The Corpse Steps Out

by Craig Rice

  The only positive decision he reached was that it was a damn silly idea to bother to stay sober, murder or no murder. He sighed, relaxed, ordered a double rye, and wished he was back press-agenting Dick Dayton and his dance band.

  Oscar Jepps began insulting McIvers. Oscar always had to insult someone to feel happy; he claimed it was the great producer in him coming to the surface. Everyone knew him as the gentlest and kindest hearted man alive, and besides, no one as fat as Oscar Jepps could be really insulting. McIvers took it gloomily but nicely; everyone always insulted him just as a matter of course. It was like the Armenians, Jake thought, people were always massacring them because it seemed so suitable. There were some disconsolate individuals who were born to be abused; they either grew up to be Armenians or account executives in advertising agencies. Joe McIvers always perspired and achieved a deeply apologetic air when insulted.

  Jake remembered suddenly that Joe McIvers hadn’t attended the rebroadcast. That was funny. He wondered where he had been.

  John St. John wandered upstairs and lost twenty dollars in a crap game. Everyone was secretly delighted. While he was gone, Essie St. John made a date with Bob Bruce, and everyone pretended not to hear. The blonde in the tight blue dress asked Jake how she could get a job in radio, and gave him her telephone number, which he promptly lost. The red-mustached stranger upset his drink across the table.

  It was exactly like every other evening at Max’s that Jake could remember. Except that one man who had spent so many evenings at Max’s lay dead behind the dingy green curtains of a little kitchenette.

  The heavily mascaraed brunette slapped Lou Silver, probably with good reason, and left the table. Lou chased after her, and Oscar remarked that Lou Silver spent half his time chasing women.

  “Ever catch any?” the stranger asked.

  Oscar spotted Lou coming back alone, and said, “No.”

  Lou played the out-of-tune piano and Nelle sang requests for everybody in the place. (A thousand or so a week for one program, Jake thought, and she’d sing all night for anyone who bought her a drink.)

  Eventually, to his great relief, it was time to go home. There was the usual confusion over who was going where in whose car; in the midst of it he managed to get Nelle away without anyone noticing that they left together. Not that anyone would have cared. She muttered something about her fate being in his hands, curled up with her head on his lap, and went to sleep.

  A sudden idea came to Jake, and he told the driver to go down Erie Street, slowly. Damned fool thing to do, he told himself. But he was curious. He wanted to see just what kind of a rumpus was going on at the scene of the murder.

  There was no rumpus going on at all. No lights, no crowds on the sidewalk, no police cars in front of the long, low building. Nothing.

  Was it possible the murder hadn’t been discovered?

  Evidently it was not only possible, but true. Well, it would come any minute now. He knew that building from away back; people went wandering in and out of other people’s apartments all day and night. Sooner or later someone would wander into apartment 215.

  A little later he deposited Nelle on the bed, covered her with a blanket, shaded the light from her face, and stood looking at her.

  Nelle Brown. Her flaming rages when anything went wrong in rehearsal. Her spectacular language in anger, gleaned from years in burlesque companies, cheap night clubs, and God knows where. The quick recovery she made from the very worst of her rages. The intensely dramatic quality of her singing and acting. The way she bullied poor Joe McIvers at the agency. Escapades that all but turned Jake’s red hair white, keeping her out of trouble. Her insane love affairs, always ending disastrously. Her honest friendliness and generosity, always good for a touch. Her sweetness and gentleness with Tootz, always bringing a curious tightness into Jake’s throat.

  Now, a mix-up in a murder case. She was, Jake reflected, just twenty-three years old! Lots more could still happen.

  He poured himself a drink, turned his radio to the police calls, and sat listening.

  “Car 117, go to 1219 Melvia Street, a disturbance in a tavern. W-P-B-D. Car 221, get a dog-bite report at 716 Marquise Avenue. Car 221, at 716 Marquise Avenue, a dog-bite report. W-P-B-D. Car 415, a suspicious man at the corner of—”

  He poured himself another drink.

  “W-P-B-D. Car 134, at the corner of State and Elm Streets, a policeman calling for assistance—”

  “Officer, call a cop,” Jake said happily, and went on listening.

  “—and Wabash. Car 152, at Eighth and Wabash, a man lying on the sidewalk. W-P-B-D. Car 123, a cat is caught in a drainpipe at—”

  After an hour he switched off the radio, reflected that he would read all about it in the morning papers. There was nothing he could do about it tonight anyway. He turned off the light and went to sleep in his chair.

  Chapter 5

  At eight o’clock in the morning, he sponged Nelle’s face with a cold wet cloth until she blinked, opened her eyes, stared at him, and suddenly sat bolt upright.

  “Jake. Last night. Something happened.”

  “A murder,” he told her calmly, lighting a cigarette and putting it in her mouth.

  She lay perfectly still for a long time, her face as impassive as the bottom of a bottle.

  “We went to Max’s. How did I get here?”

  “Up the freight elevator. Over my shoulder, like a sack of potatoes.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Ask the bellhop. He always helps me carry my women up the freight elevator.”

  “I suppose it’s the only way you can get them here,” Nelle said reflectively and insultingly. She glanced at the rose taffeta dress. “I’d better phone for some clothes to go home in.”

  “I’ve already attended to that detail.”

  “You think of everything, don’t you! What a manager!” She slid her feet off the bed, made a heroic effort to stand upright without wavering, finally succeeded, and shuddered. “But you never should have allowed those two Chinamen to commit suicide in my mouth.”

  “There’s a new toothbrush in the bathroom and a jar of cold cream. The right kind, I hope. I went out and got them for you. Coffee and the morning papers are coming up. You’d better brace yourself for both with a shower bath.”

  “Yes, doctor. I’ll be a new woman in five minutes.” She paused lengthily, her face pale. “Jake. Jake, have you heard anything yet?”

  He shook his head. “It’ll all be in the papers, my pet. Go take your bath.”

  Coffee and the newspapers arrived as she emerged from the bathroom, her gold-brown hair damp and glistening, her face freshly powdered, her fragile body all but lost in Jake’s bathrobe. He divided the coffee and newspapers equally between them.

  A crisis in Europe. A divorce in Hollywood. Robbery of an alderman’s wife. A vice probe in the suburbs. Disappearance of a high-school girl from Elkhart, Indiana. Several Congressional investigations. Two people killed in a traffic accident. Nothing else on page one.

  “It’s a front-page story,” Jake muttered with professional contempt.

  Nothing about the Erie Street murder, not on page two, page three, page four. Nothing in the entire paper. They went through the pages twice, three times, finally kicked the papers under the bed, and sat staring stupidly at each other.

  “Jake, it can’t be! They must have found him. Somebody must have found him. The door. You know. You said you left it ajar. Somebody would have gone in and found him. People go wandering around that building all the time. Especially when there’s a party going on, and there was a party next door. Jake, I’m going crazy. Do something. Jake, somebody must have found him—”

  “Shut up,” Jake said. “I’ll find out.” He picked up the telephone, called a number, and waited. “May I speak to Paul March?”

  He held the receiver to his ear while Nelle paced the floor distractedly. “Evidently he hasn’t been found yet. Landlady said she’d ring him.” A long wait. “
Hello? I wonder if you’d mind going up and waking him? It’s very important.” Again he sat holding the receiver, an even longer and more terrible wait.

  “A dirty trick,” Nelle said, “a very dirty trick to send her up there to find the body.”

  Jake said impatiently, “Well, God damn it, somebody’s got to find—hello? Yes. Thank you. No, I’ll call again.” He put the telephone down very slowly and deliberately.

  “Jake!”

  “She says,” Jake said very calmly, “that he isn’t there. She says that he evidently didn’t come home last night.”

  It was a long and an uncomfortable silence.

  “But,” Nelle said, and stopped. “But. No, it’s not possible.”

  Jake lit a cigarette, walked to the window, and stood looking out. “Nelle, I’ve got to know now. The sensible thing, of course, is to sit tight and wait for developments. But I’m not going to do it.”

  “Jake, what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know yet. Give me a little time.”

  He continued to stare moodily out the window.

  The arrival of Nelle’s maid with her clothes was a welcome diversion. Jake tactfully went downstairs for cigarettes he didn’t need, and returned fifteen minutes later to find Nelle a vision in pale-brown wool and vast quantities of red fox. Her hair was smooth and shining over her shoulders; she was crumpling a soft felt hat between her hands.

  “Very nice,” he said approvingly.

  “Jake, you’ve got to do something. You’ve got to. I can’t stand this.”

  “Oh yes you can. You’ve damned well got to stand it.” He stood looking at her for a long moment. How anybody so lovely and so fragile could get mixed up in so damn many things. And now, murder. It wasn’t fair, by God, no it wasn’t. All he wanted was a nice quiet life as a manager and a press agent, and here he was with a chronic earthquake on his hands.

  “You’d better go home,” he said at last.

  She nodded. “Tootz expected me hours ago. Probably he’s worrying himself crazy right now.” She grinned wryly. “Or maybe I ought to say he’s worrying himself sane.”

  “Don’t, Nelle.” He winced.

  “Don’t you think it hurts me worse than it does you? Anyway, Tootz isn’t crazy. He’s just a little different from other people.”

  “Just eccentric,” Jake murmured.

  She smiled at him, and then frowned. “Jake, who killed Paul March?”

  “I don’t know,” Jake said, “but I hope you didn’t.”

  He took her downstairs, put her in a taxi, and sent her on her way, warning her to stay home, stay sober, and keep her chin up and her mouth shut until she heard from him.

  It was not far to the Erie Street address. He stood at the corner of Ohio and Michigan, looking at the river of traffic going past, and decided to walk. No sense in letting the world, or even one possibly inquisitive taxi driver, know where he was going.

  The day was warm and sunny and pleasant. Groups of laughing people passed him on their way to the beach; smartly dressed and perfectly turned-out men and women jostled others casually clad in beach robes, dressing gowns, and pajamas. Jake passed a tennis court where brown-skinned youngsters in shorts were making a big job of batting balls back and forth. Here and there a few scraggly trees moved gently in the wind. It was a wonderful day, a heavenly day, a marvelous day. And instead of strolling lazily in the sun, watching the tennis players and the swimmers at Oak Street Beach, he was going to that shabby little one-room apartment, to find out why no one had discovered the huddled body on the kitchen floor.

  The apartment building was a group of remodeled dwellings that had been made into one by the simple expedient of cutting doors through the first-floor halls. The result was a perfect labyrinth of hallways, a conglomeration of odd-shaped apartments all the way from the attic to the basement, no two alike, old-fashioned bathrooms and temperamental plumbing, and an insane confusion of stairways. Including first-floor, basement, and rear entrances, Jake had once totaled eleven different ways of getting into and out of the building. Yet it had an indescribably comfortable charm.

  He thanked a provident heaven that few people were stirring in the halls. The inhabitants with jobs had already left; those without jobs were still asleep. He walked along the hall, went around two corners, and up a flight of stairs.

  There was, he noticed, a tomblike silence in the apartment that had housed last night’s riotous brawl.

  At the door to Paul March’s apartment, he paused. He was, he decided, being either very smart or very dumb. It was going to be difficult to explain his presence, if someone happened to walk in and find him there. If someone happened to be in there right now, it was going to be just as difficult to explain his arrival.

  He knocked on the door, and waited.

  No answer.

  What in blazes was he going to do after he did go in? Make a noisy gesture of finding the body? Dash down to the lobby yelling, “Murder!” Explain that he had come to see Paul March, and found him dead?

  Explain how he, Jake Justus, press agent and manager of Nelle Brown, was going to see Paul March—when everyone in town (save Tootz, Mr. Goldman, and the general public) knew all the details of last winter’s March-Brown affair?

  Or it was going to look very silly to stroll down to the lobby and say to the landlady, “Look here, there’s been a murder up in 215, and you ought to report it to the police.” Just like that, as though he were reporting the unwelcome presence of a cockroach in the kitchen sink.

  What possible good was it going to do to go in that room, take a look at the remains of Paul March, and go away again? The chances were Nelle was completely in the clear. No one could have seen her going to the apartment last night. No one was going to involve her in this. The thing to do was to go quietly away and forget about it.

  Having reached that sensible decision, Jake tried the door. It was still unlocked. He pushed it open slowly and stood in the little hallway for a moment. The light had been turned off, probably by the landlady when she went to call Paul March to the telephone. But if she had gone into the room, she would have discovered the murder. No, she couldn’t have gone in. Then who had turned off the light?

  There was an unpleasant coolness in the exact center of his stomach.

  Slowly and very quietly he went in. Everything looked just as it had been the night before.

  Then he looked toward the kitchen.

  No, everything was not as it had been the night before.

  The kitchen linoleum was clean and shining and unspotted, newly washed. The huddled body of Paul March was gone.

  Chapter 6

  Jake stopped in at the little bar on the corner and ordered a double rye. He needed it. Then he strolled over to Michigan Avenue and began walking north, hardly conscious of where he was going.

  What the hell!

  There was this way of looking at it. Now that the body of Paul March had disappeared, there wasn’t the same chance of Nelle being involved in a nasty murder case. The body might turn up again somewhere else, but this would give him a little time.

  A fine thing, with Nelle’s contract up for renewal. If the body had been found, and if Nelle had been seen going to the building last night, and if she’d been fool enough to tell anyone that March was blackmailing her—! But, he thanked his stars, it hadn’t been found.

  What the devil had happened to the body of Paul March?

  Of course, it wouldn’t have been hard to smuggle a body out of that building. It wouldn’t be hard to smuggle an elephant out of there, especially with a party going on. But where was the body now? What had been the idea of taking it away? And when would it be found?

  There was an amusing possibility that it never would be, and no one would ever know Paul March had been murdered. No one save three people: Nelle, the unknown murderer, and himself. Jake conceded to himself that this might be two people. Of course, the disappearance would make some stir. After all, Jake reflected, the man must ha
ve had some friends. It was a cinch he had had some creditors. Anyway, there was the landlady to make inquiries. But a disappearance was hardly the same as murder.

  Suppose no one ever knew!

  All right, Jake thought, suppose no one ever did. It was no skin off his nose. Murder, as such, didn’t worry him. This wasn’t his murder, and he didn’t want to make it his. But Nelle was a valuable property, far too valuable to be destroyed. This might be profitable publicity in some other branch of the entertainment world. But not in radio. Oh no, Jake thought, not in radio! One good strong breath of scandal and Nelle’s value would drop to zero overnight. He’d seen it happen to too many others.

  He speculated calmly on the possibility of Nelle as the murderer. If she had been, though, who had moved the body? Not Nelle, he’d been with her every minute since the rebroadcast.

  His mind moved on to the next problem. Where were Nelle’s letters? This was a far more serious menace than an obligingly disappearing corpse.

  He decided that it was something he couldn’t cope with himself, and a name popped into his mind. John Joseph Malone.

  Merely thinking of the name made him feel that the whole problem was a simple one, already half solved. John Joseph Malone, untidy, resourceful little criminal lawyer, who boasted that he could get anybody out of any mess. He could certainly get Nelle Brown out of this one.

  Jake remembered how John Joseph Malone, whom he had known from his first days as a reporter, had turned up the real murderer of Miss Alexandria Inglehart of Maple Park and exonerated the murdered woman’s niece, Dick Dayton’s bride.* That had been a tough one, even for Malone. (Though the lawyer still insisted that if Holly Inglehart Dayton had been brought to trial, he could have won an acquittal on the first ballot with an insanity defense.)

  The thought of Malone brought another name to mind, and the shadow of a frown crossed his lean face.

  Helene Brand! Was there another woman in the world like Helene Brand? She had wandered into the Inglehart case, a childhood friend of Holly, and had gone through it to the cockeyed end.