The Flower-Covered Corpse

by Michael Avallone

  Light blond hair stippled the area between the nipples of his chest. There were only two other items of interest about his corpse.

  One was the ugly, faintly brownish line around the base of his soft throat. It had closed over itself seeming like a necklace at first glance until you remembered it had to be the spot where the killing wire had bit in.

  The second was a small tattoo of some kind, so close to the teat of his left breast that it looked like a third one. But it wasn't that at all. It was an owl. No more than one inch in height. A red owl dripping two painted drops of what had to be a blood motif. The owl was facing the observer, all wide round eyes. As small as it was, the owl's world-famous quizzical look had been justly rendered.

  "Seen enough?"

  Monks placed both his thumbs down on Louis La Rosa's eyelids and shut them gently but firmly. They stayed closed this time.

  I stepped back. Monks slid the drawer shut. It made a smoothly whirring sound until it clicked into place. We didn't say anything else until we were back in the corridor with the morgue door closed behind us. The caretaker had gone back to his Times after waving farewell to Monks.

  "He must have made a great Guru," I said. "His size. The beard. Imagine being an impressionable teenager and listening to him spout his pitch."

  Monks wasn't concerned with that. "Did you ever see him before?"

  "Never." I tried to give him a Camel but he shook me off impatiently. "You didn't say a word about the owl."

  "Owl?" He snorted. "Big deal. So he's got a tattoo. Listen, I've got Death Before Dishonour tattoed on my right arm from the time I got drunk in the Marine Corps before we went overseas. So what? It couldn't have a thing to do with him getting killed."

  "Maybe. Maybe not. Anyhow, it's interesting."

  "Sure," he agreed sourly. "And if it was a naked shimmy dancer, it would even be more interesting. I couldn't care less right now. All that does interest me is that he's a homicide. An unsolved homicide and I want your promise you'll just keep me posted on anything you do in the future that relates to this case."

  "I'll keep you posted. Scout's honour."

  "You are not a boy scout. I want your word, Ed."

  "You got it."

  That seemed to satisfy him. "Okay. Walk me back upstairs. You can buzz off now. If I need you, I'll call you. I think I can keep the D.A. off your back. I expect this case to keep me hopping all this week. With all this hippie junk going on, a lot of biggies are going to be demanding action."

  "The Mayor will be pleased that you care enough to do your very best."

  He winced.

  "Don't joke. He called me first thing this morning. And only because the Governor called him. It's the old Army game every time. As soon as the buck is up, somebody passes it."

  "That figures."

  We had reached the ground floor level. Patrolmen loitered at their desks, the assignment boards, the phones. Monks looked right through all of them.

  "Funny," he muttered, "how those damn eyes of his were open. Gives you the creeps. You never know."

  "Any next of kin?"

  "None. With all his crowd and his Temple, there's nobody. Have to see if anybody at all is interested in his body. Nobody's showed up yet and there's nobody really. To ask, that is."

  We separated in the lobby. He was going back upstairs and I was heading out. There was a lot to do with the rest of the day.

  "Mike?"

  "Yeah."

  "When was the last time you saw All Quiet On The Western Front?"

  As well as he knew me, he gaped. "What the hell has that to do with the price of eggs?"

  "Just asking. Never mind. You answered my question already. See you later, alligator."

  He was shaking his head and his big shoulders as I left. Then he cleared his throat and lumbered up the stairway. His image was intact.

  I tramped out of Headquarters thinking about Louis La Rosa's eyes, red bloody owl tattoos and boots, boots, boots.

  There was only one real link back to yesterday in the whole mess. One actual person who had to have a clue of some kind as to the nature of the idiotic playacting that had been set in motion at seven o'clock the day before.

  Nothing, of course, made much sense.

  But one man could help me to understand why it was all so weird and insane.

  Memo Morgan.

  The man with the milliondollar memory.

  The man on whom the name of Louis La Rosa had had such a remarkable effect.

  I intended to see him as fast as a cab could get me back to the office.

  Where was he at midnight when Louis La Rosa was murdered, Thuggee style?

  Chapter Eight

  GIVE ALL YOUR MEMOS

  TO MORGAN

  □ I called Melissa Mercer from a pay phone in a candy store about a block away from Headquarters. The air was crisp and fine. It bit into your nostrils and made your lungs ache. For once, the polluted city aromas were taking a back seat to Mother Nature.

  Stone, steel and commerce on wheels were being whipped and lashed and air-conditioned by ten degrees above zero. My salt and pepper topcoat with the raglan sleeves flapped around me like bird wings.

  Melissa answered the phone on the second ring.

  "It's your lord and master," I said. "What gives?"

  Her sigh of relief shattered my already popping ear.

  "Everything okay?"

  "Sure. Monks wants me to help catch the murderer."

  "Why not? You're better than the Royal Northwest Mounted."

  "I do sit a horse well," I admitted.

  She laughed, that quiet little chuckle that had last-night etched all over it. "I like that. I'll take you over the jumps yet. Listen. No time for small talk. I've been busy."

  "I was hoping you would be. Any luck with Morgan?"

  "He's got an answering service. Hayes Registry. I left a message but he hasn't called back yet. And I talked to Jean Martha. She was really relieved you were okay. Thought for sure you were dead or something. She sounded like she'd been crying all night The effect you have on women. I think you ought to call her."

  "I will. Anything else?"

  "No. Your red, white and blue hot line has been quiet. No calls from D.C. today. And not a client for miles around." She was referring to the elegant Ameche that occasionally sent me off winging on government business. Sometimes I worked for the President himself. But that's another story. Another case.

  "What about the mail?"

  "The usual. Phone bill, electric bill and an ad from Famous Writers. You want to be a writer, Ed?"

  "Sure. You can take all my dictation."

  I don't know why the hell I was being risque with her all of a sudden. I didn't feel risque. Unless I was trying to forget that fat carcass of Louis La Rosa. She must have sensed even something as nebulous as that. Funny the things a smart woman can know about you after sleeping with you.

  "Was it that bad at Headquarters, Ed?"

  "I saw La Rosa in the downstairs morgue. The dead are so awfully dead. You know. I never feel like tossing my cookies around them. Nothing like that. But it's so solemn and quiet it gets to you. I felt like kicking dogs when I got out of there."

  "I hate funerals for the same reason. I always expect whoever's in the coffin to sit up and say quit acting foolish all you people and go enjoy yourselves." She took a deep breath and skipped past the subject. "About Mr. La Rosa. I got a lot of dope on him from your newspaper friend and the library files. About three pages worth. You want it now or will you wait until you get home?"

  I was way ahead of her. "I'm going to stop by Morgan's place before I check into the office. It's on the way, "practically. La Rosa's file can wait unless you can give me a quick run-down. Anything real unusual?"

  "Well—" She must have referred to her list. Probably had it on the desk in front of her. "Just for openers, he was only twenty-nine years old, was born on the Staten Island ferry according to his bio handouts to newspapers and came home from Vietnam
about two years ago with a Purple Heart and a Silver Star. He was discharged with shrapnel wounds close to his heart. Still had some of the metal in him. That was when he suddenly began showing up on the streets of the Village in robes and selling pamphlets for peace. Pretty soon, he had this guru reputation going and contributions came in and then he had his Temple Kreshna-Rukka—"

  "Hold on. Time." I had heard enough without interterrupting. "We talking about the same La Rosa? Twenty-nine, Vietnam war hero? It can't be. The services don't take guys over three hundred pounds and don't tell me he was the ninety-seven pound weakling who took Charles Atlas lessons by mail and turned into a monster overnight."

  "I'm coming to that. Last year, he did an Eat-In as a protest against the starving children of the world. He put on one hundred and twenty-five pounds in about ten months. It's one of the stunts that made him news and made the kids pay attention to him."

  I shook my head at the phone as if she could have seen me.

  "This just doesn't add up but I'll wait until I see the stuff with my own eyes. Any other glaring inconsistencies?"

  "Well, there's a lot here but how about the time he chased two Black Muslim representatives down Mac Dougal Alley waving a pistol and a sabre? Seems he didn't want them to use his crusade or Temple as a pressure group in their fight. That made a lot of papers too."

  "I don't remember any of this. Where was I?"

  "On the high seas, taking an ocean trip, for your country. Last Spring or thereabouts. Remember?"

  I made a quick decision. "Look, that's enough for me to chew on. Hold the fort until I get back. See you sometime this afternoon. I won't be too long. I promise."

  She sighed helplessly. She sounded like a wife, now.

  "Sure, sure. That and forty cents will get us both on the subway."

  "See you, Mel."

  "Take care."

  I squeezed out of the booth, feeling the cool air again and shuddered. The facts were all cockeyed and there was rottenness in Manhattan as well as Denmark. If Melissa's facts were straight, there was a lot to say for Louis La Rosa. A good lot.

  False prophet or misguided bunkum artist, he had obviously been somewhat on the side of the angels. Anybody who says no to the Black Muslims and picks up shrapnel wounds in Vietnam and eats himself into a freak for a worthy cause, can't be all bad.

  The W.C. Fields intonation was on my murmuring lips as I walked out of the candy store to find another cab to shoot me to West Forty Sixth Street and Ninth Avenue to pay a surprise visit to the home of Memo Morgan. He was within walking distance of the mouse auditorium.

  "Who got Louis?"

  There was nobody within hearing distance to think I was nuts talking to myself. Or to give me the answer, either.

  But I could bet Brother Tod Crown, Sister Truth Ruth and Joe Violets and his bunch could.

  And, of course, Memo Morgan.

  His door was the second down the hall to the right of the top of the first landing. Number 8. A forlorn, painted portal that had been daubed with the brush to cover a multitude of cracks, splits and faults in the wood. Memo Morgan's domicile was just another apartment in one of those sad, eye-sore brownstones that crowd a neighbourhood now heavily garnished and peopled with Latin American sights and sounds. The sidewalk outside was a dismal battery of garbage pails with untidy covers and scarred fire hydrants scrawled with such valentine sentiments as PUERTO RICO FOREVER. It was a school day in the middle of the week but I had to dodge about five teenagers playing pitch-penny outside on the front stoop when the cab dropped me off. Five sets of dark eyes turned the other way, freezing into statues dressed in leather wind breakers and tight jeans and scuffed sneakers. Long black hair, tousled and uncombed, side-burned and defiant, tossed in the wind. Small wonder. I had truant officer written all over me.

  There was a bell pimpling the frame of Morgan's door. Before forefingering it, I changed my mind and raised my hand to knock lightly. I hate bells, I figured maybe he did too. I didn't want him to cut his throat if he happened to be shaving. I wasn't sure he was in but I sensed that he might be. There is an aura to an apartment that has somebody in it. You sense it as well as hear it. Don't ask me why.

  The hall was narrow and gloomy. And cramped. I had just enough space to turn around in. I rapped on the door, shave-and-haircut rhythm. A long silence followed.

  I rapped again. A little louder.

  "Memo," I called out. "It's Noon. Want to talk to you."

  There was another pause and then I heard his familiar raspy voice stammer out a response. "Yeah? Who's there?"

  "Noon," I said again, knowing damn well he had heard me the first time. He had always told me how good his hearing was. "Ed Noon."

  "Oh—sure. Wait a minute, Ed—" Heavy feet pattered towards the door. It swept open half-way. Memo Morgan stepped back and stared at me. He was standing with his baggy clown pants drooping, his shirt was open about three buttons' worth and his lumpy face with its slitted eyes, broken nose and gash-mouth managed a weak smile.

  "Come on in. I was just making myself some coffee—"

  "Good deal. I could use some jamoke myself."

  He backed further into the room. I followed him, holding on to the doorknob. As I cleared the threshold of the dim apartment, I let the door go, propelling it like a battering ram.

  The guy standing behind it let out a howl that could have been heard in Brooklyn. I shot over to the right side of the room, .45 out and ready. Memo Morgan's face lost some colour and he started to shake his head from left to right like a confused dog. The poor bastard behind the door tottered out, both hands clutching his nose, trying to stem the flow of blood from both nostrils. He didn't care anymore about me or the fact that his gun, a long-nosed .38 had skidded to the faded linoleum of the floor.

  Across the room, sitting as cool as ice water, in another faded furnishing, a badly-upholstered lounge chair, sat another man. Like Morgan, though they didn't have a thing in common, he was shaking his head too. At a lot of things. His dumb partner, the .45 in my hand, the bolixed-up play or maybe just Life itself.

  Morgan's rooms were beyond description. There was a kitchen with a cast-iron stove, a built-in shower stall and everything was wide open though small. We were all centred in the heart of the place. There was only one big window, dark and soot-covered. You knew it had to face a backyard where no sunshine ever shone.

  "Close the door, Raf," the man in the chair said, as if he were chilly. "And go dry your nose. You're lucky you didn't lose your teeth." His eyes were on me. Cold, impersonal.

  I recognized him. "You're The Ice Man."

  He nodded and pointed a finger at me. The same way you would aim a gun at somebody you wanted to kill.

  "You could be dead very soon if you don't turn around and walk out of here, cowboy."

  I shook my head, one eye on his partner Raf who was still busy with his running nose. Memo Morgan was rooted where he stood, not knowing whether to salute or run.

  "I've got the gun, Ice Man." To remind him of that, I cocked it. He didn't answer but let his eyes rove over me, from heel to head. His eyes were like a snake's. You could see them travel, see how they masked a personality that could have watched a child stick his hand into a roaring fire without batting an eyelash.

  He was tall and thin and dressed like your friendly neighbourhood movie star. Impeccable sharkskin that was now too loud and too fancy and somehow out of style. A porkpie hat of matching brown slanted over his forehead. His face was dead. An ordinary face with a formal arrangement of lips, mouth and nose that could have been mistaken for a thousand other guys. But his pale dead colouring and those eyes made it a face to remember. I remembered him very well. I had seen him in the TV newsreels when Bartley Fleming, the steel man, had been found sliced open on his Larchmont lawn in upstate New York. They had dragged The Ice Man in on the charge. A high-priced Mafia lawyer had got him off. The case was still unclosed on the Department books.

  The smart newspaper crowd had hung Th
e Ice Man tag on him and it had stuck. Godkin was his real name. Robert Godkin. One of the real executioners for the Syndicate.

  So he sat in a chair in Memo Morgan's home.

  And I wondered who had sent him to put the squeeze on Morgan.

  "You hadn't oughta done that, Ed," Memo wailed, trying to make nice for his guests. "We were just having a bull session. Now look what you did to poor Raf."

  "Stop trying to get on their good side, Memo. They haven't got one. Raf, go stand over by The Ice Man. Forget about that heater on the floor. You'd be too late no matter how fast you might be."

  The man called Raf made a mewing sound in his throat and lurched towards The Ice Man's chair. He was squat and powerfully built. A barrel chest on tapering legs. His suit was a dark black one. He also had a standard pock-marked swarthy face. Like someone out of an old Cagney gangster movie.

  The Ice Man hadn't batted an eyelash.

  "You still have time to leave, Noon. This is a deal you'll want no part of."

  "You're sure of that?"

  "So sure that I'll remind you of what you're up against. This Morgan of yours welched on a bet. About fifteen thousand dollars worth of welch. I've been sent to ask him for it. We didn't lay a finger on him. Yet. So what business is it of yours? You're not Law. You can't even be a good friend of a bum like this. I know you. You moved up now. High-class. Why mess your fingers in a pie that belongs to some pretty big boys in this town? They could put you out of business in five minutes. With a phone call or a bullet when you're eating a salami sandwich in your favourite restaurant So why not run along, huh?"

  "Ed," Morgan stammered, gulping. "Do like he says. You don't wanta get hurt. I'll raise the dough somehow—it's okay."

  I shook my head. "You think I've stayed alive this long swallowing fish? Memo, you never bet on the nags in your life. Or anything else. You're the seller, not the buyer. Only sure things for you. Nobody would take your marker for fifteen big ones. You haven't got that kind of loot. If you had you would have moved out of this dump years ago. Try again, Ice Man."