David Alexander - Masters of Noir - Volume 2

“I see,” Malone said. He wasn’t sure just yet what he could say.

“But I couldn’t do that now. Not with the auditors coming on Monday. And not after the way Mr. Benson treated me when I told him about the three thousand dollars. But I still want to do what’s right by Carmelita. So I thought, if you could see her for me and — give her this.”

Mr. Petty took a large plain envelope from his pocket and handed it across the desk to Malone.

Malone said, “Would you mind telling me what’s in it? I just want to be sure I’m not acting as accessory before — or after — a case of grand theft.”

“Oh it’s nothing like that,” Mr. Petty said, “Just something — personal. Carmelita will understand.”

And with this Mr. Petty rose and left, with such alacrity that it was not till he was gone that Malone realized he had neglected to leave Carmelita’s address or even her full name.

The headline in the Monday morning Examiner was broad and black, but the story was brief.

Algernon Petty, bookkeeper for the Pittsburgh Products Company, was found shot to death last night in a spectacular payroll robbery at the company’s Chicago plant, 3545 Clybourne avenue. Emil Dockstedter, the nightwatchman on duty, reported the shooting to police who hurried to the scene. They found Petty in a pool of blood in front of the open safe. Officials said cash in the amount of $200,000 was missing from the safe. According to watchman Dockstedter, the money was delivered to the plant early Saturday to meet this morning’s monthly payroll, today being a bank holiday. George V. Benson, general manager, was reported flying back from Pittsburgh today, having left Saturday for a home office conference.

Dockstedter said that shortly after 10 P.M. he heard a shot fired and hurrying to the office found Petty dead on the floor. He fired after the fleeing bandit’s getaway car from the office window, but was unable to stop it, or make out the license number of the car. Chief of Detectives Daniel Von Flanagan promptly ordered an all-out alarm for the fleeing bandits.

The victim had been in the employ of the company for 30 years. He is survived by his widow, Mrs. Sophia Petty, 2437 N. Damen Ave. Five years ago last Friday, Mrs. Petty was quoted as saying, Mr. Petty was awarded the company’s 25-year medal for honest and faithful service.

Malone tossed the paper on his desk and sat down glumly, staring out of the window while he slowly removed the cellophane from his cigar and lit it.

Maggie read the story and looked across at Malone. He was still staring out the window, lost in thought.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Maggie said. “You feel you should have done something about it. But what could you have done? Anyway, it’s too late now. As for Carmelita, Mrs. Sophia Petty wouldn’t thank you for dragging her into the case. What was it she told Petty, that her mother lived in Monte Carlo? Nobody’s mother ever lived in Monte Carlo. Besides, how do you know she wasn’t in cahoots with the bandits? It wouldn’t surprise me if she was off to Monte Carlo all right — right now — with her share of the loot tucked away in her little overnight bag.”

Malone took out the envelope the little bookkeeper had left with him. “I suppose, as Mr. Petty’s lawyer, I have the right to open this now,” he said. He tore open the envelope and emptied the contents on the desk. It was an airplane ticket to Monte Carlo. One person. One way. Made out to Carmelita Maquire, 1428 N. Jensen St., Chicago, Illinois.

It was a six-flat tenement in the near north side slum district. A knock on the first door down the hall brought out an old Polish woman who told him in broken English that the Bednarskys in the third floor rear kept a boarder, a girl. Mrs. Bednarsky, after a few minutes of cautious evasion, admitted that her boarder’s name was Maguire, that she worked behind the quick-lunch counter on the corner.

Carmelita Maguire, it turned out, was a brown-eyed blonde in her middle twenties, with a face that might have been copied out of a court painting of a Spanish princess, and traces of an Irish brogue in her speech. There were Maquires on his mother’s side back in Ireland, Malone told her, and after that the going was easy. Evidently she hadn’t read the morning papers, and Malone bided his time as he chatted with the girl over the ham and eggs she had set before him on the counter.

She did not remember her father, she confided. Her mother once told her she was a Spanish croupier in the games at Monte Carlo. He vanished one day and was never heard from again. “Mother still lives in Monaco,” she told Malone. “I’ve always dreamed of going back some day.”

With as much tact as he could manage, Malone broke the news to her and turned over the envelope Mr. Petty had left with him. After the first shock she sobbed quietly for a while, dabbing at her eyes with a corner of her apron. Then, “He was like a father to me,” she said. “Yes, I knew he was married. He never deceived me about anything. He was a gentleman, he was. I always called him Mr. Petty. When we went places, weekends, he always took separate rooms, with adjoining bath, like nice people do. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, except that you were his friend. He went to you in his trouble. He didn’t do anything wrong, did he, Mr. Malone? The police — they won’t be coming to me, will they, asking me questions about — well, you know—?”

Malone patted her hand gently. It was a soft, well-groomed hand for a girl who slung hash in a quick lunch joint. He could easily imagine her dressed in the latest Paris fashion, the center of attention as she swept into the Monte Carlo casino.

“Maybe not, if you answer my questions first,” Malone told the girl.

From her answers Malone learned that she had met Mr. Petty about a year ago when she waited on him at a lunch room near the plant where she was working at the time. He had given her presents from time to time, inexpensive things, and money from time to time, which she said she had sent to her mother in Monaco. Apparently she knew nothing of his embezzlements. He had never introduced her to his friends. She said she had seen him last about two weeks ago and the account of her movements over the weekend sounded spontaneous and unforced. Unless, he reminded himself, unless it should turn out that this vision of slightly tarnished innocence was serving him up something new in Irish blarney — with Spanish sauce. No, he decided. It was just one of those simple, unbelievable things that could happen only to the Mr. Pettys of this world. And simple young things like Carmelita Maguire, who go along trustingly with anything that comes along, only to be sideswiped by fate, like an unsuspecting pedestrian in the middle of Saturday night traffic.

“It’s true, every word of it,” Malone told Maggie when he got back to the office. “Even to the mother in Monte Carlo. Just the same I advised her not to leave for Monte Carlo just yet. If the police get wind of this they will want to question her, and it won’t look so good if she’s left the country in such a hurry.”

The telephone rang and Maggie answered it. “It’s Von Flanagan,” she said.

Malone said, “Tell him I’m in conference.”

Maggie relayed the message and handed the phone to Malone saying, “Tell him yourself. This is no fit language for a lady’s ears.”

Malone took the receiver and held it twelve inches from his ear till the bellowing stopped. “Malone, Malone, are you there?” the voice resumed, in more moderate volume.

“Yes, I’m here,” Malone replied. “Where are you, in Indo China? I can’t hear you very well.”