by Otto Penzler
“Turn it over, kitten.”
Marge did this. The card had McCarthy’s name scrawled in pencil on it, as well as his office address. He said:
“See! It’s got my name on it. The guy was probably on his way up to see me when he got stabbed. So this is my retainer; I can’t be expected to work for nothing. And anyway, he can’t use it right now and I can.”
Marge shook her head and said, “Let’s look over the rest of the cards. What d’ya suppose he wanted to see you for?”
“Probably to keep from getting stabbed,” McCarthy said, spreading out the cards.
There was one that read: The Silver Slipper— Dine and Dance. One of a chop suey place and another advertising a particularly poor brand of bourbon and a bar that sold it. The Silver Slipper card had a telephone number written on it and an explanatory note that read: “Small; blonde; drinks Scotch; Marie.” McCarthy grinned at this and said:
“The guy’s got an idea. Card-indexing his women.”
He put the card down by the one bearing his address and name, then frowned. He pointed out: “Hey, look! The same man didn’t write ‘em both. Look!”
The writing was decidedly different and Marge agreed that this was so. She said, “What difference does it make?”
“Probably none. Maybe the blonde wrote her name and number for him.”
“She wouldn’t have gone into details about the Scotch if she had, Pat.”
McCarthy shrugged and looked at more cards. One was of Ira A. Halstead, Attorney-at-Law, and this was new and unsoiled. Another, equally new, was that of James R. S. Wilson. And then there were two more bar cards, which McCarthy discarded after looking them over for more telephone numbers and descriptions of girls. He studied the lawyer’s card and that of Wilson and said:
“This Wilson is a big shot broker. Very strict church member and the rest of that stuff. And this lawyer Halstead has something to do with him, but I can’t remember just what.”
“Why not ask him?”
McCarthy said, “Maybe he wouldn’t tell me. I’ll get a guy from a newspaper and ask him.”
HET MORRIS was the newspaper man McCarthy picked for an information bureau. He was short, fat, and almost bald, and he had a notorious passion for checked and wildly patterned suits. McCarthy opened up with:
“Hi, Chet! That’s new, ain’t it?” Morris looked down at the plaid affairs that made him look even more roly-poly than ever and said, “It’s half paid for, anyway.” “It looks good.”
Abe Goldstein, who worked the police beat for a rival paper, snickered and said: “It looks good, hell! It looks just gorgeous. Just too simply gorgeous.”
Morris managed a sickly grin for McCarthy. He gave Goldstein a cold and haughty look and said, “Yah! Well, it cost me sixty bucks, anyway.” The unimpressed Goldstein said that the tailor had certainly seen Mr. Morris coming from a distance and recognized him as the chump he was. He also said his brother-in-law, who was in that business, could duplicate the plaid job for not a cent over thirty-five dollars but that the said brother-in-law ran a quality store and would not have a piece of goods with a pattern like that in the shop. Morris gave up the argument and said hastily to McCarthy, sniffing the press room:
“You want to see me, Pat? Let’s go outside. I got to get fresh air, every so often around here.”
Goldstein’s voice followed him out with: “That’s quite a breeze you got on your back, Chet, and you can’t get an argument against it from the next five guys you meet.”
“What d’ya know about Mr. James R. S. Wilson? A big shot, as I remember about him,” McCarthy asked.
Morris took off horn-rimmed glasses and started a polishing job. He said, “Right. A very big shot. Chairman of the Community Chest drive last year. Selectman of the Trinity Church. President of Wilson, Marks and Linehan, Investment Brokers. A very big shot to be sure.”
“What about a lawyer named Ira A. Halstead?”
“Another big shot. A different kind. He’s the people’s friend, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t, Chet.”
“Well, he takes damage cases against railroads and such. On contingency, of course. Some people might call it a form of blackmail but as long as it’s a big company that’s stuck, who cares? The jury always goes for the poor devil who’s suing the heartless corporation, don’t they? So that makes him the people’s friend, because he doesn’t ask for a retainer when he takes that kind of a case.”
“What does he get?”
Morris put his glasses back on and wiped his bald spot with the handkerchief he’d used to polish them with. “Well, usually half the damages the jury gives the victim. Less expenses, of course. But he gets big damages for his clients and very often there’s a few bucks left over for them. A very few though, I’d say.”
“A nice guy, I can see.”
“Not in trouble with him, are you, Pat?”
“Not yet, anyway.”
Morris’s round, good-natured face showed worry. “He’s got connections, if you know what I mean. We lay off him in the sheet. If that means anything.”
“It does, Chet. Thanks a lot.”
“Is that what you wanted to know?”
McCarthy said, “Yeah. It made me remember something. It made me remember that Hal-stead is the lawyer for some guy that’s suing Wilson over a car accident. I remembered it when you said he took damage cases.”
“Wilson is the sort of bird he likes to tackle,” Morris agreed. “I don’t keep up with things on this damn police beat. It’s all I can do to keep up with the cops.”
“And Goldstein,” McCarthy suggested. “Abe can take the hide off a man’s back with that tongue of his.”
Morris said sadly, “Worse than that! He just about took this suit off my back a minute ago and the thing is brand new.”
“I still say it looks good,” said McCarthy, and left.
McCarthy went from the police press room to the paper Morris honored with his services. There he looked over the clippings on the car accident James R. S. Wilson was involved in, and he looked these over thoughtfully. He finally grumbled:
“My stabbed man can be either William Bowes or he can be Antonio Giovanni. And he didn’t look Italian.”
He left the newspaper morgue for a drugstore phone booth and telephoned the hospital. He said, “I’m McCarthy. What about the man who was stabbed in my office building?”
He held the phone, far from patiently, for ten long minutes before he got the doctor in charge of the case. The doctor said:
“He’s doing as well as might be expected, Mr. McCarthy. The police are here now, waiting for the man to recover enough to make a statement. This in spite of my telling them the man will be in no shape to talk for at least twenty-four hours.”
“They don’t know who he is yet?”
“Apparently not. That fact seems to worry them, I might say.”
McCarthy said, disagreeably, “It always worries the police when a man is stabbed. They’re paid to worry about such things.” He consulted the phone book and got Ira A. Halstead’s address and telephone number and studied the phone thoughtfully for a moment. Finally he grumbled:
“Might as well go; he wouldn’t tell me anything over the phone, anyway.”
And then went hunting for a cab.
ALSTEAD’S law offices looked stately and dignified but Halstead looked like a boy barely out of college— like a boy who’d majored in athletics. He shrugged his bulky shoulders, lifted calm brown eyes from McCarthy’s card, and said: “My secretary told me it was about one of my clients, Mr. McCarthy. Will you explain?”
“I’m trying to identify a man,” McCarthy explained. “He had nothing in his pockets but your card and I thought possibly you might be a help. He’s a man of about forty and he weighs around one fifty. He’s got sandy hair and eyebrows and when I last saw him he needed a shave. In fact, he’d needed one for the last couple of days. He wears a brown suit and hat and white shoes. The shoes needed clean
ing. He has a scar along his jawbone, not very long but still noticeable. Can you think who that might be?”
Halstead studied the problem and then shook his head. “I don’t recall any client who that describes. You say he had my card in his pocket?” “And that’s all he had,” McCarthy lied, leaving out all mention of Wilson’s card and the five new hundred dollar bills.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you, Mr. McCarthy.”
“It wouldn’t be Antonio Giovanni, would it?”
Halstead laughed. “Antonio Giovanni is at least fifty. He isn’t over five feet tall and he must weigh at least two hundred pounds. He talks broken English, very broken English. He’s been in this country thirty years or more but he acts like an immigrant to this day.”
“What about William Bowes?”
McCarthy was watching Halstead’s hands and he thought one of them tightened almost imperceptibly. And when he looked up he noted Halstead’s eyes had lost their warm frankness and now looked wary. Halstead said, as though surprised:
“Now I never thought of him. Bowes does answer that description to an extent. By George, it might be Bowes at that.”
McCarthy said, “I thought it might be.”
“Is the man in trouble? He’s my witness in a rather important case that’s coming to trial shortly. As a matter of fact, the Giovanni case. By George, that’s why you spoke of Giovanni! You associated the two in some way! Where is the man now?”
“In the hospital. He was stabbed.”
Halstead shook his head and said, “Poor fellow. If he dies, it will be too bad for my client, I am afraid. I was depending on his testimony to show negligence on the part of the driver who killed his son.”
“You mean Wilson.”
Halstead nodded and smiled. The warm look was back in his eyes. He leaned forward and said, “That was an unfortunate thing. Mr. Wilson was driving along and struck young Giovanni, killing him instantly. Two days after that this man you speak of, William Bowes, got in touch with the elder Mr. Giovanni and told him he’d witnessed the accident. I may add that Mr. Wilson got in a panic immediately after the accident and drove around some time before reporting the matter to the police. You understand that makes him technically liable to a hit and run charge. Bowes insisted Mr. Wilson was entirely at fault.”
“How? How was he wrong on it?”
Halstead said, in as friendly a voice, “Mr. McCarthy, I am a lawyer. I can’t ethically answer your question. I don’t understand your interest in the matter unless you should be investigating the matter for Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson is opposed to my client and I can’t very well tell you our case against him. I hope you will understand.”
McCarthy got to his feet. “I’m not investigating it for anybody but myself. At least not as yet. But this man Bowes was stabbed in front of my office door, and there was a reason back of it. I’m naturally interested in it. Well, thank you, Mr. Halstead.”
Halstead stood also. “Is the man in bad shape, Mr. McCarthy? Will he recover?”
“The medicos don’t know yet. He’s at the Sisters of Mercy Hospital; you can keep in touch with them.”
“I’ll certainly do that,” Halstead said, following McCarthy to the door. “And thank you, Mr. McCarthy, for telling me this. As I said, Bowes is the backbone of our case. If he should die, I’m afraid we haven’t one.”
McCarthy shook hands and left the office. He stood on the sidewalk for a moment, then headed for another phone booth. He got the Central Station and Detective Lieutenant Shannon, and told that big Irishman:
“I think the guy that got stabbed in front of my place is named Bowes. William Bowes. You might do a little checking on it. He’s a witness in a damage case against Mr. James R. S. Wilson, if that means a thing to you.”
Shannon whistled and said, “He’s flying high, Pat. I’ll look into it. How’d you get it?”
“From Halstead, the lawyer who’s suing Wilson. The lawyer this Bowes is a witness for. And Shan, here’s something funny. I didn’t crack about where the guy was or what had happened to him or a thing that would tip Halstead off. But I talked as though something had happened to him and Halstead let it go. He seemed to think the guy was dead. Then he caught himself on it and changed it to asking questions. Does that mean anything?”
“What should it mean?” Shannon asked cautiously.
“Well, it should mean you should keep a police guard on this Bowes, if it’s him, until he’s out where he’s got a chance to fight for himself.
This Halstead is supposed to be a smart baby, that’s why I talked to him the way I did.”
“He’s smart, all right.”
“He’s too damn smart,” said McCarthy. “I don’t trust these baby-faced boys that don’t look as though they’d ever spoken out of turn in their life. They’re the kind I watch because they’re too good to be true. I’ll be seeing you, Shan.”
“Why are you angling around on it, Irish?”
McCarthy said bitterly, “Well, I think the guy was coming to me for help when he got the shiv in him. I don’t like to lose clients that way, even if I haven’t really got ‘em at the time. And then I’m a Socialist or something—the poor guy didn’t have any money and everybody else that seems interested in him has. Wilson and this lawyer Halstead, both. I want to see the guy get a break.”
“What do you get out of it?”
“Well, exercise, at least,” McCarthy said. “And maybe practice.”
ENNY COHN was waiting for McCarthy by the time he got back to his office. And Benny’s nose was swollen ! out of shape and his left eye was a lovely green and adhesive tape held down a plaster on his left cheekbone. McCarthy stared at him and said:
“What the hell happened?”
“Didja ever see one of these iron things like they press pants with, Chief?” Benny asked, in a plaintive voice. “Well, I take the thirty-five smackers I get at the hospital and I go down to pay off this gal I was telling you about and, Chief, guess what happens.”
McCarthy said, “I don’t have to guess. I know. She clouted you with the iron.”
“Wrong, Chief, wrong. I dodge the iron, except for it bouncing off the wall and falling against my neck, sort of. But when I duck the iron, Chief, she unbuckles herself and comes at me with the ironing board thing and she lands with it. I run like hell, Chief, and no mistake.” “Did you give her the thirty-five?”
“I never had a chance. She started in throwing that iron thing when I put my head in the door and say to her ‘Hi, sweetheart.’ Right then she starts. I mail that thirty-five to her, Chief, I mail it. And I get another thirty-five from you tomorrow or the next day, the Doc says.”
“From me!”
“The Doc says you’re paying the shot, Chief, and that I should come to you for the dough. So I’ll be here.”
McCarthy estimated how long five hundred dollars would last if the man in the hospital had a daily transfusion at thirty-five dollars a copy. He groaned. Benny said helpfully:
“He must be a pal of yours for you to pay off like that. The Doc says he may be in there for the next six months, on account of his guts being all cut to hell. I bet it costs you a pretty penny, Chief, a pretty penny.”
“Will you get out?” McCarthy said.
Benny went out. He poked his head around the door a moment later, however, and said, “Hey! I get thinking about getting smacked in the puss with that iron board arrangement and I forget. You’re to call Miss Marge. See, Chief! Your phone it rings and it’s her and she says to call her up.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Just now, Chief.”
Benny left for the second time, and McCarthy called Marge’s number. She said in a rush, as soon as she heard his voice:
“Oh, Pat! I’ve been trying to get you. It’s Chet Morris. He tried to get you and when he couldn’t he called me. He went up to see that Wilson man and told him you were checking on that accident thing or something.”
“I didn’t tell him that.”
“He said that after he talked to you he got thinking and remembered that lawyer was suing Wilson. And that he thought there might be a story in it and went up to see about it. He said Wilson was very nice, but that he got telephoned at the paper, almost as soon as he got back from seeing Wilson, and that somebody told him to lay off and keep out of what didn’t concern him.
He thinks that means you, too. He said he didn’t want to see you get in trouble.”
“Little Mother Morris,” said McCarthy, sourly. “Why did he have to tell Wilson I was looking around?”
“He said he didn’t think it made any difference.”
“Well, it probably doesn’t,” McCarthy said, and made a dinner date for eight that evening.
Marge said, “Why not at seven? I’m hungry now.”
“I’ve got to see this Giovanni guy that’s suing Wilson first, hon. It may take me a little time to find him.”
“I see. You be careful, Pat. It worries me about what Chet Morris said.”
McCarthy laughed and said, “You and Chet would make a good pair. You both worry.”
NTONIO GIOVANNI owned a small and messy vegetable store in the center of Italian town and it was there Mc-J^Carthy found him. Antonio JL was on the floor and on his & face and he’d apparently been trying to crawl under a long tray-like metal affair that held vegetables beneath a spray-like arrangement. The tray, possibly four feet wide, sloped down toward the front of the store for a display, and Antonio was sprawled partly under this and looking like a large and very dead frog.
Water from the spray had seeped through on him and washed part of the blood around him away, but there was still plenty left. He’d had long sweeping mustaches and one was soaking in blood while the other hung like a brush toward the floor.
McCarthy, without touching anything, knelt and looked—and thought he’d never seen such a pitifully ridiculous corpse. He saw three small, round, and purple holes in the cheek turned toward him, saw another in the part of fat neck in view. He cursed, silently and viciously and stood, and then a voice from behind him said: “Hey! Where’s Tony?”