Lucky Stiff by Craig Rice (best large ebook reader txt) 📕

“I never thought of that,” Malone said, looking at her admiringly. “It never occurred to me that you can tell me who they are.”

“Not they,” Anna Marie said. “She. Aunt Bess. She’s all my family, now that Uncle Will is gone.”

Jack St. Clair, her father, had been a tent-show actor. Her mother had run away with him from Grove Junction, Wisconsin. After Anna Marie had been born, St. Clair disappeared. In time her mother had married again, a side-show barker who didn’t want to be bothered with a baby, and Anna Marie had gone to live with Aunt Bess and Uncle Will. She’d been sixteen when her mother died, leaving her a collection of cheap jewelry and a little under a hundred dollars in cash.

“We were definitely wrong side of the tracks,” Anna Marie said. “Uncle Will ran a livery stable, and prohibition came in about the time livery stables went out, so he took up bootlegging. Aunt Bess ran the business end of it. Then prohibition went out, and they opened up a tavern. It never made a lot of money, but it was a living. They were wonderful, both of them.” There was a little catch in her throat. “You can’t even guess how good they were to me.”

“I can,” Malone said, unwrapping a cigar. “Just the same, you couldn’t have been very popular with the mammas and pappas of Grove Junction.”

“Definitely not.” She smiled. “But I had plenty of dates.”

“I can imagine that, too,” Malone said.

“They sent me away to school, my last year in high school. I stuck it out for a term, and then I ran away and got a job singing with a dinky little dance band. Eventually I landed in Chicago at a cheap night spot, and you can pick it up from there if you want to look over the newspaper accounts of my trial.”

“I know them by heart,” Malone said. He lit the cigar “Shall I find Aunt Bess and take Mrs. Childers’ dough?”

“Name five good reasons why not.”

The little lawyer said nothing. He gazed at the ceiling, his short legs propped comfortably on a chair, and puffed out a great gray-blue cloud of cigar smoke.

“All right,” Anna Marie said, “name one.”

“I’ll name one,” Malone said almost dreamily. “I’ll probably get in a lot of trouble, and I’m in enough trouble as it is. But on the other hand”—he gazed thoughtfully at the end of the cigar—“I might as well, and trouble be damned. O.K., I’ll have Maggie telephone her in the morning and say that I’ve changed my mind about the retainer. Then I’ll go through the motions of locating your Aunt Bess, and send Mrs. Childers a suitable bill.”

One thousand dollars, and his conscience clear about taking it! His creditors would never know how much they owed to Anna Marie’s fine, logical mind.

He poured two glasses of brandy and lit another cigarette for Anna Marie. “I knew Big Joe Childers,” he said in a reminiscent tone. “A tall, heavy-set, stoop-shouldered guy. Looked ill. A good guy. I remember him. Worked in a shoe store, and went to the same night law school I did. He was older than I was. Fact is, he quit that school about eight years before I went into it, and started package-running for a second string bootlegger.”

Anna Marie said furiously, “He had to. You don’t understand—”

“Shut up,” Malone said pleasantly. “I’m doing the remembering this time. He quit that school and took that job because he had a widowed mother with—with what was it, Anna Marie?”

“Dropsy,” Anna Marie said. Her lips were pale. She held the brandy glass tight.

“This is a success story,” Malone went on in that same dreamy tone. “Big Joe fought it out a few times with the cops, and with rival gangs. But, like the Rover boys, he always won out. So let’s skip ahead a few years. Quite a few years. We find Big Joe a rich man, with a rich and socially ambitious wife, and a beautiful girl friend.”

Anna Marie said sharply, “That’s enough!”

“I told you to shut up,” Malone said. “Do you want me to bribe you, or threaten you? Anyway. Big Joe wouldn’t have”—he paused, decided not to go into details of the kind of protection frame-up that had been worked on Jake. “Well—he wouldn’t. Anna Marie, who would have wanted to arrange Big Joe Childers’ murder—and your murder?”

“His murder? Plenty of people, Malone. People who wanted him to go into things he didn’t want to go into. Look, Malone. Big Joe was a racketeer, but he was honest. Understand? People who owed him money. People who were afraid of him. Any number of—” Suddenly she leaned forward, elbows on her knees, her eyes very bright. “Malone, for weeks I sat there in that grimy cell and asked myself, who would have wanted to murder Big Joe. And I made up a list of people as long as a pair of arms. But somehow I couldn’t see any of them planning it. I was stuck, and I’m still stuck. I wish to heaven I could lay my hands on—oh bust it, is there any more of that brandy?”

“Plenty,” Malone said. He poured two more drinks and retrieved his cigar from under the end table. “You haven’t answered, who would have wanted to arrange your murder?”

She let the glass sit on the table and stared at him. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know. Hell, everybody makes enemies, I suppose, but an elaborate frame-up like that— Her breath caught in her throat.

“Drink that drink,” Malone said harshly, “and get set to answer a bunch of questions. Tough ones.”

She drank it obediently, tried to smile at him, and said, “Go ahead, you’re the doctor.”

“I’m the lawyer,” Malone said, finishing his own drink. “There’s a difference.” He relit his cigar. “Pretend you’re on the witness stand, babe, and don’t answer anything you don’t have to.”

He rose and waved the cigar at her.

“Did you ever know Ike Malloy?”

“I don’t think so. I may have met him.”

Malone noticed how her back stiffened as she began answering questions. She’d been through a lot of this at the trial. He hoped the misery in his heart didn’t show through his eyes.

“What was Bill McKeown to you?”

“Nothing. He said he was in love with me. But I never—”

“You never what?”

“I never did. I couldn’t. Because—” She drew a long, almost gasping breath. “Malone, what is this?”

“A brief cross-examination,” Malone said. “Did you ever know a man named Ambersley?”

She frowned, looked blank in thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Never heard of him.”

“Sure?”

“Malone, do you think I’d lie to you?”

“Could be,” Malone said laconically. “Girls do tell lies. That’s why lawyers study up on cross-examining.” Suddenly he rose and began pacing up and down the little room. “This isn’t a rehearsal for a vaudeville act, you know. I may seem to be asking silly questions, but you’re suppose to give back serious answers. Why did you lie to me about Ike Malloy?”

She stared at him, her lovely eyes wide, her lips turning pale.

“I didn’t lie to you, Malone. I didn’t know Ike Malloy. I said—I may have met him.”

“Ike Malloy was a bouncer at the old Haywire Club when you were singing there,” Malone went on relentlessly. “You saw him a dozen—hell, a hundred—times. Didn’t you?”

“Yes, Malone.”

“Damn it,” Malone said, keeping his eyes away from her tortured face. “Don’t look at me in that tone of voice. You’re still on the witness stand. Now answer yes or no, and no nonsense about it. Would you have recognized Ike Malloy?”

“Yes.” It was a whisper.

“Talk louder,” Malone said, “the jury can’t hear you. Why didn’t you recognize him when he came in and shot Big Joe Childers?”

“I—” Her mouth opened with a gasp, then shut like a trap.

“He wasn’t wearing a mask,” Malone said harshly, “and your eyesight is good.”

She gave a little moan and covered her face with her hands.

“Don’t mind me,” Malone said. “I’m just your lawyer. Remember, this hurts me worse than it does you.” His tone was light, almost gay. “One reason was that it wouldn’t have done you any good. Is that right?”

She nodded. Then she said, “I could have said I saw Ike Malloy come in and shoot him, or I saw Joe Jackson McGillicuddy come in and shoot him—and it wouldn’t have made any difference. Because nobody would have believed me. And whoever I named would have had an alibi. Those things are arranged—very carefully.”

“Right,” Malone said. He puffed at his cigar and stood staring at her. “But there was one other reason why you didn’t name names. You were assured you were going to be all right. And you knew, or thought you knew, who’d hired Ike Malloy.”

He took one quick glance at her dead-white face and added hastily, “Never mind, you don’t have to answer any more questions. For the love of little potatoes, don’t faint now. Because we’ve got to go out and haunt a house, remember? And,” he said with unexpected cheerfulness in his voice, “you don’t know it yet, but you’re going to haunt a couple of my dearest friends.”