Lucky Stiff - Craig Rice (good book club books .TXT) 📗

He walked over to the door and closed it firmly. Then he stepped back of the bar and said, “This is on the house, what will you have?”

Joe the Angel was not amused. He stood by the door, trying to make up his mind what to do next.

“We’ve been friends for a long time,” Malone quoted, “and I know you don’t really think I’m going to turn you in if you do happen to own a piece of the protection racket. I wouldn’t even try to muscle in on your share of it. Only, it’s costing a friend of mine too much money and I’d like him to be let alone.” With a practiced hand, he set a rye bottle back in its place on the shelf and said again to Joe, “Well, what will you have?”

“A little brandy,” Joe said hoarsely. He came slowly up to the bar and said, “I do not own any part of this racket, and I do not want to own any part of this racket.”

“Too bad,” Malone said, pouring out the brandy, “from all I hear of it, there should be some nice profits involved, with the right management, of course.” He looked thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. “Maybe we could take it over, you and I.

Joe the Angel gulped his brandy and, breathing hard, dwelt again on the fact that for twenty-two years, through prohibition and through repeal, he had been an honest hardworking businessman who saved his money, buried three wives, and sent seven children through school. He also added that it would not be good for the reputation of Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar if a late customer should come in and find Malone behind the bar serving drinks and Joe the Angel on one of the stools apparently paying for them.

Malone countered with the statement that he had always wanted to be a bartender and that any customers coming in would simply assume that the place had changed hands, if said customers were in a state capable of assuming anything at all. That gave him an idea.

“As a matter of fact,” he announced cheerfully, “it is going to change hands. You are going to sell the bar, and I am going to buy it from you.”

Joe the Angel raised his eyes to the ceiling and addressed a few well-chosen remarks to be an obscure Italian saint favorably known for dealing with the hopelessly insane. Malone didn’t even hear him. He went on thoughtfully, almost dreamily, “That is not a bad idea at all. In fact, it’s a very sound idea.” He leaned his elbows on the bar, beamed at Joe, and said, “In fact, I’ll even let you run up a three weeks’ bar bill in appreciation of past favors.”

“Malone,” Joe the Angel said weakly, “I wish you would go away.”

“I will go away,” Malone said, “as soon as you tell me all you know about the protection racket and sell me your saloon.” He added earnestly, “You see if I own this place nobody is going to kidnap and torture one of your seven children, murder your very lovely fourth wife, or chase yon up an alley and beat your brains out.”

Joe the Angel gasped, “How do you know?”

“I’m psychic,” Malone said cheerfully. “A person gets that way running around with ghosts and werewolves.” He managed to catch Joe the Angel just before he reached the door, dragged him back to the bar, poured out another brandy and said gently, “This also is on the house, pal.”

Joe the Angel groaned.

“And furthermore,” Malone said, “if you don’t answer my question— ” He stared significantly into Joe’s unhappy brown eyes. “Well, if you think you’ve seen ghosts yet—.”’

“Believe me, my friend,” Joe the Angel said, “I will tell you anything you want to know. I will sell you the saloon. I will sell it to you for fifty cents.”

“It’s a deal,” Malone said happily. He fished a quarter, two dimes, and a nickel from his pocket and slid them across the bar. “Next week I’ll sell it back to you for sixty cents.”

“Maybe the week after that you’ll buy it again,” Joe the Angel said, “for seventy cents.”

“Sure,” Malone said, “and then you buy it back for eighty cents. We could keep that up for years and one of us would be bound to make money.”

“But not me,” Joe the Angel said in a gloomy tone.

“All right, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Malone said briskly. “I’ll sell you back the saloon for forty cents and take a loss. All you have to do is pay my customary fee for legal advice and services.”

Joe the Angel again raised his eyes and requested the intercession of some saint able to deal with crooked Irish lawyers.

“Incidentally,” Malone said, “in circumstances like these my fee is usually ten cents.” He knocked an inch of ash off his cigar and leaned across the bar. “Look, Joe. As you said, we’ve been friends for a long time. Ever since I was pushing a hack and you used to slip me a commission now and then for steering out-of-town customers to your speak. I’m not doing you any harm. As a matter of fact, I’m doing this as much to help you as to help out Jake Justus.”

Joe the Angel’s face reddened with sudden wrath. “My good friend Jake Justus? You mean they got the nerve to put the squeeze on him, too? The bums!” He reached for the brandy bottle.

Malone pushed it across the bar and said, “This is still on the house. And what bums?”

“My good friend Malone,” Joe the Angel said, “I do not know what bums. If I had known I would have told my cousin Benny di Angelo. Or maybe I would have killed them myself, who knows? But one day there comes into my place a man to”—he smiled bitterly—“sell me insurance. I throw him out. The next day he is back, with another friend. I throw them both out. The day after my bartender is arrested selling a glass of beer to a minor. I throw everybody out, and then—”

His story was essentially the same one that Jake had told. The arrest of a janitor for selling narcotics. Threats against himself, his children, and his new wife. And all the time the price for “insurance” going up. He ended with a helpless and almost hopeless, “Then what can I do about these bums?”

“Nothing,” Malone said, chewing savagely on his cigar, “except pay them. But now I own this place I can do something. I haven’t any wives or children to be threatened with bodily harm, and I can beat any framed-up rap of selling narcotics, or selling liquor to minors, or anything else they can think of, including arson, mayhem, or mopery,”

“You are making a joke, yes?” Joe the Angel said anxiously.

“I am making a joke, no,” Malone said. “I’ve bought this saloon and I’m going to hang onto it. And if it should be known early in the morning that the City Hall Bar has changed hands, maybe a few insurance salesmen would come around to call on me.” He grinned wickedly, “Who knows? I might even be tempted to play along with them.”

Joe the Angel gazed across the bar. “Malone,” he said, “you are a very bad man, but you are one damn smart lawyer.”

“And you,” Malone said, “are one damn smart saloonkeeper to sell this joint and get out from under the racket. Shall we have a drink on it?”

He poured two drinks, they shook hands and toasted each other solemnly.

“Now,” Malone said, “do you have any idea who is back of this racket?”

Joe the Angel shook his head.

“Did you pay off to—” Malone paused, scowling. He’d started to say, “Jesse Conway.” That might not be the right approach, he decided. “Who did you pay off to?”

“A young man,” Joe the Angel said. “Thin face. Dark skin. Black hair, very shiny, like on my cousin Mike. Nice fancy clothes. Sometimes a raincoat.”

“I think I may have seen him,” Malone said, nodding. “You don’t happen to know his name?”

Again Joe the Angel shook his head. “Maybe,” he suggested, “when he comes to visit you, he will tell you.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Malone said. “Hell, we may even go into business together. How about the two alleged insurance salesmen who dropped around first?”

“I don’t know either of them,” Joe the Angel said. “Just bums. One of them I think used to sell slot machine concessions for Brodie.”

“Brodie, huh?” Malone said. “Any other names you can think of I might like to know about?”

Joe the Angel shrugged his shoulders. “A thing like this,” he said, “there are many rumors, many names. People sit in my place and talk. How much is rumor, I don’t know. The names— ” He paused. “Malone, I don’t want to get anybody in trouble.”

“You won’t,” the little lawyer promised.

“All kinds of names get mentioned in my place,” Joe the Angel said. “Brodie. Bill McKeown. Max Hook. Butts O’Hare. How do I know?”

“How about Big Joe Childers?” Malone suggested, relighting his cigar.

“His name was mentioned, yes,” Joe the Angel said, “but I think, no. Big Joe—” He shook his head.

“I know what you mean,” Malone said. “This isn’t the kind of racket Big Joe went in for. And another thing, it’s still going on after his death.” He looked at his watch. If he was going to collect roses, violets, gladioli, carnations, and even orchids, deliver them to Anna Marie’s room, and get to the office at nine, he was going to have to move fast. “Joe, who killed Childers?”

“Ike Malloy,” Joe said. “It was in the newspapers.”

The little lawyer sighed. “But who hired Ike Malloy?”

“Who knows?” Joe the Angel said. His tone of voice implied, “Who cares?”

Malone poured himself one last drink and said, “I’d like to hire you to run this place for me, Joe. To take full charge, in fact, except of course that any further discussions of protection money should be referred to the new owner.”

“O.K.,” Joe said. “You pay me a salary to run the place?”

“Sure,” Malone told him, “fifty cents.”

“It’s too much,” Joe said, “but I take it.”