Knocked for a Loop

by Craig Rice

  “Shut up, Jack,” the older cop said, “you talk too much. Come on, lady, let’s don’t you give us a hard time.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Helene said. She thought fast. The quicker she got this pair away from the apartment, the better. Any minute they might decide to get nosy and take a quick look around. “Just let me get a wrap and powder my face.”

  She thanked her luck that they sat down and waited while she went into the bedroom, switching the light on gingerly.

  There was no sign of Alberta anywhere. Nor in the whole bedroom was there a place to hide, and the windows opened onto a fifteen-story drop.

  There was no Alberta in the one closet, either. Helene selected a camel’s-hair topcoat, thinking that from the chill that was running down her spine, she ought to be picking out her warmest furs.

  She went into the bathroom, wet a comb, and ran it quickly through her smooth, ice-blond hair.

  The lid of the laundry hamper lifted a fraction of an inch. Just enough for Helene to see a conspiratorial wink.

  Helene turned the water in the bowl on full, and under the cover of the sound it made, whispered, “Stay here. Don’t let anyone in. I’ll be back.” She added hastily, “More Coke in the icebox.”

  The two minutes with make-up and a comb had been enough. There was delighted appreciation in the eyes of the two plain-clothes men when she marched into the living room, her hands in the pockets of the camel’s-hair topcoat, her wide-brimmed, pale-rose felt hat tilted just enough.

  “I’d better warn you though,” she said pleasantly, “I’m going to demand my lawyer immediately. John J. Malone. And if necessary, the whole police department of the city of Chicago had better go out and find him for me.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Malone examined himself in Tommy Storm’s mirror and said dismally, “I look the way I feel when I feel the way I look.” He paused. That hadn’t been exactly what he meant, but it would have to do.

  Tommy Storm suggested sympathetically that a little sleep—say, twelve or fourteen hours of it—wouldn’t do any real harm.

  For a mad moment he allowed himself to think luxuriously about sleep. About a warm and soothing bath, and then hour after hour of sleep in a smooth, freshly made-up bed, the window shades drawn, and strict orders left at the desk regarding telephone calls or visitors.

  And by the time he woke, the twenty-four hours would undoubtedly be up, and he’d be trading places with Frank McGinnis in the County Jail. No, sleep would need to come later. Right now, there were things to be done.

  Besides, he was going to see Jane Estapoole later in the day.

  “It’s early,” Tommy Storm said. “It isn’t even breakfast time yet.”

  That word conjured up a few more luxurious thoughts in his weary mind. But he was damned if he was going to let Tommy Storm provide breakfast for him, not this morning. There were still too many unanswered questions about her in his mind.

  “The early bird,” he announced magnificently, “makes hay while the sun shines.”

  He looked at himself once more in the mirror. He’d seen worse-looking faces, but not on him. Oh well, nothing that a good shave and a little talcum wouldn’t fix. The mouse under his eye had almost faded, and the bruise on his jaw was only a faint shadow.

  He sat down in the comfortable chair in the bright little living room, lighted a fresh cigar, smiled at her and said, “Now my dear, I want you to talk to me as though I were your—” He paused. He’d started to say “father” and realized his feeling about her was far from paternal. “Your lawyer. Why did you take the job as Leonard Estapoole’s confidential secretary?”

  If he’d thought that was going to jolt her, he’d never been as wrong in his life. Well, almost never. She smiled right back at him, a bright, obliging smile, and said, “For the money, of course.” She waited a moment and then said, “And because I knew what he was doing, and I thought the stuff he was collecting might be valuable when he got it all together.”

  “Valuable to whom?”

  She shrugged her pretty shoulders and said, “Me.” She was still smiling. “And whoever offered the most money.”

  Malone reflected that if there was anything in the world he admired—and distrusted—it was frankness in a woman. Particularly a gorgeous blonde.

  “And Hammond Estapoole?” he asked.

  It pleased him that she didn’t offer any of the customary and very trite defenses such as, “Why are you asking so many questions?” or, “Just what business is it of yours anyway?”

  No, she went on, still brightly and obligingly. “He gave me a terrific play because he was after the same thing I was. Though naturally he didn’t tell me. But nobody has to draw maps for me, I draw my own. I went along with the gag because I thought we might have to join forces, and because after all, I never was a girl to turn down invitations to expensive night clubs.”

  Malone made a mental note of that, and reflected that he hoped she’d have a lot of free evenings after all this was over.

  “You were very helpful to me yesterday,” Malone said. “The real reason why is something we’ll discuss later. But I’d be happy if you’d fill in a few details about what happened.”

  Her smile stayed. “All right, I knew about the phony kidnaping setup and that you’d been picked to act as go-between. But I didn’t know when or where it was going to be done—the deal, I mean. Except that it would be within the next twelve hours. So I took to following Leonard Estapoole around. I thought he’d be easier to keep an eye on than you would.”

  “Thank you,” Malone said. “And how right you were.”

  “It was about nine-thirty or so in the evening when he got to your office. I parked the car and watched for him to come out. He didn’t come out. I’d about given up when you came out, with that big police officer. Then I got really concerned. The more so, because there was no sign of Leonard Estapoole. So I decided to stick with you.”

  “Smart girl,” Malone said approvingly.

  “Then you and the cop went into Joe the Angel’s. I waited. I thought you never were going to leave.”

  “So did I,” Malone said, remembering.

  “I’d about decided to go in and join you for a drink, when along you came. I trailed along as far as your hotel and decided to give up. But you were practically dragged into a car with two men and a little girl, and I knew things were getting pretty hot, so I stayed with the party. The two men dumped you and the little girl. Then you parked the little girl. I didn’t know what to think.”

  “At that point,” Malone confided, “neither did I.”

  “You started up the street. I was trying to drive slow and keep out of sight. A man got out of a car parked down the street and took out after you. He slugged you a couple of times. Before I could do anything about it in the way of yelling for help, he’d hauled you into his car, and off he went. Again I stayed with the party. Finally he parked you at that flea-bag hotel.” She paused.

  “But in the morning—” Malone prompted.

  “I had to take back the car I’d borrowed. I wanted it back in the garage—it’s an apartment building garage—before the owner knew I’d borrowed it.”

  “Tsk-tsk,” Malone said.

  “Oh,” she said, “I was sure Hammond wouldn’t mind.”

  A nice, direct approach, Malone thought admiringly. In order to horn in on Hammond Estapoole’s private kidnaping, she’d borrowed Hammond Estapoole’s car.

  “But I kept thinking about you,” she said. “I got a cab and sat in an all-night restaurant across West Madison Street from that hotel, wondering if I ought to investigate and see if you were still alive. I’d about made up my mind to go on in—at least, find out if you were still there—when you came out, looking like the backwash from a political convention. I got a cab, and you know the rest.”

  “You were a busy little girl,” Malone said. “But I do not know the rest.”

  She lifted her hands helplessly. “Any questions you want to
ask, Malone—”

  He lighted a cigar and sat looking at her thoughtfully for a full minute before he spoke.

  “You knew about the fake kidnaping,” he said, not accusingly but stating what could have been an almost casual fact. “You made the telephone contact with Estapoole.”

  She nodded.

  “You knew when and where the meeting with me was going to take place,” he said, still in the same matter-of-fact tone.

  “No. Carmena and Hammond fixed that up. Nobody knew except them—and Leonard Estapoole. And you.”

  “And the murderer,” he reminded her.

  She didn’t answer that one.

  “And,” he said very pleasantly, “you were keeping a careful eye on me because I’d once done a favor for a friend of yours and because you decided you liked me.”

  The bright smile became an impish grin. “No. I thought old man Estapoole would hand that envelope over to you. I was keeping an eye on you until I was sure you had it. Then—” the grin grew a shade more impish—“you and I were going to get acquainted. Your reputation precedes you, Malone.”

  He looked at her with real admiration. Then he said, “If it had turned out that way, you’d probably have gotten the envelope, too.”

  “You’re damned right,” Tommy Storm said warmly. “And now, may I offer you breakfast?”

  Now, he didn’t hesitate. The questions were out of his mind and he was satisfied with the answers, at least for the present. And besides, she was a wonderful cook.

  Over his third cup of coffee, he said, “So that’s the reason why you stuck to me like a chestnut burr all that time. You weren’t just protecting me.”

  This time the grin had a dimple with it. “Sure I was. Because I thought there was a chance you had the envelope, especially with old man Estapoole murdered.”

  “I think,” Malone said, “we’re going to be very, very good friends. And speaking of murder...”

  So far he hadn’t told her what had happened during the night. Now he did, briefly and concisely. She stared at him.

  “Who did it, Malone?”

  “I would very much like to know,” he said. “And the police would very much like to know.” And given reasonable good luck, they might both get their wish. Before that twenty-four hours was up, too. “And where were you, while all this was going on?”

  “Malone, do you think I did it?”

  “No,” he told her. “I think that if you had, you’d have told me by now. But somebody might get that idea.”

  “I wasn’t anywhere in particular,” she said slowly. “I was out on a date. Nothing to do with this. We went to a few places—the Chez—the Alabam—the Glass Hat—I got home about three, I think.” Again she smiled. “I didn’t have a very good time.”

  Malone made another mental note, to make up for that on that first free evening.

  He leaned back and looked at her approvingly. There were other questions, but he could assume the answers without asking them.

  “Malone, what are you going to do?”

  “You asked me that yesterday,” he said. “And I’ve got the same answer. I don’t know. But something.”

  She said, “If Frank McGinnis weren’t in jail, I’d say he’d committed this murder too.”

  He started to speak and caught himself. He’d almost forgotten that Tommy Storm didn’t know yet that Frank McGinnis’ being in jail had almost nothing to do with the murder of Leonard Estapoole.

  He cast a last, regretful look around the cheerful and friendly little apartment before he left. Well, there would be other days.

  Outside, Chicago seemed to be welcoming the new day as though it were an unemployed relative. The sky was a dingy, discouraged gray; a thin, chilling rain was beginning to fall. Somewhere out there beyond the lake the sun was doing its best to rise, but against tremendous odds. The little lawyer hailed a taxi at the corner of Michigan, gave the address of his hotel, and wondered why troubles and calamities of all and every kind invariably occurred during spells of really terrible weather. Did the weather bring them on, or was it the other way?

  At the moment, he didn’t particularly care. For the brief respite of the ride he closed his eyes and thought about sunlit beaches, entirely populated with lightly tanned beauty contestants, about the new show at the Chez, about next Thursday’s poker game at Judge Touralchuk’s, about the possible fee he might stick Max Hook for, about the tip he’d gotten on the seventh at Santa Anita for Saturday, about a date with Tommy Storm with no murders or other minor problems involved, about the coming conference with nice, smooth, well-brought-up Jane Estapoole, about spring moonlight on the lake front, and mostly about a bath.

  He picked up a newspaper as he entered the lobby, glanced briefly at its headlines, and told himself he should have been thinking again about possible living conditions in Honduras, or possibly San Salvador.

  The desk clerk greeted him anxiously. “Malone, have you had any trouble?”

  Malone sighed. “For me, it was no trouble.”

  There was a handful of messages. Jake had called. Helene had called. Well, at least she was alive and in reach of a telephone. Von Flanagan had called. Maggie had called. He frowned. At five-thirty in the morning, the time marked on the call, Maggie should have been sleeping peacefully in the bosom of the O’Leary household. Joe the Angel had called. That was a novelty and presaged no good. Max Hook had called. Mike Medinica had called. That was more than a novelty and could be very good or very bad.

  “Most of them called more than once,” the night clerk said anxiously. “Is there anything I can do, Malone?”

  “There is,” Malone told him. “Keep on answering the phone and keep on telling people you don’t know where I am, until I tell you different.”

  At that moment the board buzzed, the clerk answered, Malone waited.

  “I’m sorry, he isn’t in,” the clerk said. “Yes, I’ll tell him.” He wrote something down.

  Marty Budlicek had called.

  The bath was all that he had dreamed of and possibly more. He shaved slowly and with loving care, powdered carefully over the bruises, and decided that the result was well worth the trouble expended. There was a freshly pressed Finchley suit on its hanger, fortunately, his favorite. There was a Countess Mara tie he hadn’t worn more than once. He surveyed the final effect approvingly.

  There was also a comfortable sum left over from Max Hook’s expense money in his wallet. Malone patted it as he tucked it in his pocket, and hummed a little tune.

  All that, he told himself, but not an idea in his head.

  He paused at the desk long enough to tell the clerk that when more calls came in, as they inevitably would, to refer them to his office.

  The first stop, though, was going to be Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar, and not to start the day with a gin-and-beer, either. There were a few little matters regarding the di Angelos he wanted to straighten out and right now.

  At this hour, Joe the Angel’s was deserted, save for an off-duty city hall janitor at a corner table, gazing moodily into his untouched beer. Joe the Angel turned from his early morning task of trying to add up yesterday’s unpaid bar bills to greet Malone with an outstretched hand and a look of relief.

  “Malone! You are all right. All this time, I tell everybody you are all right. Malone, it is on the house. I know all along you are all right.”

  Malone said sourly, “Gin-and-beer, and all the time you’ve been wrong. I am not all right.”

  Joe the Angel paused in the act of reaching for a bottle and said, “Malone, you are not all right?”

  “I was wrong,” Malone said, “I am all right. It is you who are wrong.”

  “Let us begin this again,” Joe the Angel said calmly. He poured the drink, said, “It is still on the house. Malone, you are alive.”

  “Yes,” Malone said.

  “And well,” Joe the Angel said.

  “That’s debatable,” Malone said, “but we’ll skip that.” “And not in jail,” Jo
e the Angel said.

  “Not yet,” Malone said, shuddering. He downed his drink fast.

  “There you are,” Joe the Angel said. “You are all right. And what is this that I am all wrong?”

  Malone said slowly, “We have been friends a long time. I hope we will be friends a longer time.” Damn it, he thought, he was beginning to sound like von Flanagan. “So why didn’t you tell me that A1 di Angelo was your cousin?”

  Joe the Angel’s eyes grew round and unhappy.

  “And,” Malone went on relentlessly, “that Mike Medinica’s cousin Art was A1 di Angelo’s brother-in-law?”

  Joe the Angel started to speak, spreading his hands helplessly.

  “And,” Malone said, finishing what he suspected would be his last drink on the house at Joe the Angel’s, at least for a very long time, “why didn’t you tell me that your cousin A1 di Angelo, and his brother-in-law, Alt Medinica, had kidnaped the Commanday child and were to turn her over to me?” He hoped that his eyes were flashing fire. Cold fire.

  For a moment Joe the Angel stared at him in complete and baffled amazement. He opened and shut his mouth a few times. Finally he said, “But Malone. I think you know all the time.” He drew a long, slow breath. “Malone, he knows everything that goes on.”

  Malone only had to look for the time it takes a clock to tick. He’d known Joe the Angel for a long time. He said, “I apologize, and the next drink is not on the house.” He paused and smiled. “Only, apparently, this time I didn’t know everything that went on.”

  “The next drink is on the house,” Joe the Angel said firmly, “if I die a poor man.” He poured it. “My cousin Al di Angelo—my second cousin—is not a bad man. He tells me he has a chance to make a little money in something that is not illegal, that he will not do any harm. Al di Angelo, he would not do anybody any harm. His brother-in-law is not a bad man either.”

  “Was,” Malone corrected. “He was murdered last night. You’d better warn your cousin Al not to go looking for those papers that were taken from Leonard Estapoole’s body. It’s not worth the chance.”