The Lucky Stiff

by Craig Rice

  “If she doesn’t have something to do with it,” Helene insisted, “why was she in The Happy Days saloon with the young man in the tan raincoat? And why did she show up at your office later with a bribe?”

  The little lawyer said, “I don’t know, and that goes for both questions. But that reminds me, I’ve got to call her first thing in the morning to tell her I’ve decided to take the bribe.” He sighed deeply. “This business of becoming a respectable and prosperous businessman is going to be a terrible strain on me.”

  Helene grinned wickedly and said, “If it’s a good enough bribe it ought to be worth the effort.”

  Malone glanced at Anna Marie and said, almost dreamily, “It’s worth it, all right. And don’t bother me, I’m thinking.”

  After a few minutes of silence Jake yawned and said, “Maybe what we all need is a good night’s sleep.”

  Helene shushed him and refilled Malone’s glass. It was empty again. A fresh cigar had been lighted before the lawyer spoke.

  “Why should the unfinished first draft of an unwritten letter be so important?”

  This time it was Helene who sighed. “He thinks for twenty minutes,” she complained, “and all he comes up with is another question.”

  “Shut up,” Malone said amiably. He turned to Anna Marie. “That is, if it was unwritten. Did he ever finish it and send it to you?”

  Anna Marie shook her head. Her lovely eyes were puzzled.

  “He wrote—‘If I weren’t ill—’ Do you know anything about the state of Big Joe’s health?”

  She shook her head again. “I never knew him to be sick. If there was anything the matter with him, he never told me.”

  Malone scowled and puffed furiously at his cigar. “It simply doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Not just the letter but the fact that someone apparently went to considerable trouble trying to find it. Or,” he went on, “was something else the object of the search. Did Big Joe have something else hidden? And if so, what?”

  “And if he did,” Helene said, “why didn’t we find it when we found this?”

  “Because it had already been taken away,” Malone hazarded.

  Helene said, “But you said yourself that whoever took the place apart couldn’t have found what he was looking for.”

  “How can I think when you’re heckling me?” Malone roared indignantly. He added in a milder tone, “Maybe somebody else got there first and took it away.”

  “Who?” Helene asked. “And what did he find? And where is it now? And how did he get in if there were only two keys?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t know and I don’t know,” Malone said savagely. “It could have been Jesse Conway. He had the other key. But I went all through his pockets and I didn’t find anything that had anything to do with the case except Anna Marie’s key. Maybe he found whatever it was on some previous visit and took it away. But then, why did he come back? And who murdered him? And who took his body away? And why?” He drew a long breath. “Maybe Jake’s right. Maybe I do just need a good night’s sleep.”

  Helene said, “I’ve figured out a possible answer to one question all by myself. The question of how the young man in the raincoat got his key.” She leaned back on the apple-green cushions, looking like a smugly pleased child.

  “How?” Jake demanded.

  “He got it from Mrs. Childers,” Helene said calmly. She added, “Of course.”

  Malone stared at her for a moment. “That could be it,” he said thoughtfully. “Big Joe’s effects—whatever he happened to have in his pockets at the time—would naturally be turned over to his widow as soon as the police formalities were over, and she—”

  “She is having lunch with me tomorrow,” Helene said, “and I have a feeling that Mrs. Childers and I are going to be great, great friends.”

  Jake was on the point of saying that he didn’t like the idea. Not from any objection to Mrs. Childers, nor to Helene’s motives for cultivating her, but because he suspected Mrs. Childers was involved in something not only unpleasant, but quite probably dangerous to anyone prying into it. He was interrupted, however, by a thunderous knock at the door, and Von Flanagan bellowing, “Open up!”

  Helene grabbed Anna Marie’s hat, purse, and raincape and carried them into the bedroom. As Anna Marie followed, she whispered, “Make yourself comfortable,” and closed the door.

  Malone carried Anna Marie’s glass into the kitchenette as Jake opened the door. “I’m looking for Malone,” Von Flanagan said, slamming the door behind him. He used a few adjectives before “Malone,” of which “lying scoundrel” was the most complimentary. “He’s not at his hotel. He’s not at any of his hangouts, and if he isn’t here, you two can just come along and help me find him.” He spotted Malone coming out from the kitchen, and his face turned an ominous shade of magenta.

  “I’m sorry you had to look for me,” Malone said. He added smoothly, “I haven’t been here long. Jake told me you’d called, but I didn’t know where to reach you. What’s up?”

  “I ought to arrest you for obstructing justice,” Von Flanagan roared, “and don’t tell me you don’t know anything about these murders, because you do.”

  Malone said nothing and looked innocently curious.

  “First Jesse Conway dies saying ‘Tell Malone,’” the big police officer said, breathing heavily, “and now Garrity—”

  Malone said quickly, “I didn’t even know Garrity was dead until”—he caught himself just in time—“Jake told me.”

  “Since you don’t know anything about it,” Von Flanagan said with acid politeness, “I’m delighted to be the first to inform you that when Garrity was murdered he was on his way to Chicago—to see you.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “There’s some perfectly logical explanation,” Helene said. She gave Von Flanagan the special smile she reserved for policemen and cab drivers. “You look so tired. Sit down—no, here, this chair—and I’ll make you a drink. And how about some bacon and eggs?”

  Von Flanagan relaxed in the most comfortable chair in the room, sipped his drink, sniffed the odors from the kitchen, and remarked at length on the fact that Jake Justus didn’t half appreciate what a wonderful little woman he had for a wife.

  Jake refrained from answering. He’d have found it difficult to keep the word “Delilah” out of the conversation.

  Helene was back with the bacon and eggs and steaming coffee before Von Flanagan got back to business. She put the tray in front of him, beamed, and said, “Now don’t say another word before you’ve finished every scrap of that!”

  At last Von Flanagan handed her a completely empty tray and accepted a second drink with, “Well, since I’m not officially on duty.” He added wearily, “I shouldn’t be, at this hour. Why the hell can’t more people get murdered in the daytime?” That reminded him of his errand. He glared at Malone and growled, “And you, making it hard for me. There’s laws about keeping secrets from the police in a murder investigation.”

  Malone hung for a split second between a bland, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and an irate, “Prove it!” The latter won.

  “Now, Malone,” Von Flanagan said in an unexpectly soothing tone. “We been friends for a long time. We been friends since I was a rookie cop and you was pushing a hack and going to night law school. This is just a friendly little visit, nothing official about it, and I’m asking you for old times’ sake, do you know anything about Garrity’s murder.”

  “That’s using the old psychology on him,” Helene murmured under her breath.

  Von Flanagan didn’t hear her. “And if you lie to me, Malone, so help me, I’ll toss you in the can.”

  “Believe me,” Malone said, “I don’t know anything about it. I don’t know anywhere near as much as you do.”

  “Why was he coming to see you?”

  “I don’t know,” Malone said. “How do you know that he was?”

  “Because,” Von Flanagan told him, “before he left his office,
he got one telephone call and made two. The one he got was from a Chicago pay station. Then he called your hotel. You weren’t there, and nobody knew where you were. Nobody knew when you’d be back. He finally located that black-haired secretary of yours. She didn’t know where you were, either, but he told her to start looking for you and he’d call her again as soon as he got to Chicago. He didn’t get to Chicago.”

  “That last statement,” Malone said, starting to unwrap a fresh cigar, “is the only dramatic touch to a very dull story.”

  Von Flanagan’s broad face began to turn purple.

  “Why the hell,” the little lawyer went on, as much to himself as to Von Flanagan, “did Garrity want to see me, and why was he in such a hurry that he got my secretary out of bed to look for me, and started driving here in the middle of the night?”

  “I came up here to ask you that,” Von Flanagan said.

  “And I don’t know,” Malone said. “The last time I saw Garrity was at a testimonial banquet for Butts O’Hare, two years ago. I never knew him very well, and the closest I ever had to having any business dealings with him was when I got a couple of traffic tickets fixed once for a cousin of his.”

  “Well, damn it,” Von Flanagan said, “he certainly was in a sweat to get in touch with you tonight. And that coming on top of Jesse Conway trying to leave a message for you—” His eyes narrowed. “I don’t suppose you know anything about that, either?”

  Malone did, but he felt this wasn’t the time to discuss it. He evaded the issue neatly by saying in a deeply earnest tone, “If you find out why Conway wanted to reach me—what message he wanted to get to me—I wish you’d let me know.”

  “If I ever do find out,” the big police officer said gloomily. “The trouble with my job is that people go clear out of their way to make it hard for me.” That launched him on the subject of his not having wanted to be a cop, and this time he went way back to the fact that he never would have been a cop, he’d have been an undertaker like he’d always intended to be, only somebody at the City Hall owed one of his relatives money. Every promotion he’d had during his twenty years on the force he’d looked on as an injustice and an injury.

  “And another thing,” he said at last, “people do play jokes on the department, and it ain’t right. Like tonight.”

  Jake, Helene, and Malone listened breathlessly.

  “Some dame calls me up on the phone and says she’s Anna Marie St. Clair,” he said. “For a minute she really had me rattled. I’m not superstitious, y’understand, like some Irishmen I could name. But it sounded like her voice, it really yeah, really had me rattled. Now that’s where my knowledge of psychology comes in handy.”

  “I bet you knew immediately it was somebody playing a joke,” Helene said admiringly.

  He beamed at her. “I just told myself I was tired and maybe been working too hard, and it did sound like the same voice, and so for a minute she darn near had me believing in ghosts. Especially since she’d called up to tell me Jesse Conway was dead.”

  Malone signaled Jake with his eyes. Jake said, “That reminds me. When you called up before, you said you’d gone to where Jesse Conway’s body was supposed to be, and it wasn’t there. How do you know he’s dead?”

  “I don’t know,” Von Flanagan said. “It’s a deduction. Psychology and deduction, they go together like the Smith Brothers. There wasn’t a body, but there was blood on the rug where a body could of been. And Jesse Conway seems to have been missing since last night. So my theory is he’s been murdered, only I got to wait till his corpse turns up to prove it. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. And one of my boys dug a .38 bullet out of one of the window frames.”

  “I suppose you turned it over to ballistics right away,” Malone said casually.

  “I did,” Von Flanagan said. “It came out of the same gun that killed Garrity.” He rose. “I don’t like these murders. They’re mixed up with politics. Big Joe was an important guy. Tom McKeown is a big shot nowadays. He and Big Joe got Garrity his appointment, and his brother Bill is running some kind of a racket. And Big Joe got killed in a joint Bill runs.”

  Jake and Helene glanced at each other briefly. Malone relit his cigar.

  “Brodie,” Von Flanagan went on, “was mixed up with the whole bunch of ’em, and for a while Brodie damn near ran this town. Still runs his ward. And Jesse Conway owed Brodie a hell of a lot of dough. I don’t like it. When politics and murder gets mixed up together, there’s likely to be trouble.”

  He turned to Helene and said formally, “Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. Justus.”

  “It was a pleasure,” Helene murmured.

  At the door the police officer paused, one hand on the knob. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “I never believed that girl killed Big Joe.”

  Malone jumped and said, “What?” Then, “You arrested her.”

  “I know it,” Von Flanagan said in an unhappy tone. “But I didn’t think so even then. Psychology again. Her story sounded so phony it didn’t seem reasonable anybody would make it up if she was guilty. But I couldn’t do anything about it. After I made the pinch, it was out of my hands.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Helene said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I know it. But—well, there was another thing. All the time it seemed to me there was something proved her story was on the up and up. Only I never could quite figure what it was. Couple dozen times it seemed like I almost had my finger on it. Maybe if I had—”

  He sighed deeply and said, “Well, good night. And you, Malone, if any more guys get murdered on their way to see you or while they’re talking about you, I’m going to run you in.”

  After he’d gone, Jake said, “That was all very interesting. Who shall Anna Marie haunt now, Tom McKeown, Bill McKeown, or Brodie?”

  “I vote for Von Flanagan,” Malone growled. “Him and his cracks about superstitious Irishmen!” He added in a milder tone, “That’s a funny thing—his talking about something that would have proved Anna Marie was innocent. Because I’ve had the same feeling all along, and I can’t figure out what it is, either.”

  “I can,” Helene said serenely. “I can, and I have.”

  While they stared at her, she rapped lightly on the bedroom door, then opened it. Anna Marie had been curled up, half dozing. She rose, stretched like a sleepy kitten, and smiled at them. Her smooth cheeks were pink.

  “Look at her,” Helene said.

  “I am looking at her,” Malone said. He almost added, “With all my heart.”

  “Were you carrying a wrap—any kind of wrap—the night Big Joe was murdered?” Helene demanded.

  Anna Marie shook her head, bewildered. “I wore just exactly what I have on now. And my hat and purse, of course.”

  “Good,” Helene said. “Now, Malone, look at the way that skirt fits. Look at the way the jacket is cut, and the way it fits.”

  “What is this,” Anna Marie asked, “a fashion show?”

  “A fashion show,” Helene said grimly, “that should have been put on for the jury at your trial.”

  Malone nodded. “I think I get the idea.” He looked at Anna Marie. “Turn around. All the way around.”

  She pirouetted, half posing. The pale gray suit, close-fitting save for the very slight flare between her hip and her knee. The tiny pillbox hat with its floating pink veil. The pink and gold purse, just big enough to carry a compact, a small cigarette case, and money. Not much money.

  “Yes,” he said, “I do get the idea.”

  “But it took a woman to point it out,” Helene gloated. She smiled at Anna Marie. “The crazy fools. Where the devil did they think you carried the gun?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Malone tucked the sheet under Anna Marie’s chin and stood looking at her for a moment. In sleep, her face was the face of a very young and very happy little girl, the tawny hair rumpled on the pillow, the long, curling lashes, the slightly parted and smilingly curving lips, the faintly flushed cheeks.
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  She’d fallen asleep in the taxi, relaxing first against his shoulder and then into the curve of his arm like a tired and trusting child. He’d carried her up the freight elevator and through the hall to her room. He’d unpacked her suitcase, carefully arranging dresses on hangers and making a neat little parade of cosmetics on top of the bureau. He’d selected a gossamer-thin pale orchid nightgown and its matching robe, and tucked her in bed, carefully folding the robe over the nearest chair.

  He glanced around the room to see if there was anything else he could do for her. Suddenly the thought occurred to him. There should be flowers when she woke.

  Flowers in the room, a bed-tray with fruit, coffee, and the morning paper. Roses on the bureau, a vase full of hyacinths on the desk, and a bowl of violets on the table by her bed.

  Malone looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes to five. A difficult time of the morning to find roses, hyacinths, and violets. But he’d manage somehow. He’d met and coped with harder problems in his lifetime.

  He took one more long look at the sleeping Anna Marie. He considered kissing her, very lightly, on the forehead. No, that might waken her. He contented himself by whispering, “Sleep well. I’ll be back soon,” and tiptoed out of the room.

  Out in the hall he considered the immediate problems at hand. Here it was nearly five in the morning, and he had to be at the office by nine. For a moment his resolution weakened. He reminded himself that if he had eight hours of sleep and got to the office at three in the afternoon—no, he’d made up his mind and he wasn’t going to change it now!

  Roses, hyacinths, and violets, and where to find them. Jesse Conway, Garrity, and the man in the tan raincoat. Eva Childers and her bribe. Getting to the office at nine.

  He finally decided that he needed a drink to clear his brain, and headed for Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar.

  At this hour the streets were cold and deserted, save for an occasional hurrying taxicab. Malone walked briskly, shivering every step of the way. Shivering, aching with fatigue, and apprehensive at every slight sound.