by Craig Rice
Hercules paused unexpectedly on the bridge, nearly upsetting the little lawyer, and sat down, looking up at the moon. Malone caught his breath, looked in the same direction, and leaned on the rail of the bridge. He knew just how Hercules felt.
Hercules cried something appropriate about the moon.
“Silvery,” Malone agreed again. “Very beautiful.” He looked reproachfully at the dog. “Fine thing. We’re not out to look at the moon, we’re out to find Jake. Jake, do you understand, Jake. Here.” He opened the bottle of Dollar Gin, held it under the bloodhound’s nose, then held it under his own nose for a man-sized drink.
Hercules didn’t protest this time, he just sneezed. Then he gave a few more sniffs and started off once more, Malone holding desperately to the leash.
Behind the Third Street bridge the town of Jackson was left behind, and they were out in the open country. Malone looked around anxiously for a sidewalk, found none, and contented himself with trotting down the macadam pavement. There were immense, shadowy trees on both sides of the road now, and wide stretches of fields on beyond them, no houses, no buildings, only the fields and the trees, all strange shades of blue and black and silver under the moon.
It reminded Malone of Lincoln Park, except that there were no street lights. He missed them.
They went up the road for about a mile, pausing once or twice to open the bottle of Dollar Gin and renew the scent. Hercules seemed to be overcoming his aversion to Dollar Gin little by little; at the last stop he not only sniffed, but licked the top of the bottle.
Once during the mile the headlights of a car showed in the distance, and Malone hastily hauled Hercules off the road and into the shadow of a ditch. It wouldn’t do to have some carload of Citizens’ Committee find him now, going down the road with a bloodhound. He patted Hercules on the head and murmured, “Nice doggie, don’t make any noise.” Hercules muttered something in his throat and licked Malone’s left ear.
The headlights proved to belong to a farm truck with a single passenger, chugging toward home. The little lawyer waited until it was out of sight, then they were on their way again.
The shadows on the road were almost purple, the surface of the road itself was like polished aluminum. Somewhere at the end of it, Malone told himself, they would find Jake. They would find him alive and unhurt, and Malone would lead him back to the General Andrew Jackson House and hide him from the Citizens’ Committee, then he would find out who had murdered Senator Peveley and Magnus Linkermann and Cora Belle Fromm, and in the morning he would deliver Jake to Helene safe and sound, just as he had promised. There was something about the moonlight on the macadam pavement that made him think beautiful thoughts.
Suddenly, at a bend in the road, Hercules paused. For a moment he stood still, his nose against the pavement. Then he began running in small circles, almost overturning Malone. Then he sat down, his tail lying limply on the ground, and looked up unhappily at the little lawyer.
“Come, come now,” Malone said. “We can’t have this.” He opened the bottle again, taking a somewhat longer drink this time to reassure himself. Hercules sniffed at it, and began stalking about the pavement in circles again. At last he sat down once more, looked up at his friend, and howled miserably.
“Oh dear,” Malone said. He wondered what to do next.
Apparently, so did Hercules.
For a few minutes they stood there, looking helplessly at each other.
“Look here,” Malone said. “You’ve gotten this far, you can’t give up now.”
Hercules answered with a mournful whine. He looked very tired. Maybe, Malone thought, his feet hurt again. He encouraged the big bloodhound to get up again and led him off to the side of the road, where there was grass underfoot.
“We’ve got to find Jake,” Malone reminded him.
Hercules gave a few tentative sniffs at the ground and suddenly bounded off the roadside and into the field beyond, nearly dragging Malone off his feet. Once in the field he gave a couple of encouraging yelps and began trotting over the grassy ground.
“Hey,” Malone said, “you’re off the road.” He thought about it a moment, and finally decided perhaps Hercules knew what he was doing. “Just so you don’t get lost now,” he admonished.
Besides, he liked it in the field. Apparently Hercules liked it too, his steady trot threatened to break into a scamper at intervals. Here it was all silver underfoot, a moon-white world below and a star-dazzled sky overhead. Malone repressed an impulse to halt Hercules while he lay on his back in the meadow and gazed up at the sky. The field they were in seemed to be completely ringed with dark, mysterious trees; in some strange manner the sky appeared to be ringed with the same trees. It was a wonderful phenomenon, and one that interested Malone very much. He couldn’t quite understand it, but it interested him. If some curious explosion of the universe should occur right now, and the whole thing were suddenly reversed, he would be walking on the sky, being careful not to step on the stars, and the meadow, with its tender grass, would be over his head.
It was, he thought, like being in a little box. But the mere business of being alive and on earth was one of being in a little box. People tried to break out of their little boxes, and all kinds of calamities resulted. Things like the murder of Cora Belle. Suddenly he felt inexpressibly sad over the murder of Cora Belle. She could have been out in this same meadow under the stars and the moon, she could have been drinking from a bottle of Dollar Gin, and here someone had gone and murdered her. Malone paused in his thoughts to reopen his own bottle of Dollar Gin.
If a prospective murderer ever stopped to think, Malone reflected, about the wonderful things of the world he was taking from his prospective victim, there would surely be no more murders. It was one thing to shoot a man down in cold blood, or to strangle him or to poison him. But it was quite another to rob him of smooth meadows pale under the moon, of this wonderful sensation of being hung somewhere between the earth and the stars, of Dollar Gin, of the remembrance of plump giggling girls with pretty dimples in their knees and elbows, and of the companionship of a dog like Hercules. Malone almost sobbed aloud.
It was some time before he realized that the bloodhound had been transcribing a circle around the meadow and getting absolutely nowhere. Indeed, Hercules seemed to discover it first, he stopped in his tracks, sniffed at the ground, came back to Malone to lick his hand, and howled miserably.
“Lost?” Malone asked sympathetically. “’At’s all right. Le’s go right back to where we started from and try again.” He led an abashed Hercules back to the road. There they paused a moment, deciding what to do next. One more drink of Dollar Gin, Malone concluded, might help him think of something. Hercules consented to lap a little of it out of Malone’s cupped hand.
Thus fortified, the pair stood for a while in the center of the road. Hercules sniffed intermittently and sadly at the pavement, and Malone stood wondering which direction led back to town. At last Hercules went on a few steps, picking his feet up uncomfortably. They probably did hurt, Malone decided. A little rest wouldn’t do either of them any harm.
He looked around for a park bench for several minutes. While he was looking, a bird suddenly rose from the deep grass of the ditch beside the road, startling both of them. Hercules gave a joyous yelp and started in the direction the bird had taken, dragging Malone after him, entangling them both in the leash, and finally landing them in a confused heap in the bottom of a ditch.
Malone pushed Hercules’ front quarters off his chest and lay still. It was very cool and quiet there, and very pleasant. He didn’t care if he never moved again. The soft grass stirred gently against his face, the trees beyond were whispering sympathetic and loving words. He opened his eyes and saw a vast panorama of stars, almost as clear and almost as beautiful as the Adler Planetarium, among them the moon, round and shiny as a silver dollar, appeared to be moving in an intricate and graceful design.
Malone shut his eyes for a moment and opened them again. The m
oon stood still now; he decided he liked it better that way. It was so marvelous and so far away, so shimmery and cold, and yet so friendly. It reminded him, somehow, of Helene.
Hercules had been looking at the moon too. Suddenly he sat up, Malone sat up with him, putting one arm affectionately around his neck. They looked at each other, then up at the moon again, and then, simultaneously, burst into song: Malone caroling joyously My Wild Irish Rose, and Hercules improvising a melancholy but effective little number of his own.
The moon slid coyly behind a tree, and the serenading stopped abruptly.
“Look here,” Malone said severely. “This is all very fine, and a lot of good clean fun, but we came out here on a mission. We’re out here to find Jake.” He stood up, and gave Hercules a gentle shove with the tip of his shoe. “Get a move on, you sentimental son of a bitch.”
They climbed out of the ditch and up on the road again. All at once Hercules gave a sniff, and excited yelp, and started galloping up the road, pulling Malone after him. The little lawyer caught his breath after the first two bounds, took a firm hold on the leash, and ran.
Good old Hercules. He might stop along the way for a little fun, but he went on tending to the important business at hand just the same. Bloodhounds, Malone decided, were his favorite dogs. If Buttonholes wouldn’t part with this one for a reasonable, or perhaps even unreasonable, consideration, he meant to purchase one the minute he got back to Chicago. Surely the Loop hotel in which he lived wouldn’t object to his keeping just one bloodhound in his room.
There could be no doubt about it, Hercules had picked up a scent again. He was running now exactly like the bloodhound Malone had seen years before in a production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, with a combination of excitement, self-assurance, and grim determination.
Somewhere up this road he would find Jake. Malone was sure of it now. Hercules had finally made up his mind.
They raced down a stretch of pavement, around a curve in the road, across a small culvert, and past a crossroads where Hercules didn’t even pause to look around. He knew where he was going.
Malone hoped it wasn’t going to be far. He was getting out of breath.
He remembered suddenly that they had left the remains of the bottle of Dollar Gin back in the ditch. For a moment he considered going back after it. No, it wouldn’t do to interrupt Hercules right now. Obviously the big dog didn’t need another sniff to remind him what scent he was following. And they could always stop and pick up the bottle on the way back. Malone made a mental note of its location, he wasn’t sure what the landmarks were like, but he was sure of the sky. The spot where the bottle had been mislaid was directly underneath the Big Dipper.
Ahead of them Malone could see a small, yellowish light burning beside the road. As they drew nearer his eyes made out a building, too small to be a house and too large to be a shanty; the light came from one of its windows.
Hercules slowed down a little, but kept on in the direction of the light at a steady, even trot.
There was a painted wooden sign hanging over the front door of the building. It read:
CHARLIE’S CASINO
GIN AND BEER
GAS AND OIL
A slow fury began to rise in Malone’s brain. Jake hadn’t been kidnaped. He hadn’t been lured away to a horrible doom. He’d just wandered off to a saloon, and obviously, he was still there.
Hercules led the way right up to the battered screen door, sat down, looked up at Malone, and whined hopefully for appreciation. Malone patted his head, opened the door, and led him in.
It was a small, unadorned room, with a battered wood bar running its full length. There were no customers, and a thin, black-haired man in a white shirt stood reading a newspaper back of the bar.
“Where’s Jake?” Malone asked hoarsely.
The bartender looked up at him and grinned. “You got the wrong place, pal. My name’s Charlie.”
The hideous chill of reason was beginning to creep through Malone’s veins. “I’m looking for a friend of mine,” he said stiffly. “A friend named Jake.”
Charlie shook his head. “Ain’t nobody named Jake been in here, far’s I know. What does your friend look like?” He added, “I only been open since six o’clock. Close up all day now that harvestin’s on.”
“He’s tall,” Malone said. His voice seemed very far away. “Tall, and he has red hair and freckles.” He drew a quick breath. “You must have seen him.”
“Sorry,” Charlie said. “Nobody like that’s been in tonight. Fact is, nobody’s been in here that I don’t know, and none of ’em is named Jake.”
Malone sank down on one of the bar stools. His eyes found the row of bottles that stood between the cash register and the wall. A long line of them were labeled Dollar Gin. An opened bottle on the bar was labeled Dollar Gin.
He looked indignantly down at the anxious Hercules and muttered something, of which the only intelligible word was “Judas.”
Chapter Thirty
“Mighty fine dog you’ve got there,” the bartender said.
Malone looked down at Hercules, who was asleep on the floor.
“I’d sell him to you right now for a nickel,” he said bitterly, “if he belonged to me.”
He’d been sitting for the past half-hour at the far end of the bar, his chin resting on his palms, deep in gloom. There was only one thing to do, he’d decided, that was to abandon Hercules, go back to Jackson, and start all over again.
By this time, it might be too late. The Citizens’ Committee might have found Jake first.
“Another beer,” he told the bartender. He would not only never trust a bloodhound again, he would never trust Dollar Gin.
He took a gulp of the beer, looked at the sleeping Hercules, and suddenly gave him a sharp kick on the rump. The big bloodhound lifted his head and stared up at Malone with hurt, reproachful eyes.
“Helene trusted us,” Malone told Hercules, “and look what you did.”
Hercules sighed, and buried his nose in his paws. Malone took another gulp of beer and buried himself in his thoughts. He failed to notice when a car drove up in front of Charlie’s Casino and a trio of young men entered the room, sitting down at the far end of the bar.
Jake is somewhere, Malone was thinking. He’s got to be somewhere. If there was only one clue, one faint thread leading in the direction of where he might be! He considered leading Hercules back to the alley behind the General Andrew Jackson House and starting all over again. No, his faith in Hercules had been shaken. Besides, his own feet hurt by this time. But he couldn’t face Helene in the morning unless he’d found Jake.
“How do you know he’s there?” One of the young men at the end of the bar said loudly. Malone caught the phrase and suddenly felt the skin stiffen along his spine.
“We were tipped off, weren’t we?” another one said. “Give us another drink, Charlie.”
“Make it a double one,” the third man said.
Malone shifted so that he could look at the trio. One was a heavy-set, blond boy with a broad, impassive face reddened by the sun. The one who was stripped to undershirt and dungarees was tall and thin, with bulging muscles under his freckled shoulders; he had a narrow, almost chinless face, and a beetle brow under thick, black, heavily oiled hair. The third, in a denim work suit and cap, had a sunburned face that seemed older, harder; his eyes were small and shifty.
“Don’t worry, we’ll get him,” the man in denims said. He licked his lips as he spoke.
There was a long, low, whispering rumble in Hercules’ throat. No one seemed to notice it except Malone.
“Just so that thousand-buck reward don’t have to be split up among no nine hundred guys,” the blond boy said. His companions laughed noisily.
Suddenly Malone found himself very sober, very purposeful, and very calm. A pure blue flame was beginning to flicker in his brain. He slid a coin across the counter to the bartender, nudged Hercules in the stomach with his toe, and walked inconspicuously towar
d the door. The big bloodhound rose and followed him, moving silently.
The three young men didn’t seem to notice them.
Their car, a slightly battered Ford sedan, was parked near the road, at the end of the driveway. For a mad moment the little lawyer considered climbing into its back seat and concealing himself under a rug. On second thought, he gave it up. There probably wasn’t a rug in the car. Besides, there wouldn’t be room for Hercules.
He examined the tracks made by the wheels of the car, and discovered that it had come from the same direction he and Hercules had followed. In that case, the chances were that it was going on up the road. If the three young men were really out on a man hunt, they wouldn’t drive out of their way to go to Charlie’s Casino, they’d be stopping on their way.
With that in mind, he went on up the road a short distance, the big dog padding silently behind him. He hadn’t the remotest notion how he meant to keep up with the car, when it got started again, he just had a serene hope that he would be able to follow it.
As much as he’d wished for anything in his life, he wished that Helene were here, at the wheel of the robin’s-egg-blue convertible that could catch up with anything on the road or on the rails, not excluding the Burlington Zepher.
He had gone about a hundred yards up the road when his ears caught the sound of a car starting behind him. Hercules growled softly. Malone looked over his shoulder; a pair of headlights were moving slowly in the driveway outside of Charlie’s Casino, headed toward the road. The little lawyer pulled Hercules into the ditch and stood there a moment, waiting to see which direction the car would take. It swung around the curve and came toward them, creeping up the road at a pace that would have disgraced any respectable snail.
The car came near and slowed down to the very minimum of movement. Malone grabbed Hercules around the neck, pulled him down into the shadows of the ditch, and hissed a forceful, “Keep quiet!” in his ear. Someone in the car turned on a flashlight and began moving it back and forth, spraying its light on the field just beyond Malone’s head.