The Kubla Khan Caper (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Read online

  “Yes,” she said. “And did you notice how dirty his hands are? He must work in a garage.”

  “His hands? He—he didn’t put ‘em on you, did he?”

  The guy actually leaned over and looked down at her pretties, as though to discover whether my greasy, toil-worn hands had left any grime on them.

  “Goodness, no!” she cried. “One thing I do have, darling, is taste.”

  “Ah, of course, sweet. Leave it to me. I’ll set the creep straight.”

  I was studying my glass—my empty glass—when he stepped over and tapped me on the shoulder. I looked around at him. “Yes?”

  He had what I imagine he fondly assumed was a scary look on his face. “The lady on your right,” be said grandly, “is my wife.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I feel I should inform you that she finds your attentions unpleasant, and I find them unwarranted.”

  “Yeah. OK, sorry. Hell, all I said was ‘Hi.’ Well, that’s practically all—”

  “And I insist you stop annoying her,” he continued, peeking to his right to make sure his wife was drinking it all in.

  “It’s a deal,” I said.

  Big deal, I thought. How was I to know she was his wife. Apparently newlyweds, at that. OK, he’d won the battle.

  But he just wouldn’t leave it alone.

  “I absolutely insist,”he said sternly, “that you refrain from bothering her further.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’d rather walk barefooted through broken glass.”

  “I don’t think I like your attitude,” he said.

  This boy was beginning to nettle me a little. “You don’t think so, huh?” I said. “Don’t you know?”

  He was actually getting steamed up. In the beginning I figured he was merely kicking sand on the beach, so to speak, but he seemed to be all shook now. I wasn’t mad. Hell, I simply hoped these ethereal beings would leave me alone.

  “Why, you big-mouthed baboon,” he said. “You—”

  “Hold it, friend. Let’s not start calling each other names.

  This whole bit is ridiculous enough already.”

  “Ridic—”

  “Ridiculous and childish,” I said, getting a little heated myself. “If I must defend my virtue, all I did was try to light your wife’s cigarette, but she acted like I’d set fire to her pants. If you want the truth, I think she’s just mean—”

  “OK. Out.” He stuck a hand forward and grabbed my arm.

  That did it.

  One of my little idiosyncrasies is a large distaste for guys grabbing me and trying to shove me out a door, or in it, or in any direction. I felt the heat rising and tried unsuccessfully to tamp it down, while he tugged at me, finding me perhaps a bit more difficult to tug than he had anticipated.

  I pulled his paw off my arm and, hotter than I should have been, said, “OK, since you obviously are hungering not for facts but for the horrible truth, here it is: What happened is, I saw her chest lying on the bar and started to pick it up, thinking it was an angel food cake, made with eight dozen eggs. She said, ‘Will you please—’ “

  He didn’t let me finish. He stuck out that paw again and started to grab me, and I flipped a hand up between us and said, “Don’t do it,” and meant it.

  Either it was a certain note in my voice or something else, but he fortunately did not grab me. The back of my hand was toward him, about six inches from his chops, and he looked at it for quite a while. It is scarred somewhat, and the knuckles are kind of lumpy—from hitting guys—and he looked at it with some interest.

  I said, “There’s one little thing. I heard your wife call you Jerry. Before I pop you, I’d like to be sure your last name isn’t Vail. It wouldn’t be, would it?”

  “Vail? Of course. How did you know my name? How . . . Have you and my wife—”

  “Oh, knock it off. Jerry Vail. Swell. I’m Shell Scott”—I sighed—”and we’re going to be great friends.”

  “You’re Scott?” Suddenly he was all smiles. “Why, hell, Ormand told me to expect you. I just got word you were here, Scott.” He stuck out his hand, but this time to shake mine.

  Then he looked at his wife, beaming. “It’s OK, Neyra. This is Mr. Scott. Shell Scott.”

  Why, I wondered, was it now OK. And what was OK? Neyra simply couldn’t have cared less. It wasn’t OK with her. Nothing was OK with her. She shrugged and her gypsy blouse almost fell off, and she said, “So?”

  I still figured she was just mean. Jerry Vail lowered his voice and said to me, “I’m damn glad you’re here, Scott.

  The girl—you know—still hasn’t shown up. You do know what I mean, don’t you? Ormand filled you in?”

  “Yeah. Now let me fill you in. The girl isn’t going to show up. And you’ve got to get on your horse—”

  “Not going to show up?”

  I looked around. The two seats beyond Neyra Vail were still empty, and the guy on my left was leaning way over toward a lass dressed as a harem cutey, either talking to her or about to nibble on her, so nobody was going to overhear us.

  I lowered my voice and said, “The most important thing right now is that your boss is in the clink. The law—”

  “Clink?”

  “Yeah, the sheriff’s slammer in Indio. Jail. Probably not locked up, just being questioned, but very unhappy, I’ll wager—”

  “What in God’s name is Ormand doing in jail?”

  “Trying to get out, undoubtedly. Which is what you’re supposed to arrange ten minutes ago.”

  “But what happened? Why is he—”

  “The girl, Jeanne, isn’t going to show up because she’s dead. Somebody shot her.”

  Vail gasped and started to let words bubble at me, but I kept going. “I don’t see how the deputies can connect him with the girl’s death—I was near the spot myself when it happened—but they want to talk to him about some guy named Sardis. It seems—”

  “Who?”

  “Sardis. Ephrim Sardis. It seems somebody killed him, and the sheriff’s boys want to talk—”

  “Killed? Somebody killed Ephrim Sardis?”

  His jaw was hanging down and his eyes were wide.

  I said slowly, “Yeah. I guess it just happened. I don’t know beans—”

  I never did finish.

  Neyra let out a soft whispering sound, slid off her stool, stood up straight, and screamed like a bird. Her eyes rolled until only the whites showed. Then she fainted, and fell in a heap.

  7

  Vail wasn’t quick enough to catch her. Neither was I.

  It got very quiet in the Seraglio. Everybody in the bar was looking our way.

  Vail kneeled by his wife and grabbed her hands. Then he looked back up at me, his face twisted.

  “You imbecile,” he said harshly. “My wife is—was—Neyra Sardis. Ephrim’s daughter.”

  I opened my mouth, and shut it. What could I say? Maybe if Mrs. Vail had been not quite so uncommunicative she’d have been spared the shock. I also remembered—then—that Ormand Monaco had mentioned I could get whatever information I wanted about Sardis from Jerry Vail, and Vail’s wife. Maybe that should have given me a hint; it hadn’t. But there was no sense stewing about any of it now.

  In a minute or two Neyra was sitting up, blinking groggily. Vail and I led her out of the Seraglio between us, across the lobby and into Vail’s large, mahogany-paneled office. He sat beside her on a long red-leather divan, but after a moment got up, found some brandy in a cleverly concealed bar that swung out from the end of his desk, and gave his wife a healthy shot of it. She took the glass and sipped, eyes blank with shock.

  Vail spoke to her softly for a while, then stood up and walked across the room to me. “I’ll have to take Neyra home,” he said.

  “Of course.”

  “It’s a terrible thing.” He looked in almost as bad shape as she. But then he added nervously, “Bad enough as it is, but . . . she’s pregnant,” and I could more easily understand his almost shattered loo
k. The production of babies not only mystifies but sort of terrifies most men—so they tell me. “Four months along,” Vail went on. “I hope this—I hope it doesn’t . . . “ He let it trail off, squeezing the fingers of one hand in the other.

  “She’ll be all right,” I said, just as though I knew what I was talking about. Then I lit a cigarette and went on, “Look, Mr. Vail, I don’t like dwelling on this, but I have to mention a couple other things. You’re supposed to call the attorneys in California, if that’s necessary to get Monaco released. And nobody’s supposed to know what I’ve told you, except us. Mr. Monaco stressed I was to tell nobody but you.”

  He nodded, then looked at me, blinking. “What happened? How did it happen?”

  I told him what little I knew about the two murders.

  When I’d finished he said, “Shot. God, who would shoot him?”

  “That’s one of the things I wanted to ask you, Mr. Vail. Do you have any idea who might have done it? Anybody with motive to kill him?”

  He shook his head. “It’s fantastic. He hardly ever left the house, except on business. He didn’t . . . mingle much.”

  “The house is on Ocotillo Lane?”

  “Yes. It’s a large estate, he lives in the big house, Neyra and I have one of the cottages.”

  “Oh? Were you on the estate this afternoon?”

  “I’ve been here at the hotel, of course. Preparing for the party—well, that’s a mess, too.” He bit his lips, then went on, “Neyra spent the afternoon shopping in the Springs, then came straight here. We’ve a cottage here at the Khan, too. I was to meet her in the Seraglio—well, you know that.”

  “Just one other thing. Can you think of any connection between Mr. Sardis’ death and the murder of the girl?”

  “The girl? Oh, Miss Jax. No . . . there can’t be any. There couldn’t possibly be any connection.”

  “You knew Mr. Sardis pretty well, I guess.”

  “Yes, of course . . . .” He stopped. “Well, actually, only since Neyra and I were married, early this year. I only met Ephrim a month or so before then. Even so, I swear I don’t know of a single real enemy he had. It’s just fantastic,” he repeated. Then he said, “I do have to go,” and walked to his wife, helped her to her feet.

  “Can I give you a hand?” I asked.

  “No, we’ll be all right. I’ll be back as soon as I can, Scott. We’ve got to talk some more. I’ll meet you . . . . I suppose you want to get ready for tonight. The party.”

  “Yeah, I would like to clean up and change.”

  “Say I meet you back in the Seraglio, then. In about half an hour?”

  “Fine. I’ll wait for you there.”

  I left the office and headed for the desk. It was time I did something constructive, like finding out Where my room was. While I was still at the desk, Jerry Vail and his wife walked from his office and toward one of the exits. She was still a bit unsteady on her pins, but she’d make it.

  Twenty minutes later I was in my room—two rooms, actually a small suite—admiring myself in a full-length mirror.

  My, I looked splendid, I thought. I was showered and shaved, brilliantly clad in the outfit I’d rented in Hollywood—the well-fitted scarlet jacket that buttoned high around my neck and extended down around my hips, silver buttons on its front inserted in intricately woven loops of glistening silver cord, white trousers with red stripes down the outsides, and the white turban.

  The outfit—except for the turban—was a lot like those which Aly Khan used to wear, only I had lots of medals on mine. The costumer had thrown them in for a couple extra bucks, and I looked like a guy who had saved an entire nation.

  With the turban topping it all off, I very much resembled a real maharaja, I thought. Except for the face, of course. Not much I could do about that. My Colt Special bulged entirely too much under the jacket, so I left the clamshell holster in a drawer and put the gun in my pants pocket, where the bottom flare of the jacket concealed it well enough. All set.

  So I headed for the Seraglio again.

  Twenty minutes later I was still waiting for Vail, and sipping my third Cobra’s Kiss of the evening. They seemed to be using king-size cobras in them, and I decided perhaps I’d better go easy on the venom for a while. Besides, I rarely eat much, if any, breakfast and my late lunch had consisted of a sandwich hastily chewed after Monaco’s early-afternoon phone call.

  I was, however, feeling fine and didn’t really mind waiting under the pulchritudinous circumstances—though I had not said “Hi” to anybody else. I’d seen plenty of lusciousness, and had even been on the receiving end of a few lingering glances and a smile or two, which smoothed some of the dents out of my Neyra-battered ego, but I had decided to play it smart.

  Too many things had gone wrong so far, either a little wrong or a lot. First, my failing to meet Monaco, or vice versa; and then the ugly death of Jeanne. Even Misty, dandy as those few moments with her had been, was unavailable at least for the moment and possibly for the entire night. Neyra, well, that had been reasonably close to catastrophe. Two murders already. It was enough. I’d play it smart from here on in.

  Only . . .

  Only it seems every time I decide that, I manage to do something stupid.

  Sometimes, too, no matter how well laid your plans or firm your resolutions, events seem to proceed along in their own sweet way, inexorably, in defiance of resolution and plan, as though they have their own comfortable destiny and the hell with you.

  I had that creepy feeling along my spine, anyhow.

  It is a creepy feeling which creeps up on me occasionally, a little nagging twitch prowling among the vertebrae, and up to no good. Who knows? Maybe there are certain days and certain nights when, fee-fi-fo-fum, no matter What you do, something’s going to grab you. And that creepy feeling along your spine is a something giving you warning—if you can hear the whispering in bats’ voices:

  “It’s raining, brother; you go outside and you’re gonna get wet.”

  I don’t know; maybe there are umbrellas.

  At any rate, I had my plan and resolution. I was going to be a good fellow, and thus let trouble pass me by. Except . . .

  Except something more than a little annoying was going on. Annoying, and possibly pregnant with disturbance and upheaval. Naturally, here in the Kubla Khan and on this Friday night, another woman was involved.

  She was one of the cutest little tomatoes I’d seen in a month of Sundays, too. Black hair cut short, with feathery fringes dangling down in artful disarray on her forehead, big round eyes with a constant look of surprise in them, eyes as dark and sweet as chocolate pudding, and a soft-looking mouth that would attract bees. Also it should by now go without saying that she, like most of the rest around here, was built to the newer and better specifications.

  She was sitting alone at a table directly behind me and only a few feet away. I’d glanced at her in the bar mirror a time or two, which is how I happened to note the peculiar circumstance. She was drinking, not smoking, but every once in a while there appeared a lot of smoke around her head. A couple of times I saw her wrinkle her nose—not like Neyra—as if the smoke or its odor was highly distasteful to her.

  And no wonder. It was cigar smoke.

  Two men sat at a table next to her and one of them, a big, beefy character about forty years old, was the cigar smoker. He was one of the thick boys, heavy in the shoulders and chest, with a barrel-shaped stomach that looked hard. He sat with one leg stuck out and his pants leg was pulled tight around a thigh like a horse’s neck.

  He sucked in a big mouthful of smoke, made an O of his lips, and blew more smoke at the little gal.

  There wasn’t anything accidental about it. He was deliberately squirting the stuff at her. Maybe he thought he had a reason—she was a colored tomato. It started to burn me more than a little, but I tried to cool off by pouring some more booze down my gullet. It was none of my business.

  So, when I needed a refill from the bartender, despit
e the fact that our last conversation hadn’t been anything to write home about, or even include in a P.S., I bandied a few words with him, by way of distraction. And that’s what I got.

  “Quite a blast they’ve got going here, what?” I said. “And it’s certainly a beautiful place.” No sense talking about the gals, I figured.

  “Yay-yus,” he said. “Isn’t it

  stunning?”

  “Yeah. The place is lousy with beauty, and it’s sure pretty.” I just couldn’t quite hold it down with this guy. Or maybe it wasn’t my night to hold it down.

  “I just know I’m goin’ to love working heah,” he said, and he was so obviously sincere that I wanted to take back some of the thoughts I’d been having about the character. Of course, once you want to, it’s too late. “I started last night,” he went on exuberantly, “checked the stock and glasses, and all that theah. And after work I walked through the grounds, alone. It was heavenly, like bein’ in a real jungle.”

  “Looks like a jungle, all right. What I saw of the grounds. All they need is a few little yowling animals, and a couple elephants—”

  “Oh, do you-all like pets?”

  Did I like pets? Was he kidding?

  “Well,” I said, “not elephants. But pets in reasonable quantities. Like dogs, cats, fish—now, fish, there’s something—”

  “I’ve got cats, just all over evahwheah, cats, at my home.”

  “Fish, now there’s a real dandy little—”

  “Siamese, Persians, alley, all kinds. Big old ones and little bitty ones—”

  “You don’t have to housebreak them or anything—”

  “I just love them.”

  “What?”

  “My cats.”

  “I thought we were talking about fish.”

  “No, I was telling you about all my cats and kittens.”

  “OK. OK. You’ve got a lot of them, huh?”

  “Oh, yes. I—” He stopped and his eyes seemed to glaze as he thought, then he simpered a bit and said, “I’ve got a whole kitten caboodle.” Then he laughed, la-la-la-la-la.