Little Miss Murder

by Michael Avallone

  "Sorry. Woolgathering. No—nothing real important happened until today. The ball park, you coming back, and that very interesting old dame who turned out to be a pistol-packing mama."

  "She's a great woman, Ed. Really. A fine record."

  "I said I'd take your word for it. I just hope she delivered that baseball to Penn Station like she said she would."

  Felicia changed the subject.

  "Hungry? I could still whip us up something, unless your fridge is as empty as I expect a bachelor's to be—"

  "No, thanks. I'm living on love."

  With that, I was my old self again. I steered her toward the couch, parked her on it, and began to kiss her quite seriously. She kissed back the same way. In no time at all we were both breathing hard, and all of a sudden we had too many clothes on.

  "Where's those very special pajamas you wanted me to try on?" Her voice was low, and her spirit was high.

  "I've got them. Want to see?"

  "Uh huh. Are they really cute?"

  "The cutest. Come and see."

  You might say we were just skylarking at that point, or feeling our oats, because there just wasn't a damn thing we could do about Operation Baseball until the next morning. Maybe. I don't really know. All I did know was what happened next.

  The phone rang. Just like it always does in the movies to oblige the censors. Like in the old movies, that is. Nowadays just about anything goes, and more's the pity.

  "Damn," Felicia muttered, just like a woman, but she went on into the bedroom anyway. "If it's a woman, hang up."

  "You got a deal." I spun the receiver to my ear, expecting anything and nothing. "Noon," I said into the transmitter.

  "This is the Age of Aquarius. Did you know that?"

  It was the same, cool, precise voice. This time I could almost detect a continental accent. Now I was no longer in any doubt as to the nature and business of the caller. Number Nine Sniffin Court and my own pad would have been too coincidental for words. Or miracles.

  "You know," I said tightly, just to keep him on the wire, "if you're quoting from the music of Hair, you got the line wrong. It's—'this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius . . .' Got that straight now, have you?"

  Felicia's face popped from the bedroom door and I motioned her to pick up the phone on the night stand. She nodded quickly and vanished again. I barely heard her receiver lift off the base. The cool voice was patient with me.

  "We won't argue, Mr. Noon. I merely wanted you to know I was the same caller. Why didn't you wait for me at Sniffin Court?"

  "Is that where you're calling from?"

  "Why—yes—that is so."

  "And Dmitri and Aloyesha are still lying on the floor? Good. Tell you what you do. Be a nice fellow and call Police Headquarters. They're very fond of citizens who do their duty and report homicides."

  "Really, Mr. Noon——" The voice sounded almost amused with me. Almost. But not quite.

  "Who the hell are you, by the way?"

  The voice suddenly got very cold and twice as crisply efficient. It was easy to picture an SS type face with coldly cruel lines and a gash for a mouth. Never had a stereotype sounded so perfectly cast.

  "Please, let us dispense with this foolishness. You have disposed of the brothers. Regrettable, but the end will justify the means. The ball, Mr. Noon. I want it. I will pay the price you name. Any price. Whatever Lady Warrington bids, I will double. Come—think it over. It isn't often a man gets the opportunity to become a millionaire overnight."

  "Why should the lady have to bid?" I asked quickly, thoughts flying. "She isn't working for herself. And how do you know I am?"

  The voice now laughed. It was a cruel laugh. A laugh that had not one inch of faith in mankind in it.

  "Isn't she, Mr. Noon? Aren't you? Come. Stop this foolishness. Arrange a meeting with me."

  "That would be hard to do. I don't know your name."

  Now, the voice paused. When it came back there was almost an uncannily genuine surprise in it that I should not know its name. For a split second, I almost knew what he was going to say.

  "I am Godlove, Mr. Noon. Christian Godlove. Surely, Lady Warrington spoke of me during all the time you spent with her this evening."

  "No, she didn't."

  "I see. Well—are we agreed?"

  I'd already made up my mind. Mr. Godlove, whoever the hell he might turn out to be, was the only link back to the Shea Stadium puzzle. Also, he could be the murderer of Blassingame, though I doubted that. I've met the Godloves of this life before. Somebody else always does their killing for them. I didn't have anything to trade with Mr. Godlove, but he obviously didn't know that, either.

  "All right, Godlove. It's too late tonight to dicker. Say tomorrow morning. Ten o'clock. Do you know the United Nations Plaza just behind Radio City? The outdoor pavilion with all the flags? They put up the Christmas tree there every year, and all sorts of people ice-skate in the winter."

  "I know the place, Mr. Noon. Fine. Good. Ten o'clock. You will bring the ball, of course?"

  "Of course. I'll meet you on the western side of the pavilion, just above the plaza. By the way, how will I know you?"

  His continental chuckle was more pronounced than ever. Something had struck him as very funny.

  "May I suggest you bring the beautiful Miss Carr with you when you come? She will know me. And remember—I beg of you—do not be so impulsive and ridiculous as to bring the police—"

  The voice trailed off and before I could punctuate his remarks, the line went dead. Aquarius-Godlove was gone with the wind again. A phantom voice that came and went.

  Felicia came bounding out of the bedroom, long hair flying, her fine eyes protesting mutely. Angry hornets were buzzing around in my head again and I felt lousy once more.

  "Ed, honest to Pete——"

  "Oh, save it," I said wearily. "I'm too tired. But I'm just a wee bit confused. You tell me Dame Paul is hot stuff, and yet she tried to kill me. You tell me the name Gotlieb doesn't mean anything to you and you never heard of Godlove, but you heard him just now. He said you'd know him when you saw him. Lady, lady. What the hell goes on here? Godlove gave me the same spiel the dead brothers did. Is there really microfilm that belongs to England and the U.S. in that baseball? Do you really know what this is all about? Godlove sounds like he knows what he's talking about. And I'll ask you once again—is Louise Warrington Paul all you seem to think she is?"

  For answer, she used her good right hand to pluck a button on her blue blouse open.

  "You're tired, Ed. Come to bed."

  I blinked at her.

  "You must be kidding."

  She frowned. "I don't know what you mean."

  I shook my head. "Every time I come up with a question, you solve it by making love to me. Is that it? Love for questions? Come on, Felicia. Give me a break. You must know more than you're telling me."

  She bit her lip and left her buttons alone. She turned and went back into the bedroom. I dollied after her like a robot. She was sitting on my bed, her shoes kicked off, her long legs knee-to-knee, staring up at me. I reached down and tilted her chin so that she had to look me in the eye. She didn't retreat.

  "Well," I said.

  "Well," she agreed.

  "You've got your secrets, huh? Naval Intelligence—the code—and all that privileged information." I sighed. "Okay. We'll play it that way. But for the silly love of Mike, will you let me know when something important comes up?"

  She nodded, almost happily, but her eyes had misted over.

  "I'll go with you tomorrow, Ed. I don't know anyone by the name of Godlove. But if I recognize him, you'll be the first to know."

  "Okay. But before we see him, you will call your bosses and find out if Dame Paul made the drop at Penn Station?"

  "I'll call."

  "Good." I shucked my tie and looked for some cigarettes on the bureau. "Now. Which side of the bed do you like?"

  "Any side you're on," she murmured in a low whis
per. If it had been anybody else, I would have said she was putting me on. But this was Felicia. That Felicia. The long-legged lovely who had once split a hand grenade with me in a lousy cemetery in Washington, D.C. A lifetime ago. A heartbreak ago.

  The apartment door was double locked, the radio in the living room was turned down to WPAT, where all the string and instrumental music was pitched to a man's nostalgia and memories and dreams. Faintly, as if from far off, you could hear some magicians expertly rendering "Moonglow" from Holden's Picnic film. The piano counterpointed by the violins was almost maddeningly romantic. You wanted to tear off your clothes and go dashing through the corn fields, hand in hand with the dame of your wildest dreams.

  I batted the light switch by the bedroom door, leaving the portal open with just a feeble glow from a lamp dimly illuminating the next room. She was waiting for me on the bed, sitting back against the pillows, the broken arm still stiffly jutting. I lay down next to her and found her good hand in the darkness. It was cool and electrifyingly smooth and finely sculpted.

  Nothing could change between her and me, between now and morning. It was as simple as that. My little gray home in Central Park West was the haven I had always wanted it to be. Not even the telephone ringing again would change the utter timelessness of the moments with her. The great peace of the cab drive and the first few minutes in the apartment when we had come from Sniffin Court wrapped me up in yards of insulation once again. Spy hanky-panky seemed once more like childish games, .45's were useless toys, and baseballs were only objects that ballplayers swung at to earn a living. Christian Godlove, go home!

  "I love you, Ed." That, she whispered against the tiny area where my neck joins my shoulder.

  "I'm nuts about you, Felicia."

  "Yes. I know. Isn't it marvelous?"

  I turned toward her, gathering up the shining eyes, the long, dark hair, the smooth skin, the warm, lithe body, and all the assets that made her less of a spy and more of a woman.

  She came to me the way she always had and always did. Almost gratefully, completely surrendering, and yet at the same time, winning every trick in the delirious card game called Love.

  We stopped talking, stopped saying silly things.

  We moved.

  Together, like a wondrously tossed salad, tumulting toward a Chef's Delight. The name of the game was you-love-me-I-love-you-and-to-hell-with-espionage-and-sudden-death.

  "Moonglow" quietly, innocuously segued into the somber moods and dissonances of Bernstein's score for On the Waterfront and then got right up to this day and age with the lush, warm melodies of Krakatoa, East of Java. All the music, as contrasting as it was, was of a piece. Nice, romantic, and thoroughly unobtrusive.

  Nothing could interfere any longer with the business I had with Felicia Carr.

  But nothing.

  Before the sun came up over the park, flooding the bedroom windows with golden light, several things happened. All of which would subsequently affect the operation that came to be known on CIA books as Operation Horsehide.

  In the morning I would learn that Blassingame's murder at Shea would be no more than a back-page item in the Daily News and New York Times, gratuitously dismissed as "NUN STRICKEN AT SHEA." There would be no mention of murder, a knifing, or anything suggesting that Blassingame was a man impersonating a woman. In fact, the "nun's" name would prove to be Sister Theresa and it would seem she had died of a heart attack while soliciting donations as Mays beat the Mets with a ninth-inning homer.

  So much for governmental cover-ups.

  Another something, far more important and completely monumental as to global balance in cold wars, was the curious accident that befell Ambassador Garnu Sin of Teheran. Suffering from a stroke, he had tried to rise from bed in the middle of the night, fallen, and struck the corner of his marble night table. He was dead of a brain concussion just an hour before the President's Air Force Two jet had landed in Teheran. Diplomatic circles and first-echelon ivory towers were completely upset by the unknown purpose of the Chief Executive's presence in the complex and puzzling Iranian situation. There was no indication or allegations that the death of Sin was other than an unfortunate accident.

  You and I know better, don't we?

  The third and last frightening thing that night, which proves how the world will revolve on its own particular axis no matter what you are doing to pass the time profitably and happily, was the startling event that took place at three o'clock in the morning along the East River. That particular thing shook up New York, and more than one subway rider on his way to work that morning must have looked over his shoulder at his fellow strap-hangers. It was the sort of scare that somehow brings the world and all its strangers closer together, regardless of their basic differences in race, color, and creed. It was also the Age of Trouble.

  The First Avenue side of the United Nations building, where the monolithic glass tower sticks up into the Manhattan sky like the hope of a dark world, on the dot of three A.M. was completely destroyed by a tremendous explosion that broke windows across the river in Queens. There were no details in the morning papers, but thanks to radio and TV, the entire city knew about the catastrophe before they went to work. That is, if the thundering holocaust hadn't deafened their eardrums.

  Debris and rubble littered the avenue, and when the firefighting equipment, police cars, and ambulances cleared away the area, it was noted that almost the entire ground floor of the structure had been thoroughly devastated by some unknown explosive matter that had been planted on the premises. First Avenue was roped off and declared a disaster area. As well it was. There was the distinct danger of a cave-in.

  Felicia Carr and I didn't have to wait for the radio and television coverage to know that something terrible had happened in little old New York. The sky had fallen.

  The horrifying sounds and echoes of rioting thunder reached all the way over from First Avenue to Central Park West in the 'Nineties.

  It woke us up.

  And love had to come last.

  9

  Suicide Squeeze

  At nine-fifteen the next morning, I was getting out of a cab in front of the office. The new day had brought a brand new sun smiling down and, despite the three disasters screaming at me personally from the newspapers, I felt all right. Coming over from the apartment in the cab, I'd had time to find the item about Blassingame and digest the import, if allied, between the death of Garnu Sin and the blitzkrieg of the UN building. There was still the all-important business of meeting Christian Godlove at Rockefeller Plaza at ten o'clock. I'd sent Felicia Carr on her way right after breakfast to check with her Naval Intelligence people on what had happened to Louise Warrington Paul at Penn Station, if anything. Felicia was going to meet me at the Plaza. I'd decided to stop by the office, bring Melissa Mercer as up-to-date as I could, and generally see if anyone was looking for me with any urgent business.

  It was only a ten-minute walk to the Plaza, so I had the time. Also, I didn't quite have a plan formulated as to how to handle Mr. Godlove. He was expecting me to show up with an autographed baseball that was loaded with international dynamite and attendant repercussions. Most of what I intended to do was all wrapped up in what Felicia Carr could tell me before she picked him out of the crowd. Felicia's arm was still bothering her, having tightened up in the cast, but you'd never have known it from the cheery face she put on. The lady had guts as well as beauty. I may fall in love too easily, but I never picked a loser in my life. Not without a struggle, at any rate.

  With all that lined up and ready, I wasn't exactly prepared for the sight of Melissa Mercer, all togged out in a pea-green sheath skirt and blouse, waiting for me in the foyer of the building. As soon as she saw me, her face broke open with relief and she pulled me to the wall. In her hands was a small, square, brown-paper parcel. My brain and my instincts flipped. The box was just large enough to accommodate one baseball. Any kind of baseball.

  "Thank God," Mel breathed in a low voice. "I tried to call
you at the apartment but you must have left already—"

  "Easy. What's up?"

  "Monks is here. Upstairs. With some plainclothesmen. He wouldn't tell me what about. But he doesn't look as friendly as usual. So I wanted to prepare you, just in case you need a story for him. Not knowing what you're up to."

  'I've got nothing to hide from him. Nothing illegal. What's in the box?"

  She shook her head. "What you and I both think it is. It came just before they got here. Delivered by a boy. No official messenger or anything. He said an old woman gave him five dollars to bring it up. Look, Ed. I gotta get back up there. I told them I was going to the Ladies' Room and slipped out the back way. Monks trusts me. I feel like a heel—"

  "You, too?" I took the box from her, unraveling it quickly. There was no name, no markings of any kind. The box below was the same sort of white carton I expected. Inside the box was the baseball. I looked at it with one idea in mind. There was no mistake. It was the same ball. I remembered what Louise Warrington Paul had said about the nice name of Cleon Jones. The inky smudge was still where it had been yesterday. Close to the neat, strong signature of the Mets' best hitter. I looked at my watch. It was nine-twenty. Melissa implored me with her eyes to say something.

  "Go on back up," I said, dropping the ball in my side pocket. "Be there in a minute. I'll see Monks. He could be a big help."

  Melissa was thumbing the elevator button, and the car was down in faster time than I could ever remember. "Hurry, will you?" she begged and stepped into the car. Before the door slid shut, she smiled at me ruefully. "That's a lovely hickey you've got on your neck, Massa Ed."

  With that the car shot up again, and I had something else to think about. I hadn't fooled her last night. She had known when she talked to me on the phone from Spiffin Court that I had been with a woman. Now she knew I had been with a woman. A hickey is like the red badge of indiscretion.

  But there was no time to worry about that now.

  I had the baseball back, Dame Paul had suddenly taken me back into her good graces, and obviously the Penn Station drop hadn't come off. Why? Maybe Felicia would know later. But as of that moment, there was Captain Michael Monks of the Homicide Department to consider. An old friend, a great friend, maybe my best friend, but a cop first, last, and always. I thought about that and what story I would tell him if he somehow had connected me with the beef at Shea Stadium. I dropped the carton wrappings in a nearby trash container before I took the elevator up to my floor.