The Flower-Covered Corpse

by Michael Avallone

  Raf snarled, poking his face out from behind his bloodstained fingers. His running nose had dried up a little.

  "You'll eat horseshit when I'm through with you, Buster. Go on. Get out while you can. You're butting a stone wall."

  "Shut up, Bunker," The Ice Man said coldly. His eyes had never left my face. "What do you want, Noon—or what does it take to make you go away?"

  I spun the .45. Raf Bunker jumped reflexively and Memo Morgan yelped. The Ice Man almost smiled at the grandstand play. But he understood me. Only wild kids or old China hands will try to do the Gary Cooper bit with a Colt automatic.

  The Ice Man knew which brand I was.

  "Ice Man, you either tell me or I'll get it from Morgan after I turn you over to the cops. I'll take it from you if I get it straight. Then maybe I'll let you walk out of here to kill somebody else. You came to this dump, you a high-priced executioner, to run an errand like collecting a bet? I don't buy that. I think you came here because a man named Louis La Rosa got killed last night. And somehow that makes your boss or bosses nervous. You think maybe Morgan has some connection with it because yesterday he was with me and a man called Tod Crown in Downey's. Crown was one of La Rosa's lieutenants and was looking for him because he had disappeared. And if memory serves me, you still work for Augie French. And that means numbers, prostitution, go-go joints and dat ol' debbil—the dope racket. And kids buy dope, lots of it. And Louis La Rosa knew a lot of kids. He had a whole temple full of them. If I'm getting warm, you can nod your head now and then."

  The Ice Man finally smiled. Raf Bunker had forgotten his nose and was working his big hands into angry fists. Memo Morgan had backed up against his wall. His clown face was losing more colour.

  "You are a prize chump, cowboy. All the way down the line. You just bought yourself a one-way ticket"

  "Sure. Any more snappy answers?"

  "The show is over. And you're it. You and the clown here. His memory and your big nose have just put Augie French on your tail. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes. Where can you run? This town isn't big enough."

  "Is that all you have to say?"

  "That's all." He unfolded his legs slowly and stood up. He was as tall as I figured. A little over six feet. His leanness made him seem taller than Raf Bunker. "Except that you let us walk out of here and start looking for a place for yourself in the world. Maybe South America or outer Mongolia. You've had it."

  "Just like that, huh?" He wasn't bluffing. I could see that. Augie French and his Syndicate buttons and his unseen power down at the places that moved the city's wheels had convinced him long ago that nobody could buck such odds. He was almost laughing on the inside. What could a private sucker with a .45 do going up against big, bad Augie French?

  He had certainly convinced Memo Morgan. Poor Memo had closed his eyes and looked like he wanted to drop through the floor. He might have been praying, too.

  Raf Bunker, taking his cue from The Ice Man, glowered and started to swagger towards the door. The Ice Man took a step towards me, as if to walk around my gun or maybe expecting me to get out of his way. He had hit me with the black magic of Augie French's name and he was sure I would fold up and die.

  "Memo," I said quietly. "What did they want from you?"

  Bunker halted. The Ice Man paused.

  Morgan blinked, shook himself. He opened his eyes. They pleaded with me to say no more.

  "Ed—let it lay. You heard them. What can you do?"

  "Tell me. Now. In short quick sentences. This isn't a quiz anymore."

  "Eddie, please—"

  "Now, Memo." The cocked .45 was pointed straight at The Ice Man's cool blue eyes.

  Memo Morgan cursed, the words tumbling out of him fast As if he wanted to get rid of them in a hurry, disavowing any connection with what he was saying.

  "There's ten pounds of horse missing," he blurted, "and they think I know where it is! Me! All because we were seen talking to that Crown guy last night"

  Raf Bunker tried to belt him with a swinging hand but Memo was too far away. The Ice Man's cold face suddenly showed a little red corpuscle or two. I smiled. The big bad bluff had backfired. Memo Morgan had opened up at last. Finding some kind of angry courage in the few seconds that had preceded The Ice Man's easy exit from his home. His and Raf Bunker's farewell address.

  "Well, that's better." I stared back at Bunker and The Ice Man. "Gentlemen, we begin again. It was something to do with horses after all, wasn't it? And it isn't fifteen grand, it's more like five hundred thousand dollars. Maybe more. I'm not sure what the market prices are these days. Since I don't shop in the same circles. So it's Horse. Or Heroin. And not even Augie French can save you if I suddenly decide to fill you both full of holes for trying to make an addict out of my old pal, Memo Morgan. Back up, boys, and think it over. I want conversation and information. And remember, this thing is already cocked and I don't need any urging to splatter you over the floor."

  "Mister," The Ice Man said, "you've lived too long."

  "Haven't we all? Memo, go make some real coffee now. The kind I didn't smell when you welcomed me in. The Ice Man Cometh and before he Goeth, he's going to tell us both a lot more about Louis La Rosa and Temple Kreshna-Rukka. Aren't you, Ice Man?"

  "Go to hell," he rasped. "I wouldn't give you the spit off my tongue."

  And then, like in bad movies, corny TV and real life, the unexpected happened. The sort of thing you can never make any allowances for.

  The door behind me swung wide open and a bold, breezy voice said, "Hi, darlin'—got here as quick as I could—but those damn Ninth Avenue buses—" The intimate flow stopped as quickly as it started.

  It was the voice of a woman and it couldn't have sounded at a worse time. I had all the machinery in place, working just fine, all the cogs and gears set, and she threw the biggest monkey wrench into the motor she could find. All by being someplace she shouldn't have been at that time. Memo Morgan's home.

  She screamed when she saw the gun in my hand and that really did it. A screaming dame will do it every time.

  The roof fell in.

  Chapter Nine

  EAST MEETS WEST

  FORTY SIXTH STREET

  □ "Olan!" Memo Morgan yelled. "Look out! Go back! It's—"

  The rest was drowned out in the noisiest rodeo since Hopalong Cassidy came to Madison Square Garden. The dame in the doorway was Chinese. You saw that in a flash. Bangs as black as night, wide saucer face with almond eyes and an orange cheongsam of some kind showed beneath the tail of a trenchcoat all muffled and tightly wound about her slim throat. She was no higher than a pony and she became a part of the rodeo in no time at all. My cocked .45 was at that stage where I didn't want lead flying around a narrow room, ricocheting off the walls. Raf Bunker, for all his dumb muscle, had pegged me right. He got around behind Morgan who had pushed from the wall, arms out protectively to shield the little Chinese doll.

  I had no room to swing and The Ice Man took advantage of that too. He lashed out with his shoe and my gun wrist cracked. The .45 slumped in my fingers as I let the trigger guard loose. The Ice Man rushed forward. Morgan was now in a hammerlock vice fashioned by Raf Bunker and the Chinese doll was in the middle of the whole set-up. Morgan howled and Bunker had his hands full. I concentrated on The Ice Man and got off a good right hand punch. He dodged and it bounced off his shoulder. The brown pork-pie hat slid up his forehead, exposing a long angry scar that gave him two hairlines. It ran exactly parallel to his right temple, running alongside his scalp. There was no time to count stitches. Memo Morgan's girl was gasping, crying and trying to get out of the way. All she did was help the opposition. She was now between me and The Ice Man and the waltzing duo of Morgan and Bunker. They would never replace Astaire and Rogers. Or the Champions, either.

  Nobody had gone for a weapon. There wasn't any time.

  The Ice Man skidded out of my grip and headed for the door. I reached for his coat tails and Bunker took that moment to send me Memo Morgan vi
a a vicious full-handed shove. The clown man collided with me and we both rocked back on the cheap linoleum, sprawling towards the horrible chair that The Ice Man had issued his death notices from. I tried to get out from under but Memo was a good one hundred and ninety-five pounds if he was an ounce. We went down in a hopelessly snarled tangle.

  The Chinese doll came skittering to join the pile as The Ice Man and Raf Bunker bolted through the front door. It was slamming on its hinging as I regained my feet.

  I scooped up my .45, taking notice that Bunker had retrieved his long-nosed .38 somewhere in the furious fandango with Morgan. I tore out of the room after the executioner and his side man, cursing the gloom of the hallway, the rickety boards of the floor. I could hear them both thundering down the stairs towards the street. When I reached the balustrade at the head of the stairs, I pulled my head back. Orange flame and a spit of lead whined up the stairwell, splattering cheap plaster on the wall behind me.

  I couldn't get a shot off in time.

  The Ice Man and Raf Bunker pounded out of sight, disappearing down the hall and out the front door. I wondered what the five teenagers playing pitch-penny must have thought on seeing them run like kids. I didn't follow.

  It would be walking into a hail of lead and I was sure a high-priced car cruising in the neighbourhood was ready to pick them up. There was nobody to call, no one to notify. A minor scrape among hoodlums. The curious vacancy of the hallway with its doors mocked me as I walked back to Morgan's apartment. Nobody had looked out, everybody was holing up and not one citizen had deigned to wonder what was going on. Gunfire and shouts and screams and running men had not brought one disturbed face into focus. New York, New York. A wonderful town. The chicken was up and the courage was down.

  The Ice Man and Raf Bunker had panicked a little too. They might have killed all three of us but they had chosen to run for it, in spite of Morgan's spilling the beans. And the beans were Heroin. Big-league crime, too.

  I had a mental image of them reporting back to Augie French and I tried to stay calm. It wouldn't be a picnic having my name marked off in some out-of-town killer's "hit" contract. Maybe Augie French would lay off. I didn't know. I was pretty sure The Ice Man might want to handle me himself. He owed me one. Maybe a couple. I tried not to think about the sliced-up millionaire in Larchmont, lying on his green lawn, spouting red blood like a water fountain.

  When I got back to the room, I flopped on the horrible chair and let my pulse slow down. It was beating like a dynamo. I felt far over forty and tired.

  Memo Morgan was sitting on the lounge, his arms wrapped around the Chinese doll. She was shaking and sobbing, still wearing her trenchcoat.

  "Where's that coffee you promised me?" I growled.

  He tried to smile, still huddling his lovely fortune cookie. "They gone? This is bad. Real bad. Augie French is no one to buck."

  "Sure. Make the coffee, huh?"

  He nodded, patted the girl's shoulder and lumbered to his feet. His baggy pants made rubbing noises like old corduroy knickers used to when you were a kid.

  "Okay. C'mon, Olan. You'll have a cuppa and we'll talk. It's okay. This here is my friend. Ed Noon. A real famous private detective."

  Her head jerked up at that. Her eyes flew open. There were tears in them. But she was lovely. A face from a gallery of Eastern Art. She was a teahouse moon and a lotus blossom, for all her outer American garb and uninflected soft voice. She was as Chinese as the Good Earth. The Olan fit her to a teahouse bride.

  "Detective? Is William in any kind of trouble? Those men—who were they?"

  Morgan turned from the cast-iron stove, smiling awkwardly. "She always calls me William. William James. Aint that a kick in the head? Don't worry about those men, baby doll. Ed will take care of us. Won't you, Ed?"

  "Sure I will." I studied the girl. "Don't put an attitude on for my sake, Olan. If you're Memo's girl, that's fine. I'm glad he's got somebody. Sorry you walked in when you did but it won't concern you anymore so forget it."

  She glared a little at that. But her pale yellow face showed no crimson. Her chin tilted as if she was daring me to sock it.

  "Yes, I'm his girl. And I don't care if he's twice my age. He's the dearest, sweetest man I ever met and no wise remarks from you will ever make me change my mind—"

  "Olan, honey." Memo Morgan, coffee pot in hand, waved it at me in embarrassment. "She's a great kid, Ed. Don't know why she messes around with an old junkyard like me. But—who can figure kids?"

  She glared at him but there was too much affection in the look to take it seriously.

  "You just make coffee. I can defend myself. Your handsome friend here doesn't bother me. He was born tall and good-looking and he's stayed young looking so he thinks it makes him a little superior to the rest of us." She smiled at me, even white teeth flashing. "Ever think how lucky it is, Ed, to have all those things? Don't you ever feel sorry for the people who aren't so lucky?"

  "Hold on, Beautiful." I tried not to lose my temper. Wisdom from twenty year old Oriental girls I don't need, as good as it was. "Don't boil me in oil yet. I'm not all that bad. I've been known to cry when King Kong falls off the top of the Empire State Building."

  "Okay." She liked that for some reason. She laid off me right away and began talking about something else. "But what is all this anyway? You ought to tell me. Don't I have a right to know, William?"

  "Sure, baby, but it won't do any good. You stick to plays and your career." He was a real homebody. I was amazed at how much attention he was paying to brewing a pot of coffee. As if he hadn't just been scared half to death by two of the biggest ghouls in town.

  "You an actress, Olan?"

  She nodded. "Off-Broadway. You see my play? Over The Rooftops And Through The TV Antennae? It's terrible but I'm second featured lead girl and it's been running three months."

  "I missed that one," I admitted. "Olan what?"

  "Wing. Olan Wing. Remember the name. I'm going to replace Anna May Wong someday."

  "You couldn't remember Anna May Wong. She was an actress before you were born."

  She snorted. "In this day and age of TV? Don't be foolish. I've seen every film she ever made."

  The small talk had its effect. We were all a bit more settled down. I didn't have the foggiest notion what to do next The sudden emergence of the fine Italian hand of Augie French in Louis La Rosa's life bothered me considerably. The understatement of the year.

  Coffee aroma invaded the room. Morgan clattered out some cups and saucers. We sat around, sipping quietly, each thinking his own thoughts. Old Morgan and young Wing were holding hands like two kids in the balcony of the RKO Fordham.

  All I could wonder was what would have happened between me, The Ice Man and Raf Bunker if Olan Wing had not decided to come for love in the afternoon.

  "Were you expecting Olan to show, Memo?"

  He shook his head. "She drops in whenever. She's always welcome. Talking to those two goons pushed everything out of my mind. What do you think they'll do next, Ed?"

  "I don't know. They have to talk to French first, of course."

  "And then?"

  "He'll give me a phone call or send me a bomb in the mail or get in touch somehow. There's still the ten pounds of horse." I stared at him. "Level with me. Do you know anything about a missing cargo at all?"

  He shook his head. "I told you. We talked to Crown yesterday. He's involved with La Rosa. So they put two and two together and got five. Damn goons. Them and their one-two brains."

  "It would make sense to a mentality like theirs. After all, you're Morgan. The million dollar memory. Didn't Crown look you up for the same reason? He thought, you of all people, would know where his Guru was."

  "Well, I didn't and I don't. And now he's dead. I heard it on the radio. That's why I ran out on you last night. It smelled like bad news for me. I got a nose for bad news."

  "Yeah. It's got a smell all its own," I agreed.

  Out of the loose trenchcoat, Olan Wing wa
s an eye-popper, face notwithstanding. The cheongsam had all to do to hold prisoner one of the biggest bustlines in captivity. Her legs, peeping out of a slit in the skirt was that kind of nifty white No Man's Land that causes trouble. I kept my eyes on my coffee cup.

  "Where were you around midnight last night, Memo?"

  "Here. Cooped up like the old folks at home."

  "Why didn't you answer your phone this morning?"

  He frowned. "What time?"

  "Between ten and eleven, say."

  "I was here," he said sourly. "The phone didn't ring."

  "My secretary Melissa called a couple of times. She got your answering service."

  "Musta made a mistake. I was here—wait a mo. I did run out a couple of times. Once for the paper—and then I decided to buy some cheesecake for Olan. She likes cheesecake. Guess the phone rang while I was out."

  "Guess it did. Mind showing me the cheesecake and today's paper?"

  He almost laughed but his expression narrowed. He got to his feet and went into the kitchenette. He came back, a folded Daily News extended. His other hand held a bakery box. It was cheesecake, all right. The paper was a final edition, something he couldn't have bought the night before.

  "Don't you trust me, Ed?" he asked with a plea in his voice.

  "He's a detective," Olan Wing snapped. "He can't trust anybody."

  "Thanks for understanding," I said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. They both looked at each other and shrugged. It is hard to have a cop for a friend, sometimes.

  Memo winked at me.

  "I don't wanta bum's rush you, Ed. But as soon as you finish your Java, I'd like to be alone with Olan."

  "So would I. But I dig. I'll shove off. It's good coffee."

  He grinned at the compliment. "My own recipe. I stick orange peels in the grains."