Milo March #7: The Gallows Garden
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Milo’s assignment is just to get the valuable manuscript back for the insurance company. But he also wants to investigate whether the deaths of two men were murders engineered by the regime. He also wonders what had happened to the large sum that the professor withdrew from a charitable fund for Monican refugees the same day he vanished. It would be great to deliver the regime’s chief assassin into the hands of the New York police. Not to mention that Milo has to figure out how to smuggle the manuscript out of the presidential palace. Oh, and what happened to the professor?
There was no problem getting into the Monican Republic; it’s getting out with all of this that might cause some trouble for Milo. And then there’s the small difficulty of two Latina beauties who may have been set up to trap him…
From the moment Milo lands in Torcido’s island, he is marked for murder. The finger man is an international playboy, and the executioner is a sinister mystery man called El Nariz—“The Nose.” The bait is a dark-haired Latin beauty with her own brand of Caribbean allure. It could be a lovely way to die… if only the sadistic Monican police chief doesn’t finish Milo off before he can fully enjoy the perks of the job.
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Milo March #7 - Kendell Foster Crossen
The Gallows Garden
by
Kendell Foster Crossen
Writing as M.E. Chaber
With a Afterword by Kendra Crossen Burroughs
Steeger Books / 2020
Copyright Information
Published by Steeger Books
Visit steegerbooks.com for more books like this.
©1986, 2020 by Kendra Crossen Burroughs
The unabridged novel has been lightly edited by Kendra Crossen Burroughs.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.
Publishing History
Hardcover
New York: Rinehart & Company, January 1958.
Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Company, 1958.
London: T. V. Boardman (American Bloodhound Mystery #225), August 1958. Dust jacket by Denis McLoughlin.
Paperback
New York: Pocket Books #1240, as The Lady Came to Kill, May 1959. Cover by Len Goldberg.
New York: Paperback Library (63-549), A Milo March Mystery, #18, March 1971. Cover by Robert McGinnis.
Dedication
To Lisa Palmieri, with love, and in memory of the season when grape leaves curl up like the hands of little dying grandmothers.
One
My name is Milo March. I’m an insurance investigator. It’s not quite the same as being a private eye, even though I wear a trench coat, sometimes play a case by ear, and have been known to chase a blonde—when there wasn’t a brunette around.
I have my own office on Madison Avenue—the martini capital of the United States. March’s Insurance Service Corporation. I work for any of the insurance companies that wants to hire me. It means that I get most of the cases—life, fire, jewelry, or other valuables—which are too big or too hard for their regular claims departments. It’s a living.
It had been three or four weeks since I’d been on a case and my bank roll was beginning to look as if it had taken a course at Slenderella. My fees were pretty high but the money didn’t last long after I got through paying for my apartment and my office and supporting five or six of the leading bartenders in New York. I was trying to think of a way of drumming up a little business when the phone rang.
I picked up the receiver. March’s Insurance Service Corporation,
I said in a voice which I hoped would convey the idea that I was so busy I could barely squeeze in one more case.
Milo,
a sexy contralto voice said, have you really become as stuffy as you sound?
I recognized the voice. It belonged to Merry Mellany. She was beautiful and blond and either the third or the fourth richest woman in the world. I could never remember which. I had worked on a case involving her jewels a couple of years earlier and we’d been friends ever since. And I mean just friends. It had just missed developing into something else several times. Sometimes I suspected the only reason it hadn’t was that the thought of all that money scared me.
I am not stuffy,
I said indignantly. But once in a while I have to sound as if this were an office and not an after-hours club. How are you, Merry?
Wonderful, but bored,
she said. Take me to lunch?
It’s the best offer I’ve had all morning,
I said. Twelve-thirty at Cherio’s?
Love you,
she said. I’ll be there.
She hung up.
I replaced the receiver, wondering why it always seemed so much easier to spend money than to make it. That seemed to be the only result of a hard money policy.
I had no sooner put the receiver down than the phone rang again. I picked it up and said, Yeah?
I was back to normalcy.
Milo?
It was a man’s voice. It sounded like someone I knew.
Yeah,
I said again. It was a good line and I might as well stick with it until I got close enough to read the score.
This is Martin Raymond,
he said. I knew him, all right. He was a vice-president of Intercontinental Insurance, a company I’d done a lot of work for. Got a minute?
I did a while ago,
I said, so it must be around here somewhere.
He rewarded me with a conference-room laugh. That’s my boy,
he said. Always making with the old boffola. Want to run over here? We have a problem maybe you and I can kick into shape.
Let’s just run it up a flagpole and see who salutes it,
I said. I’ll be right over.
I hung up and looked at my watch. It was eleven o’clock. I called my answering service and told them I wouldn’t be back until after two. Then I went out and walked up Madison Avenue.
Intercontinental had been one of the first insurance companies to move uptown. They had their own building on upper Madison. It was an imposing edifice of glass and steel, giving mute testimony to the profits in premiums. Up on Raymond’s floor there was a redheaded receptionist who gave ample proof that they didn’t think only of money. She checked on her phone and told me I could go in.
Raymond’s office, on the other hand, was a triumph of cash over taste. Only slightly smaller than Grand Central Station, it was furnished in Early American, including a refurbished and glorified cobbler’s bench that now held only a couple of ashtrays. The walls were covered with photographs of the early executives of Intercontinental, all of them looking like bandits who had come down out of the hills in their Sunday finery to have their pictures taken. Raymond was sitting behind a low table-desk, the top of which was bare except for a gold pencil and pad. The clean-desk bit was fashionable on Madison Avenue and was supposed to hint that here was a man so busy that he kept up with his work.
Milo, boy, it’s good to see you,
he said as I came in. He waved a hand toward something that had once been an Early American cupboard and was now a bar. I guess it’s too early to offer you a drink.
It’s never too early,
I said, but I’ll bear up without one. Somebody has to show those A.A.’s they’re not the only ones who can keep a grip on themselves.
He laughed politely. Want to go to work?
I never want to,
I said, but I like the money. It comes in handy when I want to add to my stamp collection. What’s the job?
Just a small problem,
he said. Which meant it was a tough one. The name Dr. Jaime Moreno do anything to you?
Not especially,
I admitted. It’s vaguely familiar, but that’s all.
He was a professor here at New York University. Vanished not long ago.
Then I remembered. Dr. Jaime Moreno had been a political refugee from one of the Latin American countries in the Caribbean. He’d been teaching Latin American literature at the university. He had left the university one evening and that was the last ever seen of him.
I remember,
I said. He came from one of those banana republics in Central America.
Sugar, not bananas,
Raymond said. He was an exile from the Monican Republic, or Republic of Santa Monica. He was pretty well known as a critic of the regime down there.
I was remembering more and that was putting it mildly. The Monican Republic was the personal property of a guy who called himself Generalissimo Francisco Torcido, or sometimes simply The Benefactor. He’d been the dictator of the country for the past thirty years, and according to all reports it had been one of the bloodiest rules in the world. The Monican Republic was a little country about the size of Illinois, bounded by the Dominican Republic, the Republic of Haiti, and the Caribbean.
I remember reading about it in the papers,
I said. They never found him, huh?
Raymond shook his head. Not a trace.
The theory,
I said, was that Torcido had him killed, wasn’t it?
There are two theories,
Raymond said carefully. Moreno was the treasurer of some refugee fund amounting to about one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. The day after he ‘vanished,’ he showed up at the bank and drew all of the money out. That was the last time he was seen. So one theory is that he took the money and went to greener pastures. The other theory is that Generalissimo Torcido had him kidnapped and brought back down there, where he was killed. There is also the death of an American which some people are trying to tie in with it.
I remembered reading something about that. It had to do with an American pilot who had supposedly flown Moreno to the Monican Republic and then he, too, had vanished there. But I didn’t ask any questions. I could always check it with someone who wasn’t so careful as Raymond.
After all,
Raymond added irrelevantly, the Monican Republic, while small, is an important member of the anti-Communist bloc, and Generalissimo Torcido is, I believe, well liked in Washington.
Sure,
I said, and I remember hearing somewhere that Lucky Luciano helped us to win the war. Bedfellows make strange politics.
Well,
he said vaguely. He wasn’t going to pursue that line. In the meantime, everyone has been searching for Dr. Moreno. The New York police, the FBI, and a private group mostly composed of other refugees. There has been some prodding on the matter from Congress. Most recently, the Monican Republic has hired a couple of well-known lawyers and an investigator here in America to try to solve the mystery. I understand that the tourist business has fallen off since the incident and Torcido himself is anxious to have the matter cleared up.
I’ll bet,
I said. I looked at him. Do I get the impression that after all these people have failed to find the professor, you want me to step in and dig him up?
Not exactly,
he said. We carried no insurance on the man. I doubt if he had any. Under the circumstances, I suppose premiums would have been pretty high. No, we’d like you to find his manuscript.
You lost me somewhere back there,
I said.
Dr. Moreno had just completed the manuscript of a book about the Torcido regime. In fact, except for minor revisions, he had completed it just a month before his disappearance. The only copy of the manuscript vanished with him.
And you had insured it?
He nodded unhappily. For seventy-five thousand dollars. The policy was to cover it for the six months before it would be published. The premium was substantial, but even so, it represents a considerable loss. Mrs. Moreno has just put in a claim for the money.
And unless you can turn up the manuscript for her, you’ve got to pay off?
Precisely,
he said. Unfortunately, with the possible exception of the refugee group, no one else is looking for the manuscript. They are concentrating only on finding Dr. Moreno—and with no success to date.
Heartless of them,
I said. Okay, you want the manuscript back. How far do you want me to go to get it back?
We want it,
he said flatly.
Suppose,
I said, that the one theory is right and it was the Generalissimo, brave anti-Communist and staunch ally that he is, who put the snatch on the professor and his book. That will mean that I have to go to the Monican Republic and try to pry it right out of the lion’s mouth. What kind of premium would I have to pay if I wanted to take out a little extra life insurance before I go?
The rate would be pretty high,
he admitted cautiously.
I grinned at him. A small problem,
I said. What’s the name of this lost opus?
The Bloody Reign of Torcido.
Catchy title,
I said. Okay, Martin, I’ll take it on. The usual one hundred a day and expenses.
He nodded, looking relieved. I said you were the only man for it and I knew you’d pull it off.
Relax, buster. If Torcido took it, it may be burned up by now. And if that’s the way the cookie crumbles, you’ll have to pay off.
He winced. We are aware of that. But if it’s possible to recover it, we feel confident that you’ll do it, Milo. Now, what do you want? The policy file?
I shook my head. I doubted if there would be anything in it that would be any good to me. I’d have to dig up all of my own information. Just the address and phone number of Mrs. Moreno,
I said, and five hundred dollars to cover expenses. If I have to go down there, I’ll be drawing more.
He nodded and leaned over his desk, putting one hand in under it. Get five hundred dollars from the cashier,
he said, and bring it in here. Charged to the Moreno case. And bring Mrs. Moreno’s address and phone number.
He was talking into a camouflaged intercom in the desk. I grinned to myself. Some Early American craftsman was probably spinning rapidly in his grave.
The girl will have it here in a minute,
he told me. When will you start on this, Milo?
Right away,
I said. As soon as you give me the money, I’m going to take a beautiful girl to lunch and have an infinite number of dry martinis, all of which will put me in the right mood for the job. One doesn’t attack a whole country without the aid of a little liquid courage.
He gave out with another of those Ivy League laughs. That’s my boy. Always making with the jokes. It’s a good thing that I know you always deliver or I might take you seriously.
You mean,
I said, it’s a good thing I don’t have to break down my expense account so that it shows every martini. You want interim reports or just one when I’m finished?
When you’re finished, boy. We have every confidence in you.
The door opened and a pretty little blonde came in, carrying a small sheaf of bills and a slip of paper. She was a different secretary than had been there the last time I was hired. He seemed to use up secretaries faster than some men did scratch pads. I wondered if he wore them out chasing them around the Early American furniture.
He waited until she’d left and then shoved all of it toward me. Here you are, Milo,
he said.
I looked at the paper first. It had Mrs. Moreno’s name, address, and phone number. Then I counted the money. There were ten fifty-dollar bills.
Pretty,
I said. My favorite vitamin.
Okay, boy,
he said. I’m glad you’re on the team. I’ll tell the Board of Directors to relax.
You do that,
I told him. I stood up. If there’s anything I can’t stand it’s a nervous Board member. I’ll see you around.
I stuffed the money in my pocket and left.
Merry was already sitting at the bar when I arrived at the restaurant. She hadn’t been there long; her drink was barely started. I slipped onto the stool next to her and she leaned over for me to kiss her. I did.
It seems to me that you get more beautiful every time I see you,
I told her. A dry martini,
I added as the bartender came over.
Who gets more beautiful?
she asked. Me or the martini?
You. Martinis aren’t beautiful. They’re dry.
I’m dry,
she said promptly.
I’ve noticed,
I said. I looked at her again. It’s months since I’ve seen you. Which one of your houses are you living in at the moment—California, Texas, Florida, or Connecticut?
At the very moment, the St. Regis,
she said, but I’m going to Connecticut tomorrow. I thought maybe you might like to come up for the weekend.
I’d love to, but I have to work.
She made a face. You always have to work. Especially when I invite you somewhere.
The bartender brought my drink. It tasted like manna from heaven. We can’t all have a lapful of oil wells, honey.
Why not?
she asked promptly. Let me see, you and Greta are divorced by now, aren’t you?
I nodded.
Then all you have to do is marry me and you’ll have a lapful of oil wells, too.
It’s a nice offer,
I said, but you know me. All that money would scare me. I’d be awakened every morning by the rustling of all those dollar bills. But I appreciate the offer just the same.
She sighed. Well, I tried. I’ve never been able to seduce you by illicit means, so I thought I’d offer to make an honest man of you.
An impossible task,
I admitted. A vague idea was flitting around in the back of my head. But there might be something you can do for me.
She finished her drink, and as she put down the empty glass, the bartender had another drink for her. What, darling?
she asked.
First tell the bartender that I don’t like to wait between drinks either.
Just to demonstrate, I finished my drink. To my surprise, the bartender did have one there immediately. Well, what do you know? Did you arrange all this before I came in? Or is this just another example of the power of money?
It has its advantages,
she admitted. What can I do for you?
I’m not sure,
I said. But this job I’m on may take me to the Monican Republic. If so, it would be better if I didn’t go as an insurance investigator. Maybe I can cook up some sort of errand that I’m supposed to be doing for you.
Anything,
she said. Not only that, but I’ll go with you.
No,
I said firmly. It’s apt to be dangerous. I have enough trouble looking after myself without having to look after you too.
You do love me,
she said. You just said you’d look after me.
You’re drunk,
I said coldly. All I said was that you can’t go. And that’s final.
Yes, dear.
How long will you be in Connecticut?
I asked.
Two or three months, I suppose. Unless I get bored. How long will you be down there?
"Not that long. Maybe I’ll take you up on the weekend invitation when I come back.