The Haunting Ballad

by Michael Nethercott

  “What makes you suggest that?”

  Whatever my answer was—and I’m not sure I had one—was put off by the sound of a door buzzer.

  “Expecting someone?” I asked.

  “I am.” My friend vanished deeper into the apartment, and I heard him buzz in whoever was down below.

  I set my cup aside, stood, and gently touched my head again. Still there. I heard a door open in another room, followed by muffled greetings. Mr. O’Nelligan reentered the kitchen with his guest.

  Audrey had her arms around me so fast I barely registered that it was her. She kept me enwrapped for almost a minute. I could feel her body tremble against mine and knew she was sobbing silently.

  Finally, she stepped back and wiped her eyes. “I was out late last night at the drive-in with my folks. Mr. O’Nelligan didn’t reach me till this morning.”

  “I thought it best not to distress you in the middle of the night,” our friend explained. “Especially since the patient had already been put to bed.”

  Audrey drew in a deep breath. “Oh God, Lee. When he called and said you’d been shot in the head—”

  “Geez!” I stared sharply at my partner. “You didn’t really put it like that, did you?”

  Mr. O’Nelligan looked aghast. “I certainly did not! My presentation was commendably subtle.”

  “He’s right. Sorry,” Audrey said. “Still, no matter how carefully worded, it still amounted to you being shot in the head.”

  I deepened my voice. “It was just a graze, Dusty.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. I’m okay, Audrey. I was lucky.”

  “Lucky?” She gave me a quizzical look. “Do you realize, Lee, that in the year and a half since you took over your father’s business, that skull of yours has managed to get rammed, punched, or shot at least three times that I can recall?”

  I thought about it and realized she was right. “Even Dad would have been impressed with that record.”

  My fiancée scowled. “Only you would brag about getting your brains addled.”

  “It’s nice when a woman is proud of her man.”

  Audrey smiled begrudgingly. “What a piece of work you are, Mr. Plunkett.”

  There was something I needed to bring up. “You know about Byron Spires?”

  Her smile faded. “Yes, it’s dreadful. I’ve been praying for him. I hope he pulls through.”

  “So do I.” However much the singer rankled me, I certainly didn’t want him laid out in a morgue. Especially if he took a bullet intended for me.

  Audrey made me review what had happened last night. She listened intently, squeezing her eyes shut when I came to the moment when the shots were fired. I did my best to minimize the situation, but I knew I wasn’t fooling her. When I finished the account, Audrey reached over, gripped my hand, and said nothing.

  I suddenly remembered Mr. O’Nelligan’s mission. “How’d it go yesterday with Hector Escobar?”

  “I never saw him,” my colleague said. “By the time I arrived at the grocery, he’d already left. I can try again today.”

  “If you want, but it’s Cardinal I’m wondering about now. I need to call Smack and see what he found out. Where’s the telephone?”

  Mr. O’Nelligan led me into the adjacent living room, and Audrey followed. I pulled out Smack’s number, grabbed up the phone, and started dialing. I was feeling motivated and mad.

  “Lee, don’t just go leaping back into things,” Audrey said. “You need to rest up. You’ve been shot, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Shot, but not shut up.” My Cagney was going full steam, and his dialogue was atrocious. “I’ve got a little red bird I need to pluck.”

  Mr. O’Nelligan softly groaned.

  Smack Wilton was in at the station. “Heard you had a little mishap,” he said. “Coulda been worse, though, kid. At least you didn’t take one in the chest like your buddy Spitz.”

  “Spitz?”

  “Mortimer B. Spitz.” It sounded like he was reading it off some notes. “The guy who got shot with you. Goes by the moniker Spires, but I guess that’s just his show business name.”

  Before last night, I would have been delighted to learn that the dashing Byron Spires was, in reality, Mortimer Spitz. Under the present circumstances, I wasn’t deriving much satisfaction from the fact.

  “Any word on his condition?”

  “I hear it’s touch and go,” Smack said.

  “Did they find the man who shot us?”

  “Nothing solid yet, but the guys on the case tell me they may have some witnesses who saw him when he was galloping off.”

  “What about Cardinal Meriam? Anything on him?”

  “Not a lot. Canadian. Arrested for vandalism last winter. Charges dropped. Present whereabouts unknown. That’s all I found.”

  “What’s his real first name?”

  “Spencer. Y’know, like Spencer Tracy.”

  Nothing with an A. “How about his middle name?”

  I heard Smack ruffling through papers. “Lawrence.”

  After thanking Smack for his trouble, I hung up and shared what I’d learned with Mr. O’Nelligan.

  “Spencer Lawrence Meriam.” My partner rolled the words around on his tongue. “No A. M. there.”

  “So there goes that theory,” I said. “Seems Cardinal wasn’t the one who wrote that note. Not to say he couldn’t still be our rooftop rogue.”

  “What are you two trying to figure out?” Audrey asked.

  Briefly, I explained about the note and its unknown author.

  Audrey listened carefully, then nodded. “I get it, Lee. Well, I can think of someone right off the bat.”

  “Someone who could be A. M.?”

  “Uh-huh. Maybe you overlooked him because you’ve only heard his name in its short form.”

  “Short form?”

  “Yes, like ‘Lee’ is short for ‘Leander.’”

  I cringed a little; I hated to hear my full name.

  “Likewise, ‘Tony’ is short for ‘Anthony.’” Audrey paused for effect. “A. M. could stand for Anthony Mazzo, couldn’t it?”

  Mr. O’Nelligan and I turned to look at each other, neither saying anything.

  Audrey laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Back to the Mercutio. All three of us. This followed an impassioned debate in which I adamantly refused to let Audrey join us in confronting the man who might have killed Lorraine Cobble. The other half of this debate consisted of Audrey, with equal adamance, refusing to let me an inch out of her sight after I’d nearly gotten my fool head blown off. When I looked to Mr. O’Nelligan for support, he merely shrugged, unwilling to get caught in the crossfire. I ended up caving in, but only under the condition that I could be sure of her safety. I called Smack Wilton back, explained that we might be facing off with a dangerous man, and asked if he could meet us at the Mercutio. Not sounding overly convinced or concerned, he told me he was presently spoken for but would arrange for a uniformed officer to show up.

  Audrey drove us across town. She located a space to park right behind Baby Blue, whose windshield, in my absence, had been decorated with several parking tickets. Outside the coffeehouse, we found Smack’s promised cop, a stocky, cynical-looking fellow.

  “We don’t need you to go in with us,” I explained, “but we’d be grateful if you stayed within shouting distance.”

  The cop nodded curtly and stationed himself a few yards away. It wasn’t yet noon, and the Mercutio’s door was locked, but after some persistent knocking, Tony Mazzo opened up and ushered us in. There was no one else in the place.

  Mazzo looked surprised to see me. “I’m so glad to find you ambulatory, man! After last night. Vicious, just vicious. Poor Byron. You’re doing okay, though?”

  I removed my homburg, revealing my bandaged head. “In a manner of speaking. We need to talk with you.”

  Mazzo gestured us to a table. I made sure to take a seat between him
and Audrey. Whatever his response to our accusations might be, I didn’t want the tall, blocky ex-soldier within arm’s length of my fiancée.

  I pulled the typed note out of my jacket and smoothed it out in front of him. “Did you write this?”

  Mazzo’s jaw clenched as he stared down at the piece of paper. “Why would you think that?”

  “A. M.—Anthony Mazzo.” I glanced over at Audrey and caught a tiny smile on her lips.

  “You know, I don’t have a monopoly on those initials.” Mazzo fidgeted with his handlebar mustache. “Could be anyone. Like…” He glanced around, trying to conjure up a name. Any name.

  “Like Ace Morgan, perhaps?” Mr. O’Nelligan offered. “His initials are also A. M.”

  Caught off guard, I stared at my partner. “Who’s Ace Morgan?”

  “He’s the leader of the Challengers of the Unknown, a team of purple-garbed comic book adventurers. They have an intriguing origin tale.”

  Where the heck was he going with this?

  Mr. O’Nelligan continued. “Having survived unscathed a horrific plane crash, the Challengers believe that they’re living on borrowed time and conduct their lives accordingly. An interesting concept, isn’t that, Mr. Mazzo—living on borrowed time? The knowledge that, at any moment, one’s fate may catch up with one. That fate could be, for example, the revelation of a secret.”

  The Grand Mazzo wasn’t looking so grand. “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “Come now, sir.” Mr. O’Nelligan leaned in toward him. “You obviously have something you wish to unburden yourself of.”

  “If you mean being gay…”

  “You know that’s not what I’m referring to.” My partner reached over and tapped the note. “This is what we’re interested in.”

  Mazzo ran a hand through the bomb-induced streak in his hair. “Okay … Okay … Yeah, it’s from me. To Lorraine.”

  “It was found in an envelope with no address,” I said. “Which suggested it was hand-delivered. We’re wondering why.”

  “I’d tried stopping by Lorraine’s a couple times earlier that week,” Mazzo said, “but she was never home. I couldn’t reach her by phone, either. That Saturday I typed this up to slip under her door, in case she wasn’t there again when I stopped by—which, as it turned, she wasn’t. So I left the note.”

  “Your rendezvous was for ten P.M.?” Mr. O’Nelligan asked.

  “That’s right.”

  My partner smoothed his beard. “How was Miss Cobble to know you intended to arrive at ten in the evening, and not in the morning? Your note didn’t indicate which you meant.”

  “Lorraine would know I wouldn’t be up and about before noon. I’m a night owl. Everyone knows that about me.”

  I didn’t debate him on that. “Okay, but why’d you type the note? So you couldn’t be identified?”

  “I type everything, man. Even grocery lists. It’s a mania with me.”

  “But why use initials? Why not ‘Mazzo’ or ‘Tony’?”

  “It’s just how I’ve always signed my letters. What’s next, are you going to ask how many licks I used to seal the envelope?”

  “Sure, make jokes,” I said. “You’re a regular Jackie Gleason, aren’t you?”

  Mazzo chose not to answer.

  “All right,” I continued, “assuming everything you just said is true—”

  “Which it is.”

  “Assuming it’s true, what’s the reason you were so anxious to talk to her in private?”

  “It was something, well, of a sensitive nature, dig?”

  “No, I do not dig,” I said. “I do not dig at all. Your note says you wanted to meet Lorraine on the evening she died. The evening she died … That’s pretty interesting.”

  Mazzo’s eyes narrowed. “Sure, that’s how it turned out, but there’s no way I could’ve known that’s what it would be. Her last day, I mean.”

  “No?” I fixed him with a stare. “We’re wondering if, in fact, you didn’t have something to do with it being her last day.”

  Mazzo shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “That’s what I was afraid you might think. When I found out that Lorraine was dead, I figured it was best not to have my name mixed up in things. I mean, her death was a suicide, so what good would it do to have anyone know I’d been at Lorraine’s that night?”

  “Then that was your place of rendezvous?” Mr. O’Nelligan asked. “Lorraine’s rooftop?”

  “No, her apartment. Anyway, all of a sudden you guys show up in town, poking around and suggesting that Lorraine’s death was murder. It made me nervous.”

  “So what did you do to calm your nerves?” I asked. “Try to gun me down in the street, maybe?”

  Mazzo leapt to his feet, and his chair crashed backward to the floor. Instinctively, I threw an arm across Audrey.

  He glared down at me. “Nobody comes into my place and accuses me like that!”

  Mr. O’Nelligan spoke slowly and calmly. “Perhaps my associate expressed himself too stridently just now. Please take your seat, sir.”

  As usual, my friend’s genteel brogue proved persuasive. After exercising his glower for another few seconds, Mazzo righted the chair and reseated himself.

  He exhaled loudly. “Look, Plunkett, you’re crazy if you think I’m out to kill anybody. I had enough of that in the war. It’s Bad-news-ville that you and Byron got shot, but I had a lot of pals who stopped a slug back in the Pacific. The world’s a dangerous place.”

  Reluctant to compare myself to the dead of Guadalcanal, I simply said, “Tell us why you needed to see Lorraine that night.”

  Mazzo looked away; he seemed to be weighing his options.

  Mr. O’Nelligan nudged him toward honesty. “It will be best for all concerned if you address that query.”

  “All right, but there’s no reason for this to become common knowledge. You’re professionals, right? You don’t need to go blabbing this around the Village.” Mazzo looked over at Audrey. “And that means you, too, babe—whatever you’re doing here.”

  Audrey cocked her head toward me. “I’m Plunkett’s bodyguard.”

  I groaned under my breath.

  Mazzo, equally unamused, sighed and folded his hands on the table. “Lorraine had threatened to reveal something about me from a few years ago. Back when Joe McCarthy was dragging people over the coals looking for Reds.”

  “Yes, you’ve shared that episode,” Mr. O’Nelligan said. “How you stood up to your interrogators.”

  Tony Mazzo stared at his hands. “Well, maybe it wasn’t exactly like that.”

  “You didn’t face down some government witch hunters?” I asked.

  “I faced them. I wouldn’t really call it facing down.”

  “So that stuff about giving those guys the names of Shakespeare characters…”

  “That was true up to a point. Yeah, I was cocky to begin with, but those bastards wore me down. They called me a ‘lavender lad’ and said they’d turn my life into a nightmare. Back then I was still hiding who I truly was, not like now. In the end, I gave them what they wanted. I gave up my friends.”

  Mr. O’Nelligan furrowed his brow. “It seems odd that you should then go on to promote the fact that you’d been interrogated. Why not simply remain silent about it?”

  “Somehow word had gotten around the Village that I’d been hauled in by those guys. I couldn’t deny that, so I made up the version where I told them to go to hell. That made me sort of a hero around here. I guess the more I told the lie, the more it seemed to me like that’s what really happened. The Village is full of myths and delusions.”

  “Another thing intrigues me,” my partner said. “You went so far as to call your establishment the Café Mercutio…”

  “One of the friends I gave up—the one I’d first told them was named Mercutio—just couldn’t take it when the federal guys went for him. He was a lavender lad, too, a sweet, noble kid. He, well…” A look of pain crossed Mazzo’s face. “He ended up taking his own lif
e. To honor his memory, I named this place after him in a roundabout way. Of course, nobody knows that but me—and now all of you.”

  Audrey was the first to respond. “It’s like an act of penance in a way, yes?”

  Mazzo looked at her gratefully. “That’s it. Yes, penance…”

  I needed to move us forward. “So Lorraine Cobble somehow got hold of this information.”

  “Yeah, though I’m not sure how,” Mazzo said. “One day last month, she told me she knew the true story and might someday get the urge to share it around town.”

  “So we’re talking blackmail?” I asked.

  “Sort of like blackmail on layaway. She was just dangling the thing over me, hinting that she might want something from me someday in order to stay quiet. Once she’d put that out, I felt like I was living under the Sword of Damocles. I started trying to contact Lorraine to resolve things, to get her to promise to keep her mouth shut. Like I’ve said, that’s what eventually led me to leaving this note.”

  “Bring us back to that night,” Mr. O’Nelligan said. “Did you follow up on the note and arrive at Miss Cobble’s apartment at ten P.M.?”

  “I did.”

  “Then what?”

  “I knocked, but there was no answer,” Mazzo recounted. “I knew there was a possibility that Lorraine might blow me off and not be home. After knocking for a while, I tried the door, and it opened. I thought it was odd that she’d left it unlocked if she wasn’t there, so I went inside. I was wondering if maybe she was sleeping.”

  “Did you close the door behind you when you entered?” my partner asked.

  “I left it opened a crack. Anyhow, her apartment was empty, so I sort of lingered there, thinking maybe she’d just run out for a second and would be coming back to meet me. At one point, I heard voices in the hallway and thought it might be her. I stood next to the door and listened but realized it wasn’t.”

  “Voices?” Mr. O’Nelligan leaned forward. “Who did they belong to?”

  “One I’m pretty sure was the hundred-year-old guy who lives down the hall.”

  “One hundred and five,” my partner amended.

  “Right. The other voice I couldn’t make out.”

  “Could it have been a young guy with a Puerto Rican accent?” I asked.