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

Von Flanagan growled, “It could have happened to anybody.”

“Happens all the time,” Malone told him cheerfully. He drew a long breath. “Charlie Binkley had been bird-dogging for Harry Brown for a long time, in addition to his being a process server. But this time, he decided to sell out to the other side.” At this point, Malone remembered the question he had wanted to ask von Flanagan earlier. He said, “Did Charlie Binkley have any money on him when your boys went through his pockets last night?”

“More than two grand,” von Flanagan replied promptly.

Malone nodded. “That was what Mike Medinica meant when he told me Charlie Binkley had been taken care of and wasn’t going to testify that he’d served the papers. I should have known it all the time.”

Mike Medinica cleared his throat and said, “Of course, this is just between friends.”

“Of course,” von Flanagan echoed. He added, “The hearing doesn’t come under my department anyway.”

“So Harry Brown,” Malone resumed, “having several reasons for wanting to get rid of his ex-bird dog, saw a heaven-sent opportunity. Charlie Binkley had told him how Sam the Finder got his shiner. That was another point. His murderer had to be somebody who knew about Sam the Finder’s black eye, and that narrowed the field. Von Flanagan was in the next room, and setting things up was easy for Harry Brown.” Malone sighed happily, picked up his glass and said, “Just like finding out what happened was easy for me.”

There was a brief silence. Malone thought of the breakfast he was going to have, and the sleep. And there was the pleasant little matter of money...

Sam the Finder spoke up as though he’d been reading Malone’s thoughts. He said, “You’ll have a handsome fee for this, Malone. You not only accomplished what I had in mind, but you disposed of the hearing once and for all.” He smiled. “Though I must admit — you certainly did it the hard way.”

Malone yawned, stretched and smiled back. “Oh well,” he said. “Things were getting so dull...”

Connors thought Krauss’ widow would he really stacked. He was hardly anticipating a used-up drab. Yet his interest in the woman went far, far deeper than the physical, and one day it was to lead him to the boat-house upon the —

The fly-specked lettering on the window read The Bright Spot Restaurant. The sign overhead urged Eat.

He wasn’t hungry, and the place didn’t look especially attractive, but he went inside anyway.

It was a counter joint with a single row of hard-backed booths lining one wall. A half-dozen customers squatted on stools at the end of the counter, near the door. He walked past them and slid onto a stool at the far end.

There he sat, staring at the three waitresses. None of them looked right to him, but he had to take a chance. He waited until one of the women approached him.

“Yours, Mister?”

“Coke.”

She brought it to him and set the glass down. He pretended to be studying the menu and talked without looking up at her.

“Say, does a Mrs. Helen Krauss work here?”

“I’m Helen Krauss.”

He lifted his eyes. What kind of a switch was this, anyway? He remembered the way Mike used to talk about her, night after night. “She’s a tall blonde, but stacked. Looks a lot like that dame who plays the dumb blonde on television — what’s-her-name — you know the one I mean. But she’s no dope, not Helen. And boy, when it comes to loving...”

After that, his descriptions would become anatomically intricate, but all intricacies had been carefully filed in memory.

He examined those files now, but nothing in them corresponded to what he saw before him.

This woman was tall, but there all resemblance ended. She must have tipped the scales at one-sixty, at least, and her hair was a dull, mousy brown. She wore glasses, too. Behind the thick lenses, her faded blue eyes peered stolidly at him.

She must have realized he was staring, and he knew he had to talk fast. “I’m looking for a Helen Krauss who used to live over in Norton Center. She was married to a man named Mike.”

The stolid eyes blinked. “That’s me. So what’s this all about?”

“I got a message for you from your husband.”

“Mike? He’s dead.”

“I know. I was with him when he died. Just before, anyway. I’m Rusty Connors. We were cellmates for two years.”

Her expression didn’t change, but her voice dropped to a whisper. “What’s the message?”

He glanced around. “I can’t talk here. What time do you get off?”

“Seven-thirty.”

“Good. Meet you outside?”

She hesitated. “Make it down at the corner, across the street. There’s a park, you know?”

He nodded, rose and left without looking back.

This wasn’t what he had expected — not after the things Mike had told him about his wife. When he bought his ticket for Hainesville, he had had other ideas in mind. It would have been nice to find this hot, goodlooking blonde widow of Mike’s and, maybe, combine business with pleasure. He had even thought about the two of them blowing town together, if she was half as nice as Mike said. But that was out, now. He wanted no part of this big, fat, stupid-looking slob with the dull eyes.

Rusty wondered how Mike could have filled him with such a line of bull for two years straight — and then he knew. Two years straight — that was the answer — two years in a bare cell, without a woman. Maybe it had got so that, after a time, Mike believed his own story, that Helen Krauss became beautiful to him. Maybe Mike had gone a little stir-simple before he died, and made up a lot of stuff.

Rusty only hoped Mike had been telling the truth about one thing. He had better have been, because what Mike had told Connors, there in the cell, was what brought him to town. It was this that was making him cut into this rat-race, that had led him to Mike’s wife.

He hoped Mike had been telling the truth about hiding away the fifty-six thousand dollars.

She met him in the park, and it was dark. That was good, because nobody would notice them together. Besides, he couldn’t see her face, and she couldn’t see his, and that would make it easier to say what he had to say.

They sat down on a bench behind the bandstand, and he lit a cigarette. Then he remembered that it was important to be pleasant, so he offered the pack to her.

She shook her head. “No thanks — I don’t smoke.”

“That’s right. Mike told me.” He paused. “He told me a lot of things about you, Helen.”

“He wrote me about you, too. He said you were the best friend he ever had.”

“I’d like to think so. Mike was a great guy in my book. None better. He didn’t belong in a crummy hole like that.”

“He said the same about you.”

“Both of us got a bad break, I guess. Me, I was just a kid who didn’t know the score. When I got out of Service, I lay around for a while until my dough was gone, and then I took this job in a bookie joint. I never pulled any strong-arm stuff in my life until the night the place was raided.

“The boss handed me this suitcase, full of dough, and told me to get out the back way. And there was this copper, coming at me with a gun. So I hit him over the head with the suitcase. It was just one of those things — I didn’t mean to hurt him, even, just wanted to get out. So the copper ends up with a skull-fracture and dies.”

“Mike wrote me about that. You had a tough deal.”

“So did he, Helen.” Rusty used her first name deliberately and let his voice go soft. It was part of the pitch. “Like I said, I just couldn’t figure him out. An honest John like him, up and knocking off his best friend in a payroll stickup. And all alone, too. Then getting rid of the body, so they’d never find it. They never did find Pete Taylor, did they?”