The Name Is Malone

by Craig Rice

  Her reaction, Malone observed, with professional interest, was a beautiful thing to watch. She was shocked, surprised and puzzled, but she wasn’t knocked way off base. Nor did she respond with a conventional, “I-don’t-know-what-you-mean!” She simply stared at the big police officer for a moment, mouth open, and then said, “What?” with just the right touch of incredulity.

  This artistry was also, probably, too beautiful to last, Malone reminded himself. He therefore interrupted von Flanagan’s next question before he could make it, with, “This girl is obviously in no condition to be questioned right now, not about anything.”

  “Oh, keep out of this,” von Flanagan said wearily.

  “I will not,” Malone said. “As her lawyer, I demand that you give her a chance to recuperate from that accident. She’s had the shock of being in a nasty wreck at a time when she wasn’t feeling too well anyway, and then you drag her down here and throw a lot of questions at her just to unnerve her. I won’t stand for it.”

  “All right,” von Flanagan said, still more wearily. “But she’ll do her recuperating in jail, then.”

  Malone drew a long breath and said, “That’s fine with me.”

  Von Flanagan looked at him as though he’d lost his mind, and Susie as if he’d lost his heart.

  The little lawyer pretended he didn’t notice a thing and said warmly, “My dear girl, you mustn’t worry about a thing.” He didn’t add that he’d never lost a client yet. He didn’t need to. “I’ll call up your friends and tell them you’re all right and have them get some clothes and things for you.” He saw that she was getting the idea. “If you’ll just give me their telephone number—”

  She gave it to him quickly, a Wilmette number. Malone grabbed the phone on von Flanagan’s desk, placed his call and had Lola Merchant on the line before von Flanagan had caught his breath.

  “Mrs. Merchant?” he said quickly. “Malone. I’m calling for Susie. She was in an accident going home from your place this morning.” On the other end of the line, Lola was catching on fast. Bright girl! “Yes, I know she stayed out there with you last night and started home an hour or so ago, didn’t even wait to change her clothes or her makeup. There was a taxi accident on the way home—”

  “Hey!” von Flanagan shouted. “Gimme that phone!” He gave Malone a truly memorable black look, scowled at Susie Snyder and, for no particular reason, Klutchetsky, snatched the phone from Malone’s hand and snapped, “Who is this?”

  Five minutes later, subdued but peevish, he hung up and said, “Well, that’s that. She’ll be in a little later, soon as her husband wakes up.” He looked at Malone suspiciously, waiting for him to make the next move.

  Malone didn’t make one. He sat regarding the glowing end of his cigar with deep interest.

  Finally, von Flanagan said, “Well, she’s not under arrest—now—but, Malone—”

  “Oh, yes she is,” Malone said.

  Von Flanagan stared at him. “She is not.”

  Susie looked from one to the other, her face bewildered and unhappy.

  “As you have so often pointed out,” Malone said, “we have been friends for a long time. And I say that my client remains under arrest in spite of what you maintain. I say further, that you are going to tuck my client away in your cozy little jail while I send out for some fresh clothes and cigarettes and magazines and anything else she needs and wants. I would even go so far as to say that you can tell the newspapers that you have my client in jail.” He flicked an ash off his cigar. “Because I don’t want some stranger going around shooting at my client, even if he is a lousy shot.”

  Susie said, “Oh!” and slipped down in her chair.

  Von Flanagan was dubious about the whole thing, but not, in the end, successfully. He even conceded that the move might very well make it easier to run down the man or woman who had murdered Dale McDowell and, “tried to frame our poor little Susie Snyder for it.”

  “So that’s that,” Malone said cheerfully. “And now,” he said, turning to Susie, “let’s fix your face before the photographers get here.”

  It had all gone smoothly. Beautifully smoothly. Leaving, indeed, only one disturbing fact. When Lee Merchant woke up, he might very well, and for his own reasons, knock Susie Snyder’s perfect alibi right out of this world.

  Then came the matter of taking Susie to view the scene of the crime, an affair which von Flanagan stage-managed with all the quiet unobtrusiveness of a St. Patrick’s Day parade. But Lola Merchant had arrived by that time—Lee had wakened and would drive down in a few minutes, she’d said, with a meaningful glance at Malone—and had done a magnificent repair job of clothes and make-up on Susie. Malone, himself, had managed a very fast shave in von Flanagan’s washroom, and had retied his tie. Not, he told himself, that he was vain. But you never knew when a prospective client might pick up a newspaper and see a picture.

  The small apartment looked just as it had a few hours earlier, except that Dale McDowell’s body had been removed. Indeed, there was nothing to indicate that the pleasant little living room had been the scene of a murder, not even a drop of blood. The jacket, shirt and bright necktie hung over the back of a straight-back chair; the glasses, bowl of now completely melted ice and overflowing ashtray were still on the table.

  Lola Merchant gasped. “It certainly didn’t look like this when—we picked you up last night,” she said.

  Nobody but Malone had noticed that very faint pause.

  Susie Snyder whimpered faintly and Lola Merchant put protecting arms around her. Malone slipped a warm smile to them. Lola was a tall girl, lavishly and voluptuously designed, with a lot of soft dark hair and a bright, smiling mouth.

  “Assuming,” von Flanagan said, with a meditative frown, “that Susie here went straight home with you and stayed there, like you say she did—” He paused. “Assuming Lee says the same thing as you do, when he gets here—”

  “He will,” Lola said.

  Malone had an uncomfortable feeling that she was avoiding his eyes. He reminded himself again that Susie’s beautiful alibi was only good until somebody disproved it. He wondered, not too happily, just why Lee Merchant hadn’t come along with his wife, in a circumstance like this one.

  “Well then,” von Flanagan said, surveying the scene with a practiced eye, “it could have been that this guy came up here to wait for Susie, and while he was waiting made himself at home.”

  Lola Merchant said indignantly, “Susie would never have anything to do with someone like Dale McDowell!”

  Von Flanagan cocked an eyebrow at her. “You don’t—didn’t—like him?”

  She expressed her opinion of Dale McDowell in one succinct, but highly colorful phrase.

  “Anyway,” Malone said mildly, “there must have been two people here last night.”

  Von Flanagan nodded. “Okay. But this McDowell is the one who made himself at home. Took off his shirt and tie.” He nodded toward the chair.

  Malone glanced at the lemon-yellow tie, with its hand-painted design of green and silver flying fish and one natural color mermaid, and the pale pink shirt, and reflected that the late Dale McDowell might well have been done to death by an outraged fashion expert. Instinctively, he straightened his own tie.

  Klutchetsky, who had been prowling around, called out suddenly from the kitchenette. “Found the knife!”

  They crowded into the tiny room. Malone right with them, but with a large lump of ice where his stomach had been a moment before, and a faintly trembling hand reaching towards his pocket where the newspaper-wrapped weapon still reposed.

  “There!” Klutchetsky said triumphantly.

  There it was, the breadknife, exactly where it ought to be, in the knife-rack above the sink. It was the twin to the one that was Malone’s greatest concern at that moment.

  Susie Snyder gasped and said, “Oh!”

  “Makes no sense,” von Flanagan said. “Guy runs out after the stabbing, leaves the living room a mess. But he brings the knife in he
re, washes it and puts it back in the rack.”

  “Fingerprints,” Klutchetsky said. Then, having apparently exhausted his quota of words for the day, he folded his arms and stepped back.

  Von Flanagan nodded. “The guy was really rattled. Carefully washed off the knife and forgot all about the glasses and stuff on the table. If,” he added, with a sudden frown, “he was the guy who handled the glasses and stuff. Maybe he just came in, stabbed this McDowell character, washed off the knife and went home. Forgetting,” he finished, “to lock the door.”

  He gave Malone a long, thoughtful look.

  “That makes three guys that were here,” Malone said, hoping there wasn’t even a trace of a quaver in his voice.

  Von Flanagan chose to ignore that. He gave instructions for knife, glasses and everything else that was movable to be taken away for examination. He gvae a few more instructions to the policeman he was leaving in charge. He posed for a few more photographs at the scene of the crime. Everybody posed for just one or two more at the scene of the crime.

  And then Nick Cahalan burst in, in a boiling rage and ready to fight anybody and everybody, including, and especially, von Flanagan. He produced a number of reasons why Susie Snyder could have had nothing to do with Dale McDowell’s murder, most of them having to do with the low order of intelligence on which von Flanagan operated, and none of them especially convincing.

  “Simmer down,” Malone said, when the handsome giant at last paused for breath.

  Nick Cahalan glared at him, at von Flanagan, at everybody, and finally snatched Susie Snyder from Lola Merchant’s protection into his own arms and said, “Come on, we’re getting out of here.”

  Von Flanagan said, “Oh, no you aren’t. She’s under arrest.”

  That started the big man off again, and he told von Flanagan exactly what he thought of that, too.

  Malone said sharply, “Stop worrying, Nick. I’m her lawyer.”

  That did simmer him down. He looked at Malone, down at Susie, back at Malone again and said in a milder voice, “Just the same, I don’t like it.”

  Von Flanagan had measured Nick Cahalan’s height, weight and reach with his eye, and then remembered that the law was on his side and that, anyway, Klutchetsky was there. He said sharply, “And just what do you know about all this?”

  “Susie didn’t do it,” Nick Cahalan said firmly. “She wouldn’t have anything to do with a punk like that, not even killing him.” He was launched on another discourse, this one having to do with the murdered man and having to do with his personal habits and morality as well as his intelligence. Nobody bothered to admonish him not to speak ill of the dead.

  “That’s all very interesting,” von Flanagan said, “but it doesn’t answer my question.”

  It turned out that the ex-prize-fighter didn’t have any particular answer. He knew Dale McDowell; he hadn’t liked him; he hadn’t had any particularly unpleasant business dealings with him; he hadn’t murdered him. Last night he’d been out doing the town with a party of friends.

  Drowning his sorrows, Malone reflected, while Susie had been doing the same thing. Too bad they hadn’t run into each other. But from all appearances, everything was all right now. Again, he found himself wondering just what they’d quarreled so violently about. Well, he’d find that out later.

  No, he didn’t have any definite alibi for any definite time, Nick said. Yes, he did have a key to Susie’s apartment. Yes, he might have lost his temper if he’d come in and found Dale McDowell here making himself at home. Yes, he might even have run into Dale McDowell somewhere and followed him here. In fact, he had run into Dale McDowell at the Blue Angel, had even spoken to him briefly, but he hadn’t followed him anywhere. In fact, he could prove exactly where he was for a few hours after that, he was shooting craps in the men’s room of Herman’s Corner.

  For just a few minutes, it was touch-and-go whether von Flanagan was going to make a pinch or not and Malone held his breath. Not that he cared whether or not Nick Cahalan was tossed temporarily in jail. He just wanted to be sure that Susie stayed safely under arrest.

  The moment of peril passed, and Malone breathed easier. Things began breaking up. Lola packed a few things for Susie and made sufficient clamor that she be allowed to ride along with Susie, von Flanagan and the matron. Malone patted Susie on her cheek and told her to keep her mouth shut and not worry. Nick Cahalan argued with von Flanagan all the way to the front entrance.

  Malone took one last glance around the little apartment, under the watchful eye of the policeman left in charge. There was something he was missing here, something he had missed this morning and that had been here all along. Something important. He had overlooked it this morning because he had been in a rush; he was overlooking it now because he simply didn’t know what it was.

  Oh well, it would come to him, he told himself, and hoped he wasn’t simply cheering himself up.

  He said an unhappy good-bye to the policeman and went on downstairs. There, on a sudden impulse, he knocked on Leo Roback’s door.

  The little apartment house owner came to the door tying the belt of a flamboyant violet dressing gown. He looked tired, but wide awake. He invited Malone in cordially, offered him a drink and the most comfortable chair, and began an oration of his own about police stupidity, ending with a reprise of “Susie is such a nice, nice girl. Susie would not do such a thing to anybody.”

  Malone said he would go along on that one all the way, but that the thing to do was to prove it. He considered telling Leo Roback that Susie had an alibi. He considered not telling Leo Roback that Susie had an alibi. He never did reach a decision.

  He considered asking Leo Roback what he knew about Lee Merchant’s candy stores, and decided against that right away.

  “Like I told you, she gave me her picture,” Leo Roback said. He went into the bedroom and brought it out, a large framed wall picture showing Susie in full length and full color beside the inevitable kitchen stove, but wearing a simple, little checked house dress that would have been just a bit too tight for comfort, if worn while actually doing housework.

  Malone said it was beautiful, that he agreed with everything about Susie and her general niceness, and that it was too bad she was involved in this, however innocently. Then having decided that Leo Roback wasn’t going to be any material help, he thanked him for the drink, told him not to worry and went away.

  For a few minutes, he stood disconsolately on the sidewalk. Everybody had gone except himself. Everybody had gone, in big, comfortable cars, leaving him alone on the sidewalk. It was a bright, clear November morning now, a beautiful day for that time of year, but he didn’t feel in the least like a nice brisk walk to the office. On the other hand, he was going to need to conserve taxi fare before the day was over.

  This was hardly the time to bring up the always delicate subject of money with the badly shaken Susie. But he knew exactly what was on his person, how much he owed, and had an ugly premonition regarding what he might or might not have in the emergency fund at the office.

  And on top of all his own troubles, he hadn’t the faintest idea who had murdered Dale McDowell, or just how he was going to prove that Susie Snyder hadn’t before her alibi blew up.

  He was standing there brooding, when a big green convertible slid up to the curb and Nick Cahalan called cordially, “Get in, Malone.”

  Shipwrecked mariners have climbed aboard rescue boats with less enthusiasm than Malone demonstrated.

  “Drive you to your office,” the big man said. “Was looking for you. You’re going to get her out of this, Malone?”

  “Naturally,” Malone said, with serene confidence.

  “That’s all right, then,” Nick Cahalan said, expertly piloting the car through late morning traffic. “Shouldn’t of worried anyway, soon’s I saw you there. Sorry I got sore, though.”

  “Don’t be,” Malone said. “You weren’t sore at me. And under the circumstances—”

  “You don’t quite dig me,” Ca
halan said. “I’m not sorry I got sore because I got sore. Y’know what I mean.” Before Malone could answer that he didn’t have the slightest idea what he meant, he went on, “I mean, I’m sorry I got sore because I probably missed something. Because there was something very fixed about that setup, Malone. A fighter learns to notice stuff. But not if he gets sore and loses his head, which is what I did back there, which is why I’m sorry I got sore. Now you know what I mean, Malone?”

  Now, Malone did. “I saw the same thing,” Malone said. “I mean, I felt the same thing.”

  “That’s it,” Nick Cahalan said enthusiastically. “Something that was there that I would of noticed more if I hadn’t lost my head.”

  Malone reflected that the only excuse he had was that he was never at his best in the mornings.

  “But as long as you’re on the job,” Nick Cahalan said, “everything’s okay.”

  Beyond that vote of confidence, though, the ex-prize-fighter didn’t have much to contribute. By the time he reached the office, the only added bit of information Malone had gained was that once the party who had tried to frame Susie for murder was found he, Nick Cahalan, was personally planning to dismember him with his own two hands.

  Maggie looked up from her desk and greeted him with a worried look and the information that Lola Merchant was waiting for him, inside.

  Malone nodded. There was one important thing he had to do first. He picked up the waiting-room phone and called the hospital where Les Schwegler had been taken.

  Mr. Schwegler was still unconscious. There was no telling how long he might be unconscious. Several days or several minutes.

  It was not reassuring information.

  He went on into his office and found Lola Merchant standing at the window, looking out at Chicago’s roofs. She looked very tired and very pale as she turned around.

  “Malone,” she began as he closed the door, “there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Susie. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do. There isn’t anything Lee and I wouldn’t do for you.”

  “All right,” Malone said, sitting down behind his desk, waving her toward a chair and reaching for a cigar, “What’s the catch?”