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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Malone said, “We’ll sue you!”
This time von Flanagan ignored him. “The newspapers and the commissioner are raising enough hell as it is,” he went on. “I can’t have another murder without at least making an arrest, even if it turns out I was wrong.” He sat back complacently.
“Von Flanagan!” Helene said in a shocked voice. “You wouldn’t do that to us!”
Jake said, “Look here, damn you—”
Malone roared something about throwing friends to the wolves.
The scenes was interrupted by the door opening. A plainclothes man came in and said, “Ballistics reports that the bullet in the dame came outa the same gun that killed Garrity and Jesse Conway.” He went out again.
“Well,” Jake said, rising, “it’s been nice knowing you. I have an alibi for at least one of those murders. We’ll be running along now.”
“No, you don’t,” von Flanagan said. “Maybe I can’t arrest you, but I can question you and, by God, I will. And remember, withholding information from me is against the law.”
“I’m just as anxious to find the murderer as you are,” Jake said angrily. “She was a swell singer and a good kid. I liked Milly Dale.”
“Any idea who might want to shoot her?”
“No,” Jake said, “nor why she should be shot in my office, right at that particular time.”
A meditative gleam came into the big police officer’s eye. “Maybe she was just about to tell you something important about somebody, and the somebody had been following her around in case she did just that, and bumped her off before she got a chance. Because you said she was talking to you. What were you talking about?”
Jake scowled. “At the minute she was shot, she was just about to tell us the name—”
“The name of the man behind this protection racket,” Helene said quickly. She gave Jake a look that meant, “Watch what you say,” and nodded almost imperceptibly toward Malone.
Von Flanagan nodded slowly. “Jesse Conway was mixed up in the racket,” he said. “Garrity was just a small-time politician who got himself a fat appointment. But there must be some connection there.”
He groaned. “Jesse Conway gets killed in the apartment of that dame, St. Clair. Then he gets planted in an undertaking parlor. Then he turns up in an alley. He moved around about as much after he was dead as he did when he was alive. And there was a gun by him that didn’t shoot anybody, and so far we haven’t been able to trace it yet. Now this girl gets shot. And she was the St. Clair dame’s best friend. Did you ever see such a lousy mess?”
“Try psychology,” Malone said.
“Oh, go to hell.” Von Flanagan moaned.
“I’d better go to my office instead,” Malone said, looking at his watch. “I’ve an appointment at four.”
Helene rose and said, “We’ll drop you.” To von Flanagan she added consolingly, “Don’t worry.”
“It’s always darkest just before it rains,” Malone said. “And it never rains but it gets dark.”
Out in the car Helene said, “At least he didn’t say anything about closing the Casino. Malone, who might have wanted to murder Milly Dale?”
“I don’t know,” Malone said. “There’s still a bare possibility it hasn’t anything to do with the other murders.”
“You forget the bullets,” she pointed out.
“That’s right,” Malone said, “but I don’t see what the connection can be.”
“Milly was a nice girl,” Helene said. “I can’t believe she was mixed up in any rackets.”
Malone said thoughtfully, “What was she talking about just before she died?”
“Malone,” Helene said hastily, stepping on the gas. “Are you going to help von Flanagan solve his crimes?”
“I am,” Malone said, “but not for von Flanagan. Now tell me. Milly Dale—”
“Who’s your appointment at four with?” Helene said.
“Nobody important,” Malone lied.
She stopped the car in front of Malone’s office building. “See you tonight, Malone.”
“Wait a minute,” Malone said from the sidewalk. “What was Milly Dale talking about?”
“It’s too long to tell you now,” Helene said. “I’ll tell you tonight.”
“Just for that,” Malone said indignantly, “I won’t tell you who the man in the tan raincoat is. And I know.” He was across the sidewalk before she could say a word.
“The nerve of him,” Helene said. She swung around the corner and headed south.
“What was the idea of all that?” Jake said. “And where are we going?”
“We’re going to see Anna Marie,” she told him.
“Why?”
“For the same reason we couldn’t tell Malone what Milly Dale was talking about.”
“Maybe I’m dumb,” Jake began, “but—”
“You are,” she said, “if you don’t see that Malone is crazy about her. How would Malone like to be told that she was two-timing Big Joe?”
“He ought to be told,” Jake said.
“Later,” she said firmly. “We’ve got to talk to her first. Then, if anyone tells him, she does.”
Jake sighed. “Women!”
They parked the car and took the elevator to the floor on which Malone’s hide-out room was located.
“You’re sure Anna Marie wants visitors?” Jake said.
“She’s getting them, anyway,” Helene said. She knocked on the door.
There was no answer. She knocked again. At last she turned the knob. The door was unlocked.
There was the profusion of flowers, just as Malone had arranged them. There was the little parade of cosmetics. There was the thermos bottle.
But no sign of Anna Marie.
“Mr. Al Harmon called,” Maggie reported as Malone came in from the corridor. “He wants you to defend two men charged with attempted extortion. Their names are—wait a minute” —she pawed through papers on her desk—“Earl Wilks and Louis Perez. You’re supposed to go down and talk to them.”
“Fix up an application for a writ of habeas corpus,” Malone said. “I’ll go see them later. Got an appointment at four.”
He slammed his office door behind him, dropped his hat and coat, walked over to the window, and stood there looking out. A dreary mixture of rain and sleet was falling on the dingy, soot-covered rooftops outside. Windows in office buildings opposite him were dull, yellowish blurs.
He was tired, and the murder of Milly Dale had depressed him. Partly because he’d liked and admired the pretty little dark-haired singer and hated to think of her being dead—especially, of her dying so unpleasantly. He remembered the two dates he’d had with her and sighed regretfully.
Then, too, Malone hated to see anyone murdered, even when he got a fat fee for defending the murderer. There had been times when he agreed that the victim deserved what he got, and that the world was far better off without him. But murder seemed such a—well, such a sudden way to die.
This murder in particular depressed him because it was confusing. Nothing connected with the whole case seemed to fall into any pattern, and he was beginning to wonder if it ever would. So far, it was a crazy quilt. Everything sewed together, but no design showing.
Two men had known that Anna Marie St. Clair was alive. Both of them had been killed, with the same gun. Was it because they knew Anna Marie was alive?
It suddenly occurred to him that there was one important thing Anna Marie had never explained to him. Concealing the fact that she had not gone to the electric chair had been a difficult and risky job. If it had gone wrong, both men would have been in a Sad jam.
He could understand the hold she had had over Jesse Conway. She could have proved that he’d allowed her to be framed. But Garrity—that was something else.
He walked to the desk, picked up the phone, and called an old friend at the News. “Ed? Malone. Do me a favor. Find out who got Garrity his appointment as warden. And anything else you may have on him. Especially dirt. Call me back, and thanks.”
He felt better after he’d hung up. At least he was doing something. He walked over to the washstand, splashed cold water on his face, dried it, and brushed his hair. He sat down at his desk and concentrated on looking businesslike.
There was that long, flat, white box, marked Toujours Gai Lingerie Shoppe. Maybe after he’d finished with Mrs. Childers, he’d slip over to the hotel and give it to Anna Marie. No, he’d wait till tonight. He wanted to see her try it on. He put the box away in the closet.
But maybe he’d slip over and see her for a minute on his way to interviewing his two new clients. It seemed like a very long time since he’d seen her. He counted on his fingers. A little over seven hours. Practically an eternity.
He was so absorbed in thinking of Anna Marie that he almost forgot to look businesslike when Eva Childers came in. The sound of Maggie opening the door reminded him just in time. He sprang to his feet and greeted Mrs. Childers gallantly.
“My dear Mrs. Childers! I find that I owe you an apology!” He ushered her into the most comfortable chair, offered her a cigarette, and lighted it for her. “It was inexcusably thoughtless of me to let you come all the way to my office, in this weather, when I could just as well have come to your home. Forgive me!”
“Don’t think of it,” Mrs. Childers said. “I wouldn’t dream of taking you away from your office when I know how busy you must be.”
“Never too busy to call on such a charming lady,” Malone said.
She flushed a little, not very becomingly. She wasn’t, Malone reflected, very pretty. Except in the way small women give an impression of being pretty, unless they are downright ugly. It wasn’t anything about her features nor her coloring. Simply that her face was too shrewd. She was shrewd about business and gullible about flattery, Malone decided. Her clothes were obviously expensive and looked as though they had been chosen for her by someone else. All save her little flowered hat, which would have looked better on someone ten years younger.
“You must have been years younger than your late husband,” Malone said, admiration in every sirupy syllable.
He sat down behind his desk, began unwrapping a cigar, and said, “I’d hoped to have some good news for you soon. I thought I had a very good lead to where Miss St. Clair’s family might possibly be—if she had one. Now, I haven’t.”
He paused very deliberately to light the cigar. “My lead was a very good friend of Miss St. Clair’s. She would know, if anyone would.”
“Yes?” Eva Childers said, a little breathlessly.
“Unfortunately,” Malone said, with maddening slowness, “my lead was shot and killed this afternoon.” He crumpled up the cigar wrapper and dropped it near the wastebasket. “Milly Dale. You may have heard of her.”
Eva Childers turned white, and fell back in her chair. She murmured something that sounded to Malone very much like, “Hell!”
“My dear lady!” Malone said, “I had no idea it would be such a shock! Let me get you a—something to steady your nerves a little—”
He hoped to heaven there was a clean glass. There was. He opened the file drawer marked “Confidential,” took out the bottle Maggie had labeled, “For Important Clients Only,” and poured a good ounce and a half into the glass.
“Thank you,” Eva Childers said. “I really don’t ordinarily drink, but—” She took it in one gulp.
“Did you know Milly Dale?” Malone asked, putting the bottle away.
She shook her head. “But I knew of her. I knew she’d been the best friend of that—poor girl. I’d hoped she could help us not only in locating the family, but in—something else—”
“Yes, yes?” Malone said
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