Lucky Stiff by Craig Rice (best large ebook reader txt) 📕
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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“Of course, I do want to locate the family,” she said. “I feel that I owe them a great debt. But I know you’ll succeed.”
“I shall try,” Malone said. He remembered that the thousand dollars wouldn’t last forever and added, “Though it’s going to take a little time and may not be too easy. Anna Marie may not have been her real name, you know.”
“Please remember, Mr. Malone,” she said, “if at any time you need any money for expenses—”
“I’ll let you know,” Malone told her. The search for Anna Marie’s Aunt Bess, he reflected, was going to take a long, long time. “Now, my dear Mrs. Childers—about this other business—”
She clasped her hands on her knees and looked up at him trustingly. “Mr. Malone, I want you to find out who did murder my husband, and did frame that poor, innocent girl.”
Malone knocked ashes off his cigar. He scratched his right eyebrow. Finally, he said, “Why?”
“It’s my duty,” she said finally.
“Ike Malloy did the actual shooting,” Malone reminded her.
“But I want to know who hired him.”
Again Malone said, “Why?”
“Mr. Malone,” she said, “I am in a very unpleasant position. My testimony at her trial helped to convict that poor girl. Now that it’s known she was innocent, I appear in a very unfavorable light. Some people may even think that I was responsible myself.”
“I see,” Malone said. “Go on.”
“If I succeed in bringing the real murderer to justice,” she said, “I will feel that I have redeemed myself in the eyes of the world—and in my own eyes.”
It was a flimsy reason, Malone thought, but he knew he wouldn’t get a better one. He decided Mrs. Eva Childers ought, with her style of language, to be writing political speeches.
“It’s going to be difficult,” Malone said, “because it happened so long ago. If I try—you’ll have to help me with information.”
“If you will,” she said, “I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Malone doubted that last statement. “All right,” he said. “Did Big Joe have any personal life that isn’t common knowledge.”
“No. Only myself and his—and that poor girl. We haven’t any children.”
“Any relatives who might want to inherit his dough?”
“Only me.”
“Any enemies?”
“A man like Mr. Childers always has enemies. But you probably know more about them than I do.”
Malone nodded. “Do you know of any threats against his life?”
“None.”
“Did he leave anything that might tell us something? Letters, papers, perhaps a diary?”
“No.”
Malone sighed. “This certainly isn’t very much to go on.”
“I know. Don’t you see? I haven’t anything to go on, really. That’s why I’ve come to you—for help.”
She rose and lifted her hands in an appealing little gesture.
“Dear Mrs. Childers,” Malone said warmly, “you must just leave everything to me.”
After she’d gone, he wondered if she’d expected him to kiss her.
He wondered about some other things, too. First, just what was she up to? What per cent of her story could he believe, if any? Had she really expected to get some useful information from Milly Dale, and, if so, what? And why hadn’t she tried before?
Big Joe’s diary. That was another funny thing. A few weeks before his death he’d told Anna Marie that he’d destroyed it. Why did he? People seldom destroy diaries just for the hell of it. He was still puzzling over it when the phone rang.
“Malone? Ed. I couldn’t dig up much dirt on Garrity. Suspected of some petty theft a few years back, nothing ever came of it. Left a wife and three kids.”
“And who got him the job?” Malone said.
“His brother-in-law. Brother-in-law and evidently his best pal. Big Joe Childers.”
“It’s after four,” Jake said, looking at his watch. “I don’t think we ought to wait any longer.”
“I do,” Helene said firmly. “She may walk in any minute.”
Jake scowled. “But—” He paused. “Maybe we ought to be looking for her, instead of waiting for her. How do we know she isn’t in trouble?”
“We don’t,” Helene said, “and I’m just as worried as you are.”
“She can’t have run away,” Jake said, “because she left all her things. She could have been kidnapped. She could have been lured away from here and—”
“Stop it!” Helene said. She added in a softer tone, “We’ve been all over that twenty times. Anyway, don’t forget no one knew she was here except Malone and ourselves.”
“If we could be sure of that,” Jake began. He looked at her and said, “Oh, all right. But I’ll show you who’s the head of this family. We’ll wait five more minutes, and then we’ll—’
“There’s someone at the door,” Helene said.
Jake breathed a sigh of relief.
The door opened. It wasn’t Anna Marie who walked in, it was Malone.
For a long moment no one spoke. Then Malone said, “What the hell!”
“We thought Anna Marie might be lonely,” Helene said, “so we came up to keep her company.”
“But where is Anna Marie?” Malone said hoarsely. “Where is she?”
“She isn’t here,” Helene said.
“I can see she isn’t here. But where is she? Where did she go?”
“I don’t know,” Helene said. “She was gone when we got here. The door was unlocked, so we came in and waited for her.”
“I’ll call the police!” Malone gasped. He reached for the telephone.
“You can’t do that,” Jake reminded him.
Malone put down the phone. “But we’ve got to do something. We’ve got to go out and look for her.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Jake said. “But where do we start?”
“Maybe she left a note,” Malone said, clutching at a straw.
“We’ve looked,” Helene told him.
The little lawyer groaned. “If anything’s happened to her—”
The door opened, and Anna Marie walked in. She stared at the three visitors and said, “Well! Surprise!”
She had on a plain brown coat and galoshes. She wore a scarf tied over her head to protect her from the rain. Not a wisp of her tawny hair showed, and there wasn’t a speck of make-up on her face. No one in the world would have recognized her.
Helene commented, “I’ve always said, leaving off make-up is as good a disguise as putting it on.”
Anna Marie laughed, her silvery little laugh. “I hope you weren’t upset when you found I wasn’t here. I got terribly tired of being cooped up here, after being cooped up somewhere else for so long. So I went for a walk. I left the door unlocked so I could get in when I came back—I didn’t have a key.”
“We were just beginning to get a little worried,” Malone said very casually.
Helene looked from Malone to Anna Marie and back again. She was thinking hard. Malone, she reminded herself, was a grown-up man. He’d taken some bad blows before. Anyway, there might be an explanation, there had to be one. It might as well be given in front of Malone.
She met Jake’s eyes for a moment. Jake nodded and looked away.
“What’s the matter?” Anna Marie asked. She slipped off her coat and untied her scarf. Her smooth hair tumbled over her shoulders. “You look as though you’d seen a ghost.”
Helene didn’t smile. She drew a long breath and said, “Malone, I wasn’t going to tell you this until I’d talked to Anna Marie. But, now that you’re here—” She turned to Anna Marie and said, “This afternoon when Milly Dale was murdered, she had just told us you’d been two-timing Big Joe. She was all set to tell us the name of the boy friend when the shot was fired.”
“It’s a lie,” Malone said immediately.
“Thanks, Malone,” Anna Marie said. “It is a lie.”
“See,” Malone said, “she admits it.” He glared at Helene. “We’ve been friends for a long time, but—”
Jake said, “Malone, you can’t use that kind of language in front of my wife.”
“I haven’t used any language in front of your wife,” the little lawyer said. “I mean, not so far.”
“He’s a prophet,” Helene said, “and he knows your vocabulary.”
Anna Marie said, “There isn’t any reason for anybody to get sore. Mr. and Mrs. Justus are good pals of yours, Malone, and if they thought I was a two-timing bitch, they wanted to do something about it. On the other hand, they’re right guys and while they’d only met me last night, they wanted to give me a chance to square myself. Malone, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“I am,” Malone said. He fixed his gaze on the end of his cigar. “Helene, I’m sorry for what I called you.”
Jake said, “You hadn’t called her anything, yet.”
“Shut up, Jake,” Helene said. “He can dream, can’t he?”
“I apologized,” Malone said, “so why don’t you two get the hell out of here and never come back.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at the floor.
“Please,” Anna Marie said. “Would you guys mind my putting this record straight? Since the whole thing’s my fault, anyway.”
“I will,” Jake said, “if you’ll let me black the other eye of that damned Irish shyster lawyer.”
“Try it,” Malone said.
Helene and Anna Marie looked at each other, shook their heads in feminine resignation, and shrugged their shoulders.
“If you’re really going to black Malone’s other eye,” Helene said, “let’s rent the Stadium and sell tickets. If you aren’t, let’s listen to what Anna Marie has to say.”
“I say,” Anna Marie said, “let’s have a drink.”
She brought out the bottle of scotch Malone had given her and managed to round up four glasses. She poured four drinks, sat down on the arm of the one easy chair, and said, “Also, let’s talk.”
They looked at her. She was very pale, even, Malone thought, more pale than a ghost. It wasn’t just the lack of make-up, either. She had on a lavender wool dress, her tawny hair shone over her shoulders. Her eyes were a pair of dark, deep shadows.
“Sure, they said I two-timed Big Joe,” she told them. “Milly Dale didn’t lie to you—she was just repeating what they’d told her. The name she was gong to give you, just before she was killed—that was told to her, too. Understand? It was part of the same thing.”
“Part of what same thing?” Malone asked.
“They—or he—or she—had to get Big Joe and me into a fight,” Anna Marie said. “A fight that witnesses would overhear. It wasn’t enough for me to think Big Joe was running around with Milly Dale. Hell, he’d have talked me out of that in three minutes flat. He had to think I was playing games with somebody else. So—” She turned her head and smiled.
“You know what I’m getting at, Mrs. Justus.”
“Call me Helene,” Mrs. Justus said.
“O.K., Helene. Now, look. Suppose some guy went to Big Joe and said, ‘Your little pittipat is playing pattycake with a cute tomcat.’ What would you do if you were Big Joe?”
“Beat the guy into a raw pulp,” Helene said.
“But suppose somebody convinces a gal pal of mine, who is also a gal pal of Big Joe’s, all under strictly clean circumstances, of course, that the same thing is true. What do you do if you’re the pal?”
“You mean the gal pal,” Malone muttered.
“You shut up,” Helene said. She added, “I’m afraid, in those circumstances—I’d have told Big Joe.”
“A woman would have,” Malone muttered. “A man would have kept his mouth shut.”
“Let’s leave the battle of the sexes out of this,” Jake said. “It all boils down to, somebody wanted to get Big Joe sore at Anna Marie, so he planted a story that Anna Marie was two-timing Big Joe with
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