Kill Her- You'll Like It!

by Michael Avallone

  "Sure," I agreed with all the unkindness and sarcasm I still have left after twenty years of manhunting. "That's the ticket. You couldn't let him get away. He could have hurt a lot of people. So you shot him in the back and he didn't get away and he didn't hurt a lot of people but you hurt him, didn't you? And the state he's in is New Jersey and copper, you can have my share of it. All the way!"

  "Ed," Elton Lang said in a strangled voice, "don't—"

  "I want to go home," I said. "There's nothing more I have to do for Nichols'. Or for you, Elton."

  There wasn't, either.

  Thursday, I was on my way back to the Lincoln Tunnel and old Manhattan. Elton Lang's Nichols' problems had enriched me by five hundred dollars and a return trip to Jersey was indicated in the near future—when Dodie Rogers' trial came up, I was going to be a star witness, by special request of the Middlesex County District Attorney. The case was open and shut, but the pieces all had to be arranged and put in order. I had phoned Melissa Mercer way down there in bleak Mobile and the funeral had gone off without a hitch. She'd be back in the office by Saturday the latest. I'd rung up Mike Monks too, but he'd been strangely gruff and curt with me, thanking me all the while for my large assistance to his old pal, Elton Lang. Such lack of warmth on Mike's part became self-explanatory when I got back to town. He had his official hands full with a murder panic.

  But I didn't know that as I drove along the turnpike, watching the Jersey flatlands recede as I passed Newark and hit the climbing canyons that drop off into the greatest skyline since the Statue of Liberty was a clay model in Bartholdi's studio in France. There was little on my mind except the tortured, hysterical confession of Dodie Rogers, as she twisted a handkerchief to pieces in her lap while Lang, myself, the rookie cop, and a batch of East Brunswick officials took in her anything-you-say-will-be-held-against-you statement.

  It was a sterling commentary on modern times.

  Maybe old ones, too. Nothing has changed that much in the sex department. Not from where I sit, at any rate.

  ". . . We never did anything. I used to sit in his lap. Out in his car behind the back of the store. He'd talk about how sick his wife was and how he couldn't have sexual relations with her. He gave me things—presents and gifts. He was really nice. Honest. And when I said to him I wanted nice things and if he had a lot of money, we could sort of go run away together, maybe I was only half-serious. But Larry—he must have believed me. He started taking things out of the stockroom. Selling them to some fence he knew. And he'd give me the money and make me bank it. For both of us—he said. Then I began to see how easy it was. With him being in the stockroom. And nobody really knowing how much was sold and how much wasn't. I started doing things with the tags. Taking them off and flushing them down the johns in the store. So nobody could trace them. . . ."

  But it was the very last thing she said, turning her blonde head up to us, utter childishness and girlishness shining out of her eyes, that was the hardest thing to forget. Considering the emphasis she put on it. It must have been very important to her that we believe that part of her confession. Very important.

  "But, honestly—I never went down for Larry. I never would. I'm just not that kind of a girl that I'd go down for an old man like that. God, just thinking about it makes me want to throw up!"

  After that, it was very easy for me to leave New Jersey.

  But I wasn't running from my profession.

  I was heading right back into it at better than sixty miles an hour. The car radio gave me the bad news just as I hit the long downward ramp, curving away from Jersey into the depths of the Lincoln Tunnel and Manhattan at the other side of the Hudson River.

  Band music had trickled away into nothing. A well-modulated news commentator's trained pipes opened up with some world news and then really caught my ears with his next on-the-spot piece of reportage. I'd almost given up newspaper reading altogether out there in the Jersey wastelands. A bad habit to fall into.

  ". . . and who is the Gingerbread Man? That is what the officers and officials of the New York Police Department have to be asking themselves in these trying days of a murder orgy which began in the mean small hours of last Monday morning with the brutal slaying of exotic dancer, Heavenly Blue. That seemed to be merely the prelude to the most bizarre and fiendish series of murders ever to hit Manhattan."

  The voice, nearly insouciant and non-editorial, proceeded to set down the gory details of Heavenly Blue's death. The alleyway, the knifing, the letter "S," the drunken sailor. My interest quickened as he talked on, crackling out a veritable stream of fantastic facts.

  ". . . Tuesday it was Cleo Patra, a striptease dancer, found in her dressing room at the Kitty Club off Times Square. Wednesday, it was Dimples O'Shaughnessy, renowned belly dancer at the most noted Greek nightspots in town. Dimples O. was found in her hotel bed, several hours after a performance."

  I reached the tollbooth and slowed, but my mind was on what I had just heard. The maw of the Lincoln Tunnel was a huge mouth ready to swallow me, the Buick, and everything else that entered it.

  ". . . and at five this morning, when The Snake Woman, Gardena Eden, was found in her parked sedan, between shows, nude, stabbed and marked with the grisly letter 'S,' as all the others before her, the police of this city were truly faced with a maniac. A pyschotic killer, loose with a knife, whose postcards and messages mailed to headquarters have all borne the signature, The Gingerbread Man . . . and that silly somehow irreverent nursery rhyme—'Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man.' . . .'

  I paid my fifty cents and crawled on through the lighted tunnel.

  ". . . and today is Thursday, the fourth day of this incredible murder bath. And four victims have fallen to this fiend who strikes in the early hours of the new day. Who is next? Why is this maniac so bent on persecuting striptease artists, exotic dancers, and all those women who have found a way of life in baring their bodies in an art form that began in the dawn of civilization? Nobody ever felt it necessary before to go on a witch hunt, killing burlesque queens and entertainers, not since Jack the Ripper and the far more recent bloody days of the Boston Strangler. . . ."

  Now he was editorializing and as I emerged from the tunnel behind a slow-moving diesel truck, my own mood was several degrees grimmer. The lights of Manhattan were not on yet, but the first warnings of oncoming dusk were visible in the hazy sky hanging low over the city.

  What a world. . . .

  Young Dodie Rogers and old Larry.

  This Gingerbread-Man character and his butchered sex objects.

  I'd come back to town, right smack in the middle of a crime wave. Never mind the August heat that was soaring steadily every day.

  Home again. Where I hung my hat and my hopes in a mouse auditorium.

  For the single detective, it always comes down to two things, sooner or later. Murder and sex.

  The news commentator had mentioned nothing at all about sexual motivation or aberrant byplay in his summary of the crimes. But that would come later, much later, when and if the killer was caught and the public could really be let in on just what he had in mind when he used a knife on those four girls and made them take it naked. The way they earned their coffee and cake.

  The record's always been clear on brutal, violent, bloody murders, with or without women involved as the victims.

  Sex is always the screw that is loose somewhere in the whole awful business. Just ask your nearest medical examiner.

  I drove on into the city, heading uptown to my little gray home on Central Park West that overlooks a green and very beautiful park. There was no sense in going straight to the office. The business day was over. Thursday was past history.

  Besides, Melissa Mercer wouldn't be there, anyway.

  She was in Mobile, thank the Lord, burying her brother Leon.

  Far from a murderous maniac with a bloody knife loose in New York. Whether Melissa was a stripper or not, I felt better about that.

&nb
sp; You can never tell with nuts. Nobody is ever safe when somebody is out prowling, looking for the marbles that got away—as the Gingerbread Man proved to me before I was a day older.

  And made the Nichols' gig ancient history in no time at all.

  KNIFE THEM NAKEDLY

  I found the little man sleeping on my doorstep.

  He was so small I didn't see him right away because my apartment door is furthest from the corridor bulbs which almost, but not quite, illuminate that floor of the building. I was fishing out my keys, still tired from the long drive in, blinking the fatigue out of my eyes, when suddenly, a shapeless, almost indistinguishable huddle of something moved in the shadows. I jumped back, hand moving for the harnessed forty-five, and then I smiled foolishly and relaxed.

  Bouncing to his feet, nearly unbelievable in a candy-striped jacket, sky-blue slacks and a neat straw skimmer, was a pint-sized little man no bigger than a seven-year-old boy. But he wasn't a kid; he was a midget. The harsh lights showed me a round, smooth, hairless but puckered little face squinting up at me in the dim glare. The paradox is always a startling one: little-boy body and old-man face. I stepped back to give my caller—he must have been that, because he'd been curled up right at my door and he didn't look like a vagrant in the splashy, show-business outfit he had on—some room. He tilted the straw hat at an angle on his round little head, folded his arms, and pushed his face up at me. Somehow he didn't seem ridiculous at all, in spite of his size.

  "You keep lousy hours," he whined in a thin childish voice. "That answering service of yours said you'd be back around four. You realize it's almost six-thirty? " He tapped a watch on his left wrist.

  "Sue me. You get tossed out of your apartment for non-payment of rent or something? Or has the circus come back to town?"

  "Very funny. I parked here after I found out you weren't in. Couldn't take the doorman's word for that. Too important. Guess I conked out. Been very busy lately."

  "That's interesting. I won't ask you how. I'm past caring—"

  "Don't crack wise, huh?" The little guy was taking my measure, in some nebulous way. "About six feet one, maybe. One hundred and eighty-five pounds, huh? You're a pretty big stud at that. Yeah, you'll do."

  "Gee, that's nice. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to enter my home and do all those little necessary things that make it home." I gently took him by the left shoulder and nudged him out of the way as I inserted the key into the front door. "I'll give you my business card and you could come see me tomorrow. And we'll talk."

  He didn't get offended, but my gesture and attitude seemed to redouble his zeal on behalf of whatever had brought him.

  "Look here, Noon, you can't keep Ada waiting any more," he whined again, at my elbow, screwing his face up at me. "Have a heart. Ada is almost out of her noodle with worrying half to death. You got to take her on! That's why she sent me—"

  "Ada who?" I snapped, irritated now because he was hanging onto my arm like it was his personal property. "And let go that arm before I sneeze and blow you back down the hall, little guy."

  "You an immigrant?" he snarled suddenly. "Damn it, I bet you ain't been to the skin shows in years at that. Ada Ven, Noon. The number-one nudie in show biz. That Ada Ven. She wants to hire out your gun as bodyguard and she's willing to go a bundle for the protection."

  I stopped keying the door, turned around, and stared down at him. He smirked a little at my manner, thinking his mention of what was obviously a famous name to him, and big money to me, had performed some kind of miracle on my lack of etiquette. I waited until his grin dissolved and my unsmiling face registered on him. Ada Ven, I did not know.

  "Wait a minute," I said softly. "I want to get this straight. You represent a woman named Ada Ven who wants to hire me to protect her? She's a stripper of some kind, I take it, and this must have something to do with this Gingerbread Man panic. Nod once if I'm right."

  He nodded three times, up and down, beaming like a miniature sun.

  "That's it. You got it. Come on, she wants to see you at her hotel. I can take you to her right now. You'll like Ada, too. All the woman you'll ever want to see and a heart as big as her two knockers put together—" He stopped running on when he saw my sad smile. "What's the matter? Why you looking at me like that?"

  "No sale," I said. "Nothing personal, but I don't work out of my hat. She wants me she can come to my office tomorrow." I dug into my back pocket, poked a business card into his face, which he took without looking away from me. "Tell you in advance though, little guy. . . ."

  "Jellybean," he muttered unhappily. "Jellybean Jackson."

  "Jellybean. It fits you," I agreed. "I don't bodyguard any more. It takes an around-the-clock schedule and I couldn't possibly be better than the law. You tell Ada to get herself police protection. They're much better at that kind of work. Besides, if she kept her clothes on and stopped showing those king-sized knockers you mentioned, maybe this Gingerbread Man would lay off her. Ask her if she ever thought of it like that. You think about it, too."

  "Noon," Jellybean Jackson drew himself up stiffly and seemed to grow an inch taller. His tiny eyes were astonished. "You got that all wrong! Ada is an artist. What I mean, an artiste—"

  "Sure. And Andy Warhol belongs in the same league with Picasso. Look, Jellybean. I'm beat. Buzz off. I'll see you around."

  "But, but—you—you—" He had begun to splutter and fume. He was holding up my card, making vicious swipes in the air with it.

  "Yeah. Ain't it the truth?" was all I could kiss him off with.

  I got inside the apartment, closed the door on him, locked it for emphasis, and waited only a second to hear the tiny, retreating falls of his leather heels going down the hall to the elevator. He had given up, a little too quickly I thought, but I forgot about him in less than five minutes. That's how long it took for me to step out of my sticky Thursday clothes and get a hot shower going. Jellybean Jackson, as much of a curio as he had been, vanished from my thinking, though I hadn't met a midget in years. Not since my last trip down to Hubert's Museum, the sideshow attraction on West Forty-second Street and Times Square. Freak attractions.

  The telephone was ringing maybe a half hour later and I was all wrapped up in a faded, cocoa-colored robe, nursing a cigarette and Scotch to match. The time was then seven-thirty, almost, and I'd been mooning about Melissa down there in Mobile and wishing it was Saturday. New Jersey, department-store love, and dead exotic dancers had all receded backward into the forests of my mind. There was just so much a man could think about. Even a detective with an uneasy conscience.

  I had to pull the receiver back from my ear because the first voice I heard was a booming, throbbing female one that had emasculator dripping from every rich, throaty decibel. A pants-wearing aggressiveness.

  "Hey, you got a rep for being a decent cowboy. What's this jazz about throwing Jellybean out of your place?"

  "I am decent," I smiled to myself quietly, holding the phone a few inches away from me, "and your Munchkin is a liar. I didn't throw him out. I turned him down. And you, Miss Ada Ven."

  "My what—you making a dirty crack or something, Noon baby? I don't like to be talked bad to. Get that straight. You treat me like a lady or I'll have your fanny in a bind in no time at all!"

  "Lady," I said, trying not to grit my teeth, "go see The Wizard of Oz first chance you get. Or wait for it to come back on the boob tube. Meanwhile, I'll tell you what I thought I made clear to Jellybean. Call a cop. I don't ride shotgun any more. And if I did, you couldn't make the price. So if you don't mind, I'll hang up on you."

  "But I do mind!" she roared again, a female voice for all its powerful resonance. Sort of a Tallulah register. "And you talk funny and I can't hardly read you right. So I'll say it all over again in case Jellybean gave you the wrong beat on things. I'm a scared lady, Noon, baby. Plenty scared. I want you because I heard of you. You must be the biggest private cop in New York. You know where the Alamo is?"

  "Texas," I said icily, re
ady to crash the receiver back on its base. But that time she got my measure and a hearty laugh soared over the wire. A laugh that for all of its humor was edged with a subtle hysteria. Ada Ven was frightened, all right.

  "Baby, you're a comic, huh? The hotel. You come to the top floor. Suite C. I'll be waiting for you. And I got a stack of green men that add up to five thousand dollars if you want to earn them."

  That is not exactly wallpaper. I frowned at the phone.

  "Aren't you working tonight, lady?"

  "You a cluck or something? Today's Thursday, right? Gingerbread's been slicing them one a day since Monday. This is one baby who doesn't go on tonight for no money, not until he gets the next stripper out of his system. Or the coppers find him. I'm not moving my ass out of this hotel until they do. I got a lot of life ahead of me I wanta use."

  "That's crazy, Miss Ven. They may never catch him."

  "Then they don't catch him. But he don't catch me, either! Either way, I'm staying put until that loony is behind bars. So what do you say? Coming—or aren't you even the least bit interested?"

  "I'm thinking, Miss Ven," I stalled, mentally wondering just how much work I'd have to do to merit the five thousand in green cash. After all, the money was good. Very good.

  "Ada, Noon, baby. And I've always wanted to meet you, you know what I mean?" The Tallulah voice dropped huskily, leveling off in a vocal striptease that had bedroom and sexual infinity dripping from every syllable. "I saw your picture once in the papers. You're my type of man, if you know what I mean. Anyhow, what's the harm in a get-together anyway? Who knows? You might dig me, too. Lots of men do. All the time. If you ever saw my act—"

  "You're pitching the wrong way at me, Ada. Don't dangle the carrots in front of me. Constitutionally, I don't dig ladies that peel for a living. But I'll come if you really are scared."

  "Really scared?" she echoed, discarding the come-hither routine like the seventh veil. "You see what this nut did to those poor dames? I'm half off my own nut thinking about it. And all I got is little Jellybean—what good is he going to do me if this Gingerbread loony gets a notion to chop me up? I'm asking you!"