Lucky Stiff by Craig Rice (best large ebook reader txt) đź“•
This was their wedding anniversary. He couldn't even remember which one. It didn't really matter. All that mattered was the waking up every morning and seeing her long, silky hair spread out on the pillow, and her face, childlike in sleep, nestled in her arm. Coffee in the sunroom in the morning, Helene in her violet chiffon negligee, or her fluffy white robe, or her bandanna sunsuit, or, on special occasions, the blue satin house pajamas she'd been wearing the first time they met.
"Helene," he said, "every time I look at you I feel as if someone had just given my heart a hot-foot."
Her eyes warmed. "Darling," she whispered, "I didn't know you were a poet!" This time her hand reached out for his, and it wasn't icy cold.
Jake Justus, ex-reporter, ex-press agent, and, as he occasionally reminded himself, definitely ex-amateur detective, sighed again. Happily, this time. That unpleasant knot of anxiety in h
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It wouldn’t have interested Big Joe. Good, respectable political graft, bookie joints, gambling houses, and what the reform newspapers liked to refer to as Dens of Vice, had been his specialty. Big Joe had always been an honest man, Malone reflected, with a high degree of social responsibility.
Besides, Big Joe would have laid off Jake and Joe the Angel. Very definitely, then, he had to be ruled out.
Malone sighed. All the facts and all the people were in some way linked together, and yet, even the manner in which they were linked didn’t make sense. Names, places, facts, and wildly implausible theories revolved in his mind. Finally he came to the conclusion that he could think better after he’d had a bath and a shave.
He parked the sedan carefully in the shadows of the gloomy alley back of Rico di Angelo’s new undertaking parlor. For a moment he stood in the alley, listening. Everything was silent. Almost too silent. The whole neighborhood seemed deserted.
Malone reminded himself encouragingly that Rico’s place had just opened for business, and there would hardly be any clients laid out inside. He took out the tools he’d borrowed from Fran Herman’s brother and went to work on the back door. Five minutes later it opened, and he stepped in.
There was an eerie coldness in the air. Malone shivered, and stood still for a moment just inside the door, his eyes slowly becoming accustomed to the darkness. Then he began moving slowly and stealthily across the room. Suddenly he bumped into something and halted again, breathing hard. The something, he discovered, was a table, unpleasantly long and narrow.
Malone fumbled for a match, found one at last and struck it. The feeble glare showed him that the room had white walls and a white ceiling, with cabinets along two sides, and that the long narrow table was an embalming table. Then the match went out.
Maybe, he reasoned, it would be simpler, and wiser, to abandon this project and break into a florist shop somewhere. He was familiar with the layout of the one he usually patronized, and he could leave payment for the flowers on the counter. In fact, he told himself, that was what he should have done in the first place. He turned around, and at that instant the door to the alley began to open, very slowly.
Malone ducked to the side of the room in one bound. A figure appeared in the doorway, a slight, slender figure wearing a raincoat. It had a flashlight in one hand and what looked very much like a gun in the other.
Even if there was a place to hide in this devilish room, Malone realized, he could never find it in the dark. The flashlight beam began playing around the room, and the little lawyer inched away from it, moving toward the door. Perhaps if the intruder came on into the room, he could slip out unnoticed through the door and make it to the car without being observed.
The intruder showed no signs of coming into the room. That left only one other thing to do. Malone moved to easy striking distance and prepared for a quick, surprise blow. But in that moment the intruder suddenly turned the flashlight squarely into Malone’s face.
Momentarily blinded, Malone ducked. He aimed his head at the intruder’s stomach and sent him crashing against the doorjamb. He shot a fist into the arm holding the gun, which fell and went sliding across the floor. Then a blow landed on Malone’s chin and he went down.
Before he could scramble to his feet again, a third figure came in through the doorway, this one tall and lanky. He tackled the intruder, who also went down.
All Malone could tell of the scuffle that followed was that the tall, lanky stranger seemed to be on his side. He could make it into the alley and to the car now, but a better idea struck him. If he and the stranger between them could hold and subdue the intruder, it would be possible to find out who he was. It might even be possible to find out a few other interesting things.
Evidently, the intruder, seeing that the odds were against him, decided not to stay. He managed to get loose and get as far as the door. Malone dived at him, but the butt end of the flashlight caught him squarely in the right eye, and he went down for a second time. The intruder vanished into the darkness of the alley.
This time, Malone decided to stay down. He closed his eyes and lay still. It was pleasantly quiet and peaceful now in the room. Perhaps he could just drift contentedly off to sleep, right here on the floor. Rico wouldn’t mind. Just a short nap, anyway.
He realized someone was bending over him solicitously.
“Malone,” Jake’s voice said, tight with anxiety, “Malone, are you hurt?”
“I’m killed,” the little lawyer said, opening his eyes. He felt gingerly of his jaw; it seemed to be in one piece. He glared at Jake. “Next time you start a fight, I wish you’d pick on someone my size.”
“I start a fight,” Jake said indignantly. “I should have let him beat you up before I tackled him. Next time I will.” He helped Malone to his feet. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“In simple justice,” Malone said, “I can ask you the same question.”
“I’m here,” Jake told him, “because Joe the Angel called me up just as I was starting to go to bed and told me you were on your way here. He added that you were being followed by a man in a tan raincoat and that maybe I’d better come along and look after you.”
“I can look after myself, anytime, anywhere,” Malone said with icy dignity, brushing himself off.
“Now,” Jake said, “explain. Including why you stole Helene’s car.”
“Flowers,” Malone said. “Roses, violets, gladioli, carnations, orchids.”
“Malone,” Jake said, the anxiety returning to his voice, “are you sure you feel all right?”
“Never felt better in my life,” the lawyer lied. He explained the project and the borrowing of the car.
Jake raised his eyes and talked to heaven for a good five minutes about insane, drunken, Irish lawyers.
“I won’t argue the point,” Malone said, “but while I’m here, I might as well get the flowers.” He paused and scowled. “Why do you suppose he followed me?”
Jake yawned. “Maybe he wants you to get a parking ticket fixed for him. Or maybe he’s a relative of Rico’s and didn’t know you meant to pay for the flowers. Anyway, let’s get them and get out of here.”
He took out a small pocket flashlight. Its beam reflected on the shiny metal of the gun the intruder had dropped. Jake took out a handkerchief and picked it up gingerly. “Might as well take this along. Ballistics might like it for a souvenir. Or it might have fingerprints.” He wrapped it carefully and put it in his pocket, and led the way into the front room.
It was filled with flowers, huge gilt baskets of them, vases of them, ornamental display pieces of every size and shape. The air was heavy with their odor. In the center of the room was an elaborate and expensive-looking coffin, evidently placed there for the admiration of Rico’s guests.
Malone strolled around the room, admiring the bouquets and reading the cards. “Rico ought to feel proud,” he remarked. “Practically the whole City Hall is represented. And some other very notable people.” He stopped in front of a large heart-shaped design which had “GOOD LUCK RICO” spelled out in red and white roses and glanced at the card. “That must have set Bugs Brodie back a nice piece of change.”
“Pick out your posies and let’s go,” Jake said. “I haven’t had any sleep tonight.”
Malone finally settled for two baskets, a vase full of roses, and a set piece made of orchids. “Maybe she doesn’t care for dahlias,” he said, “but since they came from the mayor, I thought it would be a nice sentiment.”
“Let’s go!” Jake repeated. He turned toward the door, and as he did so, the beam from his flashlight fell on the display coffin.
Malone, following him, stopped suddenly. “Jake!”
Jake looked. There, neatly laid out in the coffin, was the body of the late Jesse Conway.
Helene met them at the door, dressed in an ice-blue satin robe that swirled around her feet. Her pale hair was loose and shimmering around her shoulders. Her eyes widened. Then she scowled.
“This hour of the morning,” she scolded, “and you turn up drunk, you’ve got a black eye, the collar’s torn off your shirt and you’re carrying enough flowers to open a florist shop. Fine friends my husband has!”
“I’m your friend, too,” Malone said coyly. He carefully selected one perfect orchid and presented it to her with great formality. “Furthermore, I’m sober.”
It was true. The last half hour had been enough to sober anyone. But he was tired, he ached in every bone, and his eye was beginning to throb.
Helene pinned the orchid on her robe, “I ought to throw you out,” she said. She smiled at him. “Go on in the bathroom and wash your face, and put witch hazel on that bruise on your chin. I’ll make you some coffee.” She added to Jake, “And you, meantime, tell me what’s been going on, or I’ll lose my mind.”
Jake followed her into the kitchenette. The blue robe rustled pleasantly when she walked. He looked approvingly at her pale, exquisite face, and delicate hands. He admired the sheen of her ash-blond hair. He reflected that he was the most fortunate husband in the United States, if not in the civilized world, and that he ought to do something to celebrate the fact.
“How can I make coffee when you’re kissing me,” Helene said, a full minute later. “And, damn you, explain!”
Jake grinned, lit two cigarettes and handed one to her.
“Malone went out to rob an undertaking parlor, got into a fight with an armed man, and discovered the victim of a murder. That’s all.”
“Jake, please. Not at this hour of the morning.”
“It’s the literal truth,” Jake said. He filled in the details. By the time he’d half finished, the coffee was perking cheerfully-When he’d reached, “It turned out to be Jesse Conway,” the coffee was done.
“I knew I should have gone with you,” Helene said calmly. She carried the coffee into the living-room.
Malone was sitting on the couch. He felt a little better, but not much. Helene put the coffee pot and a cup in front of him and sternly ordered him to drink all of it. Then she turned to Jake.
“What do we do now? Phone von Flanagan and tell him the late Jesse Conway has turned up again? And what do we do with the gun?”
“Or,” Jake said, “phone Rico di Angelo and tell him he’s got his first customer.”
“And what do we do with the gun?” Helene repeated.
Malone gulped down a cup of coffee, refilled the cup, took out a cigar, and began slipping off its cellophane wrapper. “I don’t think we phone von Flanagan,” he said slowly. “No, that’s the very thing we don’t do.”
“Have Anna Marie phone him again,” Helene suggested.
“I don’t want to wake her,” Malone said stubbornly. “I want to have her wake happily and naturally, after she’s had all the sleep she needs, and find flowers in her room.”
Jake snorted.
“Get
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