Robert Bloch - Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 1. September 1956

Von Flanagan’s grey eyes lighted with hope. “You wouldn’t fool me, Malone?” His voice was a plea.

“I’ll deliver him myself,” Malone said firmly. It was a promise, and they both knew it. Moreover, both men knew Malone made a habit of keeping his word. He added, “That’s all I can tell you right now.”

Not much — but it was enough. Von Flanagan breathed his relief. “Believe me, Malone, my being here didn’t have anything to do with this,” he said earnestly. “It was — well, a personal matter. I wanted to find out something.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Malone told him.

Von Flanagan ploughed ahead. “It don’t matter — now. It’s about this hearing deal. One of my in-laws has some dough tied up with Mike Medinica and he got worried. He knew I knew Harry Brown, and he thought maybe I could ask a few questions — innocently — and find out if he stood to lose it.”

Malone nodded sympathetically. Trust von Flanagan’s in-laws to have money involved in a shady deal. He thought over what he knew of the All-Northwest Chicago Boxing and Wrestling Club — ANCBAWC for short — and its sale. Sam the Finder had set up the sale, from Mike Medinica to Harry Brown. Now, Harry Brown was howling that he’d been robbed, to the extent of a cool hundred grand in hard money, because certain stipulated concessions had not been delivered.

The concessions were supposed to represent various respectable and legal contracts. However, the private bark around town was that a considerable amount of fight fixing and protection was the real issue, promised by Mike Medinica through Sam the Finder, whose highly profitable profession consisted of setting up shady deals. These “concessions,” the bark had it, had failed to materialize once the sale was completed.

Shooting little Charlie Binkley over the comparatively minor matter of Sam the Finder’s appearance at the hearing seemed to Malone rather a drastic method of settling things. However, Sam the Finder had been known to take drastic steps when sufficiently annoyed. The black eye caused by Charlie’s novel delivery methods might be deemed sufficient annoyance, especially since Sam the Finder was also a proud man.

There was comparative calm in the apartment, a calm that Malone knew was unlikely to endure long. He took advantage of it to ask von Flanagan for further details of the events leading up to the shooting.

“Harry and I were talking,” von Flanagan said. “I was just trying to find out if my cousin-in-law’s dough was safe, Malone. Then this guy, Charlie Binkley, knocked. Harry Brown said it was a private matter, and would I mind waiting elsewhere. I said I wouldn’t, and I was very happy to scram into the bedroom. I wouldn’t want it to get around, Malone, that I was up here seeing Harry Brown. It wouldn’t look too good. You know what I mean...”

The little lawyer nodded in perfect understanding.

“So I went into the bedroom. I was looking at a copy of an old Confidential when I heard the shot. Naturally, Malone, I put down the Confidential and looked out. I didn’t exactly rush out, Malone, until I saw what was going on — I mean, what had been going on.”

Malone said, “What did you see?”

“I see this guy, Charlie Binkley, dead, just like now. Harry Brown is running down the hall after some other guy, so I go along to help. But the other character, the one in the tan overcoat, gets away. So I come back and begin to worry about what to do. I tell Harry Brown to shut his trap about me being here, and think a little more. Then, I start calling you and got you at Joe the Angel’s on the second try.”

“A very wise move,” Malone told him. He started to add, automatically, “Keep calm, and I’ll do the talking.” Then he remembered, just in time, who von Flanagan was. He substituted a hearty, “Don’t worry, chum.”

“Malone!” von Flanagan said anxiously, “You’re sure — I mean, absolutely sure — you can deliver the killer by tomorrow noon?”

“I never felt so sure of anything in my entire life,” Malone said. Curiously enough, he meant it.

The calm vanished, as Malone had expected, and confusion again took over with the arrival of more officialdom and the press. Malone stood silent on the sidelines, chewing on an unlighted cigar, while Harry Brown, still nervous, reenacted what had happened.

The little lawyer tagged along, half disinterestedly, while the police again searched the apartment building. Something was bothering him. Moreover, he couldn’t put a mental finger on it, which made it bother him the more. Perhaps, he told himself, it was the sense of responsibility toward an old friend that made the whole affair seem important out of all proportion to reality, and that was the only thing wrong. However, this line of reasoning didn’t relieve his anxiety in the least.

Finally, the excitement was over. Harry Brown was taken to headquarters to sign his statement. The late Charlie Binkley was removed to the morgue. No one remained on the premises but a policeman assigned to guard the apartment overnight and Malone.

The little lawyer had declined von Flanagan’s invitation to come along, along with offers of a ride downtown made by various friendly reporters. Nothing impelled him to stay save that vague sense of something wrong, plus an even more vague impulse to search the building on his own, an impulse he tried unsuccessfully to talk himself out of. Then there was an unpleasant prescience of impending trouble.

Eventually, Malone gave up the struggle and, beginning at the top of the building, worked his way down. The seven floors were exactly alike, composed of two apartments with a long, gloomy hall between, a flight of stairs, a trash drop and a mail drop.

Malone paused at Harry Brown’s apartment on the sixth floor to pass a pleasant word or two with Sergeant Zubich, the officer on duty, followed by a brief prowl around the murder premises which told him nothing except that Harry Brown lived exceedingly well, up to and including an assortment of girl friends with expensive tastes in what could best be termed leisure wear.

The basement was a gloomy hole, and by that time Malone was tired, thirsty, and thoroughly sick of the whole business. However, having progressed this far, he decided to take a final look around.

It was in the trash bin that at last he struck oil, in the form of a recently fired.32, almost completely concealed by the waste papers it had slipped through when it landed at the bottom of the trash chute. Malone picked it up gingerly with his handkerchief, looked at it thoughtfully, finally slipped it into his overcoat pocket.

Obviously, proper procedure was to take it straight down to von Flanagan’s office. On the other hand, by this time, von Flanagan might very probably have closed up shop and gone home. However, the gun was highly important evidence and ought to be in the hands of the police.

But it was late — well after midnight — and Malone’s sense of civic duty could be stretched only so far. Nor was it going to do any harm to delay announcement of his discovery until after his conference in the morning with Sam the Finder.

Malone sighed, buttoned his conscience and overcoat tightly and walked up the basement stairs, pondering the matter of how the gun had gotten into the trash bin. Obviously, the fleeing man in the tan overcoat, hearing Harry Brown racing after him — Harry Brown, and then von Flanagan — had been moved to dispose of the gun in case he should be overtaken.

Malone decided that it was his own subconscious half-notice of the trash-chute drops in the hall that had caused his undefinable sense of worry. Or was it? Something else, something equally indefinable, still eluded and disturbed his usually imperturbable sense of well-being.