The Case of the Bouncing Betty Read online

  THE CAST OF CHARACTERS

  … according to their weight

  Betty Heck

  440 lbs.

  Bim Caesar

  220 ”

  Lt. Hadley

  210 ”

  Lon

  189 ”

  Mr. Artel

  185 ”

  Ed Noon

  180 ”

  Bucky

  160 ”

  Number One Son

  155 ”

  Tommy Chin

  150 ”

  Lois Hunt

  125 ”

  … and some of them become dead weight

  THE CASE OF THE BOUNCING BETTY

  Ed Noon Mystery #6

  Michael Avallone

  STORY MERCHANT BOOKS

  BEVERLY HILLS

  2012

  Copyright © 2012 by The Estate of Michael Avallone. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author.

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  Story Merchant Books

  9601 Wilshire Boulevard #1202

  Beverly Hills CA 90210

  http://www.storymerchant.com/books.html

  For Nina–

  the bestest and nicest of women.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  CHAPTER ONE

  The first time I saw Betty she was bouncing. She kept on bouncing right up until the day she died. Why she died was no more important than why she bounced. Because when I found out why Betty bounced I found out why she died.

  What made Betty bounce? That started the whole thing. Just like the famous sixty-four dollar one of What Makes Sammy Run–I had to find out what made Betty bounce. When I did, the roof came down on everything and me and the private detective business almost came to the parting of the waves.

  Betty was a mattress tester. I don’t know what the records are for that sort of thing but she weighed four hundred and forty pounds. Woman, she was big.

  I can still remember the time, the place, and the game. It was late September in the year of the McCarthy-Schine Investigations, the place was the mouse auditorium which is my office and exactly as small as the title suggests, and the game was a Giants-Dodgers go. It was somewhere around the ninth inning and Maglie was screwing the lid down on a 4-0 win. I had my feet up on the desk taking all the time in the world to reassemble my .45 which I always clean when I haven’t anything better to do when something that sounded like a sledge-hammer pounded on the office door.

  “It’s open,” I called out. I jerked the slide back on the .45 and idly trained it on the door. Some habits pay off. Because the door swung back and the Bouncing Betty bounced in. All four hundred and forty pounds of her. And I suddenly felt a helluva lot safer with a gun in my hand.

  She stopped bouncing long enough to glare at me, then bounced over to the client’s chair on the other side of the desk and flopped into it with a sigh that seemed to lower the Marilyn Monroe calendar a full quarter of an inch. The chair groaned with age.

  It was a hot day and she was fanning herself with a hat that must have looked ridiculous on her head.

  “What the hell,” she rasped in a voice that by no stretch of the imagination I would call feminine. “This Be Prepared week or something? I got no time to monkey with a Boy Scout. I need a man to do a man’s job!”

  I swung my feet down to the floor. I didn’t grin at all, as funny as she looked. She didn’t know a damn thing about dressing and the polka-dot nightmare that tented around her bulk made her look like something on French leave from Barnum and Bailey’s. But I didn’t grin.

  “I can do a man’s job, lady,” I said. “As long as the fee is man-sized. What can I do for you?”

  She didn’t say a word and fished into a handbag that was swung around her wrist like a saddlebag and dropped a clean, crisp picture of Benjamin Franklin on the desk pad between us. The green of the bill was greener than the blotter in the pad and I can’t think of a single occasion when a one hundred dollar bill looked more inviting. I turned the radio off. That game was over.

  “Money talks they say,” she puffed out of her fat. “Well, that’s yours if you’ll take on my trouble.”

  I didn’t reach for the bill. “That’s only money,” I said.

  She frowned. Until a four hundred and forty pound fat girl frowns at you, you’ve never been frowned at.

  “Look, Mr. Noon. I came here because you’re a dick with a rep. You been in all the papers what with handling all kinds of crazy cases. Well, I got a real crazy one for you.”

  “I’m still listening you’ll notice.”

  “Okay. Damn but it’s hot in here.” She fanned herself with that silly hat again. “Look, I got good reason to believe somebody is trying to kill me. I need a bodyguard.”

  I looked at her. I said one word: “Why?”

  “Do I know? You’re a detective aren’t you?” She squinted across the desk at me. I’d seen enough of her face to appreciate the fact that this was no creampuff, no fair flower of femininity. She was tougher than a three day beard and she wasn’t acting. “I’m not going to give you a hundred bucks just to stop somebody from getting me. I want to know why too. See what I mean?”

  I held up my hands. I’d forgotten about cleaning my .45. But it was close to my hand where I could reach it.

  “Do you mind telling me your name?” I asked. “Customary procedure.”

  She blinked. “Betty,” she rasped. “Betty Heck.”

  “Fine. It’s a nice name. Now, Miss Heck. We begin again. Mind if I just shoot some questions at you?”

  She glowered in exasperation. “Go ahead.”

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Any boyfriends?”

  “No.”

  “What’s your line?”

  “I’m a mattress tester. Sleep-Tite. Heard of them?”

  “Vaguely.” I had too. They had one of the most annoying commercials on radio. “How old are you?”

  “Nuts to you, Buster. But I’ll never see twenty-one again.”

  “Are you by any chance going to inherit a large fortune one of these days?”

  “No–say, what is all this?”

  “Are you the only witness to an unsolved murder?”

  “You know you’re screwy but you’re kinda cute.” She folded a pair of beefy forearms that could have passed for sides of ham. “No to that one too. Keep coming.”

  “Last but not least have you recently outdone any female friend of yours in any or all departments? You know, testing more mattresses, making more men–junk like that?”

  “You are screwy. Take another look at me. I forgot about sex years ago. What the hell are you getting at anyway?”

  I sighed. “I can’t see why anyone in this wide, wide world would want to kill one Betty Heck. And why didn’t you go to the cops anyway? There’s a police station about three blocks due West.”

  She got animated at that. “I did go to the law. They thought I was giving them a hard time. Wouldn’t even assign a man. Thought it was some crazy kind of gag. How do you lik
e that? I pay their salaries and they think I’m a clown. What a town.”

  I looked at her closely. “Seems to me you could do a good job taking care of yourself, Miss Heck.”

  She chewed on her lip. Her round little eyes blinked at me through tiny puffs of fat. She had put the funny hat on her head. I’d been right. It did look ridiculous.

  “This’ll hand you a big laugh, Mr. Noon. I’m scared. Really scared.”

  I looked at the one hundred dollar bill. She followed my eyes and got some kind of cue from it because she rushed right on, blurting–“honest. I know what you think. I’m as big as a house. I’m a rough dame. But I’m still scared. I can’t remember being so scared.”

  “What scared you?”

  She stopped being frightened just long enough to smile. “Got anything to drink in this set-up? I could use a good long pull on a bottle.”

  This was talk I always could understand. “You’ll drink out of a glass and like it. I don’t mind dames drinking. Don’t mind it at all. But I do mind how they drink it.” I reached down to the lower left drawer of the desk and unearthed a really splendid bottle of Schenley’s and two shot glasses. Her eyes twinkled with approval as I poured.

  I waited until she put her drink away like Champagne Charlie. Then I poured her another and got back on the track.

  “What scared you?”

  She rolled her glass in her fat fingers. It looked no bigger than a thimble. Her eyes bored into mine.

  “Somebody took a shot at me. Last Wednesday. I was coming home from a movie.”

  I made a note. “What movie? And where was it playing?”

  She wrinkled up her nose as if she didn’t think that was important.

  “The Judy Garland thing. A Star Is Born. I’d just come out of the Paramount and was standing on Fortieth Street, the downtown side waiting for a bus. It was kinda late and this damn Plymouth came banging by. I looked up and I don’t know, something inside me made me move behind the bus stanchion. You know, sort of for protection. Next thing I knew the bus sign was ringing like a dinner bell and the Plymouth was taking off like a bat outa hell. I tell you if it wasn’t for that stanchion—”

  “Hold on, Miss Heck.” I stopped making notes in my memo book. “How many shots?”

  “Three or four. Hell, do you think I waited to count? I was damn scared I can tell you. I jumped into a passing cab and got home and locked the door behind me. I didn’t sleep a wink all night.”

  “You and Frank Sinatra.” I sighed. “Why didn’t you call a cop or at least wait for the beat cowboy? If you had, the cops could have made a regular investigation and you wouldn’t have to go around hiring private detectives.”

  “I told you I was scared. What would you have done in the same spot?”

  “I don’t know. Probably the same thing. Okay, what else have you got to tell me?”

  “Don’t be so hard to convince, Mr. Noon,” she boomed sarcastically. “That was only Wednesday. Wait till you hear about Thursday and Friday.”

  “I’m still waiting. Let’s have Thursday first.”

  She finished her second drink. She poured herself a third one and I didn’t stop her.

  “I live down in the Village. It’s cheap and I like the neighborhood. Well, I’d just come home from the office. It’d been a bitch of a busy day and I like to sit in a hot tub after a rough session. So I ran the bath water and put a pot of coffee on–”

  “You live alone?” I cut in.

  Her smile was a masterpiece of innuendo. “What else? Real fat girls have to. They just aren’t the roommate type. I like to lie around in the nude and I ain’t exactly an oil painting.” She laughed. “I can just see myself living with one of them slim young things.” She kept on laughing. Genuine laughter that made her mountainous breasts rhumba, mambo and just about everything else. I let her have it out with her own private devils for awhile before I motioned her to continue.

  “You were running a bath and the coffee pot was perking–”

  “Yeah.” She sobered up instantly. “And somebody was starting to scratch away at the door trying to get in. I made it just in time with the chain lock I can tell you. I sweated forty pounds off running to the door. I tell you, Mr. Noon, me standing alongside the door scared to let out a whisper, scared to run to the phone, hearing this somebody breathing outside my own door. That house I live in is as quiet as church mosta the time. But this guy’s breathing was like something outa hell. Any other night I might have thought it was some drunk just pickin’ on the wrong door but on top of the shooting the night before, somehow it meant something else to me. Know what I mean? I musta waited a good half hour without letting out a peep before I could hear footsteps going down the stairs away from my door.”

  “Did you run to the window to see him coming out the front?”

  She threw up her ham hands in disgust. “My apartment is in the rear. Swell view of the garbage pails and the clotheslines. And he didn’t go out that way.”

  I put my pencil down. “And Friday?”

  She was chewing her lips now as if memory had brought her troubles back front and center where she could see them again. My poor chair was sagging under her load of grief.

  “The office. Sleep-Tite. We’re on Fortieth. Between Lexington and Park. I went into my locker room to change my clothes. The locker set-up is funny. The freight elevator opens up on it but you can clock yourself when someone is coming up or down by the indicator on the wall. Well, I was wiggling into my skirt when somebody rushed me from behind.” She stared at me hard. “Believe me, I’m only sitting here right now because I’m such a damn fat gal. Whoever it was, tried to shove me into the elevator. Only there was no car there and the office is six flights up.” She shuddered. “Well, I screamed and I screamed and screamed. Next thing I knew they were waking me up with smelling salts. I hadn’t fainted either. I’d been sapped from behind. I guess my screaming musta chased him off.”

  She stared at me harder. “Well. Mr. Noon. Do I need a private detective or don’t I?”

  I nodded. “What did your Boss have to say about your attack?”

  Her smile was rueful. “The stupid bastard. He said one of the boys just got overcome by my charms and lost his head. He fired the three colored boys we got working for us. Mr. Artel doesn’t want any policemen running around his place. The books are all screwed up down there, you know. Oh, he’s no bigger crook than anyone else. Just cutting corners like everyone else. But where does that leave me? I went to the cops on my own but they took down notes just like you’re doing right now and sent a man to investigate my house. But that’s all. He was taken off the case two days ago. And I’m still scared. You gotta help me.”

  I smiled at the hundred dollar bill on my desk with its Benjamin Franklin side up. Then I smiled at her. People have faith in you when they know you work for money. If I told her my ideas about people like her and Mr. Artel with his three colored fall guys, I would have just bored her. Money does make some things easier to prove.

  “I’m interested, Miss Heck. You’ve hired me for money. You’re buying my services. All well and good. I’m for hire. I make my living off people with problems like yours. I took down notes for reasons. For instance, you stay alive by proving things. And a lie can be a big help. Mind if I rat-check you a little bit?”

  I had come around the desk to where she sat. She stared up at me, her fear and uncomprehension fighting to be king of the hill on her face.

  “Go ahead, mister. But I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I’ll show you,” I said. Before she could stop me. I had plucked the feathered monstrosity that passed for a hat off her head and explored the top of her humpish skull lightly but expertly. If the sudden howl of pain wasn’t enough for me, the goose-egg lump buried under her curls on the right side of her head was.

  “Point one,” I said. “You were sapped. Now I can believe that. Now help me believe something else.”

  She was still wincing but I hadn’t offended
her. Her smile was crooked but grateful.

  “Shoot, Handsome. I like a guy who knows his business.”

  “You’d be surprised, Miss Heck, how much it has helped me stay in operation. Now for Point two. You said you saw A Star Is Born. Did you like it?”

  Her eyes were puzzled. “Sure I did. That James Mason is a living doll. And I could listen to Judy Garland sing until the cows come home. But what does that prove?”

  “Nothing yet,” I admitted. “So tell me something about the picture. Did you like all the color and all the songs? What was your favorite scene?”

  “Ah, come on, Mr. Noon. I could have gotten all of that out of a movie mag. I’ll say this though. It was too damn long. For me anyway. I’m too heavy to be comfortable sitting around on my butt for better than two and a half hours–”

  “Exactly. That’s all I wanted to hear. I thought it was too long too. For a heavy gal like you that was a comment I’d expect. Okay, you’ve earned your Good Conduct ribbon for today. And I’m your boy. A hundred buck’s worth so far. For your sake, I hope it doesn’t cost you more.”

  She watched me as I got up and closed the door on the lock. Hell, if someone was trying to kill her, there was no time like the present.

  Present it was.

  Somebody started to pound on the front door like they wanted in real bad.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I moved fast. Knocking on my door, no matter what kind, always affects me that way.

  If I hadn’t made up my mind already, the utter fright in my fat client’s eyes was enough. She was staring at the door so hard, I could hear her eyeballs popping with fear.

  “The closet,” I whispered. “Get in the closet.” Out loud, I yelled: “Take it easy. I’m coming.” The pounding on the door hadn’t let up for a second and I was beginning to worry about the glass that bore my only advertisement, ED NOON, PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS.