Kill Her- You'll Like It!

by Michael Avallone

  Sighing, he glanced down at the cardboard again. He was trying real hard not to fume. He'd had to fume a lot since the first day we tangled. Way back in '52 on The Tall Dolores case. Like a century ago.

  "All right, Mr. Noon. I'll play your game with you. So what do you have? Five women, all peelers, one black, one Oriental. Three Caucasians. No pattern there. Zero for common denominators. Two called themselves belly dancers, two exotics, and one genuine old-fashioned stripper. Again no pattern there. Zero. I leave Ada Ven out of all this since she isn't dead yet, thank God." Monks tilted the cardboard upward in his hands and assumed a professorial attitude as he scanned it. "Now, let's see. One brunette, one blonde, one raven-haired, an Afro, and an auburn. Hmmm. If you were to include Ven in this, you might say the killer was knocking off strippers of every shade of hair. Is that a common denominator? Not for me, pal. So let's go on. All big broads, all pretty good at their racket. Not enough to go on there. So they had no kids, and there are no guys, and maybe one or two of them might be queer. So what? None of that adds up to anything we could put our hands on. Should I go on?"

  That time I sighed and tried not to look or sound smug.

  "You were doing fine until you quit," I said. "Look at the location of the murders. I'm trying not to bore you, Captain."

  "Oh, you aren't, Mr. Detective," he chuckled, amused. "Okay. Locations: alley for Heavenly Blue, dressing room for Cleo, hotel bed for O'Shaughnessy, and parked car for Eden. Satana got hers in the bathtub early this morning. So what is it supposed to mean?"

  "Is it just a coincidence," I asked slowly, "that five homicides all take place in a different place each time? That not once is there two alleys or two bathtubs or two dressing rooms or two anything? I'd say it was unusual, considering all five women were in the same profession. What I'm saying is the locations are intentional on Gingerbread's part. He was saying something each time in his own nutty way."

  Monks frowned. "You're trying to beat percentages, Ed. It won't work. He knifed those dames only when he had the opportunity. It just happens the opportunity came all five times in different spots. You can't make it work out your own way just to fit a pattern. And even if you're right, what the hell could he mean by it?"

  "What I think he means," I said quietly. "He was showing every peeler and skin lady in town he could get to them no matter where they were. In a club, in an alley, a parked car, the bathtub—bed—anyplace at all."

  "That's too subtle," Monks snorted, "and I don't think these kind of women would get that message. And what would the purpose be? You think old Gingerbread is trying to scare all the strippers into quitting? You got him figured for some kind of moral maniac? A mad reformer or something?"

  "Or something." I shrugged. "Mike, you missed a couple of really important items on that list. I think you'd see it if you looked at the chart long enough and added up a few things."

  "I haven't got all day," he reminded me. "You tell me. And now."

  "All the corpses were over six feet tall," I said, "and they all had their abdomens daubed with a red letter 'S.' That cheap fingernail polish called Red Rose. And they're all dying one a day. Are you with me?"

  Now, he was really getting warmer under the collar. His nose quivered and his jaw muscles clenched. "So what? They were all a lot of other things too. Like women and peelers and—do me a favor, will you? Spill your big idea and then get out of here. I'll see you tonight when we stake out the Del Rio for Ada Ven. She's got to be somewhere on Gingerbread's list, only because she's number one in her racket. But Ed, regardless of all that, you spit out what you have to say. No more guessing games. The DA's been making life miserable for me, as it is."

  I knew him too well to delay any longer. The danger flags were up.

  So I told him. In so many hopeful words.

  All I thought and all I believed. Without any real proof.

  And he listened. Very carefully and patiently.

  When I had finished, his grunt was a blast of sound.

  "Way out, Ed. Way, way out. But thanks for the theory. I'll just keep it in mind. You have been right before. I know that."

  "Fair enough. Just wanted you to know." I stood up and retrieved the chart. He stared at me, his eyes crinkling with the affection that he had never quite lost for me, in spite of everything.

  "How's Melissa?" he asked, in a different tone of voice.

  "Down in Mobile. Her brother Leon died this week. Be back tomorrow sometime. I'll give her your regards. She likes you, too."

  "Do that. And I'll see you tonight at the Del Rio."

  I nodded and moved toward the door. He had one last thought for me before I left. The advice and concern in his tone was unmistakable.

  "If you're going back to the Alamo before you do anything else, I see you're not wearing your gun. Where is it?"

  "At the Alamo," I said. "I left it with Jellybean Jackson for protection for him and his Ada." His keen eyes had spotted my loss.

  Monks looked defeated. He threw up his hands.

  "How you stay alive beats the hell out of me. You get that damn gun back and stop trying to save the world."

  "Oh, I remember the Alamo," I laughed. I knew how he felt after what I had told him. "See you tonight, Mike."

  "I'll see you first," he promised me wearily and grimly.

  When I left him and hit the street outside, the day had really died. Toward the west, above the rooftops of buildings, the sun was dropping behind the Palisades again. The air was warm, but somehow cool, too. Time was doing what it always does so well. Fugiting fast.

  I hailed a cab going uptown and climbed in.

  I was going back to the Alamo, like Davy Crockett and all those other Texans wished they could have, if things had worked out for them.

  They hadn't had a second chance.

  Just like the five murdered strippers.

  It was something to think about.

  I thought about it, all the way uptown to Times Square.

  Jellybean Jackson let me into Suite C, after giving me a good once-over through the Judas window. I went in and the little man danced ahead of me, with Frankie racing at his heels, but not barking. It looked like everything had been pretty quiet all day. The suite was pleasantly exotic and comfortable, for all of that. Daylight was almost gone, but the wide window overlooking the avenue was tinged with lingering rays.

  "Where's the number-one nudie?" I asked, clasp envelope under my arm.

  "Pounding her ear. I called the club. Told them she was going on. Which ain't going to make Bonnie Bee very happy. She figured with Ada out, she could make a splash for herself. Pipps was walking on air when I told him. You see, Ada always takes a good long nap before she does a show. That way she gives the customers everything she's got."

  "Bonnie Bee? Pipps?" I tossed my hat on the floor and took the long low lounge, surveying the room. "I don't know them."

  "Bee's a second-rate peeler trying to make it big. Just being on the bill is good for her, you know. With Ada, I mean. Pipps is Alexander Pipps. Owns the Del Rio. He blew a gasket when we didn't show last night."

  "I see. Well, can't blame him with what Ada's got on the ball and all this free publicity. Gingerbread is packing clubs all over town, they tell me. All clear while I was gone?"

  "Like a dull weekend in the, country. You being here must have scared that kook off. Wow, I still get the jumps just thinking about him!"

  He was referring to his encounter of the night before and I didn't choose to tell him about the permanent headquarters detail on duty in the lobby. Flatek had been back on the watch when I returned and we'd nodded to each other across the lobby floor. I held out my hand to Jellybean Jackson.

  "My hardware, please. I've felt naked all day without it."

  "Oh—sure thing." The midget dug around behind an ottoman close to where he was standing and produced the gun. It looked like a cannon in his boy-sized hands. He rocked on his toes, grinning, as he passed it over.

  "Man, that's a howitz
er to me. But then—most regular things are. You got no idea what it's like having to look up at everything."

  "I think I know what you mean. Tell me about Bonnie Bee."

  "What's to tell?" He patted Frankie on the scruffy back, for the dog, as ever, had curled up near his dark, shining, pointed shoetips.

  "What she looks like for one thing." I holstered the forty-five.

  Jellybean Jackson sniffed. "She's a stripper. Big in the chest, big in the rear, like a lot of them are. No talent, though. Just a lot of tossing it around with not much style. Not like Ada."

  "Big girl, huh. Six footer?" I lay the manila envelope next to me.

  He frowned. "Yeah. About that, don't know exactly. She's always wearing those stilts. Shoes with maybe four-inch heels, but I'd say she was at least that. Always trying to top my Ada. But that blonde-nowhere couldn't do it with what she's got. She's a dog for looks. Face like an army sergeant. You've seen the type. Real tough-looking. Not female at all."

  There was a sudden lull in the conversation. As if Jellybean Jackson was not accustomed to letting his hair down with another man. I sensed that. And decided to work on it a little while longer. He didn't look at the envelope.

  "You still nuts about Ada, Jellybean?"

  "So what?" His grimace again showed his real age, which must have been about forty, but the paradox of his size made him seem much older. "I'll live. I've been in the bleachers a long time now. Since we split up legal. Watching her ball just about everybody. I ain't mad, Noon. It's her life. Even if half those slobs ain't half the man I am. Sure I love her. And part of that love is just being allowed to hang around her. Taking part in her life, if you know what I mean. That's what love is all about, ain't it?" His tone went plaintive. "She's balled just about everybody that's hung around her lately, too. At the club. Pipps is a fruit, but he drools all over her anyway. Acey-deucy is the way I read him. And Rance Rogers, that newspaperman who was once a big shot until he hit the skids. Then that Dunn stud. Muscle Beach all the way. All muscles and no brains. But like I said—she has a few laughs with them, but I'm the one who lives with her. I don't have to go home at night. Get me?"

  "Got you," I said, studying him with some kind of respect. "Jellybean, you're a giant. Measuring tapes aren't everything."

  "Sure," he muttered sadly, happy with my estimate of him all the same. "But what does it get me? This Gingerbread character is just making it harder for all of us. I'm plenty worried about him going for Ada."

  "Those people you mentioned—Pipps, Rogers, and Dunn. You think maybe any one of them could be this nut?"

  His face held contempt. For the question and for the trio I had named.

  "Don't be ridic, Noon. Pipps is the sort of guy who's afraid of his own shadow. Rogers is always nose-deep into the bottle. An old-fashioned boozer. That's why he lost his job with The New York Times." Jackson now grinned at his own joke. "And Donn Dunn is a phony kid just trying to make things work out by hanging around Broadway. Losers, all of them. Pipps will wind up kicked to death by a sailor yet. Just wait and see."

  "I'll take your word for it. What time does Ada have to be at the club? I want to get my schedule for tonight straight in my mind."

  "Three shows nightly," Jellybean Jackson blared, in the snake-oil, medicine-man voice of a carney pitchman. "Three. Ten, midnight, and two. The Great Ada. Ada The Greater. Wait till you see her, Noon, man. Wow! She really is the living end. Like way out. Out of sight."

  "I'm looking forward," I agreed. "The last stripper I saw that I even had second thoughts about was Pepper Powell. She had some shaker, too. I remember her well."

  "That's old history, Noon." Jellybean Jackson waved a hand at me, laughing. "Like the dinosaurs. Ada is the newest and the hottest."

  "You've convinced me. I'll be there. When you going to wake the great Ven?" I motioned toward the bedroom hallway.

  " 'Bout an hour more. You going to stick around until we go to the club, ain't you? I think Big Red would go for that. You being so special with her right now. And believe me, I don't mind. You're a game guy. Fact is, I like you myself. I don't mind losing to winners."

  "I'll stick around, Jellybean. If this hand goes right tonight, maybe we can all go our separate ways again."

  His little eyes gleamed. "You think Gingerbread's going to come out of the woodwork just because Ada's going on? You really do?"

  "That's the general idea. Either way, it's better all around. Like I said, we couldn't stay cooped up in this suite forever."

  "Ain't that the truth," he shuddered. "I'm stir crazy, already."

  I nodded and his eyes at last fell upon the 9x12 clasp envelope lying on the lounge, next to my side. He seemed crafty all of a sudden.

  "What's in that? Another message from the loony?"

  "No. Just a floor plan for a house I'm building," I lied. "I have to go over the blueprints with the contractor pretty soon."

  Jellybean Jackson dismissed the envelope from his thoughts.

  But I couldn't dismiss it or him from mine.

  For he was the Gingerbread Man.

  It fit him all the way, right down to the "S" on every naked and violated stomach. Right down to the knife and the method.

  Maybe he'd never kill Ada Ven, but I couldn't know that for sure. All I did know was that I had to trap him that night. Before he killed anyone else. Like Bonnie Bee, for instance.

  I didn't know yet what had made him take the maniac route, but I had a lot of ideas and a lot of hopes. And a lot of tricks.

  There was only one thing I was dead sure about. No mistake.

  Jellybean Jackson killed all those exotic dancers because he wanted to. Because he just had to. And maybe because he could no longer help it. Which is the main trouble with all maniacs everywhere.

  But mostly he killed because—he liked it.

  "Java, Noon?" His piping voice broke in on my reverie. "There's fresh on the little burner we got here."

  "Why not?" I asked, watching him skip to the corner. All I could think about then was the great, big, voluptuous woman sleeping in the bedroom and the incredible little midget that loved her. Ada and Jellybean.

  Like King Kong and Fay Wray in reverse.

  The beast was killing the beauties.

  Unlike the movie in which Beauty killed the Beast.

  I never missed Melissa Mercer more in my life.

  The Manhattan air wasn't only polluted, the atmosphere in which I earned a living wage was foul and corrupt with the stench of staleness and decay. Like dead cigar smoke, spoiled eggs, and week-old fish.

  And rotting garbage.

  And dead strippers.

  Exotic dancers, striptease artists, belly dancers, nude entertainers, burlesque attractions—call them what you will.

  I only knew that Jellybean Jackson hated them all with a cold and violent fury that must have exceeded anything Hitler felt for the Jews or Nero felt for the Christians. History doesn't only repeat itself, it thumps it out in a hundred thousand triplicates. With a vengeful persistency.

  The coffee tasted lousy, going down.

  It had to.

  Considering the way I felt on that dying day.

  I didn't want Jellybean Jackson to slay number six that night.

  YOU TELL IT, PAL

  The Del Rio was like Babylon revisited. Really, it was a two-bit Dante's Inferno just off Broadway, jumping in the heart of a peculiar kind of underworld all great cities fall heir to. It is the price that goes with freedom, big spending, and the indulgence of personal pleasures and hangups. And it is a price Broadway has always paid. From the nickelodeon era, up through Barnum and Strip Row on Fifty-second, and on through the go-go joints, pornographic parlors, et al. Capone would have loved it all and flourished in it had he been alive to use it.

  Ada Ven's showcase was a club with a doorway outside that resembled a movie palace more than anything else. There you bought the ticket that got you inside, down the dimly lit carpeted steps, and into an atmosphere so ridiculou
s and old-fashioned it had to be considered camp. But it was the thing, now. The in kind of place to go and be. There was the old familiar dance floor, surrounded by the chairs and tables which would hold the patrons of the arts. Where the lighting is always low, so you can't see anyone else in the place too clearly, and the main attraction is the dance floor where all the girls are going to be. Where the strutting of stuff—in this case, hips, breasts, legs, thighs, and sensuality—was the whole ball of wax. The Del Rio's stage did have going for it, what Ada Ven had mentioned to me with pride, a huge runway which dominated everything. Reaching out from the curtained stage like a huge arm dividing the sea of tables and chairs. Del Rio customers got their strippers and exotic dancers literally in their laps. Sort of a Pelvic Myopia Row.

  The club was jammed to the corners when I bought a ticket, for the outrageous price of ten bucks, and drifted down into its dark interior. There was a hum of carnality and feverish intensity about the hordes of men, with a smattering of female company, crowding the furniture. I didn't mind going the price of an admission ticket. I'd walked Jellybean Jackson and his Ada to the stage door which was a kindly tag for a mere unpainted slot to the left of the glittering marquee that proclaimed: DEL RIO. THE GREATEST STRIPPERS OF THEM ALL. RIGHT ON. EXCLUSIVE NEW YORK ENGAGEMENT. ADA VEN THE NUMBER ONE NUDE. And stuff like that with dozens of gaudy, sexsational photos and montages of moving girl flesh to lure the suckers in from the sidewalks.

  If you've been around town a long time, you've seen it all. The major difference now was that the revolutions of the Seventies, both cultural and legal and permissive, had made it all come out in the open.

  Flesh fans and girl watchers didn't have to go sneaking into illicit dives any more or go sailing across the river to New Jersey to get their kicks. La Guardia had to be rolling around in his honest grave. The Gingerbread Man, of course, was in clover. Red clover.

  Strippers were right under his murderous nose. There for the slaying. One didn't have to go looking for them any more. They were alive and well.