The Crazy Mixed-Up Corpse by Michael Avallone

“Bless you, Michael,” I said, “You’re right. My eyes travelled reflexively from Marilyn’s golden thighs to the printed calendar days beneath her toes.

Also, I never got caught with my hand in the till.

The only thing that kept me out of jail was my sturdy sense of law and order. 45 for exactly twelve months, thanks to my peculiar talent for annoying the D.A., beating Headquarters out of big cases and generally making myself a large, unofficial nuisance. I’d been a private detective without benefit of permit and. You’re back in business.”įorget? I could have forgotten my right arm easier. “You forgetting what day this is? Your year’s suspension is up. I’d been pestering him for weeks to shorten the time limit on my year of good behaviour but I pretended I didn’t hear him. “Then you can do all the shooting you want.” “Come on down and pick up your licence and gun, you bum.” It was the rumbling voice of Michael Monks, Captain of the Homicide Division. I’d been disgusted with the morning altogether and getting a police call on top of everything was the straw that all camels beware of. And a ringing telephone sounds as loud as a dinner gong off-key. Everything is relative, like they say, but every time I took my hat off it was like adding an extra piece of furniture to the place. I’d been reading the morning papers in the office, which is also my home and a real mouse auditorium for size. The blade in the razor is dull, the first morning cigarette tastes like a dirty rope, the coffee is weaker than a grandmother with the flu, and worse, far worse, you get a phone call from police headquarters. 45 and PI licence that the nasty old police had revoked for one year. Waiting for the day when I could get back the. Let me take you back to the beginning, when I was stewing and fretting and fuming. But I didn’t really start off as a fugitive from a nudist colony. The day I really got mixed up in the case of the Crazy Mixed-up Corpse. Take off your clothes!” was the dizziest day of my private-eye life. The day the fur-bearing, gun-bearing blonde said, “Strip, Noon. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author. Copyright © 2012 by The Estate of Michael Avallone.

The Crazy Mixed-Up Corpse by Michael Avallone