The Alarming Clock

by Michael Avallone

  I jammed them both in my pockets. Then I got over to the wall where the light was gloomiest and scrambled around for the clock. For a second, I thought I’d lost a day some place. It wasn’t there. Then Alma chuckled lightly.

  “Looking for something, Mister?”

  She was holding the clock aloft, smiling prettily. She winked. “I wasn’t kidding, Maxim, you know. I want a fellow that’s interested in me. Not silly old clocks.”

  I kissed her. Just hard enough to show her which sort of lover I was. It wasn’t a kiss you’d get from a clock-lover.

  I grinned. “No bet. But hang on to that one. We have to get out of here first. There was one other lousy dresser in this party. And I’m wondering where the hell he is. With the small revolution that’s been going on down here, I’m surprised he hasn’t shown up yet.”

  Alma looked worried. “Hey, that’s right. Ready when you are.”

  “It’s high time,” I said. “Follow me.”

  The first thing that went up the stairway was Maxim’s Luger, I was right behind it with Alma in tow. I went up the stairs slowly. I didn’t remember what upstairs was like because I’d been hors de combat when they had first taken me through. I never would either. The hallway was darker than the inside of an inkwell in a sewer and I wasn’t up to lighting any matches. The field seemed to be clear but you could never tell.

  Alma huddled behind me breathing softly. I hung on to her with one hand and felt my way along the wall, Luger-first. I could barely make out a street light glimmering through the glazed glass door up ahead. Maxim’s other helper was either out running errands or taking a nap somewhere. But I didn’t believe it for a second. Maxim had impressed me as a guy who didn’t believe in sleep. For himself or his men.

  Somewhere outside, a car motor hummed to a halt and a sound snapped in the stillness. A sound you can never mix up with anything else. Brakes being applied. I winced. We weren’t out of the woods yet. Somebody had come back.

  Alma had heard it too. “Oh, oh,” she whispered low.

  There was no time for any general discussion about plans. I ran quietly to the door, pulling her with me. We held up just to one side of the wall. I drew her behind me and motioned her to be still. I reversed the Luger in my mitt and raised it ceilingwards. The niceties of fair play were out. If anybody was coming through that door, he was my pigeon.

  Footsteps made flat, leathery sounds on the stoop outside. There was another sound too. The pigeon was whistling. Something high, tuneless and Wagnerian. That was enough for me. I waited. It was so quiet in the hallway now, I almost could hear the watch on my wrist ticking away.

  His head and shoulders shadowed the frosted glass of the door. I heard his keys jangling away, then stop jangling. He started to poke one in the lock. I raised the Luger barrel a few inches higher.

  The door caved inwards and he ploughed on past us. He had moved so fast, either by force of habit or just plain training, that he was almost by us before I could make my play. Or maybe he was just a well-trained bloodhound, human species. Because he whirled, ripped out a fierce gust of sound and clawed for something in his coat.

  He had a Luger too. It seemed everybody had a Luger. Alma cried out warningly. But the show was in our favour. His was halfway out of his side-pocket before mine came down with a swish of sound on the top of his head. The fedora he was wearing muffled the sound of the blow. But nothin muffled the noisy way he took the floor. Like a guy rolling down a flight of stairs.

  “That’s it, Wheeler. Let’s get moving.”

  She didn’t need any persuading. It had been a rough party for the both of us. We pushed out into the street.

  It was dark out. Very dark. Even though it couldn’t be much later than six o’clock. A lone street lamp midway up the block poured a weak glare over things as we went down the front stone stoop. Now I was glad it was the kind of neighbourhood it was. The street was emptier of human life than the immediate vicinity of the North Pole.

  Except for one thing. Squatting in front of the building was a low, compact little machine. It was as bright and as shiny as a brand new toy but it was an automobile. An MG. One of those snappy little cars of English make that are crawling all over the city these days.

  I’m really the organized type deep down. I know how to move when the set-up calls for it. I motioned Alma to hop in and sardined down right beside her. We did it all without words like partners in a plan that’s been plotted and coursed and charted days in advance so that when the time comes everybody knows just what to do.

  I’d never driven one before but a car is a car no matter where it’s made. I experimented and got the same results. The MG growled in its throat, then purred. I meshed gears and left the curb like a guy beating his alimony-seeking wife out of town. I hit the lighted thoroughfare a few blocks West and joined a steam of evening traffic heading downtown.

  Alma didn’t say a word. Events had piled on too fast, things had leapfrogged, criss-crossed, jumbled and tumbled so that now I had a maze of nothing in my head. Fatigue was starting to spread all through me. That’s the death-grip in my racket because it can cost you your life. You just can’t be slow on the uptake if you’re going to mess around with sudden death.

  I caught my head sliding towards Alma’s soft shoulder and jerked erect feeling silly.

  “Easy, Woolsey,” she murmured. “You’ve had a busy day.”

  “Ain’t it the truth?” It came as somewhat of a shock to realize that I hadn’t eaten a thing since breakfast. The same went for Alma. The poor kid must be starved.

  I craned my head and looked at her. She was in profile to me. But what a profile. Like a graven image or something cut out of a die or mould. Or the face of that Indian on the nickel. There was strength in that profile. Without one loss of femininity. Alma had a classically straight nose and a finely formed mouth and chin. But she was no Lily of the Valley. She’d been around and knew all about Judo and Ju-Jitsu. Or how to break a man’s back in three easy lessons.

  But she was also soft and wonderfully feminine and etcetera. The etcetera made her one girl in a million. Looks and genuine brains were two things that rarely came into my life in the same package. I was damn glad she’d decided to get around to me again.

  I felt like talking to her.

  “We have an awful lot to kick around, Alma,” I said. “But let me skip our personal life for a while and ask a very necessary question. Maybe it doesn’t mean a row of beans anyway but I’ve got to know.”

  “Shoot, Ed.”

  “You’ve told me everything there is to tell? The works? Ritz was just a friend who took your advice and that was it. He didn’t mention the clock or anything about what he was mixed up in?”

  She shook her head.

  “That’s it, Ed. I never figured on anything like this. Spy stuff. Otherwise I’d have recommended the FBI. Sorry I got cute about it. It’s just that I wanted to see you again. Real bad.”

  My hand found hers, squeezed it. This girl had me. Butterflies skipped around in my stomach until I crash-landed them with an effort.

  I bit my lip. “Well, I hope Mr. Ritz gets around to me sooner or later. I don’t know what the hell to do first. I’ll get in touch with Mike Monks anyhow. This is something for the Police Department anyway. A Captain of Detectives should know what to do with stuff like this clock. I still don’t see how Max didn’t find what he was looking for. Ritz wouldn’t have left me a phony clock if he needed help as bad as you say he did. And when he called me on the phone this morning, he was worried about whether or not I had it. You figure it out.”

  “What do you think it can be, Woolsey?”

  “Search me. New secret weapon? List of Communist agents in this country? Take your pick. It’s open season for guesses. I can’t waste time on it now. Right now, there’s something a helluva lot more important.”

  I hadn’t forgotten about Alec St. Peter. All day long his badly beaten face had been haunting me. But Alma hadn’t known about him.
>
  “They left a kid back there in my office. Pretty badly beaten up. Alec St. Peter. Maxim thought Ritz might have left the clock with him. Alec’s a watch repair man. His office is a couple of doors from mine.”

  Alma shuddered in her half-torn clothes.

  “How awful.”

  I spun the wheel sharply to avoid a cab that was crowding me.

  “How right you are. Alec doesn’t have hands. He’s a vet. They took his hooks away from him and beat hell out of him.” I spat out the window. “Nice people.”

  Alma didn’t feel like talking anymore. But talking keeps me awake and alive. I didn’t give her any more bad dreams though. Just let her know what the score was.

  “I want to see the kid to help him. But he can help me. I’ll let him play around with this clock when he’s up to it again. Maybe he can crack this whole business for us.”

  “Unless my ex-colleague shows up and explains all,” Alma pointed out.

  I shook my head. “I’m beginning to doubt it. He was a very scared man. And when a man is very scared, he runs like a big-assed bird.” I sighed. “Roland Ritzfeld. Alias Roland Ritz. That baby bothers me.”

  “I’m sorry, Ed.”

  I looked at her. “For what?”

  “For bringing you all this grief.”

  I laughed. “Who told me to be a private detective? You didn’t. So forget it. And since this brought you back, you can forget that weepy bit right now. I never ask my dreams for references.”

  The profile that would have been more at home on the face of a coin smiled. She leaned over and kissed me under the ear. Now we both felt better. Even if our stomachs must have been emptier than ball parks in the winter.

  “Lady, we got to get some food in us as soon as we reach the office. After we check on Alec. Okay?”

  I didn’t get an answer right away. So I squeezed her hand again. She didn’t squeeze back. I looked at her. She had fallen asleep. Her breathing was slow and regular harmony. I smiled and settled back again. The low hum of the MG’s motor was dulling and relaxing.

  We were making good time. The MG was like a toy in traffic but a fast-moving, result-getting little buggy. It was almost fun tooling around bigger and better cars. But I was tired, dead tired, and was actually longing for my little grey home in the West. The West Fifties.

  The West Fifties are never very crowded at any time of day. Not from Eighth Avenue on anyway. Now it was early evening and save for a lonely walker here and there, hardly anyone was in sight. Only the lights of the chop suey joint and Benny’s soft drink emporium shone in the inky blue of winter evening. It looked like a clear field.

  “Good deal,” I murmured to myself, seeing enough space between a small delivery truck and a sedan. I’d forgotten Alma was asleep and really couldn’t hear me. “There’s a spot. Three doors from the office.”

  I eased my arm out from behind Alma’s soft back and gently roused her. She mumbled sleepily and then jolted awake as some mental electricity recharged her battery. I’m sure hard on my lady friends.

  “Oh,” she blurted, then relaxed, her fingers pulling her torn clothes tighter around her.

  I switched the motor off, rubbing the cobwebs out of my own eyes. I groped for the handle on the door. I was tired now. Really tired.

  Alma shook herself awake and stretched. I palmed the car door open and stepped briskly to the sidewalk, forcing myself to be brisk. Like all foreign jobs, the MG’s steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car. Which is to say, the right side. Meaning I got to the sidewalk first.

  “Come on, Alma. You can lie down upstairs.” I looked up at my office window. And got a medium sized jolt myself. My lights were on. Blazing away. And it didn’t figure out right because I could see silhouettes of men moving around up there. More than one. Even if Alec had come to and put them on himself, all that activity up there just didn’t figure.

  It was a time for quick decisions. Alma was staring at me, sleepily.

  “Wheeler, run into Benny’s. Tell him you’re a friend of mine. You want to use his backroom. Get yourself a meal while you’re waiting.”

  She was wide awake now. “Ed—what’s wrong?”

  “I’ve got company. Lots of company. And I’m not dragging you in for introductions until I see what gives. Now hurry up and pay attention to Poppa. I’ll join you as soon as I throw the bums out.”

  “Ed—” she started to say, then nodded and moved stiffly across the street. I watched her just for a second until she made the other sidewalk. I still could have picked her out of a million dames from the rear. It’s like that when you love a dame.

  Then I got back to the business at hand. I must have been part clairvoyant. Either that or I’m a second guesser and hunch rider extraordinary. Because just as I cleared the entrance of the building, police sirens started wailing like hell all over the neighbourhood.

  Windows were grated upward and people were talking and yelling at the same time. Something had happened all right. And not too long ago. Something started to worry me like hell.

  The ride up in the office elevator seemed longer than the McCarthy-Schine investigations.

  Chapter Nine

  The building was like a graveyard. Most of the other offices close at six and everybody goes home. But I still live in mine because all I ever really wanted was just a place to hang my hat. The kind of life I lead, I do very little sleeping anyway. And the mouse auditorium always filled the bill.

  But my office door was open. I saw that as soon as I got out of the elevator. I heard a babble of voices, caught the pungent aroma of a bad cigar. Sounds of bustling activity. I’d heard that kind of noise before. If you’ve ever spent any time at all around policemen working on a case, you know what I mean.

  I went right in without knocking. My uninvited guests stopped talking. I stopped in the doorway and looked them over. Three plain-clothes men. Tall, wide-shouldered and armed. Pistol butts jutted from their coats. I smiled at them. Even though I didn’t feel like smiling. The office looked like it had undergone a pantry raid. But that didn’t bother me half as much as the sight of three coppers I didn’t know from Adam.

  “I’m very displeased to meet you,” I said. I was. I’d expected Monks or Hadley. At the very least, Sanderson, James T. That way I could get a fair shake. But that possibility was out now. Because I didn’t know anyone of these guys.

  “Doors were made for a reason,” the dick with the foul cigar said. “Ever try knocking?”

  I didn’t take my hat off. Because one of them had his feet up on my desk, another was lounging on the leather sofa by the big window, watching the street and the cigar man’s hand was close to the big gun poking out from his bulging waistline.

  “Since I pay the rent for this garden spot,” I said, “I think I’m entitled to some small talk. By way of explanation, of course.” I hadn’t moved from my spot near the door.

  “Honest taxpayers have rights,” the dick with the cigar rumbled. “About guys like you, I’m not so sure. Come in and close the door. Throw your gun on the pad there. And no funny stuff.”

  Simple Simon, that’s me. I’d forgotten a lot of things about my racket in all the excitement. Like the gun I was carrying. The gun that was Maxim’s. A gun that had been fired. A gun that was a Luger. Disgusted with myself, I unlimbered it and tossed it on the desk.

  “Aren’t you even going to introduce yourselves?” I asked sarcastically, conscious that the police sirens had stopped keening outside. “Or show me some credentials? My name is Ed Noon. What’s your name?”

  Somebody snickered but the cigar smoker rapidly showed me a flash of metal from his vest. “That’s all the credentials you need, mister. And you don’t have to tell us who you are. We didn’t get your name and address out of a phone book. You want to be formal, my name is McAdoo. That’s Ambruzzi by the window. The gent at the desk is Cohn.” His eyes twinkled without humour. “You got your own little UN right here.”

  “Very funny,” I said, still
feeling stupid. “Look, Mac. What’s the pitch?”

  He flicked open the barrel of Maxim’s Luger and sniffed. He snapped it shut and looked at me.

  “You’re on the books as owning a .45. This isn’t a .45. Also, it’s been recently fired. And unless you’ve really been out seeing the sights, you must have heard there was a little shooting about an hour ago. That mean anything to you?”

  “Nothing more than noise.” I started sizing him up. He looked like a square Joe in spite of his acting like a dick right out of a movie scenario. Ambruzzi and Cohn were just silent partners. They were probably more effective that way. I did some rapid calculating. What had happened since I’d been visiting with Maxim’s crowd, I couldn’t guess. I stared down at the floor where Alec had fallen. It wasn’t hard to remember where he had lain after he had staggered in. Dirty brown, reddish streaks stained the carpet. Alec must have revived and gone back to his own office to sleep off the effects of his beating. After all, he had taken a terrific going over. I sailed my hat for the wall peg deliberately to take McAdoo’s attention off where I had been looking. But McAdoo hadn’t missed a trick. He smiled behind his cigar.

  “Well, Noon,” he lashed out at me quietly. “We’re waiting. Aren’t you going to tell us you fired the gun accidentally while you were cleaning it?”

  I smiled because I didn’t know what the trouble was yet.

  “Mac, you have me.”

  “No fooling,” he agreed mildly.

  “Honest, you’ll never believe it.”

  “Try me.”

  I took a deep breath and sailed right in.

  “I took my girl to Coney Island to ask her to marry me. She said no. I got desperate and tried to kill myself. The Luger is a war souvenir. When she saw I couldn’t live without her, she changed her mind. I had to fake a shot to convince her. Now, everything’s okay. The wedding is set for June. You’re invited if you promise not to smoke that lousy cigar and try to arrest anyone. What do you say?”