But the Doctor Died

A John J. Malone Mystery

Craig Rice

Chapter One

Helene Justus said, “Darling, did I ever mention Vivian Conover?”

Jake Justus shifted his Tribune and said, “Uh-uh. Don’t think so.”

“But I must have! She was a college chum. Brilliant, beautiful.”

“Uh-uh. Don’t think so.” If the White Sox could get one more first-string pitcher they might get into the first division of All-Star time. Then—

“By brilliant, I mean really brilliant. She has an IQ of 145. Viv majored in chemistry and had a fabulous career ahead of her—still has, for that matter.”

“Good girl.”

They were having breakfast on the terrace overlooking Lake Michigan. The lake was incredibly blue. The sky was dotted with lazy white cotton balls. The bathers, already congregated on Oak Street Beach, attested to the late breakfast habits of the Justuses. But these were logical because Jake was a night person. He had to be to run a club like the Casino.

“Vivian and I have kept in touch since we saw each other in New York last year. She was in a terrible state then, poor dear. A love affair. She’d fallen hard for a Frenchman—an André DuBois. He was a playwright. Had a few off-Broadway things done in Greenwich Village. Not very popular with the theater-goers, I’m afraid. When I talked to Viv there’d been a row and she was practically prostrate.”

“Too bad.”

“All she could do Was talk about him. It was hard to believe that any one individual could be so fabulous.”

“Happens.” If Wrigley would quit chomping his jaws and put in some lights so the Cubs could play night games—

“As a matter of fact, Vivian herself amazed me. She’d always been such a level-headed person. She went with a big eastern pharmaceutical firm and worked up through the ranks amazingly fast. Then she got some kind of a compulsion for this man.”

“A cad,” Jake observed.

“Anyhow, I gave her a shoulder to cry on. Not that I was much help. I could only be thankful the affair was over. It had literally torn the poor girl to pieces. Push the jam over here, will you, darling?”

“Uh-uh,” Jake murmured. “Don’t think so.”

Helene got the jam without assistance and went on. “She ended it by carving André up with a long pearl-handled butcher knife.”

“Good girl.”

“The body was identified by the missing ears, Vivian had mailed them to a friend at Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo but they were returned for lack of sufficient postage.”

“Tough break.”

“They electrocuted Viv at Sing Sing last week. Do you think we should send flowers?”

“Oh, sure.”

Helene sighed. “Anyhow. Vivian is due in Chicago this afternoon. She’s going to work at the new Walden Chemical Research Laboratory out on Grand Avenue. A new start. She’s going to stay at the Cray-more. I’m waiting to hear from her now.”

Jake’s eyes jerked upward. The sun glinted off his red head. “The jam? Of course, honey. But you ought to watch your figure.”

Helene was not offended. It had happened before….

After Jake finished his last cup of coffee and went into the bedroom to dress for work, he found Helene emerging from the shower, toweling herself vigorously, and he quickly reverted from his absent-mindedness. “God, you’re lovely. I’ve got an idea. Let’s take the day off.”

“You mean a holiday in bed?”

“The thought hadn’t occurred to me. But it’s a swell idea.”

“Uh-uh. Don’t think so,” Helene mocked. She flipped her gorgeous rear and went back into the bathroom.

Jake frowned as he tied his tie. He was a man of keenly retentive memory, with a subconscious that never slept. “Honey, haven’t you got a friend coming to town or something?”

“What gave you that idea?” Helene called, and Jake thought, Funny—sounds like she’s laughing at me. But he had a club to run so he went off to see about it.

After the door closed, Helene came out of the bathroom. All her lightness was gone. But she felt she’d done a good job of assuming the mood she didn’t feel….

The phone rang ten minutes later. “Darling,” a low, throaty voice greeted. “It’s Vivian. I’m here.”

“Oh, wonderful! Where? At the airport?”

“No. I came right on in. I’m at the Craymore.”

“I’m dying to see you.”

“I too, darling.”

Helene’s voice sobered. “How are—things, Viv? “Fine—just fine.”

“I mean—how are they really?”

Vivian Conover’s laugh was soft and easy, proving that she was a good actress also. “Truthfully, Helene. The cure took.”

“Then—” Helene didn’t even want to use André’s name. “Then that problem you had—?”

“Melted clean away. André. André DuBois. A man I was once acquainted with. See how easy it is?”

Helene said, “Vivian. I must see you right away. I have my—well—my appointment … you know. But I’ll break it and—”

“No, darling! You won’t. That isn’t the thing to do. We’ll have plenty of time afterwards.”

“Nonsense. I’ve been as constant and punctual as a Girl Scout. I’m entitled to be unreliable just once.”

There was another change in Vivian Conover’s voice. Subtly, it dropped in enthusiasm. It did not become impersonal, but it moved in that direction.

“Helene, I have something to tell you. Wedding bells.”

“Vivian!”

“It’s confidential of course. I mean—with the new job and all. You must forget I even told you about it. You must forget it. But still, darling—put a yellow ribbon in your hair and buy some confetti.”

“Viv—I’m delighted.” But the pure delight no longer reflected in Helene’s voice. She seemed suddenly preoccupied.

“And don’t break your appointment.”

Helene put the phone down without saying goodbye. She looked at her watch, finished dressing and was ready to go.

But before she left the apartment, she took a yellow ribbon from a drawer where she kept several, and tied it in a neat little bow into her shining blonde hair….

Chapter Two

John J. Malone awoke late that morning. He grunted and flung his right arm out across the bed and faced his first problem. The long-legged blonde was gone.

Malone opened one eye, closed it again, and flung out his other arm. His groping hand came in contact with the trousers tossed carelessly across a chair the night before. He pawed until he found his wallet. He opened the single eye again and trained it on the money inside. About twenty dollars missing. His grunt was one of sour satisfaction. He’d figured the girl to be honest and he’d been right. She’d taken only what she’d felt she was entitled to.

Resolving to look her up again some day, Malone yawned and went about the business of returning to life….

When Malone entered Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar an hour later, Joe the Angel knew—from years of close rapport—several things. First, Malone had had a rough night. But if Joe had merely guessed this, he would have had three chances in four of being right. Most of Malone’s nights were rough. His days too, for that matter.

Secondly, Joe knew that Malone had been on gin the night before. This too was no great feat of perception. Joe had only to look at Malone’s lapel. He knew a gin stain when he saw one.

But only esp in its purest form told Joe that Malone now wanted rye instead of gin. Certainly, nothing visible indicated that Malone wanted hair from a different dog. Nonetheless, Joe sure-handedly poured a double rye and had it waiting when Malone pumped his short legs and climbed up on a bar stool. He scowled at the stuff, tossed it off, and said,

“It’s a lousy day.”

Joe replied with stubborn cheerfulness. “It ain’t the day. It’s you. All days are lousy after lousy nights.”

“Who made you a philosopher?” Malone pushed the glass forward for a refill.

“It’s just that I hate to see you wasting your youth.”

“Wasting my youth! I’m forty years old, for God’s sake!”

“We’re as old as we feel.”

“Okay—I feel eight years older than Dracula.”

“That’s all right. You’ll get younger as the day goes on. You know what’s wrong with you?”

“I could outline it in a couple of hours, but what’s your version?”

“You ought to get married. You been drifting too long, and when a boat drifts it always goes into the weeds. You’re going into the weeds because you ain’t got a firm hand on the wheel.”

“Jesus! Maybe I’d better find another bar.”

“You won’t, though,” Joe the Angel sighed. “Your tab’s too big. You’ll never escape from it. But I still say an eminent Chicago attorney should—” Joe paused, possibly overcome by finding and using such a classy word.

But eminent might have been laying it on a little thick in Malone’s case. There were other descriptive terms. Sawed-off shyster; sneaky mouthpiece; the hood’s friend. Call Malone whatever you chose and you’d find that someone in Chicago had said it first.

Still, no one could deny that he was one of the keenest little criminal lawyers who ever gave a judge fits. Once, years earlier, while making his living as a cab driver, he’d become disgusted with his lack of progress in life and enrolled in a law course in night school. He earned his diploma, and passing the bar exam had been the turning point in his life.

Joe the Angel ignored Malone’s empty glass. “You ought to eat. I got pig’s knuckles.”

“I’ll take an order of boiled cop’s head.”

Joe’s reply was automatic. “Von Flanagan giving you a hard time?”

It would have to be von Flanagan and his two shadows, Kluchesky and Scanlon. They were the only cops on earth so far as Malone was concerned. Homicide dicks. Von Flanagan was homicide so far as Malone was concerned, a knob-headed public servant dedicated to the proposition of making Malone’s life miserable.

“Von Flanagan bounced my boy all over town,” Malone growled. “From one precinct to another. I hunted for hours—until I got sidetracked about midnight. I should be out hunting now.”

“Who’s your client?”

“Toothy Spaatz.”

“Toothy again. Who’d he kill?”

“Monks Tannen— Now wait a minute! You know damned well no ethical lawyer would—oh, hell! Gimme a ham on rye.”

All of which was of no great importance—at least appeared to be nothing of importance at the moment. Toothy would probably be chivvied into court where he would deny the murder gun belonged to him even if it had been found—which it hadn’t and never would be. Besides, Malone would maintain, why would Toothy want to kill Monks who was practically a relative because his second cousin down on Taylor Street had married a girl who had gone with Toothy’s first cousin until the first cousin’s wife had heard about it and clobbered the first cousin with an electric iron she’d just heated up to use on his shirt?

Or at least that was how it would sound to a confused jury that would refuse to indict because there had been no witnesses and they’d been told to ignore Toothy’s long anti-social record. He would be on trial for Monks’ murder—not six others.

Malone in turn could justifiably declare his belief in Toothy’s innocence because he could tick off ten guys on his fingers—and ten more if he wanted to use his toes—who would have loved to ice Monks for any number of reasons.

So it was nothing of any great importance—just another opportunity for von Flanagan to harass him.

Malone brooded. He suddenly jerked his head up. “What time is it?”

“Ten after one,” Joe said.

“Hell! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You didn’t ask me.”

Malone climbed down off his stool. “I’ve got to meet Helene Justus.”

“Is she in trouble?” The question was quick and aggressive. Helene and Jake Justus were two of Joe the Angel’s favorite people.

“Of course not!”

Malone’s tone indicated the question was ridiculous; that trouble wouldn’t dare to even come into Helene’s neighborhood. Which wasn’t true. The dark bird of chaos spent most of its leisure time roosting on the Justus balcony, but Joe did not make an issue of this.

“It’s Jake’s birthday coming up,” Malone said, “and Helene wants to buy him a shotgun.”

“Not a hot one,” Joe said.

“Are you nuts? Besides, I wouldn’t know where to buy hot merchandise anyhow.”

Joe didn’t dispute this either, although he had ample proof otherwise. “You better get going then.”

“After that, I gotta go find Toothy,” Malone said as he climbed down from his stool.

But before he reached the door, Joe called, “Hold it, Malone. Telephone for you. Your office.”

Malone scowled and retraced his steps. Why couldn’t they leave a man alone when he was out following his profession—trying to do his duty to his fellow man? He went to the far end of the bar and picked up the phone. It was Maggie, his long-suffering secretary. “Where have you been?” she asked coldly.

“Around. What’s new?”

“Several things, such as your neglecting to sign my pay check. But of course that’s not really new.”

“Stop joking.”

“I guess my pay check is a joke to you, but not to me. I’m forced to live on it.”

“There’s a roll of bills in the bottom left-hand drawer of my desk. Rainy day money.”

“Is it raining?”

“There are clouds in the sky. Take your salary out of that. What else?”

“You have a client—I think.”

“Prosperous? Well-dressed?”

“Penniless. Shabbily clad. A Mrs. Massey. She’s waiting.”

“I’ve got a little thing to do. I’ll be along in about half an hour. Then we’ll find out if she’s still waiting.”

“She will be.”

Malone put down the phone and sighed. Why couldn’t they come up rich once in a while? He left the bar and walked to State Street—toward the Carson Pirie clock where he’d promised to meet Helene and help her pick out the gun for Jake’s birthday. He growled about the imposition on his valuable time but in truth he looked forward to meeting Helene.

They had known each other for a long time and the friendship had endured from one desperate situation to the next.

The first of these had been the one where the secret bride of Jake’s band-leader client—Jake had been single and a press agent at the time—was accused of murdering her lovable old great-aunt. That case had brought Jake and Helene together; Jake, the red-headed dynamo, and Helene, the beautiful North Shore heiress.

Later, a female radio star for whom Jake was tubthumping became involved in not one murder but three, and John J. Malone stepped gallantly into the breech because Jake’s fortunes were at a low ebb and he couldn’t afford to lose a client to the electric chair. Malone not only managed to save Jake’s valuable celebrity from the law, but he also brought her through smelling like the rose she definitely was not.

Even on Jake and Helene’s wedding day there had been difficulties. By way of celebration, Jake bet one Mona McClane—rich, beautiful, and foolish—that she couldn’t commit a murder and get away with it. Again, Malone pulled on his fireman’s pants and shinnied down the pole. He ran himself into a stumpy little shadow solving that murder, which turned out to be the wrong one. Then he reduced his anticipated life-span appreciably by finding and solving the right one.

It was of such strong material as this that their friendship was built, and while John J. Malone did not wear his affection on his sleeve, the idyl of Jake and Helene symbolized the few things that Malone considered right with the world. Tell him the sun would not rise tomorrow and he would probably shrug and ask, “Well, what the hell can you expect these days?” But tell him tragedy would strike at his favorite pair and he would rock to his foundations.

Parked under the clock, scowling every few seconds at his watch, he chafed until Helene appeared. When she did, it was worth it. She was gorgeous. That was the only word for her. This made it difficult for Jake to hold his scowl, although he managed it.

“You’re late. I’m a busy man. I’ve got no time to—”

She walked past him.

“Hey—Helene—”

He ran after her, pulled up beside her, and slowed down. She kept right on going.

Amazed, Malone again put on speed and this time he did not slow down, but measured his pace to hers and stayed beside her.

“Helene—you walking in your sleep or something?”

She turned her eyes on him. Her face was expressionless. But then Malone realized she wasn’t looking at him at all, but past him, at the stop light, preparatory to turning and crossing the street. If his reflexes hadn’t been quick, drawing him back a step, she might have walked right into him. He stared after her until she was halfway across State Street, and then followed along behind.

Helene made the opposite sidewalk and Malone did also, but only by jumping for his life. He paused to hurl a curse at the homicidal balloon-head driving the truck and then ran to catch up with Helene just as she was entering Woolworth’s. Hardly the place to buy shotguns, he thought, as he followed her down the aisle.

But Helene wasn’t after shotguns. She asked the clerk, “Do you have confetti?” Woolworth’s did have confetti, and Helene bought a transparent plastic bag of the stuff and again might have bumped into Jake on her way to the exit if he hadn’t again stepped aside.

He followed her back into the street where she did not hesitate, catching the light to recross State Street as she put the confetti into her purse.

Malone plowed along behind.

He’d given up all thought of accosting her again. There didn’t seem to be any point in getting snubbed over and over in public.

Helene walked down State Street to Jackson and turned toward Michigan Boulevard and entered a building near the Blackstone Hotel. She totally ignored Malone while she waited for the elevator, and as there seemed to be no need for stealth, Malone got in with her—out again, too, and watched as she walked down the corridor and entered one of the offices.

He approached it and stood before the door, undecided. The sign on the glass panel read:

Clifford Barnhall. M.D., B.A., MS., M.A., Ph.D.

That was all. No office hours. No by appointment only. No please enter. Nothing but the name of the character with his string of degrees.

Malone reached for the knob. Then he drew his hand back and scowled at the glass panel. Finally, he turned away and went back to the elevator….

Fifteen minutes later, he was back in his own territory.

His office was at 79 West Washington Street, not far from Joe the Angel’s bar, which put both establishments very close to City Hall in the heart of Chicago’s Loop.

Much Chicago history had transpired there. Inside the walls of the huge, block-square building, Bath House John Coughlin and the Gray Wolves had robbed the citizenry through the infamous franchise system, selling the city, block by block, to robber-baron opportunists in the old gas and electric days before the turn of the century. Hinky Dink Kenna, Bath House’s inscrutable little First Ward partner, had worn his top hat and tails in the Hall’s smoky back rooms. Many rascals and scoundrels among the elected and unelected had dictated city government through devious machinations at City Hall—the most forthright of these probably Al Brown, known also as Al Capone, who worked in two commodities—money and bullets—to promote his third commodity—illegal booze.

But those colorful days were over, and the Hall now waited like a great, gray drab for something interesting to happen—for the dull days brought into being by comparative law and order to pass.

John J. Malone knew City Hall very well. He was at home in its high-ceilinged corridors and offices. He knew the locations of many closets where skeletons hung, and when occasion demanded—as occasion sometimes did—he was not above turning a key or two. But he always obeyed the laws of good sportsmanship and was thus given grudging respect.

When he entered his office, Maggie was busy typing, disapproval written on her not unpretty face. John J. Malone had always felt that Maggie was misplaced. She belonged married in a nice little home on the West Side with a husband and a few kids to look after.

But never in his life had Malone gotten drunk enough to suggest it. He was not fool enough to lose a good secretary by putting grand ideas in her head.

“This is Mrs. Massey,” Maggie said. “She has something she wishes to discuss with you.”

The woman was of indeterminate age—one of the poverty-struck, shapeless people who go silently about their business and accept the misfortunes and outrageous slings with stolid patience. She wore a shapeless gray dress with a shawl over her gray head and the gray dust of the city on her shoes. A scrubwoman, probably, Malone thought. Not that he was averse to defending the poor. They were the basic reason why he was poor himself. Some of his most strenuous efforts had been on their behalf. But still, it would have been nice to find a bejeweled Gold Coaster sitting in his office once in a while.

Malone smiled at Mrs. Massey and told Maggie, “I’ve got a call to make. Give me ten minutes,” and entered his inner office.

Seated behind his desk, he called the Casino and got Jake Justus on the wire.

Jake was normally casual. “Hi, Malone. How’re things?”

“Blundering along. And you?”

“Fine—fine.”

“Helene?”

“Fine—fine,”

“Everything’s fine then?”

“Sure,” Jake said affably. “What the hell is this?”

“Nothing. Just wondering.”

“Wondering what?”

Jake’s curiosity irritated Malone. The lawyer should ask the questions. But there was no judge on the bench to tell the witness to shut up. And Malone’s knowledge of the gun Helene was buying for Jake’s birthday was confidential information. So Malone improvised.

“It may sound silly, but I had a dream.”

“What kind of a dream?”

“About you and Helene. Helene was walking around kind of glassy-eyed you might say.”

“A glassy-eyed dream?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What was I doing?”

“You weren’t there.”

“But you said it was a dream about Helene and me. Now you say I wasn’t even there.”

“For crissake! It was only a dream!”

“Then why are you getting so excited?”

“Dammit! I’m not excited.”

There was a pause while Jake appeared to be judging the situation objectively. He rendered his verdict. “You’re excited. I didn’t know you were one of those kooks who believes in dreams.”

Malone didn’t, but he felt he’d been put into a position of having to defend them. “There have been a hell of a lot of books written about dreams.”

“Have you read them?”

There was nothing hostile in Jake’s inquiries. He merely seemed brightly interested in this new phenomenon of rock-headed John J. Malone prattling about dreams.

“Look,” Malone exploded. “I call up and ask a civil question. Can’t I get a civil answer?”

“Okay—okay. Helene and I are getting along fine.”

“Has she been around the club today?”

“No. I think she’s got a friend due to show up from New York. A female egghead. Maybe she’s already here.”

“Well, give Helene my love.”

“Sure. And what about me? Do you love me too?”

“Oh, shut up!” Malone grunted and slammed down the phone.

He sat pondering the situation. Obviously, if there was anything odd about Helene’s behavior—and there certainly seemed to be—Jake knew nothing about it. Malone remembered that name with all the letters behind it. The guy was an M.D., but he was also a lot of other things and medicos seldom paraded all their degrees after their names. So it seemed logical the guy was a headshrinker. Psychiatry had been the vogue in Chicago for some time. A lot of quacks were reaping a harvest. No doubt, Malone thought, there were also a lot of good men working at it. But he was more interested in the quacks. Did he have any reason to suspect the guy into whose office Helene had disappeared? None except all those damn letters. They made the guy sound like a self-important son-of-a-bitch.

Malone pondered a while longer and then went to the door and said, “Please come in, Mrs. Massey …”

Chapter Three

“He’s a good boy,” Mrs. Massey said. “He didn’t do it.”

Figuratively, Malone shrugged. They were all good boys. No mother had ever told Malone about any other kind. None of them did anything they were accused of. The cops were always blind bastards looking for somebody to lock up.

Malone would have conceded this last had all the cops been like von Flanagan, but they weren’t. Most of them were pretty smart, decent citizens.

“Didn’t do what, Mrs. Massey?”

“They say he robbed an office on Jackson Boulevard.”

“But he didn’t?”

“He wouldn’t. My Nickie has spirit, but he wouldn’t break the law!”

“When did this robbery—ah, that didn’t take place—happen?”

“Sometime last night, I guess. They didn’t tell me anything about it. Two policemen came while I was sleeping. I work nights, Mr. Malone—in a big building on Michigan Avenue by the river. I woke up and heard a noise and they were searching Nickie’s room. I asked them what they wanted and they showed me their badges and said they wanted Nickie—”

“They were trying to find him in the dresser drawers, huh?”

“They said they were looking for the evidence. But he came home just then and they took him away.”

“Very interesting,” Malone observed. “Where do you live, Mrs. Massey?”

He took down the vital statistics while Mrs. Massey, who obviously supported an indolent slob of a son by scrubbing floors, wrung her gnarled hands and suffered.

“How did you happen to come to me?”

“I didn’t know what to do. I have no money. I was helpless. But I remembered that a lawyer helped Mrs. Costello when her Danny was arrested for something he didn’t do. She lives around the corner—on Roosevelt Road near Halstead Street—so I went and asked her and she said, see Mr. Malone. He takes care of poor people. So I came down here to ask you—”

Malone held up a silencing hand. “I’ll see what I can do for your boy,” he said. “In the meantime, you go home and rest, Mrs. Massey. Don’t worry, because worry never did anybody any good.”

“Then you’ll help—?”

“I’ll see that his interests are protected. Did they tell you where they were taking him?”

The poor confused woman shook her head. “They didn’t tell me anything.”

“I’ll find out. You run along now. I’ve got to make some telephone calls.”

Mrs. Massey left, but before Malone could dial, the phone rang. He picked it up. “Malone here.”

“You’re a fine counselor,” a hurt voice announced.

“Toothy—where the hell are you?”

“I could be goin to the chair for all the help you are.

“They released you,” Malone hazarded, making it a statement rather than a question.

“Sure, but I could o’ rotted in that damn tank—”

“Now wait a minute, Toothy. Where did you get the idea I wasn’t on the ball? I’ve been pulling strings all over town. It isn’t easy to get a man released from a murder rap.”

“You called up?” Toothy asked doubtfully.

“Called up! You’ve got no idea. My telephone bill reads like the national debt. I was just this minute trying to get through to the governor.”

Malone wondered where Toothy had been. No doubt von Flanagan had deposited him in some secluded crib you couldn’t find without a roadmap.

“Toothy, I worked my balls off and I got results. You’re out, aren’t you?” Obviously von Flanagan had not been able to come up with enough on Toothy to interest the District Attorney, which simplified Malone’s work no end.

“Yeah—yeah, I’m out,” Toothy conceded doubtfully. He could do nothing else but give Malone the benefit of that doubt.

“You go home and get some rest,” Malone said. “I’ll be in touch with you later.”

“Okay, Counselor,” Toothy said. “That joint I was in was full o’ bums and creeps. I gotta take me a shower.”

“You do that. And when we get around to it, we’ll sue the state for false arrest.”

“You think that’s a good idea? They might get mad and toss me in again.”

“Leave everything to me, Toothy. Go home and take that shower.”

“All right, Malone. If you say so.”

“I say so. Did I ever steer you wrong?”

Toothy groped. If he thought hard on it, he was sure he could come up with eleven different times Malone had steered him far, far wrong. But Malone hung up, so Toothy quit pondering and gave the phone back to the desk sergeant….

Toothy had been held in a grass roots station just east of Franklin Park and a few blocks south of the North Pole, and he wearily contemplated a long boring cab ride back to civilization. Therefore, he was pleasantly surprised to find a sleek-looking Cadillac waiting for him at the curb in front of the station.

“Hey, Toothy. Crawl in.”

Toothy looked. It was Cats Gavin. Toothy was stunned. He stood there, sure that a mistake had been made. Cats Gavin didn’t go around in his Cadillac picking up characters like Toothy Spaatz from in front of hick police stations.

“I said, get in,” Cats repeated. “You deaf or something?”

“Sure, Mr. Gavin, but—”

“The hell with the buts. Shake your can.”

As Toothy climbed into the Cadillac, he narrowed his eyes against the blaze of the two diamonds in the massive ring Cats wore. Cats liked jewelry and wore thousands of dollars’ worth quite openly all over town. And it was indicative of what the town thought of Cats that no one ever gave a second thought to heisting him. The reason for this consideration was simple. No one wanted a quick trip to the graveyard.

As Cats pulled away, Toothy’s withered mouth shaped into a grin of appreciation. He was called that because he didn’t have any—much as a bald-headed man is sometimes called Bushy, and a seven-footer is referred to as Shorty by his friends.

Toothy, although not yet thirty, had a talent for getting his mouth in the way of fists. Thus, he had dropped teeth here and there about town until he had none left. This situation could have been corrected by a good dentist, but Toothy had a block—a thing about dentists’ chairs. They looked a lot like barbers’ chairs, and several of Toothy’s friends had come a cropper while getting their hair cut. Guys who accepted contracts on other guys liked nothing better than to find guys whom they accepted contracts on stretched lazily out in barbers’ chairs. This made for little trouble and the quick fulfillment of contracts. Toothy saw no reason why this should not also extend to dentists’ chairs. So he remained without his teeth.

“They tried to frame me for Monks Tannen,” he told Cats.

“I know. But it wasn’t you. It was somebody else.”

“Is that so? Malone didn’t tell me.”

“Malone? What the hell’s he got to do with it?”

“He’s my counselor. He busted his ass gettin’ me out o’ that tank.”

Cats turned to glance at his mushy-mouthed passenger. “Are you kidding?”

“What do you mean, Cats—I mean Mr. Gavin?”

“Malone didn’t even know where you were.”

Toothy, who had a reputation for stunning easily, was definitely stunned. “You mean—for crissake—my own counselor—”

“That jughead never gets four blocks from Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar.”

“But he called up!”

“If he called up it was because his watch stopped and he phoned for the time. He’d been snowing you, Toothy.”

Toothy’s withered lips stiffened. “That ain’t honest.”

“Right. But don’t worry. Everything’ll come out okay. I got a contract for you.”

Again, Toothy was stunned, but pleasantly so this time. “A contract? For me?”

Toothy’s astonishment was justified. Surprise piled on surprise. First, Cats Gavin had been waiting for him in front of the tank. That was the equivalent. of the mayor sending a limousine after some nameless ward heeler. Now Cats had a contract for him, which compared to Eisenhower picking out a likely buck private to lead the assault on Normandy.

“No foolin’,” Toothy grinned.

“No fooling.”

Toothy sat up straight and took a deep breath. He folded his arms. He could rise to an occasion when the occasion demanded it, and this one certainly did.

“Whom,” he asked, “do you wish me to rub out?”

“John J. Malone,” Cats said.

Toothy collapsed only slightly. Then he straightened again. “John J. Malone?”

Christ! He was on the way up at last….

In the meantime, John J. Malone was going about his client’s business. Entering the station on South State Street near the Loop, he approached the desk sergeant and said, “I’m John J. Malone,” as though that explained everything.

The desk sergeant was coming to the end of his trick. He was tired. His weary eyes said, Balls to you, but his comment was more restrained. “So?”

“I want to see the captain.”

“He’s busy. He has no time.”

“I suggest that he find time. One of my clients has been incarcerated here.”

The desk sergeant’s defense was quick. “That’s a lie. We never did that to nobody.”

“I’ll probably file suit and I wouldn’t want it to come as a surprise to the captain.” Malone shrugged. “However, if you want to take the responsibility—” He turned away.

“Okay. Go on in and get thrown out.”

“Thank you,” Malone said politely.

Captain Spence was tired also. The precinct was undermanned, as was the city—and possibly the state and the nation. Also, devious characters were continually wandering in to throw cuties at him. And now, here was Malone.

“What do you want?” Spence asked.

“A client of mine, Nicholas Xavier Massey, is somewhere down in your Bastille.”

“Never heard of him.”

“You wouldn’t. He’s poor, underprivileged, and without influence.”

Spence sighed. “They all are.”

“Two of your cossacks picked him up in his bedroom on Roosevelt Road for heisting an office over on Jackson Boulevard.”

“Uh-huh. But he’d just gone into the office to phone for a cab.”

“Not exactly. He went in, no doubt, to heist it.”

“Well, that’s a switch. But if you want to bail him out, Malone, why come to me? I’ve got subordinates who take care of that sort of thing.”

“No doubt. But that’s not what I came for. I want him released. And you also might erase his name from the charge sheet.”

“Jesus! What do you smoke?”

“You probably weren’t listening, Spence. I said they picked him up in his bedroom. They were in there snooping for evidence, and when he arrived, they pounced like a couple of amateurs who never read the law.”

A look of disgust appeared on Spence’s face. It spread and solidified, reshaping his careworn jowls. “Are you saying—?”

Malone smiled sweetly and reached into his pocket. “Uh-huh. No search warrant. Have a cigar, Captain?”

“Not again,” Captain Spence murmured softly. “Those goddam clowns.” Taking the cigar from force of habit, Spence picked up the phone and asked, “Who gathered in a punk named Massey off Roosevelt Road?” He listened and said, “Kluchesky and Scanlon. The extra help,” and hung up.

Malone’s smile deepened. “Von Flanagan’s shadows from Homicide. What are they doing here?”

“Von Flanagan took a week off for his niece’s wedding and we’re short-handed. Those goddamn clowns,” he repeated.

Malone, ever magnanimous in victory, said, “Don’t worry about it, Captain. You carry a big load here, and as a sympathetic citizen I want to help. So lets just make it our little secret.” Spence cringed. Malone added delicately, “Shall I wait downstairs?”

“Why don’t you wait,” Captain Spence said patiently, “at the bottom of the Chicago River by the Madison Street Bridge … ?”

They brought Nicholas Xavier Massey to Malone ten minutes later at the Desk. He was a pimply, sullen-eyed youth, the kind, Malone had learned from experience, who could be persuaded only by a slap in the mouth.

“He’s all yours,” the sergeant said.

“Excellent,” Malone said, “and now, the illegally acquired evidence.”

Reluctantly, the sergeant reached down and came up with a brown envelope. “Okay, shyster. Beat it. And take that prize with you.”

Down deep, Malone felt a little dirty. Not as dirty as the sergeant’s look marked him, but still dirtier than a man liked to be. However, a man had to be a realist. The old wisdom still held: Nice guys finished at the far end of the soup line. The technicality upon which he’d gotten the punk’s release was valid. The United States Supreme Court had said so, and Malone would have been derelict in his duty as a lawyer if he hadn’t taken advantage of it.

Out in the street, Nicholas Xavier Massey said, “The Old Lady send you?”

“Your mother came and asked my help.”

Nick extended his hand. “Okay, gimme the stuff.”

Malone said, “You touch this envelope, buster, and I’ll have you back in your cell so fast you’ll think you never left it.”

Nick Massey’s sullen mouth twisted. “You’re a hell of a mouthpiece! You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“What was the name of the outfit you broke into?”

“That’s none of your goddam business. You’re supposed to—”

Malone raised a finger toward a uniformed cop who was standing by a car some hundred feet away. Nick Massey dropped his hands.

“Wait a minute, counselor. Take it easy.”

“I’ve about had it with you. What’s the name of the place? I want to see to it that this stuff gets back where it belongs.”

“There wasn’t no name. That’s why I went in. I thought the office was empty and I just wanted to hang around a while.”

“Until the building emptied, so you could make a real haul?”

“I wasn’t doing any harm.”

“Quit whining,” Malone snapped. “I’m sick of the sight of you. What building was it? And what was the room number?”

“One-twenty-five East. Fifth floor. Five-sixty-four.”

Malone stared. “Did you say the fifth floor?”

“What’s wrong, shyster? Your ears out of joint? I said the fifth floor.”

“Okay—beat it. But remember one thing. I’m not going to forget you. Get a job and support your mother—”

“My old man didn’t, so why should I?” Nick snarled.

“You want a clout in the puss, punk? I said get a job! The next time you step out of line, I’ll bust you right down the middle. Remember that.”

Nick Massey beat a sullen retreat. Malone watched him go. There were some who said love and understanding were the ticket. Maybe they were right. But this one still looked to Malone like a clout-in-the-mouth case. Malone reminded himself that he’d forgotten to send his check to the Police Organization for Waifs. POW was a good outfit and deserved support. He’d send the check as soon as he got back to the office…..

The fifth floor corridor of 125 East was empty. It looked as though everybody had gone home. But still, Malone had taken no chances. He’d entered through the alley and climbed the fire stairs. He stood for a few moments in front of the door marked:

Clifford Barnhall, M.D., B.A., M.S., M.A., Ph.D.

He tried the knob. It was locked. Moving to his left, he found no name on the door marked 564 just next to Barnhall’s office. He turned the knob. It gave. The door opened. Malone went inside. The room was empty. There was nothing much in the way of furniture. But there were signs that it had been hastily vacated. A quick exit seemed indicated. The place had probably been at least partially occupied.

The drawers of an old desk stood open. There were several empty cartons and some paper plates that showed lunches had been served.

Malone went to the window and looked out. It gave onto an airshaft with a blank wall on the opposite side. He froze as footsteps approached in the corridor. But they went on by and he heard the elevator door open and close. He went to a card table standing against the wall—the one between this room and Dr. Clifford Barnhall’s office—and above the table was something very interesting. A peephole.

Malone went close and inspected the hole. It was approximately half an inch in diameter and had been fitted with a small glass. Malone put his eye to the glass and saw everything in the office beyond. The glass was a lens so that the whole interior beyond could be seen in miniature—an expensive modernistic desk, two expensive modernistic chairs, a thick expensive rug with a modernistic design, and a couch with a modernistic spread thrown over it. A typical headshrinker’s layout, Malone decided, and wondered what kind of a character Barnhall was. How many trusting females had been seduced on that couch? Or maybe women weren’t his weakness. Maybe he ran some kind of a blackmail racket.

Malone, capable of objectivity if he so chose, wondered why he automatically condemned Barnhall of rascality. It was not beyond conjecture that the man was sincere. But Malone saw again the glazed look in Helene Justus’s eyes when passing him on State Street. But still, Barnhall may not have put the look there. Maybe he was trying to get rid of it.

But Malone had other things to wonder about. His quick return to this location after following Helene Justus here was so highly coincidental that he smelled a trap of some sort. But who wanted to trap him and why? No, that couldn’t be it. If this was a trap, Mrs. Massey would have had to be a part of it, and the woman was entirely without guile. Also, the rest of it was entirely too complicated to have been planned.

The only coincidence involved was that Nick Massey had robbed this particular room. Malone, for his part, had acted logically, doing exactly what he himself would have predicted if given the set of circumstances beforehand. He’d cleared his client and had come to return the loot.

Nor was the fact that Mrs. Massey had come to him, out of all the attorneys in Chicago, too farfetched. He was well-known in her neighborhood and a majority of its nondescript wrongdoers found their way to his Washington Street office.

Malone turned from that aspect of the situation to those more immediately pressing. Who was spying on Barnhall and why? They had certainly fled, but for what reason? Was their work here done? It seemed hardly likely to Malone that their job—whatever it had been—would terminate at the exact time Nick Massey had stumbled into their hideout. Therefore, the alternative seemed most likely. They’d fled because of Nick Massey. They’d anticipated his possible arrest and confession and they hadn’t wanted to come under the scrutiny of the police. So what they’d been engaged in had certainly been illegal. A blackmail mob? This setup had all the earmarks. Get a dictaphone and take down the confessions of Barnhall’s patients. Contact the patients later and sell the tapes to them. But was Barnhall so stupid he couldn’t spot a glass eye embedded in his own office wall?

It was pretty confusing, and Malone did not enjoy being confused. Again, he looked through the peep hole. A shaft of sunlight came in through the window of the psychiatrist’s office. It hit the top end of the couch right where the patient’s head would rest and gave a sinister aspect to the silent, deserted office.

Malone visualized Helene Justus’s golden head there where the light beam hit. He didn’t like it, but it crystallized the question that had been in his mind all day: What was normal, happy, well-balanced Helene Justus doing in a psychiatrist’s office?

Trouble with Jake? Most unlikely, but Malone granted that if there were, Helene would be capable of covering it up—hiding it from the outside world; even from as close a friend as John J. Malone. Not so with Jake Justus, though. If their marriage had struck a rock, Jake would show it. His face would show it if nothing else. Jake’s face was as open as the City of Chicago when the lid was off.

Malone sighed. More things to wonder about. He’d been wondering so hard that he’d forgotten the brown envelope. Now he remembered it and dumped the contents onto the table.

There was a lady’s diamond-studded watch—valuable; a pair of imitation ruby earrings—worthless; a small lady’s coin purse with an Oriental coin in it. And two rolls of recording tape. Malone examined each piece carefully, pondered thoughtfully over the tapes, and then loaded everything back into the envelope.

He left as he’d entered, down the back stairs, and caught a cab back to his office….

Maggie had left. So had everybody else, it seemed. Malone knocked on the locked door of an office three doors down from his own to make sure Sam Belson didn’t have a broad in there, and then picked the lock with his penknife. Sam Belson was a bottle-cap broker. He sold bottle caps by the carload, and used a tape recorder for letters and memos. Malone sat down and took out his tapes and tried to fit one to the machine. No go. The wrong machine.

Growling something about why the hell didn’t they adopt standards in the recorder business, Malone left, locking the door behind him, and went in the opposite direction—two doors from his office, where he knocked again to make sure Clint Kaine didn’t have a brunette in there. Clint couldn’t stand blondes. If he were doing extracurricular work with a broad, she would be a brunette.

But Kaine’s office was deserted also. Malone opened the door with the penknife and went in. Kaine ran a collection agency and put his correspondence on a different make of recorder. Malone smiled. It was the right make—the one any business man with common sense would buy.

Malone threaded the tape, flipped the switch, and sat back to listen. The voice was definitely female, but not Helene’s:

“I don’t know, Doctor—I just freeze up.”

“Do you mean you actually feel a chill?”

Barnhall’s voice—Malone assumed it to be Barnhall’s—was low, sympathetic, and very professional.

“No—not that. I—I go stiff lying there. He’s hanging over me, panting like a mastiff and pawing at me—and I go stiff.”

“Does his closeness frighten you?”

“No—I don’t think so.”

“Does it revolt you?”

“God no! I wait all day for him—slopping around, doing the dishes, watching the clock. When he comes in from work I’m hotter than a firecracker. If he’d grab me then and drag me into the bedroom it would be great. But we eat and watch TV and then he goes in the bathroom and hawks into the john for five minutes—hey, maybe that’s what does it—him hawking into the john with me all in my transparent black nightie waiting—uh-huh! Maybe I am revolted like you say!”

“If that is the cause of your condition—”

Malone snapped the rewind button and the inane dialogue cackled back at him in reverse. He removed the tape and inserted the second role.

The dialogue began:

“It just piles up some way, Doctor. Day after day. Sometimes I think I can’t take another minute of it….”

Malone sat entranced. It was a male voice, and at the first sound of it his mouth had dropped open. A voice so unmistakable a deaf cretin could have identified it. Malone closed his mouth and listened, utterly fascinated. When it was over, he played it back again.

But when he returned to his office, he could not remember much of what was said. It had been the voice rather than the words that had brought him joy.

“I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he chortled, and put the tape, along with the rest of the brown envelope’s contents, into the battered safe beside his desk.

“I’ll be a bandy-legged bastard,” he said. And headed for Joe the Angel’s bar….

Chapter Four

Helene Justus was out of breath when she knocked on Vivian Conover’s door in the Craymore Hotel. The door opened and the two girls shared a glad cry as they rushed into each other’s arms.

“Viv! Darling! It’s been so long!”

“Helene! Angel! I didn’t think you’d ever come.”

Helene drew back, glancing around. “Oh, you have a suite!”

Vivian laughed. “It’s only two rooms. But Walden is picking up the whole tab—until I get settled—so I decided to splurge.”

“It’s nice. I always liked the Craymore.”

“I too. It’s old, but it has a dignity about it. I hate those modern places with coffee in the bathroom and that sort of thing. How is Jake?”

“Fine—just fine. We’ll go over to the Casino later. We can catch one of the shows and have dinner.”

“I’d love to dear, but not tonight. I’m exhausted. Besides, there will be plenty of time.”

“Of course. Right now, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Tell me!” Helene kicked off her shoes and sat on the bed, curling her feet under her.

“Tell you what, darling?”

“Oh, you know. I’m just delighted at finding you in such high spirits. I was so afraid. You know—the last time—”

Vivian Conover laughed softly. She was a strikingly beautiful brunette, slim, lovely, with a flawless complexion that always looked slightly tanned. She had the trimmest of ankles and was always perfectly groomed—one of those girls you suspected of sleeping suspended in the air so that nothing ever got mussed.

“Yes,” she said softly. “The last time. I was a bit of a mess, wasn’t I?”

“I felt so sorry for you, darling. I did my best to be of comfort, but I felt so inadequate.”

“There’s nothing much anyone can do for a person under such circumstances.”

“What happened to André?”

Vivian shrugged. “He got another girl, I guess.”

“And it didn’t—bother you?”

“I have built-in springs, honey—emotional springs, that is. I never brood over anything. I let it come out in a flood. That way it doesn’t eat at you.”

Helene made no reference to what Vivian had said over the phone about a wedding. In fact, if Helene had referred to it, Vivian would have reacted with alarm. It would have meant that someone had goofed.

“Tell me about your new job,” Helene said. “I’m so excited!”

“It could be a big one. And then again—”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s only a tryout so far as I’m concerned. I don’t know whether I’ll like Chicago or not.”

“Why, of course you will. We’ll have wonderful times. I know a lot of eligible young men with scads of charm and money. In a month, you’ll feel like a native—I promise!”

“Perhaps.”

“I’m so proud of knowing such a brilliant person as you, Vivian. I think you actually awe me.”

Vivian laughed and paced restlessly. “Honey—please! I’m blushing.” She turned suddenly. “When are you and Jake going to settle down and have some children?”

“Good heavens! Give us time!”

“It doesn’t take long. You would have beautiful babies.”

They talked thus for half an hour; saying nothing, trying to recapture something they’d had—or thought they’d had—and not succeeding very well. Finally, Helene looked at her watch. Vivian instinctively followed suit, glancing at a circle on her wrist where there was no watch—only a band where the skin was lighter than the rest of her arm showing where a watch had been worn.

“I must run,” Helene said. “Will you call me tomorrow?”

“Of course.”

“You’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep, darling.” Helene planted a quick kiss on Vivian’s cheek. “Traveling wears one out.”

“Tomorrow,” Vivian said, “we’ll have a long talk.”

There was a man waiting for Helene in the lobby. He was seated with a newspaper and she would have missed him if he hadn’t lowered the paper and cleared his throat. Helene glanced down, saw him, and hesitated ever so briefly. Then she walked on, but to a close observer her expression would have given her away. It was a look of surprise and fear, a mixture that clouded her lovely blue eyes.

Helene left the hotel and walked west to the first corner. There she turned north and hurried along. She did not look around, but the temptation was obviously great. The man was following her, however, a fact she was no doubt aware of.

He was neither young nor old; somewhere in his late thirties or early forties. But if you decided on either, you would be likely to change your mind after a second look because he could so easily have been the other. He was neither shabbily nor neatly dressed. But anyone trying to recall his image would have found it blurred somewhere between the two extremes. There were no flashes of bright color in his dress, but neither was it drab to the point of leaving that impression. A quiet blue-striped necktie, and a shirt of either gray or blue, you would probably not remember which.

He was the sort of man you see when turning your head to look at something else, who never quite registers, but leaves the nagging feeling that someone, was there.

In the third block north, Helene turned into a small, unobtrusive coffee shop. As she entered, the man stopped, took a memo pad from his pocket, and wrote with a small stub pencil. He tore the sheet from the pad and folded it and moved forward toward the entrance to the coffee shop. But when he had a scant five paces to go, a second man appeared from around the far corner and hurried in the first man’s direction. There was no missing this second man. He was tall, slim, exceedingy handsome. He was dressed in a sky-blue jacket and had an even brighter blue scarf around his neck, tucked artfully under his lapels. He could have shaved with the creases of his white slacks. His hair was beautifully waved and prematurely white. He did not appear to be looking for anyone as he hurried along, completely preoccupied. He could have been on his way to seduce some unsuspecting virgin. But his impact on Helene’s stalker was quick and definite. The young-old man turned and stepped off the curb and crossed the street.

He walked at an angle so that the Beau Brummel—even though the latter did not appear in the least interested—could not see his face. He disappeared around the closest corner. Beau Brummel moved briskly on up the street, apparently unaware that he had interrupted anyone’s plans.

After ten minutes, Helene left the coffee shop, hailed a cab, and headed for the Casino on Rush Street.

Chapter Five

“I’m going to work, Jake,” Helene said.

“Sure you are,” Jake replied absently. He gulped at his drink and came to his feet and headed for the Casino entrance where two evening-gowned women and a single male escort had entered.

Oscar, the Casino’s host and maître d’, was home with either a cold or a blonde, no one knew which, and Jake was filling in. Therefore he returned to the side table where John J. Malone and Helene were sitting only at intervals.

To Malone, the gist of Helene’s statement was not as remarkable as her tone—her casual self-possession. She had been gay, witty, and entirely normal during the preceding hour, an image he found difficult to reconcile with the other one—the tense zombie he’d encountered on State Street.

Malone had spent the time in careful observation, making no pertinent statements, riding with the aimless tide of conversation. He appeared to be lethargic, tired after a full day, but inside, out of sight, his mind was churning with activity.

“Work?” he grunted. “Where?”

“At Walden.”

“And where the hell is Walden?”

Helene laughed, and Malone thought he detected just a shade of hysteria, but he could have been wrong. “The Walden Chemical Research Laboratory on Grand Avenue.”

“Don’t be silly. That’s top-secret government stuff. Ordinary taxpayers don’t just walk out there and go to work.”

“That’s ridiculous. What makes you think the government doesn’t like taxpayers? They love them.”

“That’s not the point. They hire specialists out there. Eggheads. If I’m correct, you majored in social amenities at college.”

“You’ve been misinformed on both my background and the way things are at Walden. I took typing and shorthand and I’m pretty good at both. So far as Walden is concerned, they do hire specialists. But only a part of the place is top secret. There is a big load of ordinary work that ordinary people do. The pay is low and they have difficulty in getting enough lower-echelon help. So they welcome eager hands.”

“You’ll be doing something for your country. Is that the pitch?”

“Precisely. If more people took an interest in vital government projects, they would—” Helene bogged down on what the result would be, but Malone filled in.

“They’d have less time to make money to pay their taxes. How come you hatched this big idea?”

“A very dear friend of mine, Vivian Conover, is in Chicago. She’s one of the specialists. She’s going to work at Walden. When she called from New York to tell me, I got to thinking—” Malone, watching closely from beneath lazily lowered lids, caught a look of quick confusion—something akin to the glazed look he’d seen on State Street. “At least I think that’s how it was.” The look vanished. “Anyhow, I investigated and met some very nice people. And the urge to serve was born.”

“Have you told Jake?”

“I just did.”

“Maybe he didn’t hear you.”

“Jake doesn’t hear much of anything these days,” she sighed.

“You two ought to go off on a vacation together.”

“That’ll be the day,” Helene sighed. “If Jake stayed away for a single day, this club would collapse. Didn’t you know that?”

“By the way,” Malone said casually, “I’m awfully sorry I slipped up on our date today—to buy the shotgun for Jake’s birthday. I got tied up and before I knew it the time had slipped by and I couldn’t call you.”

Again the look of quick confusion he’d noted before. Helene lifted her glass to hide it. She said, “Malone, you’ve no idea how relieved I am.”

“Relieved?”

“I’ve been sitting here waiting for you to ask me why I didn’t make it. I missed it myself and I felt terrible.”

Malone wanted to lean across the table and ask: What’s wrong, Helene? What kind of a mess have you gotten yourself into? You can tell me. Maybe you can’t tell Jake. I can understand that. But you can tell John J. Malone. He loves you and he’s your friend.

But Malone could only sit there mute, more certain than ever, now, that the waters were deep. And he without a paddle or a canoe, nor any notion whatever of what was going on to make Helene so unhappy.

“So we both missed it,” he said. “We’ll make it another time. When are you going to work at Walden?”

“Right away. But Kent Fargo suggests part-time at first until I get the hang of it and—well, sort of work into the harness, you might say.”

“Who’s Kent Fargo?”

“The man I was told to see—to get in touch with. He’s very nice. The sophisticated type. He made all the arrangements. I’ll be working for him.”

A sophisticated type and a beautiful blonde. The combination would have automatically made Malone suspicious had the blonde not been Helene Justus. Helene becoming involved with anyone other than Jake was unthinkable. They had the perfect marriage and the wolf didn’t exist who could nose in between them. At the same time, any wolf who tried would find himself at nasty odds with John J. Malone.

“Mr. Fargo has an apartment over on Pearson Street,” Helene said. “I’m due for a final briefing before I sign in for duty.”

Jake, having seated the last group and poked menus under their chins, was winging back toward the table. Malone, his manner a trifle frosty, met him with a blunt question.

“Did you know Helene is going to work?”

“Huh?” Jake slupped quickly from his glass. He’d sat halfway down but he straightened again. He grinned. “Busy, busy night. Party of six coming in.”

“I asked you a question!”

Jake blinked. “Look, I’ve got to seat those people.”

“The hell with them. Let them find their own goddam seats. It’s time you sat down in your seat for a minute and did a little listening. I asked—did you know Helene’s going to work?”

Helene sat silent as Jake stared. “Work! For God’s sake, why?”

“Maybe,” Malone said, “so she can have someone to talk to once in a while.”

Knowing Jake as he did, Malone watched as the big red-headed bum decided whether to get mad or not. Malone could see the process going on. Jake’s first instinct told him to get mad and tell John J. Malone to mind his own damn business. But the news he’d only half listened to up to that moment intrigued him. And as the party of six looked around, took offense, and walked out of the Casino, Jake sat down and looked at Helene as though it was the first time he’d seen her for quite a while.

“Going to work? What is this, honey? You don’t have to work.”

Helene laughed. “Of course I don’t. But that’s not the point.”

“Then—” Jake glanced quickly back and forth between the two of them—from Malone’s frosty visage to the infinitely more attractive face of his wife. “Then, is that it? Do you feel I’m neglecting you?”

“Of course not, darling.” Helene laid her hand on Jake’s and squeezed fondly. “It’s just that lately I’ve felt so useless! Everybody rushing around being productive and what do I do? Absolutely nothing. A person wants to—well, to count sometimes. You understand, don’t you?”

Jake shot a look of triumph at Malone. “She’s right.” His relief at not being to blame brought a big grin. “Sure! I’m working all the time and I suppose bridge and shopping get kind of dull. I think it’s a great idea. Where you going to work, honey—at Marshall Field’s?”

Malone listened as Helene briefed Jake. “Who’s this guy Kent Fargo?” Jake asked.

“He’s an executive at Walden. He was brought in to organize the office force. You see, darling, the place isn’t all top secret. There are dull, routine jobs to be done, and—”

Jake blocked her off with a raised hand. “Sure—sure, honey. I know, and I think you ought to give the thing a try.” He looked across the room and came out of his chair. Grinning, he said, “You’ll have to work for a month to make back the money we lost when that six-party walked out. Let me catch that threesome before they do the same thing.”

He was gone. Malone knocked off his fresh shot of gin and stared into his beer chaser. He felt let down. He wasn’t sure how he’d expected Jake to react, but had to concede that the way he had reacted was perfectly logical. On the face of it, there was nothing wrong with a bored wife going to work.

Only one thing was wrong. Helene was far from bored. Malone had seen enough to know she was leading the fullest kind of a hidden life.

“I’ve got to run along,” he said. “It’s been a rough day.”

“I’ll go out with you.”

They left, waving to Jake across the room where he was picking up a note to deliver to the combo that played requests under the palms in the alcove. He waved back.

Helene’s car was parked at the curb. She got in and Malone closed the door and stood leaning on it. With his head halfway inside, he said, “Helene, does Jake know you’re going to a psychiatrist?”

Helene froze for the barest instant before her eyes snapped around. “Malone! You’ve been spying on me!”

“Never mind that. It was accidental. Answer my question.”

Helene wilted. She did not collapse, but she settled back into her seat and stared out through the windshield. “No,” she said. “He doesn’t know. And please don’t tell him. Please, Malone!”

“For God’s sake! I’m no loudmouth. Of course I won’t tell him. But you and I have got to have a talk. You’re in trouble.”

“I’m not. I’m not, honestly! Mind your own business, Malone.”

“Okay—maybe—after we have a talk.”

Helene considered this. “All right. But not now. I have an appointment. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Malone backed off and watched the sleek Caddy convertible pull around the corner and disappear. Then his mind slipped into gear and latched onto something that had been said previously.

Mr. Fargo has an apartment over on Pearson Street. I’m due for a final briefing before I sign in for duty.

Jake had taken these as two unrelated statements, but now he realized that he’d been an idiot. They went together. Helene had a date with Mr. Fargo in the apartment on Pearson Street to be briefed before she signed in for duty.

Oh, yeah? Where on Pearson Street? At what address had this Fargo wolf set up shop? Malone cursed himself for not finding out. But he hadn’t found out and that was that. Nothing he could do.

He strode north toward the river, his hands deep in his pockets. Maybe he would have done nothing anyhow. Helene was of age. She knew what she was doing. But that was the point. She didn’t. Show Malone a wife who sneaked off to a psychiatrist without her husband’s knowledge and he’d show you a wife who didn’t know what she was doing.

He walked north …

… and it was not until he’d crossed the Randolph Street bridge and swung right, heading for Wells Street and home, that he realized he was being followed.

It came as a tickling somewhere inside his head. He had an instinct for such things. And so sure was this instinct that he swore at himself for not looking around back there in the open—on the bridge-where he could have spotted the tail.

It was too late now. There were alley mouths, doorways, recessed shop windows. Any tail old enough to be away from his mother could stay hidden under these circumstances.

Malone moved on, walking lightly, keening his ears for the sound of the tail’s footsteps. They didn’t come. The guy must be walking in his socks, Malone thought. But he was there, no doubt about that. Malone took out a cigar. He peeled it close to his belly, put it in his mouth and got out a match. He scratched the match and turned suddenly with his palms cupped as though to catch the wind.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The tail was good. He knew his business. A good tail has to have the instinct to know when a mark is going to turn around suddenly while lighting a cigar. This one had it.

Malone walked on, wishing to hell everybody hadn’t gone home. At least, why couldn’t some idiot cabby cruise by in search of a late fare? The knot-heads were never around when you wanted them.

Malone reached Wells Street and turned left. Around the next corner was home and sanctuary. There would be a red neon sign announcing the hotel where Malone had remained since the day—before he got his night-school law diploma—when the management said it was all right to park his cab behind the place free of charge.

The mouth of that alley was drawing close. Malone’s finely tuned senses told him the tail had rounded the corner behind him. A dozen steps to the mouth of the alley. He would make it. He did.

But as he stepped into the welcome shadows, a man stepped out of them, confronting him, forcing him back under the street lamp.

Christ! A second one! One of them making the chase while the other blocked the entrance to the burrow.

“I’d like to talk to you a few minutes,” the new man said.

But that was all. No more. He would never say anything else because there was the muted sound of a silenced gun from behind Malone and the man slumped to the sidewalk. Malone stood like a stalk of frozen broccoli. Then he got his motor centers going again and whirled around. But immediately he froze again as he stared into the mush-mouthed face of Toothy Spaatz. Toothy stood frozen also, the silenced gun hanging at his side, his eyes like two surprised saucers.

“Oops!” Toothy belched and turned and fled.

Toothy was no longer playing the role of the expert tail. He was playing the role of the Olympic sprinter—getting away from there in a clatter of frantic heels.

Dazed, Malone turned to look at the fallen man. He was stretched directly under the street lamp—a man of undeterminate age. He could have been in his late thirties or early forties. Not that it mattered to Malone—or to the man either, for that matter. Malone stared down at him, seeing the unobtrusive type you sometimes catch in the corner of your eye while you are turning to look at someone else.

But that didn’t make any difference, either. Malone was concerned with his own welfare. And in general terms, the law of survival said it was bad practice to be found where someone had just been shot.

Obeying this dictate, Malone left quickly. He moved south on Wells and rounded the corner and passed up the hotel altogether. He hurried along, staying in the shadows, turning into Washington Street, to arrive finally in the quiet sanctuary of his office. There, he dropped into his desk chair-or rather collapsed into it, and let his mind run by itself.

His mind did the logical thing. It denied everything in stream-of-consciousness fashion. Me? … What the hell would I be doing in the alley behind my hotel? … You’re nuts, von Flanagan. I left Jake Justus’s Casino and came straight to my office…. Body? … What body? … If I saw a dead body I’d report it to the police like any other good citizen…. Put those damn handcuffs away and let’s talk this over….

But then Malone again took command of his mind and the maundering stopped. He wiped the sweat from his face. Just what the hell had happened, anyhow? He sat back, forced a synthetic calm, and began to piece it together.

His tail had been Toothy Spaatz, but Toothy had been there to protect him. The mush-mouthed little felon had discovered, somehow, that Malone was in danger. And with a devotion that now touched Malone deeply, he had set himself up as a bodyguard.

That was it. The truth of the matter. But it wasn’t, because Malone’s phone rang and everything went to pieces again.

“Hello—Malone? This is Toothy Spaatz.”

“Toothy! Where the hell are you?”

“In a phone booth. I just killed a guy, Malone.”

“I know damn well you just killed a guy. I was there, remember?”

“It was a big mistake.”

“Certainly it was. Killing any guy is a big mistake. I’ve told you that over and over.”

“You gotta help me, Malone. You’re my mouthpiece.”

“Damn it! There’s nothing I can do for you!”

“But the gun ain’t mine. I never saw it before. Besides, nobody’ll ever find it. I threw it in the—”

“I know the patter. You don’t have to—”

“But I had this contract, Malone.”

“You had a contract on the guy?”

“Uh-uh. I had a contract on you.”

Malone had a cigar in the corner of his mouth. He took it out and flicked the ash delicately with the tip of his little finger. He surveyed the result and found it satisfactory.

“Say that again.”

“The contract was on you.”

“I thought that was what you said.”

Malone took the receiver from his ear and looked at it thoughtfully—as though it were some new invention that intrigued the hell out of him. When he spoke again, it was in kindly, gentle voice.

“Now let’s start at the beginning. Who let out this contract on me?”

Toothy hesitated. “I kind of think that wouldn’t be ethical some way—telling the guy who the guy is that wants him dead.”

“You’re right. It isn’t entirely ethical. But this is a special case.” Malone’s voice was rising with each word. “This is a case where some jerk is trying to get a lawyer rubbed out by his own client and goddam it I want to know who it is!”

“It was Cats Gavin,” Toothy said reluctantly.

Malone did not reply. When the silence had stretched out into a long minute, Toothy said, “Malone—you still there?”

Malone had put the phone down to relight his cigar. The question came to him as a rumble from the surface of his desk. He picked it up and said, “Go jump in the river, you ingrate,” and slammed it down again, breaking the connection.

Then he sat back to think. Cats Gavin. Cats was small time. No, that didn’t quite describe him. He was big time, but in a small-time way. That meant that he had high connections but had never learned to allocate authority, a glaring weakness for a man in the top echelons. A really big syndicate wheel kept several thicknesses of padding between his own person and the filling of a contract. Anyone trying to trace back always got lost in the maze. But Cats liked to cut out the middlemen. In this case, he’d gone direct to the trigger and saved a couple of commissions.

Cats was only a broker and there was utterly no reason, Malone was sure, that Cats would want him dead. So who was trying to have Malone scrubbed?

It occurred to the little lawyer that with this trouble on his hands he had no time for Helene Justus’s difficulties. But then, perhaps they were one and the same. Malone could trace no connection, he had insufficient data, but again instinct and experience came into play. As a general thing, two serious gobs of trouble seldom arrived on the same train. Destiny, although not the kindest of mistresses, usually gave Malone time to clear up one mess before shoving him into another.

Malone made a quick time estimate, regretting he hadn’t kept Toothy on the wire long enough to find out exactly when the contract had been let. He began tracing back. He’d left Joe the Angel’s bar shortly after noon to meet Helene Justus. That had been his first inkling of Helen’s situation. But only an inkling. He certainly hadn’t known enough about it to get knocked off for. Then, back in the office, the Massey thing came up at about the same time Toothy phoned to say he’d been sprung.

Toothy certainly hadn’t had the contract then, or he would have conducted himself differently. He wouldn’t have called at all, or he would have tried to set Malone up for the rub-out. Toothy wouldn’t have been able to hide such an important thing. It would have reflected in his “voice.

So he’d gotten the contract later. But why?

There had to be a reason. Malone searched his current picture for places where lethal hostility might lurk. He could think of none.

But on another tack—why was he so absolutely sure Helene was in serious trouble? She’d acted strangely, but he had no proof of danger. So she was going to a psychiatrist who was being peeped on from the next room. Malone could not definitely say she wasn’t there merely as a patient.

After fifteen minutes, Malone gave it up. He was dog-tired and he needed sleep. The thing to do now was to go home and sack out. If von Flanagan was going to tag him on Toothy’s mistake because the kill had been in his neighborhood, he’d look for him in either place. But maybe destiny would be kind and let Malone sleep for a few hours so he could face his troubles fresh and rested the next day.

As he left his office, he wondered if the body had been found yet. It was a deserted corner late at night. But if the cops had already arrived, he’d take his chances on sneaking in and up to his room. He knew the hotel very well. There were three ways to reach his room.

The cops were there. He saw the flashing of their prowl-car lights as he approached the hotel. So he chose the third way to his room and some well-earned rest—into the loft building next door through a broken window he knew about. Up three flights of stairs to the roof. Across the roof to the fire escape of the hotel. In through his window from the fire escape. He didn’t use that route often, but there had been times and there would probably be others.

Malone was so tired he turned in without showering. As sleep grabbed at his mind, he had one last question to ask: I wonder who that guy was and what he wanted to talk to me about?

Chapter Six

So the night was over for Malone, but not for others. Two conversations took place about the time he dozed off that he would have gladly stayed awake to hear. One of them began when the phone rang in the Justus apartment. Helene answered. It was a male voice.

“Is your husband home?”

Helene hesitated before answering. “No, he’s at the Casino.”

“Then you can talk.”

“Yes—who is this?”

“My name is Blane. I’m taking Fletcher’s place.”

“Why?”

“Fletcher is dead. He was killed a little while ago. Shot.”

“Oh, my God!”

“Relax. Take it easy. There is nothing you can do.”

“But it’s murder! I hadn’t expected—”

“Neither did I. But it mustn’t affect the operation. Did you see Fargo tonight?”

“Yes. I went to his apartment.”

“How did he react?”

“He tried to rape me.”

“You were able to handle him?”

“I—yes, I guess so. I wanted to claw his face and walk out, but I didn’t. I think he expects some payment later.”

“Good girl. Don’t worry about him.”

Helene’s nerves were raw. “That’s very easy for you to say,” she snapped. “He didn’t have you on the lounge panting over you like a bull with your skirts up around—” Helene bit her lip and stopped.

“Now, now—relax, Mrs. Justus. It didn’t end in a rift between you, did it?”

“No. I told you. Everything is still all right. But there’s something else. I wanted to tell Fletcher. I went to meet him but he didn’t show up at the coffee shop.”

“I got a report on that. Fargo came by. He just happened along. Fletcher had been in, and out of Walden. He was afraid Fargo might recognize him. He probably tried to get a note to you but found it too risky.”

“It’s all become so frightening. Do you think Mr. Fargo had anything to do with—with what … what happened?”

“With Fletcher’s murder? No. I don’t think so. You said there was something you wanted to talk to Fletcher about.”

“I’m having trouble. There are gaps in my memory. That’s about the only way I can describe it. I can’t seem to resist Dr. Barnhall.”

“Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Justus. It’s a part of a pattern we’re studying. We’ll find out in due time—”

“But he’s doing it to me! Don’t you understand? There are holes in my days—time I can’t account for. That is—I—”

“There are things you are entitled to know that you haven’t been told. If you can meet me tomorrow morning, I’ll try and fill you in on the entire case.”

“At the same coffee shop?”

“That would be fine. How early can you be there?”

“I’ll be there at nine—if you will.”

As she faced a sleepless night, it occurred again to Helene that this was the first thing she’d ever done that she couldn’t tell Jake about….

“All right,” Vivian Conover said, “what are we going to do when the police come?”

“There won’t be any police, sweet.”

“When they find the thief who got into that room—”

“They won’t. There was nothing there of value except your watch. Those trial tapes were worthless. Why did you take the watch off?”

“It was chafing my wrist. You left the door unlocked. In fact, we didn’t have to be there in the first place.”

“I wanted to put Barnhall under observation.”

“You don’t trust him?”

“I wanted to check his effectiveness first hand. He’s been around a long time.”

“We didn’t observe much.”

“We had to clear out after the robbery. But there’s no danger. The police won’t even bother to look for the guy. And if they do, there’s no way of tracing him to us.”

“It was still a useless risk.”

“Not entirely. I heard and saw enough to convince myself Barnhall is every bit as good as he claims.”

“I hope so.”

“I’ll buy you a new watch. One with twice as many diamonds. Does that make you happy?”

“You seem to forget my initials were on that watch. And those tapes might make somebody curious.”

“What good would they be to a sneak thief? He’s probably thrown them away by now.”

“You’re so very certain it was a sneak thief?”

“Who else?”

The conversation was taking place in Vivian Conover’s room at the Craymore, between Vivian and a handsome, foreign-looking young man who had several names, but at the moment was using André DuBois. They were both wearing the same pajamas, Vivian the top and Du Bois the bottom. But if there had been love, it was now over. André DuBois sat cross-legged on the bed while Vivian paced the floor, her slim, lovely legs moving in quick, short steps.

“I don’t like it,” Vivian said. “And I’m beginning to not like it more and more.”

André DuBois regarded her with quizzical amusement. His was the look of a person very sure of himself. “Exactly what don’t you like, angel?”

“None of it.”

“Then let’s take it bit by bit. First, of course, you understand why I can’t appear in the picture—ah, officially?”

Vivian almost said, “Of course. So if things go wrong, you can disappear and save your own skin more easily.” But she didn’t, because a woman in love hates to admit even to herself that the man who enthralls her is a heel.

She said, “Yes, I understand that.”

He watched her legs flash back and forth, and as she passed close to the bed, he reached out and seized her wrist. She resisted, pulling away from him until he jerked violently and brought her down beside him.

“Don’t be difficult,” he murmured.

“This isn’t the time!”

She continued to struggle until he locked her arms into helplessness. When she became quiet, he smiled in satisfaction and made an amused face at her, as though he were dealing with a rebellious child. He kissed her lightly.

“Hi, pet.”

It was obvious that he was “handling” her; getting her back under control with a most dependable weapon—himself. Vivian had proved her inability to resist him even though she rebelled at times. He ran his hands down her smooth body with a practiced skill. Her resistance was gone.

“You—bastard.” Her tone was one of hopelessness.

“Now—now, darling,” he mocked. “You should be a realist. You should know you can’t love without hating. The two go together.”

“Your philosophy is as phony as your French accent.”

“But I should be admired for both because I acquired them without help. While other children were being loved and cherished, I ran the streets. While other young people were being tutored and educated, I was attending the school of experience.”

“Oh, stop it!” Vivian writhed. “And stop—that.”

But he had no intention of exciting her and allowing things to develop into the frantic twistings and writhings and passionate curses that marked the intimate moments of their relationship. There was no time.

He marveled, however, at the hidden depths in Vivian that these moments revealed. She was a nice girl—good background, the best schools, fine home. Where, then, had she learned that gutter language? How had she managed to perfect the love techniques that for sheer inventiveness would have embarrassed De Sade and would definitely have forced Kinsey to add a chapter to his book?

“Relax, pet,” he murmured, and kissed her lightly. It fed his ego to realize that he inspired Vivian to those heights. It also bemused him to see a com petent, otherwise completely self-possessed young woman go so violently animal in his arms.

But where Vivian lost her self-possession, he never lost his. She was, for him, a means to an end and he never allowed this fact to become obscured.

“You realize, pet, that everything I’m doing is for us.”

“It had better be,” Vivian whispered. “But it’s gotten so—so complicated—and so brutal.”

“Life is brutal, dearest. We must meet it on its own terms. But you’re wrong about the other. It’s a very simple, foolproof plan.”

“That’s ridiculous. It’s the most complicated thing I ever heard of.”

“Complication is a comparative term. Simple arithmetic is complicated for a schoolchild. On the other hand, nuclear physics doesn’t confuse—”

She brushed his cheek as though he were something she feared to lose. But still, there was contempt in her voice. “Modesty was never one of your virtues.”

He returned the mockery with a lazy smile. “Dream child, modesty is weakness, not virtue. A man should know himself and measure his talents carefully. Being modest about them is stupid.”

“Your talent is using people.”

“Inspiring people. I have vision. I take advantage of opportunities when they are presented. Did I not visualize the value to us of your friend Helene Justus? Did I not see her as a tool from those restless letters she wrote you? Was it not through me that you advised and guided her—sent her to Barn-hall?”

Lying relaxed and physically content in his arms, Vivian said. “That was where you began getting dangerously complicated. And I think you did it purposely. Things were too simple for you as they stood. You like complication—danger. I’ve never been convinced that we need Helene at all.”

He sighed patiently. “Angel, we had hit a stone wall. Marcus refused to bring the plans out of the laboratory. He is a coward. He was perfectly willing to handle the inside details, but he would not risk bringing them out through government security. Don’t you understand that? We had to furnish him with a patsy.”

“Then you should have concentrated on Marcus. You’re so sure of your persuasive powers—”

His anger broke through. His fingers tightened and squeezed and Vivian’s hips jerked upward as she yipped in pain. “How could I do that, you little idiot!” he hissed. “I don’t know who Marcus is. He’s hiding under that code name.” His control was slipping, the urge to lash out coming strong.

Vivian was jabbing him in the weak spot she had found and which she dug on occasion. He needed praise. Always, he had to be patted on the head and admired. If he did not get this praise—if she went too far—he was likely to channel his frustrations into abuse. A situation of that sort had brought about the greatest crisis in their relationship. He fancied himself a playwright, and back in the Village, one of his things had been done off-Broadway. Criticism had been sharp, and when Vivian sided with the detractors he turned on her with fists and feet and reduced her to naked, sobbing surrender there in the deserted theater on the empty stage.

“… Then you did like it, my pet?”

“Oh, yes—yes! It was wonderful! …”

The beating had coincided with Helene’s arrival in New York. He’d abused Vivian with careful afore—thought—no bruises below mid-thigh or above her breasts—specializing in retching belly-blows. So Helene had seen no marks of the abuse.

The beating had served two purposes, both to his advantage. He had vented his frustrations and proven to Vivian that she could not get along without him under any conditions. After thus being outraged, she’d crawled back.

“You’re a masochist,” he had accused contemptuously.

And she had not denied it.

This self-admitted psychosis was probably the reason for her later baitings. There was a thrill in skirting danger; in coming close to his violence and avoiding it by a hair’s breadth.

Vivian had puzzled over this weakness in herself. What confused her was the fact that beatings were attractive only from one man. As a true masochist, she should have welcomed pain from any source. But only his fists fascinated her. She described it to herself as masochism in a very specialized form and let it go at that, telling herself, for lack of more solid words of comfort, I’m completely normal in other ways….

“You’re being purposely dense,” he now accused. “You know this thing must be done on their terms. They are all timid little worms. They can only be approached through their greed. They want the money but they also wish to take no risks whatever. That was why I had to devise this plan.”

“Helene Justus is the one who stands to lose! Helene is my friend! I’ve betrayed her!”

His fingers squeezed again, deep now in tender flesh. Vivian quivered, afraid to fight, or perhaps not really wanting to.

“She loses nothing! She will not even know she has been used.”

“Then why was it necessary for Barnhall to put her under control?”

“You’re being deliberately stupid. You know she must be under hypnotic control or she wouldn’t obey orders.”

“But suppose she hadn’t taken my suggestion to go to Barnhall in the first place?”

He hissed, but maintained control. “But she did. If she hadn’t, I would have found some alternative.”

“I’m sure you would. But can we be sure of Barnhall? Your opinion of his talents may be exaggerated.”

“We have proof to the contrary, haven’t we?”

“Not proof that satisfies me.”

“You coded her over the phone, didn’t you? She put the yellow ribbon in her hair and responded to the key word. Barnhall said she arrived at his office with the ribbon in her hair and a bag of confetti.”

“We have only his word for that.”

“Of course, but I didn’t tell him when we would make the test. Besides, when she came here did she ask you anything about your fictitious wedding plans?”

“No, but—oh, I suppose it will work out all right. How long must it go on?”

“Marcus has promised to make his move within ten days.”

“And we have to accept that?”

“He’ll alert us. He wants the money as badly as we do.”

“I wonder what his real name is?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Vivian frowned as she absently caressed the hand that lay poised to abuse her. “Another thing that confuses me—”

“I’ve had about enough,” he whispered ominously.

“But I’m still confused. An operation of this sort, with the fabulous payoff involved, should attract professionals. And we aren’t professionals. We’re rank amateurs beside the experienced agents who would take any sort of risk for that money.”

That should have brought grinding pressure from his fingers. Vivian had tensed herself for it. But instead he laughed.

“There are probably some professionals, as you called them, trying to make contacts right now. We don’t have an exclusive on the project. It’s a competition. If this were Istanbul, or Paris, or even Washington D.C., we might not get very far. But it’s my town. I know Chicago. That makes the big difference.”

“Chicago knows you, too. That makes a big danger.”

He had become interested in her gorgeous left breast. He touched the nipple as though it were a button that would turn the lights on. But as quickly, he lost interest. He sprang from the bed. “There’s something I must do.”

He dressed and left the room, checking the outer corridor carefully before he hurried to the red overhead light marking the exit stairs. From that point on, he ceased to be furtive, meeting several Craymore employees on the way to the service entrance.

Outside, he found a public phone and dialed a number. The voice that answered was faintly muffled.

“Yes?”

“We are planning a picnic. I’d like to check the long-range weather forecast.”

“For what day?”

“We plan it for sometime within the next ten days.”

“You will have to be more explicit.”

“I can’t. But definitely within that time.”

There was a pause as though the weatherman were checking his chart. He returned. “I cannot promise you good weather.”

They were being cagey; playing cat and mouse. But they could be handled. “Then perhaps we’d better call off our picnic. It is not beyond possibility that I can get a promise of better weather elsewhere.”

That ought to shake them up—sitting there under their cover waiting for the prize to be laid in their hands. If there were other groups trying to hit pay dirt at Walden, there could also be other hands waiting outside to grab.

“You have to be more explicit as to the day.”

“I can’t.” He sensed the anger at the other end of the phone.

“All right. The chances of bad weather are remote. Check with us again when your plans shape up.”

He grinned and left the phone booth and went back to the Craymore. Ten minutes later, he was in his bellman’s uniform, seated in the lobby waiting for his turn to be called to the desk, thinking of the perfect cover the job gave him.

There was a lull in activity that DuBois welcomed. It gave him time to meditate upon the splendor of his plan. He would probably have cheerfully admitted, upon direct accusation, that he was an egomaniac. But what was wrong with that? Anybody who got anywhere in the world had to be. How else could you beat the competition? DuBois prided himself in the fact that he’d worked out this whole brilliant operation all by himself.

Once before, he’d almost made it—gotten into the big time. That was when he’d had a valuable Washington contact and had been approached by some big wheels with the suggestion that he could profit greatly thereby. The deal fell through because he’d lost his contact. Plain bad luck. But he’d gotten close enough to the big money to smell it, and if the chance ever came again—

It had—a dazzling second chance—and this time he’d moved so carefully and cleverly that luck wouldn’t be a factor; so skillfully that he could only look back with a sense of wonder at his own brilliance. The obstacles in his path had seemed insurmountable. At one end, there was Terminal, the cover name for the people with the money—which made the whole thing Operation Terminal to DuBois at least. At the other end, inside Walden, was some jerk hiding under the cover name of Marcus. A voice over a telephone. Marcus would go along, but not with any risk to himself. So DuBois’ plan had to be foolproof. And it was. Helene Jusus would be the carrier. She would transfer the material from Marcus to DuBois without the foggiest notion of what she was doing.

DuBois had worked with consummate skill. None of his pawns in the game knew any more than each was absolutely required to know. Barnhall, an old Svengali from way back, had no idea why DuBois wanted Helene Justus conditioned. He took the money and did the job. Nor had DuBois told Vivian Conover about John J. Malone.

Having Malone rubbed out had been DuBois’ toughest decision. But it had been necessary. Malone was too close to Helene Justus. All he had to do was set eyes on DuBois just once and the whole deal would have collapsed. But having a guy rubbed out in Chicago, where DuBois had many connections, wasn’t difficult or even dangerous. DuBois had made a telephone call and had then gone down the block to watch a man with his hat pulled down pick up the money from the floor of the telephone booth. They would be hauling Malone out of the lake any morning now.

So things were going fine. There would be a dry run the day Helene Justus went to work at Walden, a precaution demanded by Marcus. Then, in a couple of days, the real thing.

DuBois chuckled. The bell rang at the desk and he went smartly forward to take the grips of a fat Iowa farmer and his wife. As he followed them to the elevator, he fantasized a bit, wondering how they’d react if he told them: I’m no ordinary bellhop. This job’s just a cover while I pull off the neatest heist of the week in a top-secret government plant out on Grand Avenue. The bathroom’s thataway. Anything you need, just ask for me. …

Chapter Seven

“It seemed so exciting at first,” Helene said.

The man sitting across from her in the coffee shop at five minutes after nine the next morning would not have stood out in a crowd. But viewed individually, he had good character in his face and appeared to be a person you could have confidence in.

“I imagine it did,” he said, “but how is it now?”

“Miserable. I’m scared. I’m in so deep. I can’t tell my husband. I can’t—”

“I didn’t agree with Fletcher’s method of handling the case,” the man said. “I don’t believe in asking people to work in the dark. Jack’s theory was, the less you knew, the better off you were. He was a good man, but I think he was wrong.”

“Who killed him?”

“His killer is dead. A cheap hoodlum. You wouldn’t know him.”

“That was when I got frightened. I didn’t expect anyone to be killed.”

“Jack got careless. But now, I think it would be a good idea if we briefed each other.”

“I always wondered what led Mr. Fletcher to get in touch with me. How did he know I’d be of value?”

“It’s rather complicated, but I’ll explain it as best I can. There are several people we have been watching for a long time. You see, in this business, even though you have solid evidence against a suspect, you don’t necessarily pick him up. You wait to see where he leads you. We have people on our lists we watch for years. We learn their habit patterns, how they work. Thus, when a case comes up involving anyone in our files, we have an advantage because we are familiar with their

“M.o.’s?”

“Modus operandi. Methods of operation. When this case we’re involved in broke, some old familiar names turned up. One was Joseph Zalek. Our first smell of him was five years ago when he was approached by an international information syndicate. He was having an affair with the wife of a top-level man in the State Department and the syndicate wanted him to use her to their advantage. Nothing came of it because the husband found out about his wife and divorced her.”

Helene said, “I never heard of anyone by that name.”

“Yes, you have, but under one of his aliases. André DuBois.”

“But he’s French!”

“Hardly. He was born here in Chicago—on the West Side. He’s loaded with ability and he has all kinds of talent. His one weakness is that he’s hopelessly conceited. This case began simply when we started a clearance check on Vivian Conover for her job at Walden. When we found that she was going with Zalek—or DuBois—we made that check pretty thorough.”

“I’d imagine she would have been rejected.”

“Normally she would have, but other factors entered into it. Some things that involved Walden. We put a close surveillance on both Vivian Conover and DuBois and found out that he had been urging her to apply for the job. We learned a great deal about their relationship, and that was when we got a line on you. We arranged to read some of the correspondence between you and Miss Conover and found she was recommending that you go to a psychiatrist named Barnhall, whose name was also in our files.”

“Then you know a great deal about my personal life, don’t you?”

“Honestly, Mrs. Justus, we aren’t the least interested.”

“It was just that I felt my husband and I were drifting apart. I thought it was my fault and I confided in Vivian:”

“Please don’t be embarrassed. That is no concern of ours whatsoever. What did concern us was that DuBois and Barnhall had had dealings before. Then we became convinced that DuBois, through Vivian Conover, was somehow fitting you into plans he had concerning Walden. That was when Fletcher contacted you and asked you to keep us informed as to what took place. When Doctor Barnhall suggested that you get a job at Walden the situation became even more interesting and Fletcher urged you to go along with them and keep us informed.”

“And I agreed. But Vivian! She’s my friend. I’m sure she is not disloyal to her country.”

“If she is, it is because of DuBois’ influence. Was anything of importance said when you went to see her at the Craymore?”

“No. It seemed to me that she had changed, though it could have been my imagination. We didn’t even talk about Walden—my job there or hers. I got the feeling she wanted to get rid of me.”

“DuBois might have been in the next room.”

“Why did she tell me her affair with him had broken off when they were still—”

“It’s obvious that DuBois is working completely under cover. What he’s trying to do is get a vital chemical formula out of Walden. It has to do with our research into what you might call anti-germ warfare. Means of combatting germ warfare if an enemy ever uses it against us. The scientists at Walden have made a real breakthrough on the problem, and several foreign interests would pay almost anything to get their hands on our new formula.”

“I should think so,” Helene said.

“We know where DuBois will deliver it if he succeeds—a man who goes under the cover name of Terminal. He’s authorized to make a big cash payment on receipt. We could pick him up in ten minutes.”

“But there is another man on the inside at Walden—a traitor of the most dangerous type. His cover name is Marcus, but that’s all we know about him. He’s the man we’ve got to get. He’s clever and slippery. He’ll do the inside work, but he refuses to make any move that he considers a risk to himself. The plan in its broad sense is to get the formula out of Walden without our security people being able to prove it ever left, thus leaving Marcus entirely in the clear.”

“And you think DuBois has devised such a plan.”

“Yes. He’s a very dangerous man, too. What he’s doing appeals to his vanity as much as his greed. He wants the money, of course, but even more, he wants to prove his ability to carry out the operation.”

Helene said, “There’s one thing I simply don’t understand—why all this is necessary.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“All this intricate planning on DuBois’ part. Why does Marcus need him at all? Marcus is no doubt a scientist. He’s on the inside. He knows the formula and he’s not a prisoner. He must go home nights. What’s to prevent him from writing it down and giving it to someone on the outside himself? All the scientists at Walden are not watched twenty-four hours a day, are they?”

Blane smiled. “They can’t be sure of that. But the main point is that no one scientist in the plant knows the whole formula. It’s split up. No one man could carry the whole thing away in his head.”

“Then the formula must be safe under any conditions.”

“Not necessarily. We security people can go just so far in protecting vital information. If we put a man on every technician in Walden, it would be the equivalent of running a police state. A way might be devised to assemble the formula on the inside, but no one individual could bring it out in his head. That’s about all we’re sure of. We think you’re their tool.”

“But that’s impossible. I couldn’t get into the restricted area if I wanted to. And I wouldn’t know what to look for if I could!”

“There is a plan, though.”

“But I’ve been no help to you. And I’m only hurting myself. There’s something wrong. It’s Barnhall. He’s—he’s doing something to me—something I can’t guard against.”

Blane regarded Helene with sympathy. His concern possibly stemmed from his fear that she could not or would not follow through as a part of his case. But a personal concern also seemed to be present.

“If you could tell me exactly what—”

“But I can’t! I don’t know!”

“I’m sure you’re in no personal danger, Mrs. Justus.”

“That’s not the point. I feel terribly guilty about not telling my husband. I—”

“I think Fletcher handled that wrong—in asking you to carry the whole burden alone. But now it would be better to leave things as they are.”

“But that’s not all of it. I’m afraid of Barnhall. As I told you, there are gaps in my day—or I get that feeling—things I should remember that I don’t.”

“Perhaps it’s just tension?”

“Perhaps. Exactly how was Mr. Fletcher killed? I saw nothing in this morning’s paper.”

“That brings up another point. Have you any idea what he could have wanted from John J. Malone? Malone is a friend of yours, I believe.”

“John J. Malone! What on earth has he got to do with this?”

“I don’t know. Fletcher’s reports do not mention him. I’m just trying to pick up loose ends. Fletcher was shot by a hired gun outside Malone’s hotel. We haven’t questioned Malone. I’m certain he didn’t have anything to do with Fletcher’s death. The Chicago police withheld word on the murder—kept it from the public press at our request.”

Helene threw up her hands in despair. “The thing gets crazier and crazier!”

“Cases of this type can always seem complicated until they straighten themselves out. It’s our job to—”

“Not my job! I’ve had it.”

“You mean you’re going to withdraw, Mrs. Justus?”

Helene came close to screaming out, “Yes!” But she held it back, gripping her lower lip in her teeth. Then, after long moments, she said, “No. I started it and I’ll finish it.” Her sudden laugh was quick and mirthless. “I never thought I’d get into a situation where fending off a determined wolf like Kent Fargo would be the very least of my troubles. But he will ask me to come to his apartment again.”

“For what reason?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“Has he given any indication that he’s involved with DuBois?”

“He knows DuBois. That’s all I can tell you.”

Blane weighed his words. “Don’t go to his apartment if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t want to, but I’ll go. There’s no point in cutting corners at this stage.”

“I’m sure you know how much we appreciate your help.”

“I can only hope something comes of it,” Helene said….

After Blane left, Helene sat staring at her coffee cup. John J. Malone. How did he fit into this nightmare? She wandered for a time in the mental maze, and gradually something began to clarify.

Perhaps clarify wasn’t quite the word. She began seeing things dimly, but unfamiliar things that made no sense; monsters standing off in the mists of her mind, shaping and reshaping like things out of a dream she couldn’t quite recall. Desperately, she struggled to concentrate.

Confetti. It meant something. Yellow ribbon. It meant something else. And there was another word she couldn’t recall, but she knew it was there. Confetti, it seemed, always reminded her of appointments with Dr. Barnhall; of a great urge to see and talk to him. Whenever she heard the word, his soft, reassuring voice always came into her memory; his firm voice directing her and telling her that everything would be all right.

But none of it tied together. It was all like a nightmare where time and distance mean nothing. If she could only define the gaps. And it seemed that defining them—if they’d actually been there—should be so simple. If there were hours in a person’s day that couldn’t be accounted for, the person should at least be able to tell what hours they were.

But Helene couldn’t because she really didn’t want to. She was afraid. That seemed to be a part of it. Each time she came close to grasping it, her mind was pushed away. It was as though her mind were a child that had been ordered to stay away from a fascinating place and did not dare defy the order.

All crazy and mixed up.

But Malone! Where did he fit in?

Malone awoke rested and refreshed, but sleep had not brought peace of mind. Someone wanted him killed, a situation that made for tension and a disturbed outlook. He sat up and reached for the phone, and when the desk answered, he said, “Malone. Send me up a paper and some coffee.”

He left the door unlocked and was in the bathroom when it opened. He came out to find a morning paper on his bed table: that and a container of coffee. The Wells Hotel was no place to expect frills such as coffee in a pot or a cup.

He opened the paper, anxious to know the identity of the man who had stepped out of the alley. There it was—at the bottom of page one:

HOODLUM FOUND DEAD IN GANG KILLING

So the guy had been a known hood. Malone read on, but the more he learned, the more confused he became. When he put the paper down, he was too preoccupied to bother with the coffee.

The body of a well-known but small-time racketeer had been found among the rocks at Jackson Beach. He had been identified as one Herman (Toothy) Spaatz. He had died from two bullet wounds in the back of the head.

Malone pondered this. It was not too surprising—after pondering. With Toothy goofing up the contract, his quick trip across the Styx would follow as the night the day.

But what about the guy in the alley downstairs? The one Toothy had shot instead of Malone himself. The paper featured a body found on Jackson Beach and ignored a man gunned down in the Loop? That made very little sense.

Still thinking, Malone dressed and went down to the lobby. It wasn’t much. The Wells Hotel rented its ground floor out to sick little businesses that hadn’t qualified for Blue Cross, so the lobby was a narrow hallway leading to the elevator with the desk in a niche near the entrance. There was a chair where Harry sat. Harry was older than eternal hope, and when a call for service came, he creaked to the coffee shop down the street or the newsstand on the corner and brought what was wanted. Otherwise, he sat.

He was sitting when Malone arrived. Malone asked, “How goes it, Harry?”

The ancient bellman raised a watery eye. “I brung your coffee.”

“Uh-huh. It was good. How are things?”

“And your paper.”

“Sure.”

“You wuz in the bathroom.”

“Oh, sure.” Malone put a quarter in the withered palm that just happened to be upturned on a knobby old knee.

“How’re things?”

“Okay.”

“No trouble around here last night?”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It seemed to me I heard sirens. But maybe I dreamed it.”

“No sireens. The cops come, though.”

“Yeah? What for?”

“I dunno. False alarm, I guess. Maybe some guys fighting in the alley or something.”

“Nobody hurt? Nobody killed?”

“Uh-uh. I got up when I heard the noise and put my pants on and when I got out there two prowl cars full of bulls was futzing around. But they didn’t find nothing.”

“Hmmm. Well, take it easy.”

“I brung your coffee,” Harry reminded again. But then he seemed to notice the quarter in his hand and decided that Malone must have put it there because it hadn’t been there before, and went back to sleep.

Malone turned right in front of the hotel and went back along the building. He stopped at the mouth of the alley. He found nothing. He hadn’t really expected anything, had only vaguely hoped for a little spot of blood under the street lamp. It wasn’t there, but there was really no reason that it should be. A single bullet in the heart wouldn’t bleed much.

Malone walked on, considering the situation. Only one thing could have happened; at least only one thing he could think of. The guy hadn’t been dead. He’d gotten up and scrammed out of there ahead of the cops.

But damn it—he had been dead! Malone knew death, even when he saw it under a street lamp after midnight. The thud of the slug. The way the guy went down. The way he didn’t move.

He could conceivably have been only badly wounded. But in that case he would have needed help. Had there been others hiding in the alley?

Trying to figure this out with the information he had was a waste of Malone’s time. His brains, at this point, could be put to better use. They could be occupying themselves with the problem of Malone’s survival. There was no reason to believe that Cats Gavin would stop at one unsuccessful try. It behooved Malone to plot some counter-moves—and fast.

He plotted over ham and eggs in a joint on Lake Street. He planned to see von Flanagan in the not too distant future. Maybe he should find von Flanagan right away and blow the whistle on Cats. That would at least steer von Flanagan in the right direction if Malone turned up dead in Lake Michigan.

But another approach held greater appeal. Why not go straight to Cats? It wouldn’t do any harm. Malone finished his breakfast and called a private number on Lake Shore Drive not far from where Jake and Helene lived. A grunt of inquiry signified the phone at the other end had been picked up.

“This is John J. Malone. I want to talk to Gavin.”

“Go - - - - yourself, shyster.”

Unperturbed, Malone said, “Gavin’ll want to know what I’ve got to tell him.”

Another grunt and silence until a new voice came on. “What do you want, Malone?”

“I want to see you. We’ve got something to talk over.”

“Sure. Come on up.”

“Like hell! I’ll meet you at the northwest corner of State and Randolph at high noon.”

There was silence while Cats considered this. “Okay.”

Malone was surprised. The meeting would have been a good opportunity for Cats to line Malone up for somebody’s gun-sights, but not at State and Randolph at high noon. In the old days, Capone, or McGurn, or the O’Donnels might have taken a chance like that—run a sedan alongside after instructing the triggermen to keep the slaughter of innocent bystanders as low as possible. But not in the enlightened mid-Fifties. And certainly not Cats Gavin. He had higher-ups to account to, and they took a dim view of crude work.

“It’s okay, then?” Malone asked.

“Sure, why not?” Cats could apparently not have cared less.

Malone said, “High noon.” Surprised at how things had gone, he found himself off-stage—floundering. “What I want to find out is why Toothy leveled on me last night. I didn’t know I had an enemy in town.”

Cats laughed. “I ain’t one, Malone. That’s for sure.”

“Toothy said different.”

“As a matter of fact, it was all a big mistake. You know that goon. Never got a name straight in his life.”

“Then nobody—?”

“Like I said, a mistake. We’ll talk it over.”

“Sure,” Malone said doubtfully, and hung up.

Cats hung up too, and chuckled. A real break. The shyster had set himself up. Not only that, but he was saving Cats the cost of another torpedo. Malone, not the most expensive mark in town, was still in the three-grand level. It had been in order to cut that price that Cats had gambled on Toothy. A saving of two grand. So far, Cats was out only the five hundred it had cost to get Toothy cooled off after his blunder. And now, the way things shaped up, Malone wasn’t going to cost Cats a red cent. He glanced at his watch and went to the south wall of the room where he had a very good oil painting of a naked broad. He pulled the picture aside, opened the safe behind it, and took a cigar out of a box there. A very special cigar. He put it into his jacket pocket along with those he smoked regularly, and went to keep his appointment with Malone….

Cats arrived first, a little before noon. Malone arrived shortly after, walking lightly, alertly.

Cats pushed out his hand. “Hi, Counselor.”

Malone took the hand warily. This was a trick from the old days; get the victim by his right hand and hold it so he couldn’t go for his gun while a confederate pumped him full.

But not at State and Randolph at high noon. At least Malone didn’t think so.

Cats let go of Malone’s hand after a reasonable time. “You got me all wrong, Counselor. Look—would I send a halfwit like Toothy after anybody? I mean even if I was in the business of sending somebody to see people, which I’m not, would I pick a creep like Toothy?”

“It doesn’t seem logical,” Malone admitted.

“Besides, what could I have against you?”

“I figured you were just handling the deal.”

“Not me, Counselor. I’m legitimate. I been on the level for years. Ask anybody at City Hall. Walk up to anybody and say, ‘Cats Gavin. What about him?’ And they’ll say, ‘Cats? Why, he’s been legit for years.’ That’s what they’ll say.”

“They will?” Malone asked doubtfully.

“Sure. Why, I like you, Malone. Anybody roughing you and you want ’em cooled, come see me. Like I said, I’m legit, but I still got a few connections.”

“Sure,” Malone said. He was confused. None of this made sense. If Cats was after him, he would have at least made an attempt to set this meeting up differently. But if he was not after him, why had he bothered with the meeting at all? It wasn’t Cats Gavin’s way to waste time standing on street corners with guys he wasn’t interested in.

But he certainly seemed sincere. Cats had a lot of sincerity when he wanted to turn it on, and he was turning it on now. He seized Malone’s hand and shoved a cigar into his pocket at the same time.

“Have one of my Perfectos, Malone. They’re made special for me in Miami.”

He put an apparent duplicate between his teeth and lit it, holding the light for Malone, who took the first cigar out of his pocket, bit off the tip, and let Cats apply the flame.

They puffed like a pair of old friends and then Cats said, “Gotta rush, Counselor. Gotta date.” He grinned and moved off toward Wabash Avenue, walking fast. Malone stood watching him. When Cats disappeared into the crowd, Malone turned and walked slowly toward his office. Maybe he had been wrong about Cats….

Malone missed the sound of the explosion because when it came, he was on the elevator in his building. He got the news half an hour later on his office radio.

The newscaster said: “Word has just been received that Frank (Cats) Gavin, reputed Syndicate overlord, has just been slain on Wabash Avenue under mysterious circumstances. Details are scanty at this time, but the rumor that a bomb was thrown seems in error because no bystanders on the crowded street were injured. Nor do shots appear to have been fired. However, Gavin’s head was mysteriously blown off. As one shaken spectator put it, ‘It was weird. The guy had a head and then he didn’t.’ Additional details will be broadcast as they are received …”

Malone pondered the situation and came to only one clear conclusion. His luck was in. He’d been marked for death and so far two men had been killed as a result, John J. Malone being neither one nor the other. This bungling did not in any way add to Chicago’s reputation for getting such things done with promptness and efficiency, but Malone was happy with the goof-up.

He knew exactly what had happened. Cats, in his effort to eliminate middlemen and save money, had gotten cute. He must have been reading detective stories or watching TV to come up with that cigar gimmick. Malone shuddered. It could so easily have worked, and he would not have relished being turned into the headless counselor. His fate had hung on so precarious a mistake as Cats handing him the wrong cigar! But now he shrugged, realizing that, historically speaking, the fate of empires had often hung on blunders no less ridiculous.

Unfortunately, his chances of finding out who had placed the contract were now infinitely more difficult with two connecting links removed. He would just have to walk softly and keep his eyes open. He took out one of his own cigars and peeled it as he considered his next move. After two long, thoughtful puffs he decided it should be a talk with a certain knob-headed public servant named von Flanagan….

Chapter Eight

She was a dish. This had been Kent Fargo’s unqualified opinion from the start, from the first moment DuBois had pointed her out across the dance floor of the Casino and said, “The tall blonde—the one with the legs.”

“A dish.”

But Fargo was cautious. He hadn’t jumped at the proposition. He’d studied Helene Justus and done a little pleasant fantasizing. But he said, “She’s married.”

“To the tall, red-headed guy … who happens to own the joint.”

“He looks tough.”

“So?”

“I don’t like husbands. In particular, I don’t like tall, red-headed, tough-looking husbands.”

“You’ll have no contact with him.”

“What if he finds out and arranges a contact?”

“He won’t. Nobody will find out.”

Fargo was slim, handsome, and attractive to women. He had matriculated in the stalking of the female and he was good at it. He had studied women as other men study mathematics, theoretical physics, and racing forms.

“Exactly what is it I’m supposed to do?”

“Hire her.”

“Okay—call her over. I’ll tell her to report for work.”

“That won’t be necessary. She’ll apply at Walden. You just have to see to it that her application is expedited.”

DuBois didn’t bother to tell Fargo how this had been arranged; that the suggestion had been made by one Dr. Barnhall, the urge to be useful skillfully planted. He didn’t tell Fargo for two reasons. First, it was none of the bastard’s business. And second, DuBois didn’t like Fargo. He had only contempt for the man. He wondered how a superficial jerk like Fargo, with only one thing on his mind, had gotten a responsible job at a vital government plant like Walden. But of course Fargo did have an impressive front, and he was not a complete fool. He could play the part of a dedicated executive if necessary, and there were no black marks against him.

“Okay,” Fargo said. “Consider her expedited. What do I do after she’s on the payroll?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean—nothing?”

“Just that. Everything else will be taken care of.”

Fargo scowled. “I don’t know. I’m not sure.” The broad was a dish, but he didn’t like the secrecy. It wasn’t as though he was suffering from a poverty of women. He wasn’t. Given his head, he could walk out with any of ten chicks lapping it up in this gin mill right now. It would be simple.

But maybe that was the lure. Maybe he was tired of simple conquests. It might be fun to seduce the beautiful, blonde, loving wife of a dangerous redheaded husband. Besides, there was the money.

“I can’t figure out,” he said, “why you’re paying to get this chick into Walden.” He didn’t add that she could probably have gotten the job by simply applying for it.

But DuBois sensed this trend of his thoughts. “We just don’t want any slip-ups and we’re willing to pay you to see that there aren’t any.”

“Who is we?”

“That doesn’t concern you.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“All right,” DuBois snapped. “Do you want to get involved?”

Fargo considered that. “No.”

As it was, he had nothing to worry about. Helene Justus was an entirely legitimate prospect as a Walden employee. He would have to do little or nothing to earn the money DuBois wanted to pay him—in cash, in unmarked bills that could not possibly be traced.

In fact, Fargo suspected that DuBois was way off base. He probably had the wrong idea of how things worked at Walden. To get the job in question, Helene Justus would not need other than semi-security clearance. The pattern of Walden was that of inside security. The top-secret area was like a fortress inside the plant. Anybody could walk into the plant itself. Even an unidentified visitor could circulate at will through seventy-five percent of the place. But no one could get into the remaining twenty-five percent without identification and clearance straight from Washington. Even Fargo did not have this top clearance because there was no need of it. He handled no top-secret material.

Maybe that was where DuBois had made his mistake, and if so, Fargo was happy to let him go on making it. As things were, there was no possible way a security break could be traced back to Fargo. So why not take the money—and a crack at that luscious blonde chick? Whatever DuBois was planning, he’d never get away with it.

“Okay,” Fargo said. “Where’s the dough?”

“Outside,” DuBois said. He’d been restless during the whole visit to the Casino. He wouldn’t have come here if this jerk hadn’t insisted on looking Helene Justus over, and even there at the remote side table, DuBois might be seen by the wrong people.

So Fargo had taken the money and been pleasantly surprised at how little he’d had to do to earn it. In fact, he’d ended up owing DuBois a debt of gratitude. If he hadn’t been alerted to Helene Justus, some other department head might have scooped her up. As it worked out, Fargo had been there waiting. He’d turned on the charm and the blonde chick had responded, even to the point of visiting Fargo’s apartment for a pre-job briefing.

Fargo had not been completely satisfied with that visit. Helene Justus had arrived on time and had given every indication of being a pushover. But then, at the last minute, she’d rebelled. Fargo had backed off or it would have been pure rape, but still, there hadn’t been enough resistance to discourage him. He’d begged forgiveness and gotten it. Obviously she had wanted only a little time and Fargo was willing to give it to her. Charm and sympathy were the keys. It wasn’t difficult to see that the red-headed husband had neglected his home work.

So now Fargo had the charm turned on full blast as he began showing Helene her new duties….

And Helene appreciated Fargo’s obvious interest. She’d come to Walden that first day with a sense of dread and she was glad of someone who took a personal interest in her, even an interest as personal as that of Kent Fargo.

Under other circumstances, it would have been a pleasant experience. The Walden Chemical Laboratory was housed in a modern, one-story building covering perhaps five acres and surrounded with trees and neatly clipped lawns and flower beds. The interior was clean and the equipment of the very best. The time clerk at the employees’ entrance checked her identity card and explained, “You’ll always have to come in and leave this way in order to punch your time card, Mrs. Justus.”

“But if I forget and use the front door—?”

“You won’t get paid,” he smiled, “so I don’t think you’ll have any trouble remembering.”

Helene went through the accounting department, past the filing department, to the secretarial pool. She was met there by Kent Fargo.

“This is where we hang our hats,” he said. “Welcome aboard. That’s my office over there. This is yours.”

The pool consisted of a long corridor with cubbyholes along its entire length. Each cubbyhole housed a stenographer. There was a clatter of typewriters because the walls were only five feet high, with the top two feet made of frosted glass.

“I think you’ll be comfortable here,” Fargo said. There was a small modernistic desk, a file cabinet, a wastebasket, and a tape recorder on a small table of its own.

“It’s very nice.”

“We try to make everybody happy.” He had an attractive laugh. “You’d be surprised how hard I had to fight to get those mirrors for the girls.” He pointed to a mirror on one of the otherwise bare walls. “First there were the cost men. They complained about fitting twenty-two mirrors into the budget. Then the efficiency men had their say. The girls would spend all their time primping. But I was resolute and I won.”

“The girls must love you for it.”

He shrugged. “The only thing I’m afraid of is that the job may be monotonous for you. There is a fixed routine involved. Messengers will bring you tapes four times a day. They go into that box. You type directly from the tapes and put the letters in the box on the other side, where they are picked up and returned to wherever they came from for signature. The used tapes go into that other box for pickup.” He opened the desk drawer and took out a blue-covered manual. “This will show you the standard forms in which the letters are to be typed. All those silly numbers are included in the dictation.”

“I’ll probably make a million mistakes.”

“I doubt it. I’ll keep an eye on you in the beginning. And the letters are checked routinely after they’re picked up. If you make any mistakes, they’re returned with notations for rewrite.” Fargo bestowed a brilliant smile. “Simple?”

“I think I’ll enjoy it.”

“I hope so. I want you to stay a long, long time. If you get bored or have any questions, don’t hesitate to come into my office.”

“Thank you.”

“You can come and go as you please during the trial period, but I do hope you decide to work full time.”

“I’m sure I shall.”

A buzzer rang in Fargo’s office. He said, “I’m being paged. Just sit down and relax. You can study the manual until the messenger comes….”

The messenger arrived ten minutes later. He was a little old man of indeterminate age with a bright smile and a pair of the bluest eyes Helene had ever seen. He pushed a cart along the corridor. It was loaded with brown envelopes, one of which he put into Helene’s box.

“I wondered who this one was for. You’re new.”

“I just started today.”

“Think you’ll like it?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Won’t take long to find out. This is a pretty good outfit to work for. Two coffee breaks—morning and afternoon—and Fargo isn’t too tough on the girls. Watch out for Biddy Penrose, though. She’s tough, and every once in a while she picks a girl to light on.”

“Who is Biddy Penrose?”

“She’s the expediter for stenography. She spreads out the work. Another thing she can do is get down on a girl and bypass her. Either that or load her with so much work she falls behind.”

“I thought this was Mr. Fargo’s department.”

“It is, but Biddy Penrose throws some power around. You’ll probably get called to her office for a once-over. Gotta go now or she’ll be on my tail. By the way, my name’s Pop Warner—like the football coach, but I never been near a college in my life.”

Helene laughed. The old man was the nicest person she’d met so far. “I’m Helene Justus.”

“Okay, Helene. Take it easy.”

There was a squeak in one of his cart wheels. Helene listened to it until it faded in the distance and then opened the brown envelope. It contained three tapes.

With the form manual on the desk beside her, she fitted the tape into the machine and then brought the typewriter out of its compartment. It came easily into place on well-oiled springs. She put on the earphones and started the recorder. A tinny male voice used three long paragraphs to complain to somebody in Washington about office forms. They’d been late in coming through, and when they had come there wasn’t nearly enough room to get the requisition numbers in without crowding. What kind of business was that?

Helene put a letterhead and two carbons into the typewriter and was pleasantly surprised at how well it went. The only disagreeable part was that the man who’d dictated the letter had a cold and kept sniffling into her ear.

The next letter was from a breezy-voiced executive who wanted Dear Jimmy, in Washington, to, for God’s sake, get somebody cutting on Directive 702-Y-859-b. Otherwise everything was going to pile up at White Sands, New Mexico and there’d be the devil to pay. On her own authority, Helene cut out the for God’s sake, but left in the devil to pay, although it didn’t seem to her good business letter rhetoric.

She finished that one and was getting ready for the third when a tall, handsome woman appeared in her doorway and regarded her with what appeared to be disapproval.

“I’m Mercedes Penrose,” the woman said. “Will you come with me into my office, please?”

Chapter Nine

“I’ll have a gin and beer,” von Flanagan said, “being as I’m not on duty.”

Malone watched von Flanagan ease his bulk onto a stool. “A policeman is always on duty,” he said.

“I’ll have a gin and beer anyhow,” von Flanagan replied, and watched Joe the Angel reach for the bottle.

“Hear you went to a wedding,” Malone said.

“Uh-huh. Got back yesterday morning.”

“What happened to your Siamese twins?”

“I was gone for a week, so they filled in for Captain Spence out on South State Street.”

“I know,” Malone said.

Von Flanagan contributed a disapproving look. “If you knew, why’d you ask me?”

“I thought they might be pounding beats in Calumet after the trick they pulled on one of my clients.”

The fact that it had been one of Malone’s clients didn’t surprise von Flanagan. Malone had clients everywhere. He shrugged. “Just a little oversight. What did you want to see me about?”

Malone remained evasive. “Who do you think knocked off Toothy Spaatz?”

Von Flanagan shrugged again, gulped his gin, and reached for the beer chaser. “You tell me!”

“Not my job.” Malone watched von Flanagan lift his beer glass. When it was two inches from the big policeman’s mouth, he said, “And that joker that was cooled in the alley by my hotel—what happened to him?”

The beer glass froze, but only for a second—just long enough for Malone to be sure that it had frozen.

“What joker?”

“Damned if I know. You’re Homicide. People getting gunned down on the street are your department.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” von Flanagan said, “so maybe you better tell me.” When Malone didn’t answer, he said, “What did you hear?”

“Just rumors.”

“Then they were false rumors. Nobody was killed in the alley by your hotel.”

Malone grinned inwardly. He was not so much interested in what von Flanagan said as how he said it. The big Homicide dick was uncomfortable. He was far from sure of himself. Malone had known him too long not to be aware of the reactions. When von Flanagan set a glass down very carefully and forgot to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand, he was unsure of himself.

Malone said, “You got a few minutes? I want to show you something in my office.”

“No time,” von Flanagan grunted.

“It won’t take ten minutes.”

“Is it important?”

“It might be.”

Von Flanagan’s tone indicated reluctance. “Okay, but let’s make it fast.”

Maggie O’Leary was reading a paperback novel when they entered, and she made no effort to hide it.

“What’s cooking?” Malone asked cheerfully.

“Nothing important,” Maggie replied.

“Good,” Malone said, “that means crime is not rampant today. Look, pet, will you duck down the hall and borrow Clint Kaine’s tape recorder for a few minutes?”

“No,” Maggie said coldly.

Malone’s eyebrows lifted. “You mean—?”

“Yes. I saw them go in.”

“Okay. I’ll take care of it.”

Malone knocked on Kaine’s door. There was a delay of a minute or two before Kaine opened it a crack and peeked out. When he saw Malone, he opened it wider and went on fumbling with his fly.

“Want to use your tape recorder for a while, Clint.”

“Okay—okay. But why the hell don’t you buy one of your own?”

“I’ve got one ordered,” Malone lied casually. The little brunette was looking out the window with her back to him. Her zipper was in the rear, down the middle. It was properly zipped.

Back in the office, Malone told Maggie, “We’ll be busy a while. Send everybody away,” and closed the door.

“What the hell is this?” von Flanagan growled.

“Patience … patience.” Malone inserted the tape, snapped the switch, and sat back to peel a cigar. Von Flanagan began to talk—but not in person. His voice came off the tape while the real von Flanagan sat gaping at the recorder. He came out of his daze when a quarter of the tape had been played. He lunged across the room and stopped the recorder. He jerked the tape off and stood like a bull at bay.

“Where’d you get this?”

“I have confidential sources of information. Privileged.”

“Well, there isn’t a damned thing on it that’s incriminating.”

“Of course not,” Malone soothed.

“Besides, I’ve got it now. And if you think you’re going to get it back, Malone, you’re crazy.”

“Be my guest. It’s a gift.”

“Then you made copies!”

“Do you think I’d stoop to anything as low as that?”

“I know damn well you would!”

“But like you said, there’s nothing incriminating on it.” Malone took a long, thoughtful drag on his cigar. “I’ll say one thing, though. You’ve led a damned interesting sex life. And I didn’t know ’til now that a voice could come through so clearly on a tape. You’ve got a fine voice, von Flanagan. Anybody who ever heard you speak ten words could identify it right away.”

“You wouldn’t, Malone! Even you couldn’t be that much of a rat!”

They were silent for a time, both of them listening in their imaginations to the howls of delight that would erupt at the station if the tape were ever played for the boys in the ready room.

“You wouldn’t,” von Flanagan moaned weakly.

“Of course not, von Flanagan,” Malone soothed. “But I keep thinking of how lucky you were that Kluchesky and Scanlon goofed. A blessing in disguise. If they’d taken a search warrant with them, that tape would be locked up as evidence on South State Street. And at my client’s trial, I’d probably have had to play it in court.”

The thought made von Flanagan shudder anew. “Molly’d leave me,” he muttered. “My kids would look on their father as a—”

“As an old lecher,” Malone cut in.

“What do you want from me?” von Flanagan bellowed.

“Nothing. I just think two old friends should level with each other.”

“How many prints of this have you got?”

“Only one,” Malone said innocently.

“And you’ll give it back to me after … ?”

“After we level.”

Von Flanagan’s shoulders sagged. “Okay … what do you want to know?”

“Well, out of concern for you as an old friend, I’d like to know what the hell you were doing in a head-shrinker’s office. Are you mentally disturbed or something?”

“It was in the line of duty,” von Flanagan said sullenly.

“Brief me.”

“We’ve been watching this guy Barnhall. It began as a query from New York. One of his patients died there. They couldn’t hold him, but when he set up shop here, they asked us to keep an eye on him, so I went in to have a look-see. He’s … well, a pretty persuasive guy. I went in as a prospective patient and he gave me the idea he knew his business.”

“Did you use your own name?”

“Hell no. I’m Joe Jackson from Elmhurst. Anyhow, I wasn’t getting any line on him so I thought a few sessions wouldn’t hurt. That’s the whole pitch.”

“You amaze me, von Flanagan.”

“What are you, a critic or something? How about leveling with me now? Exactly how did you get that tape from—”

“From South State Street. A woman named Massey came asking me to help her son. He was the punk your two little helpers flagged down without a warrant. I went to see Captain Spence and got the loot back. The tape was a part of it.”

“The punk heisted Barnhall’s office?”

“He denies it. He claims to have heisted an office next door.”

“Then the tape was made from the outside—through the wall!” This definitely alarmed von Flanagan, and Malone could see why. “I don’t think anyone was after you. There’s a hell of a lot more to it.”

“Why are you so damn interested?”

“Helene Justus is one of Barnhall’s patients.”

“Well for Christ’s sake!”

Malone had no intention of throwing information around with too open a hand. He said, “Now about that guy who was killed in the alley last night.”

“We got orders from upstairs on that one. Hush it up. He was a government agent.”

Malone’s eyes widened. He whistled softly. “Things are beginning to make less and less sense. Who killed him?”

“Damned if I know. We’re investigating, but we’re walking soft.”

“No reason for you to beat your brains out. Toothy Spaatz gunned the guy. By mistake. He was after me.”

“You mean you were on the scene?”

“Toothy tailed me from the Casino. The guy stepped out of the alley just as Toothy let loose.”

“Toothy’s dead.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Knocked off because he goofed?”

“Cats Gavin had him scrubbed.”

“Cats is dead, too.”

“Sure. He blew his own head off with a trick cigar meant for me.”

Von Flanagan stared at Malone as though he were some new kind of freak. “Are there any killings in town you aren’t involved in?”

“They all tie together,” Malone said.

“Who’s after you? Did you cross Cats?”

“Not me. I’m no fool. Somebody gave him a contract. He passed it on to Toothy.”

“A guy trying to gun his own lawyer,” von Flanagan muttered. “Now I’ve heard everything.”

“I want to hear a hell of a lot more. I want to know who’s after me. And why.”

“You think Barnhall is tied in?”

“He’s tied in with something.”

“Who do you suppose is bugging his joint?”

“I’d like to know.”

Malone had a clue. Nothing very definite. Only a watch with some initials on it. Nothing to take into court as Exhibit A.

“The room next door,” von Flanagan said. “Maybe we ought to take it over and keep an eye on that headshrinker.”

Malone frowned. “I think maybe Barnhall knows about it.”

“You mean he’s letting them bug him?”

“I haven’t got all the answers, but there’s a peephole in the wall. I can’t figure Barnhall not knowing about it.”

“Sounds crazy.”

“We’ve got to go through his office—see what we can find among his records.”

“That’s illegal,” von Flanagan murmured.

“There might be some more of your couch sessions in there on tape.”

“We better do it tonight.”

Malone opened a drawer of his desk. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I need a drink.”

“As long as I’m off duty,” von Flanagan said, “I’ll indulge also….”

Chapter Ten

“I understand your husband owns a nightclub, Mrs. Justus.”

“That’s correct.”

“Also, that you are a very wealthy woman.”

“I suppose I could be regarded as such.”

“Then tell me—why are you working at an ordinary job for a nominal salary?”

Mercedes Penrose made it sound as though Helene were doing something indecent. She’d led Helene into her large, comfortably furnished office and seated herself behind her desk without asking Helene to sit down also. Helene, possibly falling back on the power her wealth gave her, chose one of the two remaining chairs and sat down without being invited. Mercedes Penrose did not object. There was rattling behind her and the door of a chute opened. Three tapes fell into a basket together with a white envelope.

Without waiting for Helene’s answer, Mercedes Penrose reached for the envelope and opened it. She pressed a buzzer. A girl appeared.

“Jane, please bring me a small bottle of aspirin from the first-aid room.”

The girl left and the stern-faced, handsome woman turned her eyes on Helene, signifying that she was now ready for the answer to her question.

To Helene, it sounded like the beginning of a clearance inquiry. She was surprised. She thought that she had already been accepted. She said, “I’m not interested in the salary, naturally. I think the best way I can answer you is to say that I wanted to be useful. I’d heard some of the positions here are difficult to fill because of the low pay. Therefore, I thought I could be more useful here than anyplace else.”

“Who gave you the impression that we are on a poverty basis here at Walden?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“We’ve had several junior-league types at Walden. They too probably wished to serve, but it didn’t work out very well. I have found from experience, Mrs. Justus, that women who do not have to depend on their salaries make very poor employees.”

“Why?”

The blunt question threw the woman slightly off-balance. Her stern regard turned into a slight frown.

“What do you mean—why?”

“I can’t understand why any woman interested enough to come to Walden and apply for a job shouldn’t be a good employee.”

“I think perhaps it is the monotony of the work. They are not conditioned to the captivity of nine-to-five. They take jobs as a lark and quickly become bored. Their work soon becomes sloppy.”

Helene had seen no ring on the woman’s finger. She said, “Miss Penrose, may I ask you a question?”

“Certainly.”

“Are you in a position to have me discharged?”

“Of course she isn’t.”

It was a new voice. An inner door had opened and a tall, lanky man stepped out. Mercedes Penrose turned angrily.

“Professor Wadsworth! You know Security! That door must be kept locked except in an emergency.”

“This is an emergency, Biddy. Where are my aspirin?”

“I sent a page. She must be loitering.”

“What are you doing? Hazing another of these poor children?”

“It is not in your province to question my activities.”

“Oh, come off it, Biddy! You’re indispensable and we love you dearly, but stop taking yourself so seriously!”

Miss Penrose was struggling for self-control. Wadsworth’s attitude—amused condescension—was obviously infuriating to her.

Wadsworth ignored her wrath, acted as though it did not exist. He had a lean, cadaverous horse-face and it twisted into a satyr-like smile as he turned his eyes on Helene. “You’re new here, aren’t you, child?”

Helene, who considered herself a mature young woman, suddenly felt like a teenager. “I started this morning.”

“I have a daughter about your age, dear. In fact, you look a little like her.” His eyes turned pleasantly vague. “She’s getting married next week—to a bruiser with an athletic scholarship at some school or other. I shall probably have to spend my latter years supporting them.”

A new face appeared in the inner doorway: a keenly alert young face, one that was a contradiction in that while it was round and pink and pudgy, it gave a first impression of sharpness. Helene decided it was his eyes. In his otherwise placid face, they seemed to maintain a high level of excitement,

“Miranda’s given us some answers,” he said.

“Miranda,” Wadsworth explained, “is our computer.”

“I was hoping we could get to the evaluation,” the young man said, “I’d planned to take the afternoon off.”

But Wadsworth seemed in no hurry. “Mercedes,” he said, “you might unbend and introduce the new member of our little family.”

“This is Mrs. Helene Justus,” Miss Penrose replied pointedly.

Wadsworth sighed. “All the beautiful ones are married. Mrs. Justus, this is Felix Bassett.”

Bassett extended his hand. “Just call me the Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” he said.

Wadsworth added, “He’s my assistant. He considers it a compliment, referring to me as a sorcerer, but I’m not so sure.”

“Your reputation certainly justifies it,” Helene said.

“Without Miranda and the others of her breed to chew up data and spit out information, I’d have a hard time justifying that reputation,” Wadsworth said. “The computer makes the human brain look feeble by comparison.”

“But the human brain created the computer.”

Turning to Bassett, Wadsworth said, “For heaven’s sake, son. Stop writhing like a small boy who has to go to the toilet!”

Mercedes Penrose was outraged. “Professor Wadsworth! Please stay within the boundaries of decency!”

“Fiddlesticks,” Wadsworth answered. “All right, Felix. Let’s go see what Miranda has decided.”

The door closed. Helene and Miss Penrose were alone. “Do not delude yourself,” the latter said, “that Professor Wadsworth has offered you a friendship you can presume upon. The next time you see him, he will probably pass by without even recognizing you.”

Helene could take no more of this. “What reason have you to believe I would presume on a friendship?”

“That will be all.”

“Why would I need to?”

“I said—that will be all.”

Helene left with no further comment and returned to her cubbyhole. I’ll probably be bypassed, she thought. I don’t know why that woman hates me, but she does. Now she’ll probably let me sit here twiddling my thumbs, hoping I’ll walk out.

Helene had planned to leave at noon, but she changed that plan. It was all right for Blane to tell her not to let Penrose get you down, but there was a limit. Then Kent Fargo was standing in her doorway giving her his easy, charming smile.

“I hear Biddy Penrose handed you a hard time.”

“I was called to her office—yes.”

“Don’t mind her. She’s got an efficiency compulsion. Nothing personal in her attitude. She treats everybody that way. Don’t waste time being mad at her.”

“I’ll try not to.”

He leaned against the door and the smile faded as he turned serious. “I think maybe, though, before long, you’ll be completely out of Biddy’s reach.”

“Is that so?”

“I’ve got an idea. I’m entitled to a personal secretary, but I’ve never gotten around to selecting one—too busy getting this place running right.”

That had not been the reason at all. Fargo liked to play the field. In order to do this with the greatest freedom, he’d remained unfettered, feeling that an “office wife” might cramp his style. But he’d decided Helene might justify his giving up this freedom.

“Would you like to be my personal secretary?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“I think we ought to talk it over. How about my apartment tonight?” His smile implied that they already shared intimate secrets. “Strictly business, of course.”

“I’ll try to make it.”

“Fine. Why don’t you take your coffee break now?”

The girls were filing out, and Helene followed, looking forward to a dull afternoon with Miss Penrose bypassing her because of the humiliation she’d suffered during their interview. Helene had planned to leave early, but now she determied to stick it out for the rest of the day.

A small, pleasant, round-faced girl tried to welcome Helene to the group, but Helene was in no mood, and after five minutes she returned to her cubbyhole. She found that she had not been bypassed. There was a brown envelope in her box. It was smaller than the one she’d received earlier and contained a single tape.

Helene put the earphones on and prepared to do the letter. She started the tape recorder. The voice was somewhat muffled, but it came through clearly enough:

“Confetti—confetti. There is a bag of confetti and a yellow ribbon—yellow ribbon—in the lower right-hand drawer of your desk. Take the confetti and put the yellow ribbon in your hair and keep your appointment. Also, put this tape and the envelope it came in into your bag and take it with you. Go now …”

A slight glaze appeared in Helene’s eyes as she obeyed the orders meticulously. She left her cubbyhole and moved down the corridor. But she turned toward the front door, not the time-clock entrance, and as she moved through the reception room, Professor Wadsworth was just entering through a side door.

“Calling it a day already, Mrs. Justus?”

Helene ignored him even as she passed some three feet in front of him.

“I say—Mrs. Justus—”

Helene kept on walking. She did not turn her head. Wadsworth stood there, staring after her. Then he glanced at the receptionist, shrugged, and went on his way.

In the parking lot, Felix Basset had the same surprising experience with the new typist. He was walking toward his own car from a doorway that gave directly out of the restricted portion of the building after having had his briefcase checked by a guard.

“Playing hooky the first day, Mrs. Justus?”

He stared as Helene walked past him. The slight frown remained on his face as he followed along and continued to speak to her. Helene ignored him. He stopped, finally, and watched her maneuver her car out of its slot. Then, apparently still intrigued, he quickly got his own compact car moving and tooled out into Grand Avenue behind her. Still frowning thoughtfully, he turned in the direction she had taken, toward the Loop, and tagged along behind.

But only for a few blocks. As he pressed the accelerator at an intersection, as the light changed to green, nothing happened. The car shuddered and sat there.

Swearing under his breath, Felix Basset turned his mind toward his own problem—a broken-down car….

Chapter Eleven

Von Flanagan squinted wisely at the fast-lowering gin bottle on his host’s desk and said, “Malone, people don’t put out contracts on other people for no reason.”

Von Flanagan never got drunk as the term is generally defined. On the contrary, alcohol sharpened his faculties and cleared away any confusion that might have existed prior to his tippling. It also generated in him an agility of mind that allowed him to leap nimbly from subject to subject—sometime faster than more ordinary, less alert minds could follow.

Malone said, “I know damn well people don’t—”

“She’s a very pretty dish.”

“What the hell—?”

“Helene Justus going to Barnhall doesn’t mean anything. He’s a what-do-you-call-it.”

“A headshrinker.”

“A vogue,” von Flanagan said triumphantly. “He’s in. Everybody and their uncle’s crowding to get on his couch.”

“That may be,” Malone growled, “but I still think everything’s tied together. Helene’s—wait a minute!” Malone gaped at the far wall. Von Flanagan looked and saw nothing. He looked back at Malone.

Von Flanagan said, “A guy drinks too much, he sees things other guys don’t see. That’s bad.”

“I just remembered something I forgot to remember before. I’m sitting here and it just came to me.”

“Like you forgot to pay the rent?”

“Helene Justus told me something—just passed it off casually—at the Casino last night.”

“Yeah. You mean about going to work?”

“Something else—about a friend from New York. A chemist in town to work at the same place. Her name is Vivian Conover.”

“Okay, where does that get us?” Von Flanagan showed his lack of interest by scowling at the fading daylight through the window and muttering, “Where are those two clowns? I put in the call an hour ago.”

“The name didn’t mean anything.” Malone said. “But I remember something else—or at least I think I do.” He left his chair and went to his knees in front of the open safe beside his desk. He dug inside and came up with a lady’s watch. Von Flanagan blinked at the flash of diamonds on the case. Malone laid the watch on the desk and peered at it. “Come here,” he said.

Von Flanagan lumbered over and peered also.

“What do you see?”

“Initials, but you can hardly read them.”

Malone tilted the watch so that it caught the light from the window, and von Flanagan read: A D to V C. So what?”

“V C. Vivian Conover.”

“Maybe—maybe not.”

Malone was disgusted. “How did you ever get to be a cop? You’ve got to have faith in something!”

“Me? I got no faith in nothing nohow no more.”

“You’re just going through male menopause,” Malone said indifferently.

Von Flanagan was looking down toward the open safe. “What’s that?”

Malone looked also. “Another tape.”

“The copy you made?” von Flanagan asked eagerly.

“Uh-uh. There were two tapes in the loot. That one’s not important.”

“I’d like to hear it all the same.”

“Okay. Put it on the machine.”

As von Flanagan complied, Malone, his mind elsewhere, got up and went to the window and looked out at the squalid, smoke-blackened view as though it helped him to concentrate. “You answer one question and you get six new ones,” he complained. “Why would Vivian Conover spy on a headshrinker named Barnhall—where her friend Helene Justus is having couch sessions? Is she Helene’s friend, or isn’t she?”

“Malone—this is crazy. What do you think it means?”

“It’s nothing,” Malone said absently, without turning. “Just some dame that’s tired of having fun in bed with her husband.”

“But there’s more.”

Malone turned while von Flanagan ran the tape back. “The dame spouts about her love life. Then there’s a gap and this crap comes on.”

Malone waited through some silent spinnings of the tape. Then a new, male voice said: “The code is confetti—the control is yellow ribbon. Conditioned during several sessions, the patient proved to be an ideal subject, as I told you she would.”

Another male voice: “Can we depend on it?”

“Of course.”

A female voice: “I think it’s insane!”

The second male voice: “Shut up.”

The first male voice: “This technique was developed to its high degree of efficiency by the Russians during their experiments in brain-washing …”

Von Flanagan grunted. “Sounds like a pompous son-of-a-bitch.”

“He’s the same guy you spilled your guts to,” Malone reminded.

“He sounded different then,” von Flanagan growled.

“… Using this method, the subject can be put under control for various periods of time—sometimes for several hours. The releasing code word in this case is petticoat.”

A female voice: “How odd.”

“It is important to find a word not commonly used. But now that I have prepared your subject for you, isn’t it about time I was given a little more information?”

The second male voice: “You’re being paid.”

“But with all the care and effort going into this project, it’s possible I’m not being paid enough.”

There was a pause before the second man spoke again. Then he said, “You’ve come a long way since your old con-artist days on South State Street. You’re fat and prosperous. Why not leave it that way?”

The menace in the voice carried through the tape recorder and out into the quiet office. Malone and von Flanagan glanced at each other. They waited. But the tape ended there.

Von Flanagan said, “We’d better not bother to prowl his office. We better just walk in and have a little talk with that bastard.”

Malone seemed to be in a vacuum. This was merely an illusion, however. A motionless body did not necessarily go with a motionless mind. He was planning strategy, and he believed the correct procedure was to always do the right thing for the right reason. He had not always succeeded in this. There had been times when he’d done the wrong thing for the right reason, and the right thing for the wrong reason, and had caused himself and others a lot of trouble.

His thinking was interrupted at this moment by the arrival of Scanlon and Kluchesky. Von Flanagan regarded them with a scowl. “Where you been? I phoned over an hour ago.”

They both seemed hurt at such a brusque greeting from a boss they hadn’t seen for a week. “We were on duty,” Scanlon said. “We hadda wait ’til Captain Spence got back from lunch,” Kluchesky added. “I think he eats in Milwaukee,” Scanlon finished.

“Well, let’s get going,” Von Flanagan said.

Malone was heading for the door. “You boys stay here,” he ordered. “I’ve got to go somewhere.”

“What do you mean?”

“A little thing I have to attend to. There’s another bottle of gin in the drawer. Give the boys a drink. The party’s on me.”

He left.

Malone had reached a point where he had to start swinging from the shoulder and smash something or somebody. He was tired of wandering around in the half-dark of partial knowledge. He had to find out what was going on, and the way to do this was to talk to people who knew.

The Craymore Hotel. He hadn’t been in the dump for a long time. Not since he’d had a client who had cut his hand in their dishwasher and Malone had had to get an interpreter to tell him the story. The hotel manager had told the little Puerto Rican he was fired for damaging the dishwasher, but he’d settled with Malone for five hundred dollars. As he entered the lobby, Malone remembered vaguely that he hadn’t gotten any of that five hundred, stupid jerk that he was.

Then he forgot that case as something else caught his interest. He’d checked for Vivian Conover’s phone number and was just stepping into the elevator when it hit him; something or someone he’d seen—or had not seen—he wasn’t sure which. He paused to do a double-take and then stepped out of the elevator backwards onto the foot of an aristocratic-looking woman. But she was no aristocrat. She snarled. “Watch your damn feet, shamus!”

Malone had been taken for a detective before. Some said he had the look. So he wasn’t surprised into saying anything more than, “Sorry, sister,” as he got out of the way.

He didn’t barge right back into the lobby. He moved casually along the wall and looked out from behind a potted palm at the bellhop’s bench. There was a joker sitting on it, a slim, dark hop who had stirred something in Malone’s memory. As Malone stared, the stirring continued, and suddenly the pudding was done.

The little bastard! There he was. Bold and brazen. Right out in public.

Malone was well-known as being the forgiving type. He might blow up and rage around and raise hell, but when it was over, it was over. He was willing to shake hands.

But not with that little son of a bitch!

It had been one of Malone’s softer moments—so long ago. But not long enough to forget. A nice looking kid named Zalek had been hailed in on a mugging charge. Late at night on Clark Street, the cop said he’d pulled an old man into a doorway and was cleaning out his pockets when apprehended.

But Malone hadn’t believed it. The kid just wasn’t the type. It was a bum rap. Malone was a realist and would have defended young Zalek even knowing him guilty, and would have no doubt fought for a suspended sentence and a new start for the kid. But he wouldn’t have put up the five thousand bail—five grand he didn’t actually have—if he’d thought him guilty.

Malone’s biggest mistake had been playing the sucker roll. He’d bailed the kid out, but only to get a long-distance phone call from him the next day.

“This is Tony Zalek, sucker. I’m on my way. You serve out my sentence for me. I’ll send you cigarettes.”

And to add something even more to the insult and the injury, the call had come collect.

Now Malone smiled and watched Zalek as a cat with a cigar in its mouth might watch a mouse that wore a bellhop’s uniform and posed as a human being.

Malone looked around for the house detective, preparatory to pouncing. With the statute of limitations not yet having run out on Zalek, Malone was looking forward to a pleasant interlude.

But then Zalek spoke to the hop seated next to him, got up, and left the lobby by a back entrance. Malone was not panicked. The kid hadn’t seen him. He was probably going to the john. So Malone saw no reason why he shouldn’t finish his other business first, because Zalek probably had a comic book in his pocket and would no doubt take a nice long vacation in the john where he would have an affinity for his surroundings.

Malone pondered a few moments longer and then went back to the elevator. But when he got off on the ninth floor, he took one step forward and then three quick ones backward. Zalek was coming along the high-ceilinged, thickly carpeted hallway from the other end.

Zalek evidently wasn’t expecting to be spied on, so he wasn’t alert. Thus, Malone was able to watch him, thankful that the Craymore had more potted palms than anybody. Zalek tapped on a door about halfway down and then turned the knob and entered.

He was probably going to sack the joint, Malone decided, hoping he was right. Maybe Zalek had knocked to see if anyone was there. Even now, he might be tearing the place apart.

Malone realized his thoughts were subjective—mere wishful thinking. But they gave him comfort as he moved along the hallway toward the door in question.

But when he got there, he stopped suddenly. The number, 942, was the one that had been given him as that of Vivian Conover’s room.

Malone retreated instantly—back behind the friendly palm tree to ponder this new development. Was it the merest coincidence that Zalek had entered Vivian Conover’s room? Malone was inclined to think otherwise. So if it wasn’t coincidence, it was something else; and he wanted to know what. Should he walk in and confront them both?

He had not had enough time to decide when the door opened again and Zalek left as he had come, probably using a service elevator in the back.

Malone hesitated no longer, except for a moment at Vivian Conover’s door, where he paused to map his strategy. He ususally relied on the direct attack. Of course, in the direct attack, he would have to assume a few things as being true. But if there were no witnesses, libel could not be proved and he could always apologize. He knocked on the door. A voice called, “Come in.”

Vivian Conover was a smooth chick. Malone decided this instantly. A brunette with everything a brunette needed. She wore a pajama outfit with red pants and a green top, and she looked as though she’d just come from a makeup man prior to going on a movie set.

Vivian Conover stared blankly. “What do you want?” Malone decided she must have expected Zalek again.

“My name is John J. Malone,” he said, “and the whole thing has blown up in your face. They’re scooping up your boyfriend downstairs right now, and the others will be pulled in by sunset. I’m just giving you a chance to do yourself some good.”

Vivian Conover fainted. But she did it so gracefully, falling back on the bed rather than hitting the floor, that Malone was suspicious. He approached and studied her clinically, finally reaching down and pinching a most prominent part of her anatomy—the nipple of her right breast. Vivian’s eyes flew open and she yipped.

“A technique I learned as a hustler in a burlesque show,” he said. “Great for the faints. Now let’s get to it. Whose idea was it to involve Helene Justus in your caper?”

The faint may have been synthetic, but Vivian Conover’s terror was genuine. “Not mine! Not mine, honestly! I was against it. I fought it. Poor Helene—”

“Wrong name, sister. Poor you. Was it Zalek’s idea?”

She looked blank. “Zalek?”

Malone reacted quickly. “Or whatever he’s calling himself now. How does the bellhop act fit into the picture?”

“I—I think he took the job because he didn’t trust me. He wanted to watch me all the time. He’s—he’s a terrible man, Mr. Malone. He’s kept me a prisoner in this room—a virtual prisoner. He beats me!”

“Sure,” Malone said. He was doing so well that he decided to branch out. “It’ll all come out, but, as I said, you’re Helene’s friend and I told her I’d try to do something for you—”

Vivian Conover’s eyes widened. “Then the whole hypnotism thing fell through?”

“Did it ever! But what about the others? Fargo. Barnhall.”

“Fargo doesn’t know anything. But I’m not sure about Barnhall. André didn’t tell me everything.”

“André?”

“DuBois.”

“Oh, that’s the name Zalek’s using now?”

Vivian Conover’s eyes suddenly gleamed with suspicion. A terrible possibility dawned. Was she being given the business? André had just left her room, and everything had been all right then.

Malone observed the suspicion. It had to be eliminated. He eyed her sternly and said, “I’m curious about one point. Who thought up the hypnotic code words? Confetti. Yellow ribbon.” What the hell was the other one?

He didn’t need it. Such intimate knowledge convinced Vivian beyond all doubt. Retribution had arrived in the form of this little monster with the big cigar.

“Marcus, at Walden, suggested it. André said he thought it was cute. Marcus is a terrible man. Have you found out who he is yet?”

Malone gave no indication that she was giving him more questions to answer. “Sure,” he said, “but I’ve got an obligation to Helene. I promised I’d do something for you.”

“Helene is a wonderful girl,” Vivian whimpered.

Trying to plan as you go when you don’t know where you’re going or who’s on first is difficult. Malone was aware of that, but a man had to try. He was one giant step ahead; he seemed to have Vivian Conover where he wanted her.

“Okay,” he said. “Your only chance is to get out of circulation for a while. They sent me up after you, but I’ll stick my neck out and tell them you beat it.”

“But I have no place to go.”

He’d hoped she would say that. “I know a place. A friend of mine. Get into some clothes quick. We can get out the back way if you hurry.”

Sobbing softly, Vivian Conover grabbed a dress from the closet and headed for the bathroom….

Malone had a friend—a very good friend—he’d kept over the years. Her name was Ma Blodgett and she lived in an old frame house near the Loop that had up to this time escaped the wrecking crews of progress. Ma was solid gold on two counts. She never asked questions and she could be relied upon never to answer them.

Malone got Vivian Conover out of the hotel, hailed a cab, and gave Ma’s address. “You stay where I’m taking you ’til you hear from me,” Malone told Vivian. “I promise you I’ll work in your interest for Helene’s sake. But I can’t promise any more than that.”

It was enough at the moment. Vivian Conover looked as though she wanted to kiss Malone, which would have been fine under other circumstances. But as things were, he sacrificed this reward. They pulled up in front of Ma’s house.

He knocked on the big worn door, and Ma opened it. She looked the same as she had always looked—so far as Malone knew—both night and day; gray flannel wrapper, cold cream shining on her face, her thin, dyed, black hair pinned up hastily.

“Another one, huh?” Ma said.

“Hi, Ma. This is Vivian Conover. Can you put her up ’til I call for her?”

“This one’s older and prettier. Doubt if you’ll leave her here long.”

“Ma’ll take care of you,” he told Vivian, and hurried down the steps before either woman changed her mind. He was happy when he heard the big door close. He had accomplished something. Now he had to scurry around and find out exactly what.

His coup had been gratifying, but still he hadn’t smashed out at anything. That earlier need now came back to haunt him and may have been responsible for a quick, gratifying thought.

Kent Fargo. Helene had visited him after their talk at the Casino, and Malone had mourned the fact that he hadn’t gotten Fargo’s address. Thus he’d acted like a man who’d been born before the existence of telephones and the big books that listed subscribers’ addresses.

“Idiot!” Malone muttered in self-condemnation, and headed for the nearest telephone booth. Then he hailed a cab….

It was in the luxury building class; the kind few people could afford. A silent elevator carried Malone to the third floor, where he rang 321. He waited. The knob turned. The door opened. Malone looked at Kent Fargo, resplendent in a blue silk robe with a red cravat tucked in at the lapels. But he was more interested in the change in Fargo’s expression. It had started as a look of warm welcome. But then it reversed itself into a disappointed frown.

“She isn’t here, then,” Malone said, making it a statement rather than a question.

Fargo’s first problem was to find out which husband, or uncle, or guardian, this was; and which wife, or neice, or ward, he expected to find.

“Who isn’t here?”

Malone stepped inside. Fargo took an involuntary step backward. His frown turned into the scowl of an angry householder whose premises were being unlawfully invaded. “Just who the hell are you and what do you want?”

There was a pow, or rather a splat, as Malone’s fist connected with Fargo’s jaw. Fargo back-pedalled and went down. He blinked and shook his head and started struggling to his feet.

Malone stepped forward. He waited until Fargo had half-risen—until his jaw was within range—and splatted again. Fargo reassumed his reclining position.

“The name is Malone—John J.—Attorney at Law. I’m looking for Helene Justus.”

Panic had hit Fargo along with Malone’s fist, but reason remained in control. It appeared from this madman’s actions that he wouldn’t hit a person who was down. It seemed that he preferred his victims to be erect so they would go down when they were hit—the kind of a psycho who liked to see people fall before violence.

But Fargo had no intention of catering to this whim. He remained where he was. “She’s not here.”

“What about André DuBois? Do you know him?”

Fargo wished he had the courage to get up and kick this jerk’s ribs in. But he hadn’t. He’d yearned for that kind of courage before in his career and realized by this time that such ideas were only wishful thinking.

“I know DuBois—sure.”

“Where does he live?”

“I don’t know.”

“Get on your feet.”

“I still wouldn’t know.”

“What about Barnhall?”

“Never heard of him.”

“What’s your connection with DuBois?”

“I haven’t got any.”

“Get up.”

“Go to hell.”

It would have been nice to stay and have a long heart-to-heart talk with Fargo, Malone thought. He would have enjoyed talking to Fargo as long as his fists held out. But he had other things to do.

“Mind if I use your phone?”

“Be my guest.”

Malone dialed with his back to Fargo, hoping the latter would get to his feet so he could be knocked down again. But Fargo chose to stay where he was. Malone dialed Joe the Angel’s bar.

“Any word from anybody?”

Joe said, “Uh-huh. Von Flanagan phoned. Then he came over. He’s here now.”

“Give him a drink.”

“He doesn’t want a drink. He wants you.”

“Tell him to relax.”

“I don’t think he wants to do that, either.”

“Tell him to drop dead.”

Malone hung up. He turned. Fargo was still lying comfortably on his back. Malone said, “Be seeing you.” He left.

Chapter Twelve

To Helene Justus, it was as though she were some other person. That was how the situation impinged on her consciousness in this new world of confusion; as though she herself—Helene Justus, Jake Justus’s wife, a sane, reasonably normal person—stood far back, watching the new Helene Justus flounder in a confusion that engulfed them both.

The place where she stood was huge and dark and forbidding. Nothing about it seemed real. It was like some vast forgotten theater, long abandoned and given over to melancholy shadows and the ghosts of long departed actors who had performed on the huge, now-empty stage.

One question stood foremost in Helene’s mind. Where am I and why am I here? By whose order? What purpose am I serving? She had entered through a boarded-up doorway that had partially collapsed leaving an opening. Inside, the air was dank and musty. A place of flying bats and ghost voices.

She walked up a ramp, unguided by the directives that had been a part of previous experiences of this nature. There must have been a mistake. She moved on. The great stage lay before her. She had come out onto a ramp that led across the orchestra pit. She walked its length and her footsteps were gaunt, hollow sounds on the dusty boards.

Why am I here?

There was no answer, either in the dull, thickened depths of her mind or in the great, dark vastness that stretched around her.

But there was a precarious base of security; a certainty that all was exaggerated. The proportions of this place as they reflected in her mind were a gross exaggeration, as a hobgoblin in a nightmare is a great distortion of nothing—but no less frightening.

Helene walked across the stage, her footsteps muted by years of layered dust. She found a stairway and mounted it. Above was a narrow corridor with rooms giving off. Most of them were dark but at the far end she found one with a window.

The room was small. She looked out of the window and down—far down—to where the people were pigmies walking along the street.

There was a dressing table and a mirror and a dusty chair in the room. The mirror was rimmed with light bulbs long unused, but in the thick dust on the mirror, words had been penciled by the tip of someone’s finger.

Caruso sang here.

The thought frightened Helene. It was as though the ghosts of long-gone artists had come to crowd around her in stern disapproval. The fear turned to terror. Helene sobbed—a dry, pleading sound deep in her throat. She ran from the room and back along the corridor. She found the stairs and fled from the place. Out into the street.

But it was a street darkened and lonely—seen through the blurred mirrors of her mind.

There was a place she had to go—and quickly—a place of sanctuary. The only place of sanctuary left in a crazy world….

André DuBois was frantic. And, his nature being what it was, when he became panicky, he got vicious. Skinning out of his bellhop uniform in the locker room of the Craymore, he threw it into a corner with snarling violence, his instincts telling him that he would never need it again.

His instincts told him far more than that. They said everything was goofed up; that a perfect plan had gone bad. This came from having to deal with timid, stupid incompetents. Beginning with Vivian Conover, he’d had the misfortune from the very first of surrounding himself with slobs. So now, here he was, not knowing which way to turn.

He left the Craymore, got on a public phone and dialed viciously. A careful, measured voice answered.

“What’s Marcus’ number?” DuBois demanded. “I’ve got to talk to him.”

“I’m afraid there’s some mistake. What number—”

“Cut out the crap. You know who this is. I want to talk to that cagey bastard and I want to talk to him now.”

Behind DuBois’ façade of rage, there was terror. He was at the mercy of the owner of the voice on the phone at the other end. If the bastard hung up, he was through. If Terminal refused to talk, DuBois could only grab his hat and get the hell out of Chicago and out of the country. Run like a rabbit and never know what happened unless, at some future date, a cop tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Okay, buddy, this is it.”

“I gotta talk to him,” DuBois pleaded.

Terminal did not hang up. He sat there in silence, considering the situation.

“Please …”

Whether or not DuBois’ whining plea tipped the scales, he would never know, but Terminal showed some interest.

“What’s happened?”

“Vivian Conover ran out on me.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What the hell is there to tell? I was at her room and everything was all right. I went back a little later and she was gone. Not a word. Nothing. Gone.”

“Maybe she went for a walk.”

“Cut it out, you stupid jerk. Do you think you’re playing with old women? She packed a bag. Ratted out!”

“You have no proof that anything is wrong.”

“Gimme Marcus’ number! I’ve got to make sure that end is okay!”

“Do you think Marcus is going to cross you?”

DuBois wanted to twist the phone cord around Terminal’s smug neck and strangle him, but he held his temper. “It’s the only direction I can go to find out anything.”

Terminal’s voice became cold. “You certainly understand that I’m not involved. I’m merely a middleman commissioned to accept merchandise and—”

“You’re involved, you son of a bitch! If you think I’m going down alone—think again. I’ve got this phone number and a few other things. I’m no sucker! If—”

“Just a moment.”

There was silence while Terminal analyzed the situation. The phone number meant nothing. It was a tapped-in extension of a subscriber who had been away all summer and would be away a while longer. But the few other things? Was DuBois bluffing? He could conceivably have been clever enough to trace down Terminal’s location. Not likely, but possible. Terminal decided that the smartest thing to do was to keep DuBois busy for a while; to give himself time to move if it became necessary. He had no more obligation to Marcus than he had to DuBois. Let them slice each other’s throats.

“All right,” Terminal said. “You’ll find Marcus at—got a pencil?”

DuBois took down the number, not even trusting his excellent memory in so dangerous a situation. He broke the connection and dialed again.

“Hello—this is DuBois. Vivian Conover’s disappeared. Everything’s blown sky-high! I need money to get out of town!”

“Money? You must have got the wrong number, mister. I haven’t got any money.”

“Is this Marcus?”

“My name’s not Marcus. It’s Pop Warner. Like the football coach—except I ain’t never been near a college.”

“Goddam it, I want to talk to—”

“Okay, Zalek. Hang up.”

Something prodded DuBois in the back; a single point from which cold pimples radiated out in all directions. He was afraid to turn around.

“It’s all over, Zalek. The whole damned racket. If you want to stay alive, just come out of that booth and walk along quietly with me.”

“Who—who the hell are you?”

“John J. Malone is the name. And you being a fugitive from justice—a little matter of jumping a five-thousand-dollar bail bond—I can kill you right here on the street and get away with it. Especially since I was the guy who got suckered out of the five grand. That gives me a personal interest on top of a legal advantage. So how about it?”

“We can talk it over, can’t we? I came back to pay you.”

“That’s a goddam lie,” Malone said cheerfully, “But we can talk it over. Let’s go.”

As DuBois backed carefully out of the phone booth, John J. Malone resisted the urge to peel the wrapper off the cigar he was using as a gun and shove it into his mouth. Instead, he kept it in his side pocket along with his hand as he hailed a cab with the other one….

An hour later, von Flanagan, brooding over a gin and beer in Joe the Angel’s bar and speaking to no one in particular, said, “When I get my hands on that little shyster, I’ll separate his head from his neck. He walks out. Just like that, he walks out and leaves me standing there with my face hanging out. Just let me have five minutes with him and I’ll teach him all about the majesty of the law.”

Joe the Angel approached from the rear of the bar. “He’s on the phone. He wants to talk to you.”

Von Flanagan approached the phone as though it were the knife he planned to use to remove Malone’s heart.

“You little bastard!”

Malone ignored the insult. “Von Flanagan—how would you like to be a big man?”

“Just tell me where you are. You ruin a man’s day and then call him up and—”

“A big man,” Malone repeated. “How would you like to smash a spy ring all by yourself and get a promotion?”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“Just what I said. There are a few more little details to be taken care of. But I need some help from you.”

“What kind of help?”

“One of your boys to stand guard duty for a while.”

“Where are you?”

“Let’s stick to important things. Are you interested in my proposition?”

“What else do I have to do?”

“Nothing—except stay there at the bar and put them on my tab ’til I call you.”

“You’re a damned, sneaky little—”

“Never mind that. I’m giving you a chance to make a big bet with nothing to lose. You just send me a man and sit tight. Yes or no?”

Von Flanagan thought it over. Either way, he would eventually catch up with Malone and nothing would be lost. But if he waited and watched, he might get a chance to earn his own promotion by putting Malone himself away for a few years. This was an attractive prospect.

“Okay. I’ll send Scanlon. Where are you?”

“In my hotel room. Get him over here in a hurry.”

Malone put the phone down and turned his attention back to André DuBois, who was seated, sullen and hunched, on the edge of his bed.

“It’s the craziest damned idea I ever heard of.”

“You didn’t tell me how you got on my tail,” DuBois growled.

“That doesn’t matter,” Malone said. “As I understand the gimmick, you had Helene Justus brainwashed and conditioned to bring the stuff out of Walden.”

“You’re real sharp.”

“But what is she supposed to bring out?”

“I told you—the formula.”

“I mean—how—in what form? Was she going to walk out with a roll of blueprints under her arm or something?”

“Don’t be an idiot. Probably written down on a piece of paper.”

“Probably—but you don’t even know?”

“I left it up to Marcus. I had to. My job was to see that she was conditioned for the job. She wasn’t going to be hurt. She wouldn’t even have known she was doing it.”

“You said there was a dry run today.”

“Under authentic conditions—exactly the way it would be handled when the formula was sent out.”

“Who handled the dry run? Marcus?”

“Who else?”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“For a guy running an operation, you know remarkably damned little about how it works.”

“Marcus and I were handling it together.”

“You’re handling an operation with a guy you don’t even know?”

“He wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Malone regarded DuBois with clinical interest—as though he were interested in strange fish and this was a new kind. “You’ve been suckered, son.”

“Sure! So the Conover dame blew the thing.”

“Uh-uh. She just got smart and headed out. You’ve been suckered by Marcus.”

“How, for crissake? I’ll be there for the payoff—or I would have been.”

“I don’t know how he worked it. Not exactly. I can think of five different ways he could have done it. One thing I don’t make is this Pop Warner bit. Who’s Pop Warner?”

“He’s the messenger at Walden.”

“How do you know?”

“Fargo told me about him. I used Fargo to get the inside picture of how Walden works.”

“You know what was wrong with you? You got too cute. You used too many people. You’re some kind of a nut, son.”

DuBois’ eyes became slits. His muscles tensed. Malone gripped the cigar in his pocket and poked its tip menacingly against the cloth of his jacket. “Why do you think Pop Warner answered on Marcus’ phone?”

“How do I know?”

Malone was about to reply that it might be a smart idea to find out, but at that moment there was a knock and Scanlon appeared.

“Von Flanagan sent me,” he said.

“Sure,” Malone said. “For an easy assignment. All you have to do is see that this guy stays put. Just park yourself by the door and wait ’til I get in touch with you. No problem.”

With a sigh, Malone took his gun out of his pocket and lit it. DuBois stared venomously, but Malone didn’t mind at all. He was thinking of five thousand dollars he’d never retrieve.

“Where you going?” Scanlon asked suspiciously.

“To see a guy about a bag of confetti,” he said. “If you have trouble with this joker, shoot him in the leg So long …”

Malone left.

Five minutes later, he was on a phone and connected to another phone in City Hall—talking to a man named Leibowitz. Leibowitz was not happy to hear from Malone. His tone of voice as he said, “Jesus—how bad can a guy’s day get?” implied that Malone was far, far down on his list of nice people.

Malone was not disturbed. “Davey,” he said cordially, “I know you’d like to do me a little favor. I want the address of a man named Warner. They call him Pop Warner—”

“How would I know? Never heard of him. I never want to. I’m sorry I even heard of you.”

“He’s a messenger at the Walden Chemical Research Laboratory, an old guy.”

“Why call me? I’ve got no way of finding his damn address.”

“You’re too modest, Davey. You have lots of resources. The tax rolls—election registrations—car licenses—union membership lists.”

“Go to hell!”

“Okay, Davey. But maybe Molly would have it.”

“Molly! Have you gone off your rocker? How would my wife know—?”

“She might be able to get it from Cherry Hill—that little stripper down on South State Street.”

“You bastard! You’d stoop that low to get something you want?”

“Davey! You’re jumping to a lot of conclusions. By the way, how is it these days with you and Cherry?”

“Call me back in half an hour,” Leibowitz grated.

“I’m in a rush, Davey. Make it fifteen minutes….”

Chapter Thirteen

The man who called himself Marcus was confused, angry, and a little frightened. Not too frightened yet, because he had confidence in himself. He’d planned well, spurred on by the tremendous satisfaction that he was adroitly using those who believed they were using him. The true situation had amused and delighted him. But now, with the completion of a foolproof plan inches from the tips of his outstretched fingers, strange things had begun happening.

People were disappearing; fading away into thin air. It had begun with a piece of plain bad luck on his part, but he hadn’t been responsible for the rest of it; not for everybody disappearing.

First, Helene Justus had driven away into oblivion. Then a call from DuBois that had been relayed to him had sent him searching for DuBois—not openly, but there were ways—and he’d found that DuBois had disappeared. Not only that, but the Conover woman had faded out of the picture also. Where was everybody going?

His first thought was of a double-cross—or rather, a triple-cross; he was handling the double-cross part of it himself. Had Justus and Conover and DuBois gotten together in a deal to knife him in the back? It hardly seemed believable. If so, Terminal would have had to be in on it, too. That bunch of bumbling incompetents just wasn’t smart enough, nor would Terminal participate in such a deal. He would have nothing to gain. All he wanted was the material, and he’d okayed Marcus’ counter-plan. There would be no point in his switching back.

But most important of all—what had happened to Helene Justus? Marcus had to decide on a method of procedure. He couldn’t roam around at loose ends. He decided, therefore, that there was no connection between the disappearances of DuBois and Conover, and that of Helene Justus. So the thing to do was to concentrate on the place where the money was. The blonde pigeon.

Maybe someone was lying.

Marcus decided to find out what had happened to Helene Justus….

“Yeah,” the old man said, “Pop Warner—like the football coach, except I ain’t never been near a college.”

“You’re in trouble,” John J. Malone said.

“Me? I don’t want no trouble.”

“None of us do. But sometimes we walk right into it.”

Pop Warner had a kitchenette apartment in an old building on Washington Boulevard just east of Austin Avenue. “Lived here for twenty-five years,” he said. “Never wanted to go any place else. This is fine.”

“When did you start doing espionage work?” Malone asked.

“Huh?”

“When did you decide to try being a spy?”

“Are you crazy or something?”

“The whole caper has collapsed. I’m part of a crew going around picking up the pieces.”

“You’ve got the wrong man. I don’t know anything about spies. I run messages at Walden Chemical. You’re looking for some other Warner. My name’s Fred. They call me Pop. Like—”

“I know. Like Pop Warner, the football coach. But what about Helene Justus?”

“Who’s she?”

“She went to work at Walden this morning.”

“Oh, the new girl. Sure. I know her. She just started today.”

“That’s what I said. What did you do to her?”

“Me? Nothing. I took her some work and picked it up. I told her the ropes, kind of.”

“Where’d you get the work you gave her?”

“Where I get all of it. From Biddy Penrose.”

Malone saw no reason to believe the old man was not telling the truth. But he decided also that this was a good time to accuse him of lying.

“Okay. Get your hat and toothbrush. You’re going with me.”

“Where to?”

“To jail. You may be there a long time. I told you. The whole thing’s blown up. They want the truth.”

“But I don’t know nothing about nothing!”

Malone risked a long shot. “Fargo says different. He said you’re the brains of the spy ring.”

“I don’t know nothing about any spy ring,” Pop Warner wailed. “Okay—I did lie a little, but—”

“That’s better.”

“I never meant any harm, though. It’s against the rules to do anything for the men inside.”

“The men inside?”

“Anybody in the restricted area of the building. They’re always supposed to go through the security men. But they don’t like that. They don’t like the security men checking every time they have any business in the unrestricted area. Like Professor Wadsworth says, it’s a lot of goddam nonsense.”

“What do you do for Professor Wadsworth?”

“Not just him. Most of them. Little things—like getting them things they want that they don’t want to wait for requisitions on. Like Wadsworth says, a man can’t get an aspirin tablet without a security man running a chemical check on it to see if it’ll explode. Biddy Penrose helps ’em out that way, too. So I’m not the only one.”

“What did you lie to me about?”

“Well, I gave Helene Justus one envelope that didn’t come through Biddy the way all the steno tapes are supposed to.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“From my locker. Or rather, on top of my locker.”

“Who put it there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then why did you give it to Helene Justus?”

“I got a call on the hot line downstairs.”

Malone didn’t have the least idea what he was uncovering here—whether the information was of value or not. But it was interesting and he was filing it away as fast as the old man spilled it.

“What’s the hot line?”

“It a part of the intercom system. But a part that’s not used any more if you get what I mean.”

“Oh, sure—but explain it anyhow.”

“Part of the intercom was disconnected. The hot line is supposed to be dead. It runs from a phone someplace in the restricted area to another one down by the oil furnace near where I kill time when I’m not busy. One of the men inside activated it—just that line—so you can hear on it—and when a light lights up I answer and do what they ask.”

“What who asks?”

“Whoever calls. Then they take up a little collection for me and leave it on my locker every week.”

“What kind of things do you do?”

“Oh, little things like sending personal messages they don’t want monitored by the security men. Or bringing something in for them—”

“Or taking something out.”

“Nope. Never. That’s different. If I was caught taking anything out that could be traced back to the restricted area I’d be fired.”

“Did anybody ever ask you to?”

“No. You’ve got the wrong idea. They don’t want me to get into trouble. It’s just little things where they don’t want to be annoyed by security men.”

“Who asked you to give the envelope to Helene Justus?”

The old man grinned. “Somebody that wanted to make a date with her, I guess. She’s a peacherino.”

“But you don’t know his name?”

“You can’t spot a voice over the hot line. I was just told by one of the men to take the envelope off the locker and what to do with it.”

“This Biddy Penrose. Do you think she’s the head spy?”

“Biddy? She’s all right. Tough. Real tough. But she gets the work done. It’s just that she doesn’t want anybody to think she’s human.”

Malone patted his pockets. “Got a match?”

The old man rushed eagerly to a drawer and brought back a pack. He lit the cold stump of Malone’s cigar. Malone watched his withered old hand tremble.

“Things are no good in Joliet. Jail’s a lousy place to spend your declining years.”

“But I ain’t done nothing.”

“They might overlook you,” Malone said thoughtfully.

“I didn’t know anything bad was going on!”

“I’ll tell you what you do. You hole up here and don’t make a peep. Understand?”

“I’ll do anything you say.”

“Don’t answer the phone. Don’t answer the door. Hide under the bed. Even if the house burns down, burn with it—unless you want a long stretch in the can.”

“You’re—you’re a real nice fellow. I’ll pay you back.”

“Sure—sure,” Malone said, and left….

While Malone was acting in confusion, he felt that he was leading from strength. Divide and conquer. That old cliche pretty much defined what he was trying to do. Separate the enemy. This put him into a position where, while he didn’t know exactly what was going on, neither did they. At the moment he had what bricks he’d gathered, but was in need of some cement to hold them together for inspection as a structure rather than a pile of ridiculous loose ends.

He looked at his watch. The day was fleeting. And his various captives around town might be getting restive. He was sure Vivian Conover would stay put with Ma Blodgett, but Zelak’s continued quarantine depended on von Flanagan. If the big flatfoot got restive, he might call Scanlon off. And without grounds to hold Zelak—Malone had given him none—that fish might get away.

But Malone felt he had to take his chances. There was one more fish he wanted to catch before the season ended. He hailed a cab and headed for the Loop….

He wasn’t too optimistic about finding Barnhall in his office. He would probably, he thought, have to track the headshrinker to his home, but checking the office first was logical. He went in the front door of the building. It was after five and the offices had emptied out, but the night man’s desk had not yet been set up. He took the elevator to Barnhall’s floor, and as he approached the door with all the letters on it, he realized that it stood slightly ajar. That didn’t seem right. Malone approached with caution. But as he came abreast of it, no bullets or hurled objects came flying out nor was there any sound from within.

He entered. The anteroom was small. There was a chair and table with a few magazines strewn over it and an aura of tension as though the ghosts of mentally disturbed patients still waited there for a turn on Barnhall’s couch.

The inner door was closed. Its upper section was frosted and a light glowed in the inner office. A shadow of movement swept across the translucent surface. This increased Malone’s caution as he reached out and tried the knob. The door wasn’t locked. The knob turned noiselessly. The door opened.

And Malone saw Helene Justus standing over the prone body of Barnhall with a knife in her hand.

First-hand, it was like a quick segment out of a senseless nightmare in which the Maker of Nightmares had said, “Let’s see how much pure horror we can really pile on.” Malone’s motor centers failed. His engine froze. He stood there waiting for the scene to dissolve.

It didn’t.

Malone’s horrified mind began working again. He didn’t think he was too far off in assuming the man sprawled across the couch was Barnhall. He lay crosswise on it, his feet on the floor and his head hanging on the other side, his eyes looking emptily up into Helene Justus’s face. His open mouth gave him a look of gaping wonder as though he still didn’t believe it even after having been presented with the cold proof of death.

Helene stood like a blonde statue. In her right hand was a knife—an oversized letter opener, probably, but long enough and no doubt sharp enough to slice a ham or kill a man. Barnhall was in his shirtsleeves and he wore a bright red spot over his heart; a spot shaped curiously like a rose.

Helene Justus was holding the knife firmly, the blade pointed downward, as though she had just finished plunging it in and withdrawing it. There was a look of glazed disinterest in her eyes.

Malone moved forward. He stood beside Helene. Her eyes came around. Malone asked, “Did you kill him?”

“I guess so,” Helene said. Grotesquely, she spoke as though it were nothing much and what else was new?

“Let’s get out of here,” Malone said.

Helene did not object. He took the knife from her hand and wiped its handle even though Helen was wearing gloves. He dropped it to the floor and took Helene’s arm and led her out of the office, closing both doors after him. It flashed through his mind that maybe Barnhall wouldn’t be found until morning. Then he realized the scrubwoman might find the body very soon.

He led Helene toward the back stairs, praying they could escape unseen. The glazed look in her eyes chilled him.

The word. The word, damn it. The word.

He could remember confetti and yellow ribbon. Confetti was not difficult and yellow ribbon was a cinch because Helene was wearing one in her hair.

But what was the other word? The one that would bring her out of it? A piece of clothing. A bra? A slip? Dress? Mink coat? Lace panties?

Malone led Helene down the back stairs—down the long miles of them, and then had a little good luck. As they came out into the alley, he saw her car parked in the street near the alley’s mouth. Helene made no objection when he took her purse and opened it to get her keys. He got behind the wheel and put her beside him and drove out into Grant Park on the other side of Michigan Boulevard toward the Field Museum. Helene remained quiet, docile, negative.

What was that damned word?

It dawned. Without turning to look at her, Malone spoke casually. “Did you wear a petticoat, Helene?”

Nothing happened. At least nothing appeared to happen. But while Malone kept his eyes straight ahead, he sensed that something was happening.

He was sure of it when Helene said, “Malone—I need a drink—like I never needed anything in my life.”

He drove on south and they went into the dimly lit bar of one of the big lakefront hotels….

Chapter Fourteen

Helene did not remember.

It took Malone a little time to be sure of this. It was the shock. When the shock wore off, she would remember. But there didn’t seem to be any shock. With a brandy before her in the cocktail lounge, there was more misery than shock.

“Malone—what am I going to do?”

“First, you’re going to tell me everything you can remember.”

“But what I remember isn’t accurate—I’m sure—and it isn’t clear. It’s all mixed up.”

“Par for the course,” Malone said cheerfully. “Everything’s mixed up these days.”

“I—oh, God! Where can I start?”

“I know a lot of it, honey. So let me ask some questions. “You know that you’ve been spending a lot of time under hypnosis?”

“Yes—yes, I guess so. I’m scared, Malone. Frightened to death. And ashamed.”

“Ashamed? Why should you be? You haven’t done anything wrong.” With Barnhall lying dead over his couch, Malone swallowed hard as he said that. But he meant it. Wrong, as he had more than once proved in court, is a comparative term.

“Everything I’ve done has been wrong. I feel unfaithful to Jake, for one thing.”

“You mean that guy Fargo—?”

“No. Fargo was only an annoyance. I mean not telling Jake the whole thing—right at the beginning.”

“Don’t worry about that.”

“The reason I didn’t is so childish. I can see that now. He seemed more interested in the Casino than me. My first mistake was letting Vivian talk me into going to Barnhall. But I thought he could help—tell me how I was failing Jake.”

“You haven’t failed him a damned bit!”

“Then not telling him about the government men. I think I was really being malicious there—getting even with him.”

“Stop beating yourself over the head, Helene. Let’s try to get to the immediate situation. This was your first day at Walden, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“What happened that led up to it?”

“It’s so terribly confusing. For a while, there were the blanks. Hours—chunks—lifted out of my life that I couldn’t account for. I guess I refused to believe that I was under someone else’s power because it proves weakness.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lying there on Barnhall’s couch—letting him do that to me.”

“You’re crazy, honey. Weakness has nothing to do with it. During the war, very strong men were brainwashed and hypnotized. They have new techniques since then, and Barnhall is damned good.”

“A lot of it is coming clearer now. Not really clear. But I can remember enough to question my past actions.”

“That’s what we want,” Malone said heartily. “About today. I can tell you this much. You were slated to carry some information out of the plant and what happened today was a kind of dress rehearsal. Do you remember any of it?”

“Some, I think. I went to Walden and Fargo showed me my office. I did some typing—three letters. I met Pop Warner, the messenger, Miss Penrose, Professor Wadsworth, and his assistant, a man named Felix Bassett.”

“That’s all pretty clear.”

“I thought I’d failed with Miss Penrose, but then Pop Warner brought me another tape. It said—it said—I don’t know.”

“The tape put you under control again.”

“I suppose so, but there was something else. I remember enough of the trances to know I always had an urge to go to Barnhall’s office. I’m sure I always went straight there. But it was different this time. A different order. I wanted to go somewhere else. There was something about a wedding and I wanted to prepare for it—but not quite that, either.”

“Try to remember.”

“Something about an old hotel.”

“The Craymore? It’s pretty old.”

“No—not an old hotel—an old theater. That was it. An old theater and a new hotel.” Helene passed a weary hand across her eyes. “Oh, I can’t remember.”

“I found you in Barnhall’s office.” Malone had come close to saying: “I found you with a knife in your hand just after you’d killed Barnhall,” but he didn’t dare. He watched keenly for her reaction to the milder statement. There was none.

“Yes, I remember that vaguely. But there was something else—another place. I’m sure I was there—that it wasn’t just a dream—a huge, empty, echoing place where Caruso sang.”

“You heard him singing?”

“No. It was written on a mirror, I think. Anyhow, I was terribly frightened. I don’t know where the place was or why I was there.”

“But you think it had something to do with a directive you received at Walden.”

“I’m sure it did.”

While Helene closed her eyes and lay back, exhausted, in her chair, Malone regarded her with mixed emotions. The poor kid didn’t have the least idea there was a murder rap against her. And he made the firm resolution that she would never find out if he could help it.

But he had no great hope of this. His natural springs of optimism and energy were sagging. A man could go so far and put out so much. He’d run all over hell all day trying to stay a jump ahead of disaster, only to find it waiting for him at his last stop.

Helene Justus, a murderess.

Malone let his mind rest for a moment, but immediately it began planning Helene’s defense. The selection of the jury would be the trick. Twelve exactly right people. Let’s see, he would want as many women as possible. No—maybe a balanced jury would be best. If he could sneak in a few who thought psychiatry was for the birds and all psychiatrists were potential rapists …

Helene opened her eyes suddenly. “Vivian Conover is going to be married.”

“Is that so?”

The eyes clouded. “Or at least I think so. But …”

It had been a long day across the desert without an oasis and Malone had to go to the john. Arising slowly, he said, “That must be tied up some way with the key words that were used to put you under hypnotic suggestion—confetti and yellow ribbon. I’ll be back right away, honey.”

Malone went to the john, and while he was there he also washed his face and hands in order to get full value out of the half-dollar he gave the attendant.

When he got back to the table, Helene was gone. He supposed she’d ducked into the powder room and sat down to wait. But after a while, he realized she wasn’t coming back.

Even as he muttered to himself, “Malone, you congenital idiot!” he knew that checking the powder room would be a waste of time. He threw some money on the table and ran out to the parking lot. Helen’s car was gone. He’d opened his big mouth with confetti and yellow ribbon, and sent her off God knew where….

It was the same huge, drafty, echoing place, but night had fallen so it was now dark also—terribly forbidding. Helene went in through the boarded entrance as before, but when she got inside, she walked with a surer, firmer step—like a sleepwalker—in spite of the darkness.

A voice called out, “Where have you been?”

But a stronger voice inside Helene asked, Why am I here? and she remained mute.

“This way—this way,” the outer voice instructed.

Helene walked on. She found the bridge over the orchestra pit and mounted the stage. But there she stopped, able to go no farther. The struggle in her own mind was increasing. The part of her that questioned her actions was growing stronger. And the clarity this brought made room for fear.

“I—I can’t see.”

“You don’t have to see. It isn’t necessary. You are not afraid. Walk as you did before.”

Helene could not tell, in that great resounding place, where the voice came from. Dimly, she realized that whoever called to her did not know where she was either.

Why am I here? Why did I come?

“I can’t. I don’t know the way.”

“You know the way.”

Helene remained where she was. She could not go forward and she could not retreat. While she’d crossed the narrow bridge over the orchestra pit without trouble, going back over it was impossible. She knew the pit was there but the automatic control under which she moved was a one-way thing, especially in the darkness.

“Stay where you are,” the voice called.

Helene waited. Somewhere there were faint footsteps and she heard a muttered curse. The curse was like a shaft of reality thrust into a cloudy dream, and into her mind which was trapped in the dream. Now there was more room for fear.

The footsteps were above her, somewhere up among the narrow stairways that led to the dressing rooms. Helene turned left and pawed blindly toward the wings, or where the wings should be. She would reach them unless she veered off in the darkness and fell.

But she had not gone in a straight line. A sense of immediate danger touched her. She was on the edge of a precipice. She tried to draw her extended foot backward, and swayed.

At that instant, the blackness was pierced by light, but a light that was very dim, and she heard a wordless sound of satisfaction. The man there with her in this eerie place had found a light switch.

But the bulbs that he switched on were far away and dim and covered with dust. They broke the darkness but left great banks of shadow. The switch was not the one the man wanted, and he cursed again as Helene looked down into the black cavern of the orchestra pit.

The shock cleared her mind. She jerked back and turned and fled. Evidently she had been seen because the voice called out, “Wait—wait!” But in a different tone, now. The demand was preemptory, savage, as though the man realized she had passed out of his control.

“Damn you! Stand still!”

There was a clatter of footsteps, running now, toward the stage from above. But Helene did not wait. She ran into the wings and found a flight of stairs and plunged down them. A new maze of dim hallways confronted her—a confusing maze ahead and running footsteps behind.

Helene fled blindly.

The voice of her pursuer came harsh and menacing now. “Stay where you are, damn you!”

Terror was clearing Helene’s mind. She sobbed as the dimly lit passages around her took on the aspect of a corner of Purgatory through which she would run forever. Every shadowed doorway ahead posed a dreadful threat, while behind her the footsteps came closer as the man closed in.

Finally there was no place to go. She had been lucky in always finding an open door at each crucial moment—a door through which she could move into a new section of the maze.

But now her luck ran out. She tried several doors in the dusty corridor along which she had sought escape. They were all locked. Ahead, at the far end, there was only a deep, dark shadow.

The running man came closer. Helene turned to wait for him, backing slowly away, step by slow step. Until her back touched something in the dark shadow. It was not a wall. It yielded slightly.

Then a hand shot out and cupped around her mouth. An arm encircled her and jerked her backward. The terror crystallized and keened up to the breaking point as she fought weakly. Until she heard the voice whispering in her ear:

“Quiet, honey—easy. It’s Malone. John J. Malone. You remember me.”

Helene’s pursuer had become momentarily confused, pausing to search a dead-end passage. But now he was back on the trail.

Malone eased the pressure of his hand. “It’s okay, honey. Just stand quiet.”

Helene gripped his hand. “Malone! Who is he? Why am I here? What does he want?”

“Unless I’m way off-base,” Malone whispered, “he’s a guy named Marcus. And he wants the stuff you brought out of Walden.”

There was a moment of dead silence, as though the man were taking a final check on his bearings—the moment before the final rush.

“But I didn’t bring anything out!”

“Maybe—maybe not, but I think you did.”

“He’s got a gun, Malone. I’m sure he has. I saw his shadow as he came down the stairs. Something in his hand. A gun. I—”

Her warning was cut off as a form loomed at the far end of the corridor.

“Okay, sucker!” Malone yelled. “Freeze it right there!”

A gun roared. A slug smashed into the wall beside the crouching pair.

But the sound was answered by a deafening roar in Helene’s ears as Malone fired back.

A quick squall of rage punctuated the blast, and there was a sound of retreating footsteps.

“Come on! Von Flanagan didn’t make it. He’ll get away.”

Malone dragged Helene after him as he set out in pursuit. “Damn it to hell!” Malone raged. “If he gets clear of the building, we’ll never get the bastard!”

Helene followed blindly as Malone rushed forward, still complaining. “This place was laid out by a drunk architect with the blind staggers. Let’s go up these stairs.”

A few moments later, Helene said, “We’re back on the stage.”

“Sure—but where the hell is he?”

A gun flashed from somewhere high in the proscenium. The slug missed and Malone grunted. “He must have sprouted wings to get up there so quick.” He threw a random return shot that wasn’t answered.

“Sit tight,” Malone told Helene. “Don’t move. Do you know where you are?”

“I do now. This is the old Pantheon Opera House on South Michigan.”

“Uh-huh. It’s been condemned. They’re going to tear it down and build a new hotel.”

“Old theater,” Helene murmured. “New hotel. That was in my mind. But now I remember. I don’t understand, though—”

“Relax. Don’t worry. You’re okay again—even without petticoat.”

“Petticoat?”

“Shhhh. They’re coming.”

There were new sounds; normal, reassuring sounds of movement in several places. A quick stream of gunfire from above, and then von Flanagan’s echoing voice.

“Get some light into this dump. Don’t any of you monkeys know where the switch is?” There was a reply and von Flanagan growled, “Well, shake your ass. A guy could get killed in here.” Then von Flanagan bellowed, “Malone! Where the hell are you?”

“Shut up, you idiot. You’ll make targets out of everybody.”

Von Flanagan had already done so. The gun roared again from high overhead. There was a mad scramble for cover out in the orchestra section of the theater, and von Flanagan yelled, “Who’s that crazy son of a bitch up there with the gun, Malone?”

Malone did not have either the time or the inclination to answer. Lights were blooming up all over the place as someone found the main switch and threw it. Malone seized Helene’s hand and lunged for the wings. “Come on! We’re sitting ducks.”

But the fire from above was directed out into the orchestra, and they both stopped and stared upward. There, on a small platform high over the proscenium, a man stood at bay. He was too far away to be clearly identified, but he was obviously trapped. The platform had been built in preparation for some tearing-down operation, and was accessible only along a narrow catwalk.

“Okay—come on down,” von Flanagan ordered.

The answer was a thundering of shots. The man shuddered, teetered, and came plummeting to the stage. He landed face up, his arms spread wide.

Malone scowled at the dead body. “Marcus. But who is he?”

Helene said, “Marcus? I met him at Walden. His name is Felix Bassett.”

Malone was already drawing Helene back into the wings. “Come on. Let’s get out of sight.”

“But Malone! Why should we hide? We can’t run away!”

“You’re my client now,” Malone replied grimly. “I’ve got a right to protect your health and well-being. Let’s get out of here!”

Helene did not protest. Malone took her hand and led her through a passage leading toward the old stage door. They left the building to the echo’s of von Flanagan’s bellowed demand:

“Malone! Where the hell are you?”

Chapter Fifteen

Malone was disturbed. He was out of his depth, not being a professional psychologist. And being out of his depth always tended to disturb him.

Helene seemed close to normal. It appeared that she had come out of it herself, although slowly, after the releasing key word, petticoat. He figured the horrors of the events in the theater had had a lot to do with it.

But still, he skirted the truth which would have to be told: She was a murderess. She had killed Barnhall.

He was sure he had a good case in her behalf, but he’d been a lawyer too long not to be aware of the risk. He was afraid that a jury might see it otherwise. At best, Helene could be declared a mental case.

It was a goddam mess.

Malone sprawled in a chair at the Justus apartment and stared moodily into his beaker of gin. Helene sat waiting.

“Malone! Will you please talk?”

“Where do you want me to begin?”

“What made you come to the old opera house?”

“I spent the day getting a little here and a little there and trying to piece the whole picture together. Going way out into left field, I tried to figure out exactly what had happened to you at Walden when you were put under control. The talk we had in that cocktail bar fitted some of the pieces together. You were given instructions as to what to do through that tape Pop Warner gave you. But someplace along the way, somebody else stepped in and changed the orders. This confused you. In trying to obey, you got all crossed up and didn’t know where you were going or where you had been.”

“I knew I’d been in a place like the Pantheon, but it was all a dream somehow.”

“It would be. After I triggered you off again like an idiot, I thought you’d probably go back to Barnhall’s office. I went there, but you hadn’t. It’s a good thing I did go there, though, because that was where I picked up the gun that saved our lives at the opera house. I found it in Barnhall’s desk.”

Malone paused, eying Helene sharply to see if reference to Barnhall’s office stirred further recollections. Apparently it didn’t. He went on.

“The Pantheon was a long shot. It was the only place I could think of that came anywhere near fitting the description you gave me while we were talking. Fortunately I hit it. But there are a lot of other questions to be answered. The main one is—why were you sent there if what you were being put through was only a trial run? That question kept banging at me. The only logical answer was that it wasn’t a trial run. Marcus was double-crossing DuBois. You were actually taking the material out of Walden and Marcus had picked the old theater as a good place for you to deliver it to him. Now we know Marcus was Bassett and he had old Pop Warner helping him without being aware of it.”

“But I’m sure there was no one at the theater when I got there the first time.”

“Unless I’m all wrong in the way I’m figuring it. There should have been—Marcus; that is, Bassett himself. We’ll never know now, probably, but something must have held him up.”

“And when no one was there, I—”

“You fell back on your original instruction pattern and went to Barnhall’s office.”

Helene frowned. “I don’t know. It seems to me I went somewhere else first.”

“Can you remember where it was?”

“It seems to me I went to a wedding—or went to get ready to go to a wedding.”

“Whose wedding?”

“Professor Wadsworth said something about his daughter getting married, but I wasn’t invited. In fact, it was only a casual comment on his part.”

Malone scowled. “I wonder if he’s mixed up in this thing. Everybody else is.”

Helene shook her head. “There was something else. Not that wedding—”

Malone asked, “Do you remember when you did go to Barnhall’s office?”

“I remember struggling—battling with myself mentally. I was terribly frightened by the thought that I was going mad or had already gone mad.”

“That would trigger you to Barnhall as the man who could help you. We’ll get a lot more information when von Flanagan gathers in the goons I’ve got stashed around town. But whether we’ll ever get all the answers …”

He trailed off and regarded Helene with a kind of thoughtful dread. The time had come. She had to be told. He avoided it for a few more moments.

“When will Jake be home?”

“Not for a while. He’s at the club, of course.”

“Is there anything really bad wrong between you two?”

“No. Of course not. It was just my female ego. So childish. I can see that now. Jake is—wonderful.”

“Helene,” Malone said. “When I found you at Barnhall’s office, he was dead. He’d been stabbed.”

“Oh, no!”

“When I went back the second time, the body still hadn’t been discovered.”

“But who killed him?”

“You were standing there with the knife still in your hand. You did, Helene.”

She turned pale there in the silence as they stared at each other.

But then an amused voice asked, “Did I hear my name mentioned?” They turned. A man was standing in the doorway. He was smiling. There was a gun in his hand.

“Doctor Barnhall,” Helene gasped.

Malone gaped….

Malone closed his mouth and studied the handsome face for marks of what the man was. Supreme self-confidence. A talent he had abused in his greed until it had turned him into something utterly ruthless.

“There seems to be a mistake in identity here,” Barnhall said.

“Tell me about it,” Malone replied.

“I’m sure you already know.”

Barnhall made no effort to hide his contempt for Malone; and that fact gave the little lawyer the real key to his weakness—the weakness that, at some time and place, would eventually defeat him.

He underestimated his enemies. Perhaps he had good reason, Malone thought. No doubt his victories had always been easy. But some day it would get him.

“I haven’t any idea who the man was,” Malone said firmly.

“A government agent named Blane.” Barnhall tossed it off with apparent disgust.

“Helene wouldn’t have killed him.” Malone was surprised, and could not conceal it.

“Of course not. She wouldn’t have killed anyone. I didn’t condition her for murder,” Barnhall said flatly.

Malone stabbed blindly. “You killed him.”

“That’s right. It was necessary. Things moved fast and got a little complicated there at the finish. You’re aware of Terminal’s existence, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Malone said carefully. This was a break, of sorts. Barnhall was revealing another weakness; one which made Malone re-evaluate quickly. Conceit. His plans were obviously made. He saw himself as being in the clear, but someone had to know. His ego insisted that people be aware of his brilliance.

“I have my own deal with him. I’ve been in control from the beginning, although the game almost got away from me. I let Marcus run the show from his end. But it wasn’t until he’d missed his contact with Mrs. Justus at the opera house that he came to my office and I got the story out of him. So clever. The dry run becoming the real thing. That left DuBois out in the cold. It left me in some difficulty, too, because Marcus’ stupid amateur directives confused Mrs. Justus and she went somewhere else from the opera house before she came to my office. I knew this because she did not have the material with her.”

Malone said, “But when she got there, she found Blane dead and you gone.”

“That was the second time. She came earlier and told me where she’d put the material, and I sent her after it. But in the meantime that stupid agent turned up and tried to arrest me.”

“And you killed him.”

“I told you it was necessary.”

“Why did you come here?”

“Quite simple. I was at the opera house when all the activity took place. Neither of you were aware of it, but I was never far away. It appeared as though I would have to take over, but then it wasn’t necessary. Mrs. Justus dropped her purse.”

“What good was that to you?”

Barnhall shrugged with wry amusement. “None, as it turned out. It only forced me to come here. But I was a little late, or I wouldn’t have taken up your time this way. So now, if you’ll give me the material. I’ll be on my way.”

Malone had begun to see light, but then had become confused again. But this was no time to appear stupid. “Don’t give it to him, Helene.”

“Come now—”

Helene, blank-faced, said, “But I haven’t got it.”

“Where did you put it?”

“I never had it.”

“Oh, yes you did. You were supposed to deliver it to me, as always.”

Confeftti—yellow ribbon—petticoat.

Suddenly, Malone knew. And, characteristically, he called himself a few choice names for not knowing sooner. Marcus had picked the control words, looking ahead to the double-cross even then. Barnhall had guessed Marcus’ plan and then had made one of his own—direct contact with Terminal.

“We’ve wasted enough time,” Barnhall said. “Where is the bag of confetti you brought out of Walden today?”

“That’s the material you referred to?”

“Of course. You’ll recall that I always relieved you of the confetti during the conditioning. Marcus wanted you to bring it to him at the old opera house. The reason he picked the place was the seclusion it afforded; a place in which he could relieve you of the material forcibly if necessary. Now—let’s have it.”

“But I don’t know where it is.”

“Then remember! If you hadn’t put it somewhere, you would have still had it with you at the opera house.”

“She hasn’t got it,” Malone said. “I have.”

“Then hand it over.”

Malone had noted, with satisfaction, that Helene had not responded to the control word when Barnhall used it. That meant, he was sure, that she was at least partially out from under Barnhall’s control.

“I left it in my room,” Malone said.

“I’m sure you’re lying,” Barnhall replied. He turned his eyes on Helene. “Bring me the confetti,” he said, his tone of voice changing markedly. “Get the yellow ribbon. Put it in your hair.”

Helene struggled … fought Barnhall. But she lost, at least partially, because her eyes went vague. She said, “The wedding. Vivian’s wedding. She told me … said to get some confetti.”

“Of course,” Barnhall said smoothly. “When you became confused with overlying directives at Walden, you associated with an earlier command. You put the confetti away for the wedding.”

“Yes.”

“Where did you put it?”

“Don’t tell him, Helenel He’s not going to use that gun here. One shot and he’d be finished. He’d never get out of the building.”

“In my dressing-table drawer,” Helene said. “I was saving it for the wedding.”

“We’ll go and get it, my dear.”

Under the muzzle of Barnhall’s gun, Malone was a trifle uncertain. Maybe the maniac would shoot. Maybe he’d kill them both and take his chances.

Helene turned toward the bedroom. She walked as though in a dream as she went inside. Barnhall did not follow. Instead, he shifted his position so that he could watch Helene in the bedroom and keep an eye also on Malone.

“Bring it to me, my dear.”

Helene emerged from the bedroom carrying a cellophane bag of confetti—a bag of brightly colored bits of paper, little round red, white, and green dots to be thrown on festive occasions.

Malone set himself for a leap. But then, just as quickly, he decided not to interfere. It was too dangerous. He did not want to risk Helene’s being injured. In fact, he did not even want to risk injury to himself. He was as patriotic as the next guy, but to hell with getting his head shot off.

“Hand it to me, my dear.”

Helene extended the bright bag. Barnhall’s hand came forward. But then, Helene suddenly ran past him. Before he could react, she was on the balcony. She ripped the top off the cellophane bag as she prepared to dump the contents down into the street.

“No!” Barnhall barked. “Stop! Bring it back! Bring it back.”

Helene froze, her arm extended.

“Bring it back.”

Barnhall, in slow, measured steps, moved toward the balcony. He had forgotten Malone. Malone watched. Barnhall slowly approached Helene. He gained her eyes and struggled to control her.

He was on the balcony now. Helene remained as she was. Their eyes locked, but she did not draw her arm back. He was a step away from her now. Carefully he extended his own arm, leaning forward to get his hand on the precious bag.

Malone acted. He lunged forward. He hit Barn-hall with the heels of both hands in the small of the back. Barnhall went over, and down, screaming. He thudded on the cement of the driveway below.

But before his body struck, Malone had seized Helene and jerked her backward. They went down in a heap on the carpet just inside the patio. The confetti emptied from the bag and floated joyfully down on them.

They lay still for a long moment. Then Malone said, “The black ones. See? Four or five of them. The little black bits of confetti. Nobody makes black confetti.”

“What are they?”

“Microfilm. Microdots. The formula is photographed on them. Blow the dots up, and you can read the formula.”

Helene laughed weakly. Not with humor, but from a hysteria that threatened and then faded. “I fought him off … almost.”

“You did fine. Now do something else.”

“What?”

“Call Jake and tell him to get the hell up here. He’s the man of the house, not me. It’s time he assumed some of his responsibilities. Then I’ll call von Flanagan and tell him to gather in the pigeons.”

Helene got to her feet, but Malone lay comfortably where he was, watching her. For the barest few moments, he allowed his true feelings to show in his eyes. Those feelings were the reason, beyond doubt, why he would remain a bachelor to the end of his days. Just looking at Helene Justus spoiled him for any other woman. He knew it.

To the rising din in the street below, he climbed wearily to his feet.

“But first,” he said, “I’ll have a gin and beer….”

About the Author

Craig Rice (1908–1957), born Georgiana Ann Randolph Craig, was an American author of mystery novels and short stories described as “the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction.” In 1946, she became the first mystery writer to appear on the cover of Time magazine. Best known for her character John J. Malone, a rumpled Chicago lawyer, Rice’s writing style was both gritty and humorous. She also collaborated with mystery writer Stuart Palmer on screenplays and short stories, as well as with Ed McBain on the novel The April Robin Murders.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1967 by Followes, Atwill & Ferguson

Cover design by Andy Ross

ISBN: 978-1-5040-5173-6

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Table of Contents

Title

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

About the Author

Copyright