Shoot It Again, Sam

by Michael Avallone

  "Amen to that."

  "You have to tell me about it this time, Noon man. I mean it. I have to know. When you never came back from that train and then that message came from Mr. Big himself—" Her eyes glowed back at me in the gloom of the lounge. "Poor old Mike Monks. He nearly went out of his mind until they got in touch with him. That man really loves you, Ed—like you were his own son. Oh, that fatal Noon charm— crazy!"

  "I'll call him first thing in the morning. I promise. I missed him too."

  "Ed, Ed—come on, now. You just lay back and tell me where you've been for nearly two months."

  "If I lay back I'm going to think about that lovely body of yours, you know that, don't you—and then I'm not going to want to talk at all except to say a lot of unprintable things—"

  She kissed me, a promise in her pulsating lips.

  "Go on. Talk. We have the whole night ahead of us to catch up. And then, Massa Ed, you really will feel welcomed home."

  "You promise?"

  "I promise."

  "Okay."

  I pushed away from her, reached for two cigarettes for both of us, lit them up and then stared across the big room through the big windows facing Central Park. It wasn't a clear day anymore but I could see three thousand miles away. As far out as Hollywood and the limitless dreams beyond that. And even further.

  "By the way," she giggled happily, her voice a low joyful note in the dark. "I like the moustache. Makes you look younger."

  "Shut up," I growled. "Do you or do you not want to hear The Further Adventures Of Ed Noon—with or without the cartoon and accompanying short subjects?"

  "Talk," she said. "I'll listen."

  So I told her. And she listened. Something she did very well.

  Even secondhand like that, I could hear my own voice faltering over the key scenes and the dramatic confrontations and the surprises and the highlights and it all sounded pretty damn fantastic and ridiculous. Hollywood would never have filmed it it was so corny and incredible. A regular trip to the Moon and back. Without even a leading lady to give it any romance.

  Melissa didn't say anything for a long time when I had finished. She hadn't interrupted me once, just letting me get it all out as much in sequence as I could. It all sounded as hollow and cracked as a bum Chinese gong to me. It was hard to say how it sounded to her.

  "Well?" I challenged the gloomy end of the lounge where she was a shapely mass of darkness, curved and exciting. I could see the shine of her eyes. There was a lot of jungle cat in her.

  She touched me with her fingers. She was a very smart woman. There was a time to talk, a time to listen and a time to give opinions. She was ready to do none of them anymore.

  "Let's make love," she whispered. Her whisper trembled.

  So we did.

  "A gun is a tool, Marian. No better or no

  worse than the man that uses it."

  Alan Ladd as Shane. (1953)

  COP

  □ I made two phone calls the next day. Both of them were important and necessary. But neither of them accomplished very much, either. As I had promised Melissa, I phoned Captain Michael Monks from the apartment. Melissa was in the kitchen making the coffee. We had found each other again in the night and made and said all the words and sounds that identify two people as lovers. Now, it was the new day and life had to go on. Sometimes, I wondered why in hell it did. But before going down to the office with my girl Friday I wanted to say hello to Monks. I owed him a lot more than a phone call.

  When he heard my voice on the wire after the connection was made by his desk Sergeant, he must have taken all of a full minute to swear and curse, take me inside and out and then he very warmly agreed that it was nice to have me alive and well and living in New York City again.

  The undercurrent of happiness in his tirade was unmistakable. Like he once had said in a historic dressing-down during the Spanner murder case, nobody ever takes the time to lecture somebody they don't like. I had never forgotten that remarkable bit of astuteness on his side of the fence. I had told him as much, too.

  As usual, he dismissed the past with a weary, tolerant grunt.

  "I don't suppose I am to know or find out where you have been or what the hell you have been up to?"

  "Sorry. Government business."

  "Certainly. Of course. Why not? Nothing but the big ones for old Ed Noon. Geezis, how you have stayed alive so long beats me. You'll never make the pipe and slippers club, Ed."

  I changed the subject.

  "How's crime?"

  "Criminal. What the hell else?"

  "You know what I mean. Give."

  He gave up. While he gave.

  "Same old fun city. Rapes, riots and rotten eggs. No big crimes if you don't count somebody trying to drop a paving brick on the Mayor's head last week at a peace rally. Or the taxicab drivers wanting to make like vigilantes again. Or the Women's Lib parades all along the main avenues. Then there's some dope raids, a couple of bad subway accidents and oh, yes—the bomb squad goes out three times a day to locate fireworks in assorted places like Grand Central, Carnegie Hall and Shea Stadium, thanks to phoned-in warnings. That enough?"

  "Stop already. I pass." I took a beat. "Have you been keeping up with the movie folks in your town?"

  He took a long pause. He was way ahead of me. He knew I wasn't making small talk, now. Only thing was he didn't know why.

  "Keep talking," he growled. "Like who and what for instance?"

  I plunged right in. Let him guess all he wanted to.

  "Remember when Dan Davis died?"

  "Vaguely," he said, very acidly.

  "They were shooting a film on the streets. The Night Man. Production was postponed, naturally—"

  "It was cancelled," he said, sourly. "Everybody packed up and went back to Hollywood. That what you want to know?"

  "Then they never replaced Davis—"

  "Not as far as I know. And why do you want to know? You want to screen test for the part?"

  "No. I got a few bucks saved up and I wanted to invest in the film. It was an independent, you know and—"

  "Bullshit," he snapped. "And I know you aren't going to tell me the truth so stop lying. And before you go around making a sap out of yourself and annoying any more of my departments, you may as well make a note of what I tell you now. Got a pencil?"

  "Now, Mike—"

  "Shut up and write this down. The outfit was Wales Productions and they have offices in the Penney Building on Sixth Avenue. Guy named Owen Flasher runs it. He's the one who requested the license from us to shoot the film here. The Mayor's office okayed it. You want to know anything about that film, you talk to Flasher."

  "Mike, you're a tonic."

  "And you're a brazen bastard who when I met you twenty years ago I should have turned right around and walked in the other direction. Will you please retire—now, today? I don't want to go to your funeral. I hate funerals."

  "Sure I will," I said. "Thanks, Poppa."

  "Go to hell," he growled and hung up.

  Melissa trotted out of the kitchen, wrapped in my bathrobe and looking like a million dollars. She looked a question at me as I shook my head, hanging up.

  "What did Monks say, Ed?"

  "He loves me," I said. "And he knows me better than any man alive. Except you."

  "I'm not a man," she laughed.

  "Thank God," I agreed.

  At the office, I reveled in the look and smell and feel of all the old familiar things. Melissa's desk, my inner office, the hatrack, the four-drawer files, the cigarette burn on the window ledge, the chummy sight of the office windows across West Forty Sixth street. All of it. It was like a homecoming. I had missed the place. I didn't know how much until that very moment. Viva the mouse auditorium!

  A July sun had induced a few sparrows to walk on the telephone wires. One of them fluttered to the window ledge, pecking at a crumb of something. I went through all the mail that had accumulated and the business odds and ends but there was no
thing important at all. Melissa had taken care of most of it. Nothing very urgent had happened while I was off in my walking nightmare. Nobody had called. The world was placid, dull and uneventful. It was in flames, really, but you never would have thought so that sunny July day.

  While Melissa was at the bank taking out some money we both needed very badly, I made the call to the President. The red-white-and-blue phone somehow felt like a hot potato in my hand, now. I was feeling a little gun-shy. A bad brain trip can do that to you, as I was learning. Once burned, twice frightened.

  Even as I dialed, I stared up at the big photo blow-up on the far wall. It was a scene from what I considered the greatest movie horse opera of all time. De Mille's The Plainsman. This was a favorite still showing Gary Cooper in his Wild Bill Hickok buckskins being given a Sioux hotfoot while hanging Christ-style from a crossbar suspended over a blazing pit in the earth. Paul Harvey and Victor Varconi as Yellow Hand and his right-hand man, respectively, are in the foreground of the shot, arguing about whether to let Gary burn or not, while all of De Mille's Indian extras are dancing around, wanting the party to continue. It's a great still from a great flick that was made over thirty-five years ago but I guess it does finally give credence to the joke that I was born in the first balcony of the RKO Chester. I'd really seen The Plainsman at the no-more Loew's Elsmere in the Bronx but I never spoiled a good joke by insisting on accuracy.

  No wonder I'd been so easy to brainwash—

  "Ed?" the President said.

  The old crisp voice brought me back.

  "Hello, Chief. Just got back from Hollywood."

  "Did you learn anything?"

  "Some. Not much, though. Nothing to change anything. At least the UN Building is still standing."

  "I'd like to hear all about the trip, Ed. It could work into what we have at this end."

  "I intended to tell you everything. Because I am running around in circles, getting nowhere—"

  "Never mind that. Anything you do for us has its value. Now, start from the beginning. You caught me at a good time. Supposed to be my leisure break before an important visit from the Canadian Prime Minister—Mr. Trudeau drives a hard bargain—"

  I told him everything. The visits with a wife, an agent and an old friend. Plus all my conclusions and findings about ex-wives, dead or alive and all the heirs and heiresses, accounted for and missing. What little I learned from Monks, I tacked on too. I wound up the report with the opinion that my worth in the Davis business was virtually up for grabs. Oh, I intended to see Owen Flasher, maybe, and take one last shot at learning something but I didn't hold out much hope.

  "—all the same, Ed," the Man declared. "Do that. And call again when you're ready. I confess we still haven't deduced anything from Davis' dire warning about the Cabinet. Still, we're ready for any form of eventuality at this end."

  "The Red Alert?"

  "Yes, if need be."

  "Makes sense. What about my cover with you? Is that ruined now thanks to the boo-boo I almost made?"

  He laughed. "No. You're secure. The S men who picked you up and the Camp David people are one hundred percent safe. As Security risks. Let's just say it isn't your secret and mine anymore and we'll have to be a bit more careful in the future."

  "You still want me to work for you after a goof like that last one?"

  "Don't be childish," he muttered. "It could happen to anyone and I'm not going to try to convince you of your value to me at this late date. We've both been through too much together."

  "Thanks, Chief."

  "You're welcome. But do not mention it ever again. How is Melissa?"

  "Never better."

  "And the Captain?"

  "Fuming as usual but he still likes me and that means a great deal to me."

  "It certainly should." There was a brief and thoughtful pause before he spoke again. His voice was suddenly lower and very relaxed as though he was talking to an old friend. "God bless, Ed. Call again when you're ready. I'll be here."

  "Check."

  I set the psychedelic-colored Ameche back on its cradle.

  I was still staring at it, thinking like ninety, when Melissa Mercer came back from the bank bearing gifts of money.

  Outside on the window ledge, all the sparrows had flown. Including the birds on the high wires. There wasn't a dove in sight.

  Invisible hawks whirred through the air, flapping their wings and crying out for the patriotic right to defend the United States from all enemies, both foreign and domestic.

  I was in a very lousy mood.

  The spy life is a horrible way to live.

  Period.

  Nothing can ever make it right.

  Not even patriotism.

  Or good Presidents.

  Or a belief in the inherent goodness of man.

  Melissa took her coat off, put it over her arm and leaned down on the desk, smiling brightly at me.

  "Want a penny for those thoughts?"

  I sighed and took my eyes off the phone and leaned back in the swivel chair and looked up at her. The clean-cut cameo of her unforgettable face almost took my mind off things. Almost but not quite.

  "Know something, Girl Friday?"

  "Hmmmm."

  "I just might quit after this one. I mean it."

  "Quit what? Being your own boss, doing your own thing or—" She nudged her shoulder toward the red-white-and-blue phone, "Betsy Ross?" She had christened it that long ago when she really didn't know what it was. And worried about it all the time.

  "That," I agreed. "I'm fed up a lot. Politics never were my speed—"

  "You're just tired. Don't talk about it. Give it some time. Anyhow, whatever you decide is okay with me. I work for you."

  "Yeah," I said, defeated. Knowing I was making small noises and angry sounds. "You sure do. I wish I really knew what I was working for. Besides the right to go on breathing."

  "Isn't that enough, Ed?"

  "It's supposed to be, all right. But sometimes I just don't know. I really don't."

  Melissa Mercer smiled. Sadly.

  She didn't say anything and I growled at her.

  "What's that for?"

  "You sound very black today, Massa Ed. Very very black."

  "I do, huh?"

  "You do, huh," she snapped back at me. "And you know something, it's just not your shade of color. It never was. So cut it out. You never knew an eightball the size of—" Suddenly, she stopped, shook her head and came around the desk and put her arms around my neck. Her eyes had misted over and she put her forehead flush against mine as she stared down at my tie. As if she couldn't look at me.

  "Ed . . ."

  "Yeah?"

  "We're talking like mean people again. You know that? But it's your fault this time too. I want you to know that. Whatever you are, whatever you do, I just never can feel sorry for you. And you know why."

  "I do, huh?"

  "You sure do," she whispered. Her eyes came up to mine. There was a fire burning in each one and the mistiness had evaporated in the twinkle of that something inside that she had that made her different from any other female I had ever known.

  "And why can't you feel sorry for me?" I prodded. But gently.

  "Because—" she said very firmly, without going into all the plus marks of good looks, brains, ability, youth and blessed whiteness, "—you've got me, that's why."

  "Reason enough." I smiled and kissed her with all the hunger that bad moods can bring on when scourged by the awesome power of a woman you're nuts about.

  She melted in my arms.

  That's right. Melted.

  We melted together.

  Any other arrangement would have been ridiculous.

  " . . . I can beat him, Tommy! You know I can . . ."

  Kirk Douglas as Midge Kelly in

  Champion. (1950)

  PRODUCER

  □ Wales Productions was on the twenty first floor of the J. C. Penney building which was one of the monolithic stone giants which had b
een erected in the late Sixties as another monument to civilization. The last thing Manhattan ever needed was another office building but here it was, one of the very biggest. Not so much in height as in size. It seemed to take up half the block between Sixth and Seventh avenues. It didn't but the illusion persisted.

  I was calling on Owen Flasher, Producer, as the very last step in the dismal Dan Davis operation. It was also the last day of July. August loomed in the morning. Melissa Mercer was on duty at the office and I was back plying my trade as private investigator. But I owed the President a final grab at the brass ring.

  There was a festive aura to New York that new morning. But I wasn't fooled. A good night's sleep, without problems, had calmed me down. It was my third day back home and I was determined to see Flasher and settle the last remaining doubts in my mind about Dan Davis, The Night Man and all the dire possibilities of his final message to the federals. My nightmare train ride and the follow-up ghosts and phantoms were something I might never ever learn the truth about. The real truth, I mean. It might have been just a dream, at that.

  Owen Flasher was in. But there was no secretary at the reception desk, very little decor and furniture. He was either in the process of just moving out or just moving in. But the door had been legitimate enough. WALES PRODUCTIONS OWEN FLASHER, PRODUCER in silver letters on a black formica panel had been literally bolted to the wide paneled front door. Once inside, I looked around for a secretary, found none and called out. There was an answering "Just a minute—!" from somewhere in an inner office. Then a man came into sight, peering at me curiously through big, horn-rimmed glasses. He had his suit jacket off and his white shirt sleeves were rolled up past his elbows. He was about five feet five or six, thick-shouldered, with tapering hips that made him resemble a sturdy human wedge. Neat mod trousers added to the illusion. He wore no tie but a handsome gold watch gleamed on his left wrist. There was a hammer in his right hand. A claw hammer to which a nail was still clinging. As if I had disturbed him in the act of opening a box of some kind. A crate or something. I had heard no such noises from the corridor. It began to look as if I hadn't arrived a moment too soon. The sturdy little man looked in a very great hurry.