The Spitting Image

by Michael Avallone

  Minutes ticked by. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my gun hand. I began to wonder if something hadn’t gone wrong. I was pretty certain I had pegged the doll on the switchboard right. But if she had talked to Crandall on his way out, it was all over…

  The front door gave with a big click and somebody swung his weight onto the front seat. The door slammed shut again. I held my breath and stopped thinking as the starter whirred and the powerful Caddy motor purred to life. My reverie had almost cost me. I hadn’t even heard his footsteps approaching the car.

  We moved out from the curb slowly as Crandall eased the Caddy out from behind the station wagon. It was like being in a cabin cruiser on the waters the way the big car glided down the block into some heavy evening traffic and picked up speed.

  Pretty soon, I could tell we had reached East River Drive because of the way Crandall suddenly gave the Caddy its head. It felt like we were flying over the asphalt.

  I got to one knee as quiet as a church and craned my neck. The thousand lighted windows of the UN Building flashed by in a second of starry city lights. Then more lights. Millions of them. It looked like Crandall was heading uptown.

  Ten minutes later we had hit the end of the Drive. Crandall was heading into the Bronx, land of my misspent youth. I began to wonder. Plus that I was beginning to feel the cramp of my necessary position on the floor.

  Suddenly he hit the brakes hard. The tires squealed for all their expensive rubber and I slammed up against the front seat hard. The P 38 ripped loose from my fingers and thudded somewhere on the floor. Before I could straighten out and recover it, Crandall’s voice was crackling in my ears.

  “Remain where you are, Mr. Noon. I have a gun.”

  I took his word for it. I was face down to the floor, curled up like some silly lap dog.

  “It’s your play, Randy,” I said, my mouth inches from the carpeting.

  “It most certainly is.” He had a hard time keeping the drums, fifes, and bugles out of his voice. “I am pleased that I gauged your reactions so perfectly. Your telephone call assured me that you had, shall we say, caught on to my interests in this affair? I’m surprised that you misjudged me so badly. Didn’t you realize that I would expect you to do just this?”

  He was right. I had pegged the switchboard doll okay but I had missed him completely.

  “I’m in the right position, Crandall.” I gritted it out. “Go ahead. One swift kick where it’ll do the most good.”

  “Most assuredly, Mr. Noon.” I didn’t like the sudden oil in his voice. “I shall be most glad to oblige. If only to even a few scores—”

  I was still trying to find the P 38 when he let me have it. He must have had a poor sense of direction. Because he kicked me on top of the head and before my eyeballs exploded and the dark men rushed in through the wide open cracks to carry me away, I could only think that he wore an iron shoe. Steel reinforced.

  With taps, yet. Because, I think he hit me two or three times. Whatever it was, I lost count.

  EIGHTEEN

  I had a headache. A musical headache. All of the scoring was by Max Steiner with just enough of Stan Kenton’s noisy brass section thrown in to keep my skull in an uproar.

  You don’t open your eyes when you have that kind of a lid-lifter. You keep them closed because you’re afraid to look at the world. You might see pieces of your brain lying around loose where people can walk all over them.

  A water tap that needed repairing bad was bleep-blooping in the background. This sort of furnished a contrapuntal rhythm for the Steiner music and Kenton’s brass horses that were riding around behind my eyes. Every time a drop blooped and landed somewhere, the concussion echoed hollowly in my ears and set my teeth to grinding. I couldn’t help it. Randall Crandall had lowered the boom on me. Lowered it hard.

  Some time later, much later, the brain music subsided enough for me to make a feeble attempt at recovery. I played for a while with my eyelids; and when I had enough will power to convince myself that they didn’t weigh a ton apiece, I forced them open. That didn’t help much either. It was still dark. Dark and damp.

  The dampness brought the noise of the leaking water tap back into focus again. It was a lousy tune. I experimented with my arms and legs, expecting them to be tied. They were. Thick bands of heavy twine had me rigged up like a mummy. I flexed my wrists. The coarseness of the cord felt thick and scratchy against my tired skin. I fought back a feeling of helplessness. Sisal twine. Nothing less than a knife can do anything about sisal twine.

  I tried moving my legs. Nothing happened. But my chin felt like it was kissing my knees. And now I knew where my hands were. Lashed behind me like apron strings.

  I rolled my eyes around in their sockets. But the darkness didn’t go away. It was part of wherever they had thrown me. For a second, I had thought my eyes had been taking their own good time dilating but that wasn’t it. I was trussed and bound, chicken-style, somewhere in a dark, damp hole that had lousy plumbing.

  I tried to shinny along the floor. I didn’t have much luck with that either. Whoever had tied me up must have learned it from an Indian. I wasn’t going any place. And I was beginning to feel the uncomfortable dampness of the place. That and the persistent leak of the bad faucet began to play tricks on my nerves. I felt myself slipping off into a sea of gloom. There was only one way to beat that rap.

  Think of a joke, Noon. Think of two jokes. I did. I thought about the mouse and the elephant but it didn’t help. I started to curse but then some of Groucho Marx’s patter came tumbling out of my subconscious:

  “I don’t like Junior crossing the tracks, my dear. In fact, come to think of it, I don’t like Junior!”

  That one was sure-fire. Always good for a laugh. Then there was that other one:

  “I never forget a face hut in your case, I’ll make an exception!”

  That did it. The crack about Junior had snapped me back to normal, but the one about faces had started me off again.

  Faces. April and June Wexler. Two faces that looked like one. But one of those faces was two-faced. Which one? Which twin gets the two million?

  I started burning some wood. April had been snatched on Crandall’s orders after sister June had vanished in the family ruins. But had she?

  I cursed again. Cursed hard. I couldn’t help it. If ever a private operator got involved in queer cases, I took the blue ribbon hands down. Correction, hands tied behind my back.

  I was in the Bronx. Somewhere in the Bronx where it was damp, probably deserted, and far from the city lights. Probably deserted because the someone who had tied me hadn’t bothered gagging me which meant only one thing. I could yell my head off without being heard. I gave up trying to figure it out. It was making my headache worse.

  Something else stopped me too. Out in the hall somewhere, or corridor or whatever the hell lay beyond my prison, heels sounded. They clicked hollowly on a smooth floor of some kind. Calmly, smoothly, evenly. Like whoever was walking had no reason to hide. Like the heel-clicker was the man in charge of this whole play.

  Only it was a woman. On high heels. I’ve been a boy long enough to know a woman’s walk when I hear one.

  I waited, not knowing what was coming, but the heels went right on by me and turned in some place where I couldn’t hear them any more. They must have because a door slammed nearby and I was alone again.

  But not for long.

  Voices picked up next door like someone putting a record on the turntable. They started low, then picked up. I shook my head, fighting the mess of cobwebs that had collected. I had to concentrate. The voices were coming through the wall muffled and unreal.

  Someone was laughing. Right in the middle it broke off. I strained forward against the ropes that held me.

  “—slick is hardly the word for it. It is much better than that. And the beauty of it is, of course, that the police will never know.”

  It was Crandall. I had a mental picture of him rubbing his hands like a miser over his lifetime h
oard. That’s the way he sounded.

  There was a gasp. A woman’s noise.

  “—you can’t get her to do that. She wouldn’t! It’s not human, it’s—so awful to think of—”

  It was April. Fear had her voice by the throat and raw, unbelieving terror was wrapped around the words.

  Crandall murmured something I couldn’t hear. April’s voice came back again. Still wrapped up in something that set the short hairs on the back of my neck tingling.

  “—but she can have her share of what belongs to her! I’ll give her anything—anything, God—she’s my sister! My own sister—”

  She started screaming. She started off so quick and so fast that she got away with it. I nearly jumped a foot, tied and all, at the piercing quality of her voice. Then Crandall put a stop to it. There was a ringing slap and a moan of pain. Then a low, muted mewing like some cat out in the wind and rain crying at your closed window to get in.

  I bit my lip, feeling something burn in the pit of my stomach. I owed Randall Crandall already. Now I owed him more. And if I lived to follow through, he’d get everything that was coming to him.

  There was silence now next door. I fought against the darkness. The cord cramping my body was not doing the circulation of my life’s blood any good at all.

  June Wexler, I thought. The bright little jackass was the brain. Bright little lying jackass. Playing it dumb, playing it with sympathy. April would be unloaded. I would be unloaded. Then she could step in and collect and—wait, wait, wait. A bell went off in my brain. It didn’t make sense.

  Why a phony disappearance via a house fire and then a kidnap of April? That was doing it the hard way, wasn’t it? A simple murder looking like an accident was all that had been really needed.

  “Noon, you’re not making much sense,” I told myself aloud. The sound of my voice, cracked from being out of use for a couple of hours or more, startled me.

  I stopped thinking. I was way ahead of myself. The armchair stuff could wait. Right now was the time to think about self-preservation. Getting the hell out of this fix I was in. I could make like Sherlock Holmes when I was home in my warm little bed curled up with a dry martini. But not now, Crandall must be thinking about getting around to me sooner or later. I started to wrestle with the ropes again.

  For Crandall, it was sooner. There was noise at the door as somebody fumbled with the handle. Then light poured in like water and I went temporarily blind.

  I batted my lids open by degrees.

  Crandall was in the room, setting a huge hurricane lamp down just inside the doorway. Doggie was with him. Both of them were carrying guns. Doggie’s gun was bigger since it was my very own P 38 but the cool look on Crandall’s lovely mug impressed me a hell of a lot more.

  “You don’t look so pretty, shamus.” Doggie showed his fangs. His coked-up eyes danced crazily in his face.

  They moved in toward me. I felt like a rolled-up rug must feel when the moving men come. I flashed an eye at my surroundings.

  It was a storeroom of some kind. I got a flash of bins and shelving. But it had been a long time since anybody did any storing in it. Century-old rust and clamminess covered the pipes and walls.

  “Sure, Doggie,” I gritted. “Your friend hustled me out so fast, I didn’t have time to get my face on straight.”

  I had an idea what he meant. There was caked blood on my shirt front and one coat lapel. My head still hurt too.

  Crandall stepped around me gingerly. He was out of place again. His impeccable tweeds and snappy mustache didn’t match the woodwork.

  “You did well to wear your hat, Mr. Noon. I rather extended myself hitting you. Carried away, you might say. You do have an odd effect on people.” He purred. “Pity though. It makes it now necessary to trouble with you once more.”

  My hopes sank in my chest. I’d been expecting the kiss-off all right but not this soon.

  “Sporting of you to tell me like that, old man,” I said, not feeling funny at all. “Does the condemned man get to make a last request?”

  His eyes regarded me with curiosity. Doggie tucked the P 38 in his trouser band and disappeared somewhere behind me. I could hear him making a racket slamming some heavy cans together on a shelf.

  “Noon, you are an odd man. I don’t like you, mind. But I respect an odd man.”

  “You’re an odd man yourself, Randy,” I said drily.

  He didn’t miss it. His teeth gleamed in a wide smile.

  “You want a cigarette, I suppose?”

  I showed him my teeth. “Something exactly like that.”

  He dug into his beautiful clothes and spaded out a silver case. You expected to hear music when he snapped it open. He drew a long cigarette, set it between my lips, and lit it for me. I inhaled deep and looked at the case.

  “Exactly like Anton’s,” I sighed. “Well, I guess little June played it smart and ordered a gross of those things. She sure runs through boy friends in a hurry.”

  Doggie was still noisily rummaging in back of me.

  Crandall smiled.

  “Clever of you, Mr. Noon. But not clever enough. You guessed correctly about June and Anton. And myself. But I’m afraid love has nothing to do with this particular case. Nothing at all.”

  I made myself look pained.

  “At the risk of getting you angry at me, Randy—you’re whistling through your mustache.”

  He was a gentleman even in circumstances like these.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Hell, Randy. Love had everything to do with this deal. And you know it. June loused up the works by running to a private detective when Anton tried his French charm out on her for size. And Anton, dear Anton, was played for a fall guy because he was a partner and an old pal of yours. Only he wanted more than his share. So you killed two birds with one stone. One bird was Anton in my office. And since June was there also, it was a nice time to plant another phony attempt on her life so all the cards could be stacked even higher against poor April. And you, you noble bastard. Pretending to being forced by the circumstances to come out with that codicil when that was your intention all the time. But you had to make it look good. So June missed a rub-out three times. Just to make a harder case of it for April. Not bad. But sloppy. Sloppy as hell. Come to think of it, this has been the most amateurishly handled caper I’ve ever gotten mixed up in.”

  “You’re eloquent as usual, Mr. Noon,” Crandall purred. “Have you also decided who killed Anton?”

  I managed a shrug. “Love conquers all. I know it was a woman. All I can say is, watch yourself in the clinches, Randy. I’d hate to think what a gal like June will do with all that money.”

  I was feeding him but his reaction was over my head. He threw back his perfect head and laughed. It was a little bewildering because it was a men’s club laugh and he was no man.

  “Really—” he choked, still laughing. “It’s nearly too good to suppress—” He kept right on laughing.

  Doggie came around to where I could see him. I got a jolt. A big one. He was carrying four or five large cans. I’ve been around cans long enough to have a good idea what was in them. Gasoline.

  Crandall suddenly reached down and took the cigarette out of my mouth. He killed it with one neatly shod foot.

  Doggie was an efficient monster. He opened one of the cans and started pouring the contents over everything in sight. There was no mistaking the stuff now as it sloshed over the floor. The smell was enough. Thick, pungent. Deadly.

  He was halfway through the third can and the place was beginning to stink like a gas station when Crandall pointed to me with one delicate finger.

  I braced myself. Doggie, with glee bursting from every pore of his tawny hide, let me have it from head to foot. My scalp burned as some of the gas seeped into my open wound. I shivered, feeling the slimy trickle of the stuff worming down under my clothes. The smell of gasoline was in my throat now. I felt like throwing up.

  Crandall stared down at me, his eyes gone col
d like icebergs.

  “Mr. Noon, there is going to be another fire. A very bad one, I’m afraid.”

  I managed to smile and keep my head.

  “Ed Noon. Born in the Bronx. Died—same place. Just for the record, might I ask where?”

  “An abandoned dye factory, Mr. Noon. The police will once again lay the blame at the door of juvenile delinquency. It will be quite a fire and no one will expect to find any bodies. So there will be no need to look for any.”

  “Nice going, you bastard.”

  All the name-calling in the world wouldn’t reverse our positions. And he knew it.

  “Might I suggest prayer, Mr. Noon? You seem, in spite of your rough life, a religious man.”

  “God bless you, sir.” I needed more than prayer now. I needed a miracle.

  Doggie sailed the last can into a dark corner and swaggered over to us. He leered down at me.

  “I missed you with that truck today, shamus. But this makes up for it. This’ll square things for Bull, too. He was a good guy.”

  I felt myself beginning to go. In a few seconds I was going to do the Human Torch act and all the peace of soul was washed right out of me. Hell, I felt like cursing.

  “Doggie, bark twice, eat Red Heart, or go chase your tail. But get out of my sight and get out fast. Your face is making me sick.”

  My lip is too much for the smartest and cleverest of men. For a low-brow like Doggie, I was practically a Ubangi.

  A roar started in his chest, thundered into a pure growl. His eyeballs showed me their streaky whites. His thick fingers shot to his pocket and came up with a small box of wooden safeties.

  “I’ll fix your mouth—” he bellowed between curses. He started to strike one but his fingers were so big and the match so small that it broke and fell off. I pinned my eyes to where the match head fell and riveted it in my brain like it was Hedy Lamarr’s telephone number.