The Sweet Ride (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 15

  Then I placed my flash on the desk top, so I could see the numbers, and dialed the Newton Police Department. Delcey, though not officially on duty, would be somewhere nearby when the phone ran downtown. He knew what to do, what to say.

  The phone, ringing at the other end of the line, buzzed in my ear. It buzzed once more, then was answered. I asked for Sergeant Delcey.

  “I’m sorry, sir, he’s off duty at this time—one moment, please. I think he just came in.” I heard the voice farther from the phone, fainter. “Sergeant. Sergeant Delcey.”

  I snapped off the flashlight, waited in darkness.

  Then Delcey was on the phone.

  I said, “Sergeant? This is Shell Scott. I hate to bother you—”

  “Jesus, you again.”

  “It’s important this time, Sergeant. I mean it. Look, I don’t want anybody to hear what I’ve got to say except you, not anybody. O.K.?”

  “Depends. I’ll decide that, Scott.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t use my name, not out loud—there in the station, anyhow. I already told you, guys are trying to kill me. If anyone besides you finds out where I am, I could wind up dead.”

  “O.K. So where are you?”

  “I’m at Mayor Fowler’s house, and—”

  “You’re where?”

  “Hear me out, will you? You’re going to be damn glad I am at Fowler’s—bust me for breaking and entering later. I was here twice talking to that sonofabitch, Grimson, you know. So I came back to prowl around. I don’t know what I hoped to find, some blood, maybe. Like Fowler’s blood, signs of violence or struggle. That was a blank, but what I did find is a lot better.”

  “Sure. You found the mayor himself. Or maybe you found the other guy we’ve been looking for, whoever it was called Fowler Friday night, our invisible informant—”

  “That’s right.”

  Silence. Then, “What?”

  “Maybe I have found the informant for you, Delcey,” I lied earnestly. “So could you maybe show a little appreciation instead of—”

  “He’s there? Is he dead? Who—”

  “Wait a minute. I don’t mean I found a guy here. And I said maybe. All I’ve got is a name, but—well, just listen a minute. First, though, tell me something. You know anything about a man named Biggers? It might be Ernie Biggers.”

  “Yeah, he’s one of—of you-know-who’s men. What about him?”

  “I’ll get to it. Let me fill you in, give you the picture first.”

  I paused, mouth a little dry. I’d wanted to get that name in. If someone was listening to this phony conversation right now, and it was not Ernie Biggers, then it didn’t make any difference. A carful of hoods with heaters would soon, if not already, be speeding to the mayor’s home to cool Shell Scott. Even if Biggers was riding the earie, he might have let out a yell, made a call himself, figuratively pushed the alarm button—unless he’d waited long enough to hear his own name, which event almost surely would have given him pause. Which was the whole idea.

  I leaned to my right, peering through darkness at more darkness outside the big front window. Not that a car, if it should arrive, would pull up with lights on and guys whooping and hollering. Still, I kept looking out there while I talked.

  “I went over this whole place, Delcey, nobody in the house, nothing. There’s a phone in the front room here, on a small desk—where I am right now, Probably this is where the mayor sat when he phoned me Friday night—and when he got the call from the man who said he saw Grimson blast Ramirez. You remember, I told you all about that.”

  “I remember. All I’ve got is your word for it.”

  “That’s all you need, Sergeant. You want to hear this or not?” After a pause I continued. “I just went through the desk. Bunch of junk, diary—nothing for us in it—golf ball, scorecard from the Newton Country Club. Snapshot of Fowler’s daughter, Melinda—that’s a laugh. Beautiful little gal, though, about fourteen years old. Anyhow, there was also a piece of paper in the corner of a drawer, with a lot of circle and doodles on it—you know, the kind of thing a man will unconsciously scribble. Like when he’s talking on the phone.”

  “So?”

  “So the mayor had to be doodling on this piece of paper when he talked to me. And, more important, earlier the same evening. We know the informant was supposed to visit the mayor here at midnight. It figures that was on the mayor’s mind every minute after he received the call from whoever it was.”

  “I suppose so. But what makes you think the mayor was doodling when he talked to you? You weren’t there, you were in L.A.”

  “I was getting to that. Along with the doodles, there’s writing, words, at three places on the paper, top, middle, and bottom. I’ll start at the bottom. There’s a number—has to be the time—10:45. Then there’s scribbled, ‘O.K. Call W., have him here 8 a.m.’ Now, 10:45 is when I called the mayor back to tell him the time I’d be arriving in Newton. It’s my guess the ‘W.’ means Hank Wainwright, and Fowler planned to have Hank here at the house when I arrived. Sort of a one-man welcoming committee.”

  Delcey grunted, but didn’t say anything. We hadn’t rehearsed the details of what we’d say, just the outline, and the sergeant had merely said he’d follow my lead, act surprised and such. So far, I thought, he was doing splendidly.

  “Just above that,” I went on, “middle of the page, or written earlier that evening, is my phone number in L.A. Fowler probably got it from Information and wrote it down, then dialed me direct. Besides, my name’s written there, ‘Sheldon Scott,’ with a time jotted next to my name, 10:20. Probably when he reached me—it was after 10 p.m., I remember. That’s all, except some doodles.”

  “We already know he phoned you, and you called him back. Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Delcey’s voice was a little higher, pulled just a bit tighter. It wasn’t part of the act, to make whoever might be listening to our conversation—if anybody was—think the sergeant was getting all excited by the imminence of my promised revelation. No, he was wondering, too, if several hoods might be on their way here.

  I kept peering out the big window, at nothing, as I said, “Sure, Sergeant, that’s why I called. There’s another name on the page, up at the top. Biggers.”

  “Biggers?”

  “Yeah. Biggers. But don’t say it out loud.”

  If Biggie was listening, I didn’t want him to miss anything—or pass out, for that matter—so we verbally dawdled just a bit to give him time to recover from what I hoped would be his shock. And possible nausea. And curdled sense of undeserved injury. So he could continue listening with absolute and horrified concentration.

  “Let me give you the picture,” I said once more. “Very top of the page, in block letters, is the word, ‘midnight.’ We can assume Fowler jotted that down while he was talking to the informant, shortly before he phoned me in L.A.—it’s higher on the page, thus earlier in time, as before. And Fowler told me his informant was supposed to come calling at midnight.”

  Delcey grunted again. “Makes sense. What’s this about Big—the name you mentioned?”

  “Well, underneath that ‘midnight’ there’s some letters, mean nothing to me. An ‘R’ and a ‘G’ and a something I can’t make out. Then the name ‘Biggers.’ In longhand, scrawly, like it was written fast. After that—and this is printed—the name ‘Ernie’ with a question mark after it. Looks to me like the mayor either recognized the man’s voice, or for some reason we don’t know about guessed who his caller was. Anyhow, I’ll give ten to one odds the guy who phoned Fowler is named Biggers. And you told me his first name is Ernie. I never heard of the guy myself, but if you fill me in, Sergeant, I’ll get the creep. One way or another.”

  “Uh, look ... sir. I’d better call you back on this.’

  “Don’t want to talk in the station?”

  “That’s right. You’ll still be there?”

  “Sure,” I tried to say lightly. “I’m probably safer here than anyplace else.” The wor
ds, of course, stuck in my throat.

  He hung up. I hung up. Then I walked to the front window, stared into the darkness. I didn’t see anything, or hear anything. Not that I necessarily would.

  Hell, even if Grimson sent Sam Jelly and five other gorillas out here, I could handle it, somehow, sure, I told myself—and jumped at least three inches off the floor when the phone rang.

  It couldn’t have been more than two minutes since we’d hung up. Delcey would be calling from a drugstore pay phone a block from the police station. The good sergeant must have run all the way.

  “O.K., Scott,” he said—a little out of breath—”I figure you’ve got something. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced the creep we’re after is Ernie Biggers, this Little Biggie. That’s damned good work, Scott. Hell of it is, we can’t do anything about it.”

  “Oh? We can’t?”

  I did hope Biggie was listening. I hated to think all this might be wasted. Shock hell out of him at first. Then give him hope. Lift him up—smack him down again.

  “We can’t. The police. Hell, you don’t call those doodles evidence do you? I believe it, but can you imagine a judge acting on that kind of information?”

  “Well, I can do something about it, Delcey. I don’t need a warrant. What can you tell me about this guy Biggers?”

  He repeated what I already knew, description, association with Grimson, record of one jolt in prison for burglary. After a little more of that, and again insisting there wasn’t anything the police could do about Biggers with so little evidence, I said, “If nothing else, I can see that this info—this piece of paper here, for that matter—gets to Hugh Grimson.”

  “To Grimson? You damn fool, you know what he’d do to Ernie Biggers, don’t you?”

  “Sure I do.”

  “He’d kill him, that’s what.”

  “I figured he would.”

  “Why, he’d torture him to death, beat him to a pulp—”

  “Boil him in oil! Peel his skin off!”

  I did hope Biggie was listening, hoped it with a fervent hope. But even though I couldn’t be sure, we had to wrap it up.

  “Break his arms and legs!” Delcey was crooning. “Scott, you can’t do that. You’d hate yourself if you were responsible for Biggie’s cold-blooded murder.”

  “I wouldn’t, either.”

  “But what if it’s a mistake, what if he’s innocent?”

  “Who cares? The more of those bums who knock each other off the less of them there’ll be to kill me. That settles it. I’ll make sure Grimson finds out there’s a stoolie in his gang.”

  “But, Scott, if Biggie is the informant, he’s an eyewitness to the Ramirez shooting. We have to get his testimony.”

  “It’s no use, Sergeant. My mind is made up. I’ve got to act in self-defense.”

  Silence. Then, “We’ll talk about this later, Scott. I’ve some other information for you.”

  That wasn’t part of our act. So I assumed Delcey did indeed have some info for me, recently acquired. I glanced out the window again, hoping this didn’t take much longer.

  “O.K.,” I said. “What’ve you got?”

  “Ballistics checked the two bullets from Wainwright’s body, and the one they found in Wykoff. All three were from the same gun, the S&W .44 automatic that was found near Wykoff’s body.”

  “Well. That means—”

  “Yeah, and there’s this,” he said, cutting me off—there were, after all, some conclusions we needn’t pass along to anybody who might be listening. “Sam Jelly was picked up on Sixteenth Street about an hour ago.”

  That would have been about the time I was meeting Delcey for our earlier conversation, possibly even before we’d met. “On Sixteenth?” I said.

  “Yeah. Only a block or so north of the Rigoletto.”

  “Why would he go back there?”

  “He claimed he had ‘a ungovernable’ hunger for spaghetti and meatballs.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I am not kidding. About twenty feet from where he was standing when the prowl car stopped to pick him up, the officers found a fully loaded Colt .45 automatic. Jelly was more surprised than anybody else.”

  “You tie the gun to him?”

  “Not yet. No legible serial number, but I figure it has to be his own gun. And I suppose you do, too.”

  This time I refrained from the obvious reply: That the S&W .44 found by Lou Wykoff’s body would be the gun Lou had used on Hank, and also the gun Sam Jelly had used on Lou. So the Colt .45 undoubtedly was Jelly’s own heater, even if nobody ever proved it.

  “Jelly’s in the can now?” I asked.

  “Not now. How I found out about it, I saw him leaving with his attorney while I was still on the phone to you. I didn’t find out for sure what the score was till I hung up and asked the desk sergeant.”

  “Sprung, huh? That was fast.”

  “I told you it would be. No change anywhere else,” Delcey said. “No news of the mayor, nothing you’d be interested in. I suppose you have some things to do....”

  I sure did. “Right,” I said. “Thanks for the info.”

  “In case I come up with anything else, where’ll I get in touch with you, Scott?”

  “Well, it’s too late for me to do much tonight—I’ve got to figure how to get in touch with Grimson, anyhow. So I guess I’ll go back to the motel and catch some shut-eye.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  I sighed, because that was the last question, and answer, on our agenda. “At the Pickwick Motel, on Twelfth Street,” I said. “Room 29.”

  And I didn’t sit by the phone any longer, thinking. We hung up. I did my thinking while I moved—and I moved.

  There were three possibilities. One, Ernie Biggers himself had, happily—though not so happily for Ernie Biggers—been bending an ear to our conversation. Two, not Biggers, but somebody else had been listening. Or, Three, nobody had been listening, and either the call was being recorded or there was no longer a tap on the line.

  If One or Three, no sweat, at least no immediate sweat. If Two, I figured I would by now be dodging bullets or running like an antelope through the walnut trees—but I couldn’t be sure. More, as soon as I told Delcey—and possibly others—where I was staying, the instinct for self-preservation demanded that I get from here to there, in a hurry, certainly before anybody else.

  So I got out of there fast. But not quite fast enough.

  When I reached the Pickwick, I wheeled in off Twelfth, rolled to the parking slot before room 29, and parked.

  I let myself in, shut the door and flipped on the light, and a voice from behind me in the room said, “Don’t go ape or let out a howl or shoot me or nothin’. I’m Biggie.”

  16

  Well, I would probably have been very pleased. Even overjoyed. Perhaps congratulating myself, mentally patting myself on the back, things like that. Except, for a good many tortured seconds, it was touch and go whether or not I would overcome a serious difficulty I was about to have with my bladder.

  I stood there, sort of scrunched over, lips peeled back and eyes bugging and hands clenched into fists, and with what must have been an expression blended equally of shock, pain, and several kinds of apprehension on my face, then I straightened up with a sigh and turned, realizing (a) I had already won, perhaps not a great battle, but a wee one, and (b) if the man had intended to shoot, he could have missed four or five times and still got me.

  “You all right?” he asked in a high, reedy voice as I turned.

  “Yeah, sure, I’m swell,” I replied in a high, reedy voice, as I turned. “So you’re Biggie, huh?”

  I was still in such shock that I almost blew the whole bit right there. But I caught it in time and pretended to be very startled, which wasn’t difficult.

  “What in the world are you doing here?” I asked him wonderingly. “How did you—nobody is supposed to know where I—you’re really Ernie Biggers?”

  I figured that
was enough, and maybe I’d even overdone it, so I let it just hang there in the air while I looked at my visitor. He didn’t seem as big as five feet five inches and a hundred and twenty pounds. He had a thin, pale face, only wisps of sand-colored hair on his head, and large sad eyes like a dog who’d been kicked too many times. He was wearing a gray suit, worn a bit thin at the knees, a light pink shirt and blue tie. He was standing, leaning against the wall across the room, and maybe he seemed smaller than I’d expected him to be because he appeared shrunken, as though he had recently undergone a trying ordeal.

  “Yeah,” he said, “I’m him. I’m the guy you want skinned and boiled in oils, I am the walkin’ dead, I am the guy whose guts you hate. Without even meetin’ me.” He was silent a moment, looking at me from the large sorrowful eyes. “Why?” Then in a plaintive tone that almost made me feel sorry for him, “I didn’t never do nothin’ to you, did I? Did I?”

  “Well, ah, not that I know of, but—”

  “So why are you gonna get me killed?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Biggers.”

  “Not much you don’t. I listened while you jawboned with Sergeant Delcey. Yeah, just now. Man, I liked to crapped blue.”

  “You—listened?”

  “Except for one little dizzy spell. The line’s wired, I heard every word practically. And I made up my mind while I was comin’ here a hundred miles an hour the only way to spill the whole schmeer—only you got to guarantee it to me you don’t say nothin’ about me to Hugh. To Grimson. Nothin’. I got as much right to live as anybody, don’t I?”

  I let myself be puzzled briefly, then said, “I see. Well, I might—if you spill everything you know—be persuaded.”

  “Does that mean you’ll keep shut up to Grimson about me?”

  “It could. Yes, it could definitely mean that. But you’ll have to level with me, Biggers.”

  “Don’t worry. I already made up my mind long ago. When I heard you talkin’ about that doodled paper I could of used it. Man, I liked to crapped blue. And then when you said you was going to puke it to Mr. G.—that’s when I had the little dizzy spell. I mean, if he ever finds out I’m the guy rang up the mayor Friday night he won’t just boil me, he’ll fry me in Crisco.”