The Flower-Covered Corpse Page 2

  I shook my head, eyeing the last of the Beefeater. Same old Memo. The movie bits. The memory routine. He tested all his friends and even his enemies with memory tests. But never without a reason. Never without a motive that spelled money.

  I sighed. "Okay, memory man. 1930. Universal Pictures. Won the Oscar as Best Picture of the Year. Put the studio in the black and saved their bacon. Lew Ayres and the butterfly. Directed by Lewis Milestone. My choice for the best war film of them all. That good enough?"

  "Ace," he breathed. "You're an ace. What about the boots?"

  "Boots?" I echoed.

  "Yeah. Boots. For walking. You dig? Tell me about the boots."

  I frowned. "Again. Slower, old buddy."

  Now, he grimaced and the cigar barrel-rolled again. His tiny eyes glittered. "It's seven o'clock, Noon. Guy's coming in here at once. That gives us two hours. So he knows we can't see the movie or go to a library or anything like that. But I made a bet. For seven big ones. You're my proof. He says he'll take your word. You tell him about the boots and I win seven hundred bucks. I'll give you ten per cent of the take."

  I grinned. Now, I understood him. "Tell me what the bet is."

  Memo Morgan looked happier. He relaxed a little.

  "This guy says that I'm wrong when I said that the boots went from Ben Alexander to Russell Gleason. He says Owen Davis, Jr. Now I'm asking you. Am I right or wrong? You tell me. I met this gink in here at five o'clock and he says I don't remember right. We were all talking about war movies and the gab got around to All Quiet. Come on, Noon man. You yes me or no me. The guy says he'll take your word. He reads a lot of them letters you write into Films In Review and he says you rate with him as an expert."

  "You're the expert. You're famous for your memory. Why won't he take your word? Or wait until tomorrow. You could check with the New York Times or any film library in town. Even Million Dollar Movie must have a print on that old goldie."

  "Out-of-towner." Morgan's sniff was mighty. "It's you or nobody, sweetheart. We got a deal?"

  I shrugged. "You knew you were right all the time. Russell Gleason inherited the boots after Ben Alexander lost his leg."

  "Noon, baby. You always were the Ace. Can you make it convincing to this clown?"

  "Depends. What's his name?"

  "Tod Crown. Real estate man from Chicago. In town to pick up a piece of Merrick's new show. Loaded I guess. Wants a little action to while away the hours while Merrick splits up the angels."

  "If he wants action, he ought to try the track or the stock market. Wall Street could use his money. Things are pretty tight from what I hear."

  "Yeah. Yeah," Memo Morgan agreed. "The pound's gone down, ain't it? You could fill this guy in on a whole lot of All Quiet, huh? Just to make it look good?"

  "Memo," I laughed, "don't hustle me. We're all movie buffs together. What you don't remember about All Quiet On The Western Front wouldn't fill a contact lens."

  He took his cigar out of his mouth and waved it. His tiny eyes shone with enthusiasm. "Oh, you don't do so bad, either, Noon man. I never met anybody else that could tell me who played Bill Powell and Gable as kids in Manhattan Melodrama. But you knew."

  "That meant something before Television, Memo. Now, it don't rate anything. Everybody can catch up now. I just happen to have a head like a sponge."

  He chuckled. "What are you drinking?"

  "Beefeater. And you can buy me one. I've got a date with a lady in about one hour."

  "Nice-looking girl?"

  "Are there any other kind?"

  We both laughed while he dug out one of his fantastic wallets that was a combination bill holder and all-purpose junk box. Scraps and stubs and bits of paper strained for freedom from the thing. Memo has a notation on everything. People are always asking him things—like where's Oshkosh, who's Yehudi and how high is up?—his memory isn't always enough. He has to prove it.

  Glasses clinked behind us. A woman laughed. A man's big voice rose on the punch line of a dirty joke. Morgan placed a grimy five dollar bill on the bar and motioned to the bartender.

  He eyed me with what I assumed was fondness as the Beefeater filled my empty glass.

  "Russell Gleason, huh? Now who the hell would remember him except an ace like you? Man, you're tough. Too tough."

  "I remember every foot of that flick, Memo. Guess I've seen it maybe two dozen times. As a schoolkid and all the way up to right now. Here's to boots, boots, boots." I tilted my glass and he watched me. Memo Morgan does not drink.

  If you're unfortunate enough not to know that movie, Lew Ayres and his German schoolchums are rah-rahed into enlisting in World War One by their jingo schoolmaster. For the fine glory of the Fatherland, Ayres is followed into service by Ben Alexander, Russell Gleason, Billy Bakewell and Owen Davis Jr. Alexander is sent off to war with a fine pair of leather boots. When he becomes the first casualty of the group, losing a leg at the front, the boots pass on from man to man, with Russell Gleason being the first inheritor. I had always marveled at how Director Lewis Milestone had used the boots as a gimmick to depict the death of all the fine young men. The last legatee is Ayres, until he reached for a yellow butterfly while on sentry duty in the last month of the war and is picked off by a French sniper. To my mind, it is still the finest anti-war film ever made and nobody has ever replaced Louis Wolheim's portrait of the German Sergeant who became a second father to the kids at the front. Battered-puss Wolheim with his growl and his great humanity.

  I winked at Memo. "Who played Kat?"

  He sneered. "Louis Wolheim. You kiddin' me?"

  "Just testing. And I suppose you do know who played Lew Ayres' mother?"

  "Beryl Mercer."

  "And the corporal-postmaster?"

  "John Wray." He scowled at me as if I was an amateur.

  "All right, Memo," I said flatly. "For one hundred thousand dollars, tell me the name of the player who shared the trench with Ayres. The French soldier who Ayres kills and has to spend the night with and pours out his soul to."

  Memo Morgan stared down at the dead end of his cigar. His voice, which alternated oddly between a squeak and a boom, was quiet now.

  "Raymond Griffith. He became a movie director himself."

  I yielded. "You hoodoo. You scare me sometimes. You don't need me to beat this Crown character. With your crystal ball and snake eyes and IBM brain, you could—"

  "Well, gentlemen. Hope I haven't kept you waiting."

  The voice was soft, melon-tender and mellifluous, and sounded at my left shoulder. I was sitting closest to the front door. Memo Morgan was on my right. I turned easily. Standing just as easily there was a short, squat Negro man whose clothes were the direct antithesis of Morgan's. A dapper grey two button job topped with a foulard tie of black and white stripes. A silk handkerchief was folded neatly in the breast pocket of the suit. The Negro extended a hand. I took it, finding it easy to smile at a stranger. The man's face was a compound of the Louis Armstrong cliche. Jet-brown, large teeth, wide nose and a nubbin of a head.

  "Mr. Crown, I presume?"

  "It's not Dr. Livingstone." The man smiled and included Memo Morgan in his radiance. "Well, sir. You're as good as your word. This is the Noon man, I take it."

  "Himself," Morgan rumbled. "Ready to help me take your money."

  Not once had Memo referred to Tod Crown as a Negro or spade or coon or any of the usually painful words. My estimation of him shot up another thousand points.

  "You've got a great smile for a loser, Mr. Crown," I said.

  Tod Crown chuckled, sounding like the obbligato plucked on a bull fiddle and waved the bartender away who had sidled over to see if he was thirsty. He didn't drink either, it seemed.

  "Then you concur with Brother Morgan here?"

  "I do indeed. Can't hide from the facts."

  He seemed to measure me with a twinkle of his eyes. His wide nose was flared eternally, the nostrils as visible as his large ears.

  "Brother Noon, I informed our ot
her Brother I would settle for your word. I stand by that. But allow me the privilege of hearing you spell it out. Give me the word, Brother Noon."

  I couldn't help grinning. His easy camaraderie, the pleasant rhythm of his voice and the simple fact that he wasn't going to be a sore loser tickled me.

  "Brother Crown—as long as we're giving out titles—I will spell it out since it's costing you seven hundred dollars. The actor Ben Alexander who is now gracing a TV show called The Felony Squad and once earned a living as Dragnet's partner, was the first man of the group to be wounded in the movie All Quiet On The Western Front. He lost a leg and therefore had no use for boots for walking. He gave them up to Russell Gleason who is also dead in real life now. He was the son of actors Lucile and James Gleason and died in 1945 by committing suicide. Which is neither here nor there. I was just showing you how much I do know about the people involved. So much so that there isn't any room for a mistake. But if you want, I could call some friends at CBS or NBC and maybe they could run the picture for us as a positive test. But believe me, Brother Crown, you lose."

  Memo Morgan was enjoying himself now. As if I were a star pupil and he was basking in reflected glory.

  "Go on, Eddie, tell him the sequence of the boots. You can do it. First Alexander and then Gleason—"

  "And then Owen Davis Jr. and then Billy Bakewell and then Lew Ayres. That ended the ronde," I concluded flatly.

  Tod Crown shook his head. "And that ends me." He reached a big dark hand into the interior of the smooth grey suit. An ostrich leather billfold, tooled in gold, with the monogrammed letters TC, caught the lights of the bar. Seven crisp green bills, one hundred dollar denomination, shuffled cleanly across the bar top towards Memo Morgan. "Our bet is still on, Brother Morgan. If your spirit is willing. Double or nothing and once more around the block."

  I sipped my Beefeater, watching Morgan. He was blinking furiously now. Looking at the seven green men that were his and thinking about seven green brothers that could join the club.

  "You wanna bet some more?" he barked, the cigar almost falling from his gashed-out mouth.

  "To quote dear Brother Noon, I do indeed. Well?"

  I shrugged. "He wants to lose his money, take it, Memo. He doesn't look like a welfare case to me. Besides, you should hear the bet first. What can you lose except five more seconds of a smoke-filled bar?"

  Tod Crown showed his teeth. "I find no double entendre in that, Brother Noon. You seem too fine a man. Gentle, too. I like that. Well, Brother Morgan?"

  Now, I blinked. Crown was quick as a lightning bug. And not even as simple as Memo Morgan looked.

  "All right," Morgan growled. "Name it."

  Tod Crown folded his hands, minister style across the bar. He stared past my shoulder at Memo Morgan. His smile had vanished. Replacing it was the cold hard face of the expert poker player. I felt something in the bar now. I had the acute feeling that Morgan was being hustled. Suckered into a bet that Crown knew he could win, only to be eased into another bet for bigger stakes that Crown could not lose. It was worth waiting for. The sounds and atmosphere of Jim Downey's watering hole had all fled back into the subconscious. It was as if the only three people in the world were me, Brother Crown and Brother Morgan. We three, one Beefeater martini and a Question.

  "Go, man, go," I breathed.

  The dark man nodded and spoke firmly and clearly: "For the fourteen hundred dollars, you must tell me where Louis La Rosa is. You have two minutes. If you take the wager."

  I had never heard of Louis La Rosa. Didn't know him from Robert J. Kennedy. But Memo Morgan did.

  His clown's face paled and he croaked hoarsely, "No bet."

  Tod Crown almost glared. The big smile had gone north. Far, far north. "Are you quite certain, Brother Morgan?"

  "Never heard of him. I'll take my dough now." He pawed across the bar for the seven century bills. Crown let him, sighing. I flung him a look.

  "Strange bet. I know everybody. Or thought I did. But I never heard of anybody by that name."

  "Sad," Tod Crown said mellowly. "Very sad. Louis La Rosa could have made Brother Morgan some fourteen hundred dollars richer."

  "Your arithmetic's lousy," I pointed out. "Memo just filed seven hundred bucks deepsouth."

  "So he did. Chicken feed, Brother Noon." Crown eyed Memo Morgan with deep regret. "Change your mind, Brother? There is more than thousands of dollars involved."

  Memo Morgan had drawn himself erect, the money safe somewhere in the pockets of the baggy suit, his grin tight, his hat on even tighter. "No dice, Brother Crown. Better you should ask me to find Howard Hughes for you. Here, Noon." He thrust some bills on the bar. "Seventy bucks. Ten per cent, like I said. Well, see you—"

  "Memo, you don't—" I was talking to his back now. The broad striped coat and the turned-down borsalino practically sailed out of Downey's. I watched him go, frowning. He had nearly spilled an incoming couple at the big doors. Nobody less than Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Newman tried to grab his arm, laughing a greeting, but Morgan brushed by him like the wind. Newman shrugged and steered his wife to their usual booth close to the doors.

  I turned back to Brother Tod Crown.

  "You going to take off like a big-assed bird too?"

  His teeth reminded me of a Steinway piano. His smile however apart from its radiance was a trifle ragged.

  "Yes, I shall take my leave also. But a trifle more decorously. Goodbye, Brother Noon. You shall be eternally locked in my memories of All Quiet On The Western Front."

  Shrugging, I went back to my drink.

  "Okay if I reach for a butterfly too?"

  "Please. Be my guest."

  "Who and what is Louis La Rosa?"

  He laughed. And laughed and laughed. I had to grin in spite of anger and confusion. He was one jolly looking gent. Santa Claus in sepia.

  "If you didn't have to ask that question, Brother Noon, you would be of great service to me. As it is, we must part never to meet again. Ciao, Brother."

  "Ciao."

  I had to watch him go too, deciding that I had just spent the whackiest fifteen minutes I had ever spent in Downey's and that includes the night that they had to throw me out for cornering Julie Newmar in a telephone booth.

  The bartender came over, big, tall and bow-tied. A smiling Irishman who minded his own business the way all really good bartenders do.

  "One for the road, Noon?"

  "How did you know I was leaving? My friends give you that idea?"

  He shrugged, filling my glass. "You looked at your watch a lot. It's early. Cat like you must have a date with a dame."

  I did. With Jean Martha. At Le Alpi, for dinner. Just before our erring feet led us into the Grass Gardens.

  But I had a hard time forgetting Memo Morgan, Brother Tod Crown and the mysterious name of Louis La Rosa.

  I was to remember them well, all of them, because things were going to be far from quiet on the Manhattan front.

  There was a war going on and I had walked right into the centre ring without being warned.

  So hang on now.

  Morgan, Crown, Louis La Rosa, the Grass Gardens, Lew Ayres and that eternal butterfly have everything to do with what's coming up on the menu.

  Eat, drink and be murdered.

  Chapter Three

  THE FRACTURED FLICKERS

  □ Meanwhile back at the Grass Gardens—

  Jean Martha had regained her feet. The fur stole looked like a bedraggled cat and her oval face was stained with mud but she looked all right. Her hands fluttered as she righted herself.

  "When you go out," she gasped, trying to smile, "you really go out, don't you?"

  "You okay?"

  Her nod was lost in the madhouse scene going on behind us. Kids were pouring out of the Grass Gardens. Screaming, yelling, running. Some of the long-haired creations were carrying their girls but it was hard to tell them apart The backdrop of collapsed timbers, gushing smoke and flickering flames was a Gotterdammerung. Sir
ens filled the rainy night air. Hoarse shouts rose on all sides. Fifty Second Street had leaped into the morning headlines.

  I raced back towards the building, shaking off a building feeling of nausea and pain somewhere inside my skull. Blackened, smoked-out faces gawked at me. The teenagers blocking me, stumbling, dodgeing, crying, laughing hysterically, seemed like a wall of flesh. I shouted something. I remember that much. Behind me, I heard Jean Martha cry out, "Ed, don't go back—"

  The teenagers, removed from the garish Strobe lighting, into an outside world of mist, smoke, fire and madness, now resembled lost little children lurching in the rain. The Grass Gardens spit, hissed and crackled. I thought of Rice Krispies and Fireman, Save My Child and I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire.

  And the four-four beat of Don't Run Your Damn Hands All Over Me. I knew then that I was going fast. Slipping over, passing out. Blood played tag in my little grey cells. Teenagers pawed at me, scrambling by. I fought to breast the tide, to part the mini-skirts, the jeans, the Beatle haircuts. It was useless. I was carried along with the wild tide.

  "ED!" Jean Martha screamed again.

  But I didn't hear her. There was a muffled roar and ten tons of black night touched me.

  Yeah, Yeah!

  I went steady with Lew Ayres and the butterfly. And heard the marching of boots, boots, boots. . . .

  Somebody was playing with my nose. It tickled. I opened my eyes. And saw nothing but blue lights. Spiralling, blinking, travelling across a dim ceiling of azure, lapis lazuli and just plain blue. I closed my eyes and opened them again. It was as if I was all eyes. The dim blues with that damn light playing over them hopscotched and leap-frogged.

  For a long minute, I remembered nothing. Then I sat up straight and nothing hurt. I stared down at my feet. I was still wearing shoes. I batted my eyes against the flickering horizon of blue lights. A dream or a nightmare? I didn't know. It felt like a cross between an LSD trip and a flight into Lost Horizon.

  "Still with us, Brother Noon?"

  The lazy, lush voice sounded like a tape recording. But that was silly. Tod Crown was a dark stranger who made crazy movie bets and now wanted to find somebody called La Rosa—anything he had to say to me he could say in person.