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

“Honorary membership,” Malone began lamely, and then, “Don’t ask foolish questions, von Flanagan. A man’s fainted from the heat and we’ve got to get him into an ambulance.”

Von Flanagan bent down and felt the man’s pulse. Then he turned to Malone.

“Fainted, did you say? Fainted from the heat? Malone, this man is dead.”

“Heart failure,” someone in the crowd said, and for a moment Malone was almost prepared to believe it. That red face. The way he had gasped for breath.

Von Flanagan turned the man over on his stomach. A wet patch was spreading over the black broadcloth of his frock coat. The stone floor where he had lain was wet too. And bright red. Von Flanagan pulled the coat up over the dead man’s head and ripped off his shirt. In the middle of his back below the shoulder blades and a little to the left was a neat bullet hole.

“Drilled through the heart,” von Flanagan said. He rose and looked around him at the frock-coated brethren.

“Didn’t anyone hear a shot?” he demanded.

They looked at one another in dumb amazement, shaking their heads.

“I was right next to him,” Malone said. “I didn’t hear any shot.”

But this time the lobby was crawling with cops.

“Nobody leaves here till I say the word,” von Flanagan called out to them. “And you, Malone, I want to have a word with you. In private.”

Malone followed von Flanagan to the storeroom behind the lobby cigar counter. The Captain’s face was red with a hot Irish anger. His eyes narrowed as he looked down at the little lawyer.

“Malone, what do you know about this? I’m putting you all under arrest. You and this whole Oblong Marching outfit. I’ll sweat it out of you if I have to—”

“If you’ll take the advice of an old friend,” Malone said, “you’ll let the parade proceed as scheduled, without another minute’s delay. You’ll order every member of the Oblong Marching Society to take his place in line just exactly where he was before this thing happened. First, though, I want your permission to go through the dead man’s pockets.”

“What for?”

“I’ve got my reasons, but I can’t tell you now,” Malone said. “There isn’t time. You want to catch the killer, don’t your”

“Somebody drilled him from behind,” von Flanagan said. “All I want to know is, who was marching directly behind this guy? What I can’t figure is why didn’t anybody hear the shot?”

“The noise,” Malone said. “The bands got their signals mixed and two of them started up the same time. You could have shot off a cannon and everybody would have thought it was part of the program. Now, if you’ll order the members back into some sort of formation—”

“Maybe you’ve got something there,” von Flanagan said. “And the minute I see who the guy is that was marching behind the murdered man I’ll order him searched and put under arrest at once.”

Malone said, “Listen to me, von Flanagan. You won’t do anything of the kind. If he committed one murder he won’t hesitate to commit a second murder — this time to wipe out the evidence of the first murder. He’ll try to shoot his way out — and innocent people are going to get hurt.”

“Wait a minute, Malone.”

“I’ll point some guy out to you,” Malone said. “You’ll put the guy under arrest in full view of the whole crowd. Then you’ll order the rest of them back into line and let the parade go on. After you take the suspect into custody you and your boys will do a fake vanishing act. Stay out of sight but not too far out of reach. I might need your help. When the killer starts shooting...”

The captain’s face lighted up with its first faint ray of understanding. Then he shook his head. “No. No, Malone, I can’t let you do it. No friend of mine is going to make a clay pigeon out of himself.”

But the Captain quickly let the little lawyer talk him into it. Too quickly, for such a devoted friend, Malone thought afterwards.

Back in the lobby again Malone went through the dead man’s pockets looking for the hot list and the money. There wasn’t a sign of anything like a list anywhere on his person. The only money was a few crumpled bills in his pants pocket. Could it be that the killer had murdered the wrong man? Or had the red-faced guy been scared out of the deal at the last minute?

He rose to his feet, hiding his disappointment and confusion behind a mask of smiling confidence.

“There’s your man,” he told von Flanagan, and pointed to a bewildered, professorial guy in the crowd. The others fell back in amazement as von Flanagan’s cops clapped handcuffs on the man and went off with him.

Von Flanagan addressed himself to the crowd.

“Now I want everyone of you to fall in line again, just the way you were before this happened.”

They filed out of the lobby and took their places in the parade again. Malone noted that his high hat lay on the street, a battered mess, where the marchers had trampled it underfoot in the excitement. He wondered how much that was going to set him back with the rental people. Beside it lay the dead man’s hat. It had miraculously escaped being stepped on. Malone picked it up and put it gingerly on his head. It didn’t quite fit, but he figured it would have to do. He wondered if the rental people would accept the substitution.

At a signal from von Flanagan the band leader blew his whistle and the band struck up “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” The parade began to move once more up Michigan Avenue. Murder marches on, Malone muttered to himself as he looked uneasily to his right at the vacant spot where only a little while before the red-faced man with the gold tooth had been marching beside him.

He stole a backward glance at the man who was marching behind the vacant spot, and wondered why he hadn’t noticed him before. Then the reason dawned on him. Who would figure the fat man for a killer? A jolly little guy singing “Donna E Mobile.” That was why the gang had picked him, Malone realized — he looked like anything but a killer. But if the little fat guy had committed the crime it was going to be hard to convince a jury of it, unless he was taken in flagrante delicto with the murder weapon still smoking in his hand.

That was precisely what he had let himself in for, the little lawyer reflected ruefully. A sitting — or rather, a marching — duck. A waddling duck — his feet were killing him, and the dead man’s hat sat on his head like a tin can on a post. A perfect target for a pot shot, if the fat man happened to miss this time. If he didn’t miss, if his aim was as good on the second try as it was on the first, then he, John J. Malone, attorney and counsellor at law, was a dead duck.

It was a sobering thought and the last thing he wanted just now was sobering thoughts. He reached into his hip pocket and brought out the reinforcing fluid. Let the members of the Oblong Marching Society, and the million spectators along the line of march, too, for that matter, think what they pleased of an undertaker taking a drop of liquid nourishment in public. He was damned if he was going to die of thirst just to uphold the reputation of the undertaking profession.

The band struck up a Sousa march and Malone, in an effort to add further support to his drooping spirits, raised his voice in song.

“Shet up!” said the sad-eyed Hercules behind him.

“What’s the matter with my singing?” Malone replied without turning around.

“It stinks,” said the sad-eyed man.

Malone decided that the man had no ear for music.