The Flower-Covered Corpse
Page 14
"That's your headache. Not mine. Call the cops and let's get this over with. You don't want any Sullivan raps hanging over you, you better get rid of those heaters. I'll keep my end of the bargain. You and your Mafia lawyers can fight it out with Headquarters. Augie didn't have anything to do with this heroin heist and that's good enough for me. If you had anything to do with the shipment, that's also your lookout. Got me?"
The Ice Man stared at me, wonderingly.
"You are really something, Noon." But he holstered his gun.
"Sure I am. You going to play it my way or not? You can't kill the four of us, you know."
Without taking his eyes off Augie French, The Ice Man backed out of the room. Raf Bunker stood glaring at Bugs and Bitsy. They were already beginning the private, writhing torment that LSD visits on some of its users. A hangover in spades.
Truth Ruth stood up, not looking at the corpses. Her skeleton figure was shaking all over. There was no more fight and revolt left in her. She looked more like a skeleton than ever. Bony and forlorn.
"Toddy," she whimpered. "I need a drink of water. Get me one, will you." She started to cry.
"Yes, Sister," he murmured. "Of course." He left the room, head high, walking slowly. Memo Morgan came over to join me and Melissa Mercer. We were standing close to the battered portrait of the red owl dangling perilously from the walls. Gunpowder fumes filled the room.
"My God, Ed," Morgan muttered. "A guy could get killed keeping company with you." He stared up at the owl and shuddered.
"Not if he's got a smart secretary. And I do mean me." I took Melissa's chin, tipped it and kissed her on the cheek. "Where did that .22 come from?"
She winked, even though the death in the room made it no laughing matter. "I see a lot of James Bond movies. I didn't think it would hurt none. I can't hit the side of a barn but I know you can."
"Where did you have it stashed? It wasn't in your handbag. I saw Perry search that—"
She crooked a finger at me, turned her back away from Morgan and let me peek. She was holding her skirt about three inches away from the danger zone. There, strapped to her lovely thigh, was a compact, no-bigger-than-a-large-button gun holder and strap. I whistled and let my shoulders slump. Morgan was still looking at the bloody owl.
"What will nice girls like you think of next?"
"Anything," she said softly, "that will help nice men like you stay alive and healthy."
"I had to kill him," I said. "You see that, don't you?"
"Yes, I do. That gun isn't big enough to try anything but a vital spot. I know that. Don't apologize."
Memo Morgan tried a smile. It didn't come off. He was still feeling lousy about two things. His close escape from a machine gun finish and his treacherous love affair with Olan Wing.
"Dames. Wait'll I see that two-timing fortune cookie—"
"Memory Man, that's one thing you ought to forget. There's no prize for remembering failure."
"Ahhh." He spread his big thumbed hands. "Noon, while we're waiting—who played the captain who brought the maltese falcon to Bogart? Remember, he came in dying on his feet, with the dingus all wrapped in newspaper?"
"Too easy. Walter Huston."
"How about this one—Gary Cooper's crooked lawyer in Mr. Deeds Goes To Town?"
"You'll have to make them harder than that. Douglas Dumbrille."
He snorted, winking at Melissa. "Ever miss one at all?"
"Sometimes," I said. "Now here's one for you. Who played the mother in the Andy Hardy series? And who was the aunt?"
He knew the answer to both of those and we kicked around a few more while Melissa listened, enjoying herself.
That's how we passed the time, forgetting about Louis La Rosa, rotten homicides and the whole business of being a crazy mixed-up kid in the year 1968, while we waited for the men from Homicide to show up.
That still is a job for a grown man.
Not an owl.
Or a butterfly.
Chapter Sixteen
MAKE ALL THE LIGHTS
□ Before you go.
A few more facts, by way of explanation. The death of a Guru, even an artificial one like Louis La Rosa, demands some tidiness and formal conclusion.
Captain Michael Monks, with his homicide solved, moved in on the Temple Kreshna-Rukka, and in no time at all the screwy place was dissolved by mutual agreement between Sister Truth Ruth and Brother Tod Crown. There were plenty of other places to go and with Guru Louis dead, the teenagers just weren't interested. They found some of their peculiar truths elsewhere. I see them often now, hanging around the Go-Go joints further uptown. The kids, I mean. Tod Crown joined the Peace Corps in some capacity and Sister Ruth disappeared once again into the wilds of Connecticut. I don't know whether she went back to her mother or not.
Bugs and Bitsy, Joe Violets' two poor accomplices in the murder of Louis La Rosa, wound up in a state prison. They were just old enough to have burned their draft cards and be loaded down with a man-sized rap. I think they got seven to ten at Ossining.
The Ice Man and Raf Bunker were both picked up by Monks on a couple of old charges. Some fresh evidence mysteriously turned up, tying Bunker in with a jewellery heist on Fourteenth Street, dating all the way back to '61 and The Ice Man, presented with a living witness to the murder of Fleming, the steel man, was identified. The man, a gardener working on the Fleming estate had finally screwed up enough courage to talk. Monks has his methods.
Olan Wing, the Chinese actress not averse to con jobs for the mob, was booted down the stairs by Memo Morgan, never to return again. Memo had had a few laughs anyway (over a tongue-loosening drink in Downey's he told me what a terrific bang she was) but the doll had left her mark on a middle-aged wreck who had no woman to love him. I cheered him up by introducing him finally to Joe Franklin whose Memory Lane TV programme for WOR was a perfect spot for Morgan's great movie memory. They got along like lodge brothers. Memo appeared on the show three times in one month. He revelled in the spotlight of publicity. And his legend soared.
I finally got around to calling Jean Martha and setting her straight on what had happened since we both staggered out of the Grass Gardens. She didn't believe a word of it but she promised to let me take her to a Broadway play some night, if and when I got tickets.
And, in closing, one fine day, Melissa Mercer walked into the inner sanctum, waving a copy of TV Guide.
"Guess what?"
"You got a letter in the letters column?"
"No, silly. There's a movie on tonight I thought you might want to see. You told me so much about it and what with this La Rosa case and all—I'd like to see it."
I stared at the red-white-and-blue phone which hadn't rung in months. It might never ring again. The President was busy with wars.
"What movie?"
She smiled, her face a perfect cameo of loveliness.
"All Quiet On The Western Front."
"Oh," I said. "Lew Ayres and the butterfly. And the boots. What time?"
She looked only slightly embarrassed. She's still woman enough not to be the most forward filly in the stable.
"That's the only catch. It's on The Late Late Show. And that's real early. Like two o'clock in the morning."
"Don't forget to bring the popcorn. It's a date."
She blew me a kiss and went back to her typewriter. I rocked in my swivel chair, swinging it around to face the window and all the buildings across the street. I could see over the buildings. A long, long way up into the darkening March sky.
I thought of all the fine young men in Ayres' platoon, marching away and looking back into Lewis Milestone's camera. They were all ghostly, shadowy figures.
I thought of all the platoons of fine young men still marching towards the future.
Boots, boots, boots.
Would there ever come a time when there would be no more need for boots?
It was hard to say.
I didn't have to wonder anymore who got Louis.
He had been got a long, long time ago.