Joker in the Deck (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Read online

  When Jim said, "He never used a gun," it had reminded me of something. I said, "Just a second. Mickey M.'s gun is still out there somewhere. It could be the one used on Aaron. Police will want to check it, anyway."

  I hadn't seen the gun after he'd fallen, and it might have gone off the deck. Thinking about that reminded me of something else. I banged the palm of one hand on my forehead.

  "What's the matter?" Jim asked.

  "This hood didn't walk here. He must have come in a car. I should have checked that out ten minutes ago." I swore softly and said, "Be right back."

  "Shell." Jim's voice was a little tight.

  "Yeah?"

  "It's just sinking in. There really is a good chance that little sonofabitch killed my brother, isn't there?"

  "Yeah, pretty good."

  "Well, I'm glad he's dead. I'm glad you killed him. But I wish I'd done it. I wish I could have killed him."

  "Don't say it, Jim." Maybe he meant it; but he hadn't seen the man die.

  I went to the door, stepped out on the deck and started down the ramp toward the dead man's body. Then I stopped.

  "That's funny," I said aloud, with more than a little understatement. Mickey M. was gone.

  Chapter Seven

  Mickey M. was no longer on the ramp.

  A thick smear of blood was there. That was all. No Mickey. No gun in sight.

  I heard sirens. Soon the wail droned to a stop, doors slammed.

  "Jim," I called.

  He came to the door behind me. "Cops here?"

  "That's not why I called you. Take a look." I pointed to the ramp.

  "What the hell?" he said. "You move him?"

  "Nope. And he sure as hell didn't move himself. He came in a car, all right. But, apparently, not alone. Probably with six other people, including stretcher bearers." I stopped, then started swearing, not so softly this time.

  "What's the matter?" Jim asked.

  "When he ran out of here the first time, I heard the car take off. But there wasn't any starter growl, just the sound of acceleration and then a door slamming. Hell, somebody else had to be in the car then, sitting there with the motor idling. Mickey just ran up and jumped in as the guy took off. Jim, if you want to hire a detective who isn't stupid — "

  "Knock it off, Shell."

  Policemen appeared, in large numbers.

  The numbers were large because there was, first, a radio car and two uniformed policemen, then detectives working the night watch out of Central Homicide, and after them the sleepy Homicide team from the Hollywood Division, which itself consisted of one lieutenant, two sergeants, and another uniformed policeman. It just doesn't pay to shoot anybody anywhere near Los Angeles. Not, at least, if you can help it. And the first of the Hollywood detectives to appear on the scene was the lieutenant. Wesley Simpson.

  He started to speak to one of the Headquarters detectives, then spotted me near the Senegal date palms and walked toward me, moving like a man in a dream. "Didn't even get my pants off," he said. "Didn't even get inside the house. Heard the call on the radio and made a U-turn — broke the law," he added sourly. He looked around. "Where's the body?"

  "Well, it was here a few minutes ago — "

  "Oh — " He said a four-letter word. "Usually I enjoy gagging it up with you, Scott." Scott, not Shell, which meant he was really beat. "But believe it or not, I am supposed to be working the day watch. Now where's the stiff?"

  "Wes," I said gently. "I was not gagging it up. I shot this guy — "

  "You're the one shot him?"

  "Yeah. And he was right there." I pointed to the smear of blood on the ramp. "I stepped inside for a minute or so, and it seemed unnecessary to lug the dead guy in there with me. When I came out a little while ago, he was gone."

  "Scott," he said slowly, his voice like distant thunder, "if you are being gay — "

  "Wes, please, I'm telling this as simply and accurately as I can. There's a call out already, and there's still a chance a prowl car may tag a buggy speeding from here. If there's a fresh corpse in the car, that's the one."

  "You mean . . ." His voice was sort of mushy, as if his tongue was loose. ". . . after you shot him, somebody walked right in here, picked him up, and took him away? Somebody stole him?"

  "You," I said, "get a cigar."

  There was not much left of the night by the time I reached the Spartan Apartment Hotel in Hollywood. The Spartan, across from the green grounds of the Wilshire Country Club, on North Rossmore Drive, is home. More importantly at the moment, that's where my bed is. And bed is where I was ten minutes after walking in the door.

  I fed the tropical fish some dry food, showered, set both alarms, and fell into the sack. I was tired, but I couldn't stop my brain from whirling like a merry-go-round. I couldn't grab any brass rings, either.

  I tried to push it all out of my mind, but pictures kept floating before my inner eye. The men and women at Laguna Paradise, Mickey M. talking to Adam-Aaron, Eve with her bold bare breasts trembling in the soft light, and Laurie, lovely Laurie. Laurie there by the pool . . . Laurie at Jim's door . . . Laurie laughing, her eyes flashing, Laurie with her hands on the top of her dress, two mounds of white and a hint of pink, a hint of promise, against the black.

  I tried to keep thinking of Laurie. But two other pictures kept pushing her away, and finally only they remained. One was Aaron Paradise on his back in bed, the red stream, of life drying on his side. The other was a man dying, teeth clenched, body jerking convulsively, trembling, shaking. . . .

  Always I awaken reluctantly, but this morning I woke up asleep. The first alarm scratched at consciousness; the second clawed me out of bed. But coffee was thin plasma, new bounce from the old bean. Over my second cup I was able to think about yesterday, a yesterday that seemed like a week.

  Wesley Simpson had never quite lost his temper, but if he had, he would probably never have found it again. I told him the gunman was one Mickey M. — even though I had no physical evidence to prove it. But they didn't find Mickey M. To make it perfect, they didn't find his gun, either.

  Jim Paradise had finished telling me his tale. His brother had wound up in prison, but Jim had done very well with his 150 G's, investing in real estate, buying apartment houses, improving them and trading or selling, whichever afforded him the bigger tax break; then investing in raw land and housing developments. With a pile of cash he'd come to California seven years ago — shortly before I'd met him at a Hollywood party — chunked it into real estate, doubled and tripled his capital. He started buying land in and around Laguna Beach and formed "Paradise Properties, Incorporated." Then this last October brother Aaron had showed up, big as life and even lustier. After a happy reunion, Jim invited Aaron to join him in the big project, which had then become Laguna Paradise. Aaron had fifty thousand dollars in cash, the title to Brea Island, and "a million ideas" — some of which produced the Barnum-type promotion I'd witnessed last night.

  That was all of it. Then: Murder.

  I carried a third cup of coffee into the living room of my three-rooms-and-bath, flopped on the chocolate-brown divan in front of the fake fireplace, and plunked the phone on my chest. I dialed Jim's home, and he answered on the second ring.

  "Shell, Jim," I said. "How soon will you be ready?"

  "Not till about nine. What say I meet you at your place then? We can leave from there."

  "Fine."

  Last night we had decided to go in Jim's boat — a forty-two-foot cabin cruiser, a twin-screw Matthews — to Brea Island. I had no idea what I'd find there, but I had a very strong desire to take a look.

  "Anything you want me to do?" I asked Jim.

  "No . . . well, yeah, there is one thing. Some of the Laguna Paradise people are probably wondering if I'm going to keep the development open today. After what happened last night."

  "You going to close down for a while?"

  "No. There's a chance somebody wants me to do exactly that — not that it makes much sense, but none of
this does yet. If anybody does hope what happened to Aaron is going to slow down Laguna Paradise, I'm damned if it'll work. Anyway, if you want to you can call Wally and the girls and the rest, tell them nothing's changed. They're to go to Laguna today, as usual."

  "Sure."

  "I'd do it myself, Shell, but I've got to go downtown and complete the funeral arrangements."

  "No trouble." He gave me the numbers to call and I jotted them down. "I'll be back here and ready to go by nine," I said. "And, Jim, take care."

  The police had impounded the Smith & Wesson I'd used to poke holes in Mickey M. last night, but we'd arranged for Jim to carry another gun, a .38 revolver. I added, "Carry that heater with you."

  "I'm way ahead of you."

  We hung up and I made the calls, reaching everyone except Eve and Laurie, who didn't answer my ring. Of course, I didn't let the phone ring very long when I called Laurie, since that made it necessary for me to call in person. I hung up and drove speedily to the Claymore.

  I went inside and stopped at the cigarette stand on the lobby's left, near the bank of elevators. While I was peeling off the clever little cellophane strip, I noticed a big chubby guy buying cigarettes. It was the middle-aged Santa Claus character I'd seen talking to Eve last night.

  He opened the pack, withdrew a filter cigarette advertised as having the most "sanitary, safe, and effective" filter on the market, which allegedly soaked up 90% of the nicotine, 95% of the tars, and presumably 99% of the smoke. Chubby stuck the cigarette into a metal filter, which he then inserted with great care into his mouth. He got the thing lighted, and I wondered if he could taste anything. It seemed a hell of a lot of trouble to go to when he'd get so little out of it.

  He noticed me eyeballing him, fascinated, and he was taken aback. Pale eyebrows went up a bit over bright blue eyes and he sort of cringed.

  "Ah," I said, "hello, sir. Did you buy any Paradise lots last night?"

  The brows went slowly down. I wasn't going to snatch his cigarette away, after all. He smiled, and it was a lovely smile. The way Santa would smile on Donder and Blitzen on Christmas Eve. "Yes," he said in a rather high but mellifluous voice, "yes, yes." It sounded as if he'd bought three lots. I was only one over that. "I purchased two," he said. "One is a splendid view lot, simply splendid. The other is small, but darling."

  I thought: It's darling? A lot?

  "I don't recall seeing you there, sir," he said. "Did we meet?"

  "No. I was there with friends. I recognized you because I happened to see you talking to Eve last night."

  "Eve?"

  "Eve Angers, one of the models."

  "Oh, of course. Of course. The salesgirls or whatever they are. One of them gave me quite a lot of information about lots."

  It sounded a bit odd. But Eve had lots of lots, I remembered. He was saying, "A rather large creature, isn't that the one?" And I was thinking it was an odd way to describe Eve, but maybe not too far off the beam at that.

  And that's not all I was thinking. The way my mind works, I could see three kings and hear Eve saying: I'll zip you, Sweetie. But I forced my thoughts away from her, and said, "You bought lots of lots — I mean, two lots, huh?"

  "Yes, yes." He had it right this time. "I'm just delighted, especially with the view one. It's a perfect dream. You can see the blue Pacific, and the little waves frothing, frothing so whitely."

  "Yeah, like Duz," I said, wondering what was with this character. Some people do talk like that, I suppose; and now I knew one who did. And he gave me the creeps. I said, "Toodle-oo," having caught something from him, and got away before I caught anything else.

  Eve's room was 213 on the second floor; Laurie was in 420 two floors higher, and I saved Laurie for last. When I knocked briskly at 213 there was a short wait and then the door cracked open about three inches.

  I could only see a little bit of her, but I figured it must be Eve. I could see a lot of black hair, beautifully waved with each glossy strand in place, the little bangs inky on her white forehead, and a cat-green eye with long lashes curling above it. But the eye looked a little different. Then I realized it hadn't been made up yet, and thus didn't have quite the sock it usually had. Besides which, just one eye and some forehead and hair don't have much sock anyway. I was thinking about that, and wondering why Eve was peeking so sneakily around the door at me, when she opened the door wide and not only answered the question but supplied lots of sock.

  "Shell," she said smiling, "it's you. What a surprise."

  "It's a surprise, all right," I said, but I was referring to Eve.

  She was wearing a towel. At least a fuzzy white towel was wrapped around her torso, covering the vital thirty or forty per cent of her in a kind of haphazard fashion. It was a big towel, true; but Eve was a big girl. Some gals put on a towel and look merely like the week's wash, but not Eve. She looked like September Morn clutching a washrag.

  "Come on in," she said.

  "No . . . no, no." Despite the way I sounded I hadn't caught anything from Chubby after all. "I just came to deliver a message, Eve."

  "Oh?"

  I told her the Laguna Paradise personnel were to report as usual to the development and she said, "Well, I'd better get dressed."

  "Yes, you'd better."

  "I just got up. Just stepped out of the shower."

  She was smiling at me, not holding that towel very cleverly — or maybe holding it very cleverly, now that I thought about it. She didn't have any makeup on, and looked a bit older, with slightly more obvious lines around her mouth and eyes, but not a hell of a lot older, and it was sure a young bath towel she was cleverly holding.

  "I don't usually answer the door dressed like this," she said.

  "That's good. I guess."

  "Will you be at Laguna today, Shell?"

  "I don't know for sure. Maybe this evening."

  "Perhaps I'll see you there then?"

  "Maybe." We smiled at each other and I said so long, turned and walked speedily down the hall as the door closed behind me.

  I trotted up the stairs to the fourth floor and Laurie's room, rapped smartly, humming a little tune. I heard the sound of movement inside. "Who is it?" she called.

  "Shell. Shell Scott."

  She laughed. "Shell's enough," she said. "I remember your name. I remember you."

  "And I remember you."

  She opened the door. I was wrong. I hadn't remembered. Not all of it. Not the way it really was. This girl was new, every time you saw her.

  "Hello, Laurie," I said.

  "Hi. Come on in, Shell Scott."

  I went in, told her I'd phoned a few minutes ago but hadn't reached her. It was true. Of course, I didn't tell her I'd only let the phone ring twice, then come here in a beeline, simply to see her.

  "I thought I heard the phone ring. When I was in bed."

  Laurie hadn't been out of it long. Her feet were nude, that is she was barefoot, and she wore a flowing white nightgown which cleverly concealed in a most revealing manner, and over the gown a matching and equally stimulating peignoir, and I would be crazy about peignoirs even if they were made of gunnysacks. Her hair was tangled and hadn't been put up yet, and there wasn't any makeup on her face. I'd caught both Eve and Laurie before they could apply the glamorizing touches of paint and powder, eye shadow and artful makeup; but Laurie didn't look any worse than usual. If anything, she looked better.

  She went on, "I ran to the phone, but by the time I reached it there was just that buzz." She pretended to frown. "So it was you woke me up." She arched her back slightly and stretched a little, as if just now coming out of sleep.

  "Ohh-hh," I said.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing." I shook my head. "Laurie," I said briskly, "I came here to tell you . . . something. I'll have it in a minute. Ah, you're to go to work today."

  "I wondered about that." Her face sobered. "Isn't it awful — "

  "Right," I interrupted. No sense dwelling on it now.

&n
bsp; "I — " she stopped, started over. "Except for that, until the phone rang last night, it was fun. Wasn't it?"

  "Wonderful."

  "I haven't laughed so much in a long time. And . . . well, it was fun."

  "We'll have to do it again. Have a late supper, I mean. I've a trip to make today; but if I get back in time and we're both free for an hour — well, everybody has to eat. Maybe we could have dinner. . . ."

  "I'd love to, Shell."

  "In a restaurant. You know, a regular restaurant." I sounded like a sap. This Laurie made me a little uncomfortable. But I liked it. It was a very nice uncomfortable.

  She said softly, "Anywhere you say."

  Then there was silence. We just stood there, looked at each other, and there was silence.

  And during it, I was thinking. Due to the nature of my work — and my own nature — to the place where I work — Hollywood — and, let's face it, due to plain, stupendous good luck, I have been around and involved with more lovely, shapely, exciting women than is good for a man. Although, really, that's probably good for a man. I have seen them in all shapes and sizes, colors and conditions, and I've learned one thing about them. One thing. That's all. And here it is, the total female-learning of Shell Scott:

  It's good when a woman has the cast of feature and curve of body that men call lovely, or classic, sexy or sweet. That's good indeed. That's the form into which beauty flows. But the form itself isn't beauty. Beauty is that which flows. It's something inside, something which shapes the feature, lights the eye, warms the heart and lips. Take the same woman, alive and laughing, quietly asleep, cold and dead. Same face and form, nothing changes — except whatever it is that flows.

  Call it electricity, spirit, personality, zip, zing, magnetism, fire — you name it. That's what beauty is, what it really is. And that's what Laurie had. In abundance, pressed down and overflowing. Probably other women possessed features as delightful as hers, eyes as bright and lips as warm, breasts as beautifully molded, waist as trim and slim, hips as provocative and legs as fine — but Laurie had whatever makes it work. She had the flow, the zip, the zing. Even with her hair a mess, without makeup to color her face, Laurie had it.