Manhunt. Volume 14, Number 1, February/March, 1966

Welinski took another look and then shook out a slow No.

As McFate drove along the deserted streets the police radio talked to him. The survey of Turkish and Finnish baths was completed. It had not uncovered Martin Mulcahy, although it had confirmed the fact that he was a frequent patron of such establishments.

“Particularly the Oriental,” added Bergeron. “Oh, and the investigating officer reported a kind of funny occurrence there.”

“Funny like how?”

“Well, let’s see if I can make out this handwriting, Skipper. Oh yeah. The manager there was telling the officer that Mulcahy had been in the night before last when another guy came up and contradicted him. Said the manager had Mulcahy mixed up with somebody else. That Mulcahy hadn’t been around in weeks. And right away the manager changed his story.”

“That is funny,” said McFate. “Does the investigating officer give any names?”

“Sure. The manager’s name is Whipple and the other guy’s name is Jackson, described as assistant manager.”

“Some assistant.”

“Aye, sir. Well, where do we go next?”

“Cover all the public parks and gardens. It’s nice weather. Men like Mulcahy often sleep it off outdoors.”

Damroth’s protracted figure, draped in a white linen suit and made to appear even longer by a high-crowned Panama hat, lolled against a bamboo cane on the wide sidewalk outside the Camelot Arms.

“Impatient?” asked McFate.

“Not at all,” said Damroth, folding his frame into the front seat. “Enjoying the air. A pleasure one appreciates as one grows older.”

“How would some hot humid air suit you?”

“Not a bit. But where do we go for it, Captain?”

“To a Turkish bath.”

“Intriguing though unseasonable. I thought you were determined to ransack the Evening Express.”

“It’s on the agenda,” said McFate. “But first let me fill you in.”

Damroth lit a cigarillo and listened. When the summary was finished he said, “You seem to think that Mulcahy has discovered something that jeopardizes his life. Is that it?”

“To put it mildly.”

“But the only thing he appears to have discovered, as far as you know, is that a man named Arthur Iacobucci is alive?”

“Right.”

“And yet it isn’t a crime for Iacobucci to be alive? I mean he’s not wanted by the police for anything, is he?”

“No. Not until today.”

“So presumably Mulcahy would have nothing to gain or Iacobucci nothing to lose if the police were to learn about what may be called a resurrection?”

“Go on, Doc, you’re doing fine.”

“Hence, on that basis at least, Iacobucci would have no reason to kill Mulcahy.”

McFate nodded.

Damroth tapped ash out the window. “But it was not only the police who presumed Arthur Iacobucci to be dead, was it? It was a view also held by what you choose to call the Combination. In fact, the Combination arranged his death as a matter of business. Now if it were brought to their attention that the business transaction had somehow miscarried, Iacobucci would again be marked for death. Am I right?”

“Probably?”

“Is Mulcahy the sort of man who would hold this over Iacobucci’s head for money?”

“Blackmail? No, I don’t think so. Martin Mulcahy’s a rumpot now, but I’d guess he still has the moral concepts of a good reporter. Ten years ago he was the best all-around legman the Evening Express had. Then his wife was killed in an automobile accident and he took to the bottle. Downhill ever since. But the paper never fired him. Just tucked him away in the obituary section. I don’t figure him for blackmail, Doc.”

Damroth pondered over the cigarillo. “If your assessment of Mulcahy is reliable, Captain, it leaves us with a portentous conclusion. Don’t you agree?”

“I won’t know until I hear it, Doc?”

Damroth smiled. “Simply this: more than the fact that Iacobucci is alive. He must have discovered who kept him alive.”

“That’s it,” said McFate, slapping the steering wheel.

“If what I read about criminal organizations is true, the only man who could have kept Iacobucci alive was the man assigned to kill him. Or am I being melodramatic, Captain?”

“Nope.”

“This leads us then to another conclusion. Whoever kept Iacobucci alive must have had a very big reason. Whatever the reason, it gave him the power of life and death over his supposed victim from then on. You see that, don’t you?”

“Clear as glass.”

“Therefore, when Mulcahy hypothetically dug up the corpse he was exposing not only Iacobucci to the Combination but also the man who had hoodwinked it for eight years. And that man obviously ordered Iacobucci to kill Mulcahy.”

“Poor old Tippy Welinski,” said McFate.

“He served a blind purpose, didn’t he?”

“And he’ll never know,” said McFate.