by Craig Rice
“Yes, they do,” Arthur Peterson agreed. “When Clara and I were married—” He paused, and coughed. In the silence that followed, the telephone rang. Arthur Peterson answered it, and as he listened, a light came into his pallid yellowish face. His eyes gleamed. The thin, straw-colored hair on his high-domed head seemed about ready to stand up straight. He hung up the phone and said, “Well, the murdered woman has been identified.”
Jake said, “Oh,” and tried not to sound disappointed. Learning the identity of the murdered woman was one of the things he’d counted on doing himself. Still, if he found Bertha Morrison, and discovered the murderer—
“I’ve got to go right over there,” Peterson said, getting up. He looked at Jake speculatively and said, “Maybe you’d like to come along. Strictly unofficially, of course. But you might be able to pick up some literary material.”
“Oh, sure,” Jake said. He might be able to pick up some information he could use, too. He considered saying, “Do you mind if I call up my wife first,” and then thought better of it. His explanation, if he could think of one, had better be delivered in person.
Schultz accompanied them in the police car on the way to the morgue. He didn’t have anything to say, but he kept looking thoughtfully at Jake. A white-faced, middle-aged man was waiting for them in an office adjoining the police morgue. He was an ordinary little man, with receding gray hair, rimless glasses, and a shiny dark-blue suit. He looked friendly and intelligent and, at the moment, tired, worried, and stunned. He was introduced as Dr. William Puckett, of Puckett’s Mills, Ohio.
“It’s Hazel, all right,” Dr. Puckett said. “I mean, Gloria. She didn’t like us to call her Hazel in front of out-of-town folks. Gloria Garden. Legally I guess, though, she’s still Hazel Puckett.” He took out a pipe, tapped it absent-mindedly against the desk, and then put it back in his pocket, still empty. “She was a model. Maybe you’ve seen her picture on some magazine covers. She was on quite a few. I’m her pa.” He took the pipe out again and began absent-mindedly fiddling with it. “Do you know yet who did it? This is going to be a terrible blow to Mrs. Puckett.”
Arthur Peterson said with surprising gentleness, “No, we don’t know yet. Yes, naturally it would be a great blow. To you, too. My deepest sympathy.” He waited a moment and then said, “How did you happen to come in and identify her?”
“Saw her picture in the paper,” Dr. Puckett said. He blew his nose noisily. “That drawing that was made of her face. I’d been trying to find her anyway, so when I saw that drawing I knew it must be her, and it was.”
Jake said, “Trying to find her? Had she been missing?”
Arthur Peterson gave him a look that said, “I’ll ask the questions,” But Dr. Puckett didn’t seem to notice.
“Missing since yesterday,” he said. “I came into town to attend some medical lectures. We country doctors have to keep up, you know. First thing, I went to see Hazel—I mean, Gloria—and she wasn’t there. Didn’t have her telephone number, so I went back two or three times. Last time was about midnight. This morning I tried again, and she still hadn’t shown up. Then I saw that picture in the papers, and came right over here.”
“Did you know Bertha Morrison?” Arthur Peterson asked.
Dr. Puckett shook his head. “Never heard of her. Never heard of her husband, either. ’Course, Hazel knew a lot of people I never heard about.” He sucked noisily on the empty pipe. “Read the whole story, beginning to end, in all the newspapers. None of it told me anything.”
Further questions elicited the information that Hazel Puckett—Gloria Garden—had been a pretty baby, that she’d starred in high-school dramatics, that the summer after her graduation she’d clerked in Wirtz’s Variety Store, saved up her salary, and run away to New York to become a great actress. That had been seven years ago. “Guess she wasn’t much of an actress,” Dr. Puckett said, “but she sure was a mighty fine model. Never knew much of anything about her friends here. Whenever I come into town, we’d go out to dinner and a real good show, and she’d take me all around and show me the sights. She always came home for Christmas, and once in a while for a few days in the summer. But she never could get along with Irma—that’s my son Ed’s wife, they live with us. Irma never did like her.” He put the pipe away in his pocket. “She made a lot of money. Always was sending little presents to Ma, fancy nightgowns and silk underwear and stuff like that. Ma never did wear ’em, but she was pleased as punch.” He paused. “How soon can I take her home?”
“A day or two,” Arthur Peterson said gently.
“As long as that? All right. Well, I guess that’s all I can tell you. If you need me in the meantime, you can get in touch with me at my sister-in-law Mabel’s house. I always stay there when I’m in New York.” He named an address on Staten Island, which Arthur Peterson wrote down and Jake memorized. “That’s all, I guess. G’by.”
“Wait a minute,” Arthur Peterson said. “I’ll have you driven home.”
“Oh, no thanks,” Dr. Puckett said. “I always kinda enjoy the subway and the ferry. It’s a change from riding around in the old car back home.”
Jake and Arthur Peterson watched him as he went down the corridor, a stoop-shouldered little figure, walking slowly. “Damn shame,” Jake said at last.
“Always is,” Arthur Peterson said. “Every time some man or woman is murdered, somebody loses a relative or a sweetheart or a friend. It doesn’t help to get sentimental about it, though.”
“I know,” Jake said. “It impairs efficiency.”
Arthur Peterson said, “Exactly. Well, we’ll start checking up on this Gloria Garden. I’ll get in touch with you soon, Mr. Justus, and we’ll get together. I’d like to talk with you about this book of mine.”
“Delighted,” Jake said again. They were out on the sidewalk before he realized that he was being sent home. “Look, don’t you want me to come along?”
“Remember what I said about amateurs?” Arthur Peterson said.
Jake said, “Yes, but—I was just thinking of getting literary material—”
“I’ll tell you all about it,” Arthur Peterson said, “when it’s all over. So long, and stay out of trouble. Schultz here offered to drive you to your hotel.”
Birnbaum and O’Brien were waiting in a car at the curb. Jake watched while Arthur Peterson climbed in and the car drove away. There wasn’t, he knew, a chance in the world of his examining Gloria Garden’s apartment and prying into her private life ahead of the police. He’d just have to take the chance of finding something they overlooked. Or getting some hunch they missed out on. Suddenly he became aware of Schultz standing in front of him, and of the look in Schultz’s eye. “Sock me, will you,” Schultz said.
Jake tried to duck, but not in time. A sledgehammer blow landed on his jaw, and the world dissolved in a shower of pretty colored lights. When he opened his eyes again, Schultz was bending over him solicitously. “Hope I didn’t loosen up none of your teeth,” Schultz said. “I didn’t mean to sock you quite so hard.”
Jake wiggled his jaw experimentally and said, “Nope, no harm done.”
“O.K.,” Schultz said. “No hard feelings, I hope.” He gave Jake a hand getting up. “C’mon, let’s get going. Before I take you home, I’ll buy you a beer.”
14. Two Telephone Calls
The telephone by his bed went on ringing for quite a while before Malone answered it. At first it didn’t wake him to more than a vague realization that there was an objectionable noise somewhere near his ear. Then when he recognized it for what it was, he relaxed and just let it ring. Whatever the telephone had to inform him, he didn’t want to hear it. Probably bad news, anyway. For a moment his better self insisted that he answer, but Malone immediately told his better self just where to get off. After a few minutes the phone stopped ringing. See, Malone told his better self, I told you that if we just ignored it, it would get tired and go away.
He felt distinctly uncomfortable and depressed. During the night some evil
practical joker had come in and pumped his head full of some lighter-than-air gas. He suspected that if he moved too suddenly, he might explode. A pair of squirrels had evidently been nesting in his mouth, while he slept. And in addition, he was filled with a vague sense of past calamity and a more acute premonition of future ones. Malone wondered what the past calamity could have been. Whatever it had been, it had been terrible. Maybe he’d been murdered in his sleep. That would account for the way he felt right now.
The phone began to ring again, insistently. Malone said, “Oh, all right,” reached for it, missed it on the first two tries, finally got it to his ear, and mumbled, “Go away. I’m a very sick man.”
“Malone,” Helene’s voice said. “Wake up. Get up right away. I need you.”
“Good night,” Malone said. “Sleep well. I’ll see you in the morning.” He hung up.
The phone immediately rang again. Malone counted slowly to a hundred, hoping it would stop. It didn’t. He sighed, propped himself up on one elbow, and answered it again. Helene said, “It’s the middle of the afternoon. Do you want me to come down there and drag you out of bed with my own little hands?”
Malone instinctively pulled the sheet up over his bare chest and said, “No!”
“Well, then,” Helene said, “don’t hang up on me again. Malone, Jake’s back.”
“That’s nice,” Malone said. “All your worries are over. Now go away and let me sleep.”
“Wait,” she said. “He hasn’t explained a thing. He just came in, kissed me, and said good morning. Now he’s taking a bath and shaving. And he has a bruise on his chin.”
“The cop probably socked back,” Malone said, with the voice of a prophet. “What do you want me to do, come down and wash his back?”
“And, Malone, they’ve identified her.”
“Who?” Malone said, blinking. He wondered if he’d missed a sentence.
“The police. They’ve identified that girl. The one who was murdered. It’s all in the papers.”
“That’s nice, too,” Malone said. “Now everybody can stop worrying. Good-by—wait a minute.” It suddenly flashed through his mind that he’d accepted a five-hundred-dollar retainer to find Bertha Morrison and prove that she hadn’t murdered the unidentified girl. And he began to have a horrible idea of what the calamity had been. “Stay where you are,” he said. “Keep calm, don’t do a thing. Wait for me. Don’t lose your head. I’ll be right there.” He heard Helene sniff scornfully into the phone as he hung up the receiver.
Malone sat up, swung his short, plump legs over the edge of the bed, wrapped a sheet around his shoulders, and sat wiggling his toes. It was always a bad sign when he went to bed with his socks on. Just what had happened, anyway? He didn’t look forward to finding out.
At last he rose and began looking around the room. He located his pants under the bed, his vest on a hanger in the closet, his coat hung over a towel rack in the bathroom, his shirt neatly folded and tucked under his pillow, and his tie knotted carefully around a floor lamp. One shoe was in the bathtub (luckily dry) and the other on top of the dresser. He went through all his pockets, through all his luggage, in all the bureau drawers and under the rug. Then he tore the bed apart sheet by sheet. All he could locate was some two dollars in silver in his pants pocket, and a twenty-dollar bill in his vest.
Malone staggered into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. He saw several inches of broad, brown hairy chest, a thick neck, and a round, reddish, haggard, unshaven face. His black hair looked as though someone had been knitting with it during the night, and his blue eyes were faintly pink-rimmed. He told the face exactly what he thought of it, and began, slowly and uncertainly, to shave.
By the time he’d shaved, stood under the shower for ten minutes, and dressed, he felt vastly improved in body. The inch of rye that had somehow been overlooked in the bottle completed the job of putting him back to normal physically. Mentally, though, he’d been going down like a Radio City elevator.
He wasn’t bothered by the fact that the $437 he’d started out with had melted down to $20 and a handful of change. That had happened more than once in his life, though usually under circumstances he enjoyed remembering. It was the fact of losing at poker. Because Malone didn’t lose at poker. When he needed money, which was often, he could always run a small stake up into a comfortable sum, by finding a friendly poker game. He knew all the tricks of professional cardplayers, having successfully defended a number of them in court, but he never used them. He simply relied on the Malone luck, which had never failed him before now. The events of the night before were a grim warning that his luck was running out. Not that he was superstitious, but—The poker game on the train from Chicago didn’t count. Because then he had, as he realized too late, been playing with sharpies. Whereas last night—He paused in the middle of knotting his tie, and swore at the mirror. Then he finished with the tie, put on his coat, picked up his hat, and went out, slamming the door. He wasn’t depressed now, but he was beginning to get mad. Helene was going to have to wait a few minutes. He had other things to attend to first.
By asking a few questions he was able to locate the elevator boy who’d steered him to the poker game the night before. He was off duty, and Malone found him in the locker room, shooting craps. Malone had broken the twenty-dollar bill at the cigar counter, and he handed the boy five. It was, he considered, a good investment.
“Gee, thanks, Mr. Malone,” the boy said.
“Oh, you know me,” Malone said. “That’s nice. I just wanted to ask you, confidentially, who tipped you off last night that I was looking for a poker game?”
“Why,” the boy said, surprised, “the gentleman who came to see you last night. Tall, skinny gentleman, all in black except for his shirt. Some friends of his were having a little game here last night and he said you’d probably want to join in later.”
“Thanks,” Malone said. “I thought so.”
“Nothing wrong, I hope,” the boy said anxiously.
“No-o-o, not a thing,” Malone told him. “If these poker players hang out here regularly, you might let them know I’m expecting some real money by wire today, and I might like to plunge a little heavier tonight, that’s all.” He went up to the lobby and sent off a wire to Joe the Angel. “Wire me hundred dollars. Urgent.”
Helene was coming out of the elevator just as he left the telegraph desk. She wore a navy-blue dress trimmed with big gold buttons, and a wide, navy-blue hat that framed her pale, exquisite face. A big fluffy fur was draped over one arm. “I thought you were coming right down,” she said accusingly.
“Important business,” Malone told her. “Just looking after some investments of mine. Where’s Jake?”
“He came down just ahead of me. Maybe he’s still here in the lobby.” She paused. “Malone, there he is. In the phone booth. What call could he be making that he couldn’t make from upstairs?”
They looked at each other for a moment, then Malone said in a firm voice, “In a situation like this, eavesdropping is perfectly ethical.” He took her arm and led her around behind the phone booth. They got there just in time to hear Jake say, “Is that you, Wildavine? Did you get home all right?”
Helene gasped. Her fingernails dented Malone’s arm through his coat. Malone whispered fiercely, “Shut up!”
“I must see you,” Jake was saying. A pause, then, “Tonight? Can’t you make it sooner? This afternoon? I don’t want to wait till tonight.” Another pause, and, “Oh, all right, if you insist. I think it would be safer if I didn’t come to the house. Where? The Blue Cat Club? Eight-thirty? Fine.” The receiver clicked.
Malone glanced at Helene out of the corner of his eye. What he saw was the Great Stone Face, done in marble, and beautifully carved. He’d seen more expression on fast-frozen oysters. He wanted to say something—he wasn’t sure what, just something—but his mind and his speaking apparatus appeared to have become disconnected. He tightened his grip on her elbow and led her around th
e phone booth, back of the flower stand, and past the cigar counter in time to meet Jake face to face in the center of the lobby.
The tall red-haired man looked tired and pale. An unsuccessful attempt had been made to powder over a bruise on his chin. His hair was mussed, and his eyes were heavy with lack of sleep. “Hello,” Malone said. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Jake looked up from lighting a cigarette and said, “Oh. Hello.” It appeared he couldn’t think of anything else either.
“Just going out?” Helene said brightly. “I thought we’d show Malone the town. You know. Radio City. Grant’s Tomb. Central Park. The Statue of Liberty.”
“Chinatown,” Malone added helpfully. “The Bowery. Wall Street.”
“Wonderful idea,” Jake said. “Don’t miss Trinity Churchyard and the Bronx Zoo.” He finished lighting his cigarette; Malone noticed that his hand shook a little. “Wish I could come with you, but I’ve got an important business appointment.” He looked at his watch. “Let’s meet at six o’clock sharp. Have an early dinner. Is that all right with you?”
“Perfectly,” Helene said. “It’ll give us more time to do the town afterward.”
“What happened to your chin?” Malone asked.
“This?” Jake said, touching it. “Oh, nothing. A door ran into me.”
“As I remember,” Malone said, “the last door that ran into you got his nose broken. How did this one come out?”
Jake laughed hollowly and said, “That’s very funny. Well, I’ll see you at six.”
Helene looked at the revolving door for a long moment after Jake had disappeared through it, and then said, “Malone, what was the name of that place? The Blue Cat Club?”
“I don’t think so,” Malone lied. “I don’t remember just what it was.”