My Kingdom for a Hearse

by Craig Rice

  There was plenty more to look at in the room. A life-size portrait in oils of Delora Deanne on one wall, a collection of Oriental gods and their girlfriends on a set of teakwood shelves, and on another wall a group of Japanese prints that indicated that their owner possessed not only artistic sensitivity and a fine eye for details, but a very broad mind as well. There was all that and more. And, the rose-colored bathtub. Even the rye didn’t make it go away.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it,” Otis Furlong said, following Malone’s gaze. “Absolutely beautiful!” He sat down on a fat leather hassock, his elbows on his knees, his glass in one hand and his pipe in the other. “Borrowed it from that place with all the lovely plumbing fixtures down in the Tribune Building. But brother, if you think that’s beautiful, just come and take a look at the water in it!” He gestured with his pipe.

  Malone walked over and looked, fascinated. The water was indeed beautiful, of a delicate green, translucent hue, spangled with little white sparkles and feathers of rippled foam.

  “Feel it,” Otis Furlong said.

  Malone felt, with one hesitant finger. It was cool, smooth, and yet springily solid to his touch.

  “Lime gelatin,” the photographer said. “A discovery of my own.”

  “Lovely!” Helene breathed.

  “Not only that.” Jake said almost reverently, “hut it’s probably the only body of water Florence Chadwick hasn’t swum across.”

  “It’s supposed to be Delora Deanne bath oil, or some such damn thing,” Otis Furlong told them. “But slide Eula Stolz’s torso into that, and—”

  Malone knew what he was going to add. The rest of Delora Deanne. But the final photograph, he reflected with an uncomfortable pang, was going to be minus a pair of hands. And the artist didn’t know that yet. Or—did he? Malone returned to his comfortable chair, reached for a fresh cigar, and picked up his glass.

  The tall photographer looked uncomfortable, trying to decide how to talk his way out of what he’d unfortunately said. But it was Jake who spoke first.

  “That’s all right,” Jake said. “About the composite. In fact, that’s one reason we dropped by. Don’t worry, we’re the last people in the world who want it to leak out. But we do know everything about everything.”

  The little lawyer looked away hastily.

  “Everything about the composite, I mean,” Jake went on, and Malone breathed again.

  “It’s a work of genius!” Helene said, in a tone of voice that had melted stronger men than Otis Furlong would ever be, including half the police force of Chicago.

  He beamed at her. “A very simple process,” he told her. “Lots of photographers do it. But I do have a method of my own, one that I worked out myself, of course.”

  Jake took a long breath and asked, “Could such a process be applied to television?”

  Nobody spoke for a while. Everybody looked hopefully at the photographer.

  “Theoretically, yes,” Otis Furlong said at last, a dreamy look in his eyes.

  “Naturally,” Jake said quickly, “if such a process could be developed for television, you’d get the full credit for it.”

  The dreamy look intensified. “I see no reason why it couldn’t,” he said. “That is, theoretically. I’ll have to do some thinking about it. Some real thinking about it.” He paused. “I’ll do that. I’ll do some real, real thinking about it. Then I’ll make some notes about it. And then we’ll talk about it.” He smiled at Jake.

  Jake said that was fine, and yes, he would have another drink. Helene said that was wonderful, that Mr. Furlong was really a real, real genius, and yes, thanks, she would too. Malone held out his glass.

  When the photographer was settled on his hassock again, Malone said, “Tell me all about these girls.”

  “The girls?” Furlong shrugged. “They’re all right. Bunch of pretty good kids, but sort of dumb. Gertie’s the dumbest of the lot. She’s damn near classic. Steady, though; never blows up. Eula’s a pest. Always yipping and yapping about something, she’s too warm, she’s too cold, she wants this, she wants that. Louella has a nasty temper and you never know when she’ll get the old claws out. And Eva Lou is about as lazy as they make ’em, but basically she’s just a good-natured, generous, lusty slob. I wonder where she was this morning.”

  So do I, Malone thought, so do I. He said, keeping his voice very steady, “She certainly has wonderful, beautiful hands.”

  “You said it, brother!” The photographer rose and went to a carved wood cabinet that stood against the wall. “Just made a very, very dream shot of ’em yesterday.” He took out a large colored photograph and held it out to Malone.

  This time the famous hands held a delicate crystal bowl, every exquisite finger perfectly posed, one wearing the huge opal ring that had become almost a trademark. Its colored lights seemed to be reflected, again and again, in the swirling mists and half-hinted flowers that formed the background.

  “Funny thing about that opal,” Otis Furlong said, indicating it with his pipe. “Hazel didn’t like it at first. But Eva Lou couldn’t get it off without having it sawed off She wouldn’t do that. So for once, Hazel gave in, and now it’s famous. It certainly hasn’t brought Eva Lou the customary bad luck.” Malone repressed a shudder and said nothing.

  “Yeah, they’re pretty good kids,” Otis Furlong said again, replacing the picture and closing the cabinet. “Don’t get along too well together, but we keep ’em apart as much as we can.”

  “How about their personal lives?” Malone asked.

  Otis Furlong laughed. “Personal life? A Delora Deanne?” He laughed again. Then he turned to Jake. “Speaking of television, Dennis Dennis is anxious to meet you. Very anxious.”

  “I’m very anxious to meet him too,” Jake said politely. “As soon as I get things a little more organized.”

  “Good man, Dennis,” Furlong said. And to Malone, “And that was no joke about his alimony troubles. Wish he had a good lawyer.”

  “I wish so too,” Malone said heartily. “But out of my line. Crime is my specialty.”

  “May come to that yet, if she doesn’t stop bothering him,” Otis Furlong said, relighting his pipe. “She’s a pest. She’s the kind of woman who inspires articles on marriage counseling in the women’s magazines, with all the sympathy on her poor, abused side. Also, the kind that reads all the articles and takes all the advice. She worked so hard at making a go of their marriage that finally Dennis went.”

  He grinned at them, his good-looking face lighting up. “Me, I’m lucky in my ex-wife. Known her a long time. I was only her second. Rita’s a swell kid, bit of a lush now and then, but lovely on the air. Never asks me for a dime.”

  For no apparent reason he went on. “I met Charlie Swackhammer once. Not a bad guy. Dennis knows him a little better, he’s been around the outfit a lot longer than I have. Dennis says Hazel used to call him Cuddles. Swackhammer I mean, not Dennis.”

  “Is that really his name?” the lawyer asked.

  “Dennis Dennis? Naturally not. Used to be Stubblebottom, or Flipstitch, or Featherfloof, or something like that. He was suddenly taken with poetry writing some years ago, and ‘by Dennis Dennis’ looked good at the top of a piece of paper. But he ended up being Delora Deannes ghost writer just the same. Maybe Hazel picked him for his initials, I don’t know. But he’s a good guy. Not sour. Nothing can be sourer than a disappointed poet, but he’s all right.”

  Except, Malone reflected, that sometimes the sourness didn’t show on the surface, like a rosy apple that puckered your mouth when you bit into it unwarned.

  They finished their drinks and rose to go. Otis Furlong went downstairs with them to the front door.

  “Nice seeing you. And—-about that composite, on television.” His handsome brow puckered. “Very tricky. Very difficult. Maybe impossible. Probably very, very, terribly expensive. But I’ll really think about it, I really will. And watch your foot on that bottom step, it’s tricky.”

  They said thanks and go
od-by and started on their way. Malone promptly tripped on the bottom step, bruised his shin and swore.

  “Cheer up, Jake,” Helene said. “There’s always Maggie’s brother’s camera. With eyes.”

  “Or you can always think up a new twist for a quiz program,” Malone growled.

  Jake told them both to go to hell and hailed a passing taxi.

  Again Malone felt vaguely unhappy, without purpose, without destination. He supposed he might as well go back to his office, where Maggie had probably laid a folder of first-of-the-month correspondence on his desk. He wondered how soon Hazel Swackhammer’s check would get there and how big it would be.

  “I’m going to the office,” he told them in answer to their questioning look. “And alone. I’ve got to think.”

  “Malone,” Helene said accusingly, “you’re worried.”

  He denied it furiously.

  “If it’s money,” Jake said wickedly, “if a little loan will tide you over—”

  The little lawyer repressed an indignant impulse, and just in time.

  It ended with their dropping him at the office, with a promise to see him soon. And very soon.

  Maggie looked up from her desk as he walked into the anteroom. Her eyes were anxious. “Malone, there’s someone here to see you. He insisted on going right on in.” She seemed a little pale.

  Gus Madrid rose from a chair as Malone entered the office. He looked much more menacing than he had in Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar, and considerably taller. At the moment, Malone felt, something just over seven feet.

  “Well, Malone,” he said grimly, “let’s don’t horse around. I don’t waste any time, understand?” He thrust his huge hands in his pockets. “So tell me right off, where’s my girl? And what do you think you’re going to do to her?”

  Chapter Six

  “Now let’s both be perfectly reasonable about this,” Malone said very calmly, leaving the door to the anteroom wide open. He walked over and sat down behind his desk and began unwrapping a fresh cigar without any noticeable tremor. “I not only don’t know where your girl is, I don’t even know who she is.”

  The gunman said that Malone was a liar, with a number of adjectives.

  “You’re wrong,” the little lawyer said, “though if you were right, I’d be leading a very interesting life. No, you’ve come to the wrong missing girls’ bureau, pal.”

  Gus Madrid’s answer was another grim look.

  Malone sighed. “But I’m always glad to help. Just what girl are you so concerned about?”

  “I only got the one girl,” Gus Madrid growled. “She’s all at once gone. I want to know where she’s at. I don’t want nothing to happen to her. And if anything has happened to her, by any chance, already—” He broke off with a threatening scowl.

  “I sincerely hope nothing has happened to her, or will,” Malone said, and meant it from the bottom of his heart.

  Gus Madrid looked puzzled. “You’re mixed up with that face-powder outfit somehow,” he said. “And I heard what Joe the Angel was shooting off about a while back, about cutting off her hands.”

  “You misunderstood,” Malone told him smoothly. “Do I look like a man who’d go around doing things like that?”

  The gunman didn’t say no, but then, he didn’t say yes either. “Well, anyway, she’s gone, and nobody knows where she’s went to.” His eyes narrowed. “You know who I mean. Evie Lou.”

  “Oh, her,” Malone said. He waited for more information. Finally he gave up and said, “So she’s your girl, eh?”

  Gus Madrid answered with an angry look, as though Malone should have known it all along.

  “Well,” the lawyer said after another long wait, “how did you expect me to know she’s your girl when I’ve never so much as seen her?”

  “Evie Lou,” Madrid said. “Last name’s Strauss. Works in that face-powder factory. Some kind of modeling. Now she’s gone. You was there this morning and then you asked Rico di Angelo to cut off her hands.”

  “Believe me,” Malone said earnestly, “I went there on other business, and I didn’t ask Rico to do anything of the sort.” He considered calling Rico for confirmation and decided against it. Rico was sure to come up with the wrong answer. “Then why did you go there this morning?”

  Malone sighed. “About some newspaper stories. Some model has been getting her name in the papers and her boss doesn’t like it. But not Eva Lou.” He felt certain that was the truth. From the picture he’d seen of the missing model, she didn’t seem the type who could be taking a rich playboy for his extra cash-type spending money. And from his knowledge of Gus Madrid, he doubted that anybody, rich playboy or not, would go fooling around with his girl.

  “Y’know,” the big gunman said grudgingly, “y’got me almost, but not entirely, about half-convinced.” Just as Malone was beginning to breathe a little easier, he went on, “But just the same. Me, I’m sticking closer to you than a brother, Siamese type, until she shows up.” He seemed to be settling into the big leather chair as though he intended to stay there for the duration, however long that might be.

  Malone said, “That’s going to play hell with my love life, chum.” He added, in a hopeful voice, “What’s the matter, don’t you trust me?”

  “I trust ya, and I don’t trust ya,” Gus Madrid said. “And me sticking right with ya is how much I don’t.”

  Malone sighed, and hoped something would turn up. It did. There were faint sounds in the anteroom. Maggie called, “Mrs. Justus is here,” and Helene appeared in the doorway, a pale vision of fabulous furs and breathtaking loveliness.

  “A confidential client,” Malone explained to the gunman. “Do you mind?”

  “Not at all, friend, not at all.” Madrid lumbered to his feet and started for the door. “But I’ll be right out in the hall, remember.” The smile on his heavy face was a leer.

  For the second time that day Malone repressed an aggressive impulse just in time.

  Helene waited until the door was closed, and then said, “I just stopped by to ask how you made out with Jake this morning.”

  “Fine,” Malone said.

  She gave him a smile that he wouldn’t have sold for a Texas oil well. “It’s just a matter of time, Malone.”

  “Sure,” he said, “sure, sure, sure. Don’t worry about Jake. If this composite thing doesn’t work, something will.” He managed a weak smile and added superfluously, “Don’t worry about a thing.”

  “Just so he doesn’t ever know,” she said. “And I can’t thank you enough.”

  “Oh, yes you can,” Malone said. “Did you see that oversize orangutan that just went into the hall?”

  She nodded.

  “He’s still out in the hall. He’s keeping a very determined eye on me.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s his business. But do you think you could lure him away from here so that I can get down the freight elevator?”

  “Easiest thing in the world,” Helene said, with a blithe assurance she hadn’t learned at Miss Bridges’ Finishing School. “I’ll lure him so far away you could come down the front elevator with a brass band, if you wanted to. But what’s the occasion?”

  “I’ve got to go find a girl,” Malone told her.

  She lifted one delicately arched eyebrow. “So early in the afternoon? And you don’t want your oversize pal along?”

  “Damn it,” Malone said. “It’s his girl I’m looking for.”

  “Why can’t he find his own girls?”

  Malone looked at her helplessly and said, “You wouldn’t understand.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and said, “All right, John Alden, play it your own way. You did me a favor, now I’ll do you one.” She smiled again and was gone.

  He sat frowning at his ash tray, collecting his thoughts. Obviously, the place to start was Eva Lou’s apartment. He didn’t really expect to learn anything, or perhaps even to get in, but at least it would give him something to do until those formless thoughts began t
o jell.

  He’d heard from Hazel Swackhammer—Delora Deanne—at ten o’clock that morning, and now, only a few hours later, he was beginning to feel the discomforting presence of something very wrong indeed. He didn’t quite know what it was, but it was something far more annoying than mere scandals in newspaper columns, and even more horrible than a pair of embalmed hands in the morning mail.

  He cursed himself for a superstitious Irishman, and started for the door, just in time to meet Jake coming in. At exactly that moment the telephone rang, and both men stood still while Maggie answered it. Malone could hear von Flanagan’s deep rumble, and shook his head furiously.

  Maggie said smoothly, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what time he’ll be back,” and hung up. She turned to Malone and said, “Well, when will you be back?”

  “I don’t know,” the little lawyer growled. “I forgot to read my horoscope this morning.” He grabbed Jake’s arm and hurried him down the hall to the freight elevator.

  Jake finally caught his breath and said, “Creditor chasing you?”

  “Right now a creditor chasing me,” Malone said between his teeth, “would be like a bloodhound chasing a turnip!”

  Outside the dingy old building that had housed his office through more triumphs and troubles than he cared to remember, he peered warily up and down the street. The coast was clear.

  “Come on,” Malone said. “Washington Street is no place to hold a quiet conversation.” He led in the direction of the sanctuary of Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar. Whatever she did, Helene wouldn’t have lured Gus Madrid there.

  A quick peek through the window showed he was right. He settled down in one of the back booths with a comfortable sense of safety.

  “Now,” Jake said. “Give.”

  “Believe me,” Malone said. “One drink and I can explain everything.”