by Craig Rice
“What I know about women,” the lawyer told him, “would start a chain of banks.” He thought of the Chez Paree brunette, and sighed deeply. “Oh well, you do your own worrying, and I’ll do mine.” He paused, then added, “You really think she’s in Havana?”
“I’m positive of it,” Jake said, “and I hope she stays there.” He set his chin hard. “I’m going to get on Mona McClane’s trail and win that bet, and then I’m going to wrap up the deed to the Casino and send it to her. And then the hell with it all.”
“You make it all sound so wonderfully easy,” Malone said for the second time in two days. He put on his hat, took it off again, picked up the telephone, and said, “Get me a messenger boy right away,” and then called his office.
“Anything going on that I should know?”
Maggie reported, “Captain von Flanagan has been calling you every fifteen minutes since ten o’clock. The young lady who was in yesterday called and said she’d be in your office at three o’clock.”
“I’ll be there at three,” Malone said. He hung up.
There was a large envelope on his desk; he sealed two hundred-dollar bills and two fifties in it, and addressed it to Max Hook. Above the name of his hotel in the corner he wrote, “John J. Malone.”
When the messenger boy had arrived, taken the envelope, and gone away again, the lawyer put on his hat and overcoat. “We might as well—”
A thunderous knock on the door interrupted him. Malone opened the door and saw a large, red-faced detective from von Flanagan’s office.
“Well, well, Kluchetsky,” the lawyer began pleasantly.
“Von Flanagan wants to see you,” Kluchetsky said. “He says he hopes your d. t.’s are better. He says anyway he hopes you’re able to be up and around because if you aren’t he’s gonna send an ambulance for you.” He eyed the hat and overcoat. “I guess maybe you’d just better come along with me.”
Chapter Six
Daniel von Flanagan had been losing his temper by slow degrees ever since nine in the morning when he had learned from “well-informed sources” that Malone’s alleged illness had permitted him to spend the evening playing poker and roulette at the Casino. The temper was progressing nicely when he dispatched Kluchetsky to bring Malone in. By the time the lawyer and Jake Justus walked into his office, his face had attained an ominous, deep mulberry shade.
“A fine thing,” Malone snapped crossly, beating him to the draw. “You couldn’t wait till I came in by myself. You had to send this big lug over to wake me up and drag me out of bed.”
Kluchetsky glared at him. “I suppose you always sleep in your clothes,” he said nastily, “and your hat and overcoat.”
“Sure,” Malone told him, just as nastily. “I have to. I need to be prepared for having some dumb cop break in and insist on my going somewhere.” He looked indignantly across the desk at von Flanagan. “And you—” he paused suddenly.
Von Flanagan’s face had, amazingly, faded to its normal bright pink and was wreathed in smiles.
“Jake Justus!” he said happily. “You’re exactly the guy I wanted to see.”
Jake looked at him in bewildered surprise. “I thought it was Malone you wanted to see.”
“Malone!” The police officer made a one-armed gesture that seemed to ask who the hell would ever want to see Malone. “I’ve been wishing you’d show up.” He reached in his desk drawer and took out a small but ponderous-looking book. “I bought this, along with some others, and I want you should tell me if it’s any good.”
Jake reached for the book. It was Essentials of Journalism, by H. F. Harrington.
“Sure it’s a good book,” he said, tossing it back on the desk, “but it’s got quite a few four-syllable words in it.”
Von Flanagan replaced the book in the desk drawer, clasped his hands behind his head, and leaned perilously far back in his chair. “It’s like this, Jake. I never wanted to be a cop. I’ve never liked being a cop. There never was a day when I didn’t wish I’d been a high-class undertaker, like I’d always meant to be. Well, the alderman owed one of my relatives money, so I got to be a cop. But I hate cops. I even went to court and changed my name from just plain Flanagan to von Flanagan, so it wouldn’t sound so much like a cop’s name.”
Jake listened in respectful silence. He knew the recital by heart, backwards, forwards, and sideways.
A beatific expression came over von Flanagan’s face. “Now,” he said happily, “I’m gonna retire. Any day now. Maybe as soon as I can get this case off my desk. And when I retire, I’m gonna buy me a country newspaper someplace and be an editor. That’s what I’m gonna do, by God!” He brought one enormous fist down on his desk with a thump that set everything in the room rattling.
“Hear, hear,” Jake said inadequately.
“Right now, I don’t know nothing about the business,” von Flanagan went on, “but from some of the reporters I’ve known—no offense, Jake—I don’t think it would be so much to learn. You know,” he confessed, “I’ve always had a kind of yen to be a newspaperman. Almost as much as to be an undertaker. Anything but a cop.”
Suddenly he brought the front legs of his chair down with a loud bang. “It wouldn’t be so damned bad being a cop. It’s being promoted to be head of the homicide squad that makes me sore. Everybody tries to make it hard for me.” His voice began to grow louder. “Take this guy that was killed on New Year’s Eve. Could he have fell down dead right where he was when he was stabbed, so’s we’d have some idea of the scene of the crime? No, he has to walk all over the Loop and finally die in Joe the Angel’s bar. Could he have carried a driver’s license, maybe, or a club card, or anything that would tell who he was? No. Not one damned thing. Could he have stayed put in one place before he was stabbed, so’s we might of known who was hanging around him? No, he goes all over town looking for Malone.” His voice had become an angry roar. He looked accusingly at the little lawyer. “Then this son of a bitch has to go and hold out information on me.”
He sat back, rendered speechless by these injustices.
“I’m not holding out information,” Malone said indignantly. “I haven’t any to hold out. You know more about this guy than I do.”
“Hell,” von Flanagan growled, “I don’t even know who he is yet. You’d think a well-dressed, good-looking guy like that would have some friends who’d turn up and identify him.”
“Not if he just came to the city,” Malone suggested mildly, “as his clothes seemed to indicate. Maybe he didn’t know anybody in Chicago.”
“If he didn’t know anybody, why was he going all over town looking for you?” von Flanagan demanded.
“Maybe he wanted my autograph,” Malone said. “How the hell should I know? Maybe he was lonesome and he wanted to make friends.” He unwrapped a cigar slowly and carefully and lighted it. “If that’s all you wanted to see me about, I’d like to go out and get some breakfast.”
“For two cents,” von Flanagan growled, “I’d throw you in the can as a material witness. Come on, Malone. Tell me why this guy was looking for you, and I’ll protect you, or any friends or clients of yours. I’ll forget you had any part in it, and I won’t bother you again. Be a pal. Have you seen the panning I’m getting in the papers?”
The little lawyer sighed deeply. “I tell you, I don’t know why he was looking for me.”
“Then, by God,” von Flanagan said, “you’ll stay right here until you can remember why.”
Malone looked at him, opened his mouth to speak, and closed it again without saying a word.
Jake said helpfully, “What makes you so sure this guy knew Malone, anyway?”
“He must of known him,” von Flanagan said stubbornly, “or he wouldn’t have been looking for him.”
“Listen,” Malone said angrily, “I tell you I never—”
Jake interrupted him with a gesture. “That doesn’t prove a thing. I bet Malone didn’t know him, anyway.”
“When I want your advice—” the p
olice officer began. “What’dya mean, Malone didn’t know him?”
“It’s like this,” Jake said firmly. “The man who was killed wasn’t the one Malone knew. Then why was he looking for Malone? Because Malone knew the guy who did the killing.”
Von Flanagan blinked once or twice. “It sounds like it ought to make sense and still it doesn’t seem to.”
Malone took it up. “Sure. The fact that I didn’t know the man who was killed proves that I know the man who did the killing.”
“I wish you’d both get the hell out of here,” von Flanagan growled. “You’re confusing me. Wait a minute,” he added hastily as Malone reached for his hat. “If you know the man who did the killing, who is he?”
“I don’t know,” Malone said promptly.
The police officer raised his eyes to heaven and talked eloquently about Malone.
“Look here,” Jake said persuasively, sitting down on a corner of the desk. “The killer must have known where this guy was going, in order to catch up with him and trail him so easily. Isn’t it logical to assume he knew his intended victim was out looking for Malone—because he himself had sent him to Malone?”
Von Flanagan’s brow wrinkled. “Let’s have that again,” he said suspiciously.
“It’s like this,” Jake explained. “Malone didn’t know the victim. The victim didn’t know Malone. But for some reason he needed a lawyer. O. K. so far?”
“Sure,” von Flanagan said, nodding. “He was looking for Malone because he needed a lawyer. Then what?”
“The killer,” Jake went on slowly, “knew Malone. He told his intended victim that Malone was a good lawyer and that he probably could be located in some downtown bar. Then he trailed this guy on his search for Malone, waited till he got in some dark, secluded spot, and ran a knife into him.” He paused, made an expressive gesture, and said. “It’s that simple.”
“But I don’t see—” von Flanagan began.
“Jake’s right,” Malone said quickly. “I didn’t know the victim, but the killer must be someone I know. It makes sense that way.”
After a very long time von Flanagan said, “Yes, I guess it does.”
“There you are,” Jake said. He slid off the desk. “Anything else you want to know?”
“Yes,” von Flanagan growled. “What’s the name of the murdered man?”
Jake shrugged his shoulders. “Ask the murderer, when you find him. He ought to know it.”
The police officer still had a dubious look in his eye. “All I have to do is find the murderer and ask him, when I still don’t know who the guy he murdered is.”
“Oh God,” Jake said, “you make it so hard. Look here. List all the people Malone knows who are criminals.”
“That means all the crooks in Chicago,” von Flanagan said.
“Well, that gives you a wider field. Narrow it down to Malone’s ex-clients. Start checking on their New Year’s Eve activities. Then go to work on those who were unaccounted for and could have been in the vicinity of Joe the Angel’s bar around midnight. Your boys know how to make a suspect talk.” Jake looked up, pleased with himself.
There was a new, hopeful gleam in the policeman’s eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, that might do it. I don’t know how you ever thought of it.”
Malone rose. “If I can be of any further help—” he began, buttoning his overcoat.
“Don’t worry, you’ll hear from me,” von Flanagan said quickly. “You’re not entirely in the clear in this thing yet.” He turned to Jake. “I want you to know I appreciate—”
“Glad to help,” Jake said briefly. “Any other time you need advice on how to run your department, call me in.”
Von Flanagan let that pass. “And say—”
Jake paused at the door. “Yes?”
“If you think of any more books an editor ought to read,” von Flanagan said, “let me know.”
Chapter Seven
Out on the sidewalk, Jake said, “A very nice piece of work, if I do say so myself. Somehow von Flanagan now thinks you didn’t know the murdered man.”
“A swell story,” Malone grunted. “Too bad it wasn’t the truth.”
“How do you know it isn’t?”
The lawyer shook his head. “I didn’t know the murdered man, but he knew me all right. I couldn’t tell you this on the way down here, with that fat-faced Kluchetsky in the car, but—” He told Jake the story of the key. “There were ten or twelve people at the bar. When this guy came in and hollered ‘Malone,’ everybody turned around. He didn’t pay any attention to anybody else, he headed straight for me and slipped the key into my hand.”
“That doesn’t mean he ever saw you before,” Jake said. “Whoever sent him to look for you probably said, ‘This Malone is a short fat guy, with a small paunch, a dirty collar, a cigar in his mouth, and a bald spot.’”
“You shut your trap,” Malone growled. “It’s a damned small bald spot.”
“Anyway,” Jake said, “von Flanagan’s going to be busy for the rest of the month checking up on all the crooks you know in town. That’ll keep him off your tail. You ought to be grateful to me.”
“Sure,” Malone said, “unless he runs down the one who did the killing.”
“I don’t think he will. This murder doesn’t look to me like the work of a criminal.”
“Murder is a crime too,” the lawyer reminded him.
“I’m talking about professional criminals. I don’t think this killer was one.”
“Neither do I,” Malone said, “and I don’t care who he was. Just the same, I’d give a nickel to know who has that key, and maybe two nickels to get it back.”
“Why?”
“Because, in the first place, if I stick around I may get a client out of this, and because, in the second place, if I do get involved I want to know what goes on.” He looked around, spotted a drugstore, and said, “Come on, I want to telephone.”
He telephoned to the first-district police station, talked to someone named Andy, apparently an old friend, and learned that the policemen who had picked him up in Joe the Angel’s bar were named Oscar Kieck and Joe Mulcahey, and that both were off duty this afternoon. He stood thinking over both names for a moment, finally dropped another slug into the phone and called Max Hook.
“Hello, chum. Did your three hundred bucks get back O. K.? That’s good. Oh sure, sure, I knew I didn’t have to hurry, but I had the dough and I thought I might as well get it paid up. This time I’m after information. Know anything about a cop named Oscar Kieck?” A long pause. “You don’t, huh. How about a Joe Mulcahey?” A shorter pause. “That’s more like it. Look, chum, I’ve got to pry some personal information out of Mulcahey and I’d like to make sure he’ll give it to me.” A very long pause punctuated by occasional “uh-huhs” and “you-don’t-say-sos.”
When the little lawyer hung up, he thumbed through the phone book, noted down an address, and said, “Let’s go call on this Mulcahey guy.” Before Jake could answer, he called a taxi.
Policeman Mulcahey lived in an ornate apartment hotel near Lincoln Park. Malone paused for a moment by the elevator to gaze admiringly around the lobby and comment, “Wonderful to be able to manage all this on a policeman’s salary!”
Jake said, “Maybe you ought to phone up to him first.”
“Maybe I should,” Malone agreed, “but I’m not going to.” He stopped by the desk and said, “Mr. Mulcahey is in room 1217, isn’t he?”
“No sir,” the clerk said, shaking his head. “It’s 1102.”
“Thanks,” Malone said, pushing Jake toward the elevator.
Apartment 1102 was at the front of the building. Malone pounded on the door and waited a long time. Finally a masculine voice called, “Who’s there?”
Malone knocked again and said, “Come on, Joe, open the door.”
There was a murmur that might have been, “What the hell” the door opened, and a tall man dressed in blue silk pajamas and a dark-red dressing gown stared at them.
“You know me, don’t you?” Malone said.
“Oh sure, Mr. Malone. Didn’t recognize you for a minute. Come right on in.” He led them into a large, over-furnished living room with an incredible number of lamps and elaborate end tables. A short, chubby brunette was curled up on the sofa, cuddling a glass in one hand.
“Marge, this is Mr. Malone, the lawyer. Miss Pizzner, Malone. And Mr.—”
“Justus,” Jake supplied.
“Oh, sure. You used to be with the Examiner. Have a drink.”
“This is a business call,” Malone said.
“Hell, have two drinks.” He poured out generous shots of Haig and Haig Pinchbottle. “Beat it, Marge. This is a business call.”
The chubby brunette rose, giggled, and said, “He’ll tell me all about it after you’re gone, Mr. Malone,” lurched slightly, and disappeared into what Jake guessed was the bedroom.
Mulcahey looked a little uneasy. “Don’t pay any attention to her.”
“I never pay attention to dames,” Malone assured him. He settled himself comfortably in an enormous overstuffed chair. “You sure do yourself pretty well. Nice place you have here.”
“I like it,” Mulcahey said warily. “I have a few investments that bring me in a little dough now and then.”
Malone said, “Sure. Max Hook told me about ’em.” He watched the policeman from the corner of one eye, and added, “I was talking to Max today about a little business matter—I don’t know how your name happened to come up.”
Mulcahey looked intently at the carpet. “If I’d known you were a friend of Max Hook’s when I took you into the station the other night—”
“Forget it,” Malone said hastily. “If you hadn’t, I’d probably still be fighting those guys.” He sipped his Scotch, gazing into the glass between times. “You know, if I wanted some information from you, and you didn’t give it to me, Max would raise hell. Or if you didn’t give it to me straight, he’d raise more hell.”
“Oh sure,” Mulcahey said. “What’dya want to know?”
“I just want to know if you frisked me on the way to the station that night.”
