The Wailing Frail (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Read online

  Beasley shrugged, but Sebastian Wise got to his feet. “You can call me at home if anything important comes up. I'm rather tired.” He looked at me and grinned. “But I shall continue to hope he's not one of those we've been tuning in on.” He went out.

  After a little more conversation I was ready to leave. Paula stopped by me a moment at the door. “I'll wait till you come back—if you hurry.”

  I told her I'd be back in no time, and she gave me a smile that would last me at least an hour. Then I left.

  The Melody Club was out on Olympic, a small spot with low-key lighting and high prices. I turned my Cadillac over to the parking attendant and went in. Just inside the door was a big poster which declared that Paul Dutton's band was being held over for another month, and that the highlight of the three floor shows was something called Satan and Satin. I got a brief glimpse of a color photograph, something red and white. It looked like a guy in devil costume and a babe in very little.

  The velvet rope was already stretched before the three steps leading down into the main room. I could hear the clink of silverware on dishes, the soft babble of conversation. A tuxedoed waiter stood, arms folded across his chest, in front of the rope. Things got off to an early start here at the Melody.

  Before speaking to the waiter, who was straight in front of me, I looked around. The checkroom was on my right. Directly behind me was the men's room, and a couple yards from it was the ladies'. At least I assumed that was the order. On the one door was nothing; on the other one behind me was a painted red devil. I've got a hunch that designers of nightclub restrooms are the same people who paint those modern paintings that get hung upside down, the way the painters should be hung, at galleries.

  I stepped up to the headwaiter, who looked at me stonily.

  “You have a reservation?”

  “No. I'm meeting a gentleman at his table.”

  His lip twitched. That was a likely story.

  “George Stone,” I said. “You know him?”

  His eyebrows went up a bit. “Oh, Mr. Stone. Of course.”

  “Why of course?”

  He didn't reply, but waited until he was sure I wasn't going to tip him, then turned and unhooked the velvet rope and led me between tables to one at which a big black-haired guy was sitting, gulping a highball.

  The big guy looked up at me. “Hello, Scott. Sit down.”

  I sat and he waved a white-jacketed waiter over, ordered a Scotch highball and asked me what I wanted. Stone looked as if he'd had plenty to drink already. I told the waiter bourbon and water. While waiting for the drinks, Stone and I sized each other up.

  He was, I guessed, about five-ten and two hundred pounds. He looked strong and muscular, but white, like a toadstool, and he had a lot of teeth that showed when he talked, and a lot of black hair. Stone was somewhere between forty and fifty years old.

  He said, “You took your time gettin’ here.”

  “Let's get something straight. If you've got a story to tell, I'll listen, but not to any of your lip.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. I'm wound up a little. Big deal, this thing. You'll see what I mean in a minute.”

  “The way you talked on the phone, you had some high-powered stuff to spill. This seems like a funny place for it.”

  “It's safe,” he said. “Nobody can get to me here. And there isn't anybody going to hear what we're talkin’ about.” He paused. “Besides, I didn't decide to call you till after I come here. Just tonight. There's—trouble buildin’ up. I can smell it. Time I pulled out of it.”

  “It's time you told me what you got me here for.”

  He took a cigarette from a pack before him, picked up his lighter from the table and lit the cigarette. Then he stared at the lighter flame for a couple of seconds before snapping the cap down and snuffing out the flame.

  He took a deep drag and blew out smoke. “You want to know about lobbying. Pressure on the law boys. Blackmail. Bribery. Payoffs. I can give it to you till the middle of next week. You don't know me, do you? Don't know what my job is or anything?”

  “No.”

  “Electronics, and radio. That's my racket. I can tap a phone, wire a house, listen to conversations anywhere, any time, with wires or without. That's another reason I met you here; nobody else'll be listening. I can get an ear into almost any place except the mint. And that's just what I've been doing for seven years.”

  I started getting interested. After the people I'd talked to earlier today, I was going to be pretty hard to convince; but although Stone was talking softly, so that people at other tables wouldn't hear us over the music, he talked like a man who had a lot more to say. And he sounded to me like a man who was telling the truth.

  He seemed nervous, too. He kept looking around, like a man who expected trouble.

  I said, “What's the rest of it, Stone? And how come you decided so suddenly that you wanted to talk to me?”

  “I already told you. Enough, anyway. And here's my problem. I had to bend a few laws doing this job of mine. If I spill everything, that part's gonna come out, too.” He paused and dragged on his cigarette, then stubbed it out. “But we can talk it over, and I can get an idea of where I stand. Just the two of us, it's your word against mine, see? And you don't know it yet, but you can do me some good.”

  “Let's start with you doing me some good. You claim to have been tapping wires for seven years. Who'd you do all this work for?”

  “Oh, yeah. I meant to tell you that. Well, Scott, there is a Mr. Big.” He grinned, and it was like a thick muscle splitting open. “Mr. Big. Just like that paper said.”

  “Who?”

  “That'll wait a bit. I don't spill anything unless I get a free ticket.”

  “I haven't got any authority, Stone. I just work for the committee, and you know it.”

  “Yeah, I know it.”

  The orchestra had been playing steadily until now, and several people had been on the dance floor. But the music ended and Stone stopped speaking in the relative quiet. We had a good table, at the left side of the dance floor, and I noticed Stone was looking past me. I followed his gaze toward the floor and was just in time to get a healthy double wallop to my nervous system. The first one was a wild fanfare from the orchestra; the second was a woman, and twice as wild as the fanfare.

  It was a willowy silver-blonde with ice-blue eyes and a shape that must have turned more heads than a dozen chiropractors. For a nerve-jangling second I thought that shape was clad only in skin like the lovely-in-the-doorway episode earlier today, but then I realized that she was the female half of the floor show, but I knew that for me she'd be the whole show.

  What I had thought ivory skin was shimmering cloth that covered her from the neck down, that covered her arms and fingers, was molded to her breasts, flowed over a tiny waist and sharply swelling hips, then separated to cling like paint to her firm thighs and calves. She wore no shoes, and the white cloth covered even her feet.

  She was standing in the cloth-draped archway through which performers would enter and leave the floor, just a couple of yards from our table, both arms raised at her sides to hold the dark curtains apart. She turned her head and winked, and for a happy moment I thought she'd winked at me, but then I noticed she was looking past me.

  I glanced around to see George Stone grin and nod at her. But that was all I saw him do, because while I cursed under my breath I was swinging my head around to focus on the gal again. It was hard to focus, too, because there were so many places you wanted to look. If eye exercises improve vision, this gal's approximate thirty-six, twenty-one, and thirty-five would give a blind man twenty-twenty.

  As the fanfare echoed in the club a voice spoke over a mike, introducing Satan and Satin for the first show of the evening. The woman, Satin, ran lightly forward, arms stretched behind her, as the lights in the club went out. A spotlight speared down from the ceiling and fell on her as she stopped and stood motionless, raised up on her toes, arms down and back, her stomach suck
ed in and her breasts high and prominent, gleaming in the white light.

  It was easy to forget that every inch of her body was covered by the cloth; it fit without a wrinkle, followed every curve and undulation of her form, was thrust forward at the right places. It was obvious that she wore nothing except the satin covering.

  There had been no sound, no music, but suddenly a chord crashed violently from the orchestra and the sound was held, sustained and growing louder as, simultaneously, a second spotlight flashed from overhead. It fell on another figure, the tall red-clothed devil, with his arms raised over his head, wrists bent down so that his fingers pointed to the floor. A black-lined cape hung from his shoulders, and his lips were spread apart in an expression that was half-grin, half-snarl, like the smile of a satisfied sex fiend.

  For several seconds both the red form and the white were motionless, then the long-held chord flowed into another and Satin turned slowly. The scene was immensely effective, with the spotlights sharply outlining the two contrasting bodies, and darkness surrounding them. Satin looked at Satan, then reached her hands toward him—not reaching for him, but with palms out, arms bent slightly at the elbows, as though she were trying desperately to keep from being drawn to him.

  But her feet raced toward him, slowed suddenly, then advanced hesitantly; and all the while she pushed forward with her outthrust hands, squirmed the upper half of her body from side to side. It was almost possible to believe that she was really being drawn forward while she fought to keep away from Satan; as if she were powerless to prevent him from controlling her body.

  The spotlights blended together as the two bodies touched, the white pressing against the red. For the first time the red Satan moved, his arms dropping and his hands encircling Satin's tiny waist. She pulled away from him, but her white legs flashed up to entwine about the devil's middle. Her legs linked tightly about him, and her arms were thrust above her head as she leaned completely away from him, her body twisting from the waist up, head back and the long silver-blonde hair brushing the floor.

  Barely a minute had passed, but this was already about the most sensual and stimulating act I'd seen in a nightclub. If this got any better, there was only one thing they could do for an encore. Light flickered on my left as Stone spun his lighter wheel and puffed on another cigarette. Then there was a heavy thud and I looked toward him. It had been Stone's hand. He'd banged it hard against the table.

  I couldn't blame him. I was beginning to feel like banging the table top, or even taking a bite out of it, myself. I'd merely glanced to my left at the sound of Stone's hand hitting the table, and then started to return my attention to the interesting area of the club. But I could see Stone's hand on the table, palm up—and something else that was so incredible that it didn't penetrate my awareness for a second.

  It was as though the sight registered, but couldn't bring forth any normal reaction. I just stared at his hand. Maybe part of it was that my mind was still on the dance floor with Satin, following the twists and curves of her smooth body. But that was only part of it.

  Stone's cigarette lighter, which he'd used a couple of times before, was the kind that lights when the small wheel is spun, and remains lighted until the top is snapped down again. It lay now in the palm of Stone's hand where it rested on the table. And the lighter was still burning.

  It was burning the flesh. As I watched I could see the skin of his curled fingers begin to blacken. A tiny fissure opened in one of them; it split for a fraction of an inch. Wetness bubbled in the fissure.

  The orchestra was playing more softly, the music swelling and throbbing behind me. Somebody coughed. I heard a padded foot slap against the dance floor near me. And that lighter burned, searing the motionless hand in front of me. I could smell the burning flesh.

  The thought crept into my mind, then. It was crazy. But it had to be true.

  Stone was dead.

  Chapter Two

  I don't know how long I stared at Stone's hand, but it couldn't have been more than a few seconds. It seemed like a long time.

  But then, when it really hit me, I slapped my fist forward, hitting his fingers and knocking the lighter away. It winked out and clattered against the floor. I'd knocked over a glass and it rolled on the table top, the liquor and water dripping off the table's edge.

  There was no illumination behind Stone, only the reflection from those spotlights focused on the dance floor, but there was enough of a glow so that I could see him start to move.

  He seemed slumped in the chair, but was still upright. His head rolled to the side and his body followed it. He moved slowly, and at first the motion was barely obvious. Then everything happened suddenly.

  His body seemed to lurch sideways and he fell to the floor with a jarring crash. A woman at the next table screamed. She screamed and kept on screaming. She couldn't have seen that the man was dead, couldn't have known. But something made her scream. Maybe it was the way he fell; or maybe she smelled that burned flesh.

  But her voice was high and gasping, carrying a choking fright through the sound of the orchestra. The music stopped suddenly. Lights came on in the club, and at the nearby tables men and women jumped to their feet. I still didn't know what had happened to Stone. But I could see him clearly now, and I knew he was dead.

  A moment after the lights went on I was kneeling by him, my fingers searching for his pulse. I knew there wouldn't be any. There wasn't.

  “My God!” somebody cried beside me. “My God, it's George!”

  Satin stood almost touching me, staring down at Stone's body. I was surprised to find that she was only about five-two or five-three. I could see long, artificial eyelashes that were part of her make-up, the orange rouge on her lips, the paint hiding her own eyebrows, and the thickly penciled false brows arching high on her forehead.

  She looked shocked, as if she might suddenly faint or start yelling, but there wasn't time to worry about that now. Near me was a table at which were four men; I touched the biggest one's arm and said, “Keep everyone away from the body, okay?”

  He nodded and stepped forward without even looking at me.

  Up front I collared the head waiter. He knew that somebody had keeled over, but that was about all. I told him to keep the doors closed and not let anybody leave, then used the phone booth to put in a call to the police.

  When I came out of the booth, the head waiter was wandering about in a daze. I asked him if he'd put men on the doors and he nodded and added, “Those two men had already gone. Is Mr. Stone really dead?”

  “Yeah. What two men?”

  “I don't know—that is, I talked to one of them, the shorter one, when he asked me where Mr. Stone's table was. And I saw the two of them going out, just before all the commotion. Did he have a heart attack?”

  “Could be. What about this man? He asked where Stone was?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you told him?”

  “Of course. He gave me five dollars.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He was short, perhaps, thirty, thirty-five years old. And his teeth stuck out. He had a black mole at one side of his mouth, too. I remembered him fairly well because of the five dollars.”

  “When did he ask you about Stone? And what did he do then?”

  “It was just before the show. A few moments before the lights went out. He just looked into the room, then went into the men's room.” He paused. “Why do you want to know all this?”

  I showed him my identification and said, “I'm a private detective, the nearest thing you've got to the law until the police get here.” He looked at me as if that wasn't near enough. There wasn't much more he could tell, anyway. He hadn't seen the short man again, nor had he seen the second man in the light; he had merely seen the short form and a larger one going out during the show, which had struck him as odd. People, he said, especially men, didn't often leave while the show was on. It struck me as odd, too.

  Before I left him, I asked where t
he manager's office was. He pointed to the door I'd thought was the ladies’ restroom. Then he wandered off. He seemed all unstrung. I went through the door he'd pointed at, and found myself in the ladies’ restroom.

  Fortunately there were no ladies resting and when I came out I saw the word “Manager” on a door across from me, but the room beyond it was empty. I went back to where Stone lay. The big guy was still standing alongside the body.

  Satin wasn't in sight. I went through the curtained archway and down a narrow passageway to a hall lined with closed doors. I saw one door with a silver star on it and knocked. A woman's voice said, “Who's it?”

  “Shell Scott. I'd like to talk to you if it's okay.”

  Satin opened the door. She held a cloth in her hand and was removing the make-up from her face; but she hadn't changed the outfit she wore in her act. It took a few seconds for me to explain who I was and what I was doing here, but then she invited me inside her dressing room, shut the door, and walked over to lean back against the dressing table.

  “My psychic told me something ugly was going to happen tonight,” she said. She was looking straight at me when she said it. I know I'm not beautiful, but I'm not really ugly. I told myself, though, that Satin hadn't meant me. At least she hadn't sounded very bitter about it. The way she was leaning against the dressing table, both arms behind her and that sensational body arching gently backward, might have been an accidentally assumed posture; but if so it looked like the most practiced accident a man would care to see.

  From where I stood, I got not only the startling front view of this lovely, but a good deal of the rear view reflected in the dressing-table mirror, and it was almost too much. Even in the mirror it was an unparalleled rear view, or you might say an unparalleled-rear view. That costume was definitely designed for an intimate nightclub act, to be viewed from several yards away and under special lighting—not to be viewed in bright lights from so close by one such as I.