Джонатан Крейг - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 12, December, 1953

The girl’s band from Bloomington struck up with a deafening rendition of John Philip Sousa’s Washington Post March. The particularly curvaceous drum majorette doing cartwheels momentarily took Malone’s mind off his work. A visiting dignitary hurrying to catch up with his place in the line of march shook Malone’s hand and disappeared. Walking backwards was beginning to make him dizzy. He was about to give the whole thing up when he spied the flash of a gold tooth and quickly fell in line beside the red-faced guy, a maneuver that brought a polite “Pardon me” from the jolly little fat man he had bumped out of place, and an oath from the big, sad-faced man who reminded Malone of the hound dog Hercules he had once befriended up in Jackson County, Wisconsin, the one whose feet hurt him.

Now there was only one thing left to do. Wait for the red-faced guy on his right to slip him the fraudulent voting list and the one thousand bucks. That was to happen when the close order drill band of the Oblong Marching Society struck up, “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood,” Rico de Angelo had informed him on the telephone. That was to be the signal for him to edge over to the guy with the gold tooth and receive the list and the money.

Keeping up with the steady tread of the marchers, face front, Malone stole a look out of the corner of his eye at the man with the red face. He looked the way any respectable undertaker would be expected to look. His frock coat was well tailored with an expensive Capper and Capper cut to it. His top hat was of the glossiest silk and sat well on his well-groomed head. The expression on his face was the one every undertaker wears when the last notes of the organ music are dying away and he steps up to the coffin to invite the mourners to file past for a last look at the remains.

Solemn. Serious. But nervous. You could tell he was nervous by the too-rigid way he kept his eyes fixed ahead of him, afraid to look either to the right or to the left. Afraid to betray by so much as the flicker of an eyelash that he was even aware of Malone’s sudden and unceremonious appearance in the line beside him. The sweat that glistened on his forehead might have been from the heat, but it stood out in shiny explosive little beads — fear sweat. Yes, he was scared. The red-faced man with the gold tooth was scared stiff. And he wasn’t the only one. There was a feeling of tension all around him, Malone felt. It showed itself when, during a lull in the band music, the jolly little fat man on his left gave out with the first six notes of “Donna E Mobile”. The big sad-faced Hercules behind him promptly squashed him with a “Shet up!” and the red-faced guy winced all over like a spastic.

Yes, there was tension in the ranks. But definitely, Malone told himself. It set him to thinking. What assurance did he have, after all, that he and the red-faced man with the gold tooth were the only ones in the line who knew about the incriminating list of names and the money that was about to be passed. The red-faced guy was sticking his neck out a mile, playing informer on the voting fraud gang. Where there was a neck that long there was probably an ax somewhere in the vicinity, waiting for a chance to strike. A cute little Colt automatic in the pocket, maybe, with the safety off. Or a shiny Smith & Wesson .38 with a sawed-off barrel, under one of these respectable frock coats. And they could be aimed straight at the red-faced guy, ready to fire the minute he made one suspicious move. Or aimed at him , Malone reminded himself ruefully. Either /or — or both.

You don’t pick up a hot list of names and a thousand bucks easy money without putting yourself in jeopardy, the little lawyer reflected, and wiped the sweat from his brow. Who was the jeopard? The little fat guy on his left? He didn’t look it, but appearances could be deceptive. Malone remembered the jolly little man in the Hanson ax-murder case on the South Side. He turned out to be the coldest, most murderous killer he had ever tangled with. Could it be the hound-faced Hercules who was marching directly behind him? There was something sad, even gentle, in the pouchy droop of his eyes. When he said, “Shet up!” to the jolly guy who wanted to sing “Donna E Mobile” it was more in sorrow than in anger. A tired, weary, beaten-down “Shet up!” rather than an angry one. Just the same it could be either one of them. You couldn’t tell about people.

No, and you couldn’t tell about places, either. The middle of a street parade didn’t seem like the kind of a place a gangster would pick to commit a murder. But neither did the corner of State and Madison, “the world’s busiest street corner,” and yet that was where death had caught up with snuffy little Joshua Gumbrill. Right in the middle of the noon-hour rush, too. And the killer had made a clean getaway in the milling crowd.

Yes, it could happen here. And it could happen to him.

He had come away from the office unarmed, with nothing deadlier on him than a half pint of whiskey in his hip pocket. Not that he ever used it — a gun, that is — but it was always comforting to know it was there if you needed it. For that matter, the same could be said for the half pint, Malone reminded himself. He wondered if it was strictly according to the manual of close order drill or the by-laws of the Oblong Marching Society to summon liquid reinforcement in the line of march. Just then a woman fainted from the heat in the watching crowd on the sidewalk and, while all eyes were on the scene of the accident, he raised the bottle to his lips with a quick, practiced gesture that had long ago made his the most celebrated elbow at Joe the Angel’s City Hall bar.

It was a good thing he had fortified himself in time, for it wasn’t two minutes later, at the intersection of Michigan Boulevard and Randolph Street to be exact, that the band leader of the Oblong Marching Society blew a shrill blast on his whistle and the band struck up:

Malone sidled over slowly toward the red-faced guy on his right, ready for the pass that was to deliver the list of names and the money into his hand. Then something happened that wasn’t on the program. The girls’ band from Bloomington just behind them gave out simultaneously with:

“Oh, the monkey wrapped his tail around the flagpole.”

The resulting disharmony and din threw the whole column out of step. Everybody stopped and turned to scowl at the bunglers. Instinctively Malone turned too. When he turned back again the red-faced man was no longer beside him. For a second Malone stared about him, bewildered. Then he looked down and saw that the man had collapsed on the street.

He lay on his back and he was gasping for breath. Immediately the marchers closed around him.

“Give him air,” somebody shouted. “Can’t you see the man’s fainted?”

The parade came to a dead stop as the marchers carried their fellow member off the street, through the crowd and into the lobby of the corner building. He was still gasping for breath as they laid him down on the floor, fanning him with their top hats and debating excitedly about the best way to handle a case of sunstroke. By the time the police shouldered their way through the crowd he had stopped fighting for breath and lay quite still. Too still, Malone thought. He knelt down and reached for the man’s wrist to feel his pulse. As he did so he heard a familiar voice behind him.

It was Captain Daniel von Flanagan of the Homicide Division.

“Well, if it isn’t John J. Malone, attorney and counselor at law. And since when, may I ask, have the undertakers been taking lawyers into membership?”