The Crazy Mixed-Up Corpse by Michael Avallone

Author:Michael Avallone [Avallone, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime
Publisher: Story Merchant Books
Published: 2012-09-08T05:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

The grand piano that somebody had dropped on my head played on and on. The noisiest concertos and orchestrations in the books. And none of it baby or grand. All crashing, clamoring, colliding notes. And loud, loud, LOUD. Then the crescendos suddenly stopped and my head hummed like a giant-sized tuning fork. My ears felt like two enormous tines.

But the piano toned down until the riotous rhythms faded dully into the background. I was the musical score of a very bad movie in wide-screen and stereophonic sound. No glorious technicolour though. Just plain old lousy black-and-white.

I had a headache. The worst kind. Something an aspirin would never take away, at least not until the elephantine lump on my head went down.

The piano was still throbbing between my ears. And it wasn’t playing songs of love. Just Songs To Lose Your Mind By.

I opened my eyes. It took about ten minutes to raise the lids.

Ninety-nine different things jumped into focus. The same way everything sprang out at me whenever I came back to the office and snapped the overheads on. Like so many animals crouched to spring in the darkness.

I shook my head until the piano noises were almost gone. It cleared a little. I looked around painfully.

The gang was all here, but I didn’t feel like hailing.

There were about half a dozen chairs ringed around the room campfire style and every one of them had somebody in them. Somebody tied hand and foot with clothesline. I tried moving my feet. Including me.

I saw Penny Darnell, Holly Hill and Ace in that order. Penny’s blue dress was torn in strips, Holly Hill’s blonde mane was completely disarranged and the tough-looking Ace had a gorgeous shiner. The stout ropes had them all sitting up straight in their wooden-back chairs. They looked like three adults playing kid games. Except for the lack of gags of any kind. But I could see why nobody was doing any yelling or hollering for help. It would have meant suicide.

The guy lolling in a chair with his back against the wall by a rickety wooden table wouldn’t have stood for it. The machine-gun in his lap would have settled anything and everything. It looked like Ace’s plaything, but I guess all sub-Thompsons look alike. But nobody ever looked like the guy in the chair. The oval of his face was so much cheesecloth, as if he’d run into a load of buckshot pellets somewhere in his crooked past. He looked mean enough to chew linoleum.

But there wasn’t any in sight. The old, rotten boards beneath my size nines were ancient and decaying.

Penny, Holly and Ace were sitting up and taking notice but their three expressions would have been more appropriate at Finnegan’s wake.

I tried to stretch, but the ropes around my knees bit like sharp teeth and the thick strands running around my waist sandpapered into my stitched side. I winced.

“Hi, gang,” I said feebly. My head was humming like a beehive.

Penny Darnell’s cute face revolved towards me.

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