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

The Oblong Marching Society. The name was probably meant to suggest the shape of a hearse. Or was it a coffin? He dismissed the thought from his mind. This was no time to be thinking of hearses or coffins.

When was it going to happen? Was the killer going to fall for the decoy? He was probably weighing his chances right now. He had killed one man and he probably had the murder weapon on him this very minute. What would he have to lose if he killed a second man? They couldn’t kill him twice. And there was always the chance that he could make a get-away in the excitement. So far as he knew the incriminating list was now on the person of John J. Malone, who had searched the dead man. Malone had even taken the precaution to “palm” the papers as he was searching the red-faced guy, just in case the killer was watching him, which he probably was. In short, he had done everything he could to put himself on the spot for anybody intent on obtaining possession of the hot list.

If that was what the killer was after — and what else could it be? — he was certainly a desperate man to be taking such chances right out in the open. Only one thing could explain it. He was one of the gang of racketeers who had muscled into the Oblong Marching Society as a source of cemetery names with which to help the crooked politicians stuff the ballot boxes. They were probably using the Society, too, as a respectable front for plenty of other rackets. Obviously the killer had been hand-picked by the mob as the fall guy for this dangerous assignment. His orders were “Get those papers, or else.” He was right smack between the blue-barreled service automatics of von Flanagan’s boys and the sawed-off shotguns of the mob.

Malone was almost sorry for the guy. He was even a bit sorry for himself. Where were von Flanagan’s boys? He had warned the Captain to keep his man out of sight but not out of reach. Marching with measured tread to the music of the band — a bit unsteadily now, to be sure — he was listening for the reassuring purr of police motorcycles. He told himself he could hear them, ever so faintly, in the distance. He hoped, not too far distant.

He was lost in these reveries when suddenly the drum and bugle corps of V.F.W. Post No. 9 just up ahead broke into:

This is it! Malone told himself. The next instant he felt himself pushed from behind and when he looked up from the asphalt the scene that met his eyes was one of pure pandemonium, uncut and unrefined. The jolly little fat man was struggling in the grip of a dozen arms and von Flanagan’s cops were converging from all sides with sirens moaning, cut-outs blasting the air like jet fighters. In less time than it takes to tell it the culprit was in handcuffs and being led away to the waiting squad car.

“You did it,” von Flanagan told Malone. “You did it and the department owes you an apology for ever suspecting—”

“The department owes me more than an apology,” Malone said. He examined the silk topper. It had a bullet hole on each side of it. “How much,” he asked, “do you think it’s going to cost me to replace one of these things?”

Von Flanagan shrugged and, after a congratulatory handshake, took his departure with the squad car. Malone was left holding the hat. He looked up at the sad-eyed Hercules whose shove from behind had pushed him in the nick of time out of harm’s way.

“I owe my life to you,” he said. “Do you mind if I buy you a drink?”

Ten minutes later at Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar the little lawyer sat brooding, head in hand, on the turn of events that had left him with nothing to show for his pains but a bullet-pierced high silk hat that he would have to pay for when he returned the outfit to the rental people. No hot list. No thousand dollars. Two tired feet that felt like half-raw, quick-fried beef in the tight patent-leather rented shoes. And a headache from the dead man’s ill-fitting hat.

The sad-eyed guy wasn’t proving to be much of a help either, sitting there and staring moodily into his beer. Malone ordered up another double rye. He turned to the sad-eyed one and said for the dozenth time, “I owe my life to you. Can I buy you another beer?”

The dour one shook his head.

“You don’t owe me nothin’,” he said sourly.

This was a hell of a note. A guy saves your life and when you offer to buy him a drink he insults you by ordering one beer and refusing a refill. This was one more frustration in a day that had been nothing but frustrations. This was the last straw.

“Bring this guy a double rye,” he said to Joe the Angel. “Give him two double ryes, Joe. And a beer chaser.”

“In your hat,” said the sad-eyed one.

“Nobody talks like this to my friend Malone,” Joe the Angel said.

Malone said, “You keep out of this, Joe. I owe my life to this man. The least I can do is buy him a drink.”

“Then let him drink up,” Joe the Angel said. He set down two glasses on the bar and poured two double ryes. And a beer chaser.

“Down the hatch,” Malone said, raising his own glass.

“In your hat,” said the sad-eyed Hercules.

Joe the Angel reached for the bung-starter, but Malone stopped him with an imperious wave of the hand.

“An insult is an insult, friend or no friend,” he said to the dour one. He was beginning to feel the heartening effects of the rye. “Now, if you’ll oblige me by stepping outside we can settle this thing like gentlemen.”

The sad-eyed one lifted himself off the bar stool and started for the door. Malone donned the silk topper and followed him outside.

At the first passage of arms Malone found himself sprawling on the sidewalk. Beside him lay the silk hat, a shapeless mess.

“In your hat,” said the dour one, and stalked off.

Before Malone could get to his feet the sad-eyed Hercules had disappeared in the sidewalk crowd.

Malone picked up the battered topper and as he did so his fingers encountered something bulging in the hat-band. He reached in and pulled out a sheaf of carefully folded sheets. They were covered on both sides with close-packed single-space names. He dived into the hat-band and this time he came up with a little sheaf of crisp hundred dollar bills. He counted them. Ten.

He pocketed the typed list and deposited the bills carefully in his wallet. Enough to pay for the busted topper, the back rent, and a date with the blonde which — he glanced at his wrist watch — was only four hours away.

For a second, it didn’t register. Then he got it. Hercules had been a friend of the murdered man. Hercules had known all about the list — and he’d known where it had been hidden. He’d known about Malone, too, and he had been telling Malone everything the lawyer needed to know about the list and the money. It was all cleared up now.

Malone considered chasing the sad-eyed man, but decided against it. Hercules would want no publicity, and very probably no thanks. The way he’d look at it, he’d only have been doing his job. Helping out a friend.

Besides, Malone told himself, Hercules would be too far away by now.

The little lawyer shrugged. He’d had the money with him all the time — and never known it.

“In your hat,” Malone told himself. He put the crumpled topper on his head, and went back to the bar.

Harley was the fall guy for the cops, and they had him all sewed up. Somehow, I had to get him out...

It was Harley’s wife who called me. I remember hearing the phone ringing, and then Anne nudged me and said, “You’d better get that, hon.”