“The Count Calypso am I. I bring death with an evil eye.”
“You’re a lousy poet,” I commented. “I know a miner who could do a helluva lot better.” My eyes started measuring distances and chances. But my figures were all lousy.
The Count ignored me and looked in Voodoo’s direction.
“Later, I will come to you, Mr. Noon. Voodoo I must talk to now.” All of his spidery attention was focused on the black beauty shivering on the divan. The bony forefinger pointed again.
“Go to the Bacchanal, Voodoo. I tell you for the last time. What do you say, Voodoo?”
His question hung in the room like antifreeze in a motor block. The four silent savages behind him waited for Voodoo’s answer. I didn’t like the way their ebony fingers caressed their machetes.
Count Calypso frowned at Voodoo. The frown had evil eye and drop dead and turn blue written all over it. Poor Voodoo. She shivered and her shoulders danced and her knees beat against each other. Her eyeballs rolled with fear. I couldn’t exactly blame her. Count Calypso was twice as fierce as Dracula and four times more horrible than Frankenstein.
“Go to the Bacchanal,” Count Calypso repeated. His funereal voice was laying wreaths now. And all of them were on Voodoo’s grave.
Voodoo couldn’t answer. She was tongue-tied with terror. But she could move her head and she did. Up and down. She started nodding like a Christmas tiger. It looked funny, but it wasn’t.
The grotesque face of Count Calypso looked pleased. His bony forearm dropped to his side. The two things that had to be his eyes looked happy in his hollow mask of a face.
“Dancing girl make no mistake. Will eat her bread as well as cake,” he whispered poetically. Tin Pan Alley was missing a good bet. His four lieutenants in the hallway behind him chanted a chorus of something that sounded deep and happy. Voodoo had collapsed on the divan, breathing heavily, her terrified eyes never leaving the Count.
And then Count Calypso looked at me.
“You, of course, must die, Mr. Noon,” he said.
I had some ideas about living. “Why?” I asked.
He smiled his death’s-head smile.
“You have received three death messages from me. You are a marked man. My world knows of this. It would not be right that you should survive when the Count Calypso has made your doll perish.”
“I see,” I said, not seeing at all. “How did my doll go?”
“I crushed it, Mr. Noon, under the heel of my shoe. When your body is found on the street below, your suicidal fall from the building will be a sign to the followers that the Count has said it and it is so.”
“Stop, you’re killing me. I don’t want to die just yet. There are some good books I still want to read, a few movies I’d like to catch up with and I haven’t met Kim Novak yet.”
He didn’t understand, but he knew that I was telling him what he could do. Like go shove it and in your hat. He grinned crookedly and raised his long, bony arm high over his head. It was a signal of some kind. His look-alike backfield, the four black boys in white suits spread out behind him and moved forward. It was awesome and pretty frightening. I edged back involuntarily, but my fanny came up short against an end table. Voodoo started wailing again. Lower this time. Much lower.
The four guys closed in on me like attendants surrounding a fugitive from the laughing academy. I braced myself, but I didn’t have a Chinaman’s chance in a Japanese heaven. And Count Calypso knew it. His ghastly laughter hollowed out of his chest.
“Dead man, dead man, dead you will be. And your eyes will stare but they will not see—”
His chanting was driving me nuts but it seemed to spur on his four helpmates. They rushed me in perfect unison, like a well-oiled precision drill team. I got ready, even if it wasn’t going to do much good.
Voodoo screamed suddenly—and a shot thundered from the direction of the doorway. Glass behind me in the French doors jumped out of their wooden frames and rained on the rugs. The four-man team halted in confusion. Count Calypso whirled, the .357 Magnum in his hand jerking toward the hallway.
I flung a look. The cavalry had arrived.
But it wasn’t the cavalry really, just a bombastic blonde with fire in her eyes, a tattered dress, and a gun in her hand.
Peg Temple never looked more exciting or half so welcome.
“Everybody hold it,” she roared at the top of her strong voice. “This jazz has gone on long enough. Anybody moves, he gets it!”
Count Calypso moved.
Peg Temple fired. The hat on Count Calypso’s head flew away from his lanky curls like a sparrow leaving the roost. The noise of the shot thundered in Voodoo’s apartment. And then everything started happening.
The four men in white whirled and fanned out again with but one thought—to close on the tattered blonde in the doorway before she opened up again. And Count Calypso’s .357 Magnum was like an assault gun at the head of the squad. It exploded in his clawed hands. Lead tore into the foyer where Peg Temple stood framed, but not before she had shouted something unintelligible and ducked out of sight to one side. Me, I wasn’t waiting to be asked whose side I was on. I moved fast. Machetes were flashing all over the place.
I hit the floor and rolled across the rugs, scooping my abandoned .45 on the way. I came up to one knee with it sitting properly in my hand and opened up.
My first slug lost itself in the broad back of one of the four big men in front of me. His yell of pain and death closing in on him drowned out every other sound in the room. It was a bad scream, an ugly scream, and it put everybody wise to the fact that I was up and kicking. Count Calypso and his three remaining stooges scrambled for cover behind chairs, tables, any furniture at all. But one of them had no sense. He rushed me, machete held high, a mad gleam in his dark eyes. And it was no time for honorable shooting.
My second slug slammed into his throat, turning him completely around, and the machete flew from his fingers. It sailed past me on a murderous silver arc and clanged somewhere behind me. The big man in the white suit sat down on the floor heavily, his throat ripped into a red ruin, the blood washing down his suit. Somebody yelled in a foreign tongue, and Voodoo’s living room settled down into a small battlefield.
Count Calypso’s .357 Magnum roared like field artillery and the corner of the end table behind which I was crouching turned into a mass of shooting splinters. In the doorway, I caught sight of Peg Temple poking her gun into view, taking aim and letting go. She was game, but a lousy shot. Knocking the Count’s hat off must have been a mistake. This time her slug skimmed into the floor and whanged noisily. Ricochet. It scared hell out of me.
Calypso’s other machete man suddenly shifted position and crossed the room like a tornado. My snapped-off shot came nowhere near him. It was high, thudding into the wall by one of the Van Goghs. Plaster showered down briefly. I held my fire and waited.
I could hear Voodoo wailing behind me. I yelled at her to shut up and she did. A brief silence settled over the room now. Wispy trails of gunsmoke rose to the ceilings like the ectoplasm effects in those Topper movies.
In the foyer where Peg Temple was holed up, I could hear her moving around. A chair or something scraped along the smooth flooring. Then Peg Temple screamed.
The lights went out again.
It’s eerie when lights go out on you. Even when you might expect anything in a shooting war. But suddenly losing your vision is always a little frightening. And stumbling around in the dark with a guy waving a machete and a maniac with a .357 Magnum in the room is not my idea of fun. The girl in the hallway being loaded for bear didn’t help my peace of mind any, either. A guy could have been killed in that situation for no good reason.
But I had to do something. I bellied along the floor toward where I remembered the hallway. Slowly, cautiously. But I would have been too late anyway. Count Calypso knew what he was doing. There was a sudden rush of feet, a movement of bodies and I was helpless. I couldn’t fire with Peg Temple somewhere in f
ront of my gun. And Count Calypso knew that.
Peg Temple screamed again, somebody shouted, and the hallway door swept open. Light streamed in. But not long enough for me to make use of it. Running feet raced through and the barrier slammed shut on its hinges. The room was a black hole again. I cursed, got to my feet and headed out. And ran smack into something, spun around like a top, pain knifing into my head.
That was the last thing I could remember.
THIRTEEN
This one’s just too big for you to chew on by yourself, Ed,” somebody said in a loud, clear angry voice.
I opened my eyes. From my position on the couch, one of the Van Gogh paintings looked down at me. You know the one—that little house on the bridge. I shook my head. The rest of the room came together. Voodoo’s living room. With me in it. And a tall guy in a topcoat, and a shorter, burlier one smoking a cigar. Mike Monks. This was getting to be a habit—going under and waking up to find that bulldog nursing me.
I swiveled wearily on the couch. Voodoo and Peg Temple were among the missing. I felt my head surprised to find it still where it belonged on my shoulders. But the room was swimming around me. I felt real george.
“Christ, Mike. I feel lousy,” I said. “Please don’t play Number Six tonight. I’ve heard Four and Five already.”
He grunted and jerked a thumb at his tall subordinate. The guy disappeared somewhere in the next room. Monks waited for him to disappear and then stopped acting like a policeman who wasn’t my friend. He came over to the divan and put his foot up on one corner of it.
“Look, Ed. You should have stayed put in your office. You’re coming apart and you don’t know it. This one’s a big mess and you’re in no shape to tangle with it. If I hadn’t gone to your office to look in on you, you might be pushing flowers right now. What happened here?”
“Count Calypso has kidnapped Voodoo and my mysterious blonde that you won’t believe exists. That’s what.”
Monk’s rough face twisted. He sighed and fingered his cigar. “We drove up here in a cloud of dust,” he rumbled. “Just in time to lose a firehouse-red convertible loaded down with the oddest bunch of people I’ve seen outside the circus. So we hurried up here and found you spread out on the floor sleeping your head off. Want to talk about it?”
I frowned. He sounded as if he knew something I didn’t. I sighed and gave him the bulletin again. I forgot about my aching head. “What gives, Mike? Headquarters been busy or something? You sound awfully sure for a change.”
His expression pinned me to the divan with a fourteen-foot knife.
“We work down at that place, whether you think so or not. We’ve had time to check on things at the Hart offices. Your rich redhead recently hired a man to do an advertising campaign for her, in connection with her doll manufacturing. Nobody knew exactly what. The redhead kept pretty mum about promotions and publicity gimmicks until she was ready to spring them. But she hired a scrawny old wizard with a rep, somebody who comes from Trinidad. He calls himself Count Calypso. So we put our heads together with this doll murder gag and all your trouble. Then I started to think about the Calypso Room and Voodoo. And here we are. We figure this old nut sold the redhead a bill of goods and went on a tear. You see, we dug up plenty about this Count. He’s a legend on his island. Sort of a Father Divine with bells on. And horns. Soon as we catch up with him, it’ll put an end to this black magic and hoodoo he’s trying to palm off as the McCoy.”
I grinned feebly. “The Count will have some ideas about that. He’s a love. A real love. Wait’ll you see him.”
Monks relit his-cigar. “Evelyn Hart’s skirts aren’t clean yet, either.”
I looked at him. “I don’t get you.”
Monks shrugged. “You were right about her murder. So called. The redheaded corpse we found is some other redhead. After you made that crack about her face being blasted away, I put pressure on that dentist who provided the charts. He cracked too. He’d been paid a wad to lie about them.”
“By the scrawny old guy, of course—” My head was clearing. Benny and the girls. And the Count. And the Bacchanal. I knew what I had to do. I got up and stretched my way around the room, as a guy will when he’s just come through a bad time. Monks eyed me warily.
“Go home and get some sleep,” he growled. “And stay put. You haven’t got the organization for a deal like this. I’ll square Benny for you. How about it?”
I put my back to the door and sauntered idly for another chair. A chair with somebody’s gun dropped on it—a gun that looked like the one Peg Temple had brought in with her. My body and movements took Monks’ bulldog attention away from it.
“No dice, Mike,” I said. I should have said nothing. I should have known Monks better, because he shrugged and called softly into the other room. The tall, quiet dick who’d been with him re-appeared like a very efficient genie.
“That’s it then, Ed,” Monks snapped. “You’re under arrest. I’m putting you in protective custody for your own good, until this is all over. It’ll only take a day or two to put the Count out of business.”
“You’re kidding, Mike,” I stalled, edging to the chair and sitting down. I closed my fingers over the gun directly under my right buttock. “You could use me.”
He shook his head.
“Not the way you operate, hero. Always rushing in on your own. No, sir. Now come quietly and I’ll skip the cuffs. Make a funny move and you’ll get treated like any other bum.”
They both waited for my reaction. I jerked my arm up and pointed Peg Temple’s gun right into their startled kissers. Monks cursed long and hard.
“You see?” he rasped. “You won’t sit still for a policeman, will you?”
The tall crony was confused, but he’d had guns pointed at him before. He raised his hands. His hands were still going up as I moved backward for the door.
“Sorry, Mike,” I said softly. “Benny’s on me. I’d go nuts sitting in one of your nice cells while you did all the work. You’ll never bring Count Calypso to trial. Take my word for it.”
Monks didn’t like what he saw in my face. “That’s crazy talk, Ed! You can’t go around shooting people! These two dead birds here can be excused.” His big hands indicated the dead black giants spread around the room. “But the Count is something else—”
“He sure is,” I said coldly, turning the doorknob. “He sure as hell is.” Suddenly I was through the door and slamming it violently. I had a flying look at Monks rushing forward and the tall dick following suit. But I wasn’t waiting for developments. I took off.
I skipped the elevators. It was a long way down, but it didn’t take long. Suddenly I had wings on my heels—and anxiety and hate in my heart.
I reached the street floor, barreled through the lobby and out the door. I knew where I was heading. There was only one place in the whole wide world I had to go, one place that could possibly mean the difference between having the answer and not having it.
Trinidad. Port-of-Spain. It figured. Nothing else figured. The Count wanted Voodoo for the Bacchanal. And for something else I didn’t know about then.
I hailed a passing cab, ignoring the uniformed doorman and keeping a wary eye behind me, my gun hand buried in my pocket. My heart was hammering, and it didn’t stop until I stepped into the unlighted interior of the cab.
Monks had been right. I was in no condition to handle anything. I should have been a nice little private operator and gone home. I couldn’t handle this one.
I say that because cab interiors always light up when you step into them. And this one didn’t. It should have warned me. But my sixth sense was out to lunch.
The cab was already taken. And I was taken too.
Strong arms encircled me from both sides and a hard hand forced my head back. I was trying to bring my gun out of my pocket and yell at the same time when a soft, thick cloth of some kind was slapped over my face. I lashed out with my foot, heard someone grunt and felt the unmistakable odor of chloroform blanket my nost
rils. I panicked and threshed violently.
I could feel the taxi shoot away from the curb with a mad mesh of gears and a burst of speed. But by that time I didn’t care anymore. The little dark men were carrying me away into the night on a trip I’ve made so many times before.
I went to sleep.
FOURTEEN
I woke up three thousand miles away. I was flat on my back staring at the biggest ceiling of them all. The sky. Lots of it, all blue, was visible through the opening in the tent.
For tent it was. I’ve slept under canvas too many times with my Uncle Sam not to recognize it. I could see the opening and the place where the poles joined together in a triangle.
I didn’t move. I felt too good. I kept on staring up. My body was warm and relaxed. The ground felt good. Something soft was between me and the earth but the ground felt good. My arms and legs were free and easy. Unfettered, unshackled. I didn’t think about Manhattan right away. I didn’t know I was in Trinidad. I just knew I was far away someplace, far from asphalt and civilization, and it felt great. My mind was a stranger not connected to my body. I was just a live thing glorying in creature sensations and creature comforts.
I didn’t know from Voodoo, Count Calypso and all those corpses. And Evelyn Hart and Peg Temple were just a pair of swell-looking dames. And I wasn’t a private detective at all. Just a body lying down somewhere having a ball. Without a woman for a change.
The drug was strong medicine. But I didn’t know it was a drug at the time.
I moved. Just an inch. It felt great. I moved some more. It felt greater. Pretty soon, I sat up and stretched and yawned. It was good to be alive. A luxury almost. Far off, the birds chirped, the sky still blued and I was happy. Then the drums started and I wasn’t happy anymore.
Thucka-thucka thud. Thucka-thucka thud.
Voodoo drums sounding in broad daylight. Soft, insistent, diabolical leathery rhythm that trickled slowly all around me. The beat quickened, the tempo mounted. And all of it came back. Manhattan, civilization, sudden death and—the unholy mess in Voodoo’s apartment.
The Voodoo Murders Page 7