Meanwhile Back at the Morgue Read online

  “You see, Ed?” he kept moaning. “Somebody’s out to blitz me. It isn’t over yet, either. What will they do next? My God, suppose those kids had been killed?”

  The police investigation didn’t make anybody feel better. A battery of bluecoats and plainclothesmen, enough to fill a clothing store, spread out in Marcus’ office. The smooth, efficient Miss Carmody had collapsed like a paper doll. Veneer and training and polish had fled from her like relatives who owed her money.

  Somebody was trying to steal the show from the coming extravaganza, Roses in the Rain.

  Marcus stared at me from his desk, glassy-eyed and unbelieving. The man who had organized big entertainment packages for twenty-five years was suddenly lost in his big office. Lost and bewildered and disorganized in the presence of the Homicide Squad, as represented by Captain Michael Monks and two of his fair-haired boys. The fair-haired boys were a little older now, but Hadley and Sanderson were still two of the best on Monks’ team. Lieutenant Hadley and Detective Sergeant Sanderson, James T.

  They grinned at me ghoulishly, because it was like old times. I was puzzled because they were from Homicide and this wasn’t a murder case, yet. It didn’t figure.

  Monks had wagged his bulldog head at me and then got right back to Marcus Manton.

  “So the girls left you and Noon here. You were standing in the hall, ready for the down elevator, and then the girls started screaming. Is that it, Mr. Manton?”

  Marcus raised his head wearily. “Yes—oh, it doesn’t matter. Thank God they’re all alive. When I think of what might have happened …”

  “Sure. Lucky thing all around.” Monks buried his hands in his coat pockets. I noticed his coat suddenly. A handsome gray tweed—a far cry from his raggedy days when he had dressed like a Bowery bum.

  “That’s just it, Mr. Manton,” Monks was saying. “It couldn’t have happened. The elevator jamming was no accident. We’ve talked to the elevator mechanic. He’s an expert. He claims someone had manipulated the cables upstairs so that the car would stall exactly as it did. The car would never have dropped all the way to the basement. There’re too many auxiliary cables working to prevent such a thing. What was done to jam that car had to be done by human hands. It wasn’t a mechanical failure.”

  Surprise twisted Marcus’ big face.

  “I don’t get you. This was an accident.”

  Sanderson, James T., snorted out loud. “That’s a good one. Homicide investigating accidents.”

  But Monks’ big-featured kisser was set in a mirthless smile. “We don’t only solve homicides, Mr. Manton. We try to prevent them. Lots of people don’t seem to know that.”

  I stirred in my chair, because Marcus was coming apart now with shock and genuine terror. He set his teeth. I wasn’t saying anything, knowing all too well how unkindly my police friends look upon interference from a private operator.

  “What the hell are you implying?” Marcus roared, to get his courage back. “Damn elevator acted up. Happens all the time. That’s an accident, isn’t it?”

  Monks took his big mitts out of his’ pockets and looked at them.

  “You’ll have to take my word for it, Mr. Manton. As I told you, the elevator mechanic is an expert.” He smiled easily. “Tell me about your new show. What those girls were doing here, who they were. I want everything. You understand? Right back to your first diaper, almost.”

  I coughed. Everybody looked at me. Monks, Hadley and Sanderson affected that long-suffering look I had put on their faces so many times.

  “May I say something before you put my client in an early grave?”

  “Client?” Monks winced. “No. Not again. You mean you’re working for Marcus Manton? You didn’t just drop in for lunch?”

  Sanderson, James T., guffawed and Hadley drew in his paunch as if bracing himself. Marcus shook his head violently at me but I waved him off.

  “No dice, Marcus,” I said evenly. “Now we put all our cards on the table. The elevator changes everything. Somebody is working on you like crazy. For what and for how long, I don’t know. We’d be nuts to have Monks here work backwards. As if this was the first bit of mud flung on your clean white wall. We have to give him everything we’ve got so he knows how everything stands. We have a fine police department here in New York, no matter how many bad movies you’ve seen lately. We need an organization to help us. A big organization. I’m good, but I can’t match Headquarters for size and for saving leg-work. So spill the gravy, Marcus. Before somebody gets killed.”

  Monks’ calm started evaporating. “Okay, Ed, okay. I want to hear from Mr. Manton now.”

  “Cute.” Hadley shook his head at me. “You are the cutest.”

  “I’m trying to co-operate,” I said.

  Sanderson sneered. “Every time you co-operate I put in late hours and the missus chews me out.”

  Now we all looked at Marcus Manton behind his big desk. He had carefully lit up one of his five-dollar cigars. I had some notions about elevators and things but I saved them for later. The newspapers were going to have a ball in the morning but right now, in the late afternoon, it was the Marcus Manton Hour. He had never had more avid listeners.

  Some of the gloss had returned to his face and his big shoulders had taken a new lease on width. His twinkling eyes fanned around the group with fresh decision. He grunted and spiraled a mammoth smoke ring ceilingward. I had the sudden uncomfortable feeling that he was going to sell the cops something. And maybe me, too. I waited.

  Before he could launch into his sales talk, a private phone on his desk whirred into life.

  “Excuse me.” He unhooked the receiver with a broad hand and swept it to his ear. Just then the door behind us opened and Miss Carmody stood in the entrance.

  “Oh—” she said. “I thought you were all out on the terrace. Mr. Manton had an appointment and—”

  The interruption took only a second. But a second was enough.

  There was a muffled boom of thunderous sound and Marcus Manton sprang away from the phone as if it had sprung to life and bitten him. His loud, anguished yell tore the walls of the room apart. Before we could reach him, he had sprawled back in his swivel chair and bounced out of it like an enraged bull, pawing desperately at his ear. The ear that had been placed against the receiver.

  He was threshing and howling in agony through clenched teeth, rolling around on his fancy floor like a whipped dog, when we came to his help.

  He was howling and hanging on to his right ear. Van Gogh had nothing on him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Poor Marcus. He was in pain and he stayed in pain until we got him to a hospital. His own hospital. Somewhere in the torrent of agonized words that poured out of his bull throat, he gave us the name of his hospital. Monks got him there as fast as a police car could take us. For once, he didn’t ask any questions. Hadley and Sanderson, James T., came along for the ride.

  The Marcus Manton business was sure getting out of hand. It had all started with casting the lead for Roses in the Rain. And then everything had gone bingo. Somebody sent Marcus a tarantula to play with, his mistress, Lisa de Milo, took a shot at him, Darlene Donegan threatened him, four young girls were trapped in an elevator, and now some practical joker had phoned Marcus on his private wire and set off a booby trap in the ear he’d put to the receiver.

  It was nuts, all of it. But somebody knew exactly what he or she was doing. I told Monks all about it on the way to the hospital in the police car. Monks offered no opinions, but I could tell by the solid set of his square chin that he didn’t like any of it. He didn’t want fancy cases with the trimmings. Old-fashioned gang wars and straight homicides were his dish. Monks’ imagination went out with the first talking movie.

  They put Marcus Manton under sedation and trundled him off to a private room. A tall, businesslike medico who must have been put together with steel wire put Monks in his place and took over. We waited helplessly in an anteroom that was full of nice soft leather chairs and outdated copies
of Life and Time. Monks fumed, but there was nothing we could do but wait.

  I was watching a bunch of grimy-faced kids playing stickball on the street down below when the doctor came back. He wore his glasses as if they were medals and the badge of his profession. He was a sniffer, too, and he smelled “copper” a mile wide when Monks, Hadley and Sanderson closed in on him. He gave me an inquisitive glance, but that was all he was giving anybody. He wanted you to know he was interested in nothing but medicine and the art of healing.

  “What’s the verdict, Doc?” Monks barked.

  Doc didn’t care for “Doc,” either. He sniffed again and took off his glasses in the best Lionel Barrymore tradition.

  “Shattered eardrum. Complete collapse. It would take a very loud noise at very close range to achieve such a condition. How did it happen?”

  Monks told him.

  “Hmm … I see.” But he didn’t see at all. And he wasn’t going to ask Monks why anybody would do such a terrible thing. Monks picked up the ball.

  “When will he be fit for talk? It’s important.”

  Doc replaced his glasses. “He’s in great pain, of course. Tomorrow. I suggest you try tomorrow. As it stands now, he will be unconscious for quite a while—uh—Inspector.”

  Monks swore and turned to glare at me. “Ed, I want to talk with you.” He whirled on the doctor. “Thanks, that’s all. I’m Captain Monks of Homicide. All right if I place an armed guard on Manton’s door? He needs police protection. My men may be all over the building, but you’ll never know they’re around.”

  The doctor shrugged. “As you say—uh—Captain. You’ll excuse me?” He left the room. We had been a mere interruption in his orderly routine of operations and consultations.

  Hadley shrugged his paunch at Monks.

  “Awful thing to do to a guy, Cap. Call him on a phone and boom in his ear like that. Well, we know one thing for sure. This Manton bozo sure doesn’t make many friends.”

  Sanderson was right behind him. Just to show his superior he was thinking, he joined in. “That elevator, too. Imagine rigging a setup like that to frighten a guy. What’s anybody going to gain by all this junk? Just shooting Manton would be the whole pie without cutting these lousy little pieces.”

  I applauded and smiled at him.

  “James T., you’ll make lieutenant yet. I was waiting for someone to mention that fact.” I grinned at old exasperated Monks. “That’s it, Mike—exactly. Like James T. says, if somebody wanted to kill Manton, a bullet would have been easier and cheaper. So the pattern looks fairly obvious to me. Somebody, or a lot of somebodies, are doing their damnedest to sabotage Marcus Manton. And Roses in the Rain.”

  Monks put his sausage fingers together in mock prayer, and grimaced.

  “You ought to retire and write your memoirs, Ed. Oh, hell.” He groped for a cigarette. “Have you told us everything there is to tell about you and Manton and what he told you?”

  I nodded. He didn’t believe me. His eyes narrowed.

  “Say ‘I swear to God.’”

  “I swear to God,” I said. “Now what?”

  “Like I said. Manton’s a police charge now. We watch him and wait. I go back to Headquarters and go through the files. And ask for newspapers and books about his legendary career. All the way back to kindergarten. Oh, it’ll be fun, I can tell you.” He snorted through his nice thick nose. “I’d rather read Mad comics.”

  I laughed. “The Marcus Manton Story is twice as mad, believe me.”

  They looked at me, all three of them. Three cops I knew as well as if they were my brothers. We’d been on dozens of cases together and I’d always come out ahead of them. They liked me, hated me, respected me and resented me all at the same time. Talk about giving people complexes. They were official protectors of law and order. I was the scab, the private worker. But they thought I was smart, and that always helped.

  Monks sighed. “Okay. You go on your merry way. Call us some time. I’m not giving you any more lectures.”

  I reset my hat on my head with a tug. “Thanks, Mike.” I headed out. “So long, you two.”

  “See you in jail,” Sanderson said, cheerfully enough.

  “Take care,” was the good advice of Lieutenant Ambrose Hadley.

  I left the three of them there to go over their signals without me, and ankled quietly out of the hospital. All the way down the marble stairs I kept thinking about Marcus Manton and his bad ear. Moaning away on a hospital cot. Marcus and his millions.

  Millions of enemies.

  I was a block away from the place when I realized that somebody was following me. It wasn’t a policeman. No copper I ever met looked like Venus de Milo. But this wasn’t Venus either. It was Lisa de Milo, Marcus Manton’s mistress. The dame who’d taken a shot at the man she slept with.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I’ve been followed before. Lots of times. By cops, crooks and assorted characters. But this was a famous first for me. I’d never been tailed by a gorgeous doll before. I’m afraid I wasn’t dressed for it.

  It was easy to tell that Miss de Milo was making like my shadow. She wasn’t exactly clever about it. She was hardly dressed for the occasion, either. In broad daylight, stunning brunettes in high heels and flaming red dresses with silver fox stoles aren’t anywhere near inconspicuous, the way a tail should be. Plus the fact that her sudden stops and starts when I bent to tie a shoelace that didn’t need tying were ludicrous.

  I forgot about my cab and strolled leisurely downtown, turning on Eighth Avenue, giving her time to catch her breath. I halted in front of a store window with a side-mirror pillar supporting the arch of the entranceway, and took a good look at her. She saw the mirror, too, and turned away as if suddenly looking for a cab to get herself out of this dirty section of town. I laughed to myself, because she was beautiful and bumbling. Quite a combination in any woman.

  It wasn’t hard recognizing Lisa de Milo. For a dame who’d made only one movie, she was in the newspapers more than the Gabors. She had married oil at eighteen, steel at twenty-two and drugstore millions when she was an old woman of twenty-nine. Now, three divorces later and going into her late thirties, she was Marcus Manton’s mistress. That and one of the most impossible accents in the world had kept her out of the big time. Audiences laughed her off the screen. She didn’t want to be a comedienne; she wanted to be the new Garbo. But she only made you appreciate the old Garbo more.

  All of these thoughts leapfrogged through my mind as I suddenly stopped kidding around, turned and walked right up to her as fast as my size nines could navigate the fifty feet between us.

  She was funny, all right. Her red mouth formed a startled “O,” her painted eyebrows lifted like sparrow wings and she hugged the silver fox tight about her long white throat. I smiled as I came, so she wouldn’t bolt. We’d look great on Eighth Avenue if we tangled. With all the bums and derelicts and hangers-on sitting ringside.

  “How about a cup of coffee, Miss de Milo?” I stopped in front of her and smiled my honest smile.

  “Oh,” she said. Even the “oh” was wrapped in layers of Continental accent.

  “I’m Noon. You’re anxious to keep me in sight. You could do it real easy if we were together.”

  “Oh,” she said again. Technicolor flashed on the wide screen of her face. She had broad Dietrich cheekbones, a full, sensuous Italian mouth, a chin out of classical Greece, and deep, dirty French eyes. This was a face for all nations.

  I took her elbow gently. “I just left Marcus in the hospital. We could talk about him, couldn’t we? And maybe about why you took a shot at him in his office this morning. How does that strike you?”

  She tried to twist the silver fox into a hiding place. Her lovely eyes darted nervously, like ferrets, in her exquisite kisser.

  “Really—you do not know me. You—make some mistake.” She started to turn so she could stalk off imperially from galley slave me. I exercised a little pressure on her elbow. She winced. It checked her flight.r />
  “Lady,” I said amiably, “I’m Marcus’ bodyguard. You don’t talk to me, you talk to the cops, comprenez? Savvy? Capisce? If I’m getting to you, just nod your head once.”

  That did it. Her cheeks flamed and her eyes sparked. I had hit her in the one place where it hurt. She thought I was aping her slightly unintelligible voice.

  “Really—there is no need to insult me. I understand. Please. Let us hurry from here. I do not like—”

  “Neither do I,” I admitted. “Your Rolls-Royce anywhere near here?”

  She shook her head helplessly. I took the bull by the horns and whistled for a cab. “I’d be ashamed to show you my office, Miss de Milo. We’re liable to walk in on the cockroaches playing baseball. Where do you live? If you don’t mind.”

  A cab slithered out of the afternoon stream of traffic and pulled up to us. Miss de Milo stood still for me. She let me hand her into the interior, and made room for me. She had calmed down enough to give the driver an address on Riverside Drive in a husky, controlled voice.

  I watched her as the cab roared in the right direction. Apart from her unconditional good looks, I kept thinking about her being Marcus’ plaything. That and the .22 hole in the window of Marcus’ office.

  Suddenly she stirred. She didn’t look at me, though.

  “I explain why I follow. I do not care for you to misunderstand.”

  “I’m listening,” I said.

  Her lips parted in a deep sigh.

  “I want more than anything in the world to be actress. All my life. Not to be toy for rich men. I am young. I marry the wrong men. Now is my big chance. I am in love with Marcus Manton.”

  No amount of schooling or private teachers had worked with this doll. She sounded like a lousy imitation of Marlene, the Gabors and Sophia Loren. But there was more to this dame than bad diction.