The voice had been smooth, mellifluous, even cultured. It had sounded as though it belonged to a Harvard educated judge, a British motion picture star, perhaps the model of distinction for a talking whiskey ad. However, the dulcet syllables were the property of a smallish, nondescript-looking man, slightly bald, with a fringe of greyish-brownish hair, pale blue eyes behind rimless glasses, and a prominent, pinkish nose. The smallish man’s coat and pants didn’t quite match, instead of a vest he wore a dingy brown buttoned sweater, and a faded knit scarf concealed whatever collar or tie he might have been wearing — if any. The drink-buyer was further adorned by a truly splendid black eye.
Malone recognized him immediately as Sam “The Finder” Fliegle. The little lawyer held out a cordial hand in greeting. By way of conversation, he uttered a few routine pleasantries about the weather and the coming fights, and tactfully refrained from asking questions about the colorful optic. One of the many things he had learned, in long years of practicing criminal law in Chicago, was that a man’s black eye was his own private business — also, that questions or comments concerning such a shaded lamp seldom created a friendly or pleasant atmosphere.
But Sam the Finder was not in a reticent mood. “Charlie Binkley gave it to me,” he said, pointing to the royal purple orb. “He was trying to serve me with a paper.”
Malone’s eyebrows rose a half-inch. While Charlie Binkley was a most unpopular man, even for a process server, he had never been known as a belligerent one. Furthermore, whenever belligerence was involved, Charlie, like other members of his profession, was usually on the receiving end.
“So,” Sam the Finder said, “I’m going to need your services, Malone.” He added, “This time Charlie has gone too far.”
The little lawyer’s eyebrows rose another half-inch at that one. Lawsuits were hardly what he expected from Sam Fliegle, not in such a case. A thorough going-over in an alley with brass knuckles and saps, yes — a hair-combing with a baseball bat, perhaps. Sam had just the boys who could tend to such chores. But a lawsuit — never. Sam the Finder just was not the type.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Sam the Finder said, in that shockingly beautiful voice. “I’m not going to sue him. Charlie will be taken care of, never fear, but not in the courts of law. I want your services for something else.” He smiled, and Malone, for some reason, didn’t entirely like the smile. Sam the Finder added, “Tomorrow morning, at your office?”
Malone nodded. A client was a client, especially just then. Not only were the John J. Malone finances rapidly plunging toward what threatened to be an all-time low, but life had been entirely too quiet of late. Besides, he liked the little man — even littler than himself.
“To-morrow morning will be fine,” he said.
Malone finished his drink and put the glass down on the bar. He was bored with the Blue Casino, had, in fact, been regretting the treachery of fate that had brought him there in the first placed when Sam the Finder had appeared. He had come with a party of five, a party that included a tender-eyed, slender-thighed blonde from a new show in town. His head had buzzed with plans, and his spirit soared with expectations for turning it into a party of two as the evening went along.
Fate in the shape of one of his companions — male — had tricked him, and things hadn’t worked out that way. Hence, a party of one and very tired of it, he had been making up his mind to abandon the Blue Casino for Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar, where at least he could be bored and lonely on the cuff.
Therefore, Malone said goodnight to his new client and moved toward the door. Sam the Finder trailed along, saying, in his impeccable accents, “I’m leaving myself, Malone. Delighted to drop you wherever you’re going.”
Malone, too, was delighted. Outside, it was a dreary, dismal night. Indeed, even in good weather, he preferred to confine his pedestrian activities to crossing sidewalks.
In spite of Sam the Finder’s Skid Row apparel, the car that was brought around to the door by a uniformed chauffeur was a satisfactorily splendid black Cadillac limousine. Malone eyed it approvingly. This was the way he preferred to see his clients transported. He remembered, also with approval, that Sam the Finder was known to be anything but a miser. Certainly, Sam was not a poor man. His choice of clothing was therefore a matter of either preference or indifference. Malone considered it his client’s own business, like the black eye, which almost matched the paint job on the Cadillac.
However, the eye became again the topic of conversation as the big car slid noiselessly away from the curb. “Charlie poked it with the papers he was trying to serve,” Sam the Finder said. For the third time, Malone looked at him with mild surprise.
“He’d been chasing after me for two days, trying to serve me,” Sam continued. “Finally, he decided to do it the easy way and came out to the house and rang the doorbell. I opened the peephole to see who was at the door. He got very smart indeed, rolled up the papers quick and shoved them through the peephole — right in my eye!”
“Legal service,” Malone said. “The papers must touch the person of the party being served.”
Sam the Finder flashed him a quick glance, then said, “The law also states that the party serving the papers has to be able to depone, or testify, that they reached the right person. Which Charlie cannot do. I could see him, but he couldn’t see me.”
Malone thought that over, decided Sam the Finder was right. “What are you planning to do about it?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Sam the Finder said. “That’s the whole point. When the hearing comes up tomorrow, to decide whether or not Harry Brown got a bad deal when Mike Medinica sold him the All-Northwest Chicago Boxing and Wrestling Club, I’m not going to be present.”
“Legally—” Malone began.
“Legally, Harry Brown can’t prove a thing,” Sam the Finder said. “I’d be out of Chicago right now, except that I’ve got a little business to tend to first.” The big car slid to a stop in front of Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar. “I’ll be in your office in the morning, and then I’m leaving on a business trip — a long business trip.”
The shabby little man opened the Cadillac door and smiled amiably at Malone. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s a simple little matter, easily handled. I just want to leave certain things in the hands of a lawyer when I go on that business trip.”
Sam the Finder might at least have made it “good lawyer,” Malone reflected wistfully. But he managed to smile an equally amiable goodnight as his new client drove away. This was no time to argue with a client, new or otherwise. Besides, Sam the Finder was not a person to argue with at anytime anyway.
Joe the Angel noted the size and splendor of the car that delivered Malone. He, too, smiled amiably and said nothing about the size of the bar bill.
“Sam the Finder,” Malone said, saving Joe the Angel the trouble of a question. “Wants me to handle a little matter for him. I’ll take rye.”
“A big man,” Joe the Angel said with a certain reverence.
Malone nodded gloomily, and sighed deeply over his whiskey. He was worse than bored, he was bored with being bored. The recent quietness of life, with its consequent, concomitant lack of clients and equally concomitant lack of funds, was getting on his nerves. Not so much the lack of funds — he was used to that problem and would inevitably find a way to meet it.
There was, for instance, a poker game tomorrow night at Judge Touralchuk’s duplex apartment that ought to help materially. It was the very quietness itself that bothered him. Malone to be happy, needed a certain amount of action around him.