The Flower-Covered Corpse

by Michael Avallone

  I swallowed, tasting smoke and dirt, remembering the debacle of the Grass Gardens. And a lady named Jean Martha, not the movie star.

  "Come out, come out, wherever you are," I said slowly and it seemed to take five minutes to talk. "And turn off those bulbs. I'm pistol champ of the Bronx—"

  Something or someone loomed before me. I fought for orientation. A chair, a bed, a piece of furniture, anything. I had no sensation of placement. I couldn't feel the texture of what I was or had been lying on. Nothing but those damn travelling blue lights.

  The shadow before me was wide and squat. The voice spoke again. Just as soft and just as unhurried as before.

  "Ah, Brother Noon. Hep you may be but you are uninitiated. This is the Meditation Room of the Guru. Temple Kreshna-Rukka. Don't be frightened. This is a perfect place for us to sling words. We are—in the vernacular—up-tight, Brother Noon."

  I'm afraid I cursed.

  The voice tsk-tsked and I really lost my cool.

  "Listen, Brother Crown. Before you lay anything else out, you tell me about the last hour or so. I don't know what time it is, I don't know what happened or how I got here and this isn't a quiz show where you pay me the sixty four thousand bucks if I guess the right answer. I feel a bulge under my armpit which means I'm still packing heat. You dig? Tell me about the Grass Gardens, the dame I was with and how the hell you happened to wander back into my life. Until you do that, you're on my shit list. And the first thing you'd better do is kill those blue lights and go back to plain old Thomas Edison. You can save this routine for the kids, heaven help them. So start making sense, Brother Crown, or you could be sorry we were ever introduced."

  I waited. The words seemed to be picked up by the blue lights and ferried around the room or whatever the hell it was, like a mad carousel with a drunken driver.

  I got my answer. The blue lights stopped. There was a second of total darkness and then a click sounded and the room leaped into daylight. The daylight of electricity.

  It was a room all right. Four walls, bare wooden flooring, all parquet though and the only thing in it was myself and Brother Tod Crown. A short plain door shone behind him. There were no windows. The chair you sat on was the one you brought in with you. The ceiling was high, almost vaulted. From this, a conical contraption with slatted sides, covered with transparent celluloid, dangled like something out of a Mardi Gras. The blue-light dingus, obviously. The walls and floor of the room, which was about as big as the lobby of Radio City Music Hall, were painted a pale aquamarine. A blue room to end all blue rooms.

  It had to be an assembly hall of some kind.

  "Meditation Room, you said. Must be a lot of thinkers among the younger set."

  Tod Crown kept his distance, about five feet in front of me. The nubbin head, piano teeth and big ears were intact. The sensible grey suit, two-buttoned and handsome, had given way to a flowing robe that belted rightly at his middle with a golden cord and flowed to the floor, hiding his feet. His big dark hands idly held a standard GI machine gun. A grease gun which wasn't aimed at me but held as if he were showing off about how shiny and new and bright it was.

  "You," I said, "have got to be kidding."

  He smiled. "I did leave you your gun but you have rather more temper than I expected. You talked about shooting out lights. It pays to be prepared."

  "You didn't know that when you came in here, boy scout. You brought that toy in with you."

  "You are fast on your feet, Brother. Downey's convinced me of that. In fact—"

  "Shut up," I said. "Don't cat-and-mouse me like something out of a B movie. Tell me about the Grass Gardens."

  He shrugged but the grease gun raised about an inch higher.

  "Very well, Brother. The club where the children find time to play their games was bombed tonight. Just as you left. I was following you. I had a purpose. My car was just down the block when I saw you leave with the lady. You made a great impression on me when I saw you with Memo Morgan. He could not help me but I think now you can. Yes, yes. You could help me find Louis La Rosa. I won't bore you with numbers but your payment is more than you could make in a year."

  "To hell with your pal Louis. Tell me more about the club."

  He sighed, his eyes searching my face.

  "You had some concussion. That was when you fainted. In all that confusion, the children running for their lives, the club in flames, it was a simple matter to come forward and remove you to the more pleasant environs of my car. Nobody noticed. The firemen and the police arrived just as we turned the corner at Eighth Avenue."

  "And the lady. Don't forget the lady."

  His ivory teeth gleamed. "Charming. I did not have time to take her along. But I imagine she has alerted the police to your—shall we say—kidnapping. Dear, dear. I wonder what the good woman must think. Don't concern yourself about her. She suffered no ill effects that I could see from the blast."

  "Can I find my cigarettes without you getting nervous?" I didn't wait for his answer and tugged out a battered pack of Camels. They were crushed and jammed together. I straightened one out and lit up. "The club. What happened? Was anybody killed?"

  Tod Crown's face was a study in sorrow. For a moment, I could have easily believed he had lost a father, mother and two children in the calamity. His eyes were almost wet.

  "I didn't wait to count noses. I haven't listened to the radio, either. But it was my impression, as we left, that at least three or perhaps four flower children are no longer with us. So it goes, my dear Brother. In the midst of life, we are in death—"

  "Stop it. Don't dummy up on me."

  He blinked. A studied blink. Like the Cheshire Cat playing the fool for Alice.

  "My, my. You do speak your mind, don't you? In the face of this—" he poked the grease gun into the air, "that's downright foolish."

  "Yeah," I agreed. I stretched to my feet, feeling a bone or two pop back into place. The tickling sensation hadn't left my nose. Now that I was functioning again, I realized that the dangling light dingus was emitting some incense. Sandalwood or pot-in-the-sky. "I'm as sappy as they come. But I learn. For instance, you don't come from Chicago, you are not a real estate man and you definitely are not interested in buying a slice of a Broadway play. How's that for openers?"

  "My, my," he marvelled again, shaking his head. The robe outfit made him look as pious as a drunken monk. The grease gun wagged at me, with a mild touch of rebuke. "All right, Brother. Cards on the table. But no more lip, please. I have the gun. You are my guest until I boot you out of the door. Understood?"

  "I hear you loud and clear. But please treat me as someone who understands Basic English. What the hell is this all about?"

  "I told you. Temple Kreshna-Rukka."

  "Rotsa Ruck. Look, maybe you know about the blast at the Gardens, maybe you don't. But you snatched me. Why?"

  "I told you. You may laugh, Brother Noon, but I need you to find Louis La Rosa again."

  I fumed. "Okay. I won't ask you who the hell he is. I'll ask you why."

  "You have to know? Can't you just take my money and do the job?"

  "Yes, I have to know. I don't care about money in spite of what you may have heard."

  He sighed. A long, eternal sigh. The kind that could go on forever if the sigher doesn't put an end to it.

  "Very well. We have a deal." He allowed the grease gun to dangle from his arm, nose to the floor. "This temple is my home away from home. Which, as you rightfully deduce is not Chicago. I'm from Brooklyn. Flatbush section."

  "That is news," I said. "Go on."

  "I contacted Brother Memo Morgan for the reasons I said. He is a man who is supposed to know all that is worth knowing about the Big City. I'm surprised he didn't care to make money finding Louis La Rosa for me—"

  "I know Memo. You weren't talking Greek to him. He was running scared. The name did things to him. The first thing it did was make him run like hell out of Downey's."

  "You noticed that?" Tod Crown chuckled. "
I did too. I told him a bull story about myself because I didn't want him to remember me too correctly. It doesn't always pay to tell the truth. Besides, I'm clean. It has nothing to do with the Law. I must convince you of that too, Brother. Finding Louis La Rosa for me will not get you into any legal torment. Believe me, if you can."

  I drew long on the Camel to chase the sandalwood smell. Or the pot. My nostrils felt invaded.

  "Louis La Rosa," I said patiently. "Tell me about him."

  Tod Crown nodded, his teeth gleaming weirdly against the mahogany facade of his face. "I am truly amazed you haven't heard of him. Man, you know the Broadway scene. You are of Times Square; a contemporary. Surely, you must have heard of the man who has organized the Village into an army of the underground? The Flower Brigade? The rising tide of youth who will take the leadership of the city away from the corrupt and ungodly—?"

  He was beginning to sound like a propaganda leaflet. I held up my hands. "Time. You telling me that this La Rosa is some all-special kind of guru—some sort of tin god preaching to the hippies down in little old Greenwich Village? For Christ's sake, is that what you hijacked me up here for? To find some half-cracked Leary type who took a powder?"

  "You don't understand," he muttered. "That and you are leaping to conclusions."

  "I'm leaping all right, Brother Crown. Right out of here. It's your hangup and you're stuck with it. I'd much rather skip down to the Grass Gardens and find out why somebody tossed a bomb in there. Better hope that your guru or your movement had nothing to do with that. New York is a pain all right but there are limits. So clear the way, dear Brother, and don't try to stop me or one of us will get hurt."

  Tod Crown hesitated. The grease gun twitched in his right hand. His dark face was sad. "Please reconsider. Kreshna-Rukka will pay you a fortune to find Louis La Rosa, Brother Noon."

  "Not interested. I got troubles of my own." I edged towards the door, watching him. He could tell by my right hand that I would go for my hardware if he tried anything funny. I was betting on the small point that he wouldn't try to shoot me. What for? He had asked me to take a job and I had refused. Nothing to have a shoot-up about, was it?

  "I'm sorry you feel this way, Brother Noon."

  "Me too. You're good company, Brother Crown. We could talk over a lot of old movies. But I'm not interested in movements or men that make them. You dig?"

  "I dig." He nodded again and I lost a trick. I watched him nod and the next thing I knew which made any sense was a draught behind me, accompanied by that affectionate cliche known as something hard and cold boring a hole in the small of my back. I stiffened, unable to turn. Brother Crown looked very unhappy, his eyes on the someone who was massaging the small of my spine with what had to be the nose of a gun. Pipes and fingers don't feel like that.

  "I told you you were wasting time," a clear, cool feminine voice snapped. "This cat's a big nose with no place to smell but a police station. He's got fuzz all over him."

  "It didn't hurt to talk," Brother Crown growled. "He's an intelligent man."

  "Sure," the voice at my ear flicked like a whip. "So intelligent that now we have to kill him."

  "No!" Tod Crown blurted.

  "Yes!" the lady topped him. "I'll flip you for him, Toddy baby. Heads he's yours, tails he's mine."

  The sandalwood-pot smell was now saturated with something musky and even more cloying. The dame behind me was a walking perfume counter.

  Tod Crown sighed again, raised the grease gun and took dead aim at my chest. His eyes glittered. Sweat made a string of tiny beads on his broad forehead.

  "Very well," he said, almost gently. "I suppose you're right. Move away from him. No time like the present for unpleasant actions. I'm sorry, Brother Noon. I really am sorry."

  "Sorry?" I echoed. "You want to see a grown man cry?"

  Chapter Four

  TELL ME THE TRUTH, RUTH

  □ The cool lady voice behind me laughed. A piercing, unfunny laugh was one part hyena, and two parts Wicked Witch out of The Wizard Of Oz. The rest was I-don't-know.

  "Hold it, Toddy," the voice said, between cackles. "Turn around, fuzz baby. I want to see what you look like. You sound real iceman. Nerves of steel and all that crap."

  I turned, slowly. Tod Crown's grease gun stayed on me. I didn't have far to look.

  She stood before me, maybe two feet away. Even in the new lights of the room, with or without flickering Strobes, she was an apparition. The four walls around the three of us just made her more unbelievable. She would have stood out in the mob that usually fills Bloom-ingdale's. Or Grand Central Station.

  The gun she held was an old-fashioned duelling pistol, flintlock and all. It was mahogany and silver plated, curlicued and filigreed and a real museum piece. I had the acute notion that it would work real well if one of her fingers decided to trigger off. I wondered about her fingers. She was wearing at least five rings on both hands. All the rings were too large, ornate and had to be a gag. She looked like she had stuck both mitts in a jar of jellybeans and not come up empty.

  But the rest of her was an amazing comment on what the lack of a good protein diet, or heredity can do to the human condition.

  She was a walking skeleton. A thin, gaunt, emaciated woman with a somehow unforgettable face. The miniskirt and Sloppy Joe sweater only accented her stick-like body. She was tall, too. The crusher. She made Twiggy look overweight and well-fed. I felt all I had to do was exhale some breath and she would topple over.

  Her eyes, great green things, framed in a hauntingly good face, roved over me. The duelling pistol poked towards my nose. I backed up, only to run into the tip of Brother Crown's grease gun. They had me coming and going.

  Trapped on the trestle, as they used to say in the Dick Tracy comic strip.

  "Hmmm," the thin woman said.

  Brother Crown sighed behind my right ear. "Oh, oh," he murmured. "My, yes." He sounded amused.

  "Joke?" I asked the thin dame.

  Her green eyes had paused at my mouth. I didn't like the way she was looking at my mouth. She looked funny.

  The duelling pistol came up.

  "You make love to me, fuzz," she said, "and I just might let you get off with a beating."

  "Right here in front of Brother Crown? Tsk, tsk." I was thinking pretty fast. All the screws were loose in this room and-or building and I was about to bolt the first chance I had. Still, it paid to listen. Anytime you can talk yourself out of being shot up, do so without further delay.

  "Don't clown, Noon man," Crown muttered. Truth Ruth likes you. She don't like many men as a rule."

  "I'm honoured," I Admitted, not taking my eyes off her or her ancient hardware. "But how come?"

  She glared at me.

  "You're taller than I am. That's a switch. You look healthy. I'm tired of laying down for men with long hair. You look masculine, fickle face. I like that. I'll let you lay me for openers. If you're good—we'll just have you worked over a little. Not enough to show, Just enough to help you keep your trap shut about Kreshna-Ilukka and the Guru. Deal?"

  "Now look here, Ruth—"

  "Truth Ruth," she shrilled, "and don't you forget it. I never lie, I uphold honesty and sincerity is my platform. Remember that"

  "I'll try, Truth Ruth. But truth to tell—"

  Tod Crown had moved away from behind me. He started for the door, smiling benignly and slinging his grease gun. He felt glad obviously that I wasn't to be killed by his Boss Lady but I didn't know where that left me.

  "Where are you going?" I blurted.

  "You don't need me. I am not a voyeur. I shall stand on guard outside to ensure that you give Truth Ruth what she wants from you. You can't escape, Brother Noon. I should say you ought to be pleased. Our Sister does not like all men."

  "Get rough," the lady showed me her teeth. "And I'll shoot you up before you can lay a hand on me."

  "How will you be able to tell?" I almost snarled right back. The situation was now completely ridiculous. If I played t
he stud, I got out alive. Bruised but alive. If I didn't, I got killed. The mad evening had come to its final, inexorable totem pole of weird unreality.

  I didn't think I could deliver. That was the kicker. Truth Ruth didn't have a curve or a bump on her that could be remotely considered feminine. It would be like making love to a tree in Bronx Park.

  Tod Crown was out of the door before I could beg for additional mercy. Truth Ruth didn't even watch him go. She kept on staling at me. I thought I saw some honest lust in her green eyes but I wasn't sure.

  The door latched shut.

  I waited. Sounds funny, doesn't it? Just try it sometime. Try working up the zest for a dish that has no appeal whatsoever. I've seen clothes lines that had more sex appeal than Truth Ruth did.

  The silence in the bare, windowless room was unbearable.

  "You're serious," I said.

  "I am." Her voice had fallen lower. Right out of the book.

  "You go for me, huh?"

  "Say I'm curious. You just start undressing. I'll get the lights—"

  There was hope. "Why? You a prude?"

  She flung me a look of utter contempt. "You don't know. You just don't. To make love by the flickering lights—that is true love. To shake off this civilization, this trap. You'll see. You are sceptical now. But the lights will convince you—"

  "There's nothing to lie on," I protested.

  "The floor, dear fuzz. It was here long before any bed. Wait. You will see . . . I think . . . I may surprise you . . . you may like me, bag of bones that I am . . . many men have."

  Before I could make a comeback to that, the lights went out. Rather, Con Ed did. And then those damn, whirling, kaleidoscoping Strobes started in again. The sandalwood smell was thicker than ever. I waited for her in the darkness, trying to pick up her skeletal outline in the gloom.

  Under the lights, she was as wispy and ethereal as a mirage. I heard her voice, coming out of the cockeyed ozone, the weird lighting set-up.

  "You have a gun. It is loaded. But you will not use it. Or try to. I will come to you, willingly. If you fight, there is the door and Brother Crown waiting. If I cry for help, he will come in and kill you, even though he does seem fond of you. Think, Brother Noon. Is it so awful to make love to Truth Ruth? If you only knew my power here, my greatness. I could shake my hand and the whole building would fall down on you and crush you. Only the Guru is stronger than I. Do you hear me, fuzz?"