The Lucky Stiff

by Craig Rice

  The look she gave in answer was almost a purr. They were dining from a tray in Malone’s room, a meal Malone had chosen carefully for a girl who’d been eating prison food for weeks. Steak, fried potatoes, fresh peas, sliced tomatoes, beer, lemon pie, and half a gallon of coffee. For the second time that day he decided that never before had he so much enjoyed watching a girl eat.

  “Tomorrow night,” he said happily, “fried chicken and ice cream.”

  She smiled at him again, and he felt as though the little room had been flooded with sunshine.

  Everything, for the moment at least, was rosy. It turned out he’d been quite justified in his choice of crap games. Later there had been a brief poker session in a Randolph Street hotel room. Now there was a bracelet on Anna Marie’s wrist, steak on her dinner tray, and a spare two hundred dollars in his pocket. He was going to use all of it for good purposes, too, except a week’s salary for Maggie. The bank and the office rent could wait. For just a moment he thought regretfully of Eva Childers’ ten one hundred dollar bills.

  He waited until Anna Marie had polished off the last scrap of lemon pie and sighed ecstatically over the last drop of coffee before he lighted her cigarette and asked very casually, “Have you any idea why Joe Childers’ widow would want to pay me a big hunk of money to find your bereaved family?”

  Anna Marie stared at him incredulously. “Do you know what you’re talking about?”

  “If I don’t,” Malone said, “I’ve been dreaming all afternoon.” He went on to describe the interview. “I didn’t take her money,” he finished, “because I had a pretty good idea she had a hunch I was nosing around to find out who did arrange Big Joe’s murder, and she wanted me to drop it. It was just a polite way of offering me whatever dough I cared to name to lay off.”

  “Do you think that she—” Anna Marie frowned. “I don’t know. She might have.”

  “Or,” Malone said, “she might know who did. Or, I might have been all wrong and it wasn’t a bribe. She might have been telling the truth.”

  Anna Marie grinned wickedly. “Why don’t you take her up on it? Take the retainer, locate my only relatives, and send her a bill for a big fee?”

  “I never thought of that,” Malone said, looking at her admiringly. “It never occurred to me that you can tell me who they are.”

  “Not they,” Anna Marie said. “She. Aunt Bess. She’s all my family, now that Uncle Will is gone.”

  Jack St. Clair, her father, had been a tent-show actor. Her mother had run away with him from Grove Junction, Wisconsin. After Anna Marie had been born, St. Clair disappeared. In time her mother had married again, a side-show barker who didn’t want to be bothered with a baby, and Anna Marie had gone to live with Aunt Bess and Uncle Will. She’d been sixteen when her mother died, leaving her a collection of cheap jewelry and a little under a hundred dollars in cash.

  “We were definitely wrong side of the tracks,” Anna Marie said. “Uncle Will ran a livery stable, and prohibition came in about the time livery stables went out, so he took up bootlegging. Aunt Bess ran the business end of it. Then prohibition went out and they opened up a tavern. It never made a lot of money, but it was a living. They were wonderful both of them.” There was a little catch in her throat. “You can’t even guess how good they were to me.”

  “I can,” Malone said, unwrapping a cigar. “Just the same, you couldn’t have been very popular with the mammas and pappas of Grove Junction.”

  “Definitely not.” She smiled. “But I had plenty of dates.”

  “I can imagine that, too,” Malone said.

  “They sent me away to school, my last year in high school. I stuck it out for a term, and then I ran away and got a job singing with a dinky little dance band. Eventually I landed in Chicago at a cheap night spot, and you can pick it up from there if you want to look over the newspaper accounts of my trial.”

  “I know them by heart,” Malone said. He lit the cigar. “Shall I find Aunt Bess and take Mrs. Childers’ dough?”

  “Name five good reasons why not.”

  The little lawyer said nothing. He gazed at the ceiling, his short legs propped comfortably on a chair, and puffed out a great gray-blue cloud of cigar smoke.

  “All right,” Anna Marie said, “name one.”

  “I’ll name one,” Malone said almost dreamily. “I’ll probably get in a lot of trouble, and I’m in enough trouble as it is. But on the other hand”—he gazed thoughtfully at the end of the cigar—“I might as well, and trouble be damned. O. K., I’ll have Maggie telephone her in the morning and say that I’ve changed my mind about the retainer. Then I’ll go through the motions of locating your Aunt Bess, and send Mrs. Childers a suitable bill.”

  One thousand dollars, and his conscience clear about taking it! His creditors would never know how much they owed to Anna Marie’s fine, logical mind.

  He poured two glasses of brandy and lit another cigarette for Anna Marie. “I knew Big Joe Childers,” he said in a reminiscent tone. “A tall, heavy-set, stoop-shouldered guy. Looked ill. A good guy. I remember him. Worked in a shoe store, and went to the same night law school I did. He was older than I was. Fact is, he quit that school about eight years before I went into it, and started package-running for a second string bootlegger.”

  Anna Marie said furiously. “He had to. You don’t understand—”

  “Shut up,” Malone said pleasantly. “I’m doing the remembering this time. He quit that school and took that job because he had a widowed mother with—with what was it, Anna Marie?”

  “Dropsy,” Anna Marie said. Her lips were pale. She held the brandy glass tight.

  “This is a success story,” Malone went on in that same dreamy tone. “Big Joe fought it out a few times with the cops, and with rival gangs. But, like the Rover boys, he always won out. So let’s skip ahead a few years. Quite a few years. We find Big Joe a rich man, with a rich and socially ambitious wife, and a beautiful girl friend.”

  Anna Marie said sharply, “That’s enough!”

  “I told you to shut up,” Malone said. “Do you want me to bribe you, or threaten you? Anyway, Big Joe wouldn’t have”—he paused, decided not to go into details of the kind of protection frame-up that had been worked on Jake. “Well—he wouldn’t. Anna Marie, who would have wanted to arrange Big Joe Childers’ murder—and your murder?”

  “His murder? Plenty of people, Malone. People who wanted him to go into things he didn’t want to go into. Look, Malone. Big Joe was a racketeer, but he was honest. Understand? People who owed him money. People who were afraid of him. Any number of—” Suddenly she leaned forward, elbows on her knees, her eyes very bright. “Malone, for weeks I sat there in that grimy cell and asked myself, who would have wanted to murder Big Joe. And I made a list of people as long as a pair of arms. But somehow I couldn’t see any of them planning it. I was stuck, and I’m still stuck. I wish to heaven I could lay my hands on—oh bust it, is there any more of that brandy?”

  “Plenty,” Malone said. He poured two more drinks and retrieved his cigar from under the end table. “You haven’t answered, who would have wanted to arrange your murder?”

  She let the glass sit on the table and stared at him. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know. Hell, everybody makes enemies, I suppose, but an elaborate frame-up like that—” Her breath caught in her throat.

  “Drink that drink,” Malone said harshly, “and get set to answer a bunch of questions. Tough ones.”

  She drank it obediently, tried to smile at him, and said, “Go ahead, you’re the doctor.”

  “I’m the lawyer,” Malone said, finishing his own drink. “There’s a difference.” He relit his cigar. “Pretend you’re on the witness stand, babe, and don’t answer anything you don’t have to.”

  He rose and waved the cigar at her.

  “Did you ever know Ike Malloy?”

  “I don’t think so. I may have met him.”

  Malone noticed how her back stiffened as she began answeri
ng questions. She’d been through a lot of this at the trial. He hoped the misery in his heart didn’t show through his eyes.

  “What was Bill McKeown to you?”

  “Nothing. He said he was in love with me. But I never—”

  “You never what?”

  “I never did. I couldn’t. Because—” She drew a long, almost gasping breath. “Malone, what is this?”

  “A brief cross-examination,” Malone said. “Did you ever know a man named Ambersley?”

  She frowned, looked blank in thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Never heard of him.”

  “Sure?”

  “Malone, do you think I’d lie to you?”

  “Could be,” Malone said laconically. “Girls do tell lies. That’s why lawyers study up on cross-examining.” Suddenly he rose and began pacing up and down the little room. “This isn’t a rehearsal for a vaudeville act, you know. I may seem to be asking silly questions, but you’re supposed to give back serious answers. Why did you lie to me about Ike Malloy?”

  She stared at him, her lovely eyes wide, her lips turning pale.

  “I didn’t lie to you, Malone. I didn’t know Ike Malloy. I said—I may have met him.”

  “Ike Malloy was a bouncer at the old Haywire Club when you were singing there,” Malone went on relentlessly. “You saw him a dozen—hell, a hundred—times. Didn’t you?”

  “Yes, Malone.”

  “Damn it,” Malone said, keeping his eyes away from her tortured face. “Don’t look at me in that tone of voice. You’re still on the witness stand. Now answer yes or no, and no nonsense about it. Would you have recognized Ike Malloy?”

  “Yes.” It was a whisper.

  “Talk louder,” Malone said, “the jury can’t hear you. Why didn’t you recognize him when he came in and shot Big Joe Childers?”

  “I—” Her mouth opened with a gasp, then shut like a trap.

  “He wasn’t wearing a mask,” Malone said harshly, “and your eyesight is good.”

  She gave a little moan and covered her face with her hands.

  “Don’t mind me,” Malone said. “I’m just your lawyer. Remember, this hurts me worse than it does you.” His tone was light, almost gay. “One reason was that it wouldn’t have done you any good. Is that right?”

  She nodded. Then she said, “I could have said I saw Ike Malloy come in and shoot him, or I saw Joe Jackson McGillicuddy come in and shoot him—and it wouldn’t have made any difference. Because nobody would have believed me. And whoever I named would have had an alibi. Those things are arranged—very carefully.”

  “Right,” Malone said. He puffed at his cigar and stood staring at her. “But there was one other reason why you didn’t name names. You were assured you were going to be all right. And you knew, or thought you knew, who’d hired Ike Malloy.”

  He took one quick glance at her dead-white face and added hastily, “Never mind, you don’t have to answer any more questions. For the love of little potatoes, don’t faint now. Because we’ve got to go out and haunt a house, remember? And,” he said with unexpected cheerfulness in his voice, “you don’t know it yet, but you’re going to haunt a couple of my dearest friends.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “It’s nine thirty-five,” Helene said. There wasn’t anyone to overhear within half a mile, as far as she knew, but she whispered it just the same. “Jake, I don’t like this.”

  Jake frowned. He said, “I wish you’d taken my invariably sound advice and stayed home.”

  “He said both of us,” Helene reminded him. She shivered. “Jake, is Malone mixed up in something, or is he just a little—” She paused, took out a cigarette, and began tapping it against the back of her slender hand. “Why the blazes doesn’t he get here?”

  They’d been at the meeting place in Lincoln Park ten minutes early, and the waiting time had seemed almost unbearably long. Helene had parked the convertible a block away from the intersection of the two paths that Malone had described in his note, a gloomy corner shadowed by elm trees and, right now eerie with fog.

  “But why Lincoln Park?” Jake complained. “Why couldn’t we meet him at Joe the Angel’s, or his office, or damn near anywhere except here?”

  “Maybe he’s being followed,” Helene said. “Or maybe he has a client who’s discovered a pneumonia cure, and he wants to try it out on us.” She sneezed.

  Jake said, “Sssh!”

  There were slow, cautious footsteps crunching up the gravel walk toward them. Then a pause. Then more footsteps. A longer pause. Malone’s voice, low-pitched and hoarse.

  “Jake? Helene?”

  “Here,” Helene said.

  Malone breathed a sigh of relief that all but blew twigs off the leafless elm trees. He emerged from the shadowy mists, disheveled, gasping and pale.

  “Is she following me?” he demanded in an anxious whisper.

  “She?” Jake and Helene said in unison.

  Malone glanced cautiously over his shoulder and gave a low moan. “Jake. Helene. My dearest friends. Do you—see anything?”

  “I warned you about that two buck per gallon prune brandy,” Jake said crossly, “even if you do know the guy who makes it.” He took another look at the little lawyer’s face. “What is it?”

  Jake looked. There were dark trees, there was a wide space of shadowed lawn, there was a street lamp far in the distance, there was darkness, laced with white wisps of fog. He shuddered in spite of himself.

  “You’d better go home to bed, Malone,” he advised.

  “No. That girl.”

  “Who?”

  “Her.”

  “Where?”

  “For crying out in the night,” Helene said, “let’s get away from here and go get a drink. Anyway, you’re doing that routine wrong. It’s a dramatic poem. Bear. Where? There. Near? Here—” Her voice broke off into a weird gurgle. “Jake!”

  One minute there had been darkness and shifting mist. The next, there was a ghost, pale gray, transparent, floating. It moved halfway across the lawn and paused.

  Jake held Helene’s hand, tight. “Don’t believe it,” he muttered. “Shut your eyes. It’ll go away.”

  “Perfect nonsense,” Helene said. “How can it go away when it isn’t really there?” She turned to look at the little lawyer. “Malone!” He was grinning.

  “That black raincape with the hood was a wonderful idea,” Anna Marie’s voice came across the lawn. “Look.”

  Jake and Helene looked, in spite of themselves. The ghost vanished. A moment later it appeared again, and a silvery little laugh came echoing through the trees. “Good night, Malone,” Jake said. “This has been a lot of fun, but we have a very important engagement—”

  “Wait,” Malone said.

  Anna Marie walked through the mist, dressed in the gray suit and the little hat with the floating veil, carrying the black raincape over her arm. She paused where a ray from the street lamp struck her face, and took a cigarette from her purse.

  “Go away,” Jake said, his teeth clenched.

  “I won’t,” Anna Marie said pleasantly.

  Malone lit a match for her cigarette and said, “She doesn’t have to go away. She’s my client.”

  Helene choked on an indrawn breath. She said, in a dangerously calm voice, “Malone, are you—”

  “Do I have bells in my battery?” the lawyer asked. “No. Please don’t be disturbed.” He lit a cigar, the glare of the match throwing a weird orange glare over his face. “Did I ever tell you about my apparition?”

  “Damn you, Malone,” Jake said. He stared at Anna Marie for a minute and then demanded, “Are you real?”

  “Sure I’m real. I’m alive, too. If you don’t believe it, pinch me.”

  “My wife doesn’t like me to pinch girls or ghosts,” Jake said. He had an uncomfortable feeling that he was losing a mind, and he hoped it was someone else’s, not his.

  Helene said, “I don’t know just what this situation is, but whatever it is, it calls
for a drink. There’s a bottle in the car. In the meantime, Malone, if there is an explanation—”

  The explanation had been made, in detail, by the time they were comfortably settled in the convertible.

  “So you really are a ghost.” Helene said at last. She reached into the glove compartment, pulled out a bottle of rye, uncorked it, and passed it to Anna Marie. “Why did you haunt us?”

  “We had to have a rehearsal,” Malone said, gallantly holding the bottle for Anna Marie. “Besides, we need you.”

  “I won’t be haunted,” Jake said stubbornly. “I won’t, understand? Go pick on somebody else. Go on, disappear, will you?”

  Anna Marie obligingly pulled the raincape over her head and vanished. Jake groaned.

  “Stop scaring my husband,” Helene said indignantly, “or else give me back my rye. Where to, Malone, and what next?”

  “There’s a very nice club on Cicero Road,” Malone began, “where—” He paused, cleared his throat apologetically, and gave the number of Anna Marie’s apartment. “But we have a little burglary job to attend to first.” He added, “If a ghost can’t break into her own apartment—”

  “First time I ever heard of a ghost needing a skeleton key,” Helene said. The convertible moved away from the curb and headed for the near north side.

  Jake stole a glance in the rearview mirror. Anna Marie’s face was pale, but definitely flesh and blood. It seemed to him that several thousand tons had slid away from his conscience. A miracle—yes, it had been a miracle—had saved her life. Yet he wasn’t completely happy. He had an unpleasant premonition that there was going to be a lot of trouble before this business was finished.

  As the convertible swung into Lake Shore Drive, the fog deepened. Cars crept along through the gray-white darkness.

  “If you had to be a ghost,” Jake said, “you certainly picked the right weather for it.”