by Craig Rice
TELL THEM HE DIDN’T DO IT AND STOP BOTHERING ME I’M A BUSY MAN
MALONE
He gave the telegram to his office girl, lit a fresh cigar, and leaned perilously far back in his chair, thinking things over.
There had been the time, back in Jake’s press-agent days when the secret bride of Jake’s band-leader client had been accused of murdering her dear old great-aunt. Malone had untangled that one. That case had brought Jake and the North Shore heiress Helene together. Then the radio star Jake was press-agenting had become involved in not one murder, but three, and Malone had not only saved her from the law but brought her through the affair with her reputation unblemished.
Jake and Helene were married now. On his wedding day Jake had rashly bet Mona McClane, one of the world’s wealthiest women, that she couldn’t commit a murder and get away with it. That casual little bet had caused Malone to run himself ragged solving a murder which turned out to be the wrong one, and finally all but turned his hair white solving what proved the right murder.
Now, he told himself, he was damned and double and triple damned if he was going to get mixed up in any more of Jake and Helene’s affairs.
“Jackson, Wisconsin,” he snorted. “Who the hell ever heard of Jackson, Wisconsin!”
The fact that he had received scandalously fat fees in all four of the affairs didn’t temper his feeling about them in the least. The money was already spent.
“I won’t go!” he roared.
The pretty, dark-haired office girl appeared at the door.
“Did you call me, Mr. Malone?”
“No!” he shouted.
She retreated, murmuring, “I’m not deaf!”
In due course of time the second telegram arrived.
JOHN J MALONE
79 WEST WASHINGTON ST
CHICAGO ILLINOIS
THIS IS SERIOUS WE NEED YOU
HELENE
For a few minutes he sat staring at the telegram, his forehead wrinkled.
Jake might be in trouble. Helene might have run over somebody. No, that wouldn’t be murder. Although he had a conviction that the way she drove her high-powered cars was a crime worse than murder. Neither Jake nor Helene would actually murder anybody, themselves. Therefore it couldn’t be terribly serious.
He looked for the pencil, found it where it had rolled under the desk, and wrote:
HELENE JUSTUS
JACKSON WISCONSIN
MY PRESENT CLIENT’S BUSINESS IS ALSO SERIOUS. HE NEEDS ME TOO. AND HE PAYS ME. LOVE AND KISSES.
MALONE
His present client was one of his favorites, the owner of a chain of horse parlors who had somehow fallen afoul of the law.
“And call Harry’s wife,” he told the office girl as he handed her the telegram, “tell her I’ll have him out of jail tomorrow.”
She sniffed. “That’s what you told her yesterday. You aren’t even working on it.”
“I am too,” he objected. He pointed to a paper on his desk.
“What’s that?” she demanded.
“It’s a list of the people who owe Harry money. I’d rather have the case against him dropped, it would save time and trouble.”
He spent the next hour pouring over the list. At last he made several telephone calls, to persons ranging from a prominent labor racketeer to a municipal judge. Finally he called to the office girl.
“Call Harry’s wife and tell her everything’s O. K., the pressure’s on. Harry’ll be home in time for lunch. Don’t forget to send him a bill in the morning.”
He picked his expensive, slightly battered Panama hat from the top of his desk lamp, put it on, and added, “I’m going out for a while. If any more telegrams come, use ’em for cigarette paper.”
He strolled down the street to Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar, and called for a corned-beef on rye and two beers. While he waited, he bought a paper from a passing newsboy.
SENATOR PEVELEY MURDERED
SHOT TO DEATH WHILE
IN JACKSON, WISCONSIN,
COUNTY COURTHOUSE
Two Chicagoans Held
As Material Witnesses
Malone looked at the headline until half the corned-beef sandwich was gone before the name “Jackson, Wisconsin” registered on his consciousness. Then he shoved away his plate, upsetting one of the glasses of beer, and began reading the story.
It was a hasty, sketchy account of the crime, giving only the barest facts. Gerald L. Peveley, one-time Wisconsin Senator, had been shot to death while in the Jackson, Wisconsin, county courthouse. Two Chicagoans, Mr. and Mrs. Jake Justus, allegedly in the building for the purpose of obtaining fìshing licenses, were being held as material witnesses. Sheriff Marvin Kling promised an early arrest.
“Damn it, they can’t do that!” Malone said loudly.
“I beg your pardon?” the bartender said.
Malone waved him aside, and sat staring at the paper.
Jake and Helene couldn’t have had anything to do with the murder of Senator Peveley. Nobody could hold them as material witnesses. It wasn’t legal. Malone read the story again.
He wondered how much of a bribe Sheriff Marvin Kling was holding out for.
Oh well, it was Jake’s worry, let him look out for it.
Still, you never could tell about Jake.
He decided he’d better hurry right back to the office in case there was another telegram, grabbed his hat from where it had fallen to the floor, and dived out into the Street.
“Hey, Malone, wait,” Joe the Angel shouted after him. “You forgot to pay the check!” But the little lawyer was halfway down the street. Joe the Angel shrugged his shoulders and called to the head bartender, “Put another fifty cents down on Mr. Malone’s ticket.”
By the time he reached his office, Malone had convinced himself there was no need for anxiety. From the looks of things, all Jake needed to get out of this was money, and he had plenty of that. The Casino, which he’d won on that famous bet with Mona McClane, had turned out to be a gold mine among Chicago’s night clubs. The sheriff had probably taken a look at Helene’s Buick convertible and decided this was a chance to pay off the mortgage on the jail.
“There’s another telegram for you, Mr. Malone,” the girl announced as he walked in the door.
He fairly tore it from her hand.
JOHN J MALONE
79 WEST WASHINGTON STREET
CHICAGO ILLINOIS
JAKE IN JAIL FOR KNOCKING OUT DEPUTY SHERIFF WITH LEFT JAB WHAT DO I DO NOW
HELENE
“I decided to wait till you’d read it before tearing it up for cigarette papers,” the black-haired girl said acidly.
Malone didn’t appear to have heard her. He relighted his cigar slowly, and with exquisite care, and stood looking at the telegram thoughtfully.
“You said,” the girl reminded him, “you weren’t going to get mixed up in any more of Jake Justus’ affairs. You said life was too short. You said you’d be damned if you’d—”
The little lawyer nodded. “That proves it. You are deaf. Now be a good girl, Maggie, call up the station and fìnd out when’s the next train for Jackson, Wisconsin.”
Chapter Six
John J. Malone arrived by bus in Jackson, Wisconsin, at nine twenty-three, a tired, hot, rumpled, and very irritated man. It had developed that only one train a day went to Jackson, Wisconsin, and that arrived at six-ten in the morning, and involved three changes, with waits of from ten minutes to an hour on the way. Jackson, Wisconsin, was not much harder to get to than Little America.
All the way he had sustained himself by dreaming of a quiet, peaceful little town, moonlit, with wide, shadowy lawns, and a general air of serenity and calm. He stepped off the bus in front of Gollett’s drugstore to find himself in what appeared to be the middle of a circus.
Jackson’s main street was three blocks long and almost half a block wide. At the moment it was a blaze of lights that shone from store fronts and street lamps, and every available in
ch of space was jammed with parked cars.
The afternoon’s storm had had no permanent effect on the temperature, but only added a sticky dampness to the air. The blazing lights seemed to have attracted every flying insect within the limits of Jackson County.
There was a little crowd standing on the sidewalk, watching the bus come in. Malone spotted Helene in the center of it, a tall, slender figure in a white linen dress. As he drew closer to her, it seemed to him that her face was a shade more pale than normal. He slapped irritably and inaccurately at a mosquito and said, “Where the hell is the jail?” The mosquito returned and came to a miserable end on the back of Malone’s neck. “I’ll get Jake out if I have to shoot the sheriff.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Helene said. “Did you bring along a cannon? It wouldn’t take anything less to shoot that sheriff.” She caught her breath and said, “I never was so glad to see the marines land before. Another minute, and the hero would be sawed in two. Jake is probably having it out with the justice of the peace right now.”
She grabbed his arm and dragged him up Main Street at a breakneck speed. Malone took a firm grip on his handbag and panted along beside her through a kaleidoscope of lights, faces, and windows.
“Slow down,” he growled at last. “Remember I’m not the athletic-type marine.”
She slowed down to almost an average walking speed, and immediately the sidewalk crowd began to engulf them. Malone pushed a plump woman in a print dress off his stomach and said, “It doesn’t seem to be any more crowded than State and Madison Streets at high noon. Where in blazes do all these people come from?”
“Out of the everywhere into the here,” Helene said coyly.
Malone put down his handbag, nearly trampling a couple of small boys as he did so, and said, “When is the next bus back to Chicago?”
“There isn’t a bus until seven in the morning,” Helene said. Her hand tightened on his arm. “Besides, we need you.”
He allowed himself to be led half a block up the Street. “Don’t tell me all these people live in Jackson, Wisconsin,” he said crossly. “The signboard at the edge of town said population three thousand.”
“There’s been a murder here,” she reminded him. “People have been arriving since four o’clock this afternoon. Most of them brought a picnic lunch. They’ve been spending the evening walking up and down the street, talking about the late Senator Peveley and his manner of taking off, or rather, being took off.” She added, “Half of them have been looking at the front of Charlie Hausen’s Undertaking Parlor and the other half have been looking at me.”
“There’s an interesting distinction there,” Malone said, “but I can’t just put my finger on what it is.”
His nerves were still tingling from the bus ride. Once or twice he had a vague notion that he was standing motionless, and the street was moving past him. He thought of another question to put to Helene, just as an overweight farm family crashed into them at the corner of Main and Second Streets. By the time they were disentangled he had given it up.
There were trees, almost indistinguishable from the darkness, a broad lawn, lighted windows, and a flight of steps. Malone contented himself with still being able to breathe, as Helene hauled him through the door.
He stopped suddenly. There was a long corridor ahead of him, lined with immense, closed doors.
“Where are you taking me?”
“The justice of the peace,” Helene said. “He’s Phil Smith.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Malone said, “and don’t be in such a hurry.”
Helene lit a cigarette in the most leisurely fashion imaginable. “Phil Smith said he’d be here at nine-thirty and have Jake brought up then. I knew you wouldn’t get here before nine-thirty so that was the time set.” She took one puff on the cigarette, stamped it out, and said, “Tom Burrows fixed it all up.”
Malone sighed, said, “Very nice of him. No, don’t bother telling me who he is. l’ll try to catch up with the melody as you go along.”
She pulled open a heavy door before he could get to it, and led the way into the county clerk’s office. A sudden blaze of light made him blink. He heard Helene murmuring, “That’s Phil Smith,” and managed to focus his tired eyes on the handsome, white-haired man sitting behind his desk.
It was not his idea of a courtroom, Malone thought. Combining the offices of county clerk and justice of the peace had led to a little confusion in the layout of the room. But he didn’t take much time to think about it. He was still a bit dazed from the long ride, breathless from the hurried walk up Main Street, and completely in the dark about what had happened and was going to happen. All he knew was that Jake was in jail, and he was supposed to get him out.
The white-haired man Helene had identified as Phil Smith rose to greet him, a cordial hand out-stretched. “You must be Mr. Justus’ lawyer. I’m delighted to meet you. I hope you had a pleasant trip.”
“And this is Tom Burrows,” Helene said. “And Mr. Malone.”
Malone shook hands with the bouncing, spectacled, little man, murmured, “I’m pleased to meet you,” wished he were back in Chicago and that Jake and Helene were in Zanzibar, or possibly Kamchatka.
A door opened suddenly behind him. Malone wheeled around and saw Jake, his red hair mussed, his freckled face pale with not-too-well-repressed fury. The men on either side of him, Malone guessed, were the deputy sheriffs, one a small man with a scar on his upper lip, the other a large, slovenly, and sleepy-looking individual.
“I see you got here,” Jake said. “It’s about time.”
Phil Smith looked at him. “Patience is the best remedy for every trouble,” he quoted gently. “Plautus,” he added.
Jake glared back, opened his mouth to speak, shut it again, finally drew a long breath, and said “‘Beware the fury of a patient man.’ Dryden. Hell, I don’t even know what the charge is. This son of a bitch didn’t tell me.”
“Now, now, now,” Malone said, placatingly. He wasn’t sure who Dryden was, but he knew all there was to know about justices of the peace.
‘The guy knocked me down, Phil,” the fat deputy said.
“He kicked me,” Jake declared. “And if you think for one minute—”
“Keep your temper,” Phil Smith said amiably to Jake. He looked reproachfully at the fat deputy and said, “I didn’t ask you anything.” Then he looked down at a paper on his desk. “I don’t want to bother with taking evidence. An honest man appeals to the understanding, or modestly confides in the internal evidence of his conscience. Junius.” He cleared his throat. “According to these charges, Mr. Justus, attempting to exit through the west door of the courthouse, was intercepted by Deputy Sheriff Harry Foote, and thereby called him an objectionable name.”
“And I’ll tell you what it was, too,” Deputy Harry Foote announced. “He said—”
Phil Smith silenced him with a grave look. “At this point the deputy, in the defense of his duty, struck Mr. Justus about his person—”
“In the belly,” Jake corrected.
“—whereupon Mr. Justus struck the deputy full on the point of the jaw, causing great damage—” He paused, looked up at the deputy sheriff, and said, “You don’t look so bad, Harry.” Before anyone could answer he’d looked back at the paper. “The charge is disturbing the peace and resisting an offìcer in the attempt to do his duty.”
“Do your duty and leave the rest to heaven,” Helene murmured.
Phil Smith smiled at her. “Corneille,” he said approvingly.
Malone interrupted the love feast. He strode up to Phil Smith’s desk. “My Client pleads guilty,” he said. “How much is the fine?”
The handsome, white-haired justice of the peace thought it over for a minute. “Two dollars and costs,” he decided. “That comes to three dollars and a half.”
“A bargain,” Jake said, reaching for his wallet. “Can I hit him again for three dollars and a half?”
Phil Smith took the four one-dollar bills. �
��He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty,” he said softly. He handed back two quarters in change. “And the way of the transgressor is hard. Proverbs Sixteen, and Proverbs Thirteen. The next time, the fine will be twenty-five dollars and costs.” He rose, beamed impartially at all of them, said, “I hope you have a pleasant stay in Jackson, Wisconsin,” and went out the door.
Malone mopped his brow. “I hope to heaven the rest of the charges against you are nothing serious. If I had to see you through a murder trial up here, l’d have to bone up on Bartlett’s Quotations.” He paused, saw that Jake and Helene were exchanging their own comments on the case, and turned to the injured deputy. “I’m sure there wasn’t any serious damage,” he said amiably. He reached for his wallet. “Have a couple on drinks on me.”
A moment later, Jake and Helene beside him, he paused on the courthouse steps and sniffed the outdoor air. “I only know one quotation,” he said. “Money is the root of all evil. I don’t even care where it’s from, but deputy sheriffs are no different from city cops, and you owe me ten dollars.” He mopped his brow.
“That makes a total of thirteen dollars and a half,” Jake said, “but it was still worth it. Now where’s a quiet place we can talk without being quoted in court later?”
“We’re going to my office,” Tom Burrows said. “The Jackson County Enterprise is the only place in town that isn’t full of newspapermen.”
He led the way down the street. The office of the Jackson County Enterprise was a small frame building with a false front, halfway down the block between Second and Third. Its windows still faintly showed where a sign HEDBERG’S FEED AND SEED STORE had been inadequately erased. Inside the front room were three immense roll-top desks, only one of them open, and a long, disordered table. The brown-haired Arlene Goudge sat patiently by the telephone.
“There hasn’t been so many newspapermen in Jackson in its history,” Tom Burrows said. “And they’re still arriving, by car, by bus, and by plane. Photographers, reporters, and one television newscaster.”
Malone took off his tie and unbuttoned his collar. “The Chamber of Commerce must have been busy.”