.

  "It's hilarious what people think about guys who are in my business. They think we'll do just about anything for a buck." I shook my head and the .45. "That's just not true. For instance, I would no more protect a murderer than go anyplace without my trousers on."

  A shadow passed over her beautiful face. Only for an instant. She smiled her do-it-to-me smile and lay back under the coverlet looking like all the Coras in James M. Cain's world. A lush whore.

  She barely moved her full lips. "How do you know Bella is coming here, Ed? Did you make like a fink after all?"

  Frankie Conroy stopped dressing, his shirt still half out of his pants. Surprise had removed some of his great fear. Only some.

  "Yeah, Noon. Bella had some ideas, but she wasn't sure." He whirled on Terry, his hawk face pained. "You couldn't have been talking to her—no, she never saw you with me but once——"

  I laughed at both of them. A rich, glad laugh.

  They stared at me, each in a different way. Conroy all sixes and sevens; Terry silently, deeply waiting for something. She wasn't quite sure what, but she was looking nowhere else. At no one else. It was as if I were some oracle from on high—who had the word.

  "No. You didn't slip up tonight. I sent Johnny to Bella Baldwin with a kind of note. At the club. I wanted her to come here so I could work this pretty triangle out with everyone on deck. You see, it all adds up pretty neat and even now. Frankie Conroy, aging Lothario, Bella Baldwin, not as young as she used to be though still pretty serviceable, and Terry Ricco. The young, the lovely. The bright-eyed Mod that no Italian father could really have approved of. Not when he knew she was playing patty-cake with a gangster like Frankie Conroy, one of the old man's oldest enemies. Do you know what I'm driving at? You're quite a team, you two. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes."

  Conroy, hastily knotting his tie, grimaced sourly. His Flynn moustache wiggled.

  "Talk your head off, I'm getting out of here."

  "Frankie, hear him out," Terry said from the bed. "He wants you to, can't you see that?" Her voice was like a caress in the dark.

  "Yeah, hear me out, Frankie. And hear me good." I raised the .45. "Kill the old man and sick Johnny onto a red-hot suspect, me. With a phony clue, the half-silver-dollar piece. So I get dead, Johnny goes to jail for life, maybe, and Frankie Conroy has a fortune and a lovely young plaything in his arms forever. Bella Baldwin will understand that kind of logic and I don't think she's even a high-school graduate. What do you think the cops would make of such material?"

  "Christ, Noon——" Conroy blurted, his hands shaking. "That will make her mad enough to kill! She'd believe every word."

  "Sure she will, Frankie," I agreed, keeping my eyes on Terry who now had the satin coverlet pulled all the way up to her lovely chin. "The only thing I want to know—before Bella and maybe the cops get here—which one of you actually shot Giovanni in the back of the head? Come on. One of you lie to me."

  "Cops?" Frankie Conroy had finished dressing. He tried to put a smile on his hawk face. "Noon, it's worth a bundle to me if you let me get the hell out of here. You don't know Bella. She's crazy. Nothing scares her off. You knew she tossed a bomb in here last night just because she hates the sight of Terry? Can you tie that? A bomb!"

  "I know, Frankie. But it's no sale. Stay where you are." I edged over to one side and flicked my .45 toward the bed. Toward the incredible child-woman angel-devil, lying there, listening to everything with the sort of smile on her face Delilah must have had for Samson before she reached for the scissors. "Okay, Terry. Climb out of there and get dressed. You knew about the silver dollar. Johnny didn't put it in front of the safe for himself to find. If he wanted to kill me, he wouldn't have had to cook up an excuse, would he? And you're Conroy's mistress. A gangster's lady. For the man your father hated. You didn't care about Johnny. He's too much like John Junkyard to mean anything to you. I didn't like the way you took my side, that first night in my apartment, when Johnny was obviously out of his head with grief. Something you sure weren't. A real sister would have cared more about her brother. And the clincher is that .45. You immediately assumed that the one Johnny had was the Army job. One .45 is pretty much like another. You spotted the gun because you knew it. And why not? You went to the junkyard that night because Papa had told you—on the phone I guess—because you never saw him, that he was changing his will. He was cutting you out—the no-good daughter—and leaving everything to his good boy, John Jr. Tell me, lady, just this once. How do you go about shooting an old man in the back of the head? How do you have the stomach for it? Especially your own father?"

  She stirred, like a statue coming to life. She lifted a long and lovely arm toward the other side of the bed. I saw a Chinese scarlet-flowered robe draped over an ottoman. Frankie Conroy blinked at her, disbelieving. I didn't need to hear him say that he had never for a second realized that Terry Ricco was the one who had shot her own father. That kind of an actor he could never be. The thought bowled him over, making him shake his head as if he was drunk.

  "Terry?" he said, hoarsely. "You——what's he saying——?"

  "He's making it all up, Frankie," she laughed lightly, and just a little too scornfully. "What does he know? A two-bit eye? He's got no proof of anything, has he? It's all talk."

  Downstairs, suddenly like a barrel dropping in the stillness, the doorbell chimed. Long, loud and angrily. There was a roaring, far-off sound, like somebody shouting. Then came crashing, thumping noises on the door. It had to be Bella Baldwin. No one else could have been so obvious. Or flamboyantly jealous, not caring if the whole world knew that she was fighting for her man—her right to love.

  Frankie Conroy went ghostly pale. He was looking for a window to jump from and he didn't give a damn for my .45 anymore. He was frantic.

  "You might at least turn around and let a lady dress," Terry Ricco said very quietly in the booming thunder from downstairs.

  I didn't take my eyes from her as she measured me once more in the ten feet that separated us. There was a trace of
misty-eyed sadness in her beautiful eyes.

  "I've seen you with your clothes off," I said. "Get dressed."

  Our eyes locked and she held up the satin coverlet briefly as she made up what was left of her mind. But she wasn't making up her mind about letting me see her in the buff again. Something shone out of her eyes one-thousandth of a second before the coverlet split apart with orange flame and curling gunsmoke. I triggered off on the split-second before that. When I saw her eyes saying goodbye in her own peculiar way. I had not exactly expected her to come quietly.

  I had no choice. Her violet eyes had said it all.

  She wasn't a bad shot; just an unlucky one. The weight of the satin coverlet had fooled her and she miscalculated. Unlike poor old Giovanni Ricco, I was facing her—and I had had a gun too. Suddenly, I didn't have to hear her say she had killed Johnny Junkyard, because the killer-look in Terry's eyes was unmistakable.

  Her shot went humming past my right ear, blazing off into the wall behind me, dead center on a sheer red wall out of Dali. My shot was much better. It buried her forever under the soft and satiny coverlet. It might have been a ready-made shroud, fit for a queen.

  My slug hammered her back and she never let out a sound.

  Terry Ricco would never have to get out of bed again.

  Maybe that was the way she would have preferred it.

  The only place she had ever made sense to herself was in a bed. Or to anybody else. Sense, that is.

  Some women are like that too. In that miserable half-world.

  Everything else in their lives, and in this world, comes second. A very bad second.

  Which is why they die with empty hands.

  Hands holding nothing.

  And no one.

  That is inevitably what happens to everyone who lets love come last.

  As Theresa Angelica Ricco, age twenty-one, certainly had.

  She had died in her own cockpit.

  COIN

  Bella Baldwin just about scratched Frankie Conroy's eyes out when she got her hands on him. Not even the sudden death of her rival could blot out all the foulmouthed singer's screaming jealousy. What was a blasted young corpse to a sophisticated tramp like Bella? Frankie was going to have more than her to worry about. His part, however innocent, in John Junkyard's murder, was going to bring a lot of Headquarters pressure to bear. He was on the griddle now.

  And then the sirens were howling in the night. This was one time a .45 slug going off got some attention because downstairs, in front of the building, Johnny Ricco and his Hawks had gathered for the showdown.

  Poor Johnny. Before the noisy police squad car showed up and while I was phoning Headquarters to pass the word on to Monks' men, he could only stare at the dead blond doll on the bed, his eyes tight to keep from crying, his lower lip pushed out in a pang of agony.

  Winchester, Tally, Willie and Gus couldn't say a word. Except to keep the death watch with their leader until the ambulance came. They were a pathetic bunch of youngsters seen that way. Nobody loves a corpse.

  Later, I tried to explain to Johnny what money, and lack of love and understanding, had done to his lovely sister. I made a lot of sense, I know, but sense doesn't help to mend broken hearts.

  Young Ricco was more knotted up and lost than ever.

  "How could she do it?" he murmured over and over like a broken record. "Shoot Papa like that—? Like he was some kind of dog!"

  "Johnny, I——" My mouth was full of hot potatoes.

  "Oh, the stupid broad—the dumb, stupid little——"

  The tears came. There was nothing more for me to say.

  John Junkyard's son, Johnny Ricco Jr., was still crying when the long, white Beekman Hospital ambulance pulled away from the dark curb in a neighborhood that was up and gawking at the sensation that had sprung up in their midst. Manhattan had its usual ringside seat to tragedy, comedy and sudden death in the night. And heartbreak.

  But, even so, the Hawks had to be proud of Johnny Ricco.

  Little John had helped catch his old man's murderer.

  I took him to one side, away from the others, and dug into my side pocket, producing the glittering, half-moon shaped silver-dollar piece. I gave it to him and he took it, dry-eyed with grief.

  "It's yours," he mumbled, his voice still broken. "What are you giving it to me for? Papa gave it to you."

  "It makes more sense now," I said, "if you had it"

  "How do you figure that?"

  "Because it will mean more to you now than it ever could to me. Capisce?"

  "Capisce." Johnny Ricco's thin smile was a promise of rejuvenation. A hope that he would find his own way in spite of the destruction of all the family he had. "Yeah, Noon man. I dig. But I'm not gonna thank you for burning Terry. No matter what she was—or what she did—I can't thank you for that."

  "No," I agreed, taking his right hand in a soul brother clasp and shaking it hard. "I'd never expect you to do that. What kind of brother would you be if you did?"

  He didn't answer me. He didn't have to.

  I piled the Hawks and Johnny Ricco into my Buick for the ride down to Centre Street so we could all make out our statements. There wasn't much to talk about. The car was like a moving hearse, with everyone alone with his own thoughts. Only Winchester, beard darker in the night, had one question left out of the entire mess. Winchester would go far in this world if he ever downed tools and picked a career of some kind. He had a neat mind.

  "Hey, Spade, what about the junkyard?"

  "You mean the fire?" I nodded, spinning the Buick past a red light before it blocked us. "That's got to be Conroy's hand, whether he was in on the murder or not. Chances are he got some of his boys to play with the matches. He did know about the possibility of a will. She told him everything." I didn't want to mention Terry Ricco's name in front of the still-morose Johnny. "Anyway, tomorrow, I'll talk to my cop pal and I'll let you know. I'd like to pin it on Carlo Fargo."

  "I'll just bet you will," Winchester said tightly.

  After that, there was no more to say.

  About anything at all.

  The case was closed.

  And so were the books—on Terry Ricco.

  I went home to Melissa Mercer. I needed her.

  We had some coffee together in the quiet living room of her apartment. She listened to all I had to get off my chest and we both remained in a brown mood for a long time. Melissa always knew when to leave a blabbermouth like me alone. When blabbermouths clam up, it is a sure sign of trouble. Inner distress of some kind. Worry.

  Finally, with the city sleeping still, I broke the silence.

  "It reminds me of that joke," I said, loosening my tie and reaching down to remove my shoes. Melissa smiled fondly at me.

  "Oh, a joke?"

  "Yeah. Ever heard the one about Saint Peter and Sister Theresa?"

  "No—I don't think so."

  "Well, it just about sums up this lousy case. Yep, the joke says it all. About Terry and what the Church calls sin."

  "You are going to tell me the joke sometime?"

  I grinned at the native sarcasm in her and fluttered a hand at her lovingly. "Sure. Well, Saint Peter sends Sister Theresa down to Earth, telling her it's full of sin and evildoers and to make a report daily to him on the heavenly telephone. Sister Theresa is a novice, brand new, virginal. The works. So the day comes and Sister Theresa takes off and Saint Peter waits patiently for her to call in her report. Promptly at five every day, Eastern Heavenly Time, Sister Theresa phones, saying, 'Hello, Saint Peter, this is Sister Theresa. There is much sin down here on Earth—' and like that, see? This goes on for about a week and then comes the day when there is no phone call. And Saint Peter knows that Sister Theresa's next stop on her pilgrimage was sinful Las Vegas. A bad place, right?"

  "Oh, Ed—" Melissa was laughing, trying to hold it in.

  "So time goes by, no Sister Theresa calling in to say, 'Hello, Saint Peter, this is Sister Theresa—' and Old Pete starts to get worried blue
. He waits three more days, and no word, so finally, in desperation, he's about to send down another heavenly messenger to see what went wrong, when the phone rings on his desk at the Pearly Gates. He puts the phone to his ear, says 'Yes?' and a breezy voice says, 'Hi, Pete! This is Terry!—'."

  She didn't want to laugh but she did.

  I was laughing too.

  But it was a bitter laugh.

  The joke said it all, somehow, in a strangely comic way.

  Half a silver dollar given in friendship by a murdered man had been the beginning of the rope. The rope that had become a noose when a young girl had resisted her natural origins, bucked her old man and started to do her own thing. And been a slave, no, a victim, to her own fleshly appetites. And reached for a lot of phony brass rings blandished in the hands of crumbs like Frankie Conroy. Independence Day had cost that young woman her life. And everything else that went with it. Like poor Sister Theresa, Terry Ricco had hit the road and thumbed her nose at everybody. And everything.

  My joke never explained exactly what had happened to Sister Theresa after she discovered the wiles and pleasures of Las Vegas.

  But it was easy enough to imagine.

  Women who want to be the girls in the cockpit have to wind up losers. They just can't win. Not anything that's important.

  Tell that to Women's Lib.

  Chauvinistically speaking.

  WRAP-UP

  "Ed?"

  "Huh—?"

  "Wake up. There's a man at the door."

  "At this time of night—?"

  "It's ten o'clock in the morning. Breakfast is almost ready. And I think you ought to talk to Michael Monks before he goes away mad. He's the best friend you have."

  "Mike here? Why that old—gee, I'm sorry, Melissa. I didn't really want him to know about us——"

  "Don't be dopey, dear Noon. Mike knows how I've felt about you for years. He just doesn't talk about it, that's all. Now, I'm going to let him in and you make yourself decent."