“Malone,” said Mike Medinica, “this is positively no reflection on your character in any way, and we do not want you to take it as such. But there is entirely too much money involved to take any chances that some damn fool thing might go wrong.”
The little lawyer was, in a way, relieved that Mike had confined the reason for his genteel snatch to mere money.
“Besides which,” the big promoter added, “there is the very likely possibility that if Sam the Finder should take the stand, certain little incidental items might be mentioned in the questioning, irregardless of the fact that Sam the Finder would naturally keep his trap shut. Certain of the finer points of the deal might be brought to the public attention, points we consider are none of the public’s damn business.” Mike drew a long breath and smiled at Malone with revolting amiability.
Little incidental items, Malone thought, certain of the finer points of the deal — such as protection for fixed fights and vicious gambling activities. He wondered if Mike Medinica even knew what had happened to Charlie Binkley. In any event, John J. Malone wasn’t going to be the one to bring up the subject.
“So,” Sam the Finder put in, “tomorrow night, we will drive you back to town. In the meantime, enjoy yourself, Malone. Have yourself a ball.”
It was no time for argument, Malone decided. Somehow he was going to have to get back to town by morning, but surely something would turn up. Something was going to have to. This was one time he couldn’t afford to let down von Flanagan.
“It’s not that we don’t completely trust you,” said Mike Medinica. “It’s just that we wouldn’t want to have anything happen to you. So we know you don’t mind if one of us shares a room with you.”
“Not at all.” Malone lied valiantly, still hoping something would turn up. He decided to drop the subject and ride with the punches for the time being. He glanced idly around the room. “Is that the peephole where you got the black eye, Sam?” he asked casually, looking at the heavy door.
Mike Medinica shook his blonde head. “It was in town, at Sam the Finder’s penthouse apartment.” He added, “Same type of peephole, though.”
Mike might be the eleventh best-dressed man in America, Malone observed to himself, but he still carefully put the word “penthouse” in front of the word “apartment,” underlining it ever so little. Ah, vanity...
Malone inspected the peephole. It was a standard type, of a sort installed on a great many doors, a tiny affair that could be slid open to permit a resident to peer out and see who was ringing the doorbell, without being seen by the ringer outside. A roll of papers, though, would slip through very easily. Poke through, he corrected himself — as, of course, would a bullet. And this peephole was a facsimile of the one installed in the door of Harry Brown’s apartment.
Suddenly he knew he had to get back to town, and as soon as possible. Study of the peephole had caused him to remember what had been eluding him at the scene of Charlie Binkley’s murder.
He strolled to the fireside as though he didn’t have a care in the world. He sat down. His hosts, he noticed with satisfaction, appeared to be pleased, even a little relaxed, at his easy acceptance of enforced confinement.
Olive broke the silence by suggesting a drink. Malone agreed that a drink would be both refreshing and timely. An idea had occurred to him. It might not work, and it was going to take almost incredible stamina to make it work but, at the moment, it was the only idea he had.
Mike Medinica flashed a white-toothed grin, chuckled and said, “And you don’t need to worry, Malone, that Charlie Binkley will up in court and swear that he served the summons on Sam the Finder. He’s already been taken care of.”
Malone opened his mouth to speak and closed it again, a gesture that made him feel like a goldfish. The subject was not one he cared to pursue — at least, not just then.
Drinks were poured, and the conversation again lagged. At last, Olive rose, yawned and stretched sinuously, and announced that she was going to bed. One drink later, Sam the Finder solicitously asked Malone if he weren’t getting tired. Malone smiled cheerfully and said that the hour was far too early for him, that he had never felt more wide awake in his life.
Conversation dipped to zero. Finally, Mike Medinica yawned and suggested a little game to pass the time. Malone allowed himself to brighten slightly. However, Sam the Finder, it seemed, didn’t play cards. Parchesi, now...
Malone decided he could learn parchesi. He regretted that he hadn’t brought much money with him, but...
Sam the Finder, waved objections away. He said, “Your credit’s good here, Malone, and we’ll play for very small stakes.”
Malone said that that would be fine, and how about putting the bottle on the table, so they could all reach it.
IV
The sky was growing perceptibly lighter when the little lawyer leaned back in his chair and reflected ruefully that he’d had no idea there were so many intricacies to the parlor game of parchesi, or that it was possible to lose quite so much money at a child’s game in the space of four hours.
However, he had accomplished his purpose. Mike Medinica sprawled on the davenport, one shoeless foot dragging on the floor, his mouth open and snores emerging from it at regular intervals. Sam the Finder had lasted half an hour longer, but now, at last, he was slumped forward on the table, his head, on its final nod, having just missed the overflowing ashtray at the table’s edge.
Putting both men in slumberland had required four hours and a little over three bottles — but neither of them was going to stir much for a while. Malone grinned happily. As for himself — well, he’d know better when he stood up, but at least his head was reasonably clear.
He scribbled an IOU for his $439 losses of the night’s play and propped it up on the table. The money didn’t worry him much. After all, Sam the Finder was a client, and there was going to be an implausably large fee involved, under the circumstances.
He rose and tiptoed — quite unnecessarily — to the closet. There, he retrieved his hat and overcoat, put them on and realized, for the first time since he entered Mike Medinica’s big sedan, that he had had a gun in his pocket all along.
Oh well, he thought, things were better this way. It was hardly considered gentlemanly for an attorney to point a gun at a client. No, not even if the client kidnapped said attorney. Things were much better this way — much better. And it had all been a lot of good, more or less clean, fun, too.
He opened the door quietly and slipped out into the chill, early morning air. His first breath sent his fumed head reeling, and he grasped the doorpost for support. It was just, he told himself firmly, that he wasn’t used to so much fresh air so early in the morning. It had nothing to do with his having had to keep abreast of his hosts throughout the night.
Somehow, he managed to make his way down the driveway, through the soft, wet slush underfoot, weaving only slightly from side to side. At the gatepost, he paused and looked back. The big neo-Colonial house looked and sounded reassuringly peaceful.
It was going to be several hours before anyone woke up and came downstairs. Still, the occasion called for haste, not loitering. Malone wondered what time it was. His watch had stopped hours earlier, and the grey sky told him nothing.
“It gets early very dark out these days,” he remarked aloud. He began slogging bravely along the highway.