by Craig Rice
He considered calling von Flanagan back. He considered not calling von Flanagan back. He put one hand on the telephone, but left it there. One good way of staying out of trouble was not calling anyone back, especially von Flanagan. And then again—
Jake’s arrival made the happier decision for him. If there was trouble, he’d rather hear about it after lunch.
The tall red-haired ex-newspaperman, ex-press agent, ex-night club owner and possibly ex-television producer if something didn’t turn up, looked tired and worried. He sank into a chair and managed what was a passing imitation of a smile.
Maggie brightened visibly. “Mr. Justus!” she exclaimed happily. “I want you to meet my brother Luke.”
Jake blinked and looked a little vaguely around the room.
“He’s not here,” Maggie said hastily. “But I want you to meet him. He’s inventing a camera with a lot of eyes.”
“Later,” Malone said in a firm voice. “We’ll get to your brother Luke later. Right now, we both want to think.”
She sniffed and flounced out, closing the door hard.
Jake sighed deeply. “Mr. Jake Justus is a television producer,” he said nastily. “Mr. Jake Justus is a big shot. Everybody wants to meet Mr. Justus. Everybody has a relative who wants to meet Mr. Justus. Mr. Justus has a lovely office in the Wrigley Building with his name on the door. In gold letters yet. Mr. Justus has a telephone answering service that says Mr. Justus will call you back, only Mr. Justus never does. And pretty soon Mr. Justus won’t have the lovely office with his name on the door—”
“Stop it,” Malone said. He walked over to the filing cabinet and came back with the bottle from the Confidential drawer and two glasses. As Jake gratefully downed his drink, he added, “You know yourself it’s just a matter of time.”
“Time,” Jake said in a bitter voice, “is the thing I don’t have the money to pay for.”
Malone cleared his throat. “How about a little loan to tide you over—” He reached for his wallet.
Jake looked suspiciously at Malone, and even more suspiciously at the gin.
“I am not,” Malone said indignantly. “Nor out of my mind.” He took out the hundred-dollar bills. “I know I’ll get it back. Just a matter of time. If this will tide you over—”
“Malone,” Jake said, fingering the bills. “You didn’t win this much at poker.”
“I could have,” Malone said. “And have, too, in my time. But as it happens, a client paid a big bill.” Jake still looked a little dubious, and he added quickly, “A long overdue bill. Don’t think you ever knew about the case.”
“Well—” Jake said. He still looked dubious.
“Just consider it a little investment,” Malone told him, “in the Justus Television Production Company. Probably turn out to be the best one I ever made.”
He shoved the bills farther across the table, Jake picked them up gingerly as though he were afraid they might vanish, and put them away.
“And absolutely no need to tell Helene about this,” Malone added.
“Definitely no need,” Jake said. He poured himself another drink, said, “Thanks, Malone,” and lit a cigarette. “Now about this morning—?”
Malone was silent for a moment. Sooner or later Jake was going to have to be told about the composite. But not just yet. And as far as what he preferred to call the Other Thing—that he shoved firmly into the back of his mind. Right now he’d rather pretend it didn’t exist at all.
“I met Mrs. Swackhammer,” he began slowly. “A very interesting woman—”
“Swackhammer,” Jake said, frowning. “Sounds familiar.”
“Funny. It does to me too,” Malone said. “But anyway. She’s the owner and the boss and the brains of Delora Deanne.”
He was still trying to think what to say next when Helene made her second appearance. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks were faintly pink, and there were tiny glistens of snow on the caramel-colored fur. She’s done a nice, quick job, Malone reflected admiringly, of running around the block after she’d seen Jake enter the building, to collect that faint glow and the snowflakes.
She kissed Jake enthusiastically and said, “Well! Am I in time to hear all about Delora Deanne?”
Malone repressed a slight shudder and said, “You are.”
She glanced at the bottle on the desk and said, “A fine idea, but let’s adjourn to Joe the Angel’s, where the glasses are cleaner.”
Instead of indignantly defending his housekeeping, Malone gave her a feeble smile and said, “I’ll meet you there in ten minutes. Got a very important telephone call to make first.”
At the door Helene paused and said, “Malone, did you know that Maggie’s brother—”
“I do,” Malone said. “He’s inventing eyes like a camera. Or something. Later.” He waved them toward the door.
The question that had suddenly come into his mind might not mean a thing, and then again, it might. Anyway, it wasn’t going to do any harm to find out. He picked up the telephone and dialed the number of Rico di Angelo’s strictly high-class undertaking parlor on North Avenue.
He was still wondering just how to phrase the question when Rico came to the phone. “Listen,” he said at last, after spending as much time as he could on idle pleasantries, “I want to know something about your business. Can you cut off a person’s hands? A live person, that is. And then embalm them?”
“I say no,” Rico said, a little coldly.
“You mean it can’t be done?”
“I mean I don’t cut off anybody’s hands, Malone.”
“You don’t understand,” Malone said desperately. “It’s a hypothetical question. I mean, is it possible for something like that to be done?” He heard only silence, and drew a long slow breath. “Look, Rico. Suppose somebody has somebody’s hands. Never mind what’s happened to the rest of the somebody. Could this somebody take this somebody’s hands and take them to somebody—not you—and have them—?”
“Malone,” Rico interrupted. His voice was very gentle and almost pleading. “I am your good friend. My cousin Joe the Angel, he is your best friend. You go home. Drink coffee. Lie down. You feel better. Malone, go home.” He hung up.
The little lawyer sighed, replaced the receiver and struggled into his overcoat. He’d make another try at getting the information as soon as he felt a little stronger.
He was halfway to the door when the telephone rang. For a minute he hesitated, finally gave in and answered it. Rico was calling back. But this time his voice was indignant, almost angry.
“Malone,” Rico said. “I just think it all over fast. I am your good friend, yes. My cousin Joe the Angel is your best friend, yes. But Malone, I will not do it. Not even for you. Whatever it is, I will—not—do—it.” And he hung up for the second time.
Chapter Four
Joe the Angel interrupted an animated conversation with Jake and Helene to regard Malone coldly. Far more coldly, the little lawyer thought, than a mere overdue bar bill called for.
“Malone,” Joe the Angel said. “My cousin Rico called. He told me you are either drunk or you are crazy.”
Malone said, “I never felt better in my life.”
“He told me you wanted him to cut off someone’s hands.”
Helene gasped. Jake turned an anxious face toward Malone.
“I told him nothing of the sort,” Malone said indignantly. “I asked him a purely hypothetical question, that’s all. Whether something was or wasn’t possible.”
“Was it?” Helene asked, and Jake asked, “What was it?” and Joe the Angel came in with, “Why?”
“I was trying to fill in a word in a crossword puzzle,” Malone snapped crossly. “And don’t bother me. I’ve got things on my mind.”
He became uncomfortably aware that someone was regarding him coldly and decidedly unfavorably in the bar mirror, and recognized Gus Madrid. Malone nodded and turned away uncomfortably. The big, glowering gunman wasn’t anyone he wanted to be on unfavorable t
erms with.
Joe the Angel poured three ryes and three beer chasers. Helene tactfully changed the subject to next week’s fight card, and this inevitably led to the subject of television. A gleam came into Joe the Angel’s eye.
“The television business!” Joe said enthusiastically, lifting a glass to Jake. “You know, I got a little niece. Just seventeen and beautiful like—this! And she sings—” He warbled a few notes.
A resounding and ill-tempered chirp came from somewhere on the other side of the room.
Malone jumped, turned around, and said hoarsely, “What’s that?”
A dejected small white bird sat alone in a wire cage on a table, looking at them with a gloomy stare.
“My parakeet,” Joe the Angel said. “My good friend, the city hall janitor, he gave it to me.”
“Parakeets are green,” Helene objected.
“Not this one,” Joe the Angel said proudly. “An albino. Very rare.”
Jake said, “Parakeets talk.”
“This one doesn’t,” Helene said. “That makes him even rarer.”
Malone strolled across the room, poked an experimental finger into the cage and said, “Tweet!”
The parakeet gave him one silent, scornful look, and turned his back. Malone reported, “Not friendly,” and went back to the bar.
Joe the Angel glared at him, and said to Jake, “My beautiful niece, her name—”
The booth telephone rang. The parakeet jumped on his top perch and chirruped, “Ring! Ring, ring, ring!” as a wears’ Examiner reporter got up to answer the phone.
“See,” Joe the Angel said triumphantly. “Already he learns one word. Any time, he will talk.”
“If he repeats the language he probably hears around here,” Helene commented, “he’ll be a social outcast for life among parakeets.”
Joe the Angel pretended he hadn’t heard and went on, “Jake, my niece, she dances like she sings.”
“I want to meet her,” Jake said, trying to sound enthusiastic about it. “But later. Not this week. Later.”
Joe the Angel beamed and said, “I will telephone and remind you.”
And, Malone reflected gloomily, the telephone answering service will announce that Mr. Justus will call back.
It was Helene who suggested that they adjourn to a booth in the back room. Malone barely had time to get a new cigar lighted before she demanded, “Now. All about Delora Deanne.”
“Well,” Malone said, stalling desperately, “I met a very interesting person. Hazel Swackhammer.”
This time it was Helene who frowned and said, “I think I’ve heard that name before somewhere.”
“It’s a name you’d remember if you ever had heard it before,” Malone said.
He managed to keep the conversation on memorable names for several minutes, covering, along the way, Mr. Addison Sims of Seattle, and the science of memory association in general.
“But Delora Deanne,” Jake said.
“There were two interesting people there too,” Malone said, “Dennis Dennis. He writes the advertising. And Otis Furlong. He takes the pictures.”
“Also easy names to remember,” Helene said coldly, “and we’ve both met Otis Furlong. Now about—”
Malone decided it was time to order another drink, and conversation lagged until Joe the Angel had come and gone away again.
“Myrdell Harris,” Malone mused. “Interesting girl. Hazel Swackhammer’s executive assistant. And the receptionist, Tamia Tabet. Now there’s an interesting girl for you.”
Jake glared at him. “I’ve no doubt they’re all interesting people, and they all have names that are easy to remember. And I have no doubt the receptionist’s telephone number is easy to remember. But—”
“It is,” Malone said. “In fact, she—”
“Leave your love life out of this,” Jake said.
“Well, you see,” the little lawyer said miserably, “it isn’t just Delora Deanne. It’s, well—” He paused and relit his cigar, very slowly. “I met four of them this morning. The other one was—she wasn’t there.”
Jake and Helene stared at him for a very long moment of silence. Finally Helene said accusingly, “Malone, you’re—”
“I am not drunk,” Malone said in an unhappy voice. “I just wish that I were.”
“And I just wish you’d explain,” Jake said.
Malone drew a long breath and dived in. He told them about the Delora Deannes he had met and described them: Gertrude Bragg, the face, Louella Frick, the feet, Eula Stolz, the torso and legs, and Rita Jardee, the voice. He mentioned that Eva Lou Strauss had been absent from the conference and skimmed over that lightly.
“I don’t believe it,” Helene said at last.
“I wish I didn’t believe it either,” Malone told her. “But I saw it myself.” He went on about the genius of Otis Furlong who had created the composite, but nobody was paying attention. Then everyone was silent, brooding over another rye.
At last Jake sighed, and said, “Oh, well. Maybe I can think of a new twist for a quiz program.”
Helene snorted in frankly unladylike derision. Then her eyes looked at Malone in a brief question. Malone gave her a faint nod of assent. She smiled her thanks.
“You’ll think of something,” she told Jake consolingly.
“Maybe a new angle on a Western,” Jake muttered bitterly.
Malone said nothing, plunged in gloom.
Finally Helene wondered something vague about Maggie’s brother’s invention.
Jake said, “Let’s not make life any more complicated than it is right now. Right as things stand. I’m practically obligated to sign up Joe the Angel’s niece. Sign sight unseen.”
“If she’s really beautiful,” Malone said, “and if she really sings like—that, and if she really dances like—so,” he gestured gracefully, just barely missing his beer, “at least she’d be a novelty.”
“But not Delora Deanne.” Jake sighed.
There was another long and even more dismal silence.
“I can always go back to being a press agent,” Jake said at last.
Suddenly Helene said, “Otis Furlong!”
“What about Otis Furlong?” Jake asked, not caring much.
“The genius that made the composite Delora Deanne photographs. Why couldn’t the same thing be done on television?”
The two men stared at her. Finally Jake said, “It’s impossible,” and Malone said, “Now you’re drunk.”
She ignored Malone and told Jake, “How do you know it’s impossible when you haven’t tried it? Think of the Wright brothers.”
“Think of Benjamin Franklin,” Malone said, “and Robert Fulton, and Alexander Graham Bell.”
Jake was staring intently and thoughtfully at nothing at all. “It’s just barely possible,” he said, very slowly. “Just barely. I haven’t any idea how it could be done, but then, I haven’t any reason why it couldn’t be done, either.”
That called for one more drink and they drank it enthusiastically to Otis Furlong, to Joe the Angel’s niece, to Maggie’s brother Luke, to Delora Deanne, and for no reason anyone could think of, to the Smith Brothers.
“A composite,” Jake said. “The voice—dubbing it in is a cinch, of course. But the other girls—”
Malone described them all over again, going into more details.
Helene proposed that they visit Otis Furlong immediately after lunch.
Suddenly Jake paused in what he was saying, and looked searchingly at Malone.
“The girl that was missing this morning—?”
“Eva Lou Strauss,” Malone said, not daring to look up. “She’s the hands.”
Jake said nothing. After one of the longest minutes he’d ever lived through, Malone finally met his eyes.
He knew perfectly well what the red-haired man was thinking about. Joe the Angel’s quote from his cousin Rico. And Eva Lou Strauss on the missing list. Jake had figured it all out for himself.
Chapter Five
Otis Furlong’s studio was on the same pleasant street as Delora Deanne, just off Michigan Boulevard. Soft snow was falling, the air smelled fresh and clean. The lake that showed beyond the Drive was gray and placid now. A delightful world to look at, Malone reflected, but right now a damned difficult one to live in.
A chaste metal sign beside the door of a small but flawless three-story house read Furlong and Furlong. Jake pushed the bell; a moment later the tall, handsome photographer greeted them warmly. He gestured toward the sign.
“An idea of my own,” he explained. “If anyone bothers me about anything I don’t want to be bothered about, I just say that the other Mr. Furlong is the one to see about that.” He added, “Studio’s upstairs.”
Jake decided that changing the name on his office door to Justus and Justus would be an excellent idea, and made a mental note of it.
There was a short flight of stairs with a polished mahogany banister and, at their top, an enormous room, occupying a good two-thirds of the whole floor. At one end was another staircase, this one with intricately patterned bright tile steps, leading to a balcony where two carved wood doors indicated rooms beyond.
“Bedroom and bath upstairs,” Otis Furlong said. “Kitchen and darkrooms downstairs underneath. Designed it myself, remodeled it myself. What are you drinking?”
They said that rye would be fine and yes, beer on the side even finer. Malone made himself comfortable and glanced around the big room.
It managed to be large and spacious, and still cozy, carelessly cluttered and yet with an orderly comfort, highly utilitarian, with its lights, cameras and other equipment of the photographers trade, and at the same time decorative.
Malone sighed and began to relax a little, momentarily putting all the Delora Deannes and Jake Justus Television Production Company out of mind. The ice in his stomach had gradually been warmed back into the damp concrete, and even that was beginning to disappear under the beneficent influence of the rye.
There was one item in the room that bothered him, however. He found himself continuing to stare at it, wondering if he ought to mention it or just ignore it completely. That was an enormous rose-colored porcelain bathtub in what was approximately the center of the vast room, and even to Malone’s unpracticed eye as far as photographic studios were concerned, it didn’t quite seem to belong there.
