Bodies in Bedlam (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 3

  "Yeah," I said. "I'm nuts. Hi, Irv."

  He rubbed his hands nervously over his big belly. "God, it's awful, huh? He's not much loss, but—God!"

  I knew what he meant. We tried small talk for a while, but it didn't go well. It was a double line, the people lined up two by two, and a couple of rows ahead of us I saw a beautiful dark-haired gal put her hand on her forehead and shake her head.

  She turned to the man with her and I heard her say, "Mark, get me something to drink. Please. I. . . I feel a bit faint."

  I could see her profile as she turned her head toward the man on her left. Then her face turned more toward me, the eyes rolled up in her chalk-white but beautiful face, and she fell over in a dead faint.

  She hadn't been kidding.

  I started to jump for her as she hit the floor, but a woman was in my way, and besides, the guy on her left already had her. He picked her up and carried her over to a couch and a cop went over. There was a little buzz of conversation, but that was all.

  "Who was that?" I asked.

  Irv said, "Wandra Price. She hasn't been around long enough to get toughened up. Small-town girl before she hit Hollywood. I guess the excitement was too much for her."

  "Looks like it," I agreed. I knew the gal's name, but not much more. She was one of the newest and best-publicized of the Magna stars, and her first picture, Shadow of Love, had just been released. I hadn't seen it yet, but I decided I was going to.

  She had a beautiful face and she also had a pleasant figure. She wasn't built quite so well as Jane Russell, but she had what counts where it counts if you count up to two. But I wondered about Wandra; she'd hit the floor pretty hard, and they'd barely jiggled.

  That's the way it goes in Hollywood.

  I said to Irv and Clark, "I'm gonna take off. Looks like tonight was a bad night for you guys to start calling people names."

  Clark said, "Ah, go to hell."

  Irv rubbed a hand over his belly again. "One thing I'm glad of, Shell. I didn't take a poke at the guy."

  Smart boy. I couldn't think up a quick answer.

  He reminded me that I'd not only slugged Brane just a little while before he was found dead, but I'd also yelled almost at the top of my lungs that I was going to kill the guy. That was dandy. It was so dandy the police wanted to ask me questions about it.

  I nodded good night with a very weak grin on my face, checked with the cop at the door, and went out, my little gray cells gyrating.

  Mountie, maybe you'd better get your man.

  I parked my distinctive Cadillac—I say distinctive not because it's beautiful, but because it's a '41 convertible painted a God-awful yellow—across the street from the Spartan Apartment Hotel. I smoked a cigarette while I worried, then flipped the butt carelessly in the general direction of the well-kept grounds of the Wilshire Country Club. That's how mean I felt.

  Then I went up to my room. I snapped on the desk lamp inside the door of my apartment on the second floor and walked over and looked at the fish. When they'd got used to the illumination, I flipped on the overhead lights and went back and looked at them some more. They're the prettiest darn things you ever saw. The fish, I mean. Tropical fish, and every color of the rainbow. Red ones, blue ones, striped ones, dotted ones, and big and little ones. I've got two tanks in the living room—a guppy tank and a tank for the other tropicals—and a ten-gallon aquarium downtown in my office, complete with a dozen guppies.

  I like fish. In the aquariums they get born, and grow up, and make love fish-style, and die, right under my eyes. And sometimes they kill each other, just like people. But they never choose up sides, say a couple of mollies and a red swordtail against all the rest, and have a little war to decide who gets the left side of the tank. Which makes them smarter than people. Sometimes I wonder if it's Homo sapiens or Homo insapient.

  I turned away and Amelia, the garish, yard-square nude that jolts your eye from over my fake fireplace, brought me back from the relaxing little fish world and reminded me of the party I'd just left.

  I sank down in the deep leather chair that's my own sprawling spot, propped my boots on one of the three hassocks that get kicked around my living room, and thought about Brane's gaping throat, Silver Mask's gaping blouse, and three hundred and some costumed people, any of whom could have committed murder.

  The only thing I was sure of was that I hadn't done it. I'm a private eye, so called, and this peculiar caper piqued my professional curiosity. But that wasn't nearly so important as the fact that I'd hauled off and hammered the guy—and worse, I had a hunch business wasn't going to be booming at the office downtown till I was clear out from under this thing. Probably there were plenty of movie folk, and maybe cop folk, that figured me as a choice suspect—maybe the choicest. It was a brand-new feeling for me, being on the wrong side of a fisheye, and I wanted to get rid of the odd sensation quick.

  I wondered who had pulled it off and why. Motive, opportunity, means, and the rest of it. The knife had done the actual job; that much was easy. But who out of all that mess of men and women had pulled the knife across Brane's throat? And why had he done it? Or why had she? Brane had seemed like a guy who needed killing, maybe, but— Skip it, Scott. You might have a big day tomorrow.

  I got up and went into the bedroom and took off my Mountie suit and hung it in the closet. I jumped into the shower in the bathroom and soaped up, thinking partly about the whole party, but mostly about the sweet and lovely girl wearing the hoop skirt and the silver mask.

  She bothered me and I couldn't figure where she fitted into this mess, what her angle was, or why she'd run away. Or apparently run away. I still hadn't figured it out when I crawled between clean sheets and tried to get some sleep. I lay awake for a while thinking about the girl, thinking it was too bad I didn't know who she was, where she'd gone, how she was mixed up in the murder. Because she was beautiful, and shapely, and had seemed like fun. And because I'd sure have liked knowing little Silver Mask a lot better.

  Then, remembering Brane's ghastly throat, I wondered.

  Chapter Four

  I WOKE UP as the two alarm clocks went off one after the other and it was crisp and clear outside, but I felt about as crisp as a dunked doughnut and my head was clear like a sloppy gin fizz. It was also fizzing like one.

  I groaned out of bed, eased my feet down on the black carpet, and smacked my gooey mouth disgustedly at nothing. A lousy, stinking world. Morning.

  I crept into the kitchenette, put coffee on, and stuck toast in the pop-up. Breakfast coming up. You may not be kidding, Scott.

  This was a morning just like every other morning. Horrible. Mornings are always horrible, seems like, but this a.m., hung over a little, it was worse. In the first place, I'm not one of those madmen who leap from bed, race around the room, throw open a window, and stick their heads outside and breathe deeply.

  I barely breathe.

  The toast popped up with a shattering roar and the coffee bubbled in the metal percolator like lava. I poured the coffee, buttered the toast, and then, suddenly, the details of last night's party came back to me.

  I poured the coffee in the sink, dropped the toast in the garbage, and said nuts.

  I made the Los Angeles City Hall just before ten o'clock and went up to Homicide. I didn't see Samson, and the boys I did see were quite pleasant and not at all rough, but I didn't know them and I got the creepy feeling that they didn't believe me. I admitted I'd threatened Brane, but it was all in fun, I told them. Cheerfully at first. Good clean fun. They couldn't understand that and wanted to know if I'd slugged him in good clean fun. It went like that for almost two lousy hours and I was sweating when I left. This goddam mess wasn't a bit cute.

  I felt empty by now, but the grilling I'd gone through hadn't left me much appetite. I managed a hamburger and malt at a Spring Street cafe, then found a spot between Third and Fourth on Broadway to park my sick-yellow Cadillac. I squeezed into the slot, stuck a nickel in the parking meter, and walked ten ste
ps to the Hamilton Building wherein resides Sheldon Scott, Investigations, one flight up.

  One flight up I peeked into the office, where nothing was stirring but guppies. I turned the light on over the tank, dropped some food in, glanced at mail that wasn't important, and walked down the hall to the employment agency.

  Hazel was at the PBX. "Sweet stuff," I said. "I'm here."

  "Well, good for you. Shall I stand on my head?"

  That would have been something. She was little and cute and about thirty-three. "Please," I said.

  "Go on with you. What do you want now?"

  "I have a slight ache. I'll be down in Pete's if anybody wants me."

  "Getting drunk?"

  "I don't get drunk at noon, sweet stuff. I'm after Pete's hangover cure." I cleared my throat. "Not that I really need it."

  She wiggled her head, "Oh no. A big strong man like you."

  I headed for Pete's, but I was delayed.

  Pete, incidentally, made the best hangover remedy extant. He'd never tell me what was in it, but it tasted like Worcestershire sauce, straight bitters, and gall bladders. But it did the trick.

  Pete's place is right next to the Hamilton Building on the west side of Broadway, which makes it convenient. I was just starting to push open the door when a car skidded around Fourth, took a left into Broadway, and slid to a stop in the middle of the block.

  A gal with beautiful legs leaped out of the car and started running like a sprinter in high heels toward the Hamilton Building. Then she spied me and veered in my direction.

  I thought, What the hell?

  She hit the sidewalk and ran up to me, gasping. She stood in front of me, looking up and gasping some more. I caught something like "Help me. Got to help me, Shell."

  I said, "Slow down. What's the trouble?" I couldn't make out who this cookie was or what was giving her fits.

  Then there was an echo of the scream her tires had made and a monstrous black limousine ripped around the corner and headed toward us.

  The gal got frantic. "Please, Shell. You've got to help me. I didn't know where else to go. Hurry! Hide me!"

  I was still a little numb, but I shoved open the door into Pete's and pushed her inside. Luckily the place was empty except for Pete and us. The door swung shut and I said, "Help you? I don't even know who you are."

  "Last night," she gasped. "Party. Mask on."

  She put her hands up over her eyes and nose and I finally got it. Little Silver Mask, who'd left her clothes lying by a dead man.

  "Oh," I said after a moment. "It comes back. You didn't meet me."

  "I couldn't."

  "Did you—" She didn't let me finish. I could hear footsteps outside, charging across the street.

  "I didn't kill him," she sobbed. "I didn't, didn't, didn't! Shell, help me."

  It was the same girl, all right. I looked at the lips and I was sure. I looked farther and I was surer. And the rest of her was just as nice. She had on a dark skirt and high-heeled pumps, and a black pull-over sweater, and she looked good, but her face was drawn and tired as if she hadn't had much sleep. She was close to hysterics.

  She had the lapels of my coat in her white hands and she looked up at me, her face twisted. She said, "I didn't kill him. Help me, Shell?"

  The feet scraped right outside the door and I had to make up my mind.

  "O.K., honey. Get in a booth. Quick!"

  Here you go again, Scott. You jerk. A sucker for the damsel in distress. But I wanted to believe this damsel. I took one step to the bar and perched on a stool just as the door swung open behind me.

  I said loudly, "Pete, mix me that sudden-death thing you make for my head."

  Pete waddled down the length of the bar, wiping his hands on a white apron. "Sure, Shell. Single or double?"

  "Single," I said.

  Then I turned and got a good look at the guy who'd come in, and changed my mind.

  "Pete," I said, "I meant double."

  The guy filling up the door with monstrous shoulders that were him and not padding was Garvey Mace. An even six feet tall, but with shoulders that had to be a lie, and muscles in his brown mustache. He had long legs ending in a flat stomach that swelled into a thick chest you knew had hair growing all over it like weeds. He was real good-looking if you like King Kong.

  He stood inside the door for a moment and gave me a quick, uninterested glance, then turned his big head toward the girl.

  She was sitting in a booth, her eyes staring straight ahead of her toward the back of the bar, not looking at Mace.

  He sighed and walked over to her. "Don't be coy, doll," he said in a deep bass. "Don't give me trouble."

  She turned her head and tried to look unconcerned, but her eyes didn't make it. She said, "Oh! Mr. Mace!" like she'd expected a friendly child.

  "Why'd you run, doll? No good running from me."

  "I wasn't running. I didn't even know you. . ." Her voice dribbled to a stop.

  She looked plenty scared and I didn't blame her. Not too much about Mace gets into the papers, but he's the top-rung racket boy of sunshine-and-palm-tree land. I knew he was "like that" with most of the bigwigs at Magna Studios, and even more so with Wandra Price, Magna's lush. . .

  Wandra Price? I blinked at Mace's monstrous back. She was the gal who'd tossed the whing-ding at Feldspen's last night—the gal who'd said, "I feel faint," and then fainted. This thing was getting screwier. I knew Wandra was rising fast and that Magna was booming her for big things. Maybe Mace had something to do with that, but I couldn't figure what he was working on right now.

  He was shaking his big head at the girl. He said quietly, "Let's you and me talk about a picture. But maybe we'd better not do it here."

  The girl ran her tongue over her lips and shrank away from him. "I don't know what you're talking about. Let me alone. Go away."

  He laughed deep in his chest. "No soap, doll. You better come with me." He reached out a big paw and latched it around her wrist. Her face twisted up and she flashed a frightened, pleading glance at me.

  At me, Shell Scott, who used to like damsels in distress.

  Well, here we go. Garvey Mace was associated with a lot of Magna bigwigs, true. But he was also associated with dying like flies.

  I had no desire to die like flies.

  So I walked over to him, tapped him politely on one of his enormous, stupid shoulders, and sweetly told him to blow.

  "Blow," I said in a brave squeak.

  He let go the girl's wrist, but didn't turn for a moment. Then he straightened up and turned around and I was looking down at his puzzled blue eyes. Down at his eyes. Well, that was something.

  He cocked his head on one side. "What did you say?"

  "Blow." It came out like a robin's egg exploding.

  He laughed. Oh, boy, this was comical.

  He asked me, not very politely, "Who the goddam hell are you?"

  "Shell Scott."

  "All right, you're Sh— Oh. Yeah. The boy scout. The pretty peeper. Look, don't annoy me."

  He turned back to the girl. He was all through talking to me.

  I said, a full octave lower, "No kidding. Don't annoy the lady. You may not believe it, Mace, but I mean it."

  He swung around with his brown mustache twitching a little and his jaw muscles jiggling like me flexing my biceps. He said, "Maybe you don't get it, Scott. I've got business with the lady. Personal business. Now you beat it, sonny. Before I paddle."

  Sonny. Paddle. That all they've got to do. Get me burning a little and I'm stupid as the next guy.

  He'd started to turn again, but I grabbed his arm and hauled him around. He didn't haul easy, but I got him around without tearing my ligaments.

  I said, "So have I, Mace. The lady's my client. Now you run along before I paddle."

  He said, "Client? You mean she's got herself a private dick?" Mace looked down at the girl. "He kidding?"

  She hadn't said a word while we were chatting. Now she looked at Mace and nodded her hea
d.

  He looked back at me and pursed his lips. "Well, how about that?" he sighed.

  "Mace," I said, "the lady's my client. She doesn't want to talk to anybody but me right now. Now blow."

  Then he shocked me silly. He said mildly, "Sure. Sure, peeper." And he blew.

  I didn't get it, but I didn't think I'd scared him. I'm not little and I keep myself in shape. I've knocked around a lot and I've been in brawls, and out of all the guys I've bumped into around L.A. and Hollywood, there are maybe three that I figure could lay me down and sit on me without busting a seam. Garvey Mace was at the top of the list. Some things a guy's got to admit, even to himself.

  He was just a pile of muscles. He was outsize, and he was smart. But I tell him to blow, and he blows.

  Anyway, I was thinking, I knew one thing: I'd rather tangle with two big dumb guys any time than one big smart guy like Mace.

  You know what? I must be psychic.

  Chapter Five

  THE DOOR had barely closed behind Mace, and I hadn't had a chance to talk to the girl any more, when the door swung open again and two goons walked in.

  One of them, a heavy, slow-moving guy with a soft, squishy look, stopped by the door. The other one walked briskly over to us at the booth. He didn't look a bit soft; he didn't look like there was a soft spot anywhere on his body except maybe the top of his head.

  He ignored the girl for a moment and concentrated on me. Concentrating on anything would always be trouble for this boy. He was about five-ten and thickset, with a vapid face and eyes like snails.

  Neither of the two goons was near Mace's size. Who is? But even better, they didn't seem like they were the intellectual type. And they didn't act too sure of themselves, as if they weren't used to working in daylight. Mace must have simply told them to get the girl, without telling them how. He should have given them explicit instructions like walking to the door by putting one foot in front of the other, opening the door by putting one hand on the knob, and so on. They were good for lifting things up, but not at figuring out what to do then.