The Name Is Malone

by Craig Rice

  She sat down, nervously lit a cigarette, and said, “Lee didn’t come home last night.”

  Malone thought that over in silence for a moment. Then he said, “She’s still got half an alibi. So far.”

  “She has both of us to back her up,” Lola said faintly. “I had a chance to talk with Lee on the phone. He’s home now. And he’ll be on the way in any minute now. He’ll back Susie up. But, Malone, where was he?”

  This time there was a longer silence. Much longer.

  Lola Merchant made a helpless gesture with her lovely, expressive hands. “We took Susie out last night. Just the three of us. She was coming all apart, Malone, over this business with Nick. So we really did the town. I’m a little fuzzy about the last details myself. So we took Susie home. Lee got her up to her place and dumped her on her bed. So then he told me to drive on home; he’d come along later in a cab. He had a little business to tend to first. So I went home. That’s all.”

  “So I know the rest,” Malone said.

  “Malone, he wasn’t there when I left this morning after your call. I kept calling and calling and I reached him about an hour ago. He’ll be along as soon as he’s had time to shave and change his tie.”

  Malone looked at her thoughtfully. There was a different light in his eyes now. He rose, smiled at her and said, “Lola, I have a few things to attend to. Suppose you come along.”

  “But, Malone, Lee—”

  “I’ll leave a message with Maggie,” he promised. “He can join us later.” He added, “Don’t worry. Lee will be all right.”

  And if his hunch was correct, so would everybody else. Or almost everybody.

  He got in her car and gave the address of the apartment building near Oak Street where Dale McDowell had lived. She looked at him, but not with surprise.

  “The necktie, Malone?”

  “The necktie,” he told her. “But how did you know?”

  “Because of the look you got on your face when I said something about Lee changing his tie. And because I noticed something, too. I saw Dale McDowell last night—in the Alabam, I think it was. He wasn’t wearing that yellow job. Or that pink shirt.” She started the car.

  “You’re a shrewd girl, Lola,” Malone said. “I noticed something, too, though it wasn’t that. That yellow job, as you call it, didn’t look as if it had ever been worn. Or at least, worn very long.”

  He leaned back, thinking it over. Something was beginning to form in his mind, vague as yet, and inconclusive, but a beginning. Dale McDowell had gone home, sometime in the course of the night, and changed his shirt and tie. What he had changed from, and why, might be the answer and then again might not. Might, in fact, turn out to be unimportant. But he meant to find out.

  Getting into Dale McDowell’s apartment was a simple matter of opening the door and walking in. The bored policeman, left in charge by von Flanagan, looked up from the confession magazine he was reading and said, “Hi, Malone. Am I supposed to let you in?”

  “We’ve just come from von Flanagan,” Malone said. “To take a look at his clothes.”

  “Go ahead,” the policeman said, looking admiringly at Lola. He waved toward the closet and wardrobe. “Not much interesting here, though.”

  “Frankly,” Malone said, “I don’t expect to find anything interesting.”

  Dale McDowell’s suits were neat, conservative and orderly arranged. His shirts carefully folded in the drawers, tended to white and gray, with a few sport shirts of a very mild plaid. His ties were hung with almost mathematical precision on a rack; they were as conservative and as mild as the rest of his wardrobe. One was missing.

  “The tie he wore last night isn’t here,” Lola said. “I can remember it. It was blue with a little dark red stripe.”

  There didn’t seem to be any shirts and ties lying loose around the apartment, either.

  Malone thanked the bored policeman and led the way out He began to feel a pleasant little flicker of excitement.

  Lee Merchant met them in the lobby. The slender, light-haired man was pale and haggard.

  Malone looked at him critically. “You need a drink.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Lee Merchant croaked. He tried to grin.

  The little lawyer took Lee by one elbow and Lola by the other, and steered them into the bar. He waited until a faint touch of color had come into the young man’s face, and then said, “All right, where were you all night?”

  “Not up in Susie’s apartment,” Lee Merchant said. “Not murdering Dale McDowell, though I came close to it.” He finished his drink in a gulp and let Malone signal for a second. “We ran into him last night, when we had Susie out on the town. He told me he wanted to see me later. After we took Susie home and I parked her on her bed—she was out like a light—I sent Lola on home and went to meet him, at Herman’s.”

  “Just a minute,” Malone said. “I take it everything was normal at Susie’s place?”

  “Perfectly normal.” He gave a sickly smile. “Not a corpse in sight.”

  “Did you lock the door?”

  Lee Merchant thought for a minute. “I guess so. I pulled the door shut.”

  Malone nodded. “Go on.”

  “He wanted—well, Malone, you know how it is when you own a chain of—candy stores—”

  “The policy racket,” Malone said, “is none of my business.”

  “Nor mine, any more,” Lee Merchant said. “Lola and me, we’re going to the coast. I told McDowell off. He didn’t seem to mind. Said he was going to the head man, and left.”

  “And after that?” Malone asked, not waiting to ask the identity of the head man.

  “After that,” Lee Merchant said, his face turning red, “I just stayed in Herman’s and drank gin.”

  Malone sat thinking everything over, while Lola Merchant told her silent and shamefaced husband what she thought of him for letting her worry herself white-headed, ending her remarks with a lavish embrace. Then he went to the telephone booth and called von Flanagan.

  “I’ve been trying to get you,” von Flanagan roared over the wire, “the cab driver’s conscious.”

  “Good,” Malone said. “That clinches everything. Now meet me at Susie Snyder’s apartment, and in five minutes you’ll be through work for the day.”

  “Listen, Malone—” von Flanagan began.

  “Meet me,” Malone said, and hung up.

  They reached the little apartment building first, and for a few minutes Malone stood in the lobby worrying. It was so easy to be wrong, and in this case if he were, he was going to be terribly wrong. But now, there didn’t seem to be any other way.

  Susie Snyder wore a hopeful look, and von Flanagan a look that said this had better be good. Even Klutchetsky seemed faintly interested.

  Malone suggested that they call first on Susie’s landlord.

  The sad-eyed little man, now back in his mouse-colored suit, met them with an anxious look. Was something new wrong?

  “Everything’s all right,” Malone told him cheerfully. “Or is going to be.”

  They came in and sat down, stiffly and awkwardly, watching Malone expectantly. The little lawyer strolled around, apparently aimlessly, until he spotted the picture of Susie. He picked it up and held it before him.

  “Incidentally, Susie,” he said, “you never did tell me what you and Nick quarreled over. And it is my business.”

  She flushed. “He was—told things about me. They weren’t true. But he said he’d been given proof. He wouldn’t believe me. I lost my temper, too.” Her eyes were wet. “But now—”

  “That’s going to be all right, too,” Malone assured her. He looked again at the picture. “This really ought to be in the kitchen,” he said, and carried it out there.

  What he had to do in the kitchen took only a matter of seconds. He had to put a knife where it belonged. He came back into the living room and said in the same casual tone, “You’re not a very good housekeeper, Roback. You ought, for instance, to clean your breadknife. And wh
at have you done with the shirt and tie Dale McDowell was wearing?”

  It was von Flanagan who dived for the kitchen door, but Klutchetsky who dived for Leo Roback.

  “I still ought to throw you in the can,” von Flanagan growled, a few hours later. He waved at Joe the Angel for two more.

  Malone grinned and said, “You got the results, what more do you want?” He reached for his glass. “Leo Roback was a frustrated little man with a yen for Susie. As I suspected, he broke up Susie and Nick. Who could do a better job of poisoning Nick’s mind than her landlord, who lived below her and knew all her comings and goings? But Susie wasn’t having any of Leo anyway. So he whipped up a good, mean grudge against her.”

  He sipped his drink and grinned at Joe the Angel who was leaning on the bar and paying attention to every word.

  “Leo Roback staked Lee Merchant in business—Lee, and a few more. When McDowell couldn’t shake down Lee any longer, he went after Roback. Roback saw this as a beautiful opportunity to get rid of McDowell and work off his mad on Susie at the same time.”

  “The shirt and tie—” von Flanagan began.

  “Was where he slipped.” Malone said. This was his story, and he was going to tell it his way. “To set the scene properly, after he’d toted Dale McDowell’s body up to the apartment where Susie was sound asleep, he decided to leave him there in his undershirt, making everything look very, very cozy. So he substituted one of his own shirts and ties, for the ones Dale had been wearing—one he himself had never dared wear in public. And set out the bottle and the icebowl and the glasses, and filled up the ashtray.”

  “Smart fellow,” von Flanagan said.

  “Malone is smarter,” Joe the Angel said admiringly.

  “I hope so,” Malone said. “Roback overlooked his victim’s conservative taste in clothes. He also forgot the simple little operation of taking Susie’s unused breadknife downstairs and substituting it for his own, the one he’d used on McDowell. This he could have done. Those little furnished apartments are alike down to the last detail.” He relit his cigar and said, “Two more of the same.”

  Lee and Lola Merchant had gone happily home to Wilmette. Les Schwegler, who’d opened his eyes and then refused to give even his name unless Malone were there, was doing nicely. Once Malone had arrived, he happily told the world that he’d spotted the man who fired at him.

  “I didn’t want to break Les all up by telling him we already knew it was Leo Roback,” Malone said dreamily, “I should have figured that, because nobody else would have seen me escorting Susie out of the building, know what was going on, and want to break up that trip to Wilmette without actually killing anyone else. But Les’ statement was the clincher.”

  “That Susie is a nice girl,” Joe the Angel said. “Nick Cahalan, he is one nice boy.”

  They were indeed, Malone thought, wondering about appropriate wedding presents. He had an especially warm spot in his heart for Nick right now, because of the words Nick had used in speaking of the services that had been done for his Susie. They were pleasant words, and Malone decided to use them himself as Joe the Angel brought two more ryes.

  “I’ll pick up the check on this one,” said Malone.

  LIFE CAN BE HORRIBLE

  “Look here, Malone,” Maggie said, “just because you lost all your money on that all night poker game, it doesn’t mean you have to take your bad temper out on me. You’ve got to see these two clients.”

  “Go away,” the lawyer said. “Today I wouldn’t see the Emperor of Little America. And I didn’t lose all my money. I’ve got eight dollars and seventy cents. I know, I just counted it. Chase the clients away, I’m busy worrying.”

  “What are you worrying about?”

  John J. Malone said, “Can’t I just worry, without anything in particular?”

  “Malone,” Maggie said, “you’ve got to see these two people.”

  He reached for a cigar, looked at her.

  “I don’t think they have a dollar between them,” Maggie said. “But I think you’d better see them.” She added, “Their name is di Angelo.”

  Malone bounded up from behind his desk, “For the love of Pat and Mike, why didn’t you say so? What are you standing there for? Send them in.”

  The two young men Maggie ushered into the office definitely didn’t look like profitable clients. They looked very much alike. Blue jeans, windbreakers. He got a few facts fast as they sat down on the couch. The one on the left was Eddie di Angelo, aged twenty. The one on the right was Frankie di Angelo, aged nineteen.

  They both looked scared.

  Malone wondered if he ought to offer them a glass of wine. He did. They accepted it and said “Thanks,” in unison.

  “Mr. Malone,” Eddie said, “our Uncle Joe said you were the best lawyer in Chicago, maybe in the whole world. He said we should come to you.”

  Malone lit his cigar and said, “Your Uncle Joe is a very smart man.” The least he could do for Joe the Angel’s nephews was to take the case for free. After all, eight dollars and seventy cents was a good stake for another poker game.

  “We want you to defend us,” Eddie said.

  “Speeding ticket?” Malone asked genially.

  Eddie shook his smooth-haired head. “Uncle Joe explained to us what the charges would be. Breaking and entering. Attempted robbery.”

  The quiet-looking Frankie roused himself and added, “And murder.”

  Malone held his breath for a good sixty seconds, put his cigar down in the ashtray and said, “Maybe you’d better tell me the whole story.”

  “Well,” Eddie said, “it’s like this. Yesterday this babe—”

  “Lady,” Frankie said.

  “All right, this lady came into Uncle Joe’s. She had a coupla drinks, and she asked Uncle Joe, does he know where she can hire a coupla husky young guys to do some moving for her. So Uncle Joe, he knows we can use some money, so he tells this babe, pardon me, I mean lady, yes, and he calls us up, and we come and talk to her in Uncle Joe’s back room.”

  He paused, fumbled through his pockets, and fished out a cigarette that had been lit once before, carefully put out, and saved to be lit again. Malone rose to the rescue with the box on his desk.

  “Thanks, Malone. Uncle Joe said we was to call you that, not Mister Malone. Anyway, we meet her. She’s a big babe—”

  “Lady,” Frankie said gloomily.

  “She’s a big lady and very pretty. She tells us this story. She’s got a husband, they’re separated. He is hanging onto the house, which is out in Maywood. He is also hanging onto ten thousand dollars in thousand dollar bills, which rightfully belong to her. She gives us the address, and draws on a paper napkin the layout of the house. The house is his all around with bushes and stuff. Here’s a window, on the side. She said, ‘Cut the screen on this window, it goes into the bedroom. You get there early, he’ll be asleep. But just to be safe, make sure he stays asleep.’”

  “‘Sap him,’ she said,” Frankie said.

  “Well, just to keep him quiet while we search the house. Because the money’s supposed to be in a tin box in the bookcase. If it ain’t there, he may have hid it and we better look. We better do this early in the morning. So, we say yes. I borrow a car, we drive out. It’s a funny little house with all those trees and stuff around it. The guy paints pictures, or something.”

  “Artist,” Frankie said.

  “Well, we go in. Through the window. The bedroom is empty. That worries me a little. I had a sap with me, just in case. You know what I mean. We went in through the bedroom, we walk into a big room, living room, I guess. All filled up with pictures. The guy is there, on the floor. Somebody else has hit him with a sap, too hard, I guess, and he’s dead.”

  “What did you do?” Malone demanded.

  “Do? What the babe—mean, lady—told us to do. We looked for the money. It wasn’t there. We searched that whole place and didn’t find a dime. We even searched him. Then we got worried and we talked to Uncle Joe, and he s
aid come talk to you, and here we are. Can we be arrested?”

  “Not if I can prevent it,” Malone said. He pushed the buzzer and yelled, “Maggie. Get me Joe the Angel.”

  Joe’s voice came over the phone sounding a little wistful. “Malone, can you—”

  “Yes I can,” Malone said, “but can you get these two amateur criminals out of town so they won’t get in my way while I’m doing my job?”

  There was a little silence on the far end of the line, then, “My cousin in Milwaukee. They can stay there a few days. Then can take the North-Shore Electric. You send them over here, I make all the arrangements, give them money. And you, Malone, you work.” He hung up.

  “All right, boys,” Malone said. “You’re going to take a short vacation. Stop over at Uncle Joe’s, he has your tickets and money, and I don’t want to see you or hear from you until everything is all clear. Catch?”

  “Catch,” Eddie and Frankie said in unison. They waved a good-bye, and ducked.

  Malone folded his arms on his desk, rested his head on them, and wished he had died in his cradle.

  Maggie came in, snapped, “Malone!”, looked at him, then walked around the desk, laid a gentle hand on his shoulder and said softly, “Malone!”

  He looked up wearily. “I’ve decided to abandon the profession of law. I’ve decided to become a radio announcer. How do you like this?”

  The little lawyer stood up, squared off, and went on in pear-shaped tones: “Life—can be horrible. This program comes to you through the courtesy of the Spit ‘n Image Undertaking Parlors, whose thought for today is, you too may try our easy lay-away plan.” He looked at Maggie. “Not good, not bad?”

  “Worse,” Maggie said. “This may cheer you a little.” She handed him an envelope.

  Malone ripped it open. Two hundred dollar bills fell out, and a note.

  The note read, “Retainer on my nephews’ case. Your respectful friend, Joe the Angel.”

  Malone grabbed the phone, dialed Joe the Angel’s number.

  “Look here,” he said, “I can’t take money from you.”