Killer on the Keys Read online

  KILLER ON THE

  KEYS

  Michael Avallone

  STORY MERCHANT BOOKS

  LOS ANGELES

  2015

  Copyright © 2015 by David and Susan 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://www.mouseauditorium.tumblr.com

  Story Merchant Books

  400 S. Burnside Avenue #11B

  Los Angeles, California 90036

  http://www.storymerchantbooks.com

  This one is for Harold Q. Masur, that legal eagle, good man and mystery-writing colleague par excellence. Good luck, always, Counsellor.

  At Law and everything else worth doing.

  OTHER GREAT ED NOON

  ACTION–ADVENTURES

  by Michael Avallone

  SHOOT IT AGAIN, SAM

  THE HORRIBLE MAN

  THE LIVING BOMB

  THE FAT DEATH

  THE FLOWER-COVERED CORPSE

  LONDON BLOODY LONDON

  THE GIRL IN THE COCKPIT

  KILL HER—YOU'LL LIKE IT

  THE ALARMING CLOCK

  THE TALL DOLORES

  THE SPITTING IMAGE

  THE CAST OF CHARACTERS

  . . . according to their musical instruments

  ED NOON

  a harmonica

  TADEUSZ ANTON

  GREGORY

  a Stradivarius

  GEORGES VALENTIN

  a concert Steinway

  WALTER HENDRICKS

  a ballyhoo horn

  ALGERNON GERARD

  a Hammond baby grand

  MADAME ALARMA

  a tambourine

  COSMO PAPPAS

  Indian clubs

  CAPTAIN MICHAEL

  MONKS

  a police whistle

  MELISSA MERCER

  a drum

  DR. DEMING

  an Inter-Com box

  RODOR FIFE

  a symphony orchestra

  GUNNERY SERGEANT

  GREGORY

  a metronome

  LADY ELIZA FORSGATE

  DUNLEY, FARLEY,

  JEREMY, GLADYS,

  SANDY, LASSINGER,

  LASSINGER AND

  BROWNE, MARVIN,

  AMBULANCE DRIVER

  CHORUS OF VOICES,

  alto, tenor, bass,

  soprano, mezzo-soprano

  . . . and some of them never hit the right note again.

  "YOUR FUTURE IS IN YOUR HANDS."

  Madame Alarma, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, bent over Ed Noon's palm.

  At the sight of her diaphanous dress falling away from her incredibly sensual body, that palm began to itch uncontrollably.

  "I see a beautiful woman in your future," the ravishing fortune teller intoned, her own hand lightly caressing his. "I see—oh, what I see is not to be spoken in polite company, you naughty Mr. Noon."

  Noon felt her arms go around his neck, her lips crush against his, her body rubbing softly against his hard frame . . .

  Madame Alarma was a seer who saw to it that her predictions came true—whether they were for scorching sex or sudden death . . .

  The Libretto

  ACT ONE

  1. VIOLIN SOLO FOR A CORPSE

  2. DUET ON NERVESTRINGS

  3. QUICK POISON

  4. SERENADE TO INSANITY

  ACT TWO

  1. PRELUDE TO OPUS .45

  2. IS THERE A DETECTIVE IN THE HOUSE?

  3. DIRGE IN ONE DAY FLAT

  4. DIE, NOON

  ACT THREE

  1. BALLAD FOR A MAD MUSICIAN

  2. PORTRAIT IN SNAKES

  3. SILLY SYMPHONY AND LOONEY TUNE

  4. REQUIEM FOR FIRST FIDDLE

  CODA

  1. ENCORE, WHITE HOUSE

  ACT ONE

  No. 1. Prelude

  No. 2. Scene and Principals

  (An apartment in Manhattan. It is evening. On the right is the door of the room. At the back, stage left, a man stands attiring himself in dress clothes. The room is neat, masculine and disarmingly candid. The man seems so too. He is whistling the aria from Carmen as the curtain rises. The man is still whistling, reaching for a black tie to adorn his white ruffled shirt when a bell chimes in the apartment. It is the doorbell and is a musical piping of Three Blind Mice. The scene is like a time bomb ready to explode as the man goes to the apartment door to answer the ring.)

  VIOLIN SOLO FOR A CORPSE

  The major character in this story is dead now. So the tale can be told. Everybody, no matter what walk of life they step around in, can make of it what they will. It doesn't add up to a row of beans, somehow. Still, in retrospect, there is something to be learned from all that goes before. That's a lesson that eludes a Joan Baez or a Jane Fonda. Even a President of these United States. Maybe Ravel said it all in Pavane For A Dead Princess, maybe it's spelled out in Beethoven's Fifth or even that silly Laurel and Hardy introductory theme, I don't know.

  Anyhow, here it is.

  The whole, entire second chorus. The symphony of trouble and despair and sudden death. With violins, too.

  And from the top.

  Death never had it so good.

  Or so lucky.

  But that too, depends on the point of view.

  I answered the chiming apartment doorbell that October night to find Gregory standing on the threshold. That Gregory. Tadeusz Anton Gregory. The one they labeled the finest violinist in the musical heavens. The damn instrument talked in his hands.

  He marched towards me, cornering me in the narrow foyer of my Central Park West hideaway, lean arms pushed out in the old grand manner. He was Central European enough to embrace all of his male friends. I let him because I was tremendously fond of him. For more reasons than his virtuosity with a Stradivarius. He was a good man.

  A light black opera cloak hung from his squared shoulders and his head trained on me like a dark revolver. His shining eyes sparkled familiarly and his smooth, nearly classic face wore a smile as if it were a mask. When it came to Music, he was a pistol, all right. Not a popgun, either. But Krupp. Sheer Krupp. A God in a top hat.

  "Well, then, Edward, old friend. Are you prepared for the finest hour of my career?" A walking stick rode sidesaddle on one shoulder.

  The Gregory basso was profundo, all the way. Poised, arrogant, teeming with authority and the magnificent self-confidence that is the most necessary part of the toolbox when you're a virtuoso. Along with his marvelous fingers, perfect on-stage control, he was every inch the Master Violin. The First Violin.

  "Isn't every hour the finest, Gregory? Or are you talking about something else besides tonight's concert? By the way, you're early. They have a strike at Carnegie Hall?"

  "To your first question—some would have it so. To the second, I deal always with specifics. Tonight, of course! As to the third, they would not dare! To perform with Gregory, this is not—how would you say it?—small apples?"

  "Potatoes," I smiled, following him into the living room. "You invited me to your concert as a pal. I hope this doesn't turn out to be a job for a private detective, after all. I am at liberty but—"

  "Listen to the man! No, no. I do not need your forty five, my friend. Only your ear which happily, is not tone deaf nor a vacuum. You have not missed very much in your lifetime, Edward. I know that."

  "You've had my ear," I reminded him, "since I heard you do The Flight Of The Bumble Bee and Hora Staccato. So what else is new?"

  "Edward, Edward—" His sigh was a tidal wave in the clo
se confines of the room. "You are like the sunlight on a rainy day—"

  I'm no music critic but I never had to be expert where Gregory was concerned. If simply hearing him had not been enough, there was the opinion of the people who were paid to know. As violinists go, Gregory shared the violin case with Menuhin, Heifetz and Gods like Paganini. His freshest laurel wreath was his recent interpretation of such tough aces like Stravinsky and Shostakovich; rendering their works on violin strings was like pushing peanuts up Mount Everest with your nose.

  I finished pouring myself into a monkey suit while my famous guest spread his cloak across one of my living room chairs, sat down neatly, bisected one leg with the other and aimed his walking stick at my rear end. I watched him in the mirror as I knotted a black dress tie. Under all the surface gayety and bounce, I saw he wasn't really serene. Something was bothering him. The smile-mask was too tight.

  "From this position," Gregory laughed, "I could injure you very severely, my friend." He jabbed the walking stick like a fencing foil but didn't even come close. Almost idly he posed the question, "What time is it, Edward?" He hadn't removed his top hat, either.

  "Not yet seven. Nerves, Maestro?"

  His shrug was nearly apologetic and his smile broadened.

  It was a sappy question, you see. The man had no nerves at all Such a gutsy quality had only underscored his brilliance, enhanced the effect he had on people when he walked from the wings on stage. Chutzpah was his trademark. And yet, as of that moment, he was paying too much attention to the walking stick in his spatulate fingers. Turning it clock-wise, then counter clock-wise, as if it were a baton. It was quite a stick: black, highly-polished Malacca, a Cadillac among canes. But it didn't call for that kind of admiration. I turned away from the mirror and eyed him searchingly. Gregory's dark eyes seemed like pin-points, his hawk nose was tense and his color was pale.

  "Okay, Maestro. It's a fine stick. I might add, a brilliant adornment for such famous hands. I've always wanted it for my very own. Are you auctioning it off tonight?"

  "What am I bid?" He held it up, eyes twinkling. The polished tubular surfaces shone like random stars.

  "Two bits, a leftover fifty pence piece from London and all my old tiepins."

  The spell, whatever it might be, was broken. Gregory erupted with laughter and relaxed more naturally in the chair.

  "A thousand pardons, Edward. I am an idiot! You were saying—"

  "Just one Excuse Me will do. What's eating you, Gregory?"

  "But nothing, Edward!"

  I opened the top drawer of the bureau, selecting some personal items to go along with the dress clothes, everything except a Colt .45 automatic. But my eyes were still on the reflected image of the Great Gregory. The One, the Only. In the mirror depths, he was almost ghostly and unreal, but the trouble and agitation hung about him like an aura of despair. Like a witchcraft hex, or a hoodoo of some kind.

  "There's something on your mind, Mr. G. Maybe a frank, honest confession will help. Come clean, Maestro. Did you seduce the third fiddle's sweetheart or has Heifetz challenged you to a violin duel? You know—swinging Strads at ten paces."

  A laugh bolted from him again. The cane was forgotten, laid gently on the floor next to his chair. Without so much as a clatter.

  "My friend, you are a tonic. I have been a fool. Forgive me."

  "That depends. What are we talking about now?"

  He spread his hands, fisting them and unfisting them in rapid sequences of emphasis. All the old bombast was tearing back. His dark eyes snapped and the hawk nose soared in eloquence.

  "These social affairs—so tiring! All of that sycophancy and fawning stupidity! You recall last evening I was guest of honor at Lady Dundee's—?"

  "—Dunley," I corrected him. "Eliza Forsgate Dunley. The Park Avenue matron who wants to feed half the world with gambling funds from that scheme of universal, global lotteries and such. Not a bad notion but I can't see how—"

  "Dundy, Dunley," he boomed me down. "What does it matter? I was most indiscreet. The fool, if you will. Some person at the affair, a curious mixture, was telling fortunes. Reading the hand. Palmistry! A sideshow for freaks—Park Avenue was never so gauche! I was forced into it, I tell you. I—Gregory. The First Violin!"

  I laughed. He bridled at the impolite sound.

  "These people who push one into things—my hostess insisted!"

  I motioned him toward the foyer and the front door, indicating my wrist watch. He rose helplessly, securing his walking stick, adjusting his cloak, resettling his top hat on his classic brow. It would pay to get to Carnegie ahead of the overflow crowds. He heaved his shoulders and followed me obediently. I switched off the overhead lights and locked the apartment door. Gregory's explanation ran on uninterrupted. I couldn't have stopped him if I wanted to. The bottled-up tension of the event spilled from him flood-tide, in his booming, vitalized way.

  "—a Madame Alarma, I think. It was she who read my hand. A tall, queer woman, as wrinkled as a crone. Shades of my Hungarian boyhood when gypsies and magyars roamed the hills! Oh, it was a huge success, I can tell you! Madame Alarma caused quite a sensation. Reading the palm of the Great Gregory."

  The hallway was dim with indistinct illumination, as quiet and isolated as an uncharted isle in the South Pacific. I rang for the elevator. Gregory's intense face was only a foot away. We were both six-footers, but his height was all spare and haunting while mine was more the Wheaties variety. I'm not overweight at all but Gregory made me look like a draft horse standing next to a thoroughbred.

  I grinned at him in the modernistic gloom to make him feel better.

  "She found out you had six fingers on your left hand instead of five like the rest of us mere mortals?"

  For a second, almost a frightened one for his eyes jumped, he scowled at me. "But how do you know that she read my left hand?"

  "Palm readers always do. Standard Operating Procedure. They read your left hand, and they see wedding rings or engagement rings. And etcetera. Sort of gives them a head start on the business of being able to tell you something about yourself."

  "Of course! But why did I not think of that—" He still looked worried. The hidden fear danced into his eyes again. He had his lips compressed, too. That sure sign of inner aggravation.

  "Well, go on," I prodded him. "There has to be more."

  "Oh, the usual thing," he said, almost warily. His chuckle was a very small sound. "She began the ordinary run-on—the catalogue of hope and wishes fulfilled. More monies for me, more fame—I am even to look forward to a Command Performance with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth sometime next year. But before that—"

  I could see he was hedging and as the elevator car arrived and the cage door hissed open, I half-shoved him inside. He stood in one comer of the car as we dropped. The walking stick was tapping in a nervous one-two rhythm on his left shoulder. "These charlatans! Her face turned dark. Ominous—this Madame Alarma. And she hesitated in the middle of what she was saying, then would say no more. I confess I grew rather alarmed—Madame Alarma, indeed! What theatrics, even to the title she gives herself. But what would you have done, Edward? When I pressed the ridiculous old creature for further information, she said 'all was black'—'the fog had covered everything—she persisted that she saw 'nothing more'—she had lost the call, it seemed. Oh, it was a huge hit with everyone, I can tell you. Dear Lady Dunley thought it the piece de resistance of her party."

  Small beads of perspiration were suddenly visible on his dark smooth face. The barest pinch of agitation showed in his nostrils.

  "You're not going to be a kid about all this, are you?"

  He snorted. We had reached the street level. The cane spun deftly from his shoulder, balanced on its ferrule to the floor, supporting his tall frame. He held back, wanting me to exit first. I did.

  "Nothing so ineffectual. It is simply that my nerves were overtightened. From that charity concert the night before—you recall? And then too, many another artistic problem.
My coming tour of the West, the business with the Union people and their dictatorial stand on what I should pay my accompanist—" He sighed, suddenly very, very weary and almost defeated. "I am a fool to admit it but the woman's overtures tended to upset me. Last night, I had the bad dream. God in heaven—it was a Walpurgis night! Herr Wagner couldn't have had such a dream. Not Wagner and perhaps not the Devil himself."

  I had no quick, easy answer for his abrupt weakness of character. I had to remember his Central European ancestry and in that territory, history is steeped in myths, fables, ghost stories and old wives' tales. Fear is Old World and not even the gloss and protective coloration of Fame and Genius and Fortune had protected a Gregory from his environmental beginnings. He wasn't being a prima donna either, or the usual cliche temperamental musician. There was barely a drop of Leonard Bernstein in Gregory's blood, for all his solitary uniqueness in his field. I told you. The man was a sweetheart Loved by one and all. At least, that was what I knew and thought I knew that star-crossed October eve.

  "I'll call a cab," I said, changing the subject. He grabbed at my arm as if I had tried to run away from him.

  "It is but a twenty minute walk. Do you mind, Edward? The promenade will do me good. I like to hear the performance in my head, you know, before I actually do it—you understand—"

  "I understand it's like sixty blocks from this spot to Carnegie Hall but don't let that bother you. I haven't heard a good dream story in ages. If you remember any of it at all, please horrify me."

  It was cold Indian Summer weather on that unforgettable night. I had no top hat to go with my full dress, like Gregory. That far I hadn't wanted to go. I turned up my coat collar against the biting breezes wafting across the avenue from Central Park. We headed South along the green environs, massed and shadowy, looming to our left. The usual heavy traffic flowed methodically, with equal distribution North and South. Manhattan was revolving in its familiar, timeless orbit of seven o'clock activity. The sky was dark, blinded with the dull, dim curtain of neon haze closed over the nighttime City like a sleeping giant. Gregory walked briskly at my side, keeping the step as well as the pace. The opera cloak was flying in the wind, the walking stick was stabbing at the dirty pavement, making tapping, insistent sounds. We encountered very few passersby or even park bench people drinking in the metropolitan magic of Manhattan after sundown. That kind of magic has fled. Don't ask me where it went. Somebody must have mugged it about fifteen years ago, along with everything else that was worth taking. My city is a whore now, and it couldn't have happened to a more beautiful girl. The transformation, the tragedy, is almost complete.