The Alarming Clock

by Michael Avallone

  The room in which we had spent the better part of the day started to resemble that crowded stateroom in that old Marx Bros. picture, A Night at the Opera. The scene that is still famous the world over.

  The room was hustling and bustling with the same kind of mad, mixed-up activity but the resemblance ended right there. The Marx pic was funny. This wasn’t.

  Maxim and Fairways were both going for their guns when Alec and I both had the same idea. We fanned out on a line and each took out a man the same way they do it on a football field. I took on the bigger Fairways while Alec settled for Maxim. I could see he wanted it that way anyhow.

  We both forgot about Myra Colby because with a scream of sound that reeked with anticipation, Alma had closed in on her. They came together in the centre of the room like a pair of alley cats suddenly bumping into each other near a garbage can on Fish Day.

  Alma’s open hand slammed into Myra Colby’s curved cheek with a pistol shot of noise. She followed it right up with a left. The rapidly outclassed Colby in the tailored trunks stopped acting like a lady and clouted Alma in the midriff. In a flash they were locked together and pretty soon it was a plain case of Blonde v. Brunette.

  Fairways was tugging something that wasn’t a Luger but a good, old-fashioned .38 revolver out of his inside holster. It never cleared his coat. I grabbed yards of his suit on the left side and yanked hard. Maybe it was a cheap suit, maybe I’ve got some muscle but the material split apart in my fingers, the gun spilling to the floor. My other hand express-trained in for his clean-cut jaw. His eyes rolled in panic but so did his jaw so that my damaging right sailed harmlessly past his neck.

  Downstairs a machine gun did its damnedest to sound like a typewriter in a busy office but no typewriter was ever that loud. Between its spaced bursts, several shots rang out. But everybody was too busy right then to take much notice.

  Fairways sunk his meaty left into my stomach. I folded over his mitt like an accordion, the wind charging out of me. But my hands found his big neck and squeezed. He erupted and swung around trying to shake me off the way a terrier does a rat but I hung on. We waltzed around, changing positions, and the rest of the Pier 6 brawl came into focus.

  Just in time to see one of Alec’s shiny deadly-looking hooks flash down to pin Maxim’s undamaged hand to the floor, inches away from a Luger that Maxim had been reaching for. Maxim screamed like a woman and tugged his hand loose and tried to flounder erect but Alec was having his day. His knee came up hard and poor Max had had it. He went down on one knee again, both hands dangling helplessly, stomach pains twisting his small cat’s face out of all recognition. And Alec lowered his head and butted. Butted hard. Maxim’s head snapped up and he toppled over the way he might if he had suddenly run into a stone wall. Well, he had.

  Alma and Myra Colby were reeling around like contestants for the Saturday Night Samba dancing trophy knocking over all the mismatched chairs in the process. Miss Colby’s clothes were now in no better shape than Alma’s. They were both practically in rags. Alma looked like she had things under control though. Even if they were both scratching, clawing, breathing hard.

  I got back to Fairways. He’d been pounding my middle hard but we were too close for him to do himself any real good. I was still working into his neck with my fingers. His cheeks were filling out like a balloon, his eyes starting to back up in his head.

  I waited just long enough, released him suddenly, and as he rocked back on his heels fighting to reassemble all the new oxygen he was collecting, I teed off on him. Just once.

  “You shouldn’t smoke such big cigars,” I rasped, bringing the punch from well back behind my right ear, waving off Alec who had just begun to stumble to my rescue.

  It was some punch. Later on he might swear under oath that I’d hit him with a hammer. Anyway, it was just as good as a hammer.

  He went back and over like a tenpin flying into the back cushion of the alley and disappeared behind one of the overturned chairs about a yard away from the fallen Maxim.

  I shook my head which was beginning to act up again. Downstairs didn’t sound so much like a shooting gallery any more. But heavy shoes were clumping on the stairs, coming up.

  Myra Colby suddenly howled on a high babble of pain. A glance at the centre of the room told me which way that skirmish had come out.

  Alma was behind Myra Colby, turning her slim, white arm behind her like a crank on one of those old Model T’s. Miss Colby’s sensual nostrils were really pinched upwards this time. But not with sex. Pain and fear were scaring the hell out of her.

  “Say it,” Alma hissed, her mouth almost touching the well-shaped Colby ear. “I’m a bitch, I’m a bitch, I’m a bitch. A two-faced bitch.”

  The brunette tried once more to twist away but Alma angled her arm with relish and Miss Colby moaned.

  “Say it, Colby, or I’ll snap your arm off at the elbow.”

  Myra Colby suddenly shrieked like a parrot. “I’m a bitch, I’m a bitch, I’m a bitch—” Her voice trailed off.

  “A two-faced bitch,” Alma gritted.

  “A two-faced bitch—”

  That’s all Alma wanted to hear. She shoved Myra Colby away from her contemptuously and the tall, no-longer-cool young lady shot towards the wall, twisted to avoid a face-forward contact, hit the wall anyway and collapsed in a sobbing heap to the floor where the wall meets it.

  “What the hell,” somebody barked behind me. “Thought you birds needed help.”

  “The voice of the only policeman I love,” I said happily. Turning, I got Captain Michael Monks’s official scowl full-tilt. And a couple of others for good measure. Flanking him in the doorway were several old friends. Namely McAdoo, Cohn, Ambruzzi and two burly bluecoats. “Come in, Mike. You never were more welcome. I hope you brought along a lot of handcuffs.”

  Captain Monks grunted and pocketed his Police Special. His crew moved in behind him. They were all carrying guns. Some of them looked like they were still smoking.

  McAdoo walked over to Fairways, bent over him and closed a set of cuffs on his wrists. Cohn was frowning down at the battered Maxim.

  “This guy needs first aid,” he said to nobody in particular.

  “Cuff him anyway,” I said. “And don’t feel sorry for him. The odds are still all in his favour.” I smiled at Alma who was sucking in lungfuls of air. “Lady, are you tough. You scare me. If you’re a husband-beater, let’s call the whole thing off right now.”

  She was still breathing fire and smoke. Her breasts were heaving. “Can’t help it, Ed.” She glared in Myra Colby’s direction. “I don’t like social stinkers.”

  Alec St. Peter had slumped to a chair. The flush of the fight was still in his beaten face.

  “Nice going, kid,” I congratulated him. “Nobody else I’d rather have with me in a war.” I dug something out of my pocket, gave it to him.

  “Thanks, Sarge,” he said feebly. But he took his Soldier’s Medal back with genuine gratitude. It twinkled on the end of one of his hooks.

  Monks surveyed the room and grunted again. He walked over to the doorway where Otto was still out for the count and busied himself with something on the floor. He walked back to me, turning it over and over in his fingers. It was the clock I had struck out Otto with.

  “I see you got my message,” I said.

  “Huh?” The sudden puzzlement in his eyes evaporated under the heat of a slow grin. “Nice arrangement you have with your bartender friend. You bang on car horns and he copies down license plates. It might have taken longer than this at that but this dame came charging back to your place and charging out again. So it was an easier tail than usual. What did she do? Forget her lipstick or something?”

  I explained it all as best as I could trying hard not to make it sound like a bad TV movie while his squad cleaned up operations with our former jailers.

  Monks shrugged mammothly when I finished.

  “You ought to bet on horses, Ed. With your luck, you can’t miss.”


  “Just like my friend Louis says,” Ambruzzi chimed in, looking up from his satisfied inspection of Myra Colby. “The man has an amazing mouth.”

  “Oh, hell!” Cohn said out loud from his corner of the room. McAdoo laughed right on the heels of it.

  “Thanks, Tony,” I told Ambruzzi. I looked at McAdoo. “Surprised to see you three again. Thought I was out of your precinct.”

  McAdoo shrugged. “You were and are. But we turned in the first report. We’re entitled to follow up. On approval of course.”

  “I approved,” Monks snapped. “They’re three good men.”

  I thought of something else.

  “There are other people in this party. What happened to them?”

  Monks’ smile was dry ice.

  “That reception committee downstairs? They wouldn’t let us come in. So we had to play it rough. They won’t be receiving visitors anymore. Not anywhere, any place, any time.”

  Well, that was it, I told myself. There wasn’t anything else except the clock and its damnable secret. And I had that. The clock I mean.

  Monks must have read my mind. Because he was suddenly holding the clock up right under my nose.

  “Well, is this it?”

  “Is this what?” I blurted still wrapped in yards of thought.

  “Now, look,” he said icily. “Be a little grateful. I’m your old pal, remember? The nice policeman. Don’t get cute at this stage of the game. Ritz is still dead. And he was still murdered in your office. You told me this whole business was all about a clock that a bunch of subversives were trying to get their hands on. I even got in touch with the FBI in New York about it. But red tape being what it is, they’re waiting and I’m waiting for a full report from Washington. Okay? Now give me the straight goods.”

  “No,” I said. “That’s not the clock Roland Ritz left with me. I made a last-minute switch. The real clock is back in my office.”

  “Okay. That’s better. After we get this bunch where they belong, we’ll go and have a look-see.”

  I nodded. “Fair enough, Mike. But any objections if Alec, Alma and myself take off? We could get together in my office.” I looked at my watch. “Say seven o’clock. How’s that?”

  He started to get suspicious, then thought better of it. Or maybe the sight of Alec and Alma and their pitiful condition sartorially and physically convinced him.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “But no funny business. I’ll be in your office at seven sharp. Be there. All three of you.”

  They were still mopping up things and making telephone calls when we took our weary leave of them. Myra Colby looked up from her cuffed lovely wrists and smiled mockingly at me. I didn’t like that smile at all. For some reason it bothered me. There she was, all the way at the bottom of the social scheme of things with the future of a jailbird but she was smiling.

  I tried to shake the feeling off all the way back to the office but I couldn’t. The cab driver didn’t help at all. He was old, needed glasses and missed a bus on Madison Avenue by no more than a hub cap.

  But Alma was home again, Alec was safe and on the mend and most of my troubles were over. Once I turned the clock over to Monks and they found which particular Luger had done in poor Roland Ritz, I was pretty much in the clear. I started to feel better so I relaxed.

  It’s a great world though. As complex as a radio cycle. A half hour later all my troubles had started all over again.

  It took just one step over my threshold to know that my rainbow had suddenly turned muddy. Alec and Alma were right behind me but I was past all help now.

  Somebody else had seen that picture with Milland and his cute place for hiding a whisky bottle. They must have.

  Because even from where I was standing in the open doorway, I could see that the glass collar under the overheads was empty of everything but room dust and maybe a stray cockroach.

  The damn clock was gone. Not here. Missing. Away. Out of sight. Nowhere that I knew.

  I cursed. Out loud. Not caring that Alma was present. Only knowing that Mike Monks would never believe me. And maybe the trouble would be starting all over again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I was still cursing when Alma said, “Tsk, tsk,” and Alec laughed. They couldn’t know what was bothering me just yet. So I got hold of myself and fought off the feeling of defeat and disgust gnawing at my brain. I went over to my desk and flopped down behind it. I stared at them both until they seemed to realize that something bad had happened.

  “It isn’t there any more,” I said. “It’s gone with the wind all over again, a bad day in the market and no fit weather for little boys and girls.”

  “Ed—” Alma never could understand my rambling when I was legitimately upset. “What are you talking about?”

  I poked a weary finger into the atmosphere up toward the overheads.

  “The clock is gone. I parked it under the bulbs where I thought it would be safe but somebody else saw The Lost Weekend too. That damn clock. I’ve just about had my fill of it.”

  Alec and Alma exchanged worried glances.

  “But who could it be, Ed?” It was Alma who asked the question that was bothering the brains out of my head. “Everybody’s in jail now who was mixed up in this mess.”

  Alec’s face suddenly lit up with an idea. “Unless that Colby dame—”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Unless that Colby dame spotted it when she came back here for your hooks and got some cute ideas. But what ideas? And where did she put it if she did take it? She might be double-crossing her pals, of course, but she sure would have spilled the beans back in the Village when the cops upset the applecart.”

  “You don’t know her like I do,” Alma hissed. “Give her time. She’s got so much influence she might walk out of Monks’ nice jail scot free an hour from now.”

  I couldn’t buy that. “No dice, Wheeler. Murder or some other kind of trouble—maybe. But on a rap like conspiring against the Government—uh, uh.” I was still thinking of that funny smile she was wearing when we had left. Had that meant this? That she had the clock? “I honestly don’t get it. Unless there’s another faction working on this clock thing that we haven’t heard from yet.”

  “What are we going to do now, Ed?” Alma asked. “Monks will be here at seven expecting you to produce. And—”

  “Forget it.” I smiled even though I didn’t feel like smiling. “Right now you two start putting yourselves back in shape. Get cleaned up, throw a hot meal under your belts and take a nap or something. I’ll hold the fort. I might get a phone call or something. Where are you staying, Wheeler?”

  She grinned. “Nothing but the best—the Waldorf.”

  “Good. That’s close enough so we can meet early. And for Heaven’s sake—change out of those rags. You still look as if you got out of the bedroom in the nick of time. I’ll give you enough time before I pick you up again.”

  We shared a look that only two people can share who have shared something. Alec sensed it and coughed in embarrassment. I gave him a phony frown.

  “You beat it down the hall, Alec and get some rest. Anything comes up, I’ll call you right off. I’m still going to need you to crack that clock for me if I ever have it in my hands again.”

  He got to his feet stiffly, swinging the kinks out of his arms, the hooks glistening. “Okay,” he said. “I am beat. See you two lovebirds later. Bye Alma—it’s been fun.”

  “Bye, Alec,” she smiled after him. “Believe me, that’s mutual.”

  The door closed behind him and in the brief silence that followed we could hear him clump down the corridor. Then his office door banged shut.

  It was almost like a signal for the two of us. We met half-way and Alma was in my arms hanging on like a girl who never wants to let go.

  “Ed, Ed—” she crooned yearningly.

  “Quiet,” I said softly into the honeyed forest of her hair. “Don’t tell me you were scared because it was almost all over and it looked like maybe our last duet together. Eve
n if it is true. It was close, all right, Rabbit. Very close. But it isn’t any more. And maybe we might still celebrate a Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary some day—”

  She kissed me. Or I kissed her. Either way, our lips clung and clocks and Reds and murder was something that was troubling some other guy. Not me.

  I pulled away from her reluctantly.

  “Beat it, Wheeler. Right now. Do like I said. Then I’ll call you. I’ve still got work to do.”

  She straightened her rags with a laugh. A deep sigh escaped her.

  “Tough guy. That’s you, Ed Noon. But a sweeter, more adorable nicer guy never—”

  I hustled her out of the office before she could finish, before I forgot too much about everything. This Wheeler dame made me pop my springs, wobbled my motor and generally threw me all out of kilter. But I wasn’t the first guy to fall hook, line and sinker. And I wouldn’t be the last, either.

  Alma was still happy when I installed her in the elevator. We had one last kiss and then the door closed and the car fell. The bad carpet underneath my feet felt like Cloud Number Five and the crummy lights twinkled like stardust. But I somehow managed to get back into my office and behind the desk again without getting too far from my current problems.

  The clock. The important clock. A cheap, three dollar timepiece that had everybody up in the air a different way. Up in the air. I put my fingers on my throbbing head and rubbed the idea that flitted into my brain like it was Aladdin’s lamp. But nothing happened. The wires had gone dead. I was beaten, brain-weary and just plain fatigued. I closed my eyes.

  The ringing of the phone woke me up. For a second I was paralysed, thinking maybe I’d slept too long but a fast look at my watch convinced me. It had been only twenty minutes since I conked out.

  Alert now, I threw the receiver to my ear and huddled to it. Then I relaxed. Benny’s amiable foghorn was bulling into my ear.

  “Nice going, Benny,” I cut into his hello. “You have just graduated from the Noon School of Detection at the head of the class. That license deal really pulled my fat out of the fire. Tell you what, out of sheer gratitude I’ll continue to drink in your bar until my last breath. How’s that?”