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

The bartender made a strange little gurgling noise in his throat.

“You should worry,” von Flanagan said to the bartender. “Nobody’s going to hang a thing on you, if you play along with us and show me where McKeown’s private records are kept.”

The bartender nodded and started toward the hallway.

“That can wait a few minutes,” Malone said, sagging into a chair. “We all need a drink, and we all need it fast.”

Von Flanagan muttered something about being on duty.

Malone looked at his watch. It was near midnight. “If you don’t get time-and-a-half for overtime, at least you’re entitled to have a drink in your overtime. Besides, I’m paying for it. Sit down and shut up.”

They sat down at one of the tables. Lou Berg brought his drink over from the bar and joined them. Malone gave an order to the bartender.

“The Commissioner is happy as an ant at a picnic,” von Flanagan said. “Malone, how the hell did you know?”

“I didn’t,” the little lawyer growled. “I was just bluffing.” He saw the bartender approaching with a tray and paused.

The bartender had just reached the table when suddenly his face turned even a shade more white. He gave a half-strangled moan and his knees began to buckle. Malone resourcefully grabbed the tray just as the bartender slid to the floor in a faint.

“He wasn’t a very good bartender, anyway,” Helene said.

No one paid any attention to her. Von Flanagan looked down the hallway, yelped, and started to rise. Malone grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back to his chair. Al Harmon sat paralyzed and staring. Jake and Lou Berg were both gazing at the hallway, Jake with admiration, Lou Berg with delight.

The lovely vision of Anna Marie St. Clair walked, with an almost floating motion, in the darkness of the hallway. She seemed a pale, gray shadow, ethereally beautiful. There was a faint smile on her face.

“Please,” Lou Berg cried, “don’t go away again!”

Malone rose as Anna Marie came into the bar and moved another chair up to the table. She sat down and began removing her gloves. Everyone stared. The bartender sat up, shrieked, and shut his eyes.

“Get up,” Malone said, nudging him with a toot, and bring one more drink.

The bartender scrambled to his feet and made it to the bar in two jumps.

“You mean, you can drink?” Lou Berg gasped.

“Sure,” Anna Marie said, “and I can smoke, swear, and spit. Would you like to pinch me?”

He gave her a long, thoughtful, almost calculating look. Then he turned to Jake.

“I didn’t think you’d do a thing like this to me, Jake,” he said resentfully. “You told me she wasn’t anybody made up to look like her. You told me she was the real thing.”

“She is the real thing,” Jake said, grinning. “The real, real thing. She’s Anna Marie St. Clair, all right, but she’s alive.”

Von Flanagan and Al Harmon said, “What the hell!” almost in the same breath.

Jake rose and said, “Malone, you make the explanations. I’m going to phone the newspapers and give them the best story they’ve had since the Chicago fire.”

By the time he returned from the phone booth, the story had been told to the group at the table. Anna Marie sat, calm and unconcerned, while everyone looked at her, amazed and almost incredulous. The bartender’s eyes were like a couple of billiard balls.

“Little Girl,” Lou Berg said earnestly, “you have a very great future ahead of you. I will personally supervise it.”

“She can sing, too,” Jake said. “And I have a hunch she can act.”

“Who cares?” Lou Berg said in a dreamy voice. “Did I say anything about can she act or can’t she act? I got the best directors, they could teach a baboon to act. Sometimes they do.” He drew a long, rapturous breath. “Little Girl, there’s a plane for Hollywood at six in the morning, and we’re going to be on it. I’m making the reservations right now.” He almost raced to the telephone booth.

Anna Marie smiled at Jake. “He might at least have asked me if I wanted to be a movie star.”

“He didn’t need to,” Jake said.

“You’re right.” She turned to Malone. “I’m sorry—.”

“I’m not,” Malone said. “I’m glad. It’s very much for the best. More, perhaps, than any of you know.”

His voice was strangely flat, with something more than weariness alone. He took out a cigar and slowly began unwrapping it. Helene resisted an impulse to reach out and pat his hand. She’d seen Malone before on occasions when he’d trapped a murderer, and she knew exactly how he felt.

No one spoke until Lou Berg had come back to the table, beaming.

“Photographers and reporters at the airport,” he announced. “Here, and when we get to Hollywood. Little Girl, you are going to be very rich and very famous.” He signaled to the bartender and said, “This is on me.”

“Now,” Helene said, “Malone, will you please tell me, how did you know?”

“I had an eye on Bill McKeown from the beginning,” Al Harmon said, “but I never could pin a thing on him. How did you do it?”

Malone lit his cigar, with a hand that trembled only a little. “Louis Perez made a dying declaration that McKeown was head of the protection racket,” he said. “And— ” He remembered just in time that he had not been, officially, on the scene of the crime. “Rico di Angelo heard it. Furthermore, Rico saw the murderer.”

He puffed hard on the cigar. “McKeown preferred to do his own murdering. After he’d thrown the bomb, he switched guns with Louis Perez. He didn’t see Rico in the alley and assumed that he’d been caught in the building. Otherwise, he’d have killed Rico. He didn’t know Louis Perez would live long enough to make a dying declaration or he’d have attended to that.”

The little lawyer made a mental note to tip Rico di Angelo off quick as to what he had and hadn’t seen. After all, he told himself, this wasn’t going to be actual testimony at a trial so he wouldn’t be asking Rico to commit perjury.

“McKeown had some bad breaks,” Malone said, and he made some bad errors. He didn’t know Louis Perez and his gun were in the jailhouse at the time he killed Milly Dale— when she was on the point of telling his name as the name of the man behind the protection racket. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have planted his own gun on Louis Perez.”

He caught Helene’s eye across the table. She smiled at him.

“The thing that really tipped me off,” Malone said, downing the last of his drink and waving for another, “was that McKeown had ordered Milly Dale not to sing that strip-tease song about the girl with the gun. It was just a coincidence, of course, that the gun song happened to be one that would have made it plain to everybody that Anna Marie St. Clair couldn’t have shot Big Joe Childers.”

Von Flanagan looked searchingly at Anna Marie. His eyes moved slowly from her feet to her head. “That’s the thing I should of thought of!”

“That’s what we all should of thought of,” Malone said bitterly. “That’s what was the one bad link in the chain of evidence that framed Anna Marie. But nobody could guess she’d show up at The Happy Days in a costume that wouldn’t have allowed her to conceal as much as an extra hairpin.” He glanced at her, and glanced away, quick. Six o’clock was when the plane left for Hollywood. “That, plus the dying declaration of Louis Perez, was all I needed.”

He sat back and flicked cigar ash inaccurately toward the ash tray.

“He killed Milly Dale because she was about to reveal that he was head of the protection racket,” Helene said thoughtfully. “But Malone, why did he—” She paused. “Jesse Conway. And Garrity. And—”

“Because,” Malone said quickly, “both of them knew the truth about Big Joe Childers’ murder and the frame-up of Anna Marie. He put them on the spot by telephone calls that would send them rushing to me, and then rubbed them out.”

“The frame-up,” von Flanagan said, “that’s what I don’t get. I get his killing Big Joe Childers because Big Joe had tumbled to the protection racket and wanted to put it out of business, but why pick on her?”

“Frustration,” Malone said. “He had a psychological reason.”

“Psychology,” von Flanagan said, “that I can understand.”

The little lawyer stared at an imaginary spot on the table. “He had two reasons, as far as Big Joe was concerned,” he said in a low voice. “You know one. The other was jealousy. Bill McKeown wanted Anna Marie St. Clair, and he couldn’t get her. He tried hard enough, but she always turned him down cold. She was loyal to Big Joe. McKeown knew he couldn’t get her even with Big Joe out of the way, so he framed her for Big Joe’s murder. You can check that with Anna Marie herself.”

He lifted his eyes to hers. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

She nodded. Her face was very pale.

“It pleased him to have her framed for the murder of her boy friend,” Malone said. “You can see, von Flanagan, it was just a matter of psychology.”

“Psychology, hell,” von Flanagan growled. “I say the guy was crazy.” He rose and said, “I better get back there and start digging out that evidence.” He nodded to the bartender, who started toward the hallway.

Al Harmon rose, said, “I’m in on this, too,” and followed them.

Helene waited until they were out of earshot before she asked, “Now, you Irish shyster, how did you really know it was Bill McKeown?”

“For the reasons I gave von Flanagan,” Malone said. “Do you think I’d lie to a policeman?” He added, “When Louis Perez was dying, he told me the name of the head of the protection racket. Only he said, ‘Guillermo.’ That had me stuck for a while.”

“Guillermo,” Helene repeated thoughtfully. “That’s—”

“That’s the Spanish version of William,” Malone said. “Perez was Spanish. When he was dying, he instinctively lapsed back into his native tongue. As soon as I remembered that Guillermo meant Bill, I had everything straight.” He stretched, yawned, and said, “The bartender’s busy, so we might as well go home. Anna Marie, I’ll get a cab, help you pack, and see that you get to the airport by six.”

Everyone rose. Lou Berg said ecstatically, “She’s a wonderful Little Girl. She’s going to have a great future.”

Malone went out to the sidewalk to hail a cab. Rain was falling in a thin, unpleasant drizzle. Only a few weary drunks were staggering up Clark Street. Electric and neon signs shone dismally in the rain.

He felt a hand on his arm, and turned to see that Helene had followed him to the sidewalk.

“Malone,” she said, “when are you going to tell us what really happened?”

He looked at her for a minute. “The chances are,” he said, “that I never will.”