by Craig Rice
“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—name—Guillermo.…” His eyes closed.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“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. He 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 unlighted 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 manner 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 toward which the policeman was coming, and waited. The flashlight suddenly blazed on the door at the end of the entry way, and at the same moment, in one swift silent move, Malone ducked behind the policeman’s back and was safely out on the sidewalk.
Malone had been brought up in a neighborhood where the average small boy learned to dodge policemen at least a year or two before he learned his alphabet. He headed south in the direction of Chicago Avenue, adroitly ducking into doorways and disappearing in the shadows of buildings whenever a squad car came unpleasantly close. Two blocks of this and he was safe.
He was on a badly lighted residential street in a neighborhood that changed abruptly from Italian to Polish. He was weak and exhausted and walking with difficulty. He wished that a taxicab would come along and rescue him.
Once, in fact, he sat down on the curbstone, mopped his brow, and muttered, “There’s as much chance of finding a taxi on this street as there is of finding a snowflake in a haystack.” He thought that over for a moment and amended it to, “Finding a needle in hell.”
He finally reached Chicago Avenue at a point just east of its junction with Milwaukee Avenue. There wasn’t much chance of finding a taxi here, either. It was nearly seven o’clock but the eastbound streetcars were still jammed to the doors with homebound workers.
Anna Marie must be starving for her dinner by now, Malone reflected, starving and, he hoped, worrying about him. But he couldn’t arrive looking like this. He’d better go to Jake and Helene’s first.
He thought it over and decided that a streetcar would be the safest bet. He caught the first one that came along, shoving his way through the crowd, catching a precarious foothold on the step, and finally inching his way into the vestibule where he dropped his fare in the box, clutched a pole, and stood hanging onto it for dear life.
The crowd thinned out rapidly along the way. By the time the car crossed Wells Street it was half empty. Malone still stood there clutching the pole. The car was between Clark and State Streets when a fellow passenger said sympathetically. “What happened, bub? Been in a fight?”
“Uh-uh,” Malone said. He opened his eyes, saw where he was, and prepared to get off. “I was blown up in an undertaking parlor.”
The other passengers laughed appreciatively. Malone climbed down the step, shook his fist in the direction of the streetcar, and said, “Damn it, I w
as blown up in an undertaking parlor! I can prove it!”
He walked over to the sidewalk, leaned against the wall, and waited until a taxi came along. He climbed in, relaxed against the cushions, and gave the address of the apartment hotel where Jake and Helene lived.
The cab driver was another sympathetic soul. He said, “Been having a little trouble?”
“It wasn’t any trouble to me,” Malone said.
He decided the wisest policy would be to use the back elevator and not expose himself to more sympathetic questions as he walked through the lobby. Any minute now, he told himself, his head would clear. It would keep on getting more and more filled with fog right up to a certain point and then, miraculously, everything would be right again. But it was getting very foggy now.
He clutched the side of the elevator for support. The name Louis Perez had gasped out kept beating an annoying percussion accompaniment to the thoughts that whirled madly through his mind. The name didn’t seem to have anything to do with what had happened so far. It was a name he had never heard before and hoped he would never hear again.
Maybe the name was important. Maybe that was why Louis Perez had whispered it just before lapsing into unconsciousness, or maybe—maybe psychology or something—or just maybe—
Malone staggered out of the elevator, its door clanging shut behind him revived him for a moment. He started down the corridor toward Jake and Helene’s apartment, only occasionally pushing the wall away with the flat of his hand.
Ten feet from the door he halted. A short, paunchy man with sleek black hair was being welcomed by Helene at the door. For a moment Malone stood there, undecided. But the familiar-looking stranger seemed harmless, at least at this distance. And the floor and walls were beginning to play merry-go-round now. He wasn’t at all sure he could find the back elevator again, or that he could trust it if he did find it. He groped his way to the door, pounded on it, and nearly fell in when it was opened.
“Malone,” Helene gasped. “What happened to you? Were you robbed?”
“No,” Malone gasped. “I was bombed.”
Jake grabbed him by the elbow and said, “Hello, Malone. You remember Lou Berg, don’t you?”
“Sure do,” Malone muttered. He aimed at the ex-band leader’s outthrust hand and missed it by a good six inches. Jake steadied him.
“Call—her—” the little lawyer gasped. “Tell her—late to take her to dinner—can’t have her worry—” The room was spinning now. “Send to the hotel—for clean clothes—razor—get cleaned up—go meet her—” He pitched forward. Jake caught him just in time.
“Funny thing,” Malone whispered, “for a minute—thought I knew who—but can’t remember name now—”
The walls stopped spinning and mercifully turned black.
Chapter Thirty
“It’s just a mild concussion,” the doctor said. “Coupled with shock and exhaustion. He’ll be up and around in a day or two.” He tucked the sheet around Malone’s chin, put a little box on the table. “Give him two of these if he wakes up. What happened to him, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Helene said truthfully.
“From the symptoms,” the doctor said, “I’d think he’d been in an explosion, but of course—”
Malone lay very still and kept his eyes closed.
“I don’t suppose you have any idea how it happened?” the doctor said.
Helene opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again.
“Well, don’t worry about him,” the doctor told her. He picked up his bag. “A little rest and quiet, and he’ll be all right.”
Jake frowned. “There’s a chance we’ll have to go out and leave him alone. Shouldn’t we get a nurse in?”
“No need for it,” the doctor said. “Once he’s taken those capsules, he’ll stay asleep for twelve hours. I’ll come in in the morning.”
Malone repressed his indignation. Feed him capsules, would they! Keep him asleep for twelve hours! He’d show them!
He heard a low murmur of voices from the next room, and the opening and closing of a door. He waited craftily until he was sure the doctor couldn’t be called back and then moaned softly.
Helene and Jake were at his side in two seconds flat. Malone opened his eyes and looked dazed. “Where—am—I?” he said in a feeble whisper.
“You’re here,” Helene said, taking his hand.
“Where’s—here?”
Jake said, “Malone, what happened?”
The little lawyer blinked and looked bewildered. “What happened to who?”
“To you,” Jake said.
This time Malone didn’t answer. He simply looked blank and faintly puzzled.
“For Pete’s sake,” Helene scolded, “don’t bother him with questions now. Let it wait until he’s had some sleep.”
Malone gave her a faint smile of gratitude.
“You just need a nice little nap,” Helene said soothingly. “And then you’ll be perfectly all right again. You take these two little pills the doctor left for you.”
Malone nodded obediently, inwardly seething. Nice little nap! Twelve hours! Be perfectly all right again! Why, the female Judas!
He opened his mouth, let her slip in the capsules, and managed to anchor them under his tongue. He took one small sip of water and closed his eyes.
“He’ll be asleep in no time,” Helene whispered. “Let’s get out of here and not disturb him.”
Malone heard them tiptoe to the door, heard it close very softly. Then he hastily took out the capsules and tucked them under his pillow. There! Now, it was just a question of waiting until they left.
It was pleasant to lie still and think. His head throbbed, and he felt weary. Wide awake, though. Wide awake, and able to cope with any situation that might come along.
It occurred to him that Jake and Helene might try to take matters into their own hands. Anna Marie would have to be warned.
He listened for a moment. There was a very faint murmur from the next room. He propped himself on one elbow, wincing at the effort, reached for the telephone on the bed table, called his hotel, identified himself, and gave Anna Marie’s room number.
“Listen,” he said in a very low voice. “I’ve got to talk fast, so get all this straight. I want you to send down for some dinner, then get into bed. Jake and Helene may turn up and try to get you to go somewhere or do something. I don’t know where or what. They’ll tell you I’ve been hurt and I’m asleep, but don’t believe them. It’s a trap. Tell them you’re very tired from last night and you’ve gone to bed and you’re going to sleep. Stay right in your room and wait for me, I’ll be along as soon as I can.”
He hung up the phone, feeling very pleased with himself. He’d fixed that business all right!
Someone had gone to pretty great lengths to make sure that Earl Wilks and Louis Perez wouldn’t talk. Why? If what Al Harmon had said was correct, they wouldn’t be able to give much dangerous information about the protection racket. Only the name of their immediate contact. Or had they been in the inner circle, so to speak? Was the name Perez had gasped out the name he, and Al Harmon, and a lot of other people, had tried to learn?
Guillermo. Who the hell was Guillermo? Malone puzzled over it. He knew practically all the large and small-scale racketeers in the city, at least by reputation, and he’d never heard of anyone named Guillermo. He felt that somehow it ought to connect up with something in his mind, and it didn’t.
Had the bomb been thrown because Perez and Wilks could tell something else of importance? As far as he knew, they hadn’t been tied up with Ike Malloy. But could they have known who planned the murder of Big Joe Childers?
There was a third, and distinctly disquieting, possibility. The bomb hadn’t been thrown because Louis Perez and Earl Wilks were in the back room of Rico’s undertaking parlor, but because he himself was there.
He didn’t like the idea, but he couldn’t discard it. Malone scowled and asked himself what he knew that might make him danger
ous. The hell of it was, he suspected, that he did know something important. If only he could remember—
The name, Guillermo, was important, but he couldn’t think why. Something Helene had told him was important. Something to do with Milly Dale. If it would only come back to him. He wished he could call Helene and ask her, but he was supposed to be asleep.
Milly Dale. Something Helene had told him before Milly had been killed.
Just some one fact that he’d forgotten—that was all he needed now to pull everything together.
He lay very still, his eyes closed, thinking. Little by little facts began to fall into their proper place in his mind. The name, Guillermo, and the fact about Milly Dale belonged side by side. They were twin facts. Identical twins.
Suddenly he knew the answer.
He wished Jake and Helene would hurry up and clear out. Now that he knew he wanted action. He told himself to be patient, and waited.
Out in the other room Helene said, “I wish I knew what happened to Malone. He said he’d been bombed.” She turned to Jake and said with a wan smile, “Have you heard of any good bombings lately?”
“No,” Jake said, “but I think we will.” He turned to Lou Berg, and said, “What the hell was the idea of that telegram? ‘Do nothing till you hear from me!’ Do nothing about what?”
The ex-band leader said to Helene, “Your old man’s losing his grip. Too bad. Always hate to see a fine mind go to pieces.”
“Damn you,” Jake said indignantly, “tell me what you mean.”
“Greatest exploitation idea I ever heard of!” Lou Berg exploded. “We’ll première the picture in the Casino. Has a picture ever been preemed in a night club? Not that I know of.”
“What picture?” Jake said.
Lou Berg rolled his eyes and said, “Diagrams I have to draw him yet! Listen, Jake. Tomorrow morning I’m planing on to Hollywood. Already I’m wiring writers. We’ll rush into production the greatest ghost picture ever made.”
A light was beginning to dawn in Jake’s mind. “So that’s what it’s all about.”