Killer on the Keys

by Michael Avallone

  The Doctor was quick and alert-minded. I liked that. I grinned.

  "She's not mine or anybody else's. She couldn't be. She's almost the Most Beautiful Woman In The World and nobody owns that kind. But she's the gypsy so-and-so. And let me tell you all about her and her effect on your star boarder. It's a partial explanation for the strait-jacket he's in." Quickly, succinctly, I etched in everything worth telling him about Stephanie Orodney. I left out the Cosmo Pappas section, filling him in on the old-lady disguise, the theatrics and the dire predictions and its unwholesome effects on Gregory. "I had my secretary check the lady out. She is also Hungarian, born in a little town called Szegedd, which is really a big city now. She's maybe twenty seven. Born after the war in Europe was over. Came to this country and made a fortune doing the Jean Dixon routine with the Park Avenue crowds. The Beautiful People, the Jet Set, all seem to adore her. You get the picture? A fantastic, bizarre woman, who doubled as a withered, old crone to set Gregory on his ear. Before Georges Valentin died of a heart attack and Algernon Gerard took an incorrect medicine for his bad throat. What happened between me and Gregory in Pittsburgh, you know about. Me trying to show him he could play with an accompanist who would stay healthy. I intend to live to a hundred, as anybody who knows me could tell you. But the scheme did a backfire and I drove Gregory over the edge. Okay. It all seemed so obvious at the time, his snapping like that, considering the sort of man he was, the kind of emotionally insecure child he truly was. But—and this is the biggest But—I didn't know then what I know now."

  "You're leading rather round-about to something, Mr. Noon." Dr. Deming looked a little concerned for the first time. There was a hint of quickening anxiety in his tone. "Please come right out and say it."

  "I don't buy star-gazing, Doctor," I said evenly. "Nor do I subscribe to everybody's ESP fancy. And I don't get solutions to cases off the labels of beer cans. I'm a detective. I have to look for motives, for reasons. For answers. Gregory could have had his palm read, this Alarma woman could have made a lucky guess. A pianist could have died coincidentally just to make her look good. Same with the second player. And I could have helped it all along by butting in the way I did. But, you see, I'm a copper all the way. So I made inquiries and I asked a lot of questions and I had a secretary dig for facts and I got a bomb tossed into my office, took a four-day singe but it was worth it. The wrecking of the mouse auditorium could have been completely unrelated to what had happened to Gregory. But it wasn't. And I had some of the sneaky answers. Somebody wanted me dead before I found the joker in the deck. And there is one, Doc. The biggest, one-faced, two-faced joker there ever was."

  "My God, but you are a talker," Dr. Deming muttered, shaking his bald head so that it gleamed in the cold sunlight. "Out with it, man. You've got me positively on the edge of my chair."

  "I established no connection between Madame Alarma and Tadeusz Anton Gregory. There was nothing in their records of histories to indicate their paths had ever crossed, so much as once, before the night of the palm reading at Lady Eliza Forsgate Dunley's party. But why would a beautiful doll disguise herself in such an unorthodox way? I should think a beautiful young woman who is a mystic is far more saleable than an old crone who reads palms. Anyway, Madame Alarma tried to pass it off by citing the case of Aesop. I didn't buy that too much. It was something to think about. Gregory had not recognized her, of course. I checked out his eyesight. For all his great skill, he should be wearing glasses. For reading, anyway—he's 80-80 in each eyeball. And away I went—later on—to see those lawyers who are legally responsible for Gregory's welfare and are his guardians for his stay under your pleasant roof. I hobbled over there yesterday. Lassinger, Lassinger and Browne. Incorporated. Is that the name you have?"

  "Certainly. I deal directly with Charles Lassinger Jr. Talked to him just three days ago. But please continue."

  I took a deep breath, putting my thoughts together. Carefully.

  "Some Junior, he is. About seventy and still unretired. His son is in his fifties and just a desk away. Well, I talked to them both. Old Lassinger is more Nizer than F. Lee Bailey. He laid it on the line to me when I showed him my authorizations for asking for information. I've got a real friend down at Headquarters. You see, there is a will in existence. For all his childishness, temperament and genius, Tadeusz Anton Gregory did find time to draw up his Last Testament. Remember—no children, no family, no dolls in the background—not even a mistress."

  "But Nicholas—you said there was a brother—"

  "Yes, Nicholas Walston Gregory. The Gunnery Sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps. I forgot. But you see, he died last year. Killed in action up around the Hai Phong Harbor section. He was fifty four years old and still in there, showing teenagers and young men how to handle new-fangled machine guns and automatic weapons. Nicholas is worth a book in himself. But like I told you—we'll get to him later."

  "All right. Tell me your own way. What did you learn from the Lassingers? Your joker, I suppose, Mr. Noon?"

  "Mine and somebody else's. Gregory is not dead but crazy; he's nearly the same thing, de facto. Not much of a time limit before he's declared legally loco and his estate is handed over to his heir."

  "Heir?" The word shot like a bullet from Dr. Deming.

  "Sorry, Doctor. Did I say heir? I should have said heiress. Old Gregory is worth a tidy and considerable sum if his stocks hold up and his properties don't suddenly go under. He owns three hotels in California, a restaurant in Chicago and a nice oil well still pumping out there in Oklahoma. I never realized that he had such sound financial advisors. He makes a lot of money playing the violin, but it's obvious now that he didn't have to. The man is a millionaire twice over. He stays crazy or dies all of a sudden and the lucky lady is in clover forever."

  Dr. Deming's placid face was ludicrously owlish. He even blinked.

  "You're saying—you're telling me that Madame Alarma—"

  "No, Doctor. Not Madame Alarma. A woman known as Stephanie Orodney. That's the name of the legatee on that will. Whether she and the Madame are one and the same woman remains to be seen. No claim has been made as yet No one has come forth to say she is Stephanie Orodney and the Lassingers and even Mr. Browne, I suppose, are in no hurry to toss in the sponge and give up on Gregory. They are enjoying too large a fee, as it is, to go hunting for heiresses. Besides, the jury isn't in yet on Tadeusz Anton Gregory. That's only one of the reasons I am here."

  "The police," Dr. Deming swallowed, shaking his head. "Are they aware of all this? You've told them—"

  "I've told them," I said. "My old friend down at Headquarters. He deserves all the breaks he can get from me. But that doesn't mean a thing—the police knowing. Madame Alarma has skipped town. She is nowhere to be found. Cleared out of her Fifth Avenue apartment while I was peeling the dead skin off my burned fingers. You see how it is, Doctor? I was sure she fire-bombed my office to kill me because she knew how hard-headed I am and wouldn't stop trying to get to the bottom of Gregory's trouble. She must have thought the cops would figure it was some old enemy evening up scores with me and never tie it up with the Gregory case. But whatever—she's gone and so is her whole operation—and I'm here, thanks to an interne and an ambulance driver, who wouldn't wait for a beat cop to help take me to Roosevelt Hospital. They saved my hands and my gorgeous profile because they moved fast and didn't stand around while a rookie patrolman was filling out an accident report. That gave me a scare when I woke up in the ambulance. I was sure I was being high-jacked by the opposition. But I wasn't."

  Dr. Deming was still wagging his bald head. He looked very unhappy with me. The placidity of his normal expression had undergone a violent change. He seemed as if he wanted to go through the ceiling. In a hurry.

  "Mr. Noon, you're going much too fast for me. I appreciate all you've volunteered as information. I'm prone to agree with you that the patient seems to be the victim of some terrible plot. But again I ask you—how can what you've said, in any way possible, help Gregor
y's catatonic state? You can't ask him questions about this Orodney woman because he's in no condition to answer them. I've told you. Catatonic. Do you realize what that is? He merely sits and stares straight ahead. Like a zombie. It's a trance-like attitude. He won't even see your face or hear what you're trying to say to him."

  "Doc," I said, with all the kindness I could muster. "I've been down Shock Corridor. I know the score. What you don't know is this. Brother Nicholas. It's time to get around to him again."

  "Explain yourself. Don't beat around the bush."

  "Nicholas was not Gregory. He hated the Nazis, hated Might being better than Right. So he did something about it. A small thing maybe but in terms of an individual—the biggest thing there is. He became a professional soldier. A Marine. So he could put his feelings into action. He became a fighter for the Good he thought he saw in our flag and not in anybody else's. But he wasn't just a tough, displaced person, needing an excuse to kill while in uniform—he was also a man who loved his little brother. His gentle, tender kid brother. He knew that kid had a talent for music. He bought a metronome for him as a starter when Gregory was about seven years old. Before Hitler and the Nazis and the Labor Camps. He kept on buying them after the War, sending Gregory one any chance he could. From all over the world. Hawaii, Panama, Korea—even from Vietnam. I had a clue, a scrap of paper, but my secretary checked that out for me, too. Nicholas always sent metronomes to Gregory. The last one came to America only three months before Nicholas was killed in Hai Phong. Who sends metronomes to anybody?"

  "I fail to see the importance in any of that. So they were close as brothers. But the man is dead. The dead can't help the living."

  "You say," I snapped, a trifle impatient with him, now. "I'll prove you wrong if you give me the chance. Let me see Gregory. Now. Before he gets any deeper into that hole he's hiding himself in."

  Dr. Deming's scowl would have stretched beyond the room but the four walls stopped it from expanding in all directions.

  "You must be joking. What do you expect to do—what rabbit are you going to produce before him that could snap him out of it? Don't make me laugh in your face, Mr. Noon."

  I looked at his sober yet angry face. I saw the bald head, the rimless spectacles, the somehow laughable Scotch Plaid jacket for such a level-headed, sedate, office type person. He hadn't stayed tuned in.

  "Doctor, Gregory loved his older brother more than any other person in this wide, cockeyed world. He was even dedicating a musical program to him, to honor his death in the service of his adopted country. We found that too, among some papers my secretary wangled from the apartment in Kips Bay Plaza. She had sense enough to go there and ask some questions of the building super, an Irishman named Farley who must like beautiful black girls or simply isn't bigoted. Something I wasn't smart enough to do. But then Melissa is no dummy which is only one of the reasons I'm nuts about her. She went to the source—Gregory's apartment, long before she decided to visit the New York Public Library. But forget all that. I think I can bring Gregory around. I want you to let me try. Isn't it worth any risk to let me try to help?"

  "No, it isn't. You could do irreparable harm, as I've said. You can't handle such a man. You're an amateur, my friend—do you expect to whip out a metronome, show him some photos of this Nicholas and have him suddenly wake up, like a man from a trance? That's movie nonsense, Sir!"

  "Then you're not going to let me see him, in spite of all I've told you? Is that it?"

  "That's it, I'm sorry to say. It's unthinkable, really."

  "I'm the one that's sorry, Dr. Deming." I was facing him and he was still seated behind the desk, looking up at me. I watched his expression change, like a picture slide focussing sharply, as I put a hand into my inside coat pocket and gingerly produced a big, black, Colt .45 automatic. I let him stare into the bore without aiming it at him too rigidly. "You left me no alternative, Doc. Action will always speak louder than words. And I haven't got the time to go for a court order or a warrant of any kind."

  My fingers still felt fumbling and unnatural, curved around the hefty grip stock, but I hadn't forgotten how to use a .45.

  Dr. Deming went pale, swallowed again and shook his head very dumbly. "This is ridiculous, Mr. Noon. Very ridiculous—"

  "Maybe but it's all the argument I've got. May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, you know. Call somebody. Have Gregory brought to this office. Now. On the double. Or I'll start redesigning your forehead with some extra holes. I'm nuts, too, Dr. Deming. We all are, in our own. private ways. Haven't you noticed?"

  He didn't say another word.

  He couldn't.

  Fear, confusion, not really knowing who I was or what I was, or what I would really do, had him by the short hairs. Mental Health was his profession, his skill, but he didn't really know the very first thing about the Unexpected. I could see that. I had hit him right where he lived. In a four-wall, isolated office where it was nice and easy to talk about Insanity without having to do very much about it. Except just that.

  Talk.

  I might have been the very first gun pulled at Highmark Meadows. It seemed as if I was Dr. Deming's initial rod-bearing visitor. He fell all over himself trapping a lever on the Inter-Com box on his desk. His voice was somehow strangled and hoarse as he asked somebody to have Mr. Gregory sent to his office immediately. Then he fell back in his cushioned chair, staring open-mouthed at the huge cannon centered on his Scotch Plaid jacket. He was panicking.

  "Easy now, Mr. Noon," he began to whine until it ran on into a near-frenzied babble. "Please. I—can't countenance guns. They make me ill—just looking at them—"

  "Then now you know how Gregory must feel," I said tightly, feeling little charity toward him. "Rest easy, though. I don't shoot people unless they force me to. Certainly not doctors."

  The comfortable office, with the countryside panorama beyond the bay window, was still and quiet, as Dr. Deming and I waited for the coming of Tadeusz Anton Gregory. The First Violin with Catatonia.

  The Violin who had snapped all his strings.

  With a lot of help from a lot of people.

  One of whom, goddammit, had been nobody but myself.

  I'd made some progress, already, though.

  Dr. Deming was no longer sucking on his cold, briar pipe.

  PORTRAIT IN SNAKES

  Tadeusz Anton Gregory was dead.

  I could see that when he was ushered into the pleasant office of Dr. Deming, led like a child by a tall, wide-shouldered young guy in white work suit. The sort of costume that would identify an asylum or sanitarium attendant. But the major person was Gregory. The muscle man flung me a quizzical glance as he piloted Gregory into our midst but a quick okay nod from Dr. Deming made him relax. I had tucked the .45 back into its leather bed, knowing I had convinced the terrified doctor I was the fastest gun in Highmark Meadows, in spite of my healing hands. But Gregory—looking at him was like watching the walking dead. He wasn't even the shadow of his former self.

  His hair had greyed even more since Pittsburgh.

  The fine hawk nose was drooping, as were his old familiar shoulders which had always been made for concert tuxedoes. The dark snapping black eyes were two dull embers, now. Highmark had rigged the virtuoso out in a simple pair of beige Chino slacks, with a tan open-throat, cotton shirt whose long sleeves somehow billowed on the lean, angular arms. But it was Gregory's hands and Gregory's demeanor which were the greatest shock of all. The skilled fingers hung limply, un-co-ordinated and flaccidly lifeless. The tall figure shuffled as the attendant sat him down in the chair which I had vacated. I was standing, on the alert, off to one side of Dr. Deming, ready to move if the doctor tried to surprise me with a sudden, false start.

  Gregory hardly saw me. The useless eyes stared right past me, toward the desk, toward Dr. Deming. Maybe toward Oblivion. Or some vast, private, anguished world where nothing happy lived.

  Where there was nothing resembling a violin, nothing to equate with the wonderful,
lustrous, vibrant sounds of music played as very few men have ever played it. A universe a cappello.

  A noiseless vacuum in which Terror and Doubt and Surrender were emperor and king. Majesties of eternal senselessness and insanity.

  The sight was un-nerving. I tensed, nerve-ends coiling.

  Dr. Deming glanced at me fearfully in a brief and awkward silence while the attendant continued to eye me up and down, wonderingly.

  I smiled obliquely at the good Doctor and he got the message. He coughed and composed himself, nodding wanly to the attendant.

  "Thank you, Marvin. You may go back to your other duties, now. Mr. Noon and I will take care of Mr. Gregory."

  Marvin had cop blood, too. He sniffed the air of the room and his own face, all angles and sharp lines, completely hairless save for a crew-cut pelt of reddish hair atop a hard-looking head, frowned in my direction. I wasn't too surprised. A blind man could have noticed that Dr. Deming was fidgeting, nervous. Strung up real tight.

  "Oh, you're Noon. I was wondering about the black lady out there in the Buick. By the front gate. I was walking Mr. Gregory when I saw her. Asked her who she was. Said she was waiting for a Mr. Noon."

  "My secretary, Marvin," I said lightly enough. "She's waiting on me. If you see her again, you tell her I won't be much longer. Okay?"

  "Sure." Marvin abruptly grinned and his entire face transformed from hard-as-nails to buttering servility. "Some looker, your secretary. Kinda reminds me of some of the actresses I see sometimes. The black ones, I mean—"

  "Of course. So long, Marvin."

  He looked once more at Gregory, shrugged, almost bowed at Dr. Deming and literally backed out of the office. But I wasn't fooled. Marvin was just a little suspicious and would bear remembering. When the door had finally closed, Dr. Deming passed a trembling hand over his bald head and shuddered. Gregory remained immobile in his chair, still staring at the wall straight ahead. A zombie in mufti.

  "My God," whimpered Dr. Deming, pleadingly. "Please get on with whatever it is you want to do and then leave this place. Marvin is a very efficient man. He'll make inquiries and may come back again. I don't want any shooting or trouble here, Mr. Noon."