Violence in Velvet

by Michael Avallone

  Hadley motioned with his head and Tom took his cue. He started to lead Stanley Breen out. But Breen wasn’t finished yet by a long shot.

  “Keep after him, Lieutenant. He killed her. Because he hated her, because she wouldn’t give in to his twisted mind. He killed her as sure as there’s a God in heaven—”

  The closing of the door cut off the rest of it. Stanley Breen’s voice was still yelling in the hall, but you couldn’t make out the words.

  There was a long painful silence in which nobody said anything. Wally Wilder fidgeted with his hands like the big kid he was, Helen Tucker twisted her gloves out of shape and I lit a cigarette. Only Guy Prentice was calm, cool and collected. I suddenly thought of him as a pretty calculating spider of intrigue. He was a man of many parts all right. Too damn many.

  “Anybody feel like a game of Scrabble?” I said breaking the long, hard silence.

  Helen Tucker bit her kissable lips, looking concernedly at Guy Prentice.

  “Really, Mr. Noon. It’s no time for humorous remarks.”

  “I’ll pass, Miss Tucker. I’m not just a fresh mug trying to be cute. But murder cases are no place for second guesses or second guessers. The facts have to be said out loud. And all the doubts and questions have to get an airing. For instance—admitting it was a slip and all that—why should Paula tell you about her condition? You were the Other Woman. Why didn’t she just deny everything she might have told you?”

  I got the greatest glare of the century in return for that one. But Guy Prentice was just as interested in her answer as I was.

  “Yes, Helen. Why? I am just as curious as Mr. Noon is. I’m sure these police officers are too. In view of Mr. Breen’s wild charges.”

  “And how,” rumbled Sanderson again. Hadley just grunted.

  “Darling, is it really necessary to—I mean, what difference can it possibly make—” She stopped fumbling and stared around at us with that feminine glow of pride that a woman in love is supposed to have. “Oh, very well. In answer to Mr. Noon’s question, Paula told me her big secret before she ever suspected me of being in love with Guy Prentice.”

  She made it sound like the Declaration of Independence and The Bill of Rights. Sanderson snorted out loud, but a darting glance from Hadley silenced him. Wally Wilder rammed big hands into his wedgelike hips and looked like one wing of the Army football team.

  “Okay,” he glowered. “So Guy didn’t know he was going to be a Poppa. So what? That isn’t going to tell us who killed her, is it? And why is it so damned important anyway? It’s just piling grief on grief.”

  I stared at him, refusing to believe he could be so stupid. He caught me giving him the idiot look and his big face got indignant.

  “Wally,” I chided. “Either you don’t read enough mysteries or you just don’t go to the movies.”

  “I don’t get you, Noon.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “You tell him, Hadley. My leg hurts.”

  Hadley decided to get back to running the show. He ignored my offer.

  “Okay, folks. We’ll call this interview to a halt—with the understanding, of course, that nobody leaves town. No business trips or sudden vacations. I want everybody available for further questioning. This homicide is still wide open until further notice. Show them out, Sanderson. Stick around, Noon. I want to talk to you.”

  Guy Prentice threw his shredded muffler tighter about his throat and stood up. I could see he was still favoring his leg, but he seemed a helluva lot better off than I felt. Wally Wilder started to lend a hand but he shook him off. Helen Tucker was belting her middle smartly at the door when I remembered something. I held out my hand.

  “Where’s my big shiny check, Miss Tucker? Unless of course, Mr. Prentice has changed his mind. After all, Breen is safe behind bars.”

  Prentice turned slowly, smiling. “Decidedly not. A murderer is still at large. I’m more in favor of it than ever. Helen—”

  She rummaged expertly in her handbag, handing it to me coldly. I palmed it easily, without even looking at it.

  “You want a receipt, Miss Tucker?”

  “Guy, really—” she pleaded with him. “Do you really think it’s necessary?”

  “I really do.” He said it with finality, the oddest look flashing in his eyes like a brief candle. He turned to us again in farewell. Shakespeare would have loved the Guy. “Good day, Gentlemen. I shall be in my usual role tonight. Onstage. No mere bullet is going to keep me out of the biggest hit of my career. Besides, there is no understudy now. Only the star.”

  “The show must go on,” I agreed amiably.

  My jokes kill any party. They left almost immediately, and the closing of the door behind them left a small silence. Hadley’s voice said quietly behind my back:

  “You, Mr. Noon. I want to talk with you.”

  NINETEEN

  I went back to the chair I had been in because I’d grown used to its angular body. Sanderson, James T., had vanished with the star suspects. Hadley and I were all alone.

  I shot a quizzical look at him and his lower lip. It wasn’t pushed out anymore and his gimlet eyes were pretending to be busy with the morning mail.

  “Okay, Hadley,” I said. “Why you keeping me after school?”

  He was no longer interested in his mail. He dropped the whole batch and rolled his bulk back in a swivel chair.

  “Mike Monks and I see eye to eye on the subject of Ed Noon. We both think he’s fresh as wet paint, but we also think he’s a pretty good detective.”

  “Hadley, I’m out of quarters,” I warned him. “Nothing but subway tokens.”

  He smiled thinly.

  “Monks and I also think you’re a real idea man. You’ve come up with some corkers in the past. Look, Ed.” He forgot the lawyer technique and rolled his swivel forward and stared at me seriously over his folded hands. “This case is only twenty-four hours old. Not even. And it’s full of inconsistencies. I’d appreciate your telling me what you think. Personally, I mean.”

  “Okay if I smoke, Teacher?” I didn’t wait for the permission I knew he’d give but dug out my pack. He didn’t want one. He watched me light up, his eyes still intent on me, waiting to hear what I had to say.

  “Well, Ed? I’m waiting.”

  “Sure thing, Hadley. Let’s clear the air around here.”

  “Good boy.” His grin fattened a little. “Never mind a round table discussion. Just let me pump you a bit. I’m warning you in advance so you won’t rear on your hind legs like you always do.”

  I nodded and showed him some smoke.

  “Good. I’m glad it’s settled.” He unfolded his hands. “What happened to you? I’ve never seen you come out second best like that before.”

  He meant my scratched face, the limp, the swollen snoot and the cracked lips. I winced in memory.

  “Two mugs strong-armed me on my own third floor this morning. Very early too. Chloroform and a shove through the corridor window. I’ve never been taken so easy since my first crap game.”

  “All I can say is you’re damn lucky. Did you get a chance to see their faces?”

  “Not a blink of an eyelash. They worked fast. Like real pros. I got the impression they’d been waiting for me.”

  Hadley assented. “Sounds it. What do you make of it? Anybody have it in for you lately?”

  “Not at those prices, Hadley. Beating a guy up is one thing. Trying to break his neck is another. No, it connects. I got pushed through a window because somebody didn’t want me to be on time this morning for school. Somebody who knew I was supposed to be here. Someone who probably murdered Paula Prentice.”

  “I’ll buy that for now, Ed.” His eyes narrowed. “What else do you think?”

  I smiled at his casual cross-examination.

  “Just what you think. It’s an inside job. Paula Prentice is dead because Guy Prentice or Helen Tucker or Wally Wilder wanted her that way. Or maybe even Lucille, although the mere idea of it makes my hair stand on end. Any one of them,
or two of them—hell, maybe all of them—wanted that dame where she is right now. On a slab in your nice morgue.”

  “Prentice has a bullet hole in his leg,” he reminded me.

  “For which you have arrested one Stanley Breen,” I reminded him. “Prentice wouldn’t be the first murderer who got messed up a little before he was finally nailed. But I can’t buy the idea of an outside party doing any of this. No, sir. They’ve all got Grade A motives. And now this pregnancy gag. If Prentice really wants Helen and hates Paula, it strengthens the argument for their motive. It even makes the kid’s motive stronger. A new baby, a stranger, who’d grab all of Daddy’s time and interest. That is if Lucille knew. I love the little people myself, but on the record, some of them have behaved mighty dangerously before.”

  I could see I was saying out loud a lot of things he had already hit upon himself. But he had wanted someone else to say them out loud. A guy like me for instance.

  “What about Wilder then?”

  “What about him? He’s got a great career ahead of him, and he’s unlucky or stupid enough to be gaga about a dame he’d be better off without. I know his motives for killing Paula P. are weaker than anybody else’s but don’t be fooled by that either. A guy in love will do a helluva lot of things to get his rival for Milady’s fair hand in hot water. Just like you said yourself, Hadley. If Guy got pinned with a murder charge and went up the river or got the chair, there certainly wouldn’t be any wedding bells. You got to watch these love-loaded guys. They’re generally dizzy from being so high up.”

  He bummed one of my cigarettes when he saw me put mine out in his ash tray. I let him light it himself. He puffed deliberately.

  “I’ll play with my cards facing you, Ed. You’ve hired your gun and time out to the Prentice family. Okay. I like that fine. You’re as good a watchdog as anyone I’ve got around here. We want the killer sure. But the protection of that kid is the big thing. We save her neck and no matter what happens to anyone else, we’ve done a good job. See what I mean?”

  “I get you.”

  “Right. Now all the rest of them are accounted for. I’ve got a top man on each of them. So stay with your job and try to keep your bag of tricks in check. I don’t want that kid to catch even a cold.”

  I got the idea that somebody was pushing from upstairs again. Sometimes, I really feel sorry for the flatfoots. Somebody is always pushing them around for a record or prestige and all that kind of hooey. But I knew what Hadley meant. He was glad that I did.

  “I’d appreciate your keeping in touch with the Department on this. You’ll be earning your dough and doing me a favor at the same time. What do you say, Ed?”

  “My hand on it, Ambrose.” He reached across the desk for it. I straightened out of my chair with an effort. “I just got a flash, Hadley. Why not stick a dame on the Tucker doll while you’re at it? She walks into a Ladies Rest Room somewhere, and the poor guy you’ve got on her tail is up the creek until she comes out. Lots of things go on in Ladies Rooms that no man would ever see.”

  He shook his head and sighed wearily.

  “Monks is right. There’s only one Ed Noon.”

  “For which my mother was deeply grateful, I can tell you.” I tried a bow without thinking and the knot on my knee kicked back at me. I bit my lip.

  Hadley looked at me with concern.

  “I think you’re banged up worse than you think.”

  “You know what—I think you’re right.”

  With that, I edged out of his office and out of the station, averaging a cool fifteen feet every five minutes. The fresh midday air was a tonic. I leaned against the stone side of the stairway entrance, sucking in lungfuls, grateful for a cooling breeze that whipped away the globules of sweat forming on my face.

  I smoothed out my fedora, tightened my grip on the umbrella handle and limped to the curb. I looked around for a taxi.

  I didn’t need one. A robin’s egg blue sedan slid eagerly to a halt in front of me. The door shone in the sunlight as it swung out toward me. A smartly gloved hand reached out and beckoned in my direction. A beautiful face, neatly crowned with a felt skimmer riding sidesaddle under the weight of a short, cute feather, poked out and a set of lovely warm lips gleamed up at me.

  “I thought you were never going to come out,” said Helen Tucker. “Get in. I want to talk to you. Alone.”

  TWENTY

  I squeezed onto the roomy seat alongside of her and stared at her classic profile.

  “I’m wild with anticipation, Ma’am,” I said.

  For some reason, she refused to get angry.

  “Do you have any objections if we go to my place, Mr. Noon? It will be that much more comfortable for you in your condition for one thing. For another, we do have to have a very private talk.”

  “Amen to that and home, Helen.”

  Whatever she had to say to me was going to wait. The sedan mushed out from the curb, joined the uptown traffic and hummed along Broadway. It was a good car and she made me forget all the standard jokes about women drivers. She handled the thing like a man.

  I didn’t say anything either and played it her way. Besides, I was busy with the throbbing music in my bum knee. Doc Rossiter was right. I should have stood in bed. But how can you when murderers are running around loose and the life of a ten-year-old kid is at stake? If that’s too soupy for you, there still were five hundred smackers I had to earn.

  In spite of myself and my rugged training in such matters, I was acutely conscious of Helen Tucker. Something about her set up the right boy-girl vibrations inside of me. Maybe it was her perfume or her high forehead or the fine structure of her face, but the dame had an aura about her that left me slightly limp. Sure, she was high horse and I probably didn’t rate at all, but that in itself is something that will put the old bit in my teeth and make me fight. Well, she was riding for a fall someday but when she did, I wouldn’t mind too much being around to catch her.

  Hell, it must have been my weakened condition, what with me feeling like she’d make a swell Florence Nightingale or something like that. So I straightened myself out:

  “The Prentice killer is on borrowed time, Tucker. Pretty soon this whole thing will be past history and maybe we can really get acquainted.”

  She kept her eyes on the road and her hands on the wheel.

  “Oh? I’m so glad to hear that, Mr. Noon.”

  “You shouldn’t be. You know the killer pretty well.”

  “Do I?”

  “Everything is relatives, Tucker. And so is this case. Strictly a family affair if there ever was one. No outsiders, no strangers, no nothing.”

  “You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

  “Not half as sure as Hadley and Homicide. They’ll make their pinch in a matter of hours.”

  Now, she turned slightly to look at me. Her blue eyes were strangely amused. Her red lips curled roguishly.

  “I don’t play poker too well but you sound awfully like you’re bluffing.”

  I grinned back at her.

  “Tucker, let’s leave all this and fly to my hacienda in the hills. You’d look great dancing on the grapes—”

  Her lips evened out again and she wouldn’t say another word until she had glided the sedan to a halt before a canopied entrance somewhere on Riverside Drive. I knew the neighborhood but she lived in it.

  She got out on the street side and came around and held open the door for me. I eased out of the car feeling like the last remaining survivor of the G.A.R.

  She hailed a smartly dressed doorman and left him with instructions about the car. I kept myself busy looking for the police tail and relaxed when I spotted it. A dark blue coupé had clicked off its motor on the downtown side of the Drive. A man and a woman in the front seat were beginning what looked like a serious necking session. This just about fitted Hadley’s prescription. I reflected that police work could be fun. Lots of things get included with line of duty.

  “Coming, Mr. Noon?”

  “
After you, Miss Tucker.”

  I followed her into a lobby right out of Interiors, let her install me in a rich man’s elevator, and we self-serviced ourselves up to the top floor. She got some keys out of her lifeboat-sized handbag and moved gracefully down a crimson carpeted hallway. I drag-footed right behind her feeling like a bum at a social function.

  She didn’t say two words to me on this Odyssey through wealth. I got the idea I was being humbled as some part of a plan. I could have laughed out loud. Nothing can humble me except a building falling on top of me. Correction. Falling out of a building. And if this was Helen Tucker’s game, she had brought the wrong rooster home from market.

  The door to her hangout closed behind us and I whistled for her satisfaction. I had to be polite.

  “I’m not even going to ask you what this costs per month. Maybe you pay by the hour. Some layout.”

  While she was taking my hat and burying it in a deep hall clothes closet, I limped on my umbrella cane into what should have been the living room but what was probably a misplaced wing of the Museum of Modern Art. I sat down on a lounge that could have accommodated a baseball team and let my eyes take over.

  Some layout was right. It was as wide and as roomy and as well kept as a better grade library. But not as public as all that. There were rugs on the tiled flooring that had enough hairs on them to keep you busy counting for the rest of your natural life. The chairs must have been salvaged from the main salon of the Queen Mary. Some pretty famous oil paintings stared down at me from the four sides of the room, and the mere idea that they were reproductions instead of the originals seemed sacriligious. And there was a three-tiered bookcase that formed a perfect L on two sides of the room. I could have felt very humble indeed except for two things. I recognized some of the paintings which helped. And I had found the time, somewhere between war and excitement, to have read at least one third of the books on the shelves.

  I was looking for one book in particular when Helen Tucker murmured from an arched doorway, “If you’ll excuse me while I change into something more comfortable, Mr. Noon. You’ll find anything you like in the bar—” I turned and she was already gone. But I saw the bar. I found the book I was looking for and got over to the bar as fast as my leg allowed.