by Craig Rice
“What do you mean, Jake?”
“I mean that conceivably somebody murdered March for them in order to do the blackmailing himself. In which case this affair might run into money.”
“Money,” Nelle Brown said scornfully. “Who the devil cares about money?”
He reminded her briefly and untactfully that there had been days when she would have sold the flowers off her grandmother’s grave for the price of a cup of coffee and a hamburger.
She ignored him, and said, “But if whoever has those letters is a friend of mine—”
“Then Paul March may have been murdered to get you out of a jam.” He looked at his watch. “Listen, baby. We’ll cope with those things later. Right now, you’ve got to go to Max’s. Everybody from the show is going there, and you’re expected. You’ve got to give the impression that you don’t know what’s happened. Does Tootz think you’re coming home tonight?”
“No.”
“Date with Baby?”
“Yes.”
“Well, when Baby shows up, send him home as soon as you can. I’m not going to let you out of my sight until this breaks.” He tapped on the glass, told the driver to take them to Max’s. “I’ll get you out of this somehow, but you’ve got to do exactly as I tell you, every blessed minute.”
“I will, Jake.”
He felt agreeably sure he could depend on that.
At Max’s, he paused a moment in the doorway. “Chase up to the little girls’ room and wash your face. I’ll be waiting for you right here. For the love of Pete, hide that damn handkerchief until you get a chance to burn it.”
“Yes, Jake.” Her voice seemed almost too docile.
Jake decided to stop worrying. Luckily, Max’s was the best place for her to be seen tonight. It was a comfortable, informal, noisy restaurant and bar, where the cast of the Nelle Brown Revue usually gathered after the show. Everyone would remember that Nelle Brown had been there; everyone would remember that she had been her usual lighthearted self. (He hoped!)
Oscar Jepps paused on his way to the bar. “Where the hell have you two been all this time?”
“Riding around Grant Park in a taxi,” Jake said.
Oscar laughed appreciatively, shaking a collection of chins. “That’s very funny.”
There was nothing, Jake reflected, like telling the truth if you wanted to get a reputation as a wit.
Then Nelle returned, no sign of tears on her serene face. The pale-green handkerchief was stuck outrageously through her bracelet, innocent of any stain.
“Washed it,” she whispered impishly.
They were greeted by an uproar of welcome from one end of the big room. There was much confusion of rearranging tables, shifting chairs, and ordering drinks, but when everyone had settled down again, Jake was right at Nelle’s side, where he had intended to be.
He sipped his rye slowly and looked around the room. You couldn’t, he reflected, heave a brick in any direction without hitting a radio artist. (And why not?) There was Bob Bruce, big and blond and handsome (his good-looking face was the trial of his life). McIvers, looking as though he never got enough sleep (he never did); Lou Silver, a little, shiny-haired man, showing off before a heavily mascaraed brunette; a stranger with glasses and a red mustache (they never did find out who he was); the pale, fastidious, Boston-accented John St. John and his homely, brown-haired wife who could be such amazingly good fun (Jake remembered the week end of Oscar’s house party and had the grace to blush); a rather nice-looking blonde in a tight blue dress, and, on the other side of Nelle, the inevitable Baby.
There was, to Jake, a curious unreality about it all. There was the usual talk, the usual patter, the usual drinking, the usual attempts to put Essie St. John under the table. While only six or eight blocks away there was that crumpled body on a kitchen floor. He remembered how many times the man who lay dead had been with them at Max’s, with everyone trying to be nice to him for Nelle’s sake. Last year’s Baby, Jake thought grimly.
He looked slowly around the table. Had one of them slipped over to that shabby apartment between broadcasts and killed a man? But which one of them, and why? Or had it been Nelle after all?
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About the Author
Craig Rice (1908–1957), born Georgiana Ann Randolph Craig, was an American author of mystery novels and short stories described as “the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction.” In 1946, she became the first mystery writer to appear on the cover of Time magazine. Best known for her character John J. Malone, a rumpled Chicago lawyer, Craig’s writing style was both gritty and humorous. She also collaborated with mystery writer Stuart Palmer on screenplays and short stories, as well as with Ed McBain on the novel The April Robin Murders.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1965 by The Estate of Craig Rice
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5026-5
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