My Kingdom for a Hearse

by Craig Rice

He realized immediately it would be a losing battle before it started. On the one hand, Charlie Swackhammer was not going to let his new wife advertise his first wife’s products, even though he received a big piece of the income. And on the other hand. Hazel Swackhammer was certainly not going to accept the ex-Delora Deanne as the future Delora Deanne. And finally, a brainy and beautiful girl who had just married a chain of undertaking parlors was hardly going to endure the long, hard work of a television production, even if she were going to be the star.

  Still, there were the other Delora Deannes, who, with Jakes persuasive methods, could probably be assembled, and Otis Furlong’s process which sounded as though it might work. As a last possibility, Maggie’s brother Luke’s camera.

  He reminded himself sternly that this was hardly the time or the place to worry about the Jake Justus Television Production Company, important though it might be.

  “It you don’t mind my asking—” he began rather tentatively—“just what—”

  “I do mind,” Charlie Swackhammer said with surprising grimness. “But I don’t suppose it will do me much good. I might as well tell you the works, the whole works. ” He sat down in the nearest chair, Maybelle close by him.

  “To begin—” He paused a moment. “I don’t suppose you’d want to have me as a client, Malone, in this whole—” he waved an all-embracing hand—“mess?”

  The little lawyer thought fast. Just exactly how opposite a side of the fence was Charlie Swackhammer on from his ex-wife Hazel? There was a little matter of ethics involved.

  “Well?” Charlie Swackhammer said, invitingly.

  There was also the little matter of repaying Gus Madrid. The pleasant-faced Charlie Swackhammer didn’t look as though he would strain at paying an immediate and handsome retainer.

  But—a point of ethics, though a delicate one. Never change horses, he told himself firmly, even if they’re about to lay golden eggs.

  “I beg your pardon?” Swackhammer said.

  “I just said,” Malone told him, “that under the circumstances, I could hardly—” After all, that check from Hazel Swackhammer must surely be in the office by now.

  The big man sighed. “I was afraid you’d feel that way. However—” His voice and expression left the subject wide open for future discussion, and Malone felt a little better. “What with Myrdell Harris murdered—”

  “How do you know she was murdered?” Malone demanded. He added, “For that matter, how did you even know she was dead?”

  Cuddles Swackhammer paused, scowled, and then said, “I telephoned her, and she was dead. I mean—” He paused again. “This morning. I wanted to talk to her—about something. I telephoned the salon. The girl at the switchboard told me. So we came here.”

  “All right,” Malone said. “You found out she was dead. But how did you know she was murdered?”

  There was a silence. Cuddles Swackhammer stared at him. At last he said, very slowly, “1—as a matter of fact—I didn’t. I don’t. It just seemed—” He paused again. “I don’t know just how to put it.”

  Neither did Malone, and anyway, he wasn’t going to help out, not right now.

  “Let’s put it,” Swackhammer said, even more slowly, “that she was a likely person to be murdered.”

  “Fine,” the little lawyer said more cheerfully. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Why was she?”

  “Oh, because—” Cuddles Swackhammer made an impatient gesture. “I don’t know why you should be asking questions, or I should be answering them like this. It would be different if I were your client instead of Hazel.”

  More profitable, too, Malone thought unhappily. “You can believe me,” he assured the big man earnestly, “that I’ll respect your confidences just as though you were my client.” He added lightly, “Who knows, you might be, some day.”

  The smile he got in return was a wan one. “All right, all right. And anyway, I haven’t done anything wrong, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be known—now. Myrdell worked for me—in a sense. I mean—well, I needed to know how things were going at Delora Deanne. After all, I do own a big per cent of it. So I paid Myrdell, regularly, to keep me informed.” He paused, thought, and added significantly, “Informed about everything.”

  Malone looked at him and waited.

  “Yes,” Cuddles Swackhammer said, nodding, “about the girls disappearing, and about Hazel getting those gruesome little packages in the mail. And I don’t know any more about who sent them than you do.” He made a gesture indicating there wasn’t anything more to add. “That’s why I assumed Myrdell was murdered. She knew entirely too much about everything that was going on, everywhere. And she liked money.” Malone nodded thoughtfully. The picture of Myrdell as a seller of information fitted in very well. So did a possible picture of Myrdell as a blackmailer. But blackmailing whom? Probably the person who had sent those gruesome little packages.

  “The only trouble is,” he said at last, “Myrdell Harris wasn’t murdered.”

  He went on into details, his late-at-night trip to this same apartment, Myrdell Harris dead, and Dr. Alonzo Stonecypher in attendance and signing the death certificate. He omitted the minor fact of his having been the one to call Rico di Angelo. There was no point in telling a possible future client that he’d sent business to a rival.

  When he’d finished, Charlie Swackhammer had nothing to say except, “I’ll be damned!”

  Malone nodded and said, “And that isn’t the half of it.” He went on to tell about the mysterious disappearance of the body, hi jacked from Rico di Angelo, and its equally mysterious reappearance in Lincoln Park.

  Charlie Swackhammer gave him a puzzled scowl. “It sounds impossible. But if it really happened, it isn’t, is it? Also, it just doesn’t seem to make sense.”

  “It doesn’t,” Malone agreed. Nothing in this whole affair made sense, so far. “Except—someone believed Myrdell Harris was murdered and wanted the police to find it out.”

  The three of them talked it over for a while and finally came up with only one conclusion, that it didn’t make sense. “But—you came here—?” Malone said questioningly.

  “I wanted to look at Myrdell’s bankbooks,” Swackhammer said. “That’s all.”

  Malone blinked at him. “Why?”

  “Because—well, Myrdell might have been blackmailing someone. It would have shown in her bank deposits. I just wanted to take a look.”

  And, Malone thought, Charlie Swackhammer’s own payments would have shown up in them, too. He said, “Well, you wasted a trip. They aren’t here.” As the big man’s eyebrows raised a little, he went on. “I wasn’t looking for them specifically, I was just going over things in general. I happened to notice they were gone.” He started to say that he’d done everything but take up the carpets and pull down the wallpaper, and caught himself in time. That would be just a little too thorough for a mere general going-over.

  “She kept them in the little center drawer of the desk,” Swackhammer said. He strode over, pulled open the drawer, slammed it shut again, and said, “You’re right, they aren’t here. But why would anybody want to make off with her bankbooks?”

  “For the same reason you did,” Malone said boldly. “Because inexplicably large deposits might show up and have to be explained.”

  Cuddles Swackhammer glowered at him, and then suddenly grinned. “All right, that was it. I thought—any such connection between Myrdell and myself might prove embarrassing, if she was murdered.” The grin faded. “She wasn’t murdered. But her body—”

  “We’ll all know sooner or later,” Malone said brightly.

  Swackhammer nodded. “Oh, another thing, Malone. My key—you noticed I had a key to the apartment. It was only because—sometimes she’d have information and papers or something like that, and she’d have to go out herself, and she’d leave it for me.”

  “Of course,” Malone said. Cuddles Swackhammer, he reflected, was a fast man with an explanation. He hoped the glorious Maybelle believ
ed him.

  There was obviously no reason to stay. The three of them rode downstairs in silence. Malone returned the key to the manager.

  “I’d offer you a lift,” Charlie Swackhammer said, “but we’re going to pick up my cousin in Evanston, and—” he beamed—“and then, the ceremony is at four.”

  The little lawyer paused at the nearest telephone booth, called Rico di Angelo and told him to go ahead and notify the police, adding that he’d appreciate it if Rico could keep his name out of it. Not that that was going to do any good, he told himself glumly. As soon as von Flanagan started putting twos and threes together—

  Oh, well, he’d worry about that later. As he started gloomily for his office, his only concern was—why hadn’t he come right out and asked Charlie Swackhammer if he’d taken those bankbooks on an earlier visit and if so, why had he come back for a second trip?

  But the call slips had been missing too. Perhaps the visitor who preceded him hadn’t been Charlie Swackhammer after all but had been Dennis Dennis himself. That was one question he was going to have answered soon.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “Malone,” the elevator man said anxiously, “Miss O’Leary came out and told me to tell you about that man. Mr. Madrid, she said. He’s waiting in your office. Him and his girl.”

  Malone nodded his thanks. He hesitated only a moment. No, better go ahead and get this over with. He’d stalled tougher creditors than Gus Madrid before, and probably would again.

  Just the same, he hesitated another moment at the door. Then he drew a long breath and went right on in.

  His face asked Maggie if there had been a check, and the slight shake of her head told him there hadn’t. Well, he’d find a way to handle things somehow, before the day was over.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said affably, very affably. “An important client. Another important client.”

  “You and me, we’ll talk business later,” Madrid said. “Right now, I brought my girl down to see you. She’s an intelligent type girl, and she’s got something to tell you might be some good to you, I don’t know.”

  Well, at least the money question was postponed, Malone thought with relief He looked at the no longer missing Eva Lou Strauss with interest and some curiosity as they were introduced. Yes, she fitted Dennis Dennis’ description of her. And Otis Furlongs as well. “Just a generous, good-natured, lusty slob.” Her yellow, just plain yellow hair, was much too frizzy, and she wore entirely too much make-up, but he liked her on sight, and was wholeheartedly glad to see her intact, beautiful hands and all.

  “It was the phone call,” Eva Lou Strauss said. She had a lazy, uneducated and thoroughly likable voice. “I didn’ have no way a knowing it wasn’ the up-’n-up. ’Sides, I was sick ’n tired of ole Hazel anyways and glad t’get outa there. Always thought I’d kinda like Havana, ’n I didn’. Thought maybe I’d kinda like Harold better’n Gus here, but I didn’, so I said the hell, and I come right back. Glad I did.”

  “I’m glad too,” Malone told her. “You have absolutely no idea how glad.” He was pleased to see that the pair were holding hands. It occurred to him that a little drink might be in order, and it was.

  “Like Scotch,” Eva Lou said, favoring him with a wide, toothy smile. “Lika good slugga gin too, like this.”

  “Now,” the little lawyer said briskly. “About this telephone call—”

  “Like I tole va. Thought it was the up-’n-up. Gus here, he says it wasn’. Hazel didn’ call. Thought I was jus’ up ’n gone. But I got the call, n I got the money, ’n Harold he was goin’ t’Havana, so I up’n went. Wish I hadn’, now, but Gus here, he says he don’ care, so’s I don do it again.” She turned the smile on Gus Madrid who returned one of his own, the first Malone had seen on his dour face.

  “Let me get this straight,” Malone said. “Hazel called you up and told you—what?”

  “Wasn Hazel,” she repeated. “So Gus here says.”

  “That isn’t important right now,” Malone told her gently. “This person who either was Hazel or sounded like Hazel—” Gus Madrid interrupted and said, “This party whom I think was not Mrs. Swackhammer, called up my girl here, Eva Lou, and told her she was fired.”

  “Tha’s right.” Eva Lou nodded. “Tole me she was goin’ outa business. Was sendin’ me money case I wanted t’take that trip I was always talkin’ of, so when the money came over with a messenger that night, I up ’n went, specially, count of I was a little sore at Gus here anyway because—”

  “Never mind why,” Madrid said hastily.

  “A’right. I was a little sore at Gus here. So I went. ’N then I came back.” She smiled engagingly at both men. “An’ I guess tha’s all.”

  “I thought it was sort of funny,” Gus Madrid said. “Because this Mrs. Swackhammer, she never seemed to be the money-giving-away type dame. And she didn’t seem like she was going out of business. And then why would she send Eva Lou on a trip and then hire you to find out where she was?”

  “Tell me,” Malone said suddenly, “do you know Myrdell Harris?”

  Eva Lou nodded. “That sorta drippy babe worked for Hazel? I knew her, sorta.”

  “Hazel Swackhammer’s executive assistant,” Malone said.

  Eva Lou shrugged her shoulders. Suddenly her face brightened. “She does voices. Usta do Rita’s, till Rita got sore ’n raised a big stink.” She was really thinking hard now. “She coulda done Hazel’s voice, you mean?”

  Malone nodded.

  “Bet you she won’ do it no more,” Eva Lou grinned. “Not when ole Hazel hears about she did this.”

  “She won’t do it no more anyway,” Malone told her solemnly. “She’s dead.”

  His two visitors stared at him, wide-eyed.

  “Just last night,” Malone said. “It happened very suddenly.” They could read further details in the newspapers, if they cared.

  “Gee,” Eva Lou said, her blue eyes round and shining, “Who murdered her?” Gus Madrid said nothing, but he looked interested. A kind of professional type interest, Malone thought.

  “Nobody,” Malone told them. “She wasn’t murdered.”

  Eva Lou looked surprised, almost amazed. Gus Madrid simply lost interest.

  “What made you jump to the conclusion—” He decided to simplify that. “What made you think she was murdered? Anybody ever threaten her?”

  The big blonde shook her head slowly. “Huh-uh. Only, she was sorta stinky, y’know what I mean. Folks was always bein sore at her. Rita, now, she ’n her hadda big light. ’Cause Myrdell made the voice like Rita. An’ they was fightin’ over the picture man. Rita said she’d cut Myrdell up in li’l pieces, only she didn’. Not if Myrdell jus’ died. All by herself.”

  Malone didn’t like the expression Eva Lou had used. But, he reminded himself, that portion of the Delora Deanne problem was a thing of the past, except, of course, that he still didn’t know who had done it to Hazel Swackhammer, or why.

  Picture man. That would be Otis Furlong.

  As though Eva Lou had been reading his mind, she said.

  “Myrdell knew sumpin’ about him she said no babe’d ever look at him if she tole it, only I dunno what it was.” She added, “The writin’ fella, too, they had trouble.”

  Before she finished, Eva Lou had supplied practically every member of the Delora Deanne organization with ample reason for wishing that Myrdell Harris would, at least, drop, dead. With the exception, that is, of herself and Eva Lou didn’t look as though she would harbor a grudge for more than thirty seconds, or even fifteen on a good sunny day.

  Myrdell Harris had been threatening to tell Dennis Dennis’ wife something that might have gotten her alimony increased. All of the Deloras hated her with one enthusiastic breath. Even Hazel Swackhammer seemed, according to Eva Lou’s phrase, to act funny, where Myrdell Harris was concerned.

  And Eva Lou found it amazing that, with all that accumulation ranging from mild dislike to fear and downright hatred, Myrdell Harris shou
ld have, as she put it, just up and died all by herself.

  That seemed to be all the information Eva Lou Strauss had, or at least, wanted to contribute. As they left, Gus Madrid paused for a moment at the door.

  “I’ll be back to see you later, Malone,” he said, and thus practically ruined the rest of the day.

  After they had gone, Malone strolled over to the window and stood looking over the roofs covered with a combination of snow and soot. The sky was beginning to cloud again, heavy, dreary, unfriendly clouds.

  Again there was that cold and unpleasant sense of something elusive, something just beyond his reach. And the even more unpleasant sense that he had no time to worry about it right now. Time was beginning to speed by entirely too fast. He still had to prevent—to prevent what? That was the maddening, elusive thing he didn’t quite know.

  Finally he returned to his desk, called Maggie, and told her to place three telephone calls, and fast. One to a whistle stop in Ohio, one to Hollywood, and one to Little Rock, Arkansas. As an afterthought, he added a fourth one, to Rita Jardee, if she was awake yet, or even if, as he very much expected, she was not.

  Maggie raised her eyebrows and muttered something anxious about the telephone bill.

  “I know, I know,” Malone said wearily. “But it’ll be a pleasant change, sending our messages by carrier pigeon. And think how hard it’ll be for creditors to call us after the phone has been taken out.”

  She sniffed, went away and started making the calls.

  The little lawyer was halfway through the last one when Jake and Helene came in. He waved them to chairs, and went right on talking.

  “Thanks so much, Miss Stolz,” he said at last. “That’s just what I thought. Yes, of course you can keep the money. She gave it to you, didn’t she?”

  He hung up the phone and said, “Well, that’s that.”

  “That’s what?” Helene said suspiciously. “Maggie said you’d suddenly gone mad and were making phone calls all over the continent.”

  Malone ignored that. He said, “I’ve just found out a very interesting thing.” He paused. “Why all the Delora Deannes suddenly up and disappeared, all at once.” He paused again.