But the Doctor Died

by Craig Rice

  Helene walked down State Street to Jackson and turned toward Michigan Boulevard and entered a building near the Blackstone Hotel. She totally ignored Malone while she waited for the elevator, and as there seemed to be no need for stealth, Malone got in with her—out again, too, and watched as she walked down the corridor and entered one of the offices.

  He approached it and stood before the door, undecided. The sign on the glass panel read:

  Clifford Barnhall. M.D., B.A., MS., M.A., Ph.D.

  That was all. No office hours. No by appointment only. No please enter. Nothing but the name of the character with his string of degrees.

  Malone reached for the knob. Then he drew his hand back and scowled at the glass panel. Finally, he turned away and went back to the elevator….

  Fifteen minutes later, he was back in his own territory.

  His office was at 79 West Washington Street, not far from Joe the Angel’s bar, which put both establishments very close to City Hall in the heart of Chicago’s Loop.

  Much Chicago history had transpired there. Inside the walls of the huge, block-square building, Bath House John Coughlin and the Gray Wolves had robbed the citizenry through the infamous franchise system, selling the city, block by block, to robber-baron opportunists in the old gas and electric days before the turn of the century. Hinky Dink Kenna, Bath House’s inscrutable little First Ward partner, had worn his top hat and tails in the Hall’s smoky back rooms. Many rascals and scoundrels among the elected and unelected had dictated city government through devious machinations at City Hall—the most forthright of these probably Al Brown, known also as Al Capone, who worked in two commodities—money and bullets—to promote his third commodity—illegal booze.

  But those colorful days were over, and the Hall now waited like a great, gray drab for something interesting to happen—for the dull days brought into being by comparative law and order to pass.

  John J. Malone knew City Hall very well. He was at home in its high-ceilinged corridors and offices. He knew the locations of many closets where skeletons hung, and when occasion demanded—as occasion sometimes did—he was not above turning a key or two. But he always obeyed the laws of good sportsmanship and was thus given grudging respect.

  When he entered his office, Maggie was busy typing, disapproval written on her not unpretty face. John J. Malone had always felt that Maggie was misplaced. She belonged married in a nice little home on the West Side with a husband and a few kids to look after.

  But never in his life had Malone gotten drunk enough to suggest it. He was not fool enough to lose a good secretary by putting grand ideas in her head.

  “This is Mrs. Massey,” Maggie said. “She has something she wishes to discuss with you.”

  The woman was of indeterminate age—one of the poverty-struck, shapeless people who go silently about their business and accept the misfortunes and outrageous slings with stolid patience. She wore a shapeless gray dress with a shawl over her gray head and the gray dust of the city on her shoes. A scrubwoman, probably, Malone thought. Not that he was averse to defending the poor. They were the basic reason why he was poor himself. Some of his most strenuous efforts had been on their behalf. But still, it would have been nice to find a bejeweled Gold Coaster sitting in his office once in a while.

  Malone smiled at Mrs. Massey and told Maggie, “I’ve got a call to make. Give me ten minutes,” and entered his inner office.

  Seated behind his desk, he called the Casino and got Jake Justus on the wire.

  Jake was normally casual. “Hi, Malone. How’re things?”

  “Blundering along. And you?”

  “Fine—fine.”

  “Helene?”

  “Fine—fine,”

  “Everything’s fine then?”

  “Sure,” Jake said affably. “What the hell is this?”

  “Nothing. Just wondering.”

  “Wondering what?”

  Jake’s curiosity irritated Malone. The lawyer should ask the questions. But there was no judge on the bench to tell the witness to shut up. And Malone’s knowledge of the gun Helene was buying for Jake’s birthday was confidential information. So Malone improvised.

  “It may sound silly, but I had a dream.”

  “What kind of a dream?”

  “About you and Helene. Helene was walking around kind of glassy-eyed you might say.”

  “A glassy-eyed dream?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What was I doing?”

  “You weren’t there.”

  “But you said it was a dream about Helene and me. Now you say I wasn’t even there.”

  “For crissake! It was only a dream!”

  “Then why are you getting so excited?”

  “Dammit! I’m not excited.”

  There was a pause while Jake appeared to be judging the situation objectively. He rendered his verdict. “You’re excited. I didn’t know you were one of those kooks who believes in dreams.”

  Malone didn’t, but he felt he’d been put into a position of having to defend them. “There have been a hell of a lot of books written about dreams.”

  “Have you read them?”

  There was nothing hostile in Jake’s inquiries. He merely seemed brightly interested in this new phenomenon of rock-headed John J. Malone prattling about dreams.

  “Look,” Malone exploded. “I call up and ask a civil question. Can’t I get a civil answer?”

  “Okay—okay. Helene and I are getting along fine.”

  “Has she been around the club today?”

  “No. I think she’s got a friend due to show up from New York. A female egghead. Maybe she’s already here.”

  “Well, give Helene my love.”

  “Sure. And what about me? Do you love me too?”

  “Oh, shut up!” Malone grunted and slammed down the phone.

  He sat pondering the situation. Obviously, if there was anything odd about Helene’s behavior—and there certainly seemed to be—Jake knew nothing about it. Malone remembered that name with all the letters behind it. The guy was an M.D., but he was also a lot of other things and medicos seldom paraded all their degrees after their names. So it seemed logical the guy was a headshrinker. Psychiatry had been the vogue in Chicago for some time. A lot of quacks were reaping a harvest. No doubt, Malone thought, there were also a lot of good men working at it. But he was more interested in the quacks. Did he have any reason to suspect the guy into whose office Helene had disappeared? None except all those damn letters. They made the guy sound like a self-important son-of-a-bitch.

  Malone pondered a while longer and then went to the door and said, “Please come in, Mrs. Massey …”

  Chapter Three

  “He’s a good boy,” Mrs. Massey said. “He didn’t do it.”

  Figuratively, Malone shrugged. They were all good boys. No mother had ever told Malone about any other kind. None of them did anything they were accused of. The cops were always blind bastards looking for somebody to lock up.

  Malone would have conceded this last had all the cops been like von Flanagan, but they weren’t. Most of them were pretty smart, decent citizens.

  “Didn’t do what, Mrs. Massey?”

  “They say he robbed an office on Jackson Boulevard.”

  “But he didn’t?”

  “He wouldn’t. My Nickie has spirit, but he wouldn’t break the law!”

  “When did this robbery—ah, that didn’t take place—happen?”

  “Sometime last night, I guess. They didn’t tell me anything about it. Two policemen came while I was sleeping. I work nights, Mr. Malone—in a big building on Michigan Avenue by the river. I woke up and heard a noise and they were searching Nickie’s room. I asked them what they wanted and they showed me their badges and said they wanted Nickie—”

  “They were trying to find him in the dresser drawers, huh?”

  “They said they were looking for the evidence. But he came home just then and they took him away.”

  “
Very interesting,” Malone observed. “Where do you live, Mrs. Massey?”

  He took down the vital statistics while Mrs. Massey, who obviously supported an indolent slob of a son by scrubbing floors, wrung her gnarled hands and suffered.

  “How did you happen to come to me?”

  “I didn’t know what to do. I have no money. I was helpless. But I remembered that a lawyer helped Mrs. Costello when her Danny was arrested for something he didn’t do. She lives around the corner—on Roosevelt Road near Halstead Street—so I went and asked her and she said, see Mr. Malone. He takes care of poor people. So I came down here to ask you—”

  Malone held up a silencing hand. “I’ll see what I can do for your boy,” he said. “In the meantime, you go home and rest, Mrs. Massey. Don’t worry, because worry never did anybody any good.”

  “Then you’ll help—?”

  “I’ll see that his interests are protected. Did they tell you where they were taking him?”

  The poor confused woman shook her head. “They didn’t tell me anything.”

  “I’ll find out. You run along now. I’ve got to make some telephone calls.”

  Mrs. Massey left, but before Malone could dial, the phone rang. He picked it up. “Malone here.”

  “You’re a fine counselor,” a hurt voice announced.

  “Toothy—where the hell are you?”

  “I could be goin to the chair for all the help you are.

  “They released you,” Malone hazarded, making it a statement rather than a question.

  “Sure, but I could o’ rotted in that damn tank—”

  “Now wait a minute, Toothy. Where did you get the idea I wasn’t on the ball? I’ve been pulling strings all over town. It isn’t easy to get a man released from a murder rap.”

  “You called up?” Toothy asked doubtfully.

  “Called up! You’ve got no idea. My telephone bill reads like the national debt. I was just this minute trying to get through to the governor.”

  Malone wondered where Toothy had been. No doubt von Flanagan had deposited him in some secluded crib you couldn’t find without a roadmap.

  “Toothy, I worked my balls off and I got results. You’re out, aren’t you?” Obviously von Flanagan had not been able to come up with enough on Toothy to interest the District Attorney, which simplified Malone’s work no end.

  “Yeah—yeah, I’m out,” Toothy conceded doubtfully. He could do nothing else but give Malone the benefit of that doubt.

  “You go home and get some rest,” Malone said. “I’ll be in touch with you later.”

  “Okay, Counselor,” Toothy said. “That joint I was in was full o’ bums and creeps. I gotta take me a shower.”

  “You do that. And when we get around to it, we’ll sue the state for false arrest.”

  “You think that’s a good idea? They might get mad and toss me in again.”

  “Leave everything to me, Toothy. Go home and take that shower.”

  “All right, Malone. If you say so.”

  “I say so. Did I ever steer you wrong?”

  Toothy groped. If he thought hard on it, he was sure he could come up with eleven different times Malone had steered him far, far wrong. But Malone hung up, so Toothy quit pondering and gave the phone back to the desk sergeant….

  Toothy had been held in a grass roots station just east of Franklin Park and a few blocks south of the North Pole, and he wearily contemplated a long boring cab ride back to civilization. Therefore, he was pleasantly surprised to find a sleek-looking Cadillac waiting for him at the curb in front of the station.

  “Hey, Toothy. Crawl in.”

  Toothy looked. It was Cats Gavin. Toothy was stunned. He stood there, sure that a mistake had been made. Cats Gavin didn’t go around in his Cadillac picking up characters like Toothy Spaatz from in front of hick police stations.

  “I said, get in,” Cats repeated. “You deaf or something?”

  “Sure, Mr. Gavin, but—”

  “The hell with the buts. Shake your can.”

  As Toothy climbed into the Cadillac, he narrowed his eyes against the blaze of the two diamonds in the massive ring Cats wore. Cats liked jewelry and wore thousands of dollars’ worth quite openly all over town. And it was indicative of what the town thought of Cats that no one ever gave a second thought to heisting him. The reason for this consideration was simple. No one wanted a quick trip to the graveyard.

  As Cats pulled away, Toothy’s withered mouth shaped into a grin of appreciation. He was called that because he didn’t have any—much as a bald-headed man is sometimes called Bushy, and a seven-footer is referred to as Shorty by his friends.

  Toothy, although not yet thirty, had a talent for getting his mouth in the way of fists. Thus, he had dropped teeth here and there about town until he had none left. This situation could have been corrected by a good dentist, but Toothy had a block—a thing about dentists’ chairs. They looked a lot like barbers’ chairs, and several of Toothy’s friends had come a cropper while getting their hair cut. Guys who accepted contracts on other guys liked nothing better than to find guys whom they accepted contracts on stretched lazily out in barbers’ chairs. This made for little trouble and the quick fulfillment of contracts. Toothy saw no reason why this should not also extend to dentists’ chairs. So he remained without his teeth.

  “They tried to frame me for Monks Tannen,” he told Cats.

  “I know. But it wasn’t you. It was somebody else.”

  “Is that so? Malone didn’t tell me.”

  “Malone? What the hell’s he got to do with it?”

  “He’s my counselor. He busted his ass gettin’ me out o’ that tank.”

  Cats turned to glance at his mushy-mouthed passenger. “Are you kidding?”

  “What do you mean, Cats—I mean Mr. Gavin?”

  “Malone didn’t even know where you were.”

  Toothy, who had a reputation for stunning easily, was definitely stunned. “You mean—for crissake—my own counselor—”

  “That jughead never gets four blocks from Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar.”

  “But he called up!”

  “If he called up it was because his watch stopped and he phoned for the time. He’d been snowing you, Toothy.”

  Toothy’s withered lips stiffened. “That ain’t honest.”

  “Right. But don’t worry. Everything’ll come out okay. I got a contract for you.”

  Again, Toothy was stunned, but pleasantly so this time. “A contract? For me?”

  Toothy’s astonishment was justified. Surprise piled on surprise. First, Cats Gavin had been waiting for him in front of the tank. That was the equivalent. of the mayor sending a limousine after some nameless ward heeler. Now Cats had a contract for him, which compared to Eisenhower picking out a likely buck private to lead the assault on Normandy.

  “No foolin’,” Toothy grinned.

  “No fooling.”

  Toothy sat up straight and took a deep breath. He folded his arms. He could rise to an occasion when the occasion demanded it, and this one certainly did.

  “Whom,” he asked, “do you wish me to rub out?”

  “John J. Malone,” Cats said.

  Toothy collapsed only slightly. Then he straightened again. “John J. Malone?”

  Christ! He was on the way up at last….

  In the meantime, John J. Malone was going about his client’s business. Entering the station on South State Street near the Loop, he approached the desk sergeant and said, “I’m John J. Malone,” as though that explained everything.

  The desk sergeant was coming to the end of his trick. He was tired. His weary eyes said, Balls to you, but his comment was more restrained. “So?”

  “I want to see the captain.”

  “He’s busy. He has no time.”

  “I suggest that he find time. One of my clients has been incarcerated here.”

  The desk sergeant’s defense was quick. “That’s a lie. We never did that to nobody.”
<
br />   “I’ll probably file suit and I wouldn’t want it to come as a surprise to the captain.” Malone shrugged. “However, if you want to take the responsibility—” He turned away.

  “Okay. Go on in and get thrown out.”

  “Thank you,” Malone said politely.

  Captain Spence was tired also. The precinct was undermanned, as was the city—and possibly the state and the nation. Also, devious characters were continually wandering in to throw cuties at him. And now, here was Malone.

  “What do you want?” Spence asked.

  “A client of mine, Nicholas Xavier Massey, is somewhere down in your Bastille.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “You wouldn’t. He’s poor, underprivileged, and without influence.”

  Spence sighed. “They all are.”

  “Two of your cossacks picked him up in his bedroom on Roosevelt Road for heisting an office over on Jackson Boulevard.”

  “Uh-huh. But he’d just gone into the office to phone for a cab.”

  “Not exactly. He went in, no doubt, to heist it.”

  “Well, that’s a switch. But if you want to bail him out, Malone, why come to me? I’ve got subordinates who take care of that sort of thing.”

  “No doubt. But that’s not what I came for. I want him released. And you also might erase his name from the charge sheet.”

  “Jesus! What do you smoke?”

  “You probably weren’t listening, Spence. I said they picked him up in his bedroom. They were in there snooping for evidence, and when he arrived, they pounced like a couple of amateurs who never read the law.”

  A look of disgust appeared on Spence’s face. It spread and solidified, reshaping his careworn jowls. “Are you saying—?”

  Malone smiled sweetly and reached into his pocket. “Uh-huh. No search warrant. Have a cigar, Captain?”

  “Not again,” Captain Spence murmured softly. “Those goddam clowns.” Taking the cigar from force of habit, Spence picked up the phone and asked, “Who gathered in a punk named Massey off Roosevelt Road?” He listened and said, “Kluchesky and Scanlon. The extra help,” and hung up.

  Malone’s smile deepened. “Von Flanagan’s shadows from Homicide. What are they doing here?”