The Corpse Steps Out

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The Corpse Steps Out Page 10

by Craig Rice


  At last the coffee was made, and Jake spread the newspapers out on the table.

  The police were greatly concerned over the discovery of the late Mr. Givvus on a Lincoln Park bench. There were pictures of the bench, and of a policeman named Gadenski pointing to the exact spot where the body had been found. One story mentioned the fact that a copy of a Chicago newspaper had been found in the dead man’s lap, turned to a story concerned with downstate vice conditions. Another story gave the same fact, but stated that the newspaper had been turned to a picture of a Hollywood queen. Both stories treated the fact of the folded newspaper as being of extreme importance. But there was no hint of the fact that the late Mr. Givvus had been in Chicago to attend a radio audition.

  “Thank God!” Jake said.

  Malone scowled, spilling a little coffee on his cuff. “I suppose you know you’ve committed a serious crime in moving the body.”

  “Hell,” Jake said, “what would you have done? I’m hired to protect Nelle Brown’s reputation, one way or another. This was one of the ways. Suppose he’d been discovered in the client’s room where he’d gone to listen to a Nelle Brown secret audition?”

  “Just the same,” the little lawyer said, “they put people in jail just for things like that.”

  “Well damn it,” Jake said furiously, “What have we got a lawyer for? Put your mind on the train of thought that would have followed the discovery of the body. It was a secret audition. Why was a secret audition being held? Papa Goldman comes rushing back from Brule. His Nelle Brown giving a secret audition for another client! Could Nelle explain to him that she had to give the audition because St. John was blackmailing her? Either way, Papa Goldman would have had the best of reasons for refusing to re-sign her contract Friday night.”

  “Good God,” Malone exploded, spilling the rest of the coffee, “two men have been murdered, and all you’re worrying about is getting Nelle’s contract re-signed.”

  “All I’m worrying about,” Jake said, “is when we’re going to get to Crown Point and get married.”

  “Suppose,” Malone said thoughtfully, “suppose someone remembers seeing Givvus going to the broadcasting studio.”

  “No one did. He wasn’t the sort of guy you’d notice. Just a little, ordinary-looking guy.”

  “Those are the sort of guys that always get noticed,” Malone observed. He sat thinking for a minute. “Anyway, if he was a little ordinary-looking guy, it’s damned funny somebody mistook him for St. John.”

  “The light was poor in the client’s room,” Jake said.

  “It couldn’t have been that poor.”

  “The murderer has poor eyesight,” Helene suggested helpfully.

  “Maybe he has,” Malone said, “maybe he has. You’ve got something there that you probably think is a clue. But we know he’s a damned good shot.” He drew a long breath. “If someone’s really trying to murder St. John, there may be a second attempt.”

  “I hope to God there is!” Jake said crossly.

  “All right, but let’s get Nelle’s letters back from him first.”

  “Let’s get me and Helene married first.”

  “Let’s remember where my car is first,” Helene said.

  “A fine thing,” Jake said indignantly. “I’m only marrying you because I like the car, and here you go and lose it.”

  “If you could remember where we went last night, maybe I could remember where the car is.”

  “All this is very interesting,” Malone said peevishly, “but don’t forget you’re mixed up in two murders, you’ve committed a crime that may land you in the jug, only God knows what’s going to happen next, and He in His infinite wisdom refuses to tell.” He rose, strolled to the window, and stood looking across the back-yard litter of barrels, clotheslines, garbage cans, and tired cats. “I’m following a train of thought.”

  They were silent for a few minutes.

  “It goes like this,” Malone said, still looking out the window. “Not my train of thought, you understand. But a train of thought. It could become very popular, too.”

  “What the devil are you talking about?” Jake demanded.

  The little lawyer didn’t seem to hear him. “As Nelle Brown’s manager, Jake would find the death of the late Mr. Givvus very much to his advantage. We needn’t go too deeply into motives, save that there would be important financial ones. Anything over four bits cash money is an important financial motive these days. There would be friendship motives, too. An unselfish-love motive might hit popular fancy, too.” He paused again.

  “The late Mr. Givvus,” he went on thoughtfully, “was shot at some undetermined time, quite conceivably a time when Jake was on the loose around the corridors of the broadcasting studios. I mention this as another probably popular station at which a train of thought might pause.

  “Finally,” he said, warming to his climax, “this damned dummox, Jake Justus, goes to work and moves the body, thus concealing the evidence of his crime.” He concluded with one magnificent gesture.

  After a longish pause he said, mildly, “This, Helene, leads up to the fact that if they hang Jake, you can still marry me.”

  “But no,” she said in a dazed voice.

  “Are you turning me down?” Malone inquired pleasantly.

  “As I said before,” Jake remarked, “what have I got a lawyer for?”

  “I’m just a lawyer,” Malone told him “not a miracle man.”

  “You’re a maniac,” Helene said angrily. “None of that is going to happen in anyone’s mind, and you know it.”

  Malone shrugged his shoulders. “Suit yourself. The alternative train of thought, which leaves on another track, is that Nelle shot him and Jake moved the body to protect his client and his pal.”

  “For all I know,” Jake said slowly, “that train may be the right one. But damn it, Malone, there’s no chance anyone will find out that Givvus was shot at the studios.”

  Malone said, “A flier will tell you that a good landing is any landing you can walk away from. The same statement applies to good murders. But I have a dirty hunch this murder isn’t one you can walk away from.”

  “What’s to be done?” Jake asked.

  “I’m gonna see a guy,” Malone said. “A police lieutenant by the name of Von Flanagan.”

  “Come again?” Helene said.

  “Von Flanagan,” Malone told her, “it’s his name. It was Flanagan and everybody kidded him so much about Flanagan being a good name for a cop that he went to court and had the Von tacked on.”

  “He should have made it Von MacFlanagan,” she commented. “Why do you want to see him?”

  “I want to remark that I once knew a guy named Givvus and I wondered if this could be the one, which it will turn out it isn’t, but meantime I’ll find out just how much the police do know about the murder.”

  “Confessions of a nasty spy,” Helene said. “And then?”

  “We’re going to get married,” Jake said stubbornly. “Today.”

  Malone shook his head. “This first. Before I’ll let you two go anywhere, I’m going to make very sure that no one is going to remember Mr. Givvus went to hear an audition yesterday afternoon. Then I’ll speed you on your way. I’ll even buy the flowers.”

  “You’ll probably pick out a wreath,” Jake said gloomily.

  Malone found his hat where it had rolled under the davenport, brushed ineffectively at the dust on it, and said, “All I hope is that the day doesn’t land you in a police station.”

  Helene gave a sudden yelp and sprang to her feet. “I’ve got it! I know!”

  “What?” Jake demanded. “What is it!”

  They stared at her hopefully.

  “My car. I remember now where I left it.”

  “Oh hell,” Jake said. “I thought you knew who’d murdered Mr. Givvus. Where is it?”

  “I left it by the NO PARKING sign in front of the Chicago Avenue Police Station,” she said happily. “I remember thinking at the time, it would be
such a good safe place for it!”

  Chapter 18

  Malone knew the desk sergeant at the Chicago Avenue Police Station and managed to convince him of a good reason why the big imported car had been left there overnight between two NO PARKING signs. Then he delivered the car to Helene, suggested to her that his life would be simplified if she took up bicycling, and went in search of Daniel Von Flanagan.

  The big police officer was red-faced and wilted by the heat, and very tired. He welcomed Malone’s suggestion of a cool drink in some quiet place as a marooned mariner might have welcomed the Coast Guard.

  Von Flanagan was a weary, exasperated, and unhappy man. He was, as he explained to Malone, only an honest cop trying to do his duty; and the police department, the D.A.’s office, and the newspapers seemed to hold him personally responsible for the fact that people would murder each other in complicated and devious ways.

  “Just a nice straightforward shooting, I can understand,” he said dismally into his beer, “but why people should go out of their way to make life so hard for me, I don’t know.”

  “It’s probably nothing personal,” Malone said.

  “Now you take this dame who shot her husband,” Von Flanagan went on. “She shot him in the kitchen of their house, there was nobody else in the house, the neighbors called a cop, she had the gun that had killed him, and everybody knew she hated his guts. It was all nice and simple. No fuss, no bother. I arrested her, and you defended her, and she was acquitted, and I understand she’s going to marry a guy who owns a chain of taverns on the West Side. Nice fella, too. Now that’s the way I like to see things happen. Quick and clean and simple.”

  “So many people do everything the hard way,” Malone said sympathetically.

  “Hard for me, you mean,” Von Flanagan said. “If I had it to do over again, I’d of been an undertaker like I intended to be in the first place. Believe me, if our alderman’s wife’s brother hadn’t owed my old man money, I’d of never been a cop. Now you take this guy who was found shot up in Lincoln Park. He’s been driving me nuts all day.” He sighed heavily.

  “What about him?” Malone asked. “I didn’t read much about it in the papers, just the headlines.”

  “More beer,” Von Flanagan said to the waiter, “and listen, Gus, you’d better bring ’em two at a time. A park-district cop named Leo Gadenski was going along the walk near the viaduct and he seen this guy asleep on a bench. So he goes to chase him off, only this guy ain’t asleep, he’s dead.” He sighed again, more noisily. “It’s an awful mess.”

  “Why?” Malone asked disinterestedly.

  “Because there ain’t no reason for nobody shooting the guy,” Von Flanagan exploded. “Nobody wants to shoot him. He comes from Philly, and he’s rich, and he makes soap. That’s a hell of a lot to find out about a guy, now isn’t it? I ask you. Nobody knows him in Chicago. Nobody ever heard of him in Chicago. And God damn it, nobody knows why he came here.” He looked moodily into his glass.

  “That don’t make sense,” Malone said.

  “I know damn well it don’t make sense. Look here. This guy flew here from Philly yesterday and got in around noon. We know that. He registered at the Drake, went up to his room and washed—all he had with him was a little handbag with a shaving kit and a clean shirt—went downstairs and had lunch, and walked out the door. We know that. And then what? Then he turns up in Lincoln Park, on a bench, dead.”

  Malone decided there was a special providence that looked after Jake Justus. He called for another beer.

  “Sounds like he came here on a business trip,” he hazarded cautiously.

  Von Flanagan nodded. “Yeah, but what business? No one knows anything about it. His company has a sales office here and no one in it even knew he was in town. He didn’t intend to stay long; he had reservations on the midnight plane.” He paused to brush a fly off his cheek. “I’ve got a little money tucked away, and next year I’m gonna retire, and do you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna raise mink.”

  “Mink?” the little lawyer repeated stupidly, his mind still wrestling with the problem of Mr. Givvus.

  “Yeah, mink. Annie’s been hounding me for a mink coat for three years, so last winter I priced one, and do you know what those damn things cost?”

  “I’ll tell the world I do,” Malone said bitterly and reminiscently. “Can you learn anything from Philadelphia?”

  “Hell no,” the police officer said. “Nobody there knew where he was going. He told his office he was going to be away for a day, and that was all. Whatever he came here for, he was sure keeping it dark.”

  “Maybe somebody followed him here,” Malone suggested.

  “Do you suppose we didn’t think of that?” Von Flanagan said scornfully. “We checked his wife, his kids, his-in-laws, his girl friend—boy, was she a handful—his business associates, even his bookie. Nobody followed him to Chicago. Nobody even knew he was coming to Chicago. I tell you, Malone, it don’t make sense.”

  “Well,” Malone said, “it’s like this. He probably went for a walk in the park and sat down on a bench to rest. Somebody was shooting at birds, or tin cans in the lake, or some damn thing, and plugged him by mistake. Probably don’t even know it.”

  Von Flanagan nodded. “Sure. That’s easy. So easy I thought of it myself. Only here’s the thing, Malone. He wasn’t shot on that park bench. He was took there.”

  Malone raised an eyebrow, drew a long breath, and said very slowly, “That’s funny.”

  “Funny ain’t the word for it.”

  “How do you know he was taken there?”

  “Because,” Von Flanagan growled, “when Gadenski found him he’d been dead anyway an hour. Well, we found a couple who’d been sitting on that very same park bench not fifteen minutes before Gadenski found the body.” He loosened his tie and went on, “Naturally there was all hell popping when the body was found, and this couple was walking along the beach, and they came up to see what all the rumpus was about. And the guy, he says, ‘Why, we were sitting on that bench a few minutes ago.’”

  “I see,” Malone said, nodding, and wondered why Jake Justus’s special providence didn’t keep its mind on its work.

  “So,” the police officer finished, “he must have been shot somewhere else, and somebody carted him up to Lincoln Park, and sat him on the bench. Now will you please tell me why the hell anybody would do that?”

  “Why indeed,” Malone murmured.

  “Why not leave him where he was? Or if he had to be carted away for some reason, why sit him up on a bench in Lincoln Park, with his hat on his head, and why the hell stick a newspaper in his lap?” Von Flanagan mopped a steaming brow. “I tell you, Malone, nobody would do a thing like that who wasn’t just plain ordinary nuts!”

  “You,” said Malone soulfully, “are telling me!”

  Von Flanagan waved to the waiter for more beer. “See what I mean? It’s things like that make life hard for me. Now you take mink. They don’t give you no-trouble. They’re healthy, if you take good care of ’em. And—”

  “What are you going to do about the Givvus case?” Malone interrupted.

  “I’ve sure as shooting got to do something. I’m getting hell about it.” A grim look came into his mild blue eyes. “And I’m gonna do something, too. I’m an easygoing guy, going along minding my own business and not looking for trouble, and it takes a lot to get me sore, but I’m sore about this case, and what I mean is. I’m good and sore. Maybe I’m just a dumb cop. All right, so I’m just a dumb cop. But by God, I’m gonna find out who shot that guy and took him up to Lincoln Park.”

  “I sure wish you luck,” Malone said heartily and hoped that heaven would forgive him.

  “I’m gonna fine-toothcomb that guy’s life and find out why he came to Chicago. Somebody knows why, and I’m gonna find out. I’m gonna plaster his picture all over the papers. Somebody’s gonna remember seeing him. I’m gonna find out where he went when he left the Drake if it’s the last damn thing I eve
r get done.” He set his jaw hard. “I don’t care how long it takes, either. And don’t think I can’t do it, because I can. I’m sore about this, that’s all. It ain’t right for people to do things like this to me, and I’m God damned if I’m gonna stand for it.”

  Malone remembered past instances of Von Flanagan’s dogged persistence when his ire was roused, and decided that the next few days were going to be busy ones. Still, he tried one hopeful shot.

  “You might,” he said thoughtfully, “be able to put over that accidental death theory and get the newspapers off your tail.”

  Von Flanagan shook his head. “Sure I could. But I ain’t going to. Not this case.” He set his glass down with a thump. “Now, you see what I mean, Malone? It’s things like this that make it hard for a fella. Next year I quit, so help me. All you have to do is buy a nice little farm somewhere and get two mink, and then just wait. That’s all. We’d better have some more beer.”

  Chapter 19

  “With good luck,” Malone said, “I can get him off with twenty years. I hope you’ll wait for him, Helene, he’s a nice fella.”

  He had finished his description of the conference with Von Flanagan. Even Jake looked a little concerned.

  The lawyer sighed. “Well, you’ve heard what Von Flanagan is going to do. Maybe we’d better get in ahead of him. I mean we’d better find out who murdered the late Mr. Givvus of Philadelphia. Yes, I think maybe we better had.”

  There was a little silence.

  “Mr. Givvus,” Malone said thoughtfully, “seems so perfectly the average successful citizen that it’s hard to believe he existed. I looked at his picture. An ordinary little guy. I looked up his life, courtesy of Von Flanagan’s department. He was a pretty good soapmaker. Member of a good second-rate club. Expensive house in a Philly suburb, probably a very architectural-looking house somewhat on the ornate side. Wife and two kids. Wife president of a garden club. Kids out of college, living on the old man. Girl friend who used to be a private secretary—not his private secretary, someone else’s. Shows the man had taste. Not much to live for though. Still, not much reason for anybody to shoot him.”

 

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