The Case of the Bouncing Betty

by Michael Avallone

“Sitting on top of the world. Come on, baby–” I snapped her erect, dragged her toward the entrance. I could hear the door inside begin to go the way of all doors. And then it went with a scream of burst hinging and splintering wood.

  There wasn’t time for any more messages. I shoved Lois Hunt to the floor, fell across her and set up a barricade of one table and two chairs. I sighted across the dining room and targeted in on the curtained alcove.

  Bucky came rolling through it like a bowling ball headed down the alley. I squeezed off a shot without mercy. But I wasn’t shooting to kill. Just to maim. The slug caught him in the shoulder, spun him around like a top and he fell back through the curtain into someone else who was just coming out. Above his howl of pain, I could hear Bim Caesar’s murderous Italian cursing.

  Lois Hunt was still trying to collect herself. She was shaking her head, the pony tail dancing with her delirium and confusion. “What’s going on–Buster? You–slipped me a mickey–”

  “Sssh.” I placed a hand across her mouth, my eyes still on the curtain. If they rushed us, we were cooked. “Stay with me, girl. I’ll get you out of this.”

  There was a sudden rush. Cuba and Lon swept through the curtains and peeled off to both sides of it behind the tables. I didn’t have time for a shot and I couldn’t waste any. The sweat started to dance on my forehead. It didn’t look too good.

  I waited. They had to make a move. I didn’t.

  One of them began to peer around a table because they didn’t know exactly where I was but my next shot would give me away. I motioned Lois to stay down and raised the .32.

  Cuba’s ugly face hung around the rim of the table just for one second. It was all I needed. The .32 in my hand bucked once. At the end of its long spurt of noise, things happened.

  Cuba screamed in agony, jerked erect like a man with a spider running up his leg, clawed at his chest like a madman and toppled heavily across the top of the table. He never made the floor.

  I scurried away from behind my table to an adjoining one and Lon saw me go. He cut loose with everything he had.

  Glass shattered, the wall behind me took on holes faster than taxes take your money but none of them found me. Lon was a lousy shot. I just hoped that Lois wouldn’t panic and try something silly.

  Behind the alcove, voices started to raise in argument. I couldn’t make it out but it wasn’t important right now. Lon was taking all of my attention. I flattened along the floor trying to find where his legs were on the other side of the room. I knew Lon’s feelings exactly. Lon wanted to square things for Bucky. Cuba didn’t mean too much to him.

  But then it was all taken out of my hands.

  The door to Chin’s Chop Suey Palace suddenly was dented with the blows of authority and some conscientious cop’s voice started to yell for attention. Something about opening the door and about the place being surrounded and about it being all over.

  I couldn’t reach the door to comply because of Lon. But the law wasn’t waiting. They started to kick the door in. And that was all Lon needed to start him moving.

  “Bim!” he roared from his place of hiding. “Beat it! The cops!” And then he panicked instead of Lois Hunt. He slid out of his protective covering of table and hurtled toward the curtained alcove, back the way he had come. Too late.

  Somebody on the other side of the door opened up with a riot gun. Chin’s stout portal had resisted all bodily punishment and there is nothing like a riot gun to defeat a stubborn lock.

  A wave of machine-gun fire swiss-cheesed the door, flew across the room. Unfortunately for Lon, the curtained alcove was in direct line with the entrance to Chin’s.

  He tried to hold himself up with the beaded curtains but a bombardment of slugs thudded into his back, hammered him into nothing. He went down in a bloody heap. In the brief silence between bursts, the beads tinkled musically. But Lon couldn’t hear them anymore if he wanted to. Lon was dead.

  Beyond the alcove, the yelling stopped and feet pounded up toward the roof. But I’d had my crazy innings. I wasn’t pressing my luck. I waited for the cops.

  I didn’t have long to wait. The door slammed back against the wall and they poured in like water out of a broken dam. I pocketed my .32 and stood up in plain view, my hands held high.

  Lt. Hadley charged in, flanked by a bluecoat with a riot gun and a bluecoat with a shotgun. Behind them was very nearly all of Hadley’s precinct. I tried to grin but Hadley’s scowl was colossal.

  “All right, Noon,” he barked. “Talk to you later. Which way?”

  “The roof,” I panted. “Four of them. Bim Caesar, Velvet and the Chins. The dame’s okay. She’s with me.”

  “That’s what you say,” he barked again. “Two of you stay with them. Let’s go.”

  They churned toward the rear but I shook my cop off.

  “Hadley, I want in. It’s my right.”

  He wasn’t in a mood for talking and the pigeons were already on the wing.

  “Come on then, dammit. And behave. You know this place. Lead the way.”

  I led the way. The area behind the kitchen was as quiet as a battlefield usually is after the battle. We stepped over Lon’s dead body and started up the rickety staircase.

  Just as Bim Caesar let out a terrifying, high pitched shriek of terror. We ran up the stairs.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  There were also two shots. Almost simultaneous. Then silence. Loud, un-natural silence.

  We came out on the roof slowly. The last rays of the evening sun washing over everything with a dull, dying brilliance. I wasn’t exactly prepared for the tableau spread out before us.

  Even Hadley and his hardened Headquarters men held back for a minute to let the thing sink in. Nobody was going anyplace anyway. It was all over.

  Velvet was sprawled to one side near the far parapet, a red stain widening on his coat front, his eyes starting to glaze. He was cursing, his blood-soaked hand pressing to the place where all the trouble was. The fingers of his other hand were just slipping away from a revolver that still had some smoke curling from its muzzle.

  A few feet away, Tommy Chin lay dying too. But he was being comforted, his fat, funny head cradled in the arms of Number One. Tommy was smiling peacefully and Number One’s head was bowed forward with a grief I didn’t think at all possible in the man he had been. He wasn’t even conscious of us. All of his attention was focussed on the dying father in his arms.

  There was no sign of Bim Caesar.

  “Father,” he moaned, his voice like a dirge. “Is there room in your heart for your worthless son–?”

  I looked at Hadley. I sighed wearily and pointed toward the edge of the roof. Now I knew what that terrifying yell was all about. Hadley motioned a man to the roof’s rim and went himself to take a look. I didn’t have to. I had a fair idea what a four floor fall to the concrete could do to a tub of lard like Bim Caesar.

  “Peace, my son,” Tommy Chin was saying. “It comes, it comes–”

  He died with his eyes open and Number One sat stunned, sat grief-stricken until a sympathetic cop pulled him off. He didn’t even stir when the shiny bracelets clicked around his wrists. He let them take the gun from his limp fingers. He drew himself stiff and erect and held his head high as Hadley squared away in front of him.

  “Okay, son. What happened here?”

  Number One’s blandness had returned. The hurt was only in his eyes.

  “I pushed the contemptible Mr. Caesar off the roof. I despised him and all was lost at any rate. But even in death, he has hurt me. My father died at the hands of his man. But I settled accounts. Nothing matters anymore. I am prepared to tell you all that has led up to this. Mr. Noon can tell you everything else. I salute him even in my defeat. A most wise, most honorable man. My father liked him.”

  Bim Caesar and his slapping. The Chinese and their codes. I bit my lip. My head was starting to ache. Maybe Number One had just wisely realized that the jig had indeed been up.

  “I liked him too, N
umber One. Sorry about this.”

  Hadley grunted and started to organize things.

  “Okay, everybody’s sorry. Now let’s just put things in order. We can settle all this down at Headquarters. And you too, Mr. Noon. I got plenty I want to settle with you.”

  I knew what he meant but there wasn’t a bone of contention left in me. I was tired. The sun was dying and I felt like asking it to move over.

  When we got back downstairs, Lois Hunt had completely recovered and put things together in her head. She fell into my arms alternately sobbing and kissing me.

  Hadley could only shake his big head.

  “Mattresses, huh?” Hadley sneered. “Well, that’s as good a place as any to store narcotics. Too bad for this Heck dame that she tumbled to it.”

  We were sitting in Hadley’s private office at Headquarters. Just me and Hadley and Lois Hunt and the Marilyn Monroe calendar on the wall. Everybody had a Monroe calendar on the wall. Everybody had a Monroe calendar except possibly the lady herself. That was possible. Everything was possible in a world of impossible things.

  Lois Hunt had composed herself. She no longer looked raped and her thin lips were framed in a smile that looked like it might never go away. This girl would never hold a heartbreak too long. Good for you, I thought. You’re one of the lucky ones.

  Hadley lit a cigarette. His eyes were still annoyed with me but he had to listen. I had some of the answers he needed for this one.

  “How did she tumble to it, Noon?”

  I smiled tiredly.

  “It wasn’t too hard to figure that one, Hadley. Remember the Bouncing Betty? That particularly nasty land mine the Germans whipped up in World War Two? The S-2 I think they called it. Some poor slob of a GI would walk along and touch off this little trigger mechanism planted under the grass or disguised some other way and Bingo. The mine springs into the air about three or four feet high and explodes. Figure it out for yourself. It wasn’t nice at all. I remember the way a couple of my squad looked after they’d set one off. Like having a hand grenade go right off in your hand.” I lit a cigarette too and one for Lois. She took it as rapt as a child listening to her first ghost story.

  Hadley grunted. “This Betty bounced too, that it?”

  “Well, her funny style of walking made me think of it. That plus the fact that she was a mattress tester. And when I figured out Artel’s fire and supposed the stuff was hidden in the mattresses and that Betty Heck was on somebody’s murder list–well, I figured she tumbled to it somehow but didn’t know she had dangerous knowledge. Take it from there. The S-2 all over again. Betty flops down on a mattress to test it and that great weight of hers makes the seams of the mattress split open and the stuff falls out and scatters all over the floor. Just like the Bouncing Betty land mine tripping out all that flying shrapnel. She tells Artel so Artel tries to frighten her into quitting by scaring the hell out of her. She didn’t know what she had but she might have spilled out the news to the wrong people. The cops, me or anybody else as dangerous. But I think Artel liked her. But whether he did or he didn’t, she did have the knowledge that could wreck his plans. So that’s when she came to me and that’s when the Chin boys lost their heads when they saw Artel follow her into my office. Did you find the rifle?”

  Hadley nodded in the middle of a cloud of smoke. “Under the range in the kitchen. One that wasn’t being used lately. Chin told me he was waiting for the opportunity to ditch it. But your office being under police surveillance made him jumpy.”

  I shrugged.

  “You know where Bim Caesar came in. Just another crook trying to hop a gravy train. But he never figured on Number One being such a tough customer I guess. And smart too. He sure had you convinced I was a murderer.”

  Hadley looked pained.

  “With the evidence and the facts we had, put yourself in my place. Wouldn’t you have locked me up if I was you?”

  “And thrown the key away,” Lois Hunt chimed in. She had a question for Hadley. “You boys sure showed up in the nick of time, copper. Did the boy scout here blaze a trail for you or something?”

  I could see Hadley liked her coolness in spite of her lack of formality.

  “In spite of what Mr. Noon here thinks, Miss Hunt, we aren’t exactly stupid. The party he left all trussed up for our convenience did some talking. And he did have some interesting bits of menu paper in one pocket. We put two and two together.” Hadley leered triumphantly at me. I didn’t want to spoil his victory so I didn’t say a word.

  I was still tired. I got to my feet wearily.

  “That all, Lieutenant? Miss Hunt and I are pooped. And I think I want to treat the lady to a big steak dinner. She rates it. With martinis. No mickey finns this time, either.”

  I winked at her and she smiled, blowing me a kiss.

  Hadley said, “Wait a minute, Noon. There’s something we have to straighten out first.”

  The official nature of his tone made me halt on my way to the door. It sounded like bad news. And he looked like bad news. He had dug a folder out of one desk drawer and was riffling through it. He coughed and looked at me. I stared right back at him.

  “Well, get to it, Hadley.”

  He bit his pendulous lip.

  “You are free of the charge of murder. You have helped the Police Department of the City of New York as you have before. You are entitled to the thanks of that Department. Officially, on behalf of my superiors, I formally thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Hadley. Come on, Lois.” I took her arm.

  “Just a minute. I’m not finished.” Hadley looked at his folder. “You are free as I have just stated but you are also guilty of obstructing justice, endangering the lives of the arresting officers by refusing to submit to arrest, conducting an armed flight from police custody and too many other breaches of the criminal code to warrant anything but the disapproval of this department. So–”

  “That’s a big so, Hadley.”

  “It is, Ed.” He looked at me, surprisingly enough, not unkindly. “The office of the district attorney has requested that your license be revoked for one year. A period of twelve months. Hand it over, Ed. And don’t look at me that way. It could have been a lot worse and you know it.”

  We locked glances. Long and hard. Angry, bitter words were bubbling to my lips, my brain already at fighting pitch. But in the end, I said nothing. I took my wallet out, slid my PI card out of its plastic bed and dropped it on his desk.

  “That all, Lieutenant?” I asked coldly. Lois Hunt kept quiet, figuring this was something just between the two of us. It was.

  Hadley took the card and tapped it against one thumbnail.

  “Ed, for Christ sakes, get out of this racket. You’re smart but you’re also lucky. You’re the luckiest guy alive. Try something else. Work in an office, go into that bar with Benny or work for the Sanitation Department. Anything but your racket. Use that head of yours. It’s a good one. You won’t last in this racket forever.”

  All I could do was smile. I could have told him a lot of things about my feelings for law and the curious kink in me that lived, ate and slept my business but I didn’t. I just smiled and turned toward the door again.

  “Hold the card, Hadley.” I took one last look at the Marilyn Monroe calendar. “September twenty-second–one year from today–I’ll be back for it. In the meantime, try to keep busy, huh?”

  He laughed out loud. I closed the door on the middle of his laugh. I led Lois Hunt out of the building. She didn’t say a word. Just compressed her thin lips and tagged along.

  It was dark outside. Late evening now. I stared up at the big quarter moon lighting up the Manhattan sky.

  Lois Hunt suddenly stopped, turned me around and looked up at me, taking my face in her two hands. Swiftly, she kissed me.

  “Thanks, Buster.”

  “For what, lady?”

  “For not telling that cop about my connection with the fire. For making me out the innocent bystander. You’re okay, Noon. Real
okay. I could go for you pretty large.”

  I threw my arms around her suddenly. My quick embrace made her squeal delightedly. I grinned into her eyes. Our mouths were inches apart.

  “You could go for me pretty large, huh?” I whispered “Well, go, girl. Go, go, go–!”

  She went.