The Case of the Bouncing Betty

by Michael Avallone

  “Come on in, Superman. And be prepared for a frisk and a third degree. You’ve got a dead man on the floor of your office for God knows what time and we’ve got a lot of questions to ask you. Close the door, somebody and let’s get to it.”

  “Glad you could make it, men,” I cracked and moved into the office. “Hello, Hadley. Just like old times. Who’s the corpus?” Mr. Artel’s body was plainly visible stretched across the center of the office floor. Somebody had thrown a sheet over him but he was hardly what you’d call inconspicuous.

  Lt. Ambrose Hadley frowned. He could frown in caps when the occasion called for it. This was an occasion. You’d have thought I’d topped his three of a kind with a lousy small straight the way his half-smile changed over into a full glower.

  I nodded to several of the Headquarters boys whom I recognized. Their expressions all said the same thing. Roughly–how the hell do I do it and more especially how the hell is it never me? None of them exactly loved me.

  “Okay if I sit down or are you still checking the chair for fingerprints?” Nobody laughed so I sat without waiting for an answer. Hadley pushed his fedora away from the clustered curls dangling over his forehead as I dropped easily in the worn swivel behind my desk.

  There was a brief nut-cracking silence in which everyone was giving me the fisheye. I knew it was Hadley’s show anyway, he being the ranking man, so I just looked at him inquiringly.

  Old Ambrose had a lot of respect for me but I was still an unofficial investigator and he had the whole city of New York on his side of the fence. I could see him struggling with method and procedure from where I sat.

  His paunch thrust out at me belligerently as he poked his pudgy hands into his trouser pockets.

  “Well, Noon. Aren’t you wondering what this is all about?”

  I smiled. “Not hard to guess is it? The body on the floor speaks for itself. Unless of course, you all dropped everything at the office to run over to take me to the ballgame or something. Who is it–anybody I know?”

  Hadley suddenly smiled. One of the dicks surrounding him snorted disgustedly.

  “Before you peek under the sheet, suppose you tell us where you’ve been the last hour or so?”

  I thought fast. No point in lying too much. I hadn’t been exactly invisible the last half hour and somebody just might have spotted me.

  “Fair enough, Hadley. You’re a policeman and you’ve got certain privileges in a deal like this. I felt hungry. I felt like chop suey. So I moseyed across the street to Chin’s Chop Suey Palace. But you know how those things are. Once I got there I wasn’t very hungry anymore. And I definitely didn’t feel like chop suey. Or fried rice. So I just chinned with Chin and his Number One son. Ask him yourself.”

  Another of the dicks had his pencil and notebook out. He looked up from his secretarial work without malice.

  “Don’t worry. We will. What time was that?”

  “I don’t check those things as a rule, friend,” I said. “But give or take ten minutes, I’d say about an hour ago.”

  Hadley took over again.

  “What did you do after that?”

  “Stopped in Benny’s for a beer. He gave me your message. And here I am.” I grinned to show how cooperative I thought that was. “Want to look at my smoking .45 now?”

  Hadley’s negative was slow and ponderous.

  “The corpse caught a 30-30. Rifle. High-powered is our guess.” He jerked his pudgy thumb at the shattered window behind him. “That way. The boys are checking across the street.” His eyes got back to me again. “That chop suey joint is across the street. Pretty co-incidental, Noon. Sure you haven’t been here already and ran out to do some checking on your own?”

  I shook my head. “Hadley, you’ve got the perfect disposition for your job. Suspicious as all hell. You said it right the first time. Pretty co-incidental. Hell, I’ve got my shoes on but I’m not walking am I?”

  Unlike that fine old boss of his, Captain Mike Monks, Hadley never went in for duels of repartee. Especially with me because, being the challenged man usually, jokes are always my choice of weapons. He let it ride and motioned me over to the huddled sheet in the middle of the mouse auditorium.

  Two of the plainclothesmen made room for me as I took a quick look. Mr. Artel looked no different in death than he had in life. Maybe, the hawk nose had drooped a bit but that was about all.

  “Snappy dresser. Well-heeled obviously,” I concluded. “Who was he?”

  Hadley was watching me closely but I’m not a good poker player for nothing. He stopped trying to stare me down and grunted heavily.

  “Wallet and letter in his hip pocket all point to his being a guy called Bartholomew Artel. Forty-one years old, Caucasian, and tied up with an outfit called Sleep-Tite. That mean anything to you?”

  “Nothing except that he’ll never have to listen to that lousy commercial of theirs again. They sell mattresses. Ever heard it on the radio? They tell you how you can’t sleep tight unless you’ve got a Sleep-Tite mattress. You got no idea how it sounds to the music of Shortnin’ Bread.”

  Hadley winced. He never had cared for my sense of humor.

  “You working on anything new, Noon?”

  “I’m between cases. Last job I had was delivering a wealthy runaway back to her millionaire father. That was Wednesday. I’ve been on the wagon ever since. Why?”

  Hadley’s patience had been wonderful. But the breaking point had been reached. Subtleties of grilling a witness were for other police lieutenants. Not him.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Ed,” he exploded wearily. “You’re out on an errand, a guy walks into your place and somebody drops him with a high-powered rifle. And you sit there expecting me to believe you’re in the dark about the whole thing. Okay, you’ve got a swell record. We know it. You know it. You also know you’ll get a square shake from us. You always have. Monks is in your corner and so am I. The Department isn’t nuts about scab detectives but you’ve helped us crack some pretty cute ones. But be a sport for God’s sakes. You can’t tell me your clients always just drop in on you. Level with me–did this Artel bozo call you beforehand and make an appointment? We haven’t got the ghost of a lead on this thing yet.”

  “I never set eyes on him before today, Hadley. Honest Injun.”

  “Don’t get cute, Noon.” One of the dicks had been to college and paid attention in debating class. “That might be the truth about today but the Lieutenant is asking you if you saw Artel before he was killed.”

  I spread my hands. “Look, boys. I don’t feel up to word games just this minute. I outlined my whereabouts for you like a good fellow. Go ahead and rat-check. Defense rests.”

  The dick, the clever one, young, strong-jawed and a lot like Captain Marvel, glared at me but Hadley kept the peace.

  “Okay, Ed. We’ll play it your way. But for your sake I hope you’re leveling this time. That clever stuff of yours can go just so far.”

  I chose to ignore that and asked a question of my own.

  “Are you guys finished up here? Take all your pictures, fingerprints and all that Police Lab junk? The joint looks like a scavenger hunt passed through.”

  Hadley’s eyes got suspicious.

  “Why? You expecting company?”

  “Hadley,” I mocked. “My private life is my own.”

  “Not when you’re mixed up with a murder,” the dick who didn’t care for my smart speeches spoke up.

  “That’s true,” I agreed. “But please make it formal. Book me or take my statement or haul me in as a material witness. But please do something. I’m still hungry and I do have a date tonight. So what’s it going to be?”

  Hadley glanced around at his colleagues, grinned amiably enough, too amiably to suit me, and shrugged.

  “No, Ed. We’re through here. For the time being. We’ll want you downtown tomorrow when we pick up some more dope on this Artel bird. Soon as the pie wagon comes and his carcass is taken out of here, we’ll take off too. So simmer dow
n. We’re not trying to crowd you.”

  “Fine.” I got up from behind the desk again. “Mind if I shave while you put my place of business back in shape? It’s not much of a joint I know but I do need some kind of a front for my clients.”

  Hadley barked a laugh and several of his colleagues looked pained but he motioned them to re-arrange everything they had already rearranged. I didn’t feel sorry for them. I never did care for the interior decorator streak that runs through most cops.

  While I was busy shaving at the small sink, the men in white came and carted the late Mr. Artel away. He’d arrive D.O.A. down at the Police Morgue like they all did. The men in white looked at me as if they had something in common with me and I knew why. It wasn’t their first visit to the mouse auditorium. For a second, I felt like I was standing around at an Undertaker’s Convention.

  Finally, peace reigned. Hadley was gone, his Headquarters retinue with him, and I was alone in the office. My face smarted from the fresh shave I’d given it. I adjusted my tie and checked my watch. I got a small jolt. It was almost eight o’clock. Time enough.

  A visit to Bim Caesar’s upholstered dive was in order. And I definitely wanted to see Betty Heck again. Bouncing Betty. Before the aforementioned Mr. Caesar bounced her around.

  Betty Heck, Artel and Bim Caesar. A trio in a million. There had to be a tie-in but what in hell could it be? That’s what I had to find out. What had put the well-dressed Mr. Artel in Never-Never Land. And what could Bim Caesar possibly want of my fat, frightened four hundred and forty pound client?

  I clicked off the office lights and went downstairs. I stalled around in front of the building just long enough for the police tail to spot me lighting a cigarette and get ready. I hailed a cab, forgetting about my own heap which was getting a carbon-and-valve onceover in the garage three blocks away.

  I wanted police protection this night. Bim Caesar ran a hot spot and I didn’t care for the odds. I’d counted on Hadley nailing me with a shadow and he hadn’t let me down.

  The cabbie grunted when I gave him the address. I settled back against the cushions when I saw my shadow climb into a cab just behind me.

  It started to rain just as we shot away from the curb.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The rain didn’t let up, either. It steadily worsened until calling it rain seemed unimaginative. It was a storm. A howling, screaming, slashing downpour that added two more worries to my young and carefree life. One–that me and the cab driver would never reach Bim Caesar’s dive alive. Two–that I might lose the police tail. I didn’t want either of those two things to happen.

  Looking through the rear window didn’t help much. I couldn’t see a thing. Sheets of water were pouring down from the heavens. The driver was beginning a string of curses that had the weather man’s name and lineage somewhere in it but I didn’t pay too much attention. I was too busy beginning to outline a plan of action to follow at Bim Caesar’s.

  Thinking didn’t help much. We were almost there, the rain notwithstanding, and I wasn’t making much headway. I still didn’t know from beans what Mr. Caesar’s connection was with my client Betty Heck. All I knew from was his reputation. A mean customer who ran a fashionable clip joint. A man whose name had been in the newspapers far too many times in far too many shady deals for him to be considered on the side of the angels. I’d never met him before but his face was familiar. A face I didn’t care for too much either. Thick, heavy-set with those little eyes and swabby lips that more often than not were clamped around balloon-size perfectoes.

  “This is it, Mister. Never thought we’d make it.”

  The cabbie had twisted in his seat to look back at me. I didn’t wonder. Bim’s place was no Garden of Eden.

  I slipped him a dollar. “Keep the change and don’t be so upset about a little water. It’s good for the farmers.”

  He was starting to tell me all about what he thought about the farmers but I was already buttoning up my trench coat around my ears and climbing out on him. I took a deep breath, pulled my hat down tighter and skipped across the wet sidewalk to the entrance of the club. It took only a second to make the carpeted doorway with its corny dim-bulbed foyer but about a gallon of water saw me off.

  Jazz music blared out from behind the frosted glass door before me and the uniformed doorman enjoying a cigarette suddenly lunged from a nook to one side and tried to make me feel welcome.

  “Some night, buddy. But it’s loads of fun inside. Come on in.”

  I swept some rain off my hat and grinned at him. This was Caesar’s dump all right. The doorman looked like bad casting. He needed a shave and the wide square of his shoulders plus a prizefighter’s face told me what he really was. The bouncer.

  “For ducks,” I said. “It’s some night for ducks. And I don’t think I could ever have any fun in a place like this. But that’s just a difference in our way of life.”

  His baffled eyes told me he didn’t understand me. “This is Bim Caesar’s place, mister,” was his considered opinion.

  “Okay,” I said. “Have it your way. Mind if I join the ladies?”

  His grin was wider than his shoulders. He swung the door back for me and without the frosted glass in the way, I stepped into another world.

  Ever been in a place that’s supposed to be a night club but is really no more than a bar with a packed nest of tables leading up to a small spotlighted stage that shows you nothing but girlie acts every other hour? Oh, they have a feeble attempt at a checkroom and two or three waiters and an orchestra of three musicians. But all it is really is Burlesque at cut-throat prices. If you don’t sit down at a table to watch the floor show but stand at the bar for your cheap thrill, the drink price is doubled. Tables of course carry a cover charge. And for some of the prices that dumps like Bim Caesar’s place on their tables, you had every right to take the table with you when you left. But clip joint or not there is always that certain number of goons plus naive out-of-towners who always make dumps like this one pay off. The Police Department knows all about them but unless there is any real trouble like a murder or stuff like that there, it’s a strict case of winking one eye at the law. Plus a pay-off of course.

  It looked like a good night for Bim Caesar. The joint was jumping and only one or two wise souls were drowning themselves at the bar. Most of the customers, all men, were all ringside watching some overly-developed babe in underdeveloped clothes wiggling her way through a tortured rendition of No Other Love Have I. I had to stifle a loud laugh. The three tired slobs behind her pretending to be a pianist, a drummer and a clarinetist in that order were murdering the song and hard put to keep in time with the lady’s bumps and grinds. But the packed, hungry group of patrons weren’t music lovers anyway. Don’t ask me how I could tell.

  I ignored the hat-check chick stationed in a tiny stall on my right as she hawked out loud for my duds with a lascivious wiggle of what I couldn’t see behind the tip counter. Pretty soon, a waiter glided over with all the ease of the gunman he was and politely but firmly hooked my arm at the elbow. I pulled my arm away as if I didn’t see him. He got the idea and moved around in front of me. We were at eye level but I was giving away about fifty pounds.

  “Mister,” he growled as friendly as he had been trained. “Rules of the house. You gotta check your coat.”

  “I don’t gotta do anything,” I growled right back at him, “but see your Boss, Bim Caesar. Tell him the man from the Watch Factory is here. Ed Noon. And please don’t grab my arm like that again. And that’s a warning.”

  The waiter didn’t get mad. His eyebrows went up and a big smile showed me what little regard he had for the profession of dentistry.

  “Tough guy. Get him,” he chuckled. He pounded a big fist into his flat palm. “Nice. Very nice. Okay, bum. I been told to be on the look-out for you. March. That way.” He motioned to the dim interior of the club just around from the glaring wash of the flooded stage. “Later on we’ll see how high you bounce.”

  “Aft
er you. I don’t get around so good by myself anymore.”

  I was stalling for a reason. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the Headquarters man coming in and unobtrusively trying to check his coat just like any other John. But when you’ve been around cops as much as I have, they haven’t a prayer of fooling you. He’d already seen my harangue with the beefy waiter and that’s exactly what I wanted. There was no telling what kind of party Bim Caesar was throwing my way. Mine and Betty Heck’s.

  The big waiter lumbered ahead of me and I followed. No Other Love Have I was drawing to a grinding close and as we neared the stage, the stripper’s eyes fell on us obliquely, lidded without meaning and the red opening that was her too-too painted mouth weaved back toward her audience. Her hips and fleshy breasts had already been everywhere else. Nobody paid much attention to me and my escort. Except of course Headquarters Harry.

  We ducked into a narrow corridor with another dim bulb and pretty soon the blast of the orchestra was like a sound from another world. The big guy in front of me forged ahead steadily, mounted a short flight of stairs that rapidly hooked left from the passageway that suddenly ended off with the powder room for both sexes.

  There was a door at the top of the stairs. The big waiter pounded briefly with a big mitt and did some more waiting. The okay must have come from inside because he suddenly palmed the door inward and stopped, waiting for me to go in first. I shrugged and ambled past him, holding up my arms in mock surrender, away from my shoulder holster.

  “I saw somebody do this in a movie once,” I said to everybody in the room in general.

  It wasn’t a room, really. It was an office. Or at the very least what Bim Caesar thought an office ought to look like. Dali didn’t have a thing on Bim Caesar. There were at least five people sitting around in various attitudes of suspense but the only thing I could see first was the room itself. It hit you right between the eyes.

  The office part was the desk, the four-drawer file and a wall calendar. The rest of it was something else again. The rug had me in up to my ankles and you couldn’t turn a step without risking knocking over the fanciest and weirdest looking vases and art bric-a-brac I’ve ever seen outside of the Metroplitan Museum of Art. The place was over-run with the I-Can-Buy-Anything code. But there wasn’t one semblance of organization in color, arrangement or taste. Bim Caesar had bought Anything. The joint clashed with itself like a dog chasing its own tail.