“Very well. I’ll take it directly.”
He went to his desk and picked up the receiver.
“Yes, dear? It’s me.”
“Thomas, Thomas.”
She sounded odd. Very odd. Shaken far out of her usual granite composure. Was she ill? She had, now he came to think of it, hardly uttered a single word at breakfast.
“Mousie, are you well?” he asked, totally forgetting to drop his voice as he said her name, a practice he had learned to adopt ever since he had once heard a giggle behind him.
“Yes, I’m well, Thomas. Perfectly well. But...”
“Yes? Yes? What is it? You don’t sound at all—”
“Thomas, I had a dream last night.”
“A dream? Did you say a dream? But you never dream.”
“Thomas, I am telling you. I had a dream. A singular and horribly vivid dream. I dreamt I was warned by my poor dead mother in Aberdeen, solemnly warned, that if I ever set foot in Scotland again I should die. Thomas, I know that was a message. From beyond the grave. Thomas, we must not complete the purchase of the house. We must not, Thomas. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, dear,” said Thomas Henniker.
Michael Avallone
A Bullet for Big Nick
Michael Avallone, who calls himself “the fastest typewriter in the East,” has published 207 novels and some 1,000 short stories or articles. He is perhaps best known for his Ed Noon private-eye novels. “A Bullet for Big Nick,” Noon’s first case, was written in 1949 but did not see print until 1958. Mr. Avallone lives in East Brunswick, New Jersey, surrounded by his movie, baseball, and detective-story collections.
A good cop was dead. I had to do something about it. So I went down that night to see Big Nick Torrento at the Blue Grotto club. If a bigshot hood has no use for policemen, he has absolutely no time for private detectives.
Velvet, one of Nick’s hand maidens, with blue chin and gun to match, made that pretty obvious at the door leading to Torrento’s sanctum sanctorum. I didn’t stop to talk. I hit him with all the hate I had in me. I wasn’t thinking very straight. I had spent a terrible five minutes at the police morgue trying to recognize what was left of my friend, Mike Peters. I might never be able to eat hamburger again.
I was inside Big Nick’s office, locking the door behind me fast, and digging out my .45. I wanted to be alone with the man I was sure had ordered the murder of Mike Peters.
“Hey! Who let you in here without knocking?”
Big Nick Torrento was staring at me curiously from the depths of a large, square desk. The marble inlaid top gleamed. His black eyes popped, then narrowed shrewdly.
“What kinda amateur show is this, Eddie? I got enough entertainment for the club right now.”
Torrento didn’t scare easy. He was Big Nick, owner of his own night club and a mob ruler on the same plane with the Capones and the Anastasias of old. His small, black eyes glittered with contempt for me. The simple fact that he had not raised his fat, ring-studded fingers was just another display of that contempt.
I moved slowly from the doorway, poking the .45, trying to keep a red haze out of my brain. “Evening, Nick. I came for a chat.”
He grunted, rolling his cigar to the left side of his swab-lipped mouth. “How the hell did you get past Velvet? He never leaves my door. These monkeys of mine are getting careless.”
“Velvet’s all tied up right now,” I said. “You’ve got a nice place here, Nick. Keeps your boys busy.”
I could see he had reached the annoyance stage.
“You didn’t come here to tell me what a nice dump I got. You better explain that hardware you’re pushing in my face before I press a lot of buttons that’ll get you a lot of bruises.”
I didn’t answer him directly. I jerked the slide of the .45, sending a shell into firing position. I had said plenty. Nick scowled, the angry furrows in his forehead deepening.
“C’mon, Ed. What’s on your mind?”
I smiled. “Big Nick. That’s you. Ed Noon. That’s me. If Mike Peters was here, we could play a swell game of asking questions.”
“What are you talking about, shamus?”
“I just came from the police morgue, Nick. You tell me. What’s that poor kid now? Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”
“Oh, I get it now.” Big Nick Torrento was smiling almost sympathetically at me. “Look, Ed. You can’t pin that dead cop on this syndicate. We’re legal. All through with the rough stuff.” His tone was righteous and I had an uncontrollable urge to punch his face.
“Now that’s funny. Velvet gave me the same argument out in the hall. But when he tried to back it up with brass knuckles, I gave him the back of my hand.”
Nick Torrento puffed on his cigar.
“Okay. You and Mike Peters were friends. He was a swell guy and the department’ll give him a swell funeral. Maybe a medal. But why blame me? If you hadn’t quit the force six months ago for this private eye stuff, you might have been with him on his last job and it might not have happened.”
That had been bothering me too.
“I might have been. But I wasn’t and it did happen. Which brings us right up to date, Nick. Me, with a gun on your belly in your own little rat hole.”
The office was large, soundproofed and plush. Just the type the movies lead everyone to expect in the rear of fancy night clubs run by gangsters. Only you never got to see them unless you reneged on a bet or your check bounced.
Big Nick leaned back in his chair, little eyes squinting hard. “What have you got in mind, Ed? This can cost you your license when I get in touch with my mouthpiece. So you better make it good.”
I showed him the nose of the .45. “You’re on my mind, Nick. You hold more appeal for me right now than Elizabeth Taylor.”
“Yeah? What does that mean?”
“Just this.” I leaned across the desk. “When I can pin this one on you, when I know for a fact that you killed that kid, there’s one in here with your name on it.” I tapped the barrel of the .45.
“You’re crazy!” he roared.
“Am I? Mike Peters was working on your policy set-up. Don’t bother to deny it. He told me about it three days before you stopped him.”
Big Nick’s beefy face paled, then reddened to nearly match the heavy carmine drapes behind his chair that blotted out the light of the alley.
“Listen, punk.” He bounced to his feet angrily. “Nobody tells Big Nick what they’re going to do. He tells them! The next move is mine, dummy.” His big paw shot swiftly out of sight behind the desk. The hidden buttons routine.
I was glad he tried it. I chopped the .45 down in a vicious arc. The .45’s barrel made a crunching noise that rang like music in my ears. Torrento shrieked like a woman and fell back into his chair. I followed him, coming around the desk and ramming the muzzle of the .45 into the base of his heavy chin.
“Feel it, Nick. Feel it. Like Mike Peters did when your boys worked him over with their blackjacks. Couldn’t you give him a bullet, Nick? One quick slug? No, you had to pretty him up so they’d have a hard time identifying him. That was not nice, Nick, not nice at all.”
Torrento strangled and swore. He tried to get out of the way but the gun pinned him to the chair. His black eyes were wide open now, in fear and bewilderment. His tongue lolled.
“Ed, whaddyaaaa—” he gagged. I reached down and dragged him to his feet. His bulk shivered. For one second, we stood eye to eye. Torrento, a fat, gasping hoodlum made rich by a world of suckers. Me, a poor man trying to tilt at a windmill. The only thing that separated our worlds and our intellects at this moment was the gun in my hand.
I hit him. His face dissolved in front of me in a blur of impact. The swivel chair squeaked noisily as his suddenly deposited bulk sat down again. His face twisted sightlessly toward the ceiling of his plush office.