David Alexander - Masters of Noir - Volume 2

“Maggie,” Malone said, “I think I need a drink.”

“No use looking in the Emergency file,” Maggie said, “You killed that bottle yesterday.”

The telephone rang. It was Benson.

“Dockstedter just called me. Gave me till noon tomorrow. He wants fifty thousand dollars. You’ve got to do something, Malone.” He paused. “I talked to Serena on the phone this morning. She’s acting kind of strange. What did she tell you, Malone?”

Malone said, “You haven’t got a thing to worry about. A clean conscience is a man’s best defense. Sit tight and don’t do a thing till you hear from me. And don’t go near Serena again till I give you the all clear. The police might be shadowing you.” He hung up. “What was I saying, Maggie?”

“About money,” Maggie said. “Why don’t you use some of that thousand Benson gave you?”

Malone was indignant. “That money goes right back to Benson the minute I put the finger on him. You forget I’ve got a client. Algernon Petty.”

It was a perplexed and dejected John J. Malone who walked into Joe the Angel’s City Hall her early that evening.

“Joe,” Malone said, “have I got any credit left around here?”

“Liquor, yes. Money, no,” Joe the Angel said. “What’s the matter now, Malone? The client he no pay?”

“The client he pay,” Malone said. “Twenty bucks. Then he get shot, and two hundred thousand dollars missing. Make it a gin and beer.”

“I read about it in paper,” Joe the Angel said. “Too bad. Don’t worry, Malone, you find the bandits. Yes?”

“I find the bandits no,” Malone said. “Joe, I need flowers.”

“Ah, for the funeral. Sure, Malone.”

“Not for the funeral, Joe. For a lady.”

“Ah, for a lady. Same thing. I mean, I call my brother-in-law, the one owns funeral parlor, and he send over flowers left over from funeral. What’s address?”

Malone gave him Serena Gates’ address, decided to call her up, and then changed his mind. Better surprise her after the flowers are delivered. “Tell him to put in a card saying ‘Flowers to the fair,’ and sign my name to it,” Malone called over to Joe the Angel who was already on the telephone.

Over a second gin and beer Malone unburdened his heart. “Imagine, Joe. I’ve got the case as good as solved. The suspect had the motive. He had the opportunity. His alibi is two hours short and the lady in the case is on my side. All I need is the evidence — the murder gun, the money, or at least a witness.”

Joe the Angel said, “The lady, maybe she help you?”

“I don’t know,” Malone said. “She admits he was in her apartment till eight. How would she know what he was doing between eight and ten,” he paused, “unless she followed him,” he paused again, “unless—” He set the beer down on the bar. “Give me a rye, quick, Joe. Make it a double rye. I’ve got to think.”

He downed the double shot. “I’ve got it, Joe,” he beamed. “I think I’ve got it. If Benson is two hours short on his alibi, so is Serena Gates. I’ve got to go and see the lady again. How about a ten-spot, on the cuff?”

“For a lady, that’s different,” Joe the Angel said, and handed over the ten.

“Thanks,” Malone said, “and can I borrow your gun?”

With a look of utter confusion Joe the Angel handed Malone the gun. “First it is flowers. Now it is a gun,” he muttered, shrugging his shoulders. Malone was already on his way out the door.

This time Serena Gates was both surprised and shocked at Malone’s unexpected visit. It took a foot in the door and an ungentlemanly heave of the shoulder to override the lady’s remonstrances. Serena was furious.

“What is the meaning of this? Malone, you must be crazy.”

“Call it the impatience of youth,” Malone said.

He looked around the living room. It had every appearance of a hastily planned departure, stripped of every personal belonging. He noted that his flowers to the fair had been delivered, and deposited in the waste basket. Three suit cases stood ready near the door. One of them particularly struck his eye. It seemed singularly out of place, large, metal-bound and quite unladylike.

“I was just planning to leave,” Serena explained nervously.

“So I see,” Malone said. “Can I help you with your baggage? This looks like the heavy one.”

With his left hand he reached down for the big metal-bound suitcase, while his right hand moved to his hip pocket. The lady was faster on the draw but slower on the rebound. With a swift lashing motion of his right arm Malone slapped the gun out of her hand. In the clawing, kicking, catch-as-catch-can wrestling match that followed Malone had no reason to revise his previous appraisal of Serena’s physical charms, but he realized how much he had underestimated her muscular development. It took most of what he had once learned from Dr. Butch (“The Killer”) Hayakawa about the gentle art of jujitsu to persuade the lady to listen to reason.

“I guess you could have handled that baggage yourself, after all,” he said, still breathing hard. Keeping Serena covered with his own gun he picked hers up off the floor and stuck it in his coat pocket. “If it’s Benson you’re waiting for, you can just take it easy,” he told her. “He’ll be along in due time — with the police right behind him. But maybe it isn’t Benson. If it were, you would have given him a better alibi. Or were you planning to double-cross him and let him take the rap while you made a fast getaway?”

Serena was silent, glaring at him with the pent-up fury of a cat waiting its opportunity to spring again.

Malone said, “No, I guess it wasn’t Benson, after all. Between eight and ten Sunday night you had as much opportunity to commit the crime as he had. You forgot that when you tried to short him on his alibi. All right, who was it? You didn’t handle this job alone, did you, or am I underestimating you again?”

“Malone,” she said, “there’s two hundred thousand dollars in that suit case. Don’t be a fool. There’s still time if you and I—”

“A generous thought,” Malone said, “and a flattering one.”

“Make up your mind, Malone. They’ll be here any minute—”

“So there were others,” Malone said. “And now you’re ready to double-cross them too, if I’ll split with you.” He reached for the telephone. “Get me Captain Daniel Von Flanagan at police headquarters,” he told the hotel operator.

Serena screamed, “Malone, don’t be a fool! Malone—!”

“Get over here right away,” Malone told Von Flanagan, after explaining the situation to him briefly. “And bring Benson with you.”

Von Flanagan and his squad had barely arrived on the scene and staked out to arrest the bandits when they arrived. Malone heard a knock on the door and then the shooting started. When it was over, two subdued bandits, one of them slightly wounded, were brought in. At sight of Serena Gates one of them shouted “Stool pigeon! Double-crosser!” and lunged toward her, but Von Flanagan’s cops restrained him.

“There’s the payroll haul,” Malone said to Von Flanagan, “and here’s the lady’s gun.”

“That makes three guns,” Von Flanagan remarked. “One of them should tell us who fired the shot that killed Petty. Nice work, Malone.”

“I was just doing my duty to my client, Mr. Algernon Petty,” Malone replied. “That’s what he retained me for.”

When he was finally alone in the apartment with Benson Malone said, “What are you going to do about the night watchman? Fire him, or lend him money to get his son-in-law out of a jam? And, speaking of money, here is your thousand-dollar retainer. I’m sorry, I guess I had you figured wrong all the time.”