The Spitting Image

by Michael Avallone

  “I’ll drink to that, Crandall.”

  “So shall I, Mr. Noon.”

  We lined each other up over the drinks. I knew then what I wanted to know. I had him marked.

  “Well, shall we get down to the purpose of your visit—?”

  I put my drink down.

  “Monks tells me you recommended Anton for the chauffeur job. Monks also said Anton and you were buddy-buddy with the cloak-and-dagger boys overseas. Anton’s death therefore should give you more ideas about who killed him than anybody.”

  His smile was beautiful.

  “If I remember correctly, Mr. Noon, your former line of investigation suggested the thought that Anton was killed because he—ah—got in the way of what was intended for June Wexler. You seem to have changed your mind.”

  “Progress, Mr. Crandall,” I bluffed. “Ideas change with progress.”

  “And if I remember the law correctly, you being a somewhat unofficial investigator, I am not required by law to answer any of your questions.”

  “You have me there, old boy,” I admitted. “But an honest man with nothing to hide, hides nothing.” Hell, I sounded like I was quoting.

  “If you came to ask questions, Mr. Noon, you have your answer. I’m not answering your questions.”

  “Did April Wexler fall in love with you?”

  My change of pace always gets them. Monks says it’s the dead-pan way I have of changing the subject. And not brains at all.

  “Good day, Mr. Noon.”

  “Did June Wexler fall in love with you?”

  He got up from behind the desk. That was my cue. I got up too.

  With the comments about the birds and the bees, Randall Crandall’s face had gotten redder than Maggie’s drawers. I kept working on him. I had things to find out. Find out fast.

  “Which one of them are you working with to knock the other one off? Frankly, I can’t make up my mind. April’s the one with brains, she’d be hard to handle. June would be a helluva lot easier to manage. But maybe April’s brains are needed for a stunt like this one—”

  He came from behind the desk slowly, his color rising like the sun in the east. His lips were trembling. I could see he was having a hard time controlling himself. For a guy like him, a guy like me was hard to take.

  I threw the topper in. “Look, Crandall. Play it smart. Maybe the girls are working both ends against the middle. You’d make a real pretty fall guy. Suppose you’re left holding the bag with the remaining twin? Whoever she is. She might want to fix it so you are left holding the bag. An empty one at that. Figure it out for yourself. With one twin dead, the other one is still going to be under an awful load of suspicion. The cops aren’t going to relax unless they’ve got a pigeon. You’d be a mighty cute pigeon, Crandall.”

  That did it. I got the reaction I’d hoped for.

  Randall Crandall’s face exploded and his fist swung out in a disorganized arc to my chin. I set my feet and took it because I had to find out just how he dished it out.

  He might have talked gunpowder but he dished out ice cream. I’ve been hit harder by angry women on street corners. My face was turned maybe three inches by the blow.

  I smiled at him. He stared at me, all winded from the effort, his cheeks puffed like a fish’s. His physique was a fooler too. He had the height but the build must have been designed by one of the best tailors in town.

  I kept on smiling, knowing I wasn’t going to waste a punch on him. I said, “Randall Crandall,” in a reproving manner and straight-armed him. Five flat fingers, palm down, right across the chest. He said, “Oh!” like a dame and flew back over the modern desk, knocking over an inkwell as he passed.

  I put my hat on, eying the trail of blue-black ink that marked his passage across the desk. I headed out with the sound of a buzzer making like a busy bee in my ears.

  I hadn’t been hearing things. In the outer office, the male secretary rushed me. Without comment. This guy must have done everything without comment. Randall Crandall had called in his marines.

  The marines were a hell of a lot tougher. The male secretary had legitimate muscle. And a blackjack. Which is also something you don’t usually find in a lawyer’s office.

  He came at me swinging. I side-stepped, dug my shoe into his ankle. He howled loud, dropped the sap, and bombarded my shoulder with a terrific right cross. I felt that one right down to my socks.

  I waded in, blocked a tricky left hook, and let fly a finger-packed right. The secretary knew how to box. He rolled away from it and uppercutted my chin.

  I gave up pretending. Only the fact that we were close like the pages in a book had saved me from a count of ten plus.

  I tried him with a left, worked him into covering himself, and then let go with a shoulder-level punch that caught him where it would do the most good.

  A look of surprise faded from his eyes as the whites turned up and he dropped like a dead weight. I stepped over him with respect. He was probably some poor chump who needed the money and had stopped caring how he got it.

  If Randall Crandall wasn’t what I thought he was, then I can’t tell the difference any more.

  ELEVEN

  “What bar did you roll out of?” was June Wexler’s greeting when she opened the front door.

  “Roll is right,” I said, walking by her like a guy ducking in out of the rain. “But let’s skip the amenities. April in?”

  She closed the door. A large pout had taken over her face. Her eyebrows danced for me.

  “Sure, she’s in. But didn’t you want to see me?”

  “I want to see you both.” I looked down at my clothes. My little frolic with the gutters of New York had left my solitary brown suit looking like a throwaway in a Bowery bargain sale.

  In the momentary darkness of the foyer, she closed in on me.

  “What’s the matter, Ed?” she was whispering, “don’t you like me?”

  “More every minute. But can’t it wait until later?”

  “Oh.” Surprise made the dancing eyebrows stop dancing. “Are you still working for me?”

  “I got your little card. And I also got the hundred-dollar bill.”

  She smiled, giving me the one that was supposed to curl my toes. “I hope it was enough, Ed.”

  “It was. But there are other things.” I gave her waist a squeeze to let her know what other things I was talking about.

  “Ed—!” She was going to kiss me right there in the foyer but April’s voice floated down from somewhere upstairs.

  “June—who’s there with you? Was that the front door?”

  I winked at June and guided her past the hallway into the living room of chandelier fame. April was coming down the curved staircase. She stopped when she saw us.

  “Hello, April,” I said.

  “Hello, Mr. Noon.” She colored for an instant but it faded away in a hurry. “Or perhaps I should say Ed. Since that is the only way my sister refers to you.”

  “Ed will do. It’s short and sweet and to the point. The point being that I’m going to be in your hair for more than a couple of days so we might as well be old friends. Okay?”

  “You being in my hair suits me fine,” purred June.

  “Drink, Ed?” April was balancing the chrome decanter in one tapered hand. I nodded, taking a good look at her. She was wearing the gorgeous cashmere sweater again.

  Over my drink, I sized the pair of them up once more. No matter how you sliced it, they were a pair of beautiful dolls. Beautiful, look-alike, stunning dolls. At ten feet, you couldn’t ever tell them apart. At five feet, even my theory about their eyes being the big difference was shot to hell.

  I had my work cut out for me. Because I was going to have to make love to the both of them.

  “You’re both probably wondering why I’m here.”

  April smiled. June just shrugged.

  “Well, I’ll get to it.” I fiddled with my glass, watching the crushed ice pack to one side. “I’ve gone in for scientific methods in my o
ld age. I’d like to run a little test. If you have no objections, that is. You see, frankly, you two look so much alike, that I haven’t got much to go by so far. I don’t know how you feel about things. This test may help me—”

  “What kind of test, Ed?” June’s eyes were two scandals. I could see she went for the idea no matter what it was. Such blind devotion gets me at times.

  It hit April a different way entirely. She had stiffened all over.

  “What do you have in mind?” That girl had more ice for Ed Noon than Stahl-Meyer’s meat-packing plant.

  I grinned. “It’s a breeze, really. All we need is two pencils, two sheets of writing paper.”

  April had recovered. “You trying to determine our individual I.Q.’s, Ed?”

  “Something like that. But much simpler. And not as long. What do you say?”

  June was bouncing up and down like a kid.

  “This ought to be fun. Wait, I’ll get the pencils and paper.” She got up, raced over to the big desk in the far corner. Behind my back, I could hear her rummaging like a rat in a paper bag that had some food scraps in it.

  April looked at me. “You’re a strange sort of person, Ed. To be a private detective, I mean.”

  “Hallelujah,” I said. “Thanks for just noticing me for the first time. Did I tell you I was the valedictorian of my class, that I graduated cum laude from P.S. 34, that—”

  She laughed like silver bells and I felt good about it. She had gone along with the gag. Also, tiny lines of tension were beginning to lose their death grip on the corners of her beautiful mouth. That’s what bothered me. She had intelligence over June, yet this whole mess bothered her a hell of a lot more. To June it seemed like a pink tea. But that was the answer, of course. The happy morons are never affected in times of crisis.

  June came back with the writing equipment. She watched me expectantly.

  “That’s a good girl. Now, both of you make yourself comfortable. June, give a pencil and a sheet of that paper to April. That’s it. I’m the professor this trip. Now, here’s all there’s to it.” I walked over to the fireplace and took up a stance similar to the one Randall Crandall had. I folded my hands behind me in the same pedantic way.

  “Now, students. Write your names across the top of the paper.” I gave them time to do it. “Put the numbers one to ten directly below each other. Got that? Ten questions in all.”

  “I think I know what sort of test you have in mind,” April said flatly.

  June shrugged. “Shoot, Ed.”

  “I think you get the idea. I’ll say a word, one particular word, and stop to give you time to write your answer. Now, here’s the idea—whatever I say, you put down the first thing that pops into your head. The very first thing, understand? Otherwise, the test is a waste of time. For example, if I say black, your answer might be white or color or even dress. See, that’s the whole thing. Free association. You might have a blue dress, and it might be the very first thing that occurs to you. Whatever it is, it will be an answer.”

  “Whenever you’re ready,” April said.

  “Okay by me, Ed.” June was excited.

  “Here goes, girls. The first word is—ice cream.”

  June snickered. I lit a butt. April’s pencil was busy. I waited until they were ready for me again.

  “Hollywood,” I said.

  They were both silent now and I had only to look at them to know when to give them the next word. I kept my own record of the words I was using in my little black book.

  “Chair” was the third word.

  “Pencil” the fourth.

  “Stairs” the fifth.

  They were in the swing of the thing now. I’d give them the word, both brunette heads would bend to the writing, then their eyes would come up for the next one. They seemed to be enjoying the test now. Like it was some kind of game.

  I let them have the next five words in order. Spaced them three seconds apart, never even looking at them once.

  “Gun.”

  “Money.”

  “Automobile.”

  “Chandelier.”

  I let them catch up. Then I threw in the joker. I ground out my cigarette.

  “Randall Crandall,” I said.

  There was a snap of breaking wood. Somebody had broken her pencil. I looked up idly, pretending not to have heard.

  “All finished?” I asked.

  June handed her sheet to me eagerly. Her eyes were twinkling. “That was fun, Ed. Let’s match answers, April. Give Ed your sheet.”

  April’s face was expressionless. I took her sheet, put it with June’s, folded them both, and tucked them into my inside coat pocket.

  “Not just yet. I have to go over them first. Teacher’s privilege, you know. Then I’ll tell you what it tells me.”

  June tossed her pencil on the end table where it rolled against my glass. She smirked. “Wait’ll you see what I wrote when you said ‘Randall Crandall.’ That jerk—oh!” She stopped suddenly, throwing a worried glance at April.

  “Well, Ed,” April said brightly. “I hope you learn something with your little experiment. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some things to attend to upstairs. I seem to have a slight headache besides. I’m sure June can amuse you.”

  “I’m sure she can. Sorry about your headache, April. I hope I didn’t make it worse.”

  She smiled. “How could you? If you’ll excuse me—”

  She dropped something on the table before she went upstairs with a faint nod of her head and the flicker of a something in her face.

  June watched her go with little disappointment and obvious pleasure.

  “April and those convenient headaches of hers. I should kick. Now we can be alone.”

  “Yeah.” I picked up the two broken ends of pencil from the table. “Now we can be alone.”

  TWELVE

  I had got what I wanted but June had other ideas. While I’d been turning April’s broken pencil over in my fingers, she had turned out most of the lights. Aside from some belated afternoon sunshine trickling through the big window and the lone bulb working in the foyer, the Wexler living room was a nice, dim little hideout.

  She made room for me on the mile-long divan by pushing some pillows out of the way. She lay back, letting her bare arms spread out along the back of the thing. She looked at me, one black curl bobbing off one side of her face. Her eyes had things in them that they never talk about in school rooms.

  I couldn’t help grinning. No matter how she was brought up, she was a straightforward dame. You had to say that much for her.

  “What are you grinning about, you good-looking so-andso?” She was whispering again.

  “I was just telling myself what a straight-from-the-shoulder article you are for a dame.”

  She inched toward me. The curl bobbed again. Just for me.

  “You must have met an awful lot of dames in your profession, Ed. Anybody like me?”

  “Not ever, kiddo. My solemn word on it.”

  She moved another two inches closer.

  “That’s swell.” Her eyes shone in the half light. “I don’t want to be like anybody else. Not for you, anyway.”

  “But you are like somebody else, June. Nobody could tell you apart from April.”

  She was right next to me. Her rounded knee was burning into my side. Something else shone in her eyes. And it wasn’t the heat of the room.

  “I’m not like her. Not like her at all.” She sounded fierce now. “April hates men. She’s an iceberg. I’m hot, I’ve got things inside me that burn like bonfires. It’s just—I’m not like April. She’s not like me.”

  “You’re repeating yourself,” I said.

  “Am I?” Her arm traveled softly around my neck. I turned my face to hers. We were close enough to rub noses.

  “You are,” I said. “How many of that young crowd of yours got this routine from you? About being different from April, I mean?”

  That had been intended to make her mad. But it didn’t. Her
red mouth curled and her teeth flashed.

  “Don’t squirm, Ed. I’m wise to you now. You play it tough and I’m supposed to run. But I won’t. I like you just the way you are.”

  “That’s mutual, June. Let’s play Questions and Answers.”

  “I’ve had enough crazy games for one day. Let’s play Let’s Get Acquainted.”

  “Let’s not.” I reached up to take her arm from around my neck. She was starting to strangle me. And I couldn’t take much more of her throwing herself at me. I’m only human.

  She was way ahead of me. Her head darted toward my face and I’d had it.

  There were bonfires in her all right. And every one of them started a chain reaction in me. I could have mussed her up plenty. But she was a doll. A damn beautiful doll. So I let myself be kissed. I sat back and took it. But I underestimated her. In less than five seconds, I was returning the kiss.

  That was a mistake. She was only a few days away from her twenty-first birthday but she had been a woman years ago.

  The mentality I had flew away like spent money. The ideas I had about not tangling with her because she was a kid blew up in a thousand pieces. This was an old game to her. She made it seem like she had invented it.

  Female flesh does things to a man’s logic. My head was swimming and whatever pulse I had was pounding like a dinner gong. I pulled her down beside me on the divan. She locked to me like a newspaper hugging the corner of a building in a windstorm.

  “Your sister upstairs—” I gasped it out between the mad string of dizzy kisses.

  “The hell with her,” she whispered fiercely.

  After that, I didn’t know where I was or what I was. I didn’t even know what case I was on.

  What was worse, I didn’t even care.

  She’d wanted me. And she had gotten me. I’m not apologizing but just like the farmer’s daughter, I hadn’t had a chance. She kissed me again.

  I got up and mixed myself a drink.

  “Some kid.” I was making like a parrot. “You’ve always gotten what you wanted, haven’t you? I feel like number seventy-nine of a series.”