The Crazy Mixed-Up Corpse

by Michael Avallone

  “Mike, Mike. You’ve got everything I know now. All the facts. Use that fine old brain of yours. If you were me, what would your next move be?”

  “Ed, you leave that Holly Hill dame to the Department.”

  “Right you are,” I laughed. “Be seeing you at her place.”

  My ear vibrated again. “You know God-damned well I don’t know where she lives!”

  “Good. Then you can find out the same way I had to. And that’ll give me just enough head start on you to do what I have to do.”

  Monks strangled another oath.

  “Noon, this finishes us. So help me, this is the last straw. The next time I –” He was wading through a whole list of renunciations and slamming a lot of iron doors when I hung up. I eased out of the booth.

  Outside, a passing cab slowed down at my summons. I hopped in. I was running up some cab bill these days.

  “Ten-twenty Armitage Apartments,” I told the cabbie before I settled back for the ride.

  The case was almost closed now. But I still owed Miss Holly Hill something. And if I ran into Carver Calloway Drill again, I’d be ready for him. He was too big to miss.

  The cab careered downtown as I unholstered the P38 and took T. T. Thomas’s folded one-dollar puzzle from the clip and tucked it inside my own wallet. Then I pumped a live shell into the firing chamber and put the gun back in its leather bed. I’d have a fairer shake than Luke now.

  I was ready. Ready for Holly Hill and Carver Calloway Drill. And trouble.

  But I didn’t reckon quite right that bright October morn. There was more to the dead body of T. T. Thomas than even I had suspected.

  And I shouldn’t have dismissed Tom Long so quickly. Or little Tania, for that matter.

  TWENTY

  The Armitage was quite a dump. Wide, spacious, ultra modern, with potted plants and pebbled glass doors in the lobby. The whole colour motif of the place was sea-green. But there hadn’t been a porter or an elevator operator or anybody on duty. So I’d just walked in and self-serviced myself in a comfortable up-and-down car to the top floor. When you live in places like the Armitage Apartments, everything can be free and easy like that. It’s the rat traps and the flea bag hotels that are hard to get in and out of. Just another good argument for being rich, I guess.

  I padded down the long, empty deep-rug corridor to the door at the end of the run. Apartment 4E had a lovely sea-green wooden door. A neat white card in a brass bracket near the buzzer bore the black letters Holly Hill. Everything looked spotless and orderly and nice, just as Miss Hill wasn’t. But that’s life.

  Easing my P38 into my left hand, I poked the buzzer chimes to the tune of “Beethoven’s Fifth.” You’ve heard them before. Da-da-da-DA. Beethoven and a stripper named Holly Hill. There was a combination for you.

  Bathroom mules clicked and clacked behind the sea-green door.

  “Who is it?” Holly Hill’s voice was still brassy and still vulgar even in the normal conversations of this day and age.

  “Western Union,” I said loudly, doing my version of Marlon Brando.

  I heard her curse. I’d always remember her cursing.

  “Well, slip it under the door, buster.” She sounded mad.

  “Gotta sign for it, lady,” I mumbled at the top of my voice. “Gotta get a signature. That’s the rules of the company.” There wasn’t any peephole or Judas window in the door, which was a break. So I stood real close. She was a hard dame to do business with.

  “Well, slip it under the door,” she said sarcastically. “I’ll sign it and slip it back out.”

  “Can’t do that, lady. My receipt book won’t fit under the door. Can’t tear the sheet out either. That’s the rules of the company.”

  By that time she was sick of Western Union and me. I heard her curse again and the latch on the door clicked like a bad-tempered cricket. The door swung open only four inches before the chain lock snapped it up short.

  But four inches was enough. I shoved in six inches of P38 barrel and she jumped back nearly a foot. The terry cloth bathrobe loosely corded around her waist billowed open at the throat and her hand went up to her red mouth.

  “Oh, no!” It shot out of her like the lady she wasn’t.

  “Oh, yes,” I said quietly. “Open that door before I blow you and it into the next world.”

  Words stalled in her throat, mean lights glittered in her eyes, but her painted fingers reached up and the chain moved out of the slot. She fell back away from me as I moved inside fast and closed the door behind me. I kept my back to it for a second, the P38 bored in on her heart, my eyes searching the room behind her. I expected to see Carver Calloway Drill. But he was nowhere in sight.

  “Come on out, Drill,” I called. “I’ve got beer and pretzels. Let’s have a party.”

  Holly Hill sneered and tightened her robe.

  “Funny man. He ain’t here. What made you think he would be?”

  My eyes roamed before I answered her. The apartment was a mile wide and two high. But that’s all it was. A combination living-room, bedroom and dining-room. The short foyer we were standing in suddenly ended about three feet behind her and dropped off like a duplex into the main room. The only room. But she had fixed it up real nice. Blonde wood and modern furnishings. Nothing too fancy. Nothing too dull. I was surprised because the room didn’t go with her personality. But she was the transient type anyway. Here today, gone tomorrow. I couldn’t see her as a dame who’d care for the piano. But there was a lovely one cater-cornered to the big windows. No frilly curtains like at Penny Darnell’s, though. Just Venetian blinds, the laziest invention of them all.

  “Move back,” I told her. “And slowly. You say Drill isn’t here. Well, I won’t believe it until I look in the closets and under the rugs.”

  She did as I told her. Two closets, a bathroom, and three rugs later, I sat down in a posture chair facing the door and motioned her to do likewise. She flopped on a green divan on the other side of the room. The terry cloth robe moved just enough as she crossed her legs.

  I dug in my pocket for my cigarettes, took one and tossed the pack to her.

  “Light up and we’ll talk, Holly.”

  She rammed one into her mouth and lit it from an ornamental desk lighter propped on the small end table between us. It was silvery and heavy looking.

  “What the hell do you want, Noon? This show is over for me. Ace is dead and I don’t give a damn about things any more. You and Drill and everybody and his uncle can have all the loot all to yourselves. I pass.”

  She sounded almost tearful, almost convincing. But only almost.

  “The day you stop being interested in money, Holly, I’ll be able to play centrefield for the Yankees.”

  “To hell with you.” She dragged on her cigarette.

  “How did you manage to get away without Drill?” I asked. “You both took off in the same direction at the same time. How come you don’t know where he is? Did you kill him too?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past you. You’ve tried just about everything so far. But he’s too big to kill. And I didn’t see any bodies on the way out of his place. Which leaves me one conclusion. You threw in with him.”

  Her head snapped up and her eyes pinned me with pure hatred.

  “What kind of a dame would I be, throwing in with a guy like him after Ace? Noon, you’re a real bastard.”

  “And you’re a bitch. The worst kind. The kind who’ll do anything for a buck. Did I tell you that I hate that in women more than anything else?”

  “Who cares what you hate?” She sneered again. “Only thing I’m interested in is what you’ve got on your mind.”

  “You’re on my mind, Holly. You and a dead blind man and a dead kid. And a crippled kid. Do you know what I’d like to do with you?”

  “I can guess. You men are all alike.”

  “We’ll get to that later. Where’s Drill?”

  “Go ask the cops. Maybe they can tell you.”r />
  “Don’t stall, sister. You both are in this together. And he’s still looking for old T.T.’s map. So are you. You had to tie in together. Plus that, he’s quite a hunk of man. And you’re quite a hunk of girl. It figures.”

  “You and your big mouth. How you love to gab.”

  “Where’s Drill, Holly?”

  She laughed. “I had a parakeet once. You’re starting to sound an awful lot like him.”

  “You won’t tell me?”

  “You catch on quick, Noon.”

  I suddenly stood up and walked towards her. When I was about five feet from her, I stopped. She stared up at me and then leaned back against the divan contemptuously, the cigarette dangling from her full red lips. She shifted her full shoulders and the terry cloth bathrobe widened its V at her throat. She smiled. A smile that was supposed to be inviting. But somehow was as ugly as ringworm.

  “Stand up,” I said quietly.

  She did. Slithering erect like a snake unwinding itself from a crouch. She stood before me now, swaying easily on her heels. And her eyes were laughing at me.

  “What’s on your mind, Noon?” She said it softly in her best come-up-and-sleep-with-me-some-time voice.

  “Strip,” I said.

  She blinked. She’d been expecting it, but somehow not quite this way. But she still didn’t think she’d lost the play. Her smile returned as her strong colour-tipped fingers poked inquisitively at the bow in the robe cord. It came apart in her hands easily. She reached up with her hands and drew the robe away from her shoulders. It started to slip down her body at the rate of a sixteenth of an inch every three seconds. She might have been on the stage at the Blue Turkey.

  I stepped back a foot and watched the robe fall.

  Holly Hill’s figure didn’t take your breath away. It just never gave it back. She had been put together with loving care by the Creator. Holly Hill was the last word in women. And the last word was Yes.

  She let me look at her, knowing that was all the battle. Knowing she’d won. Knowing there was no hurry now. She just stood there rotating slowly on her heels, the terry cloth robe crumpled around her feet on the floor like a defeated flag. Her red lips parted and her white teeth flashed. I’d be begging in a minute, by her calculations.

  I begged all right. I begged to differ with her. I gave her what must have been the surprise of her life.

  I holstered the P38 and held out my arms to her. She tried hard to keep from smirking. But smirk she did as she moved towards me.

  I took her. Took her violently, swung myself around and sat down on the divan and twisted her lovely body until she was staring at the floor.

  She started to jerk and curse when she got my meaning. But it was too late then. My left arm had her hands anchored down like iron weights. She cursed, her whole body shaking and shivering with a long string of obscenities. I didn’t wait a second longer.

  I spanked. Spanked as I never have before.

  When I was finished, I shoved her off my lap. She rolled like a limp rug and sprawled across the floor. Me, I felt fine. All the hate in me had rolled away as easily as she had. I was my own man again. Now that personal vendattas were to one side, I could operate again.

  But, as I said, it was the craziest case of them all.

  One second she was on the floor crying like a kid, her body shaking uncontrollably. The next, she had scrambled to her feet and rushed into my arms again, throwing a hammer lock around my neck. She started to bruise my face with kisses. On the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth. Her full woman’s body was rammed against mine as if I were the last man in the world. Holly Hill was quite a dame all right. Before I knew it, the electricity in her battery had connected up to mine and I was responding.

  It must have been hours later that we noticed that the sunlight was waning and pale beams of light were stealing gently across the floor. And I’d just spent one of The Thousand And One Nights.

  Even as she lit a cigarette, her free hand was warming the back of my neck, stroking me with all the care and professionalism of a masseuse.

  “Where’s Drill?” I asked between puffs.

  “He’ll be here at five o’clock. We had plans to catch up with you this evening.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

  “I see you in a different light now. You got what it takes, Ed. What do you say? Let’s dump the cowboy and split the pie ourselves. You got the map, haven’t you?”

  “That makes you still interested in money. And if you’ll doublecross him, how can I be sure you won’t doublecross me?”

  “Trust me, Ed. I’ve wanted a guy like you for a long time –”

  “Hooray for me.”

  “Is it a deal?”

  “It’s a deal.” She thought it called for a kiss. She kissed me. I was thinking fast, and way ahead of her. You catch a lot of flies with honey. And you learn a lot of things by making friends. Even false friends.

  But stupidity teaches you just as much.

  Holly Hill excused herself. When she came back, she was pointing a .45 at me. It looked like my own. This time I blinked. My P38 was buried in my shoulder holster. And my shoulder holster was draped over a chair because I’d thought I was the romantic type.

  “Don’t make me kill you, Ed,” she whispered softly. “Just stay put until Drill gets here.”

  “Nice,” I said. “Very nice. It just happened.”

  “What happened?” she wanted to know.

  “The bull rolled over and died,” I said disgustedly.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Carver Calloway Drill came back not twenty minutes later. Holly Hill and I didn’t talk much either while we were waiting. There wasn’t anything to talk about. The Judas bit had left me speechless and feeling stupid. And for some reason, she looked almost sad about the whole thing.

  The door chimes ran through “Beethoven’s Fifth” again and she sprang to answer it, keeping the .45 on me all the while. I stayed where I was, buried on the green divan in yards of gloom, wondering why in hell I hadn’t given Mike Monks her address. But I had thought he would have found it by this time. It was nearly four hours since I called.

  Carver Calloway Drill came shouldering into the living-room with big, lumbering strides. He wasn’t alone, either. He was shoving Tom Long into the room ahead of him. Tom Long looked like a child against him, his face still smudged and scorched. Holly Hill tagged along right behind them, still gorgeous in her terry cloth bathrobe. And suddenly mean-looking again. The bout with her conscience was over.

  Drill’s caramel brown eyes lighted up when he saw me. His handsome brown kisser was less handsome because of the going over Ace had given him the night before, but it made him only twice as impressive. Like Davy Crockett with a black eye.

  “Howdy, Noon,” he boomed. “Glad you looked the little lady up. Saves me the trouble.” He propelled Tom Long into a chair. “Stay put, chink. And don’t try nothing. I’m running this show.”

  “What did you bring him here for?” Holly Hill snarled. She was really back in character again. “You trying to louse our deal up?”

  “Simmer down, Holly.” He flung her a glare. “I figured Noon here was woofing about what was in his office. Maybe he gave it to the chink. Maybe he didn’t. Either way I picked up Long here just to make sure. Seemed like the best idea.” He advanced on Tom Long huddled helplessly in his chair and took Tom’s thin little wrist in his hand. “Talk, boy. If old T.T. gave you something, I want it. Either that or your little old wrist will snap like a twig.”

  Tom Long raised his head. His eyes pleaded with mine. But all I was glad of was the absence of little Tania. I wouldn’t put anything past Drill.

  “Where’s the kid, Tom?” I asked softly.

  “House of friends.” His voice was like a load of dead ashes. “I was alone when he come. Tania safe.”

  Drill laughed. “Real saddle buddies, you two. Talk, chink.” He twisted the thin wrist in his big hand until Tom Long whimpered in pain.
>
  “All right, cowboy,” I said evenly. “You can stop showing your muscles. The bill is in my pocket. In my wallet.”

  “That’s right, Drill.” Holly Hill blurted. “I was just about to tell you. Noon spilled his guts while I was holding him for you.”

  Drill let go of Tom Long’s wrist and his eyes swept over the pair of us. But he couldn’t hide his satisfaction.

  “I’ll just bet you was, Holly.” His eyes narrowed. “Give me your gun, girl. And get it from him.”

  She handed him the .45. It looked like a cap pistol in his big fingers. I stood up and let Holly come around me and take my wallet. Her fingers riffled through it pickpocket style. The wadded bill couldn’t be missed. She tossed my wallet back to me and handed Drill the folded single. He gave her the .45 back and she sat down in the posture chair and kept it levelled at me. Drill went over to a table by the wall and thumbed a lamp on. He spread the bill in his thick fingers and bent his head to examine it. He was humming now, and it sounded crazy. He dug a thick fold of something from his pocket, fanned it out. Checked it the same way you do a map. It was a map.

  Suddenly he stopped humming and straightened. He looked at me and the caramels in his eyes had turned into ice cubes.

  “You bunkhousing me again, Noon?”

  I blinked. “Don’t tell me those numbers don’t lead you to the treasure. I’d be so disappointed.”

  Holly Hill craned her neck in his direction. “What’s the matter? Ain’t that what you wanted, Drill?”

  He shook his head and lumbered towards me, stuffing the map in his pocket. He was still wearing his elegant grey suit.

  “Noon, do you know what’s on this bill?”

  “Sure. I memorized it. The numbers fifty point five, ninety point three. And two words. El Ombre. That’s Spanish, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t clown with me, boy. I’ll chew you in half if you do.”

  Now he really had me puzzled.

  “Hold on, Drill. Tom Long gave me that wallet because he thought it fell out of my dirty clothes when I brought my laundry down. I took it and found five crisp thousand-dollar bills, and that folded dollar bill you’ve got right there. You got the wallet yesterday, and the five grand. Now you’ve got the dollar bill too. Don’t ask me what I’m doing. I hardly know myself sometimes. But I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles that that’s old T.T.’s original bill. What’s wrong?”