The Flower-Covered Corpse by Michael Avallone

Author:Michael Avallone [Avallone, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Story Merchant Books
Published: 2014-03-12T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

EAST MEETS WEST

FORTY SIXTH STREET

□ "Olan!" Memo Morgan yelled. "Look out! Go back! It's—"

The rest was drowned out in the noisiest rodeo since Hopalong Cassidy came to Madison Square Garden. The dame in the doorway was Chinese. You saw that in a flash. Bangs as black as night, wide saucer face with almond eyes and an orange cheongsam of some kind showed beneath the tail of a trenchcoat all muffled and tightly wound about her slim throat. She was no higher than a pony and she became a part of the rodeo in no time at all. My cocked .45 was at that stage where I didn't want lead flying around a narrow room, ricocheting off the walls. Raf Bunker, for all his dumb muscle, had pegged me right. He got around behind Morgan who had pushed from the wall, arms out protectively to shield the little Chinese doll.

I had no room to swing and The Ice Man took advantage of that too. He lashed out with his shoe and my gun wrist cracked. The .45 slumped in my fingers as I let the trigger guard loose. The Ice Man rushed forward. Morgan was now in a hammerlock vice fashioned by Raf Bunker and the Chinese doll was in the middle of the whole set-up. Morgan howled and Bunker had his hands full. I concentrated on The Ice Man and got off a good right hand punch. He dodged and it bounced off his shoulder. The brown pork-pie hat slid up his forehead, exposing a long angry scar that gave him two hairlines. It ran exactly parallel to his right temple, running alongside his scalp. There was no time to count stitches. Memo Morgan's girl was gasping, crying and trying to get out of the way. All she did was help the opposition. She was now between me and The Ice Man and the waltzing duo of Morgan and Bunker. They would never replace Astaire and Rogers. Or the Champions, either.

Nobody had gone for a weapon. There wasn't any time.

The Ice Man skidded out of my grip and headed for the door. I reached for his coat tails and Bunker took that moment to send me Memo Morgan via a vicious full-handed shove. The clown man collided with me and we both rocked back on the cheap linoleum, sprawling towards the horrible chair that The Ice Man had issued his death notices from. I tried to get out from under but Memo was a good one hundred and ninety-five pounds if he was an ounce. We went down in a hopelessly snarled tangle.

The Chinese doll came skittering to join the pile as The Ice Man and Raf Bunker bolted through the front door. It was slamming on its hinging as I regained my feet.

I scooped up my .45, taking notice that Bunker had retrieved his long-nosed .38 somewhere in the furious fandango with Morgan. I tore out of the room after the executioner and his side man, cursing the gloom of the hallway, the rickety boards of the floor.

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