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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“At this time of day it’s especially fun,” Rico said. “Lots of traffic.” The brakes screamed and horns honked wildly on all sides as he made the turn into Division Street.
An incredibly short time later the brakes screamed again, and the hearse slid to a shuddering stop. Malone sat very still, his eyes closed, trying to get just one long breath.
“I drive good, yes?” Rico said proudly.
“Wonderful,” Malone said. He climbed out of the front seat and stood still for a moment, enjoying the feeling of solid and motionless ground under his feet. “Wait a minute, Rico, and I’ll give you a hand.”
“I carry them O.K.,” Rico said, unfastening the back of the hearse.
Malone leaned against the side of the hearse and watched while Rico opened the back door of his establishment, switched on a blindingly brilliant light, and dragged the two limp forms inside. Then he followed and closed the door behind him.
Suddenly he felt a pang of sympathy for the two captives. The back room of Rico di Angelo’s undertaking parlor had been frightening enough last night, in the darkness. Now, with the lights on, it was ten times worse.
“All new,” Rico said proudly, “and everything the best. Malone, maybe you like a drink of wine while I lay them out?”
Malone nodded. Rico opened a cupboard and brought out a bottle of red wine and a glass. Malone gulped half a tumbler full—it was sour stuff, but heady—while he watched an expert job of undressing two unconscious men and stretching them out on the tables.
Rico covered both tables with sheets, got a glass for himself, and said, “Now, we wait.”
They didn’t have long to wait. Only half the bottle of red wine was gone when Louis Perez stirred faintly, moaned, stirred again, and finally pushed the sheet away from his face. He stared at the ceiling, lifted his head and stared at the walls with their instrument cases, and sat upright with a blood-curdling yell.
“Now, now,” Rico said, “you are in a very fine establishment. Everything new.” He waved a hand at the cases of instruments. “See? Everything new and shiny. Never used yet.” By that time Wilks was conscious and watching him with silent horror. “All the best modem methods, if I do embalm you.”
“You can’t embalm me,” Wilks gasped. “I’m alive!”
“I never embalmed a live man yet,” Rico said, “but I can try.” He beamed. “It is a very simple process. First I—”
Perez let out another yell, slid off the table, clutching at the sheet, and said, “Malone, you’re our lawyer, get us out of this.”
Malone shrugged his shoulders and said, “Mr. di Angelo has a one-track mind. He seems to have made it up that you ought to answer any questions I want to ask you.”
Rico grinned, took just one instrument from one of the cases, and twirled it unpleasantly on one finger.
“Did you shoot Jesse Conway?” Malone asked.
“No.” It was a duet.
“Did you move his body?”
“Yes.” Another duet.
“Look, Malone,” Perez said, wiping the sweat from his face. “We ain’t brains. We’re just thugs. We do like we’re told, see?”
“Like putting the pressure on for protection dough?” Malone said.
“Sure, that’s it. We get the names and addresses, and we do the advance work. This here business was just an odd job. A certain guy slips us a fancy key and tell us to go to a certain address and move out a stiff. He meets us, we give him back the key, he gives us another key and tells us to park the stiff out here in the swell coffin. Then he tells us to watch this guy who runs this undertaking joint, a guy who’d given us a lot of trouble in the past, and see if he tries to snake the stiff out and stash it in some alley. O.K., we do, and it looks like this guy does, and we make the pitch according to directions, only it turns out this guy has laid a trap for us, and look at all the trouble it caused.” He added indignantly. “The bastard.”
Rico di Angelo spat out seven words in Italian.
Louis Perez countered with nine words in Spanish.
Rico advanced, the shiny instrument swinging on his finger.
“Malone!” Perez shrieked. “Don’t you let him!”
“Lay off, Rico,” Malone said.
Earl Wilks sat up and made a number of unpleasant comments on the probable ancestry and personal habits of everyone else in the room.
“Shut up,” Malone said amiably. “And go on with what you were saying, Louis. Never mind the interruptions.”
“I told you everything,” Louis Perez said. “Lemme go home now.”
“What’s the name of the guy that told you to move the stiff, slipped you the key, and worked out the details?”
“Guy name of Art Harvey, Al Harmon, or Abe Haycraft. Sometimes calls himself Alex Hazlitt.”
“Does he usually give you your orders?”
“No.”
“Who does?”
“I can’t tell.”
Rico sighed and said, “Son of a bitch! Malone, you let me handle him. Maybe I put in the embalming fluid first, and then draw off the blood. You lie down on the table, bum!”
“No!” Perez yelped. “Malone, get me out of here!”
“In due time,” Malone said. “Give me the name.”
“I can’t. I’d be killed.”
“And if you don’t,” Malone said, “you’ll probably be embalmed alive. I don’t want to rush you. Make up your mind.” He turned to Rico and said, “If you’ve got a couple more glasses, maybe the gentlemen would like a glass of wine.”
“Sure thing,” Rico said, going over to the cupboard.
“Malone—” Perez began.
A car roared past in the alley. One of the back windows shattered with a loud crashing of glass, and something landed on the floor.
Malone took one glance and yelled, “Duck!”
“Gun!” Perez howled. “Must have gun!” He dived at the heap of clothes on the floor, made a quick grab and stood swaying, naked as a clam, clutching his gun in one, unsteady hand.
“Out, you damn fool!” Malone shouted at him. Earl Wilks raced for the back door, Rico almost beat him to it. Malone grabbed the dazed Louis Perez, flung him into the alley, and fell on top of him.
There was a moment of blinding light, in which the earth seemed to shake violently. There was a blasting roar, followed by an almost intolerable silence. Malone closed his eyes and wondered if there was enough money in the bank to give him a fine funeral.
He heard running footsteps in the alley. They paused close by him for a moment, then ran on again.
He opened his eyes, just as the back room of Rico di Angelo’s new undertaking parlor burst into flames.
Malone pulled himself to his knees. He could see Rico leaning against the back wall of a garage, stunned and staring. He could see Earl Wilks, sprawled on the pavement.
He had to get away from here, fast. The fire department and the police department would be here at any moment. This was no time to answer questions. He managed to get to his feet, estimated that he could make it to the end of the alley. But there was one thing he had to do first.
He hauled Louis Perez out of the reach of the flames. Then he stood over the half-conscious man and said, “Tell me. The name, the name!”
Already he could hear sirens shrieking in the distance.
Louis Perez stared at him with glassy eyes. Blood bubbled from between his lips. He gasped, “Name Guillermo….” His eyes closed.
“Rico,” Malone said, “Rico, are you all right?”
“Sure,” Rico said, “it’s O.K. I got insurance.”
“That isn’t what I mean,” Malone said furiously. The approaching sirens were very close now. “How do you feel?”
Rico looked at the two forms lying in the alley and said, “I feel fine.”
Malone hastily examined Earl Wilks. The big gangster was unpleasantly limp, his mouth was open, and a thin trickle of blood ran down his chin. But he was alive. So was Louis Perez. Alive but dead to the world. Malone ran back to where Rico stood half dazed, still staring at the flames.
“Listen, Rico,” Malone said earnestly, “get this straight in your mind. You didn’t see me today. You’ve been out here all afternoon. After these two goons got out on bail they came out here to talk to you, in a nice friendly fashion, of course, about forgetting the whole business, and no hard feelings on either side. While they were talking to you, somebody tossed a bomb through the window…”
Rico nodded. “I get you, Malone,” he said, “but their clothes, Malone. Would they be having a nice friendly talk with me laid out on the embalming tables with all their clothes off?”
“Hell!” Malone said. He could hear one of the fire engines making the turn into Division Street. He thought fast. “Rico, do you have any clothes in your establishment?”
“Sure,” Rico said proudly, “laying-out clothes. Everything the best. All dress suits and tuxedos.”
“That does it,” Malone told him. “Look, here’s your story. These guys were holding you up. They were forcing you to let them change clothes here — change into your clothes — so that they could make a getaway. Therefore they were wearing September morn costumes when the bomb sailed in through the window. All the clothes involved are burnt to ashes by now, anyway, so there’s no way of proving or disproving anything.” He added hastily, “And if these guys talk when they come to—well, the explosion drove them out of their heads. Nobody’d believe the story they’d tell anyway.”
“I fix everything,” Rico said. “Scram, Malone.”
Malone said, “Good luck,” and raced down the alley. Hi reached the next street just as a fire engine roared into the alley from the other end. Another raced past him, headed toward Division Street, and a third came screaming down Division Street itself. The wailing of a police-car siren began to join the chorus somewhere in the distance, and suddenly the whole neighborhood, dark and deserted a moment before, was full of people.
Malone leaned against the door of an enlighted poolroom and tried to catch his breath. He realized suddenly that his heart was pounding and that he ached in every limb. The street in front of him was behaving in a matter no self-respecting street would intentionally adopt, making rapid changes from vertical to horizontal and back again and occasionally going into a sideways spin. Malone closed his eyes.
It was several minutes before he opened them again. The street had evidently repented its misbehavior and had settled down to normal. The little lawyer examined his reflection in the glass door against which he had been leaning. His clothes were a mess, the navy blue pin-stripe suit had been ripped and torn in half a hundred places. His face was black with soot and dirt.
The neighborhood was alive now not only with curious spectators but with police. Squad cars went slowly around the block, flashing their spotlights in every direction. Other policemen on foot were going over every square inch of territory, their flashlights in their hands.
“The damn fools,” Malone thought. Didn’t they realize that by now the car from which the bomb was thrown was probably halfway to Gary, Indiana!
An ambulance shot out of the alley. Malone hoped Louis Perez and Earl Wilks wouldn’t be conscious enough to talk for at least a day or two.
There still remained his problem of getting away from the scene. A policeman with a flashlight was coming dangerously near to his sanctuary. Malone flattened himself against the side of a narrow entry way
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