The Walking Wounded by Michael Avallone

Author:Michael Avallone [Avallone, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Story Merchant Books
Published: 2019-03-25T22:00:00+00:00

SOME KIND OF A MURDER

Who killed Ed Noon?

There's a headline that will grab them. I don't suppose there are any real Sherlock

Holmes types in the New York Police Department. Or a Gideon Fell or an Ellery Queen.

No. It won't matter anyway. I shall leave them a classic Locked Room puzzle. The sort

of complicated affair that only a genuine maniac can solve. Something that defies

common sense and logic of all kinds. Sort of a fitting retribution for a world-famous

private investigator. A busman's holiday, for Noon, for his Captain Monks, and for me.

I always wanted to write a mystery novel. Never did, of course. My generation was too

occupied with Vietnam and poverty and air pollution and Civil Rights to fuss around with

entertainments. I make no apologies for works like Widows Walk Away. I'll always be

proud of that winner. More coincidence, in that. The show made Violet Paris a star and

Noon was mixed up with her too before she died. There's something fatal about that guy,

obviously. Why does he attract sudden death and tragedy? Like a black widow?

He survives and everybody else dies. The born Indefatigable.

If he canvassed for a funeral parlor, he couldn't do a better job. Mother---I'm not

so self-conscious about referring to her that way now---was the vanguard of a literal army

of the dead for Mr. Noon. I wonder what he's really like? That old joke---I'll know soon

enough.

Very soon, actually.

I mailed him the play today. The chronicle of his big maiden case.

I'd give anything to see his face when he opens the package and sees the cover of

that binder. THE TALL DOLORES. He could faint--

Well, you can't have everything. I'm not the Invisible Man.

It's the beginning, at least. Genesis. Adam and Eve.

A start. Prelude to Act One/Scene One. The teaser, as it were.

From this point on, I control the strings. I'm a new kind of Godfather. And he

will be the puppet. I'll make very sure of that.

He will die. Not me.

I don't intend to enlist in his army of the dead.

Not if I can help it. I've had enough of losing.

Apart from that, his death is the only thing that will cure me.

Free me.

Forever.

I know now I can't go on breathing while he still does. Not in the same world.

Not on this earth. We're on a collision course, now. All the way down the line.

To the fall of the curtain.

It happened today. I tried to stop myself, I wanted to hold back but I couldn't.

There was something in the air, something I could no more resist than opening my eyes

in the morning. I went to Noon's apartment. Oh, not right up to the door like a

salesman. Nothing so anti-climactic. Instead, I loitered in the vicinity of the building,

just across Central Park West, sitting on one of those benches that dot the thoroughfare

in deference to dog walkers, loners and plain tired people. No one noticed me. It was

laughable, really. I don't know why I did it. He could have remained in his building all

day, not ever coming out. Or just shacked up with that black secretary of his or

something.

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