by Craig Rice
Helene was holding Jake’s hand, tight.
“He was a darned ingenious guy,” Malone said, “and perhaps the oddest thing about him was his variety of methods. Usually when somebody commits a series of murders, he does ’em all the same way. But this guy picked five different methods. Murder by gun, murder by bombing, murder by strangulation, murder by knife, and murder by mob.”
He closed his eyes. “If anybody has any other questions, write me a letter.”
It was silent in the room. A pleasant peace and coolness began to flow over his body. Everything is all right now, he told himself. Jake is alive, and back with Helene. Jerry Luckstone is going to marry Arlene Goudge in the morning. Florence Peveley would inherit all her old man’s dough, and probably end up buying dinners for hungry artists on Chicago’s near-north side, and telling them about her neuroses. Tom Burrows had beaten the visiting press on the identity of the murderer, by the happy accident of being the sole occupant of the General Andrew Jackson bar when the news broke; he would be busy spending his space-rate check for the next six months. Sheriff Kling would get all the credit for having run down the killer, and would be reelected next November.
It was all very perfect and very wonderful, Malone sighed. He felt unhappy. He wished everybody would go away and leave him alone.
Buttonholes had come and taken Hercules home. In fact, he’d come and taken Hercules home several times. The bloodhound showed a proclivity for returning to the General Andrew Jackson House and Malone.
“Well,” Phil Smith said, “I guess there’s only one thing that remains to be done.” He drew a checkbook out of his pocket. “As treasurer of the Citizens’ Committee.” He began filling it in.
“It’s John J. Malone,” the little lawyer told him.
“Do you mind telling me what the middle J. stands for?” Phil Smith asked, signing the check.
“Joseph,” Malone said. “John Joseph Malone.”
He took the green paper oblong, said, “Thanks.” It was signed “Philomen Ma. Smith.” “Do you mind telling me what the Ma. stands for?”
“Not at all,” Phil Smith said. “It’s Philomen May-All-Your-Enemies-Be-Confounded Smith.”
Helene looked at Jake, and Jake looked at Helene. Nobody said anything except Malone. He said, “Oh.”
Jake and Helene were the last to tiptoe out of the room, turning out the light as they went. Malone tucked the check under his pillow, shut his eyes, and pretended that he was going to sleep.
There was a gray, wispy light beginning to show at the window. Malone stretched, yawned, closed and opened his eyes half a dozen times. It was no use.
There was that sound coming in through the window, the nasty, obnoxious, altogether objectionable kind of sound. He was able to recognize it now. The birds in the trees outside had observed the coming of dawn. They were only fairly well started, when the town clock came in as accompaniment for the chorus.
The little lawyer groaned, turned over, and buried his face in the pillow. If he could only hear one, honest-to-goodness elevated train again!
Chapter Thirty-Three
The robin’s-egg-blue convertible pushed its nose over one more hill. Ahead, checkers of green and beige fields, and patches of dark green woods, flickered and danced in the late summer heat. The white cement road ran across a little plain and pointed toward a hill.
“It’s damned hot,” Helene said, swinging the car expertly around a red gasoline truck.
Jake said, “In another hour you’ll be back in the city and you can cool off.”
“We came to the country to get cool,” she reminded him, “and for peace and quiet and a nice long rest.”
“We’ll go back to Chicago, catch up on our sleep, and try again,” Jake told her.
Malone sighed and said nothing. Ever since they’d left Jackson, Wisconsin, a deep melancholy had been growing on him. By now, two hours later, he was completely steeped in gloom.
He wondered why it was. Maybe he’d actually come to like the country and was regretting leaving it. It didn’t seem reasonable, but it could be true.
“You’ll feel better when you’ve had a night’s sleep,” Jake said to him consolingly.
From the top of the hill they had just reached, a small village could be seen nestling in the valley below, just a few roofs and spires, and the tops of the great shadowy elm trees, and a faint, soft haze hovering over all.
“There’s peace for you,” Jake said, “Peace and quiet. I bet nothing has happened there for a hundred years.”
Helene snorted.
“That little white house, set back from the road,” Jake began.
“And right now,” Helene said, “in that little white house Papa is probably in the basement murdering Mamma with an ax, and baby has cyanide on his bib. Don’t talk peace and quiet to me until we get on Sheridan Road!”
Malone was still silent. He remembered, with what was almost a homesick pang, romping in that marvelous moonlit meadow with Hercules.
Dusk was beginning to fall as they neared the city. They had just entered the first suburban subdivision when Helene slowed down suddenly.
“Jake, what’s that noise?”
Jake listened, and didn’t know. Helene drove along slowly for half a mile, all three of them listening intently. Malone heard it too, a curious, muffled sound that he couldn’t identify.
“It’s something wrong with the motor,” Helene declared. She parked the convertible by the side of the road and they piled out to investigate.
“There it is again,” Jake said.
“And it doesn’t come from the motor,” she announced. “It comes from the trunk compartment.”
Jake pried it open hastily and began pulling out suitcases. From behind them emerged a dusty, half-smothered, and very worried Hercules.
“I’ll be damned,” Helene said. “A stowaway!”
Hercules sat down and panted at them, thumping his tail on the ground and sending up great clouds of dust.
“He must have sneaked in while we were putting in the suitcases,” Jake said gloomily. “Now we’ll have to drive all the way back to Jackson.”
“Oh no,” Malone said. “Oh no we won’t.” He got back in the car and motioned to Hercules. The big dog bounded in, sat down on Malone’s lap, and began to wash his ear. “We’re going to Chicago.” He added, “I’ll square it somehow with Buttonholes.”
“You could probably be sued.” Helene said, starting the car, “for alienation of affections.”
Malone said nothing. For the first time in hours, he was happy again. It was a wonderful world.
Suddenly there was a neon sign, then the first streetcar at Howard Street, and then the first taxis. There was traffic all around them now, cars and busses and cabs, fire sirens screaming and police cars going past with ominous moans.
It was just as they drove under the elevated that Malone snuggled back against the seat cushion and closed his eyes. Two seconds later he was sound asleep, a seraphic smile on his face.
“What do you suppose he’s dreaming about?” Helene asked.
“Who? Malone, or Hercules?”
She looked down at the sleeping pair and shook her head.
“I wonder how that dog found his way into the car,” she mused.
Jake took her one free hand in his and looked at her tenderly.
“Love,” he said, “will always find a way.”
Turn the page to continue reading from the John J. Malone Mysteries
1. The Bridegroom’s Morning After
There was always one hour of the day when he believed, acutely, in hell. It came very early in the morning, just before sunrise. It was a time of torment, of fears, apprehensions, and occasional regrets, of tortured half-waking, half-sleeping dreams, memories he’d tried over and over to bury, and premonitions of a future he didn’t like to face. Then, too, there was a persistent, throbbing pain in his head, and a burning, terrible thirst.
He’d learned that if he could only g
et back to sleep, and stay asleep for a few more hours, he’d wake feeling himself again, a little on edge, perhaps, and with no appetite for breakfast, but himself. After those few hours he could go out into the world again, the charming, amusing young man who did, occasionally, get a trifle high at parties (but not often, nor objectionably) and did, now and then, win or lose at poker games (but only once in a while, and never too much).
So there would always be the desperate struggle to get back to sleep again, closing his eyes and burying his face in the pillow. Sometimes an aspirin and a glass of milk would do the trick, when he could goad himself into getting out of bed and going to the refrigerator. Or, a bottle of cold beer would invariably work, though that was likely to leave him with an unpleasant, crawling sensation in his stomach when he woke later.
In that hour of awful waking, though, his desire to sleep again had little to do with how he would feel and act when he got out of bed, two or three hours later. Rather it was a desperate need to escape from the things that plagued his mind. This morning, though, was going to be the last. He turned over in bed, his eyes still closed, and put one arm across his face to shut out the light. Beginning today, from this morning, this moment on, he was on the wagon, and completely on the wagon, a drinker of tomato juice and ginger ale.
It wasn’t an ordinary hangover resolution, to be broken by eleven in the morning. He’d never made any of those since he was nineteen, being enough of a realist to know how little they meant. No, he was becoming a teetotaler from pure necessity. After yesterday, he had to. He’d gone on last night’s bender for the same reason. He had to.
He took the arm away from his face and slowly and uncomfortably opened his eyes. This wasn’t his own bed he was in. This wasn’t his room. It was a place he’d never seen before. It wasn’t his room, but it was a gorgeous one. Even in his present state of mind and body, he could appreciate it. It was obviously a hotel room, in one of the best and most expensive hotels. The furniture was handsome and restrained. The walls and draperies were pleasantly unobtrusive. The pictures were tactfully chosen. The bed was swell.
Obviously, he’d fallen in with very charming people last night—not that he could have felt any worse right now if he’d fallen in with bums and wakened with his face on the wet paving of an alley. One of the charming people was a woman. The mauve satin-covered down comforter didn’t belong to the hotel, nor did the monogrammed pillow slips. A woman of taste and refinement and wealth, who carried her personal linens and comforters with her when she traveled. He wondered if she was beautiful and susceptible and unmarried, and then reminded himself that it wouldn’t matter to him any more, not after yesterday.
He closed his eyes again and reminded himself that he had to sleep, trying to pretend that it was still dark. Sleep, beautiful sleep, dreamless and inviolate, sleep like death, that was the thing. He tried thinking of everything that was darkness, black velvet, a black cat, ebony, the bottom of a mine. He tried to pretend that he was on a fine private yacht, preferably his own, bound for Havana, and that he could hear the soft lapping of waves. He tried to pretend that he was in a hospital room—with nothing serious, of course, a sprained ankle, perhaps—white-walled and hushed, with nurses and doctors to care for him and protect him against the world. He tried to pretend that he was back on Grampa’s farm, in the little attic room, that it was just past dusk and that he could hear the crickets under the whispering trees. He tried to do everything but remember the night before. That was always disastrous, in the terrible early morning hour.
But this time, he couldn’t help remembering. This was one morning when he wasn’t going to get back to sleep.
With a groan, he pushed himself up in bed and swung his legs over the edge. His hands and feet were cold; for a moment he was trembling and half sick. But his mind was wonderfully clear, now. The first few steps were always difficult. Then his feet and his mind began to coordinate again. He crossed the room and stared at himself in the dressing-table mirror.
He looked like hell. His thin, handsome face was pasty and pale, his dark hair rumpled and greasy. There was a small bruise on his cheek; he must have got that by tripping over some crack in the sidewalk. His protuberant, light-blue eyes were bloodshot and staring.
But his host had excellent taste in pajamas. His host also had excellent taste in dressing gowns. He picked up the brown brocade one that had been left on the foot of the bed, put it on, and tied the cord. Then he went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face and brushed back his hair. He felt a little wobbly, but he was good-looking again.
There was coffee in the next room. He could smell it. He pushed open the door into the next room and stood for a moment, looking, trying to remember when and where and how he’d met its occupants. The most beautiful blonde girl he’d ever seen was stretched out on one end of the sofa, sipping at a cup of steaming coffee. Her hair was straight and shining and almost the color of strained honey. Her delicate-featured face was luminously pale. She was tall, and long-legged, and graceful. She wore a pale-green lamé dinner dress and a pair of ostrich-feather mules. She smiled up at him as he came in and said, “Hello. Have some coffee.”
The man sprawled at the other end of the sofa was big and bony and ungainly. He had badly mussed red hair, surprisingly blue eyes, freckles, and a friendly grin. He looked up and said, “Boy, I bet you feel terrible.”
The third person in the room didn’t even stir. He was short and stocky, with thick shoulders. Someone had been playing tick-tack-toe on his shirt front, and his necktie was under one ear. His round face was reddish and perspiring, a lock of black hair fell over his forehead. He was beginning to need a shave. He was slumped in a big easy chair, snoring.
The blonde girl poured a cup of coffee, held it out, and said, “Sit down. I’m Helene Justus. This is my husband, Jake Justus. He runs a saloon in Chicago; he won it on a bet.* That’s John J. Malone over there, the best criminal lawyer in forty-eight states. If you ever commit a murder, let him know.”
The young man took the coffee, felt for a chair, and said, “I’m Dennis Morrison. Thanks for bringing me home with you. I—” He took a sip of the coffee, put the cup down suddenly on the table, jumped up, and said, “My wife!”
“She’ll forgive you,” Jake said easily. “They always do.”
“You don’t understand,” Dennis Morrison said. “We were just married yesterday. At four o’clock. We had dinner. Then we came here, to the hotel.” He realized that the little red-faced man, John J. Malone, was awake now, looking at him with wise, almost sardonic eyes. “Bertha had a little unpacking to do. I felt—well, not embarrassed, but—Oh hell, you know what I mean.”
The blonde, Helene, smiled at him sympathetically, and her husband, Jake Justus, said warmly, “I certainly do.”
“Well,” the young man said, “well, I thought I needed a drink. And I thought maybe she wanted to be alone. You know. So I went down to the bar to get a drink. I had a couple. Then I met some people. We had a couple more. And then,” he paused, frowning, “I’m not very sure what did happen. I remember something about a floor show in some night club. It wasn’t a very good floor show. And riding in a taxi, I remember that. But I don’t remember meeting you, or coming here, or anything—” He paused, and said, “Bertha!”
“Young man,” said John J. Malone, “what you need is a drink now. There’s some bourbon in the bathroom.”
He poured an inch and a half of bourbon into a water glass, handed it over, and said, “I’ve never been married myself, but this stuff fixes anything.”
Dennis Morrison said, “Thanks,” and gulped. The raw liquor went down like water and hit like liquid fire. But his nerves began to settle down to something almost near normal. He shuddered and said, “Guhhhh.”
“See,” the blonde girl said brightly. “You feel better already.”
He managed to smile at her. “I know this sounds silly,” he said, “but where did we meet?”
“Downstairs in the
lobby,” she said. “You were trying to steal the lilies from the flower display to take upstairs as a present to the most beautiful girl in the world, and the room clerk was being a little difficult about it. You looked sort of helpless, so we adopted you.”
“Oh,” Dennis Morrison said. He looked down at the rug. “I don’t know what you think of me, doing a thing like this, on my wedding night.”
“Think nothing of it,” Jake Justus said. “On our wedding night, Helene was in jail for reckless driving.”*
“And assaulting an officer in the attempt to do his duty,” Helene said proudly. “The next night, Jake got mixed up with some Southern moonshine and didn’t get home for eighteen hours.”
“Stop reminiscing,” John J. Malone said wearily, “his young man has to get home to his bride. What is he going to tell her?”
Dennis Morrison looked up at him, groaned, buried his head in his hands, and said, “I’m a louse.”
“That is not the thing to tell a bride,” Helene said sternly. “You were kidnaped.”
“You had an attack of amnesia,” John J. Malone said.
“You were shanghaied,” Jake said.
There was a little silence. Then Helene rose, smiled, and said, “Oh hell, tell her the truth. She won’t care. We’ll all go with you and convince her it’s the truth.”
The young man looked up, a gleam of hope in his eyes. “Would you? Really?”
“Sure,” Helene said. “But put your clothes on first. We won’t take you home to your bride in Jake’s pajamas.”
“You’re very good to me,” he said. “I don’t know why you should be so good to me.”