by Craig Rice
“If you’ll excuse me for a minute,” Malone said. He paused for a breath, wondering if he ought to wait for, well, say, five more people. The watch said one-three. No, he was damned if he’d wait another minute. “I’ve got to make another phone call,” he finished.
Helene smiled wanly. “Tell the police he’s five-foot eleven, weighs—”
“Oh no,” Pen Reddick interrupted her. “Not the police. We can’t—”
“That’s right,” Helene said. “After all, Malone—” She rose to her feet, pulled the furs around her pale little face. “Come on, let’s all go to the Casino and find the body.”
The lawyer started to speak, but the breath died in his throat. He lifted the last inch of fur over Helene’s shoulder, buttoned his own coat, pulled out another cigar, stuck it in his mouth without lighting it, and said, “Okay, Mr. Reddick. Let’s go.”
The three walked slowly across the lobby. Pen Reddick said, “I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,” and Malone murmured, “Of course not, but—”
Helene stepped into the first compartment of the revolving door, Malone followed her, and then Pen Reddick. Suddenly, before she could put a foot on the sidewalk, something spun the door around as though it had been struck by a flying projectile. She grabbed the handle and felt herself flung around, as on a merry-go-round gone mad. The sidewalk whirred by and then the lobby and then the sidewalk again, before she was flung out, grasping desperately at the empty air for support, just as Malone was catapulted into the lobby beside her, and as Pen Reddick seemed to rise from his feet and then, with one small, strange sound, like a strangled balloon, fall flat on his face on the thick mauve carpet.
In the same instant a voice muttered, “You son of a bitch!”
One lock of Pen Reddick’s hair tumbled over the toe of Helene’s beige suéde sandals. A thin line of blood appeared on his mouth at the exact point where the blow had landed. A large, freckled, white-knuckled fist hung over him, threateningly.
“Jake!” Helene gasped.
There was a violet-grey bruise on one of Jake’s sickly pale cheeks. His red hair was a volcanic mess. His clothes were covered with dust, and his eyes were blazing blue fire.
“This is fine,” Malone said between his teeth, looking down at Pen Reddick. “Now we can all go to jail.”
The hotel manager, who had been somewhere near the elevators, bawling out one of their operators, scooted across the lobby like a small streak of scared lightning. He braked himself to a sudden stop by digging his rubber heels into the carpet, said, “Why Mister Justus!” looked down at the socially prominent young man who had just been knocked out by one of the hotel’s most important guests, realized the position he was in, and turned the color of a newly laundered napkin.
“Please, Mr. Justus,” he squeaked. “I—don’t know what to do.”
“Call a cop,” Jake said, biting out the words, “and tell him to stand by and be a witness while I kill this wall-eyed bastard.”
Instinctively the manager said, “Yes, Mr. Justus,” and started toward the desk. Then he stopped himself. “What did you say?”
“Nothing,” Helene said quickly. She added in a low voice, “Just one of Mr. Justus’s practical jokes. You know how he is. Try to keep people away, and we’ll take Mr. Reddick upstairs.”
The hotel manager caught the wink she gave him, saw an out for himself, and said, “Yes, Mrs. Justus. Just a little joke, of course. Do you think Mr. Justus and your friend can carry Mr. Reddick upstairs, or shall I call a bellboy?”
“I can carry him myself,” Jake said hoarsely, “with one hand, and by the throat.”
“Isn’t he a clown?” Helene said to the hotel manager, who tittered nervously.
Malone had been down on one knee, giving Pen Reddick a quick once-over. Now he rose. “We can make it upstairs without any help,” he announced cheerfully. “Come on, Pen old man.” He got Pen Reddick up on his knees, pulled out a handkerchief and wiped away a few drops of blood. At the far end of the lobby a woman gave a terrified little yelp and dived into the bar. “ ’At’s the boy, Pen. Just grab Jake’s arm, there.”
Jake automatically caught the limp elbow.
“Shanks, Zhake,” Pen Reddick mouthed around his cut lip.
“ ’At’s right, ’at’s right,” Malone said. “Now, right over toward the elevator.”
“Practical jokes can be so stupid,” Helene said with a little laugh. “I’m sure Jake didn’t mean to hurt him, did you, Jake?”
“Not at all,” Jake said. “I just meant to break his God-damned neck.”
The hotel manager darted away to reassure a frightened woman guest with the explanation that—“a little accident in the revolving door”—
The elevator operator took one quick look, and didn’t offer to lend a hand. Not a word was said in the elevator, nor in the corridor, nor, indeed, for a good five minutes after Jake and Malone had deposited Pen Reddick on the couch and Helene had bathed his face with warm water. During the five minutes Jake stood leaning against the window frame, a cigarette burning itself to nothing between his fingers.
At last Pen Reddick sat up, groaned, put one limp hand against his jaw, and stared bewilderedly around the room.
“Are you feeling all right now?” Helene asked sympathetically.
Pen Reddick nodded and mumbled something that sounded like, “Shink sho.”
“The dirty crook,” Jake said. “He might have killed me.”
Malone glanced up at him. “First time I ever heard of anybody being nearly killed by having someone else run into his fist.”
“Listen,” Jake said, “I didn’t—” He broke off suddenly, strode across the room, grabbed Pen Reddick by the shirt front and dragged him half-upright. “I hope you’re able to talk now.”
Pen Reddick waggled his head and said, “Shure.” He put one hand to his mouth and murmured, “Vront tooche.”
“If you have a loose front tooth,” Jake said. “I’ll be delighted to pull it out for you. Now, what was the idea of luring me up to the Casino, carefully arranging to separate from me half a block away from it, and then sneaking in after me, conking me on the bean, and running off with your blast-to-blazes box?”
“Jake!” Helene gasped. “Jake, you’re all right?”
“I’m all right,” he told her, “except that my head hurts a lot more right now than his—‘vront tooche’.” He leaned angrily over Pen Reddick. “Would you like me to knock out another one and make it a pair?”
Pen Reddick took the hand away from his mouth and said, “I didn’t do a tzhing to you.”
“I’m just a visitor in this madhouse,” Malone said calmly, “but if I’m not asking too much—” He signaled to Helene to keep her mouth shut, poked Jake in the chest with a friendly forefinger until he shoved him into a chair, and then said, “Well?”
“He talked me into going up to the Casino to get this buried treasure of his,” Jake said, glowering at Pen Reddick. “Then halfway there he went into this routine about little green men—well, damn it, men in green overcoats, it’s the same thing—and made it look like it was a good idea for us to split forces. So I went on to the Casino alone, while he ran around the block and came in a window or something, and hit me over the head with a blackjack.” He went on to tell in detail about the sounds, the footsteps, the lights that went out, and the blow.
“I woke up on the floor of the Casino office,” Jake went on, “feeling as if the top of my skull had been shoved halfway down my spine, with this damn box of his gone—and not a soul in the place. So I lay there dying on the floor until I realized that he’d blackjacked me, the dirty louse, and then I pulled myself up on my two hind legs and came back here to murder him, the double-crossing son of a blue-faced ape.” He caught his breath, caught Helene’s eye, and added, “I’m sorry, my darling. But this so-and-so tried to blackjack me.”
“I did nosshing”—Pen Reddick waggled a loosened tooth with his thumb and forefinger, and finally got his
speaking apparatus organized—“nothing of the sort. I left you at the corner and I came right straight back here, and I’ve been waiting for you ever since.”
“Prove it,” Jake said.
“All right, I will. When I came into the lobby, I went to the cigar stand and got a package of cigarettes. And while I was waiting for you people, I went back there a couple of times and kidded with the cigarette girl. She’ll remember. Call her up and ask her.”
Jake said, “My God, you might be telling the truth!”
“Call her up,” Pen Reddick said. “Prove it.”
“No,” Jake said. His voice was strained. “I’ll believe you.” The breath seemed to explode in his throat. “I’m sorry as hell. But you can understand why I figured things out that way. How’s your tooth?”
“Fine,” Pen Reddick said. “Nothing a good dentist can’t fix. People are always knocking that same tooth out, and I’m always having to have it put back.” He smiled bloodily and impartially at everyone present.
“In time,” Malone said, “you’ll learn to duck.”
“And in time,” Jake said, “I’ll learn to keep my temper. Only I probably won’t live that long. But you can guess how I felt, waking up there on the floor of the Casino office, with skyrockets shooting off inside my skull, and that damned box gone—” He paused suddenly.
“Oh my God!” Pen Reddick said. “The box!” What little color had come into his cheeks faded out again. He stared at Jake for a moment, then groaned, and buried his face in his hands. Jake started toward him, and then stopped himself.
“No, Jake,” Helene said quickly. “You don’t think he—”
“I don’t,” Jake said tersely. His face was grey. “But—if he didn’t sneak into the Casino office and knock me out and run off with that box—who did?”
Chapter Sixteen
“As a matter of fact,” Malone said, looking into the dregs of a cup of coffee, “Pen Reddick hasn’t enough alibi to tuck into his lost front tooth.”
“But the cigarette girl,” Helene objected.
“The cigarette girl is probably telling the truth,” Malone told her. “But if he was really trying to pull a fast one, he could have come here, bought a package of cigarettes, beat it to the Casino in time to knock out Jake, grabbed this damn box and hidden it somewhere, and gotten back in time to do a little high-powered chatting with the girl.” He put the coffee cup back on the table and waved for a refill. “After all, he was pretty anxious to get that box, and even more anxious to keep its contents secret.”
“He could have done it,” Jake said slowly, “and God knows he did want that box.” He paused and snapped out his cigarette against the edge of the restaurant table. “Oh, the hell with you two. You’re just talking, trying to make me stop feeling like a fool.”
The three were sitting in a little restaurant around the corner from the hotel. Pen Reddick had been quieted down and coaxed into going to visit his dentist. Jake had combed and dusted himself, Malone had retied his necktie and wiped a spot off his vest, and Helene had changed into an early spring suit of pale-violet wool, lavish with caramel-colored fur.
Now she pulled her wide-brimmed violet felt hat a little nearer to her left eyebrow, and said, “I’m not so much concerned with your feeling like a fool as I am with your acting like one. And I’m talking to both of you.”
Malone said, “What the hell?” and Jake said, “Now look here, darling—”
She ignored both of them. “This isn’t any time to sit around looking like the principal attraction at a post mortem,” she went on. “I’m not half so interested in what might have or even what did happen, as I am in what’s going to happen.”
“Buy her a crystal ball,” Malone growled into his coffee cup, “and a book on astrology, and maybe she’ll shut up and leave us in peace.”
“Damn you, Malone,” Helene said amiably. “That box. If Pen Reddick didn’t conk Jake on the head and walk off with the box, someone else did. But that isn’t the point either. It’s—We’d jolly well better get it back—and fast.”
As the two men stared at her, she continued, “Because there might very well be something in that box that would lead us to whoever murdered the midget, and get us out of what might be a nasty mess. And don’t say we aren’t in a nasty mess, because we are. Any hour now, von Flanagan may stumble on the fact that we tried to move the midget’s body last night to conceal the fact that he’d been murdered in the Casino.”
“Helene,” Jake said desperately, “if we all just sit tight and say nothing—”
“Von Flanagan already knows the midget wasn’t murdered after four o’clock, and suspects he wasn’t murdered there in the hotel. Whoever did move his body and parked the empty fiddle case outside our door might decide to get conversational with the cops. And what with tonight’s show at the Casino and one thing and another, Jake has enough on his mind without having to worry about how to saw through those steel bars of the Cook County jail.” She lit a cigarette and stared at them through its smoke.
“Besides,” she finished, “Malone has a client: Allswell McJackson.”
“Helene’s right,” Jake said hoarsely, after a long silence. “That’s the trouble with women, they’re always right. And that box—”
“Someone wanted it badly enough to follow you to the Casino and blackjack you,” Helene said, “and might have wanted it badly enough to murder the midget.”
Jake opened his mouth, shut it again, finally said, “Pen Reddick must have known something about what was in that box. He might have known enough about it to tell us who else wanted it.”
“If he felt like telling us anything right now,” Helene reminded him. “Besides, he’s in a dentist chair at this moment and couldn’t talk if he wanted to.” She added, “It’s a good thing that was a peg tooth and not a real one, or on top of everything else, he’d probably be starting a lawsuit.”
“Good old reliable Jake,” Malone said bitterly. “Whenever we’re already in a jam, you can always count on him to lose his temper and sock somebody.”
“I don’t lose my temper very often,” Jake said. The gleam in his eyes warned that he might lose it again, any minute now.
“No,” Helene agreed. “But you do it at the damnedest times.”
“And,” Malone added, “to the damnedest people. When you pick out somebody to sock—”
Jake drew a quick breath. “For the love of Mike. I don’t—”
A dreamy look came into Helene’s eyes. “Remember Hyme Mendel?”* she said meditatively. “And John St. John?† And Leonard Marchmont‡ and that Blake County cop§ and Harry Foote, the deputy sheriff in Jackson, Wisconsin?”||
“Hells bells!” Jake exploded. “I had plenty of provocation, and I had plenty of it this time. You’d have done the same thing, in my place.”
“No doubt,” Malone said gently, remembering the swing he’d taken at the substitute bartender in Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar a few nights ago, over some unflattering remark about Robert Emmet. “But as Helene pointed out, this is no time for post mortems. Where do we stand, and what are we going to do now?” He turned to her. “We know what happened to Jake in the past couple of hours. But what about you? How is Annette Ginnis? And what did you learn?”
Helene sighed, flung off the wide-brimmed violet hat, and ran two pale, slender hands over her ash-blond hair.
“Under twenty-five,” she said, “suffers from hangovers, has trouble sleeping well, needs to have a tooth pulled, was in New York about five months ago, South Bend Indiana about two months ago, and Crown Point a few weeks ago. She has a mother in Keokuk who suffers from stomach trouble and who is interested in her daughter’s welfare, and she uses one toothbrush at night and one in the morning. And she has a very tender skin, and really ought to wear glasses.”
“She certainly must have gotten confidential with you,” Malone said.
Helene shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, I knew all that before she’d told me one single thing.”<
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Jake waited until his jaw had stopped dropping before he said to Malone, “Maybe she doesn’t need that crystal ball and the book on astrology.”
“Nonsense,” Helene said. “It was all in her bathroom cabinet.” She put out her cigarette, lighted a fresh one, and smiled at the two men. “Any girl can tell you that you can find out more about a person, or even a whole family, by peeking into the bathroom medicine cabinet than you can by asking questions for twenty-four hours at a stretch. In this case I found out enough to let me make a couple of rough guesses, and the rest was pure pie.”
“That’s all very fine,” Malone began, “but—” A look from Jake silenced him.
“She washes her own hair,” Helene said. “There was a half-used bottle of shampoo in the cabinet. But no hair rinse, and after the age of twenty-four or twenty-five, that kind of hair needs a rinse. There were two bottles of hangover cures, and boxes of three different kinds of sleeping pills. One of them was a doctor’s prescription, made up in New York in November last year, and another was made up in South Bend last February. There was a box of aspirin bought in a Crown Point drugstore, about half empty—just about a normal two weeks’ supply. There was a box of pills made up in Keokuk for Mrs. Myrtle Ginnis labeled, ‘Take one or two for distress after meals’ and written on it in a different handwriting was, ‘Try these, they’ve done wonders for me’, signed ‘Ma’. There were two toothbrushes, exactly alike, hanging beside each other, one damp and the other dry. And there were two bottles of skin lotion, and a whole collection of remedies for eyestrain.” She knocked the ashes off her cigarette and said, “Anything else you gentlemen would like to know?”
Malone blew a smoke ring, closed one eye, and stared through it. “A rather young girl,” he said slowly and reflectively, “from an Iowa town. A fragile girl, nearsighted, and with a baby-like skin. Carefully brought up, and taught to brush her teeth properly. And with enough hell breaking loose in her life that she needs sleeping pills, and gets hangovers. But,” he fixed a stern eye on Helene, “what was the hell that broke loose?”
