The Spitting Image

by Michael Avallone

  April made another noise in her throat. Doggie growled.

  “No noise, sister. We’re here for you, that’s all. But as long as old pal Hadley’s here too, it’s all velvet. All velvet. We owe Hadley a couple. Don’t we, Bull?”

  Bull still had his sniffer focused on me. “Sure. But now we owe this creep a couple too.”

  Hadley started to lower his hands. Doggie smiled.

  “You’re rushin’ things, ain’t you, Hadley?” Hadley’s mitts went up again.

  “So you’re here for the dame,” I said. “Can’t say as I can blame you. She’s a doll. But don’t squeeze her too hard. She’s delicate. Might break.”

  Bull’s eyes were puzzled. “What the hell,” he said.

  “Of course,” I rambled on. “You don’t want to do any shooting here. I’d like to see Hadley pushed around a little but please, fellas. Not here. I’m in bad with the neighbors already—”

  “Noon, you stupid bastard—” Hadley cut in.

  “Don’t interrupt,” I said offhand. “You got it coming. Now these boys here—” I kept watching Bull, my insides screaming. Come on, you stupid jerk! Hit me, hit me hard! “—seem to be sensible fellows. If they’ll let me help them out I can tell them of a place out in Jersey where we can get rid of you, Hadley, without staining my nice carpet. What do you say, boys?”

  I was on the verge of cutting out the clown routine because it might have been that they’d been taking the needle for so long now that you couldn’t give it to them anymore.

  But Bull must have been in his freshman year. He said something dirty and slammed the gun across the middle of my stomach. I sucked in but the heavy barrel raked across my gut. My ribs caved, a roaring fire flashed in my stomach and I folded up. I heard a swish of fabric above me. Bull was giving me the coup de grâce. A gun butt on the head to silence my flapping lip for a good while longer than five minutes.

  I took it with my shoulder, felt the sear of pain all the way down my left side and fell across the desk. I managed to keep my head clear and fell just about where I wanted to. Close to the desk drawer.

  I kept my eyes closed.

  I was hoping I had pegged him right. Him or Hadley. These mugs give you the toe of their shoe in your side when you’re down. I had made no mistake about Bull.

  “Don’t kick a man when he’s down. Even a dope like him.” Hadley came to the rescue. There was another diversion too. The sound of a slap. Doggie snarled, “Clam up, sister. Your boy friend talks too much. Leave him be, Bull. You done him up brown as it is.”

  There was a noise of disappointment from Bull but I heard him moving away. I inched an eye open and saw an assortment of feet. The desk was hiding the rest of them. I lay still and made myself forget the variety of aches and pains I had earned with my little stunt. I caught my wind.

  Doggie was doing the talking.

  “Come here, sister. By the door. That’s it. Okay, you two. Over by the window. Against the light from that lamp. That’s just fine. Say good-by to them, Bull boy. They’re leavin’ us.”

  Bull was an obedient dog. “Good-by, coppers.”

  “You can’t get away with this, Doggie.” Hadley sounded like he was strangling. Couldn’t blame him. There were no bones about it. He and his buddy were going to be shot down in cold blood.

  Doggie laughed. “Now where the hell have I heard that one before? Any last words, Hadley? You look scared. I like to see a cop look scared.”

  “Give us a break—we only did our duty when we pulled you in on that rap—” Sanderson, James T., sounded like a small boy whimpering in a dark room.

  “Shut up!” Hadley roared. “Don’t give them the satisfaction.”

  I slid the bottom desk drawer open noiselessly. I pressed the tiny spring in the gloomy interior and prayed it wouldn’t be heard. The panel shifted with a tiny click of sound. I waited, then let my fingers close upon the grip of the P 38 fastened within. An old army souvenir specially installed by a carpenter client of mine who couldn’t pay for my work except with something like this.

  Hadley was all cop. At least he was bowing out like one. Still working on his assignment.

  “Who sent you after the girl?”

  A hammer clicked in the silence that followed the question. I sighted up under the desk toward a pair of trouser legs that I knew belonged to Bull.

  “Dope is one thing, Doggie—” I could hear the beads of sweat forming over Hadley’s words. “Murder is something else again. You can’t kill a cop and get away with it. The department takes care of its own—you’ll never make it—DOGGIE!”

  Something in Hadley’s voice told me that he had seen something in Doggie’s eyes that had made him stop talking. Something in the split-second silence gave me my cue. It was now or never.

  The P 38 bucked in my hand, the slug whined, and somebody let out with a hoarse shout of pain. Bull. He was coming down to the floor on one shattered knee into my ground-floor view when I changed position and got erect in a hurry.

  Hadley yelled and he and Sanderson parted like the waters in the Bible and hit the floor. Doggie started blasting away like a small war and plaster jumped off the office walls.

  I cursed. Bull was down on one knee but his gun was coming up in my direction and behind him, Doggie was dragging April through the door, firing over her shoulder. She was a beautiful shield, clawing and scratching. I held my fire just in time, brought my gun down lower.

  Bull’s gun was just leveling off when I let him have it point-blank. But he wasn’t all mine. Just as I caught him high in the chest, a fusillade of police fire, caliber .38, spun him around like a top and slammed him up against the wall hard. He died coughing.

  Doggie was a marksman. The light from the two lamps went in apple-pie order and darkness fell over us like a blanket. He had to move fast.

  He was framed in the light from the open door but with April squirming in his arms there was no chance of a shot. I cursed again, hoping the law would hold its fire. It did. The door banged shut and the office was completely dark.

  Moving as if in a dream, I groped my way around the desk and made for the door. Seizing the handle, I tried to whip the door back. No soap. Doggie had sprung the lock. Great, I thought. Simply great. Behind me, Hadley and his colleague fell over the furniture reaching me. I stepped back, cutting away with the P 38 at the doorjamb. I gave it my shoulder good and hard. The wood shivered and sagged open.

  A blast of gunfire racketed down the hallway. I stood where I was. Doggie was warning us off. It was an unwritten law and he was pushing it to the fullest. You just can’t charge out into a lighted hallway after a guy who’s loaded for bear.

  In the semidarkness Hadley struck a match and found the phone. His face looked funny at me before the match flame died.

  “Thanks, Noon.” It was all he said.

  I edged out to the door and peeked down the corridor. Clean as a whistle. Just like the last time. And just like Anton’s killer, Doggie had gotten away clear.

  Only, he had April with him. April the last twin. If June was dead—

  Hadley was dialing Headquarters.

  I started for the stairs on the dead run with Sanderson, James T., a poor second.

  SIXTEEN

  It took me maybe three minutes to clamber down three flights of stairs to the street. There was no sound to tell me which way Doggie was dragging April. But there was only one way out of the building. The front door. And what with my heels beating on the steps and Sanderson’s big feet punishing the ground behind me, I couldn’t hear a thing.

  I rocketed down the main hall and through the dirty glass doors to the sidewalk. Manhattan was dark and hypo-ed up with neon but I found what I was looking for.

  A red taillight shot out of sight around the southwest corner. Going like your money during Christmas shopping. Doggie’s five minute start had been just enough.

  I checked a rising feeling of hot futility in my chest and cut across the street to Benny’s place. For one thing,
I didn’t want to hang around making explanations to Sanderson. Besides, Hadley might have some screwy ideas about dragging me back to Headquarters with him and I had lost enough time already.

  Benny’s joint was jumping and I could see he’d been much too busy to be even looking at the clock, let alone keeping an eye on the front of my building.

  It had been too much to hope for anyway. It was nighttime and Benny wasn’t exactly 20-20 in the eyeball department. License plates at a distance of sixty feet was asking too much. Moving license plates besides.

  But I took a stab at it. In this business you try everything.

  I waited until he got rid of a noisy drunk who wanted a refill.

  “Anything happen, Benny?”

  He smiled his fat smile. But tonight it was a weary smile.

  “Been full up, Ed. Did I miss something?”

  I’d expected just that so I shrugged and tossed a single at him. “Dimes, Benny. Lots of them.”

  He made the change for me with fast fat fingers. I headed for the phone booth in the rear. I had an idea.

  I leafed like mad through the phone book that dangled off the wall like a rag doll. It fought my pawing fingers until my thumb found the sheet I needed and I indexed down the page until I came to the Crandalls. I found the Randall that I wanted and dropped my dime into the slot.

  It was working a long shot. But long shots do pay off sometimes.

  I drummed the metal phone box impatiently as the receiver gargled and clicked repeatedly in my ear. I bit my lip thinking about Doggie manhandling April. And maybe more. You never could tell about hopheads.

  The receiver broke off sharply and the air was alive. A soft, melodious voice said, “Yes?” It was Crandall.

  I’m enough of a ham actor to be able to imitate anybody who has a trick voice. Especially somebody like Doggie who had a speak box in the very low register.

  “Crandall?” I growled. “Doggie. We got the frill.”

  There was a pause. I waited.

  “What are you calling here for? You had your instructions.”

  “I had trouble,” I bluffed.

  I could hear him thinking on the other end of the wire. He was still suspicious. But he had already tipped his mitt. He was in this mess up to his pretty face.

  “Well—?” he urged.

  “Noon’s tough.” I decided to follow through. “Bull got his. But I got away clear. I had to hit the dame to quiet her. Still want me to bring her to your place?”

  That did it. There was a gasp at his end.

  “I don’t know what you mean or who you are.” His voice rose. “I suggest you may have better luck if you try Information.”

  Click! went the phone in my ear. I hung up myself. I hadn’t found out where Doggie was taking April or what he was going to do with her. But I had my lead.

  It was Randall Crandall. The handsomest thing in pants.

  I got out of the phone booth in a hurry, dodged Benny who was taking a tray of empties back to the bar, and rushed out to the street. I hailed a cab just as it caught the corner light and slowed down.

  Hopping in, I gave the driver Crandall’s address.

  It was me against time now. Me racing against the clock. If the clock won, April was a gone goose. A beautiful gone goose.

  SEVENTEEN

  It was cold in the East Thirties. Cold and windy. I buried my hands in my pockets and arched my back against the bite of October wind.

  The cab was just disappearing up the block. I looked at my watch. The minute and hour hands were on the verge of making love at a quarter to nine. It had almost been twenty-five minutes since my phony call to Randall Crandall.

  I cased the neighborhood. It was a rooming-house district crawling with furnished rooms and a couple of fancy high-rental apartment dumps thrown in. Crandall lived in one of these.

  I lit a cigarette and cupped my hands around its brief life and death and looked things over. Crandall’s place was just a few doors to my right. It was a broad eye-appeal modern pushing away two crummy old buildings on either side.

  I made up my mind. He might have left already or he might have not. I had to find out for sure. One way or the other. I wasn’t going to be a chump waiting around to pick up the tail of a bird that had already flown. Besides, if he had a car I had to know just which car it was.

  I walked boldly up to the well-lighted front door and pushed through the wide curtained-glass doors. Inside was fancy too. There were plush divans, roomy chairs, and potted plants. The whole motif was lobby style. You got the idea you were in an expensive, discreet hotel. Hotel is right. There was a desk with a call board and pigeonhole rack for tenants’ mail. And a girl. A cute-looking blonde with bright eyes and an agreeable figure. At least the part that the counter didn’t hide was agreeable.

  She looked up from a magazine as she sensed me taking up a position across from her. The eyes got bright right then because I was doing my damnedest to be a clean-cut American boy. I was smiling and showing her my teeth which are still white and still all mine.

  “Hello,” I said, mustering up some more of the charm I still had left. “Mr. Crandall in? Mr. Randall Crandall?” I hoped like hell I didn’t sound like a detective of any kind.

  She smiled but it broke in the middle someplace. I guess she had tumbled to Fancy Pants too somewhere along the line.

  “Who shall I say is calling?” she inquired sweetly in the tone that is a strict requirement for that question. She reached for her switchboard. That was something I had to stop. Randy Crandy had been too forewarned as it was.

  “Say—did anyone ever tell you—oh, I suppose you’ve heard it a thousand times already…”

  That stopped her. Her hand paused, fell to her magazine. It was a copy of Modern Screen. Her blonde head swung around to face me fully. Her eyebrows went up.

  I grinned sheepishly. “Forget it,” I said.

  Nobody ever does when you say it that way.

  “What were you starting to say?”

  “It’s nothing, really,” I insisted. “Except—”

  “You were starting to say something. Do I remind you of somebody? Is that it?”

  I was dumbfounded. “How did you ever guess?”

  She sighed. As if she were a thousand years old. “Somebody’s always telling me I look like somebody.”

  “Well, you do. You look so much like Marilyn Monroe, it isn’t even funny.” I leaned on the counter keeping my back to the elevator and the stairway.

  Her bright eyes widened in awe. “You really mean it? Mamie says the same thing. Mamie’s my sister though. You know how sisters are.” By habit, her hand glided back to the switchboard. “Mr. Crandall just called the garage to have his car delivered to the front. You’ll just catch him. He’s going out, I guess.”

  “Well, Mamie may be your sister but Mamie hit the nail dead center. Say, if the car is coming, you don’t have to bother ringing Randy. I’ll just run along.”

  She got curious. Either that or she wanted to hear more about how much she resembled Marilyn Monroe. “He’ll be down in just a minute—”

  I shrugged. “To tell you the truth, if he’s going out, I’d rather not. Fact is, I’ve got some bad news for him. And it can wait till morning. I don’t want to spoil his evening.”

  She sighed again and clicked some gum. I suddenly realized she had had a wad clamped in one cheek all the time. It was a good sign now that she had gone back to chewing it. Meaning she had relaxed and me and her were old pals and she would think nothing of my change of mind.

  “Gee, I hope it’s nothing serious. Mr. Crandall is one of our regulars.”

  “No,” I lied. “Just some legal matters that’ll need straightening. Fact is, it’s about the car. I’m from the Company.” That’s one word you never have to explain if you’ve laid the proper groundwork. “There was a hit-and-run accident last night and a witness got the license number. The bureau says it’s Randy’s car but I can’t believe he’d be mixed up in anything like
that. Well, I guess with a car like he’s got—”

  “The Caddy?” she snorted, taking his side. “Heck, he’s not the only one with a ’51 Cadillac. Even poor people seem to own one of those these days.”

  I had what I wanted.

  “You can say that again. Well, thanks for your help. And you might forget I dropped by. Don’t want to spoil his evening.”

  “Yeah,” she murmured, “I can see what you mean.”

  “Thanks. Well, so long. See you again some time, Marilyn.”

  She gave me a smile that would have stretched across the wide Missouri and went back to her magazine. I walked out as fast as I could without running.

  Crandall was going out, as late as it was. In his ’51 Caddy. Well, so was I.

  I gave the street a once-over. I didn’t have far to look. Shiny chrome and white-wall tires gleamed off to the left. Between a station wagon and a firehouse-red coupé. I sidled up to it casually and took out my cigarettes and matches. I struck one and stared down.

  It was another long shot but the door might just be unlocked. I didn’t exactly feel like hugging a rumble-seat ride on a night like this. And the trunk compartment wouldn’t be unlocked in a million years.

  The street was deserted except for a cat worrying a garbage can in the alley across the way. I put my hand to the door handle. It turned. I stepped into the yawning, richly upholstered interior. I couldn’t believe my luck.

  But a mechanic with grease still sticking to his fingers and delivering a customer’s car just might not remember to lock the door. This mechanic hadn’t.

  I closed the door again and huddled up on the thick flooring in the back, hoping I wouldn’t have long to wait. My luck had been holding pretty well up to now. The Caddy was parked a good distance from the street light. Crandall wouldn’t be able to see me from outside at all. It was a cloudy, miserable night.

  I uncradled the P 38 and let it lie loosely in the hand resting on my stomach. The Caddy was a modern-design monster but it was still pretty cramped on the floor.

  Traffic hummed faintly beyond the closed doors. The wind whistled softly through the cracks in the body of the car. But it was warm. And I had been on the go all day. I shook my head to keep it clear.