The Crazy Mixed-Up Corpse Read online

  THE CRAZY MIXED-UP CORPSE

  Ed Noon Mystery #8

  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

  THE CAST OF CHARACTERS

  … according to their weapons

  Ed Noon

  a Colt .45

  Captain Mike Monks

  a Police Positive

  Tom Long

  a steam iron

  Tania Long

  a Raggedy Ann doll

  Holly Hill

  a size-40 bust

  Kelly

  a telephone

  Penny Darnell

  a quick think-box

  Ace

  a sub-Thompson machine gun

  Carver Calloway Drill

  two big Texan fists

  T. T. Thomas

  an intriguing body

  … and some of them get harps and spades

  For Peg Shirley –

  As Bogart said to Ingrid,

  “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ONE

  The day the fur-bearing, gun-bearing blonde said, “Strip, Noon. Take off your clothes!” was the dizziest day of my private-eye life. The day I really got mixed up in the case of the Crazy Mixed-up Corpse. But I didn’t really start off as a fugitive from a nudist colony.

  Let me take you back to the beginning, when I was stewing and fretting and fuming. Waiting for the day when I could get back the .45 and PI licence that the nasty old police had revoked for one year.

  It was a bad day. Some days are like that. They start out bad and stay that way.

  The blade in the razor is dull, the first morning cigarette tastes like a dirty rope, the coffee is weaker than a grandmother with the flu, and worse, far worse, you get a phone call from police headquarters.

  I’d been reading the morning papers in the office, which is also my home and a real mouse auditorium for size. Everything is relative, like they say, but every time I took my hat off it was like adding an extra piece of furniture to the place. And a ringing telephone sounds as loud as a dinner gong off-key. I’d been disgusted with the morning altogether and getting a police call on top of everything was the straw that all camels beware of. Including private eyes.

  “Ed Noon here,” I snapped. “Shoot.”

  “Come on down and pick up your licence and gun, you bum.” It was the rumbling voice of Michael Monks, Captain of the Homicide Division. “Then you can do all the shooting you want.”

  I’d been pestering him for weeks to shorten the time limit on my year of good behaviour but I pretended I didn’t hear him.

  “Come again, Mike. I’m in a fog.”

  His laugh nearly fractured my eardrum.

  “You forgetting what day this is? Your year’s suspension is up. As of this morning. You’re back in business.”

  Forget? I could have forgotten my right arm easier.

  I’d been a private detective without benefit of permit and .45 for exactly twelve months, thanks to my peculiar talent for annoying the D.A., beating Headquarters out of big cases and generally making myself a large, unofficial nuisance. The only thing that kept me out of jail was my sturdy sense of law and order. Also, I never got caught with my hand in the till.

  My eyes travelled reflexively from Marilyn’s golden thighs to the printed calendar days beneath her toes. It was the 22nd of September. My year of penance was up.

  “Bless you, Michael,” I said, “You’re right. Shall I come over right now or will you send them to me special delivery with a police escort and brass band?”

  He stopped clowning. “I want to see you, Ed.”

  “Another lecture? Forget it. I’m not going into real estate. Nor do I intend to sell magazine subscriptions. As for working behind some desk –”

  “Shut up,” he barked. “You can have the gun and the permit and you can stick your nose into all the cases you want. But when you drop by, look in on me. I need your help on something.”

  I stopped clowning too. Mike is a cop and my natural enemy. But he is also one of the few friends I’ve got.

  “Sure, Mike. See you in about an hour?” He rumbled an okay. “And thanks for the reminder, boy.” He hung up and so did I.

  I felt better already. I’m one of those guys who just doesn’t know how to relax. I’m happiest when I’m always on the go or have something to do. Between drinks time is nothing for me to look forward to. I was born working.

  Before leaving the office, I tried a second cup of coffee. But now the grandma with the flu had died. Another cigarette was just as bad. The rope was even dirtier this time. No self-respecting hangman would have used it to stretch a neck.

  I locked the office and left. There was no mail, no notices. No anything. It had been a real bad year working without my permit and protector. I’d been living on scraps and what little I’d had left in my bank account. But now it was all gone. I’d also had to turn down some work which would have fattened my income. It’s one thing to buck the cops, but working against them without your official legal status is suicide. They can jug you on a million counts and make you wish you’d never been born a private operator.

  But now that was all over. I was back in business. I felt better already. I was even whistling “The Three-Penny Opera” theme when I hit the street.

  The “Funeral March” would have been more appropriate.

  I was just beginning to hail a cab when it happened.

  The first thing I saw was the blind man. He was tapping towards me with one of those white-tipped canes. He wasn’t young and he wasn’t old. His clothes weren’t too hand-me-down but they weren’t that far from the Bowery Swap Shop either. But he was blind. I didn’t need the dark glasses he was wearing to tell me that. It’s funny but the only thought I remember having about him was how well off he’d be if he had one of those clever seeing-eye dogs instead of the cane.

  Two Chinese children took this time to pop out of the hand laundry which is a couple of doors down from my office. Tom Long’s kids. Two bang-haired, doll-faced delights whom I always managed to sneak lollipops to when old Tom wasn’t looking. I liked those kids. They liked me. One was named Tania, and the smaller one was called Titi. Titi was hugging a Raggedy Ann doll.

  Titi saw me first. With the blind man tapping relentlessly towards me, she squealed like a cute bundle wit
h noise buried somewhere inside it and bounced towards me, hands outstretched. Grinning and forgetting about getting a cab right away, I dug into my pockets. I didn’t have any lollipops this time. But I had the money for the lollipops. To a kid, there isn’t much difference.

  Things happen fast. You don’t know exactly in what order you see them or just how long it takes for somebody to trip the trigger of a machine gun. The tableau was there. The blind man, the two China dolls, and me – and an innocent-looking Packard sedan that was running easily up West 56th Street. I never did get a chance to spot the licence number.

  Titi had almost reached me, with Tania a good second, when the Tommy gun opened up. If you’ve ever heard that sound before, it scares the hell out of you. It’s like a loud, noisy, troublesome voice that carries terror and sudden death with it.

  I went down like a lead balloon as five hundred pounds of something smashed me in the right side. Went down, twitching and kicking with a million tiny needles working on me like a sewing machine. Pain skyrocketed through me like a bolt of lightning and the tops of the buildings overhead rushed down to meet me.

  One of the kids screamed. And then the blind man’s cane splintered in half and for a second he tottered above me like a dancing marionette as he fought for balance.

  The gun kept on chattering, coupled with the roaring motor of the Packard racing by. The blind man hung suspended before my dimming gaze for a second longer, then he whisked over and down out of sight. Red ran out from under him, washed up against me. One of the kids screamed again.

  I couldn’t get up. My eyes were closing behind a red haze. The kids, I thought, the kids. Mustn’t let anything happen to the kids.

  I tried to get up. That did it. I fell into ten miles of red darkness hearing one of the kids crying with choked sobs, hearing the grating slide of every window on the street being run up, hearing a thousand voices yammering with concern and fear. And a long, piercing wail of something that was Chinese.

  I was still falling into the pit when I remembered something. I didn’t have a gun. With all my troubles, I didn’t have a gun.

  Lollipops were something else again.

  TWO

  The doctor was tall and thin, but his hands were strong. The only thing I can remember about that doctor is his hands and seeing him fooling with a chart of some kind at the foot of my bed.

  “What day is today?” I croaked. It must have been a croak. I could hardly hear my own voice.

  “Saturday,” he said. He must have been croaking too. I could just barely hear him. “You’ve been here three days. That was the next question you were going to ask me, wasn’t it?”

  “Head of the class for you, Kildare.” I tried to rise. I couldn’t. My muscles all felt as if they were in storage some place.

  “Easy, Mr. Noon.” The strong hands settled like steel traps on my shoulders. “Not just yet. We’ll try that tomorrow. Not today.”

  He was still talking about tomorrow not today, tomorrow not today, when I passed out again.

  Two days later, according to what they tell me, I had a visit from Mike Monks. I remember seeing his ugly, worried face. Also something else. He had his hat on but his coat was off and his white shirt sleeves were rolled well past his bulgy forearms. Mike was a hairy ape and it struck me funny that he should be coming to the hospital for his Salk vaccine shots. I fell off again laughing about it.

  When I get around to begging them for a cup of coffee and cigarettes, they figured I was well enough to have company. Monks came around again. This time he took his hat off and sat on a chair next to my bed. I was sitting up now but there was stiffness in my side and several miles of white bandage that bundled my torso like a grade-A mummy.

  Monks grunted and did his damnedest not to look glad I was still alive. He went back to the familiar role of shaking his head at me.

  “Horseshoes,” he said. “The original horseshoe kid. You must have a racehorse somewhere in your blood, Ed.”

  I tried a grin. It was tough work.

  “Speaking of blood – thanks for the donation, Mike. I’ve got real copper in me now.”

  “Forget it,” he growled. “You’re lucky you can vote this year. There aren’t many guys who talk it over with Tommy gun and live to tell it to their clients.”

  I lit another cigarette from the one I’d just finished.

  “How lucky am I, Mike?”

  He scowled at me. “Two in the side, one just across the top of your right shoulder. The inner part of your arm took a singeing too. Technically, I don’t see why you aren’t in the morgue.”

  I winced. “Some other time.”

  Mike was still scowling so I knew he was holding back. But I was afraid to ask. I stared out the big hospital window, tried to count the sunbeams trickling in. But it was impossible. Everything was impossible now. I felt half dead and like the heroine of those bad soap operas.

  “Some joint,” I said. “Roosevelt?”

  He nodded in the brief silence. “Sometimes there’s a snafu and a case goes to a hospital that’s ten miles away. But you were lucky. You got gunned down on West 56th and they rushed you here, which is practically a stone’s throw. Bellevue would have been too long a ride for a guy that was bleeding as much as you were. I’m telling you, Ed. D.O.A. was staring you in the face this time. I hope you take the hint.”

  That got me back from the window and counting sunbeams.

  “Quit the business? Try something else? Drop it, Mike. Or I’ll spit right in your eye.”

  He got grim and stood up. We duelled with our eyes for a full minute. Then he sighed and dug out his worn black memo book.

  “Listen to this. Headquarters has nothing so far. It’s like a throwback to the old alky days and Capone when mob rub-outs were one-two. A car rides down a street, a gun goes off and somebody is dead. Where do we start? No licence plate, no reliable eye-witness that saw anything, no nothing. We have to get it from you. Were you working on anything?”

  “Without a permit and a gun? Captain Monks, please.”

  He took a step towards me.

  “Were you working on anything?”

  I shook my head. He seemed satisfied. He put his book away again.

  “Well, that leaves only one other out. Your past is catching up with you, maybe. You’re a Page One operator. The reporters love you. You’re what they call hot copy – news. You had lunch with Ike once. So maybe somebody is trying to pay you off for sending a lover or a husband or a relative or just a pal to jail. Or to the cemetery. Let’s see – last year you put Bim Caesar out of business. And there was that Riccardi kill –” He sighed. “I’ll check the files. Maybe we can come up with something. Meantime, we’ve got a twenty-four-hour detail on this place so they don’t get a crack at you again.”

  I said thanks. Anything else would have been unforgivable. Mike seemed pleased with my good nature. But it also worried him. It just wasn’t me.

  He showed me just how worried he was: “You feeling all right?”

  “Never better,” I lied. I changed the subject. “Don’t you have something to give me? I never did get to your office.”

  He looked pained but he just sighed and fished into the folds of his big, brown coat.

  “I was hoping you’d forgotten. But you’ll be safer with a gun, I guess. And maybe the permit will keep you warm.” The big .45 he handed over like an old friend who hadn’t shaken hands with me in years. The permit in its plastic case looked as familiar as my old high-school diploma. I put them both under my pillow. I felt almost reborn. Two good reasons for staying alive and feeling like Ed Noon again had just come back into my life.

  Monks put on his hat and lumbered towards the door. His big feet thumped softly across the floor. I called to him. He stopped, one hand on the knob.

  “You said you had to see me about something that day – what was it?”

  He shook his head. “It’ll keep. You’re no good to me now. Laid up like that. Tell you about it when you’re up and
around.”

  I waited, but he looked as if he were going to say nothing else. I couldn’t let him go without knowing. I couldn’t spend another day in that nice, white hospital room without knowing.

  We had skirted around the subject long enough. I was almost afraid to ask. But I did. My croaking voice found the words.

  “Tell me something else, Mike.”

  He shifted his weight in the doorway and looked straight at me. I could see the soft steel in his eyes.

  “Okay. I know you can take it. So I’ll tell you.” He paused. “The blind guy died on the sidewalk. The two kids –” He paused and took a long breath. “Titi, the little one, died on the way over here in the ambulance with you. She lasted only five minutes.”

  My throat wouldn’t work but I got the name out. “Tania?”

  Monk’s smile was bleak.

  “Back home. Just caught a couple in the left arm. But it looks like the arm won’t be any good any more.” He coughed. “But you can’t really tell about things like that. She’s only six years old –”

  He closed the door softly and I was alone. Alone with my miles of white bandages, my stiff body and the torturing pictures of two bang-haired, wide-faced smiling China dolls.

  Only they weren’t smiling any more.

  I turned my face into the pillow and buried the scalding tears.

  THREE

  The days went by and my wounds started to heal. Rain and heat and rain again and September was well on into October. I read the papers. Oh, how I read the papers. It’s amazing how a long stretch on your back can help you catch up on your reading and world affairs. There were magazines too. All kinds of magazines. Everything from the meaty insides of True to Cavalier and every movie magazine since Hollywood began. My perspective altered considerably. All the time I was a registered guest at Roosevelt Hospital, I lost my identity as Ed Noon, private investigator. I became just a guy with an ailment. Another statistic for the records and the funny charts.