The Crazy Mixed-Up Corpse Page 6

  Monks eyed me suspiciously. “What’s that for?”

  “The blonde confiscated my forty-five. I’ve still got my licence, haven’t I? And I do need a gun, don’t I? Look what happens around here.”

  He started to say something, then bit his lip. The head wound was really bothering him. I indicated the bottle on the desk and he nodded. He scooped it up in his free hand and tilted it. I never saw him drink chug-a-lug before but there are lots of first times for everybody in their lives. He’d never been shot in the head before either.

  But I was really thinking about Kelly’s phone call and the mysterious blonde and just how much I wanted to catch up with her. I was impatient to get going but I didn’t know just how to work it. Monks was mad and I didn’t want to hang around while the M.E. patched him up. I thought fast and hard.

  But he was way ahead of me. Like I told you, he knew me better than my mother had.

  “Go ahead,” he said wearily. “Buzz off. Go where you gotta go. Be the great manhunter. Do it yourself. I can see you standing there stewing like a kid that’s gotta go to the toilet. But I’m telling you something like a friend. I am your friend. Call me for God’s sake when you latch on to something hot. I’ve got the facilities of a whole police force to help you with. A police force you pay taxes to support.”

  “Mike –” My voice stalled. There wasn’t a gag left in me.

  “Go on. Take off. Catch up with the blonde. But call when you get something. Do I have to give you a dime to do it?”

  “No, Mike.”

  “Okay,” he growled. But I could see he was pleased with the way I’d taken the bawling out. Somewhere down under his rough hide, he really liked me.

  “Anything I can do before I go?”

  “I’m okay. The M.E. will patch me up in jigtime. Tomorrow I’ll have a nice white bandage and a headache, but I’ll live.”

  I started for the door feeling a lot like a kid being allowed to go play football instead of practicing his piano lessons. Feeling not quite certain about the largesse offered by a parent and just a little foolish.

  His eyes pinned me before I got through the door.

  “Think about that corpse, bright boy. Think hard. It’s the toughest nut I’ve ever run up against. And you’ve got just the weird intellect to help me out on it. I’ll handle this end. And don’t worry about the Longs. When we catch up with them, I’ll use kid gloves.”

  “Thanks, Mike.”

  “For what? Giving you permission to stay in a business that’s going to get your head blown off?”

  “So long, Mike.”

  “Good-bye, Ed.”

  I closed the door softly behind me and headed down the hall. I was having a headache too. Like the guy in the morgue photos, everything was crazy and mixed up.

  He was a crazy mixed-up corpse, and this was a crazy mixed-up case.

  ELEVEN

  The street was dark but still noisy. A flock of excited kids were standing around in front of Tom Long’s laundry shop, waving their arms and gabbling like a flock of geese over the ruins. Their attention was riveted on something going on inside. It was easy to guess what was so interesting. When I was a kid, I always hung around while the cops went through their paces. So I figured the bomb squad, the trio of clean-cut Headquarters boys that had come with Monks, was giving the kids a good show poking around the scorched store looking for clues. That bothered me somehow. The blonde hadn’t even been carrying a handbag when she had barged into my office. If it was she who had bombed Long’s, where had she hidden the bomb? In her fur coat? I filed the thought away for the future and decided to walk towards Tenth Avenue. I didn’t want the bomb squad to see me sauntering by without Monks.

  I headed slowly across town pondering a method of operation. Kelly’s phone call had been interesting. If the blonde was Holly Hill and she worked in a strip and drink club on West 52nd, it meant walking distance or a five-minute cab ride. But it also meant something else. Did I want to beard the lioness in the den where she worked or should I just tail her out of the place and follow her home? It was a cinch I’d have my hands full at her club because of crowds of people, bouncers, and any friends she might have. I couldn’t see myself strong-arming my way in and out. Nailing her when she was all by her lonesome seemed the best idea. I was in no shape for the Jack Armstrong act.

  I looked at my watch. It was nearly nine. I had my answer. Kelly had said she was Holly Hill and that she worked there as a stripper. Which meant she’d be working until the last show in the morning, which should be about three o’clock. So I had plenty of time to do a couple of things I’d been putting off. Holly Hill could keep for a while. I had one advantage over her. I knew where she’d be about three o’clock. She didn’t know where I would be.

  On the corner of Double Fifth, I caught a cab roaring by, climbed in and gave the cabbie the block where the Blue Turkey was. One of the things I’d been putting off was food. F-o-o-d, food. My usual lopsided life always left me hungry at the craziest times. I felt I could eat a whole turkey of any colour right now.

  Several minutes later, the driver let me out on Sixth Avenue and Fifty-second Street. I slipped him a buck, didn’t wait for change and walked back towards 53rd. The night air was fresh and invigorating and strolling passers-by all looked glad to be alive.

  It was a nice part of the city. Rockefeller Plaza is just a short spit away and the towering, modern-design buildings all around are the best advertisement New York ever had. I was walking away from the Music Hall but I was conscious of its brilliant, orderly façade behind me. I was also conscious of Strip Row, the 52nd side street where the strip clubs try to elbow each other out of the way because they’re packed in so tight and solid. Strip Row and the Blue Turkey where the mean blonde Holly Hill was taking it off for money.

  I didn’t walk very far. The Faisan D’Or was one of the best eateries in town. And right now it was just the type of joint I needed to take it easy in and restore myself, as the French say.

  It was bright and clean and attractively done in brown wood and cozy tables and booths. I found an empty booth at the rear and sat down. It was still pretty early so there wasn’t much of a crowd. Penny, the waitress, glided over silently, handed me a menu with a nice smile and drifted off. I took a flying glance at it, made up my mind and waited for her to reappear.

  She did. With a glass of water, a fresh set-up, and a pencil poised. I ordered a Martini and the best steak in the house with all the trimmings. I wasn’t thinking about anything but the drink and food right now. It was delicious taking it real slow for a change. And I suddenly remembered what Faisan D’Or meant in English. The Golden Pheasant. Golden Pheasants and Blue Turkeys. Well, my life was something for the birds at that. Only thing was the birds wouldn’t want it. Sometimes I wondered if I did.

  My Martini arrived with a big olive drowning in it and I sat back and sipped properly. The gin felt great. I could feel it filling my chest and expanding like a big circle of warmth. I put the glass down and sighed. Even the ache in my side seemed to evaporate.

  Then I got around to the other thing I’d been putting off.

  I reached into my hip pocket and took out the brown leather wallet that Tom Long had insisted was mine. The wallet he was sure had fallen out of my clothes. The wallet I was now convinced had belonged to the dead body that was giving Mike Monks and Headquarters such a hard time. The wallet that Holly Hill had been looking for so ferociously.

  I looked at it. It was deep-brown in colour, almost a mahogany hue, all of its outer surfaces finely tooled in gold leaf. The motif of the design was Wild West. You’ve seen the way they louse up children’s wallets so they’ll look as if Roy Rogers or Hoppy owned them. Well, this was the same way. Only better. Much better. It looked custom-made. The leather was real expensive, the gold flake genuine and the craftsmanship of the cowboy design was nothing you’d get for sending in ten boxtops and a quarter. This was a wallet you’d expect a Texas millionaire to have especially made for
himself.

  The cowboy design was of interlaced lariats and ten-gallon hats and Smith and Wesson model six-shooters. Real corny but terrifically rendered. It was a jazzy wallet but a very handsome and obviously expensive one. Sort of the way the old Rolls-Royce looks today.

  I fanned the wallet open. The billfold section was the first thing I looked at. It was worth looking at. There were five, crisp, green-as-new-grass thousand-dollar bills neatly bundled together. I looked around. I was glad the Faisan D’Or went in for subtle lighting. From across the room the new bills would look as ordinary as singles. I spread them out on the table and studied them. I rubbed them and crumpled them and balled them and looked at them again. They weren’t counterfeit or five beautiful green mirages. They did look as if they’d just left the Treasury but they were bona fide, Bill Of Rights, Grade A and certified good old American money. I’ve handled enough counterfeits to know the, difference.

  Well, there were five thousand good reasons for murder. But I couldn’t see five thousand bucks justifying killing kids and blowing up stores and undressing private eyes. I stuffed the money back in the folded section and explored further. The rest of the wallet was even more interesting.

  There were a flock of business cards in a pocket fold, a wire binder insert with six glassine windows all framing pictures and licences and forms. All the usual junk any man will carry at all times because he’ll never know just when he’ll need them. You know, social security card, driver’s licence, card of membership in some club, credit card from a department store, a calendar insert that is advertising for some store. All those things and a couple of photographs. One of the photographs was one of those passport horrors. It was the corpse. Smiling in life. He’d been a helluva good-looking joe. The other photo was a head-and-shoulders shot of a tawny, healthy-looking blonde who’d put Sheena to shame.

  It was Holly Hill, of course.

  But the cards and the licences and the forms all had one thing in common. They were all from deep in the heart of Texas.

  Everything was Texas. The social security card had an El Paso address, the credit card had been issued by a San Antonio department store, and the calendar advertisement was from a Laredo bookstore. The driver’s licence had been registered in down-town Waco. This was one Texan who really got around the fair state.

  His name didn’t mean anything to me. But it was repeated in enough places on the cards and forms to start sounding as if I’d been hearing it all my life. T. T. Thomas. I sipped my Martini some more and thought it over. T. T. Thomas. It sounded like Texas. Sounded like a Westerner. I could almost picture him running around in boots and chaps, fanning himself with a ten-gallon hat. I started to grin to myself until I remembered he was dead, and the way he had died. The man from Texas had been treated anything but right neighbourly by New Yorkers – if New Yorkers had killed him.

  The steaming steak arrived surrounded with julienne potatoes, and I pushed the wallet to one side. The smell of good food was almost paralysing. I vowed once again never to patronize the Automat. I’d been living on nothing but bland food lately. Penny winked at me and moved away again. She seemed too busy to talk.

  The steak was almost exotic. My stomach had a good time. In between forkfuls of tantalizing beef, I riffled through the business cards in the wallet. All Texas again. It was puzzling that there wasn’t one card from a different state in the deck. I’ve heard all the Texas jokes that were ever invented but this couldn’t be a joke. It had to mean something. I stared down at the wallet and tried to dope something out.

  A guy from Texas, obviously rich, is butchered by person or persons unknown, left in a stolen car, stark naked, for the cops to find. And a lot of work goes into keeping his identity a secret. Why? If it’s that important, why not just weigh him down with cement and dump him in the East River? Why give the cops a corpse to play around with at all?

  And Holly Hill. Knocking herself out, going to great lengths for something the guy had or owned or knew about. And the Long family. Getting shot up, blown up and crippled. For what? And now Tom Long was a fugitive from justice because he’d pulled a gun on a cop and accidentally shot him. Nuts and double nuts. It didn’t make sense.

  I pushed my empty plate away, ordered coffee from the pretty Penny and drained the last drop of Martini. I looked at the wallet again. Five one-thousand-dollar bills wasn’t the answer. It simply meant that T. T. Thomas was well-heeled and that’s all.

  Suddenly, I remembered my own wallet. And things like hidden compartments. I suited the action to the thought. I cleaned out T. T. Thomas’s personal secrets thoroughly until they made a small pile on the table. Then I turned the wallet inside out like a guy looking for moths. No moths popped out but something small and green fluttered from an inner lining and fell right into my empty glass. I fished it out. Now I had something. The something I was looking for. The something Holly Hill was probably looking for.

  It wasn’t a thousand-dollar bill this time. It was a single, folded over several times until it had formed a small, compact square an inch wide. A dollar bill with George Washington looking out at me the way he’s been doing ever since I was old enough to count.

  The single wasn’t new, like the other bills. It was old and worn from the folding, as if it had been carried around for a long time. I pressed down on it to flatten the folds and creases. Then I held it up close to study it.

  Just another dollar bill. Series 1935E with the same old Washington, D.C. seal and necessary words and numbers to make it legal tender for all debts, public and private. A silver certificate like any other.

  Except for one thing.

  On the back of the bill where the big word ONE is backgrounded by a scroll of white area, the only blank space of any reasonable size on the bill, someone had written down a set of numbers with a ball-point pen. 50.5–90.3. That and the words El Ombre. Not much, but it had to mean something because the bill had been in a certain place. Considering what had happened to the owner of the bill, I was pretty sure the words and the numbers weren’t something sentimental or a notation on a horse in the Fifth at Hialeah.

  El Ombre. My high school Spanish was pretty rusty but that meant something like The Man or The Shadow.

  It was too soon to make sense out of the whole mess. I refilled T. T. Thomas’s wallet and put it in my hip pocket. I folded the one-dollar bill back to its original shape and pondered. I looked around. Penny was coming back with my coffee. I waited for her and smiled. She’d been working at the Faisan D’Or as long as I’d been going there.

  She set the cup down in front of me and smiled back.

  “Pardon my curiosity, sir,” she said, “but I couldn’t help noticing. You seem awfully interested in money.”

  I grinned. “Isn’t everybody?”

  She laughed. “Some of the patrons were watching you and mentioned it. I thought it was stage money and said so. You in show business?” She knew damn well I was a detective but we were always clowning around with routines.

  I dropped my napkin and reached down for it, unholstering my P38 in the process. I straightened again with the P38 in my hand below the table.

  “Not a chance. And it wasn’t stage money. I’m doing a survey for an outfit that puts chlorophyll in all their products. They insist their chlorophyll is greener than Uncle Sam’s green.”

  Her eyebrows went up and a small smile tugged her mouth to one side. “Now you’re pulling my leg.”

  “I will if you ask me to.”

  “Fresh,” she said. But she wasn’t annoyed. “Anything for dessert?”

  While she was standing in front of me making talk, I had the P38 under the table. I’d already slipped the clip out and stuffed the folded bill in between the top two cartridges. I snapped the clip back softly.

  “No, thanks,” I said above the click. “Just tot up the bill and don’t hurry. I like the scenery.”

  I ogled her low-cut black blouse and white apron when I said it. She lowered her eyes, tickled down to her to
es, and walked away, without further comment. While her back was turned, I reholstered the P38, pretending to pick something up from the floor again. I was beginning to feel like an American agent in a grade-B spy pic. But I was also beginning to get ideas about my waitress pal.

  So I had what everyone was looking for, even if I didn’t know just what it was. But at least I’d be in a bargaining position when the time came.

  I lit a cigarette and stirred my coffee. Holly Hill would probably give me a lot of answers if I asked her the right way. And I knew the right way. Thinking about it made my side ache where she had so callously ripped the bandage away, costing me some skin and lots of agony.

  I checked my watch. Ten o’clock.

  The Faisan D’Or was starting to fill up. The Music Hall had probably let out and the hungry ones and the thirsty ones were looking for a refill in one of the best watering holes for miles around.

  Penny came back with the bill. She was smiling again. It’s funny. Sometimes you don’t even work at making a good impression and you make one. Usually when dames are the last thing in your head. Of course she had seen me counting my money, but that doesn’t always mean anything. I took a good look at her while she marked up my bill.

  She was about five-feet-four, slender in the waist where it counted and round and full where it means something to a man. Her eyes were bright and clear and her brunette head was poised and orderly. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was pretty enough in a pinch. Or pretty enough to be pinched. She’d be an asset on any man’s arm.

  I was suddenly amazed that I’d never asked her for a date before.

  When she handed me the bill with a smile, I put my most wholesome expression to work. The one with honesty and thirty-two teeth and male glamour all over it.

  “I’m free tonight,” I said.

  “I’m not.” She smiled. “Not until ten-thirty anyway.”

  “You know where the Blue Turkey is?”

  Her eyebrows went up again. I could see she was slightly disappointed.