Meanwhile Back at the Morgue Read online

  “Eddie, Eddie …” she crooned. “What have you got that gets me so worked up? I’m warm all over.”

  “You’ve got the part, Fran,” I said. “You don’t owe me anything. You’re on your way to being a big Broadway star.”

  “Shut up,” she hissed. “Don’t make me talk a lot.”

  “All right, I won’t make you talk. But get this straight. If you have anything at all to do with this crazy case, this won’t change anything. Understand? I’m still a detective—I’m still looking for a murderer.”

  I was yammering, but she wasn’t listening. Her sheath dress was unsheathing, and my blood was boiling. We could talk later …

  Meanwhile Back at the Morgue

  Michael Avallone

  Ed Noon Mystery #10

  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 Fran—

  with a very special love

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Death is as pointless as having a key for an open door that you are only going to walk through once.” That charming remark was once attributed to a man who specialized in charming remarks. When you get right down to it, though, the saying makes a lot of sense. Especially to a private detective who specializes in cases that feature grim reaping.

  It’s a ten-o’clock-in-the-morning kind of business where one tiny phone call that sends you off on a case can catapult you into headlines, notoriety and sudden death. But that’s show business—and the private investigation racket. Since I’d been insane enough to be interested in the former and I make my living in the latter, I guess I got everything that was coming to me.

  The day the trouble started is easy to remember. Times Square was humming. The opening of the fabulous million-dollar epic, Roses in the Rain, was six months away, and Marcus Manton hadn’t found the girl to play the lead yet. Merman was too old, Dolores Gray was busy, Judy Garland wasn’t interested, and dolls like Lena Horne just weren’t right for it. Small wonder. The singing lead of Roses in the Rain had to look eighteen, act like Hepburn in her palmy days, and belt out ballads in the best show-stopping tradition. It looked impossible, all right, but Marcus Manton always got what he went after. But so far, casting the heroine of Roses in the Rain was knifing his artistic guts. Broadway was laughing up its sleeve because the idea of casting a rookie in such a big-league show seemed like box-office suicide.

  I was between cases when Marcus Manton called me that morning. He was no respecter of sleep or of clocks. My phone rang at seven-thirty. The city had been quiet lately, and I hadn’t seen a client in four weeks, so I’d been getting plenty of shut-eye. The call didn’t upset me. Fact is, I was champing at the bit. And Marcus Manton usually meant money. Big money.

  After “What’s new?” and “How are you, kid?” he got down to cases.

  “Ed, do you think I’m nuts like everybody else does?”

  “I haven’t got enough money to think you’re nuts, Marcus. What’s eating you?”

  He sounded worried.

  “How about coming to my office this morning? Early. As soon as possible. I’m looking over four new girls for my coming epic, and I want your advice.”

  I’m afraid I laughed.

  “You sure you don’t want to call Kazan? Josh Logan is in town, too. What do I know about musicals?”

  He growled suddenly. “You’re a detective, aren’t you?”

  I admitted that it mentioned some such fact on my license.

  “Well, I need a detective. A detective who’s a pal of mine and a guy I can trust. Believe me, Ed. In your case, that’s type-casting.”

  “Thanks, Marcus. I’m putting on my shoes now.”

  He laughed, but the worry didn’t leave his voice. “Don’t stop until you reach your hat. I’ll be waiting.” He hung up his million-dollar phone in his million-dollar office.

  I thought about him a lot as I finished dressing and looked around at the fading magnificence of my own office. The mouse auditorium. Complete with four-drawer file, roll-top desk and sagging leather chairs. The Marilyn Monroe calendar didn’t dignify the office very much either. I was down at the heels, and Marcus Manton had four pairs of shoes for every day in the week. His African mahogany desk cost more than my whole office did. But, for all of that, he seemed to need me. That’s democracy. It’s a great world, isn’t it?

  The morning papers were all about the Russians, but I went to call on Marcus Manton, who was having his own troubles casting the lead in his Broadway extravaganza, Roses in the Rain. I was calling on a million-dollar murder case, but I didn’t know it. I didn’t know anything.

  That’s life too, I guess. And definitely not the world I made.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Manton building is right on Times Square. A stone’s throw from Father Duffy’s statue, in case you want to hit a pigeon from there. And just a spit from the Palace Theatre. New York is on all sides. Times Square New York, that is. Brill Building, Tin Pan Alley, the Capitol and the Automat. The picture has been pretty much the same for years. Stone and neon and huge advertisements. Marcus couldn’t stand the sameness, I guess, so he added the Manton Building to the whole show. Twenty-two stories of enterprise and endeavor. A monument to the show business that had made Marcus his fortune.

  I was fairly presentable as I strolled into the lobby of the Manton. My suit was pressed, I was freshly shaved, and the back of my neck was washed. Not that I wanted to impress Marcus. I just didn’t want to look as if I had exactly one hundred and thirty-nine dollars in National City.

  Money has never stayed in my company long enough for us to become buddies. Unfortunately, big murder cases and me are friends. You just never make loot on big murder cases; the cops are always impounding the spoils. It’s as if the big ones belong to the city or something. Private, intimate cases are much better for a private detective’s liver. What people want to keep out of the papers, they’ll pay good money for.

  The express elevator was mobbed. No elevator has ever had a more diversified passenger list. Rocky Graziano was chatting amiably with Tony Gale
nto. I smiled hello to Chester Morris, who was as sharp-looking as ever in a charcoal-gray suit. The guy he was talking to was none other than Eddie Bracken, who lost a year every time you ran into him. The one woman in the car was Julie Newmar, the impossibly leggy beauty from the L’il Abner movie. She tried to remain aloof in one corner, but the prize fighting and acting fraternity didn’t give her a chance. They were all chattering like lodge brothers when I got off at the sixteenth floor. Manton Building elevators are self-service. I wasn’t missed at all.

  Marcus Manton’s offices were like the Taj Mahal. Persian rugs, mahogany furnishings, genuine Renoirs on the wall. Marcus didn’t know from Renoir, but the colors had struck his millionaire’s fancy. Anything and everything in the place had the solid-gold “MM” stamped on it. Double M for everything. Which is quite a thing, considering Marcus isn’t Marilyn Monroe. Dimly, off somewhere, I heard a running babble of voices overscored with that peculiar sound that women make when they’re all gabbing at the same time.

  But there was a hush out here. The secretary behind the Texas-wide reception desk smiled architecturally at me, her eyes assuming the proper hello look. Cold and manufactured, like everything else. When you had the money, you could buy smiles like that by the factory-full.

  “Yes, please. Can I help you?” The voice was manufactured, too. So many inches of warmth, so many feet of inflection. No more, no less.

  I had nothing for her either. “Ed Noon to see Mr. Manton.”

  Open sesame. That did it. She smiled obliquely and pushed a buzzer on her desk. She used a different voice in talking to her boss. It figured. A voice for each occasion: one for the boss, one for the customer, one for the lover. Everything for the money. Nothing for me, though. I put my teeth together.

  She got back to me again. “Would you go in, Mr. Noon? That door on the left.” She pointed. I followed her arm. About a mile off, I saw a solid door with a metal handle. The flesh of her arm was soft and shellacked-looking.

  “Congratulations,” I piped cheerily.

  She faltered. Just for a second. “I—beg your pardon?”

  “No tattoo. I expected a double M on your arm. Fancy monogram and all that.”

  She was starting a haughty “I beg your pardon” when I left her hanging. Two minutes later, I was ensconced in the office of the Great Man. I could still hear the babble of voices outside, but the silence in Marcus Manton’s office was cathedral. The place looked like a cathedral, too. The desk was the altar. Why a big businessman who lived red, white and blue should decorate his office in subdued grays and pale greens was beyond me. I tried not to think about it as I walked the long plush road to the desk. That was the catch. There was nothing but room around the big desk. Acres of room. There was only one chair facing the desk. I took it without saying a word.

  I didn’t say a word because Marcus Manton was out on his terrace, staring down at the city. I could see his bull head and thick neck and blacksmith’s shoulders through the French windows. He was jammed discontentedly against a balcony like a Notre Dame gargoyle, clouds of cigar smoke blanketing his head of exploding black curls. Far behind him I could see the RCA Building and the Empire State holding up the sky the way they always do. I started whistling. I whistled a happy tune from The King and I.

  I don’t sing very well, but no one has ever complained about my whistling. It got Marcus in from the balcony.

  He started from left field. He always started from left field. I hadn’t seen him in over a year but he picked up the ball as if we had never dropped it.

  “Now there was a damn good show. Damn good show.”

  “Ran two years,” I agreed. “Great music, great performers, solid book.”

  “Exactly the point. A top effort in all departments. An ace. An absolute ace. I can top it, too.” His voice was big, like the rest of him.

  “Sure you can. Roses in the Rain is a better story. A more universal story.”

  His eyes gleamed like silver dollars. His million buck teeth flashed at me. I’m not kidding—about his teeth. They were false, and some Park Avenue dentist had charged him almost that much.

  Then the smile went away.

  “Hold on, Ed. Roses is an original. You couldn’t have read it. I’ve got all the copies in my safe.”

  “I’m only telling you what you’re going to tell me.”

  “Same old Ed.”

  “Same old Marcus.”

  He sat down and buried his dying cigar in a twelve-by-twelve gold ash tray. He stoked up another. Some columnist had once remarked that he looked like Edward Arnold. Marcus liked that for some reason. So he parlayed the resemblance. Any similarity between him and Edward Arnold playing Diamond Jim Brady was purely intentional.

  “Ed, I need you. You’re an ace. The ace in your line. I still haven’t got the girl. I need a girl. An ace girl. This show is a full house for me. It’s gotta be the entertainment of the century.”

  I looked at him. He didn’t need a million dollars. Or did he?

  “Why?” One short, to-the-point word.

  He spread beefy, ring-studded hands. Rings from presidents, honor societies and foreign countries.

  “The Manton story isn’t new to you, Ed. Son of immigrant parents. Nice, poor, don’t-bother-anybody Jews. They reared an American son who grew up with gangsters and gamblers for friends. I learned a spiel at an early age. While most kids were still in school, I was earning two hundred a week as a carney pitchman with Tomlin’s Three-Ring. I was a salesman from the word go.”

  “The ace,” I admitted.

  “Okay.” He brushed that aside. “I’ve done everything. Been everything. Now I’m pushing fifty-five. I’ve crashed through in every medium there is. Pictures, books, plays, music. Everything but a Broadway musical. Everything but a musical with a solid book. A show with heart. Something people will be telling their kids about for years to come. Roses in the Rain is that show. It’s got to be good.”

  “Cut it out,” I growled. “You’re not selling me anything. I haven’t got the proverbial. Let’s have it straight. And not from your bleeding heart. I don’t want to laugh in your face, Marcus.”

  His face flamed then the fire burned out as he thought about it. More smoke eddied from his mouth. Then he laughed. The Edward Arnold laugh. Hearty, full-throated and with tears in his eyes.

  “Ha ha ha ha. I never could do anything with you. Ha ha ha. You slay me.”

  “Okay, I slay you. Now what’s really cooking in that showman’s brain of yours?”

  He wiped his eyes and sobered up.

  “Straight shooter, aren’t you? Okay. I’m broke. Flat, dead, certified, double-A broke. This show lays an egg, and I’m out of the money. For the first time in my life.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Am I?” He flared up angrily. “I’ve got ten dummy partners, a million lawsuits being settled out of court, and my wife is alimonying me into an early grave.”

  “Wife? You got married again?”

  “Forget it. The witch shall remain a witch, et cetera. So I’m on my uppers, Ed. Honest Injun.”

  “You must be. You haven’t offered me a drink since I came in.” He sprang to make amends. “So you’re banking everything on Roses in the Rain. So where do I come in? You really didn’t ask me to come up here just to pick a pretty face out of the crowd for you.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Well—what then?”

  Marcus Manton handed me a Scotch on the rocks.

  “Somebody’s trying to kill me,” he said.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I’d heard that before. Too many times from too many people. All kinds of people. Hysterical ones, actors, fakers, liars and people just out to impress me. But Marcus Manton didn’t need to impress me. He was a Have and I was strictly a Have-not.

  I downed some of the good Scotch and tinkled the ice in the glass.

  “You don’t need publicity that bad, and you’re too old to play games with a guy like me,” I said. “Ho
w bad is it?”

  He grunted, barrel-rolled his five-dollar cigar to the left side of his mouth and never took his glittering eyes from my face. But his beefy hands pulled back the center drawer of his desk, reached inside, found something and came back with it almost on cue. He placed something down on the fantastically polished desk top. I stared down at it over my glass.

  Suddenly the office was as quiet as a ballpark in winter. Except for the now faint ocean of talk going on somewhere in the area beyond Marcus Manton’s office. The thing on the desk would have become the center of attention anywhere, any place, any time. In the Bronx Zoo or out of it.

  I held back my initial impulse to jump five feet into the air. I never did care much for the looks of the thing, in spite of its fascinating history.

  It was a tarantula, a black, ugly killer with too many legs and enough poison to kill anybody. But somebody had killed it first. Its wicked body was a pulpy, dead mass. Squashed, as if somebody had stepped on it real fast. But it was still recognizable because of its humped outline and its crawly legs. Marcus was nuts. He had placed the thing in a plastic box that once must have held an expensive jewel of some kind. That was Marcus Manton. From the sublime to the ridiculous.

  I looked at him. He looked at me.

  “You’ve got big feet,” I suggested. “One of your circus pals send you this as a birthday present?”

  Marcus sneered. “My big feet saved my life. I was in here yesterday, all by my lonesome. I was getting some fresh air out on the terrace. I come in and this damn thing is scuttling out of my desk drawer. It scared the living hell out of me! Some monster, eh?”

  “It’ll do till Disney invents a better one.” I frowned. “Who was here yesterday? I wasn’t kidding about your circus pals. You hiring any big-tent talent?”

  Marcus frowned. “No, no. I’m working on Roses and nothing else. Yesterday was just like today. Aspiring young blondes, brunettes, and redheads panting to do the lead for me. They and their agents and their business managers. Besides, nobody carries these things around for pets, do they?”