Killer on the Keys

by Michael Avallone

  I stared at her, a little wonderingly myself.

  "Was that before or after you found out that you had been made the beneficiary of your uncle's last will and testament?"

  "Before, you fool. What did I care for the money? It was his pain I was interested in, his torment." Suddenly, she stopped snarling at me and an almost incandescent smile lit up her gorgeous features. "It only made things better, you see, when I did find out. But it did not alter my plan. I did not want my uncle dead. I wanted him alive, in anguish all day long—or—as you see him now, in which you chanced to be the perfect catalyst. No, Edward. My uncle placing my name, the name I carry for my mother, told me what I had to know about him. How he despised my father for his own cowardly reasons, and how in his all-passionate guilt upon the death of his brother, he affixed his unknown niece's name to his will. A niece he knew of but never bothered to find, to bring to America. A niece whose mother, his sister-in-law, he never had the slightest thought for. Whether she was alive or dead. That was the uncle I sought to destroy. Your precious Gregory the Great, darling of the music world. When I came to him, disguised that night at Lady Dunley's, my plan was in motion. Oh, I knew he had no thought of what I might look like but I played on his nerves. His Hungarian Magyar instincts. The old gypsy crone, the cackling laugh, the dark forecast for his future. He was already troubled, I saw that. I was merely feeding the flames of his own inner, private guilts."

  I started to lower my arms which had begun to resemble dead weights and she jerked the Luger again. Dr. Deming let out a low and animal squeal, but we both ignored him. Our movements had been pure reflex. Something we both understood and passed by. Like two old pros.

  "How could you have known about your uncle hating his brother, lady? Especially since Gregory was hiding all the guilt you say?"

  "Walter Hendricks," she answered, with twinkling pleasure. "Another foolish man who still imagines a woman such as myself could be interested in him romantically. I allowed him to take me to dinner one night. The Four Seasons. He talked, far too much. About his client, Gregory. Perhaps to impress me. In any case, I learned all about the metronomes which arrived all too frequently, the lack of true contact between two men who had been through so much long ago and yet had not seen each other in years—" Suddenly, she seemed to see, to hear the little metronome still ticking away on the desk. As well as the framed portrait of Gunnery Sergeant Nicholas Walston Gregory. Her red mouth arched in a bow of contempt. Something flickered in the deep pools of her eyes. "It was Hendricks who made me know all too well how much my uncle hated himself for not fighting with a rifle, instead of a violin. He was deeply religious, superstitious, a total, thorough-going emotional man. I saw the way in which I would gradually undermine him, ruin his spirit—his Magyar soul. When Lady Dunley asked me to perform at her social affair, I insisted that she invite the Great Gregory. And she did. He came and became my victim. The victim of his own doubts and self-torture. When I held his sweating, trembling hand, I told him so many things that no one else could have known. I spoke of Nazi Germany and a little baby girl left behind. Of a warring, victorious brother, of metronomes—and the dark, dark future. Oh, it was glorious to see him turn pale, to watch him breathe with difficulty—"

  I was watching her, watching everything. Dr. Deming in his great quandary, Gregory in his living coffin of inactivity, the woman with the dangerous Luger and the far more troublesome hatred in her eyes. She was obviously one of those people who will do anything to get her own back. A woman for all killing seasons. And those are the worst kind.

  "The money," I rasped. "What about the money?"

  "Money?" she echoed, frowning at me as if I had come into the room with muddy feet. "It's meaningless to me, as I've said. All it bought me was the co-operation of the doctor here who wants part of it to rebuild this sanitarium of his, to add wings and things. Dr. Deming is an old friend. He came in very handy. As did the Lassinger brothers whose office holds the document that will make me rich. Dr. Deming suggested to them that Gregory be placed in his care, when a reliable, good institution was needed to hospitalize my uncle. Oh, it all worked like a charm, Edward. Cosmo is one of the chief cogs in this place, you see. In charge of the Physical Therapy Department."

  "My, my. Old Home Week all around." I tried not to sigh, but I did anyway. "You've been a lucky bitch, haven't you? Spooking your dear impressionable uncle and then having that poor piano player kick the bucket the next night And then Algernon Gerard dying—and the capper was me. Throwing the last zinger at him, sending him off the deep end in Pittsburgh. And all of it worked. You made him run and hide, you scared hell out of him and he winds up crazy. Almost makes me believe in your crystal ball and your palm reading. Unless I've guessed wrong."

  Madame Alarma nee Stephanie Orodney Gregory laughed.

  A brittle, cruel laugh, with no mercy in it at all.

  "I believe, Edward. I have always believed. But do not be naive as all that. The Stars and the Fates are ordained, prescribed as it were, but they do need a hand now and then. A boost, you might say." She showed me her flawless teeth in a merry, ironic smile. "Valentin's heart-attack death was fortuitous. Serendipity, for myself and my plan. And I saw the path of vengeance. How it might work for me. Algernon Gerard was my doing. His poor eyesight, his chronic cough—all those were to the good. It was simple to switch bottles in the medicine cabinet. Cosmo has many talents, not the least of which, was posing as a telephone company man one day while Gregory and Gerard were rehearsing their duets. You see? The iodine was tinctured with a great dosage of a true poison. The doctor who examined Gerard's dead body would have no need to delve into unnatural causes, to look for a murder when a man like Gregory was involved. And the police had no interest. No—that was not Chance, dear Edward. That was my fine hand. The rest—was your doing. It was you who provided the master stroke. My uncle's mind was already borderline. Running like a fool, abandoning everything to play in that pitiful place in Pittsburgh. You should have realized that. But you didn't. You gambled on shock effect and lost, and my joy was unbounded. It was you who had accomplished what I sought. You ruined my uncle's mind. You confined him here. And I had what I wanted. When you came to me in your curious way, I was attracted to you. And amused. But you chose to play the detective and spoiled what could have been a rather interesting relationship." The Luger now steadied in her hand. She almost glared at me across the long, smooth barrel. "Now, it's come full cycle. I must kill, now. You, your secretary—anyone who tries to help my uncle. Dr. Deming, call Cosmo on the Inter-Com. We shall have to put this fool away or none of us will be safe. Stop shaking, Doctor. Do as I say!"

  "Serendipity," I murmured as Deming sprang at the black box on the corner of the desk. "Here, here. Gerard was cremated. No chance of him coming back from the grave to haunt you, is there? But hold the old phone, lady. I told you—a squad of policemen are on the way. Don't compound the lunacy you've already set in motion. I'm leveling with you. I dropped the Lone Wolf routine just this once. I joined the pack."

  "You wouldn't," Madame Alarma hissed but her eyes shot nervously toward the door. "A man like you remains true to his code—"

  "Sorry." I shook my head. "I'm getting on in years and I did bring Melissa with me. I don't want her to get hurt. Not ever. Love can change a man. You ought to try it some time, Stephanie."

  Dr. Deming, confusion all over his face, hand uncertain on the squawk box button, swiveled his head at me. The Scotch Plaid coat shone.

  "On what grounds could you get the police to come here?" he shouted. "There's never been a shadow of suspicion over Highmark!"

  "On these grounds, Doc. That cop pal I mentioned knows everything I know. I gave him the hour like I said. He'll know that if I don't call him, it's because I couldn't. So I couldn't call him and I didn't. Just wait a second. We ought to hear those old sirens any minute now. You know how policemen like to sneak up on murderers."

  "He's lying!" Dr. Deming literally screamed at Madame Alarma
, his own private world crumbling. "Isn't he lying—?"

  Madame Alarma had not taken her piercing wide-spaced eyes from my face. Her chiseled features were almost immobile. Dead-set.

  "No," she whispered, surprisingly enough. "I don't think he is, this time. He's a man for bluffing when he can but this bluff is so easy to call, it's worthless. Then we'll have to hurry. Quick—call Cosmo—tell him to forget about the woman and get the car ready. No one can tie any of this affair to me—and it's Noon's word against ours, isn't it? Let him remain here with egg all over his face to tell the police everything he can. They can do nothing. Gerard is dust and we still have an insane Gregory who can tell them nothing, also. You see, Deming? Edward will be laughed off as a meddlesome detective who charged in here, making accusations, disturbing the serenity of this institution. You may very well hail him into a court and win damages. But—never mind all that—Cosmo—and hurry!"

  Dr. Deming waited no longer. He depressed the lever on the box and blurted rapid instructions. I heard Cosmo Pappas' familiar tones, still holding traces of the old-man masquerade, answer back but Deming cut him short. The terror in his badly-rattled voice would have moved mountains. Madame Alarma chuckled low in her throat.

  "Turn around, Edward. Do not do anything foolish, now, will you? I simply have to make it impossible for you to follow me. Don't worry, I don't intend to hit you too hard. I do like you, Edward."

  "I'm sure." I didn't turn around and she pushed the Luger into my face, almost touching my mouth. "My secretary was kidnapped and you're going to leave me on the floor with my head bashed in. How is Deming going to explain all that? I tripped on the rug?"

  "It is no problem," she snapped with new vigor, eager to be gone, as if straining to hear far-off sirens which I had promised. "I believe the police won't take the word of a black woman who tried to seduce one of the handsome male attendants here. Marvin will lie for us and who will take the word of a colored against a white, eh? As for yourself, you came here, upset about your friend, made a lot of wild accusations and the guards subdued you. You see—all very easy to explain. Now do turn around or I shall have to hit you in that handsome face of yours and sincerely, Edward, I don't want to do that."

  "Later," I said. "What about later when I still come after you, still trying to prove you're out to crucify Gregory?"

  "Stop talking," she commanded, with flat emphasis. "Time for worrying about that is not now. Turn around, Edward."

  The little metronome on the desk might have been ticking my own period of grace away. The silent, stony figure of Tadeusz Anton Gregory had not stirred all through the confrontation with Madame Alarma. Dr. Deming, bald head gleaming like a spotlight, was hopping about excitedly, waiting for the beautiful brain-trust to bail him out of all the troubles I had brought with me into the office. Stephanie Orodney, white trenchcoat, lovely face and figure, ugly Luger and all, was all set to deliver the coup de grace as soon as I obeyed her and gave her the back of my head for a target. I had an instant's wonder thinking what Cosmo Pappas was up to, another second to estimate my terrible chances of going for the Madame's gun and one last flash of hope for the high, keening sirens on the front windshields of police vehicles. I hadn't lied to Madame Alarma. It had been no bluff.

  It came.

  Abruptly, piercingly, like the blasting of Gabriel's horn. A trumpeting, thrilling blare of sound wafting over Highmark Meadows and Vicinity, penetrating directly into the heart of Deming's office.

  Madame Alarma's breath drew in with a hiss of noise and Dr. Deming gobbled like a rooster kicked in the rear end. And I had one more second to get another shot in before turning. Before going down.

  "Look at the photo on the desk, Madame Alarma. Your father. You just got time to look at him before the Law gets in here!"

  I shouted the suggestion, her head snapped as if on a pivot. The luger aimed higher up on my face and the siren whine grew louder It was as if martians were landing from outer space. The din was just as terrifying, just as disconcerting. Also, it performed a miracle.

  A pair of them.

  And neither were anything to write home about. Or ring the bells for. And they had everything to do with Life and Death in these United States, and all over the world, where people will always be people, and never anything else, after all the returns are in. We are all brothers and sisters under the skin. Geniuses or not.

  The Most Beautiful Woman In The World glared down at the large, framed picture of a smiling soldier who had been her father and struck out blindly. Like an enraged child breaking a toy she no longer wanted or loved. The civilized, enameled facade of sophistication and intelligence cracked open, splitting asunder, revealing only a broken-hearted woman who had all her life resented the destiny that had been given her. Her lashing hand slammed into the metronome, too. Both portrait and musical instrument went flying. And Madame Alarma swung back toward me. Towering, throbbing, on fire. Aflame with all the hatred there is.

  That was the first miracle.

  The second miracle was even more staggering.

  With the blasting siren almost outside the window now, Tadeusz Anton Gregory came up from the chair. A writhing, contorted, reactivated mechanical figure, all determination and some equally blind kind of fury. Whatever it had taken to yank him from the depths, he had been yanked. All the rest of the distance up from darkness. And private Hell.

  He plucked the Luger from Madame Alarma's gloved hand.

  He reversed it and pointed it at her.

  Full in the lovely face.

  Then he pulled the trigger.

  Dr. Deming screamed. He sounded like a woman.

  I couldn't move.

  Madame Alarma's face disappeared, after the first shot. She went backwards and down like a mannequin in a Fifth Avenue store window who has been knocked over by a vehement trimmer. The long and lithe, white trench-coated figure flopped lifelessly on the smooth floor of Deming's private office. And Tadeusz Anton Gregory was not done with it yet. He kept on coming, kept on firing and each, separate killing bullet slammed and tore at the lifeless corpse, jerking it first this way and then that way. The rolling thunder of the fire ran around the office, drowning out the close-by wail of sirens.

  When Madame Alarma's body had stopped twitching violently and Gregory stood above her, staring down unblinkingly, the empty Luger held uselessly in his limp fingers, I walked slowly toward him. Dr. Deming was babbling pitifully from somewhere behind me.

  There was the stench of gunsmoke and gunpowder in the air.

  And the tiny metronome was still ticking on where it lay on the floor, close to the battered cardboard portrait.

  It was funny but I couldn't hear the sirens anymore.

  I couldn't hear anything.

  The world had come to a dead stop on a dime.

  Nothing moved.

  Nothing.

  Not me, or Dr. Deming, or Tadeusz Anton Gregory.

  We were all painted figures upon a painted canvas.

  So was the Most Beautiful Woman In The World.

  Madame Alarma was no more.

  The white trenchcoat wasn't white, anymore. It looked as if someone had been terribly careless with a paint tube of vermilion oils. Or a whole bushel of over-ripe tomatoes. Or rotten beets.

  Now, she was only the deadest woman in the world.

  I've never seen anyone deader. Not even in Nazi Europe.

  And now, there was only the Living to worry about.

  The Living who weren't the walking dead.

  REQUIEM FOR FIRST FIDDLE

  There wasn't very much to do after that.

  Cosmo Pappas reached the office about two minutes before the police got there, with Captain Michael Monks at the head of a detail of plainclothesmen. I was waiting for Cosmo, just to one side of the door, certain that the rapid fire salvo of Luger ammo would bring him running. Gregory was a motionless statue standing in the center of the room. He might have been on a pedestal plinth. Dr. Deming had gone to the desk, puttin
g his disorganized head down into his arms, while he moaned and wailed the blues.

  Cosmo burst into the office. He was wearing a light grey windbreaker, tennis shoes and looked in absolutely top condition. In daylight, his bronzed face, wavy black hair and good-looking raw-boned mug, was very unwholesome to me. I had too many memories. All pretty bad. I also didn't know just what shape he had left Melissa in. Just how good or bad he had been about the whole thing.

  I spun him around as he swept by me, smiled a "Hi, got any spare Molotov Cocktails left?" full into his surprised face and then lifted him off the polished floor with an upper deck right cross. He went down just as hard as Madame Alarma did, taking a chair with him. The major difference was he would live to tell about it, someday. If they ever allowed him visitors where my testimony was going to send him. Or a cell mate. I hit him with all the hate I had in me. I hit him a ton.

  Madame Alarma's venom was contagious, somehow.

  Then I waited for Monks and his men to arrive, anxious only about locating Melissa. There was nothing I could do for Tadeusz Anton Gregory. He was still lost in some way-out, inner world, from which he had emerged briefly to destroy a woman and then re-entered to withdraw once again. Dr. Deming was a hopeless mass of moans at the desk. A lost, bald head in a universe of trouble and police and investigation.

  The quiet, blasted corpse on the floor was an eloquent mystery. I had to wonder if Gregory ever knew that she was his niece. Or ever even suspected. The odds were very good that he didn't. The poor genius.