The Wrong Murder

by Craig Rice

  There was a long, anxious pause while Von Flanagan considered it.

  “Is that the truth?” he asked at last, in a half-convinced voice.

  Helene looked at him with wide, injured eyes. “You don’t think I’d lie to you, do you?”

  If Von Flanagan had taken time to remember past encounters with Helene, he might have indignantly answered, “Yes!” But that look in Helene’s eyes had paralyzed many a stronger man than he would ever be.

  “I’ll be damned and double damned,” he breathed.

  Helene turned on a smile that would have paralyzed the entire police department of the city of Chicago.

  “Why the hell didn’t Jake Justus tell me this last night?” the police officer asked.

  Helene was ready for that one. “He’d promised he wouldn’t. It was agreed the police shouldn’t know anything about it until the bet was all settled one way or the other.” A cloud shadowed the lovely eyes. “I know I shouldn’t have told you about it, but I simply had to!”

  It was, after all, a perfectly plausible story, especially backed up by Helene’s voice and manner. Besides, the police officer had begun to wonder if he was going to learn anything of value from Jake Justus. Finally, he was beginning to feel a little guilty about the trick he had played on Helene two days before.

  He looked up and to his horror saw two immense tears slowly rolling down her smooth cheeks.

  “Oh, please,” she begged, “isn’t there any way you can let Jake go without his knowing I told you about the bet? It would be terrible if he did!”

  With a terrific effort, Daniel Von Flanagan managed to look stern. “A wife has no business keeping secrets from her husband.”

  More tears appeared, and a muffled sob. With a faintly abstracted air the police officer produced a large, efficient-looking handkerchief and mopped Helene’s face.

  Malone decided it was time to take a hand. “How about a deal, Von Flanagan. If you agree not to let Justus know that Helene told you about the bet, we’ll forget all about that little matter of a suit for false arrest.”

  Von Flanagan blushed. “That was nothing but a joke.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first joke that created grounds for a suit. How about it?”

  “All right, all right,” the police officer said hastily. “I won’t say a word. I’ll tell Justus I decided not to hold him any longer and let it go at that.”

  Not till hours later did Von Flanagan realize that no one had discussed the possibility that he might keep Jake in custody, not after Helene’s first words.

  The formalities of Jake’s release were brief. Brought into Von Flanagan’s office, pale and drawn, his suit badly wrinkled, he had listened patiently while the officer explained it was considered unnecessary to hold him for further questioning. Besides, Von Flanagan added in a fatherly manner, far be it from him to keep a man from going on his honeymoon. Jake had thought of a number of things he wanted to say to Von Flanagan during his night in jail, but a look from Helene convinced him that this was not the time to say them. Thus the final parting from Von Flanagan was almost tearfully amiable.

  Out on the steps Helene paused a moment, drawing on her gloves. “What were you muttering under your breath about deliberate and unprincipled liars, Malone?”

  “I was only saying that I’d love to have you on a witness stand. As my witness, of course.”

  “Well I talked Jake out of jail, anyway.”

  Malone said, “With any reasonable luck you ought to land in jail together next time.”

  “If we do,” Jake said crossly, “you can go home and curl up with the whole damn corpus juris.”

  Before he could say more, two men who had been lounging about near the building entrance suddenly stepped up.

  “You—Jake Justus—”

  Jake wheeled around. “What do you want?”

  The speaker was a small, slender, and yet broad-shouldered man with a hard, pallid face and glossily black hair. His clothes, from the tips of his gleaming light-tan shoes to the top of his purplish-black Homburg hat, could only be described as snappy. In fact, Helene said later, snappy was a feeble understatement.

  “I’d like a word with you in private,” the man said. The cigarette in his mouth barely moved as he spoke.

  Jake said, “This is private enough for me.”

  The stranger scowled. “I don’t talk in front of no other people.”

  “Come now, Georgie,” Malone said unexpectedly. “I’m Mr. Justus’ lawyer. You trust me, don’t you?”

  The man he had addressed as Georgie stared at him, then broke into a smile. “I didn’t know you for a minute, Malone.” He hesitated only an instant. “The boss wants to talk with Mr. Justus. I been waiting here all morning for him to come out.”

  “Why?” Malone demanded.

  The gangster’s face was impassive. “He wants to make a deal with him.”

  “What kind of a deal?”

  That question apparently couldn’t be answered.

  “Tell your boss to write to my lawyer,” Jake said irritably, starting for the car. The second of the two men made a sudden move, the one called Georgie waved him back.

  “Wait a minute, Mr. Justus. He said you could practically name your own price.”

  Jake spun around. “Price for what?”

  “He said you’d know what he meant.”

  “I don’t, and tell him to go to hell.” He shoved Helene into the car and climbed in beside her. Malone followed, slamming the door.

  As Helene started the car, the two men on the sidewalk seemed to be holding a hurried conference. The one called Georgie gestured toward the building from which Jake had just emerged and shook his head firmly.

  “Who are your friends, Jake?” Helene asked, guiding the big car skillfully through the combination of half-darkness and softly falling snow.

  “Damned if I know. Damned if I know what they want, either.”

  “The guy in the purple hat is Little Georgie la Cerra,” Malone volunteered. “I don’t know his pal. The boss is Max Hook, head of a gambling syndicate and God knows what else. Used to own the Casino. What have you been getting mixed up in, Jake?”

  Jake shook his head. “I haven’t the faintest idea. Should I have gone to see this Hook guy?”

  “No.”

  Helen asked, “How come you know this handsome yegg, Malone?”

  “I got him out of jail once. Something trivial—suicide, I think.”

  “Huh?” Jake said.

  “Never mind. What did you find up in Gumbril’s room?”

  Jake described the finding and hiding of the box.

  Helene scowled. “Everything we need to know may be locked up in that box. Now all we need to do is get it.”

  Jake looked thoughtful. “I’m not so sure,” he said. “As I remember our pal Gumbril, he was not a sweet-scented citizen. Yet the inside of that closet of his made a pleasant impression on my nose.”

  “So you’re turning into a beagle,” said Malone. “What has that got to do with Gumbril’s box?”

  “Figure it out,” said Jake impatiently. “Gumbril never used that perfume, and yet the smell of it was in his closet. Question: how long does a scent last?”

  Helene nodded thoughtfully. She said, “What the mastermind is trying to say, Malone, is that somebody was in that room just ahead of him. And if Jake could find that box, anybody could.”

  Jake said, “Which adds up to the fact that it’s probably empty right now and that I spent the night in jail when I definitely had other things to do.”

  “Keep to the subject,” said Helene severely. “There’s a chance that the perfumed marvel didn’t find that box, and we ought to think of a way to get it.”

  “Let me out of here,” Malone said, “before you think of a way to get it. I have clients to see and an office to go to. From now on you’re on your own.”

  Helene said, threading her way carefully through the traffic, “Have you considered that if Mona McClane gets pinc
hed for Gumbril’s murder, you can probably defend her for an exorbitant fee?”

  Malone was silent for a moment. “No, I hadn’t.”

  “Well, think of it now. And let’s get Jake shaved, and his suit pressed, and start life all over again.”

  Jake said, “Let’s go to the bank first so I can cash a check. I lost all the money I had on me playing rummy with one of the cops.”

  “When I play cards with cops,” Helene said acidly, “I win.” She drove the big car to Jake’s bank on La Salle Street and paused before the entrance. “Run in and out fast, I can’t park here.”

  Jake pushed his way through the crowds into the bank, cashed his check, looked at the balance it left, and reflected that winning the bet he’d made with Mona McClane might not only be good clean fun, but sheer necessity.

  As he started across the sidewalk the smaller of the two men who had accosted him earlier appeared from nowhere, got into Helene’s car, and slammed the door. Before Jake could make a move he felt a gentle, but terribly insistent pressure against his back, and heard a voice, low-pitched but speaking with deadly intent, close to his ear.

  “Never mind the car. Your friends are O.K. Just walk slowly down La Salle Street as if nothing was bothering you. You and me have to take a little ride together.”

  Jake hesitated for a split second, then moved. There was nothing to do but obey. At the first words he had recognized the voice as that of Little Georgie la Cerra.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Your friends are o.k.,” the voice at Jake’s ear said again in that low, hissing whisper. “They’re just going to ride around the block a coupla times. You’re O.K. too if you keep moving and keep your mouth shut.”

  Jake knew it was definitely not a time to be funny. He had a notion that Max Hook’s boys didn’t play that way.

  “Right down La Salle Street,” La Cerra whispered. “Turn right on Adams. I’ll tell you when we get to the car.”

  Jake nodded and kept moving. The sidewalks of La Salle Street were crowded, but none of the people around him had the faintest notion that he was walking down the street with the important end of a gun shoved into his ribs. But they were Jake’s ribs. He kept moving, and thinking.

  “This ain’t nothin’ personal,” came the low voice. “When the boss orders me to bring somebody to see him, I gotta bring him. See?”

  Jake decided this was intended to constitute an apology for what might be considered social misconduct.

  If there was a policeman in sight, something might be attempted. La Cerra would have no hesitation about firing in the midst of the crowd. That was good gangster technique. A getaway would be easy in the resulting confusion. But if a policeman’s attention could be attracted first, the gunman wouldn’t take the chance.

  The problem was that in all La Salle Street, there wasn’t a policeman in sight.

  A bluff might work. If La Cerra’s boss was so anxious to see him, he probably would prefer to see him alive. It was hard to bluff, though, with a gun against his back.

  If there was only a way of attracting the attention of the passing crowds to himself and his companion, La Cerra wouldn’t dare shoot. Once people were looking, a dozen or more witnesses would remember La Cerra, should he fire. But with everyone going down the street intent on his own affairs, La Cerra could fire and get away, and no one would remember he had been there.

  Jake tried to think of how he might attract attention in such a way that the gunman couldn’t shoot until it was too late for him to do so and get safely away. Jake could think of nothing more adequate than making faces. They couldn’t have been very good faces, he reflected later, because no one seemed to notice them.

  He was damned if he was going to be kidnaped on a public street like this. Perhaps one quick move—

  “Repent—Oh Chicago!”

  Jake was startled into jumping, ever so slightly. He felt the gun at his back jerk a little. Before he could take advantage of the move, however, he heard La Cerra’s voice at his ear.

  “Keep moving and don’t pay no attention.”

  “Oh Sodom—Oh Gomorrah—Oh Chicago, repent!”

  Jake recognized the voice. A little ahead of him in the crowd he could see a tall, ungainly figure in a shabby, not too clean Prince Albert coat. Long, silvery hair curled down over his soiled celluloid collar from under a broad-brimmed black hat. He held a Bible in his hand, and as he strode down La Salle Street with the conscious majesty of one possessed by revelation, from time to time he would hold the Bible aloft and call, in a clear, ringing voice, “Repent! Oh Chicago—repent!”

  The prophet was a familiar figure on La Salle Street and had been for many years, yet people on the crowded walks always paused and turned to look at him. They were pausing to look at him now.

  An insane idea began to form in Jake’s mind. It was, in fact, something he had long wanted to do, under happier circumstances. He managed to feel in his inside pocket without attracting his companion’s attention and drew forth a largish address book. Then he drew a long breath and waited hopefully for the prophet to speak.

  He didn’t have long to wait.

  “Oh Chicago—repent!” cried the prophet.

  “Oh Chicago—repent!” Jake repeated.

  This time the crowd really stopped to look. This prophet had an echo.

  The prophet stopped likewise. Here was a problem for which there was no precedent in Scripture. For the first time in his many years on the street, he had a curiously hesitant appearance.

  The gun at Jake’s back had wavered a trifle, now it was held firm again.

  “Cut that stuff out and keep walking.”

  Jake dutifully kept walking, his eyes on the figure ahead. The crowd was interested all right, but in the wrong man.

  “Repent—Oh Chicago!” The prophet tried it again.

  “Repent—Oh Chicago!” Jake’s voice was an exact echo.

  The prophet stopped dead in his tracks and looked timidly over his shoulder. About half the crowd was looking at Jake now. Suddenly the prophet wheeled around as though he had decided to ignore the whole proceedings and try something new. He raised his hand magnificently.

  “Oh Sodom—Oh Gomorrah—”

  “Oh Sodom—Oh Gomorrah—”

  That was the last straw. The crowd began to laugh. Without turning to look back the prophet of La Salle Street made off briskly and unobtrusively in the direction of Jackson Boulevard, and was heard of no more that day.

  Jake realized that the pressure was gone from his back. Little Georgie la Cerra had disappeared.

  There was more than the routine appreciation that an artist gives his admiring audience in the smile that he returned to the crowd. “Little do they know!” he told himself. Yet he hadn’t the faintest notion that his unwelcome mentor had gone quietly home to mother. He’d freed himself for the time being, that was all. The trick now was to get as far away as possible, and to do it fast.

  He pushed his way to the edge of the sidewalk and looked around for a taxicab. Chicago’s five thousand cabs had all vanished into thin air.

  At that instant Helene’s long, sleek car drew up alongside, the door to the front seat was opened, and he jumped in. By the time he had caught his breath, they were halfway down the next block.

  “Have I married a man or a gang war?” Helene asked grimly. “Watch out for traffic cops, Malone.” She simultaneously drove through a red light and made an altogether illegal left turn onto Jackson Boulevard. For an instant Jake wished he were back with La Cerra. “What shall we do with your pal, Jake?”

  Jake turned around. There on the floor of the back seat was La Cerra’s companion. Malone was sitting on him, placidly smoking a cigarette.

  “Lie still, damn you,” Malone said mildly. There was a muffled protest from the gangster.

  Helene crossed Michigan Avenue and headed into Grant Park. “Sit him up, Malone, and we’ll ask him some questions.” She skidded the car expertly around a corner.

  “
Lemme out of here,” the man said in a weak voice.

  “Shut up till you’re spoken to,” Helene told him pleasantly, “or I’ll take you for another nice drive.”

  The gangster had been pale. Now he turned fairly ashen.

  “What’s your name?” Malone demanded shortly.

  The man murmured something that sounded like “Blunk.”

  Jake leaned over the back of the seat. “What does Max Hook want me for?”

  The man named Blunk was silent.

  “Come on, talk!”

  Still no answer.

  Jake reached out and landed an expert blow on the side of the gangster’s face.

  Helene turned into the South Drive. “There’s a better way than that, Jake.” She called over her shoulder, “Are you going to answer questions, or aren’t you?”

  No response.

  Suddenly Jake had a hazy notion that the end of the world was at hand. For a terrible moment the car seemed to be spinning crazily in space. Trees, buildings, and passing cars whirled around in an insane merry-go-round. In the next moment they were proceeding south on the drive as though nothing had happened.

  “Are you going to talk?” Helene asked. “Or shall I do it again?”

  “Please,” said Blunk in a very small and breathless voice, “don’t do it again, lady. I can’t tell you nothin’. I don’t know nothin’. Georgie, he says to me this morning, he says, com’n, pal, we got work to do, so I goes with him and we waits for this guy to come outa the p’lice station, and I don’t even know who he is except Georgie says the Hook wants to see him, and so help me, lady, that’s all I know. I just went along to protect Georgie.”

  “You couldn’t protect a canary bird from a kitten,” Helene observed icily. “Malone, do you think he’s telling the truth, or shall I shake him up again?”

  There was an anguished howl from the little gangster.

  “He’s probably telling the truth,” Malone said wearily. “We might as well throw him out.”

  Helene sighed. “Just when I was beginning to enjoy myself.” She slowed down to an. almost reasonable pace. “Well, my little friend, the least I can do is drive you home. Where do you live?”