Chapter Twenty-Seven

“It’s after four,” Jake said, looking at his watch. “I don’t think we ought to wait any longer.”

“I do,” Helene said firmly. “She may walk in any minute.”

Jake scowled. “But—” He paused. “Maybe we ought to be looking for her, instead of waiting for her. How do we know she isn’t in trouble?”

“We don’t,” Helene said, “and I’m just as worried as you are.”

“She can’t have run away,” Jake said, “because she left all her things. She could have been kidnaped. She could have been lured away from here and—”

“Stop it!” Helene said. She added in a softer tone, “We’ve been all over that twenty times. Anyway, don’t forget no one knew she was here except Malone and ourselves.”

“If we could be sure of that,” Jake began. He looked at her and said, “Oh, all right. But I’ll show you who’s the head of this family. We’ll wait five more minutes, and then we’ll—”

“There’s someone at the door,” Helene said.

Jake breathed a sigh of relief.

The door opened. It wasn’t Anna Marie who walked in, it was Malone.

For a long moment no one spoke. Then Malone said, “What the hell!”

“We thought Anna Marie might be lonely,” Helene said, “so we came up to keep her company.”

“But where is Anna Marie?” Malone said hoarsely. “Where is she?”

“She isn’t here,” Helene said.

“I can see she isn’t here. But where is she? Where did she go?”

“I don’t know,” Helene said. “She was gone when we got here. The door was unlocked, so we came in and waited for her.”

“I’ll call the police!” Malone gasped. He reached for the telephone.

“You can’t do that,” Jake reminded him.

Malone put down the phone. “But we’ve got to do something. We’ve got to go out and look for her.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Jake said. “But where do we start?”

“Maybe she left a note,” Malone said, clutching at a straw.

“We’ve looked,” Helene told him.

The little lawyer groaned. “If anything’s happened to her—”

The door opened, and Anna Marie walked in. She stared at the three visitors and said, “Well! Surprise!”

She had on a plain brown coat and galoshes. She wore a scarf tied over her head to protect her from the rain. Not a wisp of her tawny hair showed, and there wasn’t a speck of make-up on her face. No one in the world would have recognized her.

Helene commented, “I’ve always said, leaving off make-up is as good a disguise as putting it on.”

Anna Marie laughed, her silvery little laugh. “I hope you weren’t upset when you found I wasn’t here. I got terribly tired of being cooped up here, after being cooped up somewhere else for so long. So I went for a walk. I left the door unlocked so I could get in when I came back—I didn’t have a key.”

“We were just beginning to get a little worried,” Malone said very casually.

Helene looked from Malone to Anna Marie and back again. She was thinking hard. Malone, she reminded herself, was a grown-up man. He’d taken some bad blows before. Anyway, there might be an explanation, there had to be one. It might as well be given in front of Malone.

She met Jake’s eyes for a moment. Jake nodded and looked away.

“What’s the matter?” Anna Marie asked. She slipped off her coat and untied her scarf. Her smooth hair tumbled over her shoulders. “You look as though you’d seen a ghost.”

Helene didn’t smile. She drew a long breath and said, “Malone, I wasn’t going to tell you this until I’d talked to Anna Marie. But, now that you’re here—” She turned to Anna Marie and said, “This afternoon when Milly Dale was murdered, she had just told us you’d been two-timing Big Joe. She was all set to tell us the name of the boy friend when the shot was fired.”

“It’s a lie,” Malone said immediately.

“Thanks, Malone,” Anna Marie said. “It is a lie.”

“See,” Malone said, “she admits it.” He glared at Helene. “We’ve been friends for a long time, but—”

Jake said, “Malone, you can’t use that kind of language in front of my wife.”

“I haven’t used any language in front of your wife,” the little lawyer said. “I mean, not so far.”

“He’s a prophet,” Helene said, “and he knows your vocabulary.”

Anna Marie said. “There isn’t any reason for anybody to get sore. Mr. and Mrs. Justus are good pals of yours, Malone, and if they thought I was a two-timing bitch, they wanted to do something about it. On the other hand, they’re right guys and while they’d only met me last night, they wanted to give me a chance to square myself. Malone, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“I am,” Malone said. He fixed his gaze on the end of his cigar. “Helene, I’m sorry for what I called you.”

Jake said, “You haven’t called her anything yet.”

“Shut up, Jake,” Helene said. “He can dream, can’t he?”

“I apologize,” Malone said, “so why don’t you two get the hell out of here and never come back.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at the floor.

“Please,” Anna Marie said. “Would you guys mind my putting this record straight? Since the whole thing’s my fault, anyway.”

“I will,” Jake said, “if you’ll let me black the other eye of that damned Irish shyster lawyer.”

“Try it,” Malone said.

Helene and Anna Marie looked at each other, shook their heads in feminine resignation, and shrugged their shoulders.

“If you’re really going to black Malone’s other eye,” Helene said, “let’s rent the Stadium and sell tickets. If you aren’t, let’s listen to what Anna Marie has to say.”

“I say,” Anna Marie said, “let’s have a drink.”

She brought out the bottle of scotch Malone had given her and managed to round up four glasses. She poured four drinks, sat down on the arm of one easy chair, and said, “Also, let’s talk.”

They looked at her. She was very pale, even, Malone thought, more pale than a ghost. It wasn’t just the lack of make-up either. She had on a lavender wool dress, her tawny hair shone over her shoulders. Her eyes were a pair of dark, deep shadows.

“Sure, they said I two-timed Big Joe,” she told them. “Milly Dale didn’t lie to you—she was just repeating what they’d told her. The name she was going to give you, just before she was killed—that was told her, too. Understand? It was part of the same thing.”

“Part of what same thing?” Malone asked.

“They—or he—or she—had to get Big Joe and me into a fight,” Anna Marie said. “A fight that witnesses would overhear. It wasn’t enough for me to think Big Joe was running around with Milly Dale. Hell, he’d have talked me out of that in three minutes flat. He had to think I was playing games with somebody else. So—” She turned her head and smiled. “You know what I’m getting at, Mrs. Justus.”

“Call me Helene,” Mrs. Justus said.

“O. K., Helene. Now, look. Suppose some guy went to Big Joe and said, ‘Your little pittipat is playing patty-cake with a cute tomcat.’ What would you do if you were Big Joe?”

“Beat the guy into a raw pulp,” Helene said.

“But suppose somebody convinces a gal pal of mine, who is also a gal pal of Big Joe’s, all under strictly clean circumstances, of course, that the same thing is true. What do you do if you’re the pal?”

“You mean the gal pal,” Malone muttered.

“You shut up,” Helene said. She added, “I’m afraid, in those circumstances—I’d have told Big Joe.”

“A woman would have,” Malone muttered. “A man would have kept his mouth shut.”

“Let’s leave the battle of the sexes out of this,” Jake said. “It all boils down to, somebody wanted to get Big Joe sore at Anna Marie, so he planted a story that Anna Marie was two-timing Big Joe with Milly Dale—who liked both Anna Marie and Big Joe. He planted it so well that not only Big Joe but Milly Dale believed it. The point is, what boy friend did he or she pick?”

Anna Marie shook her head and said, “I don’t know. How could I know?”

“The real point is,” Malone said, “why did somebody shoot Milly Dale just when she was about to tell what this alleged or imaginary guy’s name was?”

Anna Marie stared at him. A sudden light came into her eyes. “Because,” she said, “someone would have checked with him and found out the story wasn’t true. Though that wouldn’t have been reason enough to—kill anyone—” Suddenly she buried her face in her hands. “I’m sorry—perhaps I shouldn’t have walked so far this afternoon—I’m not used to it—”

“My poor baby!” Malone said. He lifted her as though she were six years old, laid her tenderly on the bed, and began rubbing her hands.

She lifted her eyelids and whispered, “Malone—you don’t believe that story is true?”

“Just malicious gossip,” Malone said. He kissed her gently on the forehead. “And even if it were true—”

Helene signaled Jake toward the door. They tiptoed out, and no one noticed when they closed the door after them.

Out in the car, headed north, Jake said indignantly, “You might have known the story wasn’t true. And you might have known Malone wouldn’t believe it.”

Helene said nothing. She swung the car viciously around a corner.

“Someday,” Jake said, catching his breath, “you women will learn to mind your own business.”

Helene whispered a mild profanity under her breath.

“But I love you just the same,” Jake murmured.

“Because I’m beautiful, or because I’m bright?”

“Neither,” Jake said, “but the word I had in mind begins with the same letter.”

Helene was silent all the way to the Michigan Avenue bridge. The bridge was up, and she stopped in a long line of futilely protesting cars.

“Jake,” she said thoughtfully, “do you believe in hunches?”

“Sure,” he said. “I used to keep rabbits in them when I was a boy back in Iowa. Rabbit hunches.”

“Damn you,” Helene said, “I’m serious.”

“Or,” he said, “do you mean, like the prophet who sat on his hunches and—”

“Jake, please!”

A chorus of indignant honks reminded her that the barrier had gone up and the line of cars was moving again. Helene started up the convertible and began inching along. Jake glanced at her, at her pale, lovely profile outlined against the dark fog outside the car. He had one of those sudden moments of wishing there were only two people in the world. Helene and himself.

“Darling, what’s the hunch?”

She gave him one brief glance. “Jake, I love you!”

“That isn’t a hunch, that’s a miracle. Shall we stop off at the Drake Bar?”

“No.”

“Shall we stop at Pierre’s, Rickett’s, or Armen’s?”

“No. No. And No.”

“Home?”

“Home.”

She’d made the left turn on Ohio Street and swung up on North Wabash before she said, “Since you’re so anxious to hear about my hunch, this is it. What Milly Dale was about to tell us isn’t important. What she did tell us is.”

“Well,” Jake said at last, “what was it?”

“That’s the trouble,” Helene said, “I can’t remember. Except, it’s something about a gun. And I don’t know why—but it has something to do with—Bill McKeown!”