by Craig Rice
The experts arrived in full force. There seemed to be a great many of them, entirely too many for even this enormous room. And soon the newspapermen would arrive. Malone looked around a little helplessly. There was a door at the side of the room opposite the windows. He caught Lily Bordreau’s eye, and she nodded. He rose and ushered her to the door; it led into a small kitchen. There he paused and looked at von Flanagan.
“Tell your boys to be careful on that rug,” he said sternly, “or the city will find itself with two damage suits on its hands.”
The kitchen was neither large nor lavish nor expensive. It appeared, in fact, to be a converted dressing room, and not too well converted, either. The walls were painted a faded boarding-house green, a few wooden cupboards were the same, depressing shade. Worn linoleum covered the floor, there was a white-painted iron sink, a new-looking refrigerator and three-burner electric plate, a rickety table and three unmatched chairs. Evidently, Malone told himself, Lily Bor-dreau, artist and professional stepchild, didn’t go in heavily for the domestic life.
He sat down in one of the chairs, motioned her into another one, and said, “My dear, if you’ve anything more to tell me, tell it right now, and fast.”
He hadn’t needed to add, “And in a low voice.” She answered him in the barest whisper. “There isn’t anything! Malone, what happened? What really did happen?”
“I don’t know,” he told her grimly. “But von Flanagan is going to say that for some reason you bashed one Antonio Clancy on the head with a blunt instrument, and then got me here in a hurry to cover up for you.” And did you? his eyes asked.
“But Malone, it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t anything like that. I came in here and—found him dead.”
“Leave it that way,” he said. “Stick to it. Except that I came in with you.”
Von Flanagan came in, mopping his brow, and sat down. He looked cross. “Well,” he said sourly, “I suppose you have a story all cooked up.” He sighed heavily. “Why people go so far out of their way to make things hard for me—” He shook his head sadly. “Even my best and my oldest friends.” He looked at Malone reproachfully. “I never should have been a policeman. I never wanted to be a policeman. I should of been an undertaker, like I wanted to be in the first place. If the alderman hadn’t owed my old man money—”
Malone didn’t even try to hide his yawn. It was a familiar story, without variations, and he listened to it now while the experts’ flashbulbs popped in the next room, photographing the scene of the crime.
“—and one of these days I’m going to retire, and buy a small dairy farm,” the big policeman finished. “That’s where the big money is. Milk. Why, do you know that from the time a quart of milk leaves the cow—” He broke off and snarled at Malone, “What the hell are you grinning about?”
“Milk,” Malone said.
Von Flanagan sighed again. “It wouldn’t be so bad if everybody didn’t go out of the way to make life hard for me. And now you two. Which one of you searched the body?” Malone raised his brows. “Searched?”
“It’s been searched,” von Flanagan said. He didn’t look especially surprised. “Everything there, I guess, identification and a little dough and stuff. But somebody searched him.” “Alter he was dead?” Lily Bordreau said, in a slightly shocked voice.
The big police officer looked at her coldly. “Husky young guys like him don’t usually stand still to be searched when they’re alive, without somebody holds a gun on them. And if there was a gun around, why hit him on the head with that brass snake-charmer?”
Malone refrained from saying that the snake-charmer was an Oriental god of dubious reputation and odd personal habits, but unquestioned following. “We didn’t search him.” Nobody bothered to ask what had been the object of the search. Malone reminded himself that he was going to have to find that envelope full of information to turn over to Max Hook, thus fulfilling that part of his obligation, and also that the twenty-four hours which he had to get Frank McGinnis out of jail were dwindling rapidly. Obviously, this was no time to sit around passing the time of night with von Flanagan. Besides, there were tomorrow’s newspapers to think about, and he didn’t want to meet the press when he needed a shave and a newly pressed suit.
He rose with dignity and said, “All this is very entertaining, but my client’s tired. As a matter of fact, so am I. So if you’ll take our statements and excuse us, I’ll take her home.”
“Sit down,” von Flanagan said absent-mindedly. He added, “Anyway, this is her home.”
“Her studio,” Malone said. “There’s a distinction.”
Von Flanagan didn’t look as though he appreciated the distinction. He looked coldly at Malone. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”
“So have you,” Malone said promptly, and taking the offensive again. “You haven’t told me yet who tipped you off. Both times.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” von Flanagan roared. He stopped, drew a long breath, and changed it to, “Whether I was or was not tipped off is strictly my own business and has nothing to do with the case.”
“Oh, very well,” Malone said cheerfully. “Our being here has nothing to do with the case either. I had been out at the Estapooles’. I met this young lady there. She very kindly offered to drive me back into town. Then she invited me in for a drink. We came in, saw Antonio Clancy’s body on the floor, and were just about to call you when you, having been tipped off, though you say that is strictly your own business, came yammering at the door.”
“And what were you doing at the Estapooles’?” von Flanagan demanded.
“Offering my condolences to the widow,” Malone told him.
Von Flanagan seemed to have come to a dead end. He scowled. He blustered. He looked deeply grieved. Obviously there was something very wrong with the whole setup, but Malone wasn’t going to tell him what it was. He made a few what he knew were futile threats. He appealed to the cause of old and valued friendship, almost with tears in his eyes. Finally he gave up, sadly and grudgingly.
“Give Scanlon your statements,” he began, “and then get out of my sight—”
The telephone rang. It was for von Flanagan.
He listened, at first indignant at the interruption, then with surprise, finally with a deep and angry scowl, answering with a string of Yesses, Noes, and Maybes.
Finally he hung up, looked coldly at Malone and said, “All right, sit down again. You do have some more explaining to do.” He scowled heavily. “Turns out the little Commanday girl has been kidnaped after all. That makes it official now, Malone. Where is she, and who has her?”
CHAPTER 17
Malone kept completely quiet. Anyone looking at him might have assumed that he was deep in some important process of thought, perhaps on the verge of a monumental discovery. As a matter of fact, he was trying to remember how to count to ten.
At last von Flanagan said, “Well?” He said it a little threateningly.
Malone finally got to ten, and decided to make it up to twenty. The only thing he could think of to say was, “That’s impossible!” and he knew that wasn’t going to be the brightest remark of a lifetime, not in this circumstance. Because it was immediately going to raise the question of just how he knew it was impossible.
“So it’s finally been reported,” he said at last, feeling his way cautiously. “Any details?”
“If there are,” von Flanagan growled, “you’re the one who’d know what they are.”
The little lawyer took the cigar out again. This time he did unwrap it and light it. Then he said, “Get this through your head. I did not kidnap the Commanday child. I know nothing about the kidnaping of the Commanday child. Furthermore, I don’t expect to know anything about the kidnaping of the Commanday child. And besides,” he added icily, “it is not in your department, von Flanagan.”
It was Lily Bordreau who asked the question that got an answer. “What was the report you just got? What did it say?”
Von Fl
anagan turned to her, a little mellowed by the expression on her face. “The little girl disappeared from her home out in Lake Forest about two hours ago,” he said. “A search all over the neighborhood didn’t turn up anything. She’s just reported missing, but it’s logical to say she’s been kidnaped.”
The expression of disbelief on her face turned to one of complete bewilderment. Von Flanagan didn’t notice that either, because he was wearing one of his own. He turned to Malone.
“What is this, Malone?” he demanded. “What goes on? She was supposed to of been kidnaped day before yesterday. Only nothing more got said about that. Now she’s gone and gotten herself kidnaped tonight instead.”
Malone said, “Right now you know as much as I do,” and he said it honestly. “And I’m still going to take my client home, and go get a good night’s sleep myself.”
“Sleep!” von Flanagan snorted, “while a beautiful little golden-haired baby girl is in the hands of kidnapers.”
Much more of this, Malone thought, and Lily Bordreau was going to be in the hands of men with strait jackets. He said stiffly, “I have every intention of helping, but I can’t do it just sitting here making conversation.” He thought fast. “There was a rumor that I was to be the contact for the kidnapers. That may still be true. In which case, I’d better be where I can be reached in a hurry.”
To his relief, von Flanagan saw the justice of that. Indeed, the giving of statements was rushed through and Malone and Lily Bordreau were ushered out the door before an ash had formed on the little lawyer’s cigar.
Out in her car he looked at her approvingly and said, “You’re a good, bright little girl. You let your lawyer do your talking for you.”
“Malone,” she said miserably, “I couldn’t think of anything to say, that’s why.”
He ignored that and said, “So now, you’re going to go right on being a good, bright little girl, and answer your lawyer’s questions.” He looked at her critically. “As soon as we can find a faucet,” he said, “you’re going to wash your face.”
She started to smile at that, gulped, began to let a small flood of tears do the washing job, braked the car to an unsteady stop against the curb, grabbed a handful of facial tissues from the glove compartment, and finished smudging what was left of her make-up. Then she viewed herself in her compact, looked at Malone, and said, “Shall I wash it or trade it in for a new model?”
“I wish I had an ice-cream cone handy,” he told her. “I’d like to give it to you.”
This time she did manage the smile, but it faded fast. “Malone, what has happened to Alberta?”
“I wish to Heaven I knew,” Malone said, from the bottom of his heart.
“Everything seems to be all mixed up,” she said, starting the car again. “And I’ve got a lot to tell you, Malone.”
“The story of your life,” Malone said, “is probably fascinating and fabulous, but this is hardly the time or the place. And I have a lot of questions to ask you and this doesn’t seem to be the time or the place either.” He looked at her frightened, tear-stained, slightly soiled, little-girl face and said gently, “You’re supposed to be going home, remember? Whose home, and where?”
She thought for about a block and a half and then said, “I guess we’d better go to Jane’s apartment. It’s in the same building as Carmena’s. And Hammond’s.”
Malone thought that the Estapoole menage began to sound like a housing project, and said so.
“Everybody has to have an apartment in town,” she said, as though she were saying that everybody had to have a pair of shoes and one change of socks. “Hammond couldn’t go tooling all the way out to Lake Forest after a late date, so naturally he had to have a place to stay overnight and keep a change of clothes. And the same goes for Jane, especially because every now and then she has a late date too, and she can’t go all the way up north—” she made it sound as though it were five feet south of the Canadian border, and reached only by dog sled or helicopter—“and then come back in the morning when she has to do Junior League work.”
Yes, Malone reflected, Jane would be Junior League. That fitted. It made one more thing he approved of about her, along with the shining, well-brushed hair, the flawless make-up, the perfectly selected clothes, and the gentle voice. He’d never met a girl exactly like her before, never had a chance to get really acquainted with one. A thoroughly nice girl, that was it. He half-shut his eyes for a moment, and did a little dreaming about Jane Estapoole.
“And Carmena naturally had to have an apartment in town,” Lily said, “to change in before dinner parties, and things like that. I mean, Carmena and Leonard had to. Now all of a sudden, it’s just Carmena’s apartment.” Suddenly the tears began to gush again. “Leonard was an old fuddy-duddy and a terrible pain to everybody, but he was really a swell guy and I did like him and I wish he hadn’t been murdered.”
Added up, it made perfect sense and, Malone told himself, this was no time to ask her, point-blank, if she’d murdered Leonard Estapoole. This time, he reached for the Kleenex and mopped her face.
She sniffled a thank you and said, “So I’ll spend the night at Jane’s.” She managed the smile again, but it was a very wan one. “I promised to ask you up for a drink—”
She had, and it had turned out to be a very bad idea, and Malone came up with what he hoped might be a better one. “If you’ll make a right turn on Clark Street, and go about a block and a half—”
It was a small, quiet place, with a muted jukebox, three tired customers absorbed in their own problems, a bored bartender, and a back booth which might have been an isolation chamber. Malone waited until the drinks had arrived, lit her cigarette, reached for a new cigar, and said, “Let’s get back to something. You wanted that envelope of information Leonard Estapoole was carrying around. Why?”
She looked at him with her big hazel eyes, smeared now with dirt and tears, ran her slightly grubby little hand, still with those endearing pencil smudges, through her already badly mussed dark hair, made rings on the table with her untouched glass, and said nothing at all.
“It’s worth money to some people,” he said, “but not enough to take the kind of risk you took—” he looked at her closely—“or tried to take. From the looks of your studio, I don’t think you need that kind of money that badly.” His eyes narrowed. “And you’re not the type who could be blackmailed. So, who was the boy-friend you planned to give it to?” He added quickly, “Drink your drink before you answer that.”
She did, and choked on it. Then she shook her head.
“Was it Tony?” Malone probed gently. “Antonio Clancy?”
He regretted it the instant he’d spoken, not because of the startled look in her eyes but because of his own memory of Antonio Clancy both in life and in death. The chauffeur, or whatever he was, had been a glowering, ugly lump of a man, who had looked as though he’d been born and raised to be either on the giving or the receiving end of murder. Not for this child, not for this little lily-of-the-valley, with her dirty, frightened child’s face and her tousled hair.
“All right,” he said quickly, “I take that back. But people do have boy-friends. It happens all the time. And even tell their lawyers about it, in strict confidence.” Until now he’d resisted the impulse to reach over and pat her hand. “You know, as your lawyer,” he said, accompanying the pat, “there isn’t anything in the world I wouldn’t do for you. And finish your drink.”
She picked it up, put it down again, and said, “Malone, where is Alberta?”
The little lawyer sighed. “I don’t know. But wherever she is, I have a feeling she’s all right.” He added, “I only hope the people with her are.”
This time, the smile was a real one. It said everything, with no additional comments. Then it faded and she said, “But I can’t understand all this. I told you—what I knew about the kidnaping. That it was a beautiful golden frame. And I tried to head it off—oh, all right, for my own reasons—and I goofed. But there wasn’
t any crying and hueing until tonight. Now, Carmena suddenly reports her missing. And Tony, who was in on the frame, is murdered—Malone, I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t try to do either,” Malone advised. “Relax and answer as many questions as you can.” He looked at her again, his heart in his eyes. She needed another drink, she needed a bath, she needed a long night’s sleep. Well, at least—He signaled the bartender. “Tell me all you know about Antonio Clancy. Including his real name, if you know it.”
“Medinica,” she said in a small voice. “Art Medinica. He’s a relative of Mike Medinica.” She didn’t need to add The in front of Mike Medinica. “When Leonard really started on this information-getting jazz, he hired a bunch of people in little jobs. Like him, for a chauffeur.”
Or, Malone thought, with a twinge of bitterness, Tommy Storm for a confidential secretary.
“Medinica was too well-known a name. I mean, is. So Leonard had him pick a name. Out of a hat.”
“Two hats,” Malone said, “one for the Antonio, the other for the Clancy.”
She smiled again at that, but it was getting to be a very tired smile now. “I don’t know much more about him. Except that he was in on this fake kidnaping thing. And—” she scowled, and it was a wide-awake scowl—“he knew how valuable that envelope of information was. He must have been looking for it in my studio when—when it happened.”
“Why there?” Malone asked.
“Because—” She drew more circles on the table with her glass. “Malone. I suppose anything I tell you is going to be strictly secret.”
The little lawyer downed his drink and said, “My dear child, I promise that anything you tell me is going to go right in one head and out the other.”
“I know Frank McGinnis,” she whispered. “I know him very well.”
Malone closed his eyes for a moment, leaned his head back against the cushioned booth, and thought. There was some mathematical theory that if you stood on the corner of State and Madison streets long enough, say, several million years, everybody in the world would pass by. Or was he thinking about the given number of apes at a given number of typewriters who would in several billion years, come up with the complete works of Shakespeare and a copy of the Kinsey report? It didn’t matter. What did matter was the feeling that if he stayed with this case long enough, everyone he knew in the world was going to turn out to be connected with someone else connected with it.