The Voodoo Murders Read online

  “Here is your answer, Mr. Noon.

  Perhaps now you will give us no further trouble,” Count Calypso’s tomblike voice said.

  Just then the drums stopped pounding. I looked down in the direction that Count Calypso and his naked redhead were looking.

  A pit in the ground, about ten by ten and fifteen feet or so deep, yawned right below us. The pit was as empty as a church collection box in a poor parish. Except for the two people in it.

  The Voodoo dancer and Peg Temple.

  And they were both naked. Naked in a terrible way.

  They had been staked out at the bottom of the pit, head to head, as if they’d been crucified. Their arms and legs spread out into feminine crosses of flesh, with short stakes lashing them to the ground.

  Then they threw me down beside them.

  The Voodoo Murders

  Michael Avallone

  Ed Noon Mystery #9

  STORY MERCHANT BOOKS

  BEVERLY HILLS

  2012

  Copyright © 2012 by Susan Avallone and David 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.

  http://mouseauditorium.tumblr.com/

  Story Merchant Books

  9601 Wilshire Boulevard #1202

  Beverly Hills CA 90210

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

  For Marla Ray

  because she suggested the title—

  but mostly because nobody’s nicer.

  The Cast of Characters

  … according to their favorite dance

  ED NOON the Fox Trot

  EVELYN HART the Lambeth Walk

  COFFEE the Mambo

  BENNY the Tarantella

  PEG TEMPLE the Lindy

  CAPTAIN MIKE MONKS the Waltz

  VOODOO the Limbo

  THE DUKE the Samba

  COUNT CALYPSO the Calypso Caper

  … and some of them never dance again

  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 Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ONE

  The Voodoo caper started with a telegram, and it wasn’t a singing telegram, either. But it was as cryptic as they make them and a lot harder to understand than Sanskrit or seventeen games of simultaneous chess.

  I shouldn’t have paid any attention to the telegram. It was only ten words long at Western Union rates. But it cost me. Oh, how it cost me. I should have balled it up and tossed it into the office wastebasket. Should have torn it into a million strips and burned it. Should have done anything but read it. Anything but heed the ten words that sent me winging off into the murderous night.

  The delivery kid showed up at six o’clock in the evening at the mouse auditorium which is my office. I took the yellow telegram from him, tipped him a quarter and asked him about the weather. I should have slammed the door in his face and gone back to reading Giant by Edna Ferber; Texas was a helluva lot more peaceful than Trinidad, the way things turned out. But I didn’t know much about Trinidad that particular evening. It was Friday, and somewhere in the back of my foggy mind was a shadowy idea that Trinidad was somewhere in the West Indies. British West Indies. But it was also somewhere near the outer circle of hell.

  I opened the telegram and read it. I read it twice.

  The ten words jumped out and smacked me right between my baby browns. Ten words that dazzled the eyes out of your head.

  ED NOON

  CALYPSO ROOM TONIGHT OR YOUR DOLL WILL DIE WITH PINS.

  VOODOO

  I forgot about Giant. I’d liked the movie well enough to take a crack at the book, but the telegram was required reading. When you’re a private investigator who’s been shot at more than once you have to think about things like death warnings and crank notes. Everything has to be considered if you want to stay in business. Or go on living.

  So I went over to my desk, turned the lamp on, made myself comfortable in the worn swivel chair and took the telegram by the numbers.

  Ed Noon—that was me. Calypso Room—that was the Number One nightclub in town where you could get Calypso music first hand. A jazzy hotspot that centralized the bongo drum fever that was gripping New York. Voodoo—the name signed to the telegram—could only be Voodoo, the headline attraction appearing at the same Calypso Room. The tall, tan, terrific female whose native dances were something that no Minsky stripper could ever match. That was the only Voodoo I could think of, outside of the black magic stuff that comes from Haiti.

  The rest of the message wasn’t so easy. “Your doll will die with pins.” In my cheap English that might mean that somebody would stick pins in my girl friend. But I didn’t have a girl friend, so that was out.

  But in Voodoo English I knew what dolls were. Some old faker would make a wax image of you. In this case, one private detective with a blue serge suit and a turned down fedora. Maybe a trenchcoat. And stick pins in it, every hour on the hour, till you crumpled up and died in the flesh. If you believed in such things. If your mind was still choked with superstition. If your twentieth-century intellect was decayed with fear and century-old witch’s tales.

  I could feel my forehead starting to knit sweaters and blankets when somebody banged softly on my outer door. The telegram shot right out of my head as I spun around in the chair and faced the entrance. The soft banging continued. I almost went into Poe’s Raven. “’Tis some visitor, I muttered, gently rapping at my chamber door—”

  “The chamber door is opened,” I called out. “Come on in.” I shoved the telegram into my pocket, opened my right-hand desk drawer, and placed my hand over the ’45 lying neatly inside.

  The door pushed inward as if the person standing behind it was afraid to walk into strange rooms. Or new places. But she shouldn’t have been. As she strode gracefully in, I could see this was one dame who shouldn’t ever be afraid of anything. Or anybody.

  “Hello,” she caroled sweetly. “May I come in?”

  I stood up and caught myself almost bowing. It’s that goofy feeling a man will get when he meets a lady. A real lady.

  “Sure,” I said lamely. Then I recovered. “I’m Ed Noon. Damsels in distress—a specialty. Have a seat and relax.”

  She sat down in the chair on the other side of my desk. But not before I could see she was all of five-ten and the three-inch spikes on her shoes put us both at eye level. She sat down easily, nicely, like somebody who always does everything correctly. Her clothes were correct too. She had burned-red hair like toasted almonds and she had poured her willowy, statuesque length into a smartly tailored beige outfit that screamed of smart money. She had a handbag and gloves to match. The handbag was wide and roomy. It bothered me.

  “I hope you haven’t got a gun hidden in that saddlebag, lady,” I said.

  Her neatly penciled eyebrows raised archly above a chiseled nose and her economically nice mouth parted over dazzling white enamel. “I beg your pardon?” she inquired softly.
r />   I grinned. “Women have a habit of flashing their hardware in this office. Forget it.”

  Her surprised look vanished in a smile. A million-dollar smile. “Oh—you mean guns, don’t you? Good lord—what an idea.” She started to laugh. It was a nice laugh. A well-taken-care-of laugh.

  I relaxed. This one looked comfortable. The chauffeur wasn’t chasing her, she wouldn’t be looking for a runaway husband or boy friend, and she definitely wasn’t in bad trouble. Probably had just misplaced her seventy-five-thousand-dollar earrings.

  But I didn’t have all day, either. And I was still thinking of that damn telegram.

  I watched my new redheaded friend place a filter-tip cigarette into a foot-long silver cigarette holder. She certainly played it safe. And she acted like she had all day. I let her light her own because the little devils in me were taking over.

  “Well,” I suggested. “What do you need a private detective for?”

  She exhaled smoke in two clouds that streamed out of her fine nostrils like line drives. “Mr. Noon, I am Evelyn Hart. Does that mean anything to you?”

  I smiled. “I read only the sports and movie sections of newspapers, but I’ve heard that name before. It has something to do with money. Lots of money.”

  “Hart Dolls,” she said proudly. “If you had a daughter, Mr. Noon, the chances are very likely that she’d own a Hart Doll.”

  “I’m not married, Miss Hart. But I dig you. Hart—the walking, living doll. Complete with eyes, ears, voice and bowel movements.”

  She made a face. “That sounds vulgar—when you put it that way.”

  “Sorry—I was just showing you I remembered. You’re right. Baby girls adore Hart Dolls. So it’s made you a millionairess. So where does that lead us to? Right now, I mean.”

  She inhaled on her long cigarette. “I need an escort for the evening. I want the escort to go with me to a place I have in mind. It may take all of four hours. No more than that, very possibly less.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t run an escort service, Miss Hart. Sure you don’t mean bodyguard?”

  She seemed to fume suddenly. But she didn’t. It was only the illusion that her finely pinched nose and bright eyes gave off.

  “I said escort, Mr. Noon. There is no risk involved. But it would serve my purpose to be escorted by a man. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Perfectly,” I said. “Where does this man have to take you?”

  It seemed as if Halley’s Comet had come and gone again before she answered me. And I half expected the answer.

  “The Calypso Room,” she said evenly.

  I spun idly in my swivel, listening to the creaky music I started, letting the words settle in my skull. Calypso Room. Dolls. Telegrams. Talk about weird coincidence. That was what bothered me—it was just too weird to be coincidental.

  Evelyn Hart took my silence for something else.

  “I will pay you five hundred dollars to come with me.” Her eyes narrowed on me shrewdly. “I’d rather you came instead of a helper. I’ve decided we’d look very proper together.”

  I stopped swiveling. “I work alone. It’s me or nobody. Mind telling me what’s worth five hundred bucks to you that bad?”

  She smiled. A smile that must have shut up everybody at one time or another. “There are two reasons for such an exorbitant fee, Mr. Noon. Money is of small importance to me, for one thing. The second reason is that it gives me the privilege to have you ask no questions.”

  “I see,” I said. But I really didn’t.

  She unclasped the handbag and drew out five crisp hundred-dollar bills and placed them on my green desk pad. The aging green of the blotter wasn’t even in the same league with the green of her folding money. The bills looked as if they’d just been printed. She didn’t only have money. She had new money.

  I looked at her. “What time did you have in mind for your trip to the Calypso Room, Miss Hart?”

  She snapped her handbag shut like a bank executive closing a deal.

  “I’d like to make the ten o’clock show, Mr. Noon. If that is satisfactory with you.”

  I didn’t pick up the five C notes.

  “When you dish out that kind of lettuce, you toss the salad, lady.”

  Her laugh was light and rippling as she stood up. She stared down at me from her Statue of Liberty height. The only thing that was missing was the torch.

  “Ten o’clock it is then, Mr. Noon.”

  I felt like a slavey, but five hundred bucks is five hundred bucks. Or are. So I fought back with my caustic wit.

  “Are you calling for me in the family limousine? Or do we use my beat-up Buick?”

  She didn’t get mad. She tucked her handbag under one graceful elbow and fingered her gloves back toward her elegant wrists.

  “I’ll be downstairs at nine-thirty. I’ll blow the horn twice. You won’t keep me waiting if you are the gentleman you seem to be.” She sashayed toward the door, her lithe figure tigerish and sensuous in spite of its length. Her hips weren’t wide but they were as curved as boomerangs. She paused at the door and turned around to say good-bye.

  I had one last question for her. “Tell me, Evelyn Hart. Do you like Calypso music that much? Five hundred dollars’ worth, I mean?”

  She laughed again. “Nine-thirty, Mr. Noon,” she said with velvet. I could still hear her laughter as the door closed behind her.

  I stayed in the swivel and thought about a lot of things. And looked at a lot of things. The .45 in the desk drawer, the crazy telegram, and the five green century bills lined up like soldiers on the pad.

  Things like the Calypso Room and a dancer called Voodoo. And my doll with pins sticking out of it as if I was a porcupine.

  And the Hart Dolls. Walking, living dolls. Talking dolls. Dolls that wet their diapers and made little girls imagine they were mothers.

  And the other Hart Doll. The real Hart Doll. Evelyn Hart. That wasn’t a name. That was a Valentine greeting.

  I snorted impatiently because I couldn’t do anything with the notions and ideas dogfighting in my head. I looked at my watch, a constructive move in any man’s life. Especially in a detective’s.

  It was almost dead on seven. Two hours and thirty minutes before the redhead would blow the horn twice and wave some more of her smart money in my face. I had a rough idea she’d look like seven million dollars in an evening dress.

  There was a rolled-up copy of the Tribune on the desk. I fanned it open until I found the entertainment section. What I wanted was in a three-inch square in the lower right hand corner:

  THE CALYPSO ROOM

  206 EAST 59TH STREET

  NOW

  THE DUKE and VOODOO

  APPEARING NIGHTLY EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT

  I was still looking at the ad when long hot knives of something stabbed at my stomach, forked through my small intestine and set my whole body on fire. Mrs. O’Leary’s cow had really kicked the lamp over this time.

  Alone in my office, I doubled over the desk, my fingers flying to my lower abdomen. My insides prickled with sharp, twitching agony.

  I got violently sick.

  TWO

  It lasted maybe five minutes. It seemed like ten years. Stomach aches are like that. Stomach cramps are like that—and worse.

  I coiled up like a sick snake across the desk, and waited for the pain to leave. It was agony. Red-hot agony. I couldn’t do a thing for myself except grit my teeth and sweat it out. Sweat I did. A fine sheen of perspiration dewed my face. And my stomach got up on its hind legs and protested out loud. It had to. Somebody was poking against the lining of my belly with long, pointed skewers. I felt like shishkebab. I couldn’t breathe.

  Then it stopped.

  I lay there gasping for breath, my eyes filled with water, wondering if I’d been living right after all.

  The office was hot and close, like thick blankets in the sunlight. And I tried to remember what I’d eaten all day. This had been the godfather of all bellyaches and I didn’t want
any more relatives.

  Breakfast—same old toast and coffee. Three cups. Lunch—two eggs scrambled gently, more toast, more coffee. Two cups. Dinner I hadn’t had yet and not a shot of hooch had passed my lips in two days. I couldn’t figure it out except for the five cups of coffee. But I’d been drinking java all my life. And it had never bothered me before.

  Suddenly, the office was very quiet. The alarming idea that had sprung up into my head had gone off like a factory whistle at closing time.

  Your doll will die with pins. Voodoo, anybody? Seen a spare zombie lately? Well, I’ve always been from Missouri and I bite any coins I find on sidewalks. But sitting in my ratty little office on West 56th Street on the night of Friday, March thirteenth, the short hairs on the back of my neck stood up and wanted to be longer. Somebody saying Boo! behind me would have made me jump ten feet.

  The Calypso Room and the telegram. Voodoo, the demon dancer who sent cute messages. Evelyn Hart the lonesome rich redhead. My bellyache.

  I couldn’t have stayed in the auditorium another second. Class was dismissed. I scooped up my fedora, bedded my .45 in its shoulder holster and left. Locking the door behind me seemed far different a maneuver than at any other time in my business life. It was like leaving a cemetery for the outside world.

  Even the ride down in the elevator seemed eerie. The lone bulb in the car flickered like a dying moth, the electricity hummed a funeral dirge. And the loneliness and customary quiet of the building was maddening.

  Perspiration was bathing my face when I reached the lobby. My stomach had settled down but I was hollow inside. The distorted shadow my six feet spread along the cracked plaster wall of the corridor seemed to follow me. It always did, of course, but tonight, it was somebody else.

  I shivered and fished for my cigarettes. Tiger, the building cat, suddenly picked this time to dart from the darkness of the stairwell and race playfully between my legs. I yelped. So help me, I yelped. I would have thrown my shoes after his gray, furry body except that I was wearing them.

  Then I got the topper. The big topper. Before I could get out of the building, somebody came in.