The Noir Mystery MEGAPACK ™: 25 Modern and Classic Mysteries Read online

  I’d cursed that little man before, but it was nothing to what I called him now.

  In Suffern I got a taxi. In a few minutes I was back in New Jersey, where I could function legally again, though I was sure it wouldn’t be for long.

  I didn’t go back to the barracks or even phone in. Instead, I had the taxi take me to Brigham Road, where I looked for the cabin Luce had mentioned. When I saw lights in the windows, I told the driver to stop and paid him off.

  In the splash of pale light from the cabin windows, I saw a weird, distorted mass of shadow. It stumbled and staggered and made a sobbing, panting breathing. Without seeing it distinctly, I knew that it was a little man carrying a weight on his back much heavier than himself.

  I started forward, took three steps, then stopped, remembering a thin voice muttering a short while ago: I’m so very, very tired. But not too tired. Never too tired.

  I cut around to the front of the cabin. When I passed a window, I looked in. There was a rustic living room with a bright fire burning and a reading lamp lit over an armchair. Nobody was in that room.

  I went up to the front door and knocked. Almost at once the door swung in. A short, meaty man stood in the hall. He wore a flannel lounging robe, scarf, and slippers, like a picture in a fashion magazine. This was Monroe Gibbs, the sweet-voiced radio tenor.

  His mouth and eyes went wide at the sight of me. The color rushed from his cheeks.

  “Are you Monroe Gibbs?” I asked.

  He nodded, holding himself very stiff, waiting without breathing.

  “That’s all right then,” I said. “We got a call from a neighbor that somebody was in your house. We had an idea that it was closed for the winter.”

  His breath came out noisily. He smiled. “I ran up for a couple of days for a rest. Thanks for your-ah-vigilance.”

  Gibbs started to close the door. I put my shoulder against it.

  “Just a minute,” I said. “How do I know you’re Gibbs?”

  “Why, I— That’s ridiculous. Everybody knows me.”

  “I don’t. Can you prove it?”

  He flared up, but he showed me papers in his wallet. I took a long time, listening all the while. Somewhere in the house a window opened. I wasted more time.

  “Come, come,” Gibbs said impatiently. “I’m freezing out here.”

  “Then let’s go inside.”

  He threw me a sharp, suspicious glance and turned into the house. I followed him up the hall and into the living room. He stopped dead. I looked over his shoulder.

  Even though I’d expected something like that, I myself got a slight case of willies looking at it.

  “George!” Gibbs whimpered. He turned to me, and his face was broken and old. “Officer, what does this mean?”

  “What does what mean?” I asked casually.

  “That—that thing there?”

  “What thing?”

  “That man! That body!” He gripped my arm. He moaned. “Good Lord, man, don’t you see him?”

  “See what?” I said. “Are you nuts? Nobody’s in this room but us two.”

  He looked at me a long time, something in his eyes dying. Then he turned back to the thing standing against the window. Then he—

  Well, mister, put yourself in Monroe Gibbs’s place. You’ve killed a man the night before. Then you’ve gone away to your country place so you wouldn’t have to face people and maybe police questioning before you got a grip on yourself. You’re pretty sure the murder will be pinned on Bill Luce, but all day you’re alone and worrying and a cop appears and your nerves jump.

  Then suddenly you see the murdered man standing there before you, many miles away from where you’ve left him. The knife you’ve stuck into his throat is still there. The blood on the shirt and the face is sheer horror in the flickering light from the fireplace. The dead eyes stare at you.

  And the cop standing right beside you doesn’t see it at all, so you know it must be a ghost, come back from the dead to accuse you.

  Monroe Gibbs screamed. He clawed at me like a hysterical woman. He begged me to save him, and crazy words poured from his mouth. But words that made sense all the same. Words that told me all I had to know about who had murdered George Maddock.

  Then I heard a sickening plop and a sigh. The plop was the dead body falling on its face. The sigh was made by John Luce as he fainted dead away on the other side of the window where he had been holding the corpse up.

  There’s your story, mister. I got credit for bringing in the murderer of George Maddock, when all I did was to use my head a little.

  All I have to do is think of a little man who kept losing his head and doing the wrong things. I think of him getting more tired than a man could be, and yet not stopping or letting himself be stopped because he had a son whose life had to be saved.

  BEDHEAD FRED’S, REDHEAD’S DEAD, by Jack Halliday

  “Bedhead Fred’s, redhead’s dead,” was scribbled on the note Sophie had placed on my desk. Clever. She needn’t have written anything else. All the facts were there; the words even had a bit of a rhythm and rhyme to them, if you were interested in such things.

  I wasn’t.

  My name’s Ed. Ed St. Clair.

  I know this will sound like the ultimate cliché, but I am well and truly a private detective: a snooper, a peeper, a shamus, a flat foot, or anything else you’d like to add by way of description.

  I’m a million miles from Mike Hammer, Paul Pine, Philip Marlowe or anyone else to whom you might wish to compare me. I’m not made of pen and ink, but, rather, of flesh and blood and bone. The real McCoy, or fair dinkum, if you’re at the bottom of the globe, and trying to prove to someone that I’m the genuine article.

  I plopped into my leather chair and swung around to place my heels on the window sill. I just sat there, tapping the small slip of paper against my lower lip as I surveyed the sunset crawling up from the horizon to cast a melancholy shadow on the office buildings downtown.

  Poor Fred. He always reminded me of the lead character in David Lynch’s quirky little film, “Eraserhead,” what with his great shock of hair standing at near-attention like a pheasant in full-preen mode. I suppose it was his trademark of sorts, that head of hair looking for all the world like the result of his having had a run-in with a faulty electrical outlet.

  And now Thelma had had her ticket canceled.

  She was about all he had left. He’d drunk his way out of a promising career in law. Lately, he’d been doing legwork for me (via computer, mostly) when Sophie was overworked or unavailable for some reason (usually troubles with her Alzheimer’s-challenged mother). I couldn’t complain about his thoroughness; it was just that his work was often interrupted by a seemingly unquenchable thirst for anything alcoholic—Long Island iced teas being his drink of choice.

  Of course we would take the case; it was the least we could do for ol’ Fred. I suppose I felt responsible for him somehow. He was a lot like a stray dog, only with a much more unruly coat. A lovable guy, really, especially to Thelma. She had been raised in an orphanage and the two of them had met at a bar (what a surprise!) right after he’d lost out at law school. Her sadness and his self-sabotage met and married only a few months after he and she did. It seemed to be a union forged by the gods: that is, if they existed at all, and had a perverse sense of humor, to boot.

  In any case, he was apparently alone again now, and I knew that didn’t bode well for him, not with his self-destructive tendencies.

  But who would want to harm Thelma?

  Normally, as an actor friend of mine says, “It always comes back to money, Ed.”

  But she didn’t have any, at least not that either Sophie or I knew about. And, as I said, she didn’t have any family that she or we, or anyone else, were aware of, either. Her adoption was one of th
ose “closed file” deals. To my knowledge, neither she nor Fred had ever had any desire to investigate further. This was a puzzler all right.

  But where were the pieces?

  * * * *

  I decided this little affair deserved some serious thinking so it was only a little while later that I made my way to my “private study”: “Henningan’s,” a small place just a few blocks from my office, (which is in the Tristate Building, by the way).

  They might as well have put a copper nameplate on the last booth in the bar; no one but me ever occupied it. I had twenty odd years of seniority, and at this point, even the seat cushions were a custom fit. Zonie brought my usual: a gimlet with a Miller light, chaser. I know, I know, a strange combo, but “it is what it is,” as the Zen saying goes. In our vernacular, “If it ain’t broke...”

  The bar was dark and cozy and just adjusting itself to the proper ambiance for juggling puzzle pieces. The night had nearly won its match against the last struggling rays of sunlight that were making a few stray dust motes visible in the otherwise tomblike atmosphere.

  I was in the process of turning the cryptic pieces of this unusual game over in my mind, wondering where I could find an appropriate “board” to lay them out on, when a familiar voice called my name.

  It was Elmo Cafaulis, a school chum I hadn’t seen since our twentieth high school reunion, nearly two decades ago. He looked like yesterday’s newspaper but his face was refusing to believe the press. His smile was as authentic as a Chinese Rolex.

  “Holy smokes, Ed! Ed St. Clair. What are the chances?”

  I half rose, pumped his hand, and plopped down in my seat as he joined me, collapsing on the cushion across the table from me. I saw Zonie out of the corner of my eye and nodded. She went to fetch two glasses of water and two menus. I was inwardly preparing to be bored out of my already pained skull by whatever it was Elmo had on his mind.

  He was the kid who “got lost” in school. He wasn’t a jock, wasn’t a nerd and, well, wasn’t much of anything. But his father was a doctor and he was rich (compared to the rest of us) and he had a beautiful sister, a large house and access to beers and then some. Those questionable assets had earned him at least a modicum of acceptability in an all-boys’ catholic high school. But that was another lifetime ago. Yet here he was again, in this one; only now I would be footing the bill for the alcohol. Didn’t seem fair. Didn’t seem fair at all.

  “So what can I do you for?” I asked.

  He actually rubbed his hands quickly together like a low-rent Hollywood agent who’d just gotten hold of a “hot one.”

  Zonie reappeared with the waters and my drinks. Elmo looked up and said, “I’ll have what he’s having.” She smiled, looked at me, rolled her eyes, out of his view, and whisked away. She was quite a gal.

  “So anyways, you know my old man always wanted me to follow him in the ‘sawbones’ field”. I nodded. “Yeah, well, it never happened. But I did have a head for figures, female and otherwise,” he chuckled. Zonie returned, placed his drinks in front of him and rolled her baby blues at me again as she disappeared into another part of the bar. I nursed my drink and realized yet again how important it is to savor the good, simple things in life: like an expertly mixed gimlet, especially when you’ve been blindsided by an old schoolmate from forty years ago whom you weren’t even crazy about the first time around.

  “Sorry, Elmo, but I don’t follow. Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad you found your ‘niche,’ an’ all, but what’s all the excitement about and why tell me, and after all these years?”

  He tasted the gimlet, turned his nose up like he’d just discovered a skunk on the table, and took a long pull on his beer. He leaned back, squinted at me and smiled like the proverbial cat.

  “What?” I asked.

  “‘What?’ he asks...yeah, ‘what?’ ‘What’ is a load of cash, Ed; ain’t been claimed by no one in too many years to keep track of, and we’re talking about musical ‘notes’ to the tune of two hundred fifty grand. That’s ‘what’.”

  I drank half my beer in one go. “I don’t getcha, Elmo; really I don’t. I assume you know I’m a P.I. but I don’t do much in the area of corporate finance deals.”

  He held his palm up in a “halt” gesture, which was what I wanted him to do. But, somehow, I knew he’d ramble on instead.

  “All’s I need you to do for me—and for a nice ten percent commission—is a little ‘peepin.’ You got avenues and contacts I don’t and I’m guessin’ you can sort out the red tape angle so’s I can cash in.”

  “On what?”

  He broke into a wide smile that seemed like the genuine article compared to his previous attempt.

  “An inheritance, that’s what. I got a distant relative on my mother’s side who’s the sole heir of a recently deceased tycoon of sorts, small time, but still, a bit of a ‘money boy’ in his heyday.”

  “Go on.”

  He nodded, looked back and forth quickly, and then leaned forward, lowering his voice to nearly a whisper. This was starting to feel like a hardboiled, film noir picture from the forties.

  “Anyway’s, I have it on good authority that this heir is, uh, deceased, too.”

  “And?” I added, my frustration and annoyance growing in tandem.

  “What I need you to do is to make double-sure there ain’t any other paperwork to stand in the way o’ me claiming the dough. You know, no spouse, kids, nothin’ like that.”

  “I don’t get this. Why can’t you just suss this out for yourself? Why bring me or some other private dick into things? We don’t get rich, but not many of us do ‘freebies’ either.”

  “That’s why I’m offerin’ ya twenty five grand. Thing is, the heir was an orphan. I happen to have gotten wind of the deal from a ‘business associate’ of mine who is currently living on the state’s dime: will be for another ten years or so. Anyways, he did some time with a guy who worked for the old man, discovered that the daughter had the same last name as my mom’s maiden name, was from the same state and county, etc., and I took it from there. If I go nosin’ around personally, it might make things a little dicey for me when it comes time to claim the cash. Ya wit’ me?”

  Maybe it was his disagreeable demeanor, what with the lantern jaw, all but bald dome and little pig eyes of his, but even my gimlet was beginning to taste rancid.

  “What was her name, this heir?”

  “Her birth name was Julia Templeton.”

  He paused to wipe his tiny, pouting mouth with his napkin.

  “But her adoptive name was Thelma. Thelma Jean Robertson. Last known address: just a hop, skip and a jump from here.”

  Suddenly, I wanted to toss the remnants of my beer in his puss.

  “Recently deceased?” I asked myself with a sense of disgust.

  How convenient. So he’d been on the wrong side of the law for years and cooking books for crooks and who knows what else all this time. I wanted to smack him right on his pock-marked, ruby red nose.

  “Ed, can you look into this for me? Find out for sure that she ain’t got any living relatives, no husband, kids, somewhere, for instance?”

  “I won’t promise anything, but I’ll check with my secretary and see if we can’t tie up any loose ends for you,” I lied. “We can certainly use the money. Like I said, this business isn’t like the movies. Dirty divorce cases don’t put you in Brooks Brothers’ suits.”

  “Ain’t it the truth,” he said with a nod of finality.

  I just sat there, staring and stewing.

  He broke the awkward moment by wiping his hands together as though he’d encountered some cobwebs that wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. Presently, his lifted his bulk from the booth and shoved a ham-sized hand across the table at me. He was well over six foot and must have tipped the scales at over three hundred po
unds. He hadn’t missed many meals, that was certain.

  After we shook hands I felt like dipping mine in lye. I doubted that it would have made a dent in the psychic slime that seemed to cling to my palm.

  “Look forward to hearin’ from ya,” he said as he turned to leave.

  “I’m at the Carlton, room 801,” he said with his back to me.

  I was dumbfounded. I just sat there trying to process the bizarre exchange that had just taken place. My waitress brought me back from my reverie.

  “Anything else, Ed?” Zonie asked, as she leaned over to put the empty glasses on her tray.

  “Nothing comes to mind, Zonie; nothing at all.”

  * * * *

  He was in the same condition as Thelma when I found him. Maybe they were similarly joined in spirit now, too. At least that was my hope. Although, if I were really being honest with myself, it was difficult for me to imagine good old Saint Peter pouring “Bedhead Fred” a Long Island iced tea up there in the glory world.

  I’d gone straight to his apartment from Hennigan’s to let him know about my conversation at the bar with my unexpected guest from yesteryear, as well as my concern for his safety. My guess is he’d been dead for at least a day or two. A single bullet to the head, served execution style, courtesy, no doubt, of one Elmo Cafaulis.

  I surmised that Elmo had found some information at Thelma’s indicating that she and Fred were an item. No doubt, that was something which Elmo decided he needed to do something about. So he’d “handled it.” Just like he’d taken care of poor Thelma.

  I stood for a long while by the window, in front of Fred’s sofa, his head at my feet, the crazy hair bearing unmistakable but inarticulate testimony to his identity. I watched the cars whizzing by, their occupants busy with life, Fred’s having ended along with Thelma’s.

  * * * *

  It didn’t take long for me to write up the results of my investigation into Fred’s and Thelma’s murders. I would give the details to the homicide division in the morning and Elmo would be entertaining the “city’s finest” in his suite at the Carlton sometime before lunch.