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I am adding this "cast of characters" to the story Rigor Mortis to make it easier for readers to follow and for me to organize the new chapters. I apologize for the long delay in adding new chapters. This is one of the many pennames for Harry Lime.
RIGOR MORTIS
CAST OF CHARACTERS
MICHAEL MALONE (AKA) Mickey is the main character in this story. He is a complex personality and is prone to bouts of depression brought on by his youthful service in the Far East holding back the tide of Commie bastards that wanted to bring the good old USA to her knees. It was almost inevitable that he would join the ranks of the NYPD (New York Police Department) because he had that ingrained love of danger and loved the smell of gunpowder early in the morning. He was doomed to either rise in the ranks fast or burn out before he ever got a chance to get out of the solid blue uniform and into plainclothes as a detective on the force. In his case, he caught a few slugs early in his career and the door was shut before he had a chance to investigate a single crime. Now he works directly for his Uncle Joe who was high up in the ranks of the NYPD and needed people around him that he could trust to get the job done no matter what the cost.
Deputy Commissioner JOE WESTON was the youngest Captain ever in the NYPD and he was big and smart and had seen it all on his rise to the top of the heap in a city that had no pity on the weak or the ignorant in the constant struggle to keep a lid on things 24/7 around the clock every day of the year. He didn't want his sister's son to join the NYPD because he knew from experience what a cold, hard grind it was to fight crime in a city like the Big Apple and how hard it could be on a rookie cop out on the beat arresting career criminals only to see them back out on the street their very next shift He stayed out of things because he knew his nephew was single-minded about his goals and would most likely not listen to him anyway. After the shooting that cost Mike his career, he decided to give him a second chance by outsourcing certain cases to him to investigate and report directly to him without following the procedures that made it difficult for an ordinary NYPD detective to close a case. They worked well together and Mike considered his Uncle Joe to be the father figure he never had.
"Red" AKA MARY ELLEN CONNELLY was from Tenth Avenue and she was a no-nonsense broad with honest-to-God real read hair with no help from a bottle and you could tell from the gleam in her bedroom eyes that she was the real thing right down to the core. She put it all on the line the first time she met Mike and he knew she was going to be a permanent fixture in his life from that moment forward. She was not a nun and knew she had opened her legs too easily sometimes when she was really lonely or depressed over a lost love or the stress of scratching out a living in world of married couples too busy for a single woman with shocking red hair and lips that would tempt a Saint. Her latest job was taking care of older people that didn't have any memories of the past and little regard for taking care of themselves like normal people. It was a lot different than the candy line at the factory where the foreman grabbed all the girl's asses like they were hired to be his personal playground instead of to box the 100% sugar filled treats inside the long narrow boxes that proudly stated "made in the USA". Red knew she was unlikely to get married because all of her sisters told her about their problems with their husbands and she figured she was better of just "playing the field" and letting fate take control of her life.
SERENA MALONE was blessed with a stunning figure and a face that drove the guys wild to lock lips with her and hear her whimper with her built-in lust. She was in her teens a wild and willing student described best as a "BIC" or a Bronx Irish Catholic girl with feminine assets that didn't need any advertising to make a sale. She is Mike's older sister and while she delivered to all the guys she only teased her brother because as handsome as he was, she was not going to go to Hell for fooling around with her own brother and it was not something she could ever confess in church just to see the reaction from the priest at her shameless conduct.
LOUIS RIVERA was Mike's partner on the force and his Puerto Rican roots were well hidden inside his angelic face that spoke English without any trace of an accent to give you a clue as to his origins. He had met Mike's sister and they had done the Tango for Two in the alley next to the YMCA dancehall after a spirited dance that eliminated any secrets about each other's anatomy in less than ten short minutes. Serena had told Mike about her secret fall from grace leading to him paying Louis back by humping his baby sister in the bushes at the park and feeling that sense of satisfaction at hearing her whimper just like he knew his own sister had done in the alley for his partner. Only he never told anyone and he was certain that Maria was far too smart to breathe a word of her disgrace to anyone, even the priest.
MONICA MASON is the friendly secretary to Doctor Prendergast and her first meeting with Mike ended up in the pantry closet with her down on her knees and definitely not for prayer. Mike was surprised by her attitude because he figured her for an upper-class broad with ice in her veins instead of blood. Needless to say, he was more than receptive to her approach because he liked her style and the way she bent over the Doctor's desk and looked back over her shoulder at him with a suggestive wink in her eye. She had a lot of baggage that Mike hadn't discovered as yet and her tongue was just as quick to tell a lie as it was to lick away his resistance to her infinite charms.
DOCTOR PRENDERGAST was a specialist of the mind but still had his medical degree which made him a real doctor in my book. It was easy for Mike to figure out he was getting a daily dose of Monica's special brand of service that probably included a lot of time under his desk working diligently at reducing his stress the old-fashioned way with her delicate touch. From the way he avoided my eye contact, Mike was sharp enough in street sense to know he was hiding his drug habit that he probably prescribed to himself and his clientele without hesitation. It was none of his business, but mike knew what that led to in his profession and the outcome was not a promising one to contemplate. Mike knew the doctor was not being truthful about the facts and he took his words with a grain of salt knowing how deviously his brain worked under the influence of the pretty pills hidden in his desk. He was definitely a top suspect in the death of the stiff down at the morgue and Mike planned to keep a close eye on his activities using Monica as his "Deep Throat" in more ways than one.
MISS OH was the tiny Chinese chick at the cleaners down on Canal Street that gave Mike the straight scoop on the identity of the stiff at the morgue. She identified him as "Mister Anderson" and even gave him the stiff's telephone number and address from her rolodex on the counter. Mike knew he would be back to see Miss Oh to "pump" her for more details on the stiff because she was so cooperative and submissive in that Asian sort of way that made her at the top of his little black book list for squeezing a source for information.
JULIE LONDON was Mike's secretary and keeper of all his secrets. She kept track of his clients, his girlfriends and his enemies with perfect harmony reminding him when he needed to line up a good job when he ran low on operating cash to keep his business running efficiently. He knew he would be lost without her and was extremely careful to keep his hands off her because one doesn't want to get down and dirty in one's own homestead. Julie had mixed emotions about that because she had a steady boyfriend with a boring job and a boring lifestyle that absolutely bored her to death unlike the mysterious Mister Malone with his fast and furious way of meeting life's challenges head-on like a bull in a china shop. She was secretly smitten with him and his rough and tumble way of living often leaving her alone at her desk looking at his picture on the wall and her hand under her skirt taking care of business. She wanted desperately for him to take advantage of her but was afraid to tell him of her desire because she knew he would lose his respect for her and she valued that above all else.
FREDDIE LOMBARDO was a local radio announcer par excellence with a loyal following of the rich and famous that doted on his deep sexy voice and his sardonic sense of humor that tickled their fancy. He had been caught up in an alleged rape incident at a ritzy hotel in mid-town Manhattan the previous year. There were rumors to the effect that he was "connected" with the boys down in Little Italy and the whole thing quickly got pushed under the carpet and the maid was given a one-way bus ticket with a purse filled with cash enough to get her a new start somewhere west of the Hudson River. Freddie was also high on the suspect list since he was one of the last people to talk to the corpse on the metal slab down at the morgue and they were witnessed as having a loud argument over something not related to the action on the baseball field that came close to violence even though they were surrounded by countless thousands and they were much too wise to make contact of that nature in the open.
BETTY AND VERONICA were Julie's room-mates. Their names were not Betty or Veronica, they just resembled the comic pair in Mike's mind when he visited Julie's pad. He knew their real names were Jessica and Trudy and that their last names were Green and Black but he could never remember which was which and only used their first names when he addressed them directly. They were both equally flighty and clueless about the real world and lived in a cosmetic world all their own. Whenever Mike entered Julie's singe bathroom, he was overwhelmed with the profusion of nylons, undies and bras hanging everywhere and the cosmetics and female products that filled every corner. It never failed to arouse him each time he had to use it because it filled his brain with pictures of the girl's in various state of undress and submitting to his demands for their complete obedience to the need for compliance to orders.
LOLA DEVINE did not consider accounts of her lifestyle as being a woman of the night. She saw her activities as merely supplying the horny rich males in Manhattan with plenty of "Lola" time as a way of ensuring her bills were paid on time and she had plenty of nice things to store away for a rainy day. She rotated her "sugar daddy" bed partners with the skill of a juggler holding two in reserve while she tended to the current one. She had acted in a couple of hard-core porn movies but she insisted she never take it up the butt and that her co-star always wear a condom,
That seemed to answer her sense of morality when she cashed her paycheck.
Lola was one of four that watched that last baseball game with the stiff in the morgue and she did it up proper with hot dogs and everything. Freddie Lombardo claimed she had one bitch of an argument with the departed Mister Anderson that lasted right up to the seventh inning without respite. The elusive Miss Lynch had clammed up on the facts and was not very cooperative with the investigation until the very end when it all came out like a dam busting through the storm. Lola was more than romantic with Mike because he reminded her of her baby brother that didn't make it through the first year in Korea. She liked the way he was gentle when it was important and rough when she just had to have it that way. The only thing Mike didn't like about Lola was her taste in dogs which ran to the small barking kind that made noise outside the bedroom door wanting to get in and be part of the action.
ALASTAIR HUMPADINK was imported from England and she was lower class with a posh act that fooled the Americans but not a real British subject with lots of practice spotting imposters. She had always felt that she was destined to be a man and was simply given the wrong physical assets to get the job done properly. Now she wore man's clothing and talked and acted like a man but her emotions and physical needs often overwhelmed her and she found that she liked being used as a female by strong men with a determined goal of getting into her pants. She liked Mike immediately and wanted him to use her any way he wanted in the way that she wanted deep down inside hidden from even her own supposed feelings. She really liked Mike because he didn't object to her being on top as long as she had the right attitude about a happy ending.
MAGGIE LYNCH was the fourth member of the ballgame quartet and she was difficult to locate and even more difficult to get to talk. According to Lola, Miss Lynch had a thing for Freddie Romano, but had left the game with the now deceased Mister Anderson. She had insinuated that the girl had to perform for him in the horizontal and was not particularly happy about her assignment. According to Lola's recital of events, Maggie was far too young to be doing this sort of dalliance with the sex-starved males of a town without pity. Still, she sounded less of an innocent and more like a clueless young girl making her way in the big city. She was the kind of girl that never read a book but thought she knew the answer to everything.
"LIZ" or ELIZABETH GENTILE was a substitute janitor for Maggie Lynch's apartment in the Bronx. She was ready willing and able to talk about anything and she could handle a garbage can better than Mike could, all things considered. She had been dealt a raw deal but was making the best of things and hoping to get some perks from the job along the way. She was doing her best to keep the delivery men and lonely tenants happy with her long strong legs and generous bosom hidden discretely under her coveralls like twin bazookas of joy for eager fingers. Mike took her up on her invitation to "tea" and discovered the depths of her feminine assets offered in various positions that taxed his ability to compete the mission uninjured. She was a gem of information but not a suspect in the murder of the stiff in the morgue.
The city is New York and the scenario is cops vs bad guys. The hero's name is Mickey Malone and he is retired from the NYPD after taking couple of slugs on the job. His Uncle Chief Inspector Joe Weston is depending on his help in solving some of those cases that are almost impossible to solve without outside help. The time is the late 1950s and it predates the 60s drug scene in NYC that was typical for the anti-war resistance movement. Still, cops are cops and bad guys are always bad guys and you never know where you might wind up.
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