The Horrible Man

by Michael Avallone

  "Mady—" I called. "What's keeping you?"

  The only thing that could keep a woman her size really quiet. The Big Sleep. The Big Hush.

  Death.

  I could only gawk from the threshold of the kitchen. It's not a large area to begin with and Mady Lopez couldn't have had much room to walk around in. The table and two chairs and the closets and the big white refrigerator was all that the kitchen held. It was the refrigerator that had kept her big body from toppling to the floor and making a racket I could have heard.

  She was leaning against the refrigerator, facing me, her childish face frozen in a mask of fright and finality. Her enormous breasts hung suspended as her big frame stood wedged between the hulk of the refrigerator and the rear wall of the kitchen. I couldn't see what had killed her right away until I raced to her. On the small stove, the perking coffee was making bubbly, sucking noises. I turned the gas off.

  It was then that I saw the feathered shaft of the thing that had lodged directly into one side of Mady Lopez's throat. It looked like a dart you might buy in Macy's. But Macy's doesn't cater to the blow dart poisoned-tipped school of assassins. She must have fumbled around the stove, felt a small pin-prick, swiped at it with her hand and then the poison had worked far too fast for her to call out or call for me. By that time, she had wedged herself tightly into the small space between the refrigerator and the wall. Death had come in seconds.

  Fine detective. My stunned intellect, the one that found death in his own backyard with him standing only feet away, hard to swallow in a hurry, found the answer.

  The door to the dumbwaiter in the opposite corner of the room was but an inch ajar. The building I live in was built a long, long time ago. When Diamond Jim Brady was still looking for his first good meal. I rushed the door, gun drawn. I had my answer. The ropes, all twisted and greasy with dirt and age, the ones that lowered the car, were still moving slowly, still spinning from their most recent usage. Cursing, I tried to jam them up, to suspend the descent into the basement of a murderer. I was too late.

  I heard the car land somewhere far below. Heard the slam of footfalls on the basement floor. I wanted to send a shot down in anger, send a .45 slug hurtling into the dumbwaiter shaft but I knew it wouldn't do a damn bit of good. Anyone who had had brains enough to work a stunt like this one, had the savvy to provide a swift, easy unseen exit.

  A murderer had stepped easily into my own backyard, made a kill and ran off with all the marbles. But how the hell could he have gotten in? The dumbwaiter door was always locked unless I had carelessly left it unlocked the last time I sent the garbage down. Or had Mady Lopez opened it at the soft knock of a confederate? Had she come here really to set me up and then been double-crossed at the end? It didn't make sense and I was grabbing at straws, trying to find an answer that would come out even and right-side up.

  Meanwhile, back at the refrigerator, her dead, naked body stood anchored, refusing to go away. It was eerie, standing there with her like that. So big, so solid, so full of weight and muscle—so dead.

  I went back into the living-room, storms and angry winds rattling around in my skull. Mike Monks might have gotten me off the hook with a bum rap in Brooklyn but this, this was a rap sheet of a different grade of paper.

  This was Murder One. By Person or Persons Unknown. And the murder had occurred in my own home. How did I like those apples? I knew Monks and nobody in the whole wide spectrum of the New York Homicide Department would sympathise with me in any which way. That as much as anything else made up my mind. I had to be in Hempstead tomorrow. I had to be there when Tommy Spanner went to his last reward. If I didn't I might as well chuck the whole business of being a confidential investigator for the President of the United States. He has enough troubles without adding a trouble-prone shamus to his payroll.

  I couldn't afford sitting around in Monks' office in the morning, making a lot of statements and maybe being held at the very least, as a material witness. That would mean I would have to stay put. No travelling around. No going off to Hempstead at all. No investigation. No nothing.

  So I had to break the law.

  Which also meant I wasn't going to be a good citizen. Mady Lopez's murder would have to be taken somewhere else. Mady Lopez would have to be pointed away from me.

  The big question was: How was I going to do that?

  TEN

  DEADLY DWARF

  □ Maybe five minutes had gone by since the murder. Five minutes since the descent of the dumbwaiter and my notion to play bad citizen with the police. I left Mady Lopez's body where it was and made a fast phone call. Time was on my side. Time, in a lot of ways. I could certainly check on the alibi of one Garcia Lopez. If he wasn't home it wouldn't prove anything but if he was, it would clear him of personallymurdering his big wife.

  You can't get from Central Park West to the Peter Stuyvesant section in less than a good solid half-hour and that's giving you the best of everything. No traffic jams, less red lights and steady driving.

  His phone number was still in my memo book. I had jotted it down in the office. I dialled it in a hurry. The silence of the apartment was like a morgue. I could still smell the coffee in the kitchen.

  The Ameche hummed about seven times before he picked it up at his end.

  My case dissolved in front of me as I recognised the voice of Garcia Lopez politely asking, "Lopez speaking. Who's this?"

  "It's Noon, Garcia. I want to ask you some questions."

  There was one of those pauses. "If it's about that cab, Mr.Noon, I—well—let me explain—"

  "Sure. Go ahead. But how can you justify it? Unless you're a deadbeat, a liar and a spy all wrapped up in one little man. But it's my nickel so I'll listen."

  I could picture him, sitting on a chair or bed or maybe standing, looking no bigger than a boy. His tone was contrite but I wasn't buying any more fish from him. Because of my bleeding heart, I would have bled all over the Belt Parkway.

  "After I left your office, I met a man. A foreigner. Beard and dark glasses. He said I must do that—in the cab—if I ever wanted to see my mother and father again. You understand? I am Cuban, Mr. Noon. My parents are in the Cuba of El Diablo Castro, Mr. Noon. I panicked. They gave me the gun and told me to lie on the floor of that cab. I have never been so frightened in my life. You had been good to me and I didn't wish to be a party to any trouble for you. But —my parents, Mr. Noon. They are so old, so tired—"

  "Yeah. Sure. I saw and heard this in many a bad movie. Look, Lopez. You said 'they'. Were there more than one?"

  He sounded puzzled. "Why, yes. The cab driver was not the man with the beard. He disappeared, leaving me waiting with the cab driver. Didn't you see his face when you woke up? I got out of the cab at Grand Central. You were still sleeping on the seat."

  "What does the cab driver look like?"

  "Like one of them. Pitted face, a small scar on his left cheek. Cruel eyes. I—I'm glad you're still alive. You've been so good to me about Mady."

  Boing! Mady. Dead Mady.

  "Okay, I'll buy your story for now. I called you because I had the notion you were also small enough to move around comfortably in a dumbwaiter. How big is that cabbie? And the bearded man?"

  "Medium height. Not too big but—you're trying to tell me something, Mr. Noon. I can hear it in your voice. What's happened?"

  "Brace yourself, Lopez. Mady is dead. Murdered. She came here tonight and was making coffee in the kitchen when someone popped out of the dumbwaiter and killed her with a poisoned dart."

  "Mady dead—"

  "That's it."

  "Murdered—"

  "Yes. Nothing's going to change it, either."

  "Oh, God!"

  That blurted out of his soul. I could hear fierce anguish now. Choking, gasping hurt. It was very difficult to believe what Mady Lopez had told me about him loving money more.

  I didn't expect what came next. Come to think of it, there is no way of gauging any man's reaction to— Hey, guess what?
Your wife got killed a little while ago—

  "Murderer!" he bleated "You killed her!"

  "Hey, hold on—"

  "Dirty stinking killer! You never did like her! So now you've killed her! I'm calling the police!"

  "Now wait a minute, Lopez, would I call—"

  He didn't wait for me to finish. "Murderer!" he shrilled again and hung up. I was surprised to find my hand shaking a little when I lit a cigarette.

  Suddenly, the apartment was not a sanctuary anymore where I could sit and think and make plans about the disposal of Mady Lopez's body. One telephone call to headquarters would cook my goose, no matter what story I cooked up. And Monks—I shuddered. Old Mike, as much as he loved me, would have had his fill by now of his private detective friend who gathered corpses and troubles like kids caught chicken pox.

  Whether or not I believed Garcia Lopez's Cuban overture wasn't very important now. But it was just incredible enough to be true. The mobs, the organised gangs and the terrorists haven't altered their techniques since the beginning of time. What worked in the Spanish Inquisition, in Nazi Germany and Communist Cuba still worked. The bravest man in the world can be humbled by a threat to someone he really cares about. Wives, lovers, parents and kids. It figured.

  Tommy Spanner and Hempstead seemed a million miles away. I was headed for the Tombs at the rate I was going. If I didn't do something and do it fast.

  I got organised quickly, trying to imagine that I was hearing prowl cars sirening their way towards Central Park West in the dark of night.

  For the first time in many years, I was on the dodge from the cops. Breaking the law as it were. All I had going for me was a phone call. The one I placed to Police Headquarters, hoping I would beat Garcia Lopez to the punch. That was one thing that would sound good in my favour; that I called the kill in and didn't wait for the clues to get old and grant the murderer some precious starting time before the police got around to investigating the murder.

  I didn't get Monks. He was off duty. I got a switchboard cop who took the call, seemingly only half-listening. They get lots of calls like that. But I knew as soon as I hung up, he would press a lot of buttons and the whole machinery of the law would close in on Central Park West.

  I didn't plan to be there when they arrived.

  There was only one thing on my mind as I threw together a night bag in the bedroom and added some extra magazines of .45 ammo to the arsenal. My presidential connection, as unofficial as it was, meant more to me than the wrath of a bunch of Centre Street cowboys. I just couldn't pass up tomorrow morning and Hempstead. I wanted to be able to say that I had seen the earthly remains of one Thomas Spanner before he was buried forever, whatever form of interment that might be. Then I could call the Chief and say the job was done.

  After all, my conscience was clear. I didn't kill Mady Lopez, did I?

  The worst thing was, I didn't know who did, either.

  Melissa Mercer was wearing a blue silk pongee robe when she opened her apartment door. It was still early, only going on nine but it was obvious she was having a quiet evening at home. Her nails were drying from a polishing routine. Which was why she didn't shake hands and just goggled at me as I strode past her into the living-room, night bag and all.

  "What's up, Ed? When you buzzed from the lobby I didn't know what to think."

  "Think the worst. I'm temporarily on the lam."

  "You fooling, Ed?"

  "No. Where's your bar? I need a drink."

  Still waving her hands, she motioned to a corner of the room. She managed to lock the door and trailed in after me. Her apartment was a tasteful little place with just the right amount of sensible furniture and a careful selection of objets d'art. There was a picture window that looked out over the East River, limned with a glass menagerie of monkeys, giraffes and zebras. The bar was a simple mahogany drop board, backed up by a closeted supply of wines, liquears and whiskys. I found a half-filled bottle of JB Scotch and built a strong one. She had sat down in a nile green sofa chair, closing the belt of the pongee rote. Her long, supple legs ended off in slippers that had white fluffy pom-poms on their toes.

  Her smile was sad. Like she was watching me going to a lynching party. I toasted her because she shook her head, indicating she wasn't drinking. Somewhere in the apartment, I could hear a radio playing. Softly, seductively. The time, the place and the girl, like Browning said, never came all together at the same time. But I didn't remember reading Browning saying that. I remember Raymond Chandler quoting Browning saying that in one of his books. This wasn't the time, the place. Or the girl. I had never spoiled my relationship with Melissa by making her a habit. She was as new to me, that way, as the dream girl you first meet.

  The music was playing too low to be identifiable. She had turned the set down obviously, but not off.

  "I'd like to stay here tonight, Mel."

  "Things that bad?"

  "I think so. Anyhow, lend an ear and tell me what you think." The Scotch felt good. I plopped into a chair and told her all about my day since I had left her in the office. Her eyes widened with the Belt Parkway incident but they very nearly climbed out of her face when I told her about Mady Lopez. She is, and always has been, simpatico.

  She sighed. "I think you're going to need two drinks. Be my guest."

  "I can't bend my elbow. I have to think straight."

  "We still going to Hempstead tomorrow?"

  "That's my idea."

  "Then why don't we go tonight? This place boresme. I'm in it every day of the week. I never go anywhere. Why, we could hit the open road and do something different for a change."

  I stared at her, wondering. "Why look for trouble? We'd have to put up somewhere for the night and—we're all set here."

  She shook her head at me. "For a real smart man, sometimes you surprise me. We can't stay here."

  "Why may I ask? You behind in your rent?"

  She chuckled. "Who's your best friend in the New York Police Department?"

  "Sweet Michael Monks, of course."

  "And who knows you better than anybody else?"

  "Same sweet man, I guess."

  "And who knows who your secretary is and where she lives and what would be one of the places he would go to just in case he was looking for you?"

  "Ouch," I said.

  "Right," she said. "No place else but here." She uncurled her slim slenders and stood up, waving her hands again. "Give me about ten minutes. I'll get dressed, pack a bag. There's some coffee on the stove and some cold cuts in the fridge if you want to eat something. Maybe you'd prefer a couple of eggs? And I have steak—"

  "I'm not hungry," I said, still thinking. "The Scotch will do me."

  "Is your car downstairs?"

  "Yeah. I came in the Olds. I wanted my own wheels this time. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do."

  She turned to stare at me from the bedroom door, one arm resting on the jamb. "But you are now?"

  "I guess I am. You're a sweetheart."

  "Deed I am, Massa Ed." She blew me a kiss and vanished.

  After a little Hawkeyeing, I found the radio. A little leather encased transistor parked on the mantelpiece over the imitation fireplace. I turned it up, looking at my wrist watch. The nine o'clock news report was still on.

  Things move fast in a big city.

  Mady Lopez had stopped by my apartment for a drink and some fun and already the cold, cruel details of her murder were being radioed into a million homes. I winced when I heard my name mentioned. That and the address of my home. There wasn't much more after that, just the usual announcements that the Hanoi bombings were continuing on schedule. I was about to turn to another station for some music when the commentator inserted a late bulletin. "Stallings Spanner, father of the playboy millionaire, Tommy Spanner, whose brutal murder early this week shocked the country, released an official statement today that the President will attend the funeral services tomorrow in Hempstead, New York. White House circles see in this gesture a conti
nued expression of the close friendship the President shares with the man who once was a poor leather craftsman in Albany before he revolutionised the shoe industry with Spanner products. That was in nineteen twenty-two, four years after Stallings said farewell to his comrade-in-arms at the Western Front, a simple lieutenant in the cavalry, and now President of these United States . . . and now, looking at the world of Sports, here is . . ."

  My brained tuned out on the rest of it.

  The President was going to Hempstead. Tomorrow. To see Spanner buried, to say hello to his old army buddy, Stallings.

  Some of the pieces were starting to fall into place. I downed the rest of the Scotch and groped for another Camel.

  Suddenly, Melissa Mercer was out of the bedroom. Trenchcoated, bereted, snow-booted and looking like nine million bucks. I whistled.

  She set a round green overnight box on the floor and turned around for my inspection. The box looked like a hat box.

  "Like it? Got it at Ohrbach's for a song."

  "What kind of song? Brother, can you spare a dime—?"

  The trenchcoat was iridescent, with leather toggle buttons and a stylish cut and drape. It hugged her like an olive skin hugs the olive. Holding tight going around the curves.

  She wrinkled her nose at me. "Funny man. As long as you like it, what does it matter how much it cost? Well, ready when you are, Boss mine."

  "I'm ready."

  I stood up too, finding my porkpie dedeca and the pack of Camels. "I feel like a white slaver taking your innocent body over the border into another state."

  "What kind of a slaver?"

  We both laughed at that. It made me feel a little better. At the door, before she turned all the lights off, I kissed her. She surrendered her face up to me, holding my jaw with her free right hand. Her eyes had lights in them, too.

  "You're the cutest boss I ever had," she said grimly. "But you sure don't know how to stay out of trouble."

  "Come on." I pulled her out of the apartment into the cold, cruel world. "This time you can tag along and see for yourself how easy it is to get into trouble."