The Cheim Manuscript (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 8

  Well, I said, its been fun. Great to chat with you again. Eddy. But I really must be on my way.

  I started to walk around him, and only then noticed that Lash had Vic with him. He usually did. Victor Pine was a few feet farther down the corridor, leaning against the wall and looking at us. At me, actually. That was part of his job: to keep his eye on anybody keeping an eye on Lash.

  Fellow hood, buddy, for ten years second in command, he was basically the bosss bodyguard and trigger man. A gunman, a torpedo, heavy on the muscle and with the heat, a man as tough, murderous and deadly as Eddy Lash looked. Of course, so was Eddy Lash, and Eddy was the brighter of the two.

  Upon seeing Vic Pine I shivered a little, felt a ripple of cold wiggling fine hairs on my spine. I suppose part of it was the splendid time Id just had with Eddy, and looking at his face, his eyes; but part of it was because Id remembered that Victor Pine and Warren Barr were buddies. Close. Jolly good pals. Barr . . . and Vic Pine.

  I didn’t have much time to wonder about it.

  As my eyes fell on Vic, Eddy Lash clamped a thin-fingered but surprisingly strong hand on my arm and yanked me around to face him. Well, not quite to face him; I’m not very easy to yank around, unless I’m in the mood, which I wasn’t.

  But he did give my arm a good grab and a pull, turning me slightly toward him, and — finally — said something. What the hell are you doing here, you punk?

  I stood quite still. Eddy, I’m going to tell you just once. Keep your hands off me, take those hooks off me right now and keep them off from now on.

  His eyes didn’t warm up even one-tenth of a degree, and neither did he loosen his grip. If anything, he squeezed my biceps more tightly. Well, we all have our little idiosyncrasies, I suppose. Mine — one of them, anyway — is that I do not like guys laying their paws upon me even in a convivial gesture, as when drunken conventioneers fling their arms passionately about you, and slobber in your ear; but when a guy, particularly one such as Eddy Lash, starts getting physically antagonistic, grabbing or yanking me, it prods a sensitive, perhaps too sensitive, nerve.

  So I grabbed his little finger and bent it back enough so that his hand was pulled from my arm. To be candid, I bent it a bit more than that, and his pasty features twisted with sudden pain before. I let go of the finger.

  Why, you sap-headed sonofabitch, he said, eyes narrowed and lips tight. You dumb whack —

  Chop it. Eddy. I’ve taken all the buckwheats I care to take today, and I’m sure as hell not going to take any more from you. So just hang up, and well fade out.

  My words, plainly, were making no impression on him at all. Even his face was not so pale as usual but becoming flushed with a kind of purplish pink, as though gangrenous blood were beginning to pound inside his skull.

  He went on. Who the hell you think you’re talking to, some no-muscle booster? Nobody tells me what to do.

  I had turned to face him by then.

  That put Vic behind me, but it couldn’t be helped. The course of true wisdom was never to let Vic get behind you, but I was considering Eddy Lash almost entirely and the course of true wisdom not at all. I did not at any moment, however, completely forget that Vic Pine was behind me.

  Eddy Lash was being even dumber than I was. He surely knew I had already taken more from him than I would take even from a pretty girl, and he should have known that the corridor of a hospital was a most convenient place for what was about to happen to him. But, uncaring or unaware, he continued, with his voice rising to shrillness and little flecks of saliva foamy at the corners of his mouth. Let me tell you something, you half-assed bastard —

  That’s unkind, I said pleasantly. And I popped him. I mean, I really popped him.

  While he’d been ranting and swearing at me Id had plenty of time to get set the way I wanted to, and when I launched the right fist it was with lovely timing and accuracy and with the shifting weight of my two hundred and five pounds behind it. I aimed at his mouth, and when my fist landed on his lips they felt like teeth, but not for long; then they felt like gums. Skin split over my knuckles as Eddys chin snapped downward. It felt as if my hand had been clawed by a hungry tiger, but I don’t believe Eddy Lash felt a thing.

  He would, though. When he came to. His head jerked away from me as though trying to leave his neck, but his body followed it immediately, first at an angle, falling, and then flat on the floor. Even then he skidded for at least three feet over its highly polished surface.

  But I did not watch him skidding. I didn’t even see him land. After slugging him I was bent far forward but not off balance, right foot planted almost parallel to the left and my back to the wall. Before I started straightening up I flipped my right hand to the Colt in its holster, sliding my left foot around so that I was turned to face Vic Pine.

  I could have taken more time about it. Not a hell of a lot more, but a little. Because Vics mouth was hanging open, on his thick and muscular face was a popeyed expression of disbelief, and his right hand was only about three-quarters of the way toward his left shoulder.

  But three-quarters of the way leaves only one little quarter to go, and that was close enough for me. I truly didn’t believe Vic would shoot me right here in the hospital corridor, right here in a very public place. I knew, surely, he would not if he stopped to think about it. But I was a little worried that maybe he wouldn’t stop to think about it.

  That was the trouble with Vic — one of the troubles. Often he acted, and sometimes violently, apparently without any cogitation whatsoever. If Lash hadnt been such a weirdo himself, it was doubtful he would have had such a near-psycho as Vic Pine working for him. Not that Vic looked like a dingaling. On the contrary. Nor was he constantly mentally atilt. It was simply that he went through periods, or cycles, at the nadirs of which rationality departed from him almost entirely. The rest of the time he was reasonably normal.

  Presumably this was one of his reasonably normal times.

  At least, he held his right hand steady, just touching the fabric of his dark jacket. He didn’t say anything.

  I did. Vic, I said, if you want to move your hand now, its all right with me. Either way you want to move it.

  He let his hand fall to his side. Not fast, not slow, casually. And he grinned. Vic wasn’t much of a worrier. Vic was a hard-boiled boy, authentically hard-boiled, even tougher and more competent — on his good days — than Lash. He just wasn’t as creepy as Lash. Nobody was as creepy as Lash.

  To tell the truth, Victor Pine was a very good-looking man. Not prettily handsome, but rugged, well built, with a pleasantly he-mannish appearance. And he dressed very well. Maybe too well. Hoods in the dough are sometimes quite ostentatious, but not the really big-time boys, the Mafia dons and such. Theyve learned; they know better. Usually they dress conservatively, live in expensive — but not too expensive — homes in the best section of town, contribute to charities, various civic enterprises, and occasionally to such individuals as police officers, councilmen, state legislators, sometimes even a mayor or governor. Everything smooth, however, nothing flashy or obvious.

  But Victor Pine was not of that breed. He flashed and sparkled. He wore three-hundred-dollar suits, custom-made shirts with his monogram over the left breast in block letters half an inch high, handmade and exceptionally expensive shoes, and for all I knew, custom-designed jockey shorts. And jewelry, too. In particular, a twelve-hundred-dollar watch, and a twelve-thousand-dollar diamond ring of which he was inordinately proud, worn on the little finger of his left hand.

  I saw the glitter of diamonds on the watch and ring after I said to him, OK, take the gun out, Vic, because he did it — wisely — with his left hand.

  Smiling slightly, he said, You adding it to your collection, Scott?

  Nope. Just toss it down the hall a ways.

  He bent over and skidded the gun about fifty feet; along the corridor. Right then a nurse coming from an intersecting corridor turned the corner and walked rapidly toward us.

 
She saw the strange object skittering along the floor, and fixed her gaze upon it. She gazed curiously at first. But then as it slid past her she recognized the object for what it was and let out a little Ah!, continuing to follow the gun with her eyes until it stopped a few yards past her. For a second or two she remained in that position, then snapped her head around, saw Vic, saw me, saw Eddy Lash prone on the floor, and let out another Ah!

  Only this one was at the decibel level barely beneath that which permanently damages eardrums, more like: Aaaaahhhhh!

  And that tore it.

  Id wanted to ask Eddy and Vic a couple questions. Eddy wouldn’t be answering any questions at the moment. Even later he would answer with some difficulty, if at all. As for Vic, I would have perhaps ten seconds with him before we were surrounded by nurses, doctors, interns and possibly doddering patients attracted by the sound of someone presumably being operated upon without anesthesia.

  So I walked toward Vic, made sure he had no more guns on him, then put my Colt away. Whats Eddy doing here at Cheims room? I asked him. He and Cheim old buddies?

  He grinned. Speak a little louder. I cant hear you.

  I shrugged and said, So forget it, and then asked him casually, Did I hear it right? Lash is once again chummy with Kiffer and his boys?

  Are you nuts? When Mac damn near got hit —

  He chopped the words off. I think theyd just popped out of him. Or else he was a better actor than Id ever had reason to believe him to be. It was only a wild half-hunch that made me ask the question anyway. An idea that maybe — unlikely as it seemed on the surface — Kiffer and Putrid had been put on my tail by Lash. If not, why was I suddenly running into so many of the most miserable crooks in town?

  The sound of movement, voices, apparently speedily scurrying feet reached my ears. Over the hospitals PA system a feminine voice said flatly, Dr. Villenstorp is wanted in surgery. I figured it was time to go, before she started calling for Shell Scott, or cops.

  So I said to Vic, Tell the nurse — tell all the excited people — that Lash isn’t dead. Just say he hurt his mouth, which may require professional attention. No point in stirring up all kinds of investigations involving me — and you boys.

  Yeah, sure. You hurt his mouth, all right. Which is good-bye for you, Scott.

  I’ve heard that before.

  Not from me.

  From better than you, Victor.

  He grinned as I started to walk past him, and out into the freer air. OK, so we don’t get fuzz all over us I tell the sawbones Eddy managed to do this all by himself. Theyll believe me? How did he hurt his mouth?

  With his mouth, I said, and felt I spoke truly.

  8

  In the hospital lot a black Cadillac limousine was parked a few slots from my Cad. I knew that was what Eddy Lash was driven around in, and when I spotted the guy behind the steering wheel I was sure the car was Eddys.

  The guys name was Burper McGee — actually Francis McGee, but I hadnt heard anybody call him Francis for years. Apparently this was my day to meet a majority of the queerest specimens of local hoodlumland, so I walked over to say hello, and gazed in through the open window at Burper.

  Physically he was not at all prepossessing. But none could deny that he was an individual quite remarkable to see. Even sitting at ease behind the wheel of a Cadillac limousine he was a shock, but the full effect could be realized only when one could see Burper standing, and in profile.

  He was about five feet, ten inches tall, but he would have tipped the scales at between two eighty and three hundred. Much of that weight was in his unusually large and capacious stomach, the bloated and protuberant appearance of which might lead one to conclude that he ate like a hippopotamus. One would conclude correctly. Into that cavernous gut McGee shoveled, three or four — or five — times a day, what would to the normal glutton appear to be unbelievable quantities of edibles, bread and meat and vegetables, salts and peppers and spices, solids and liquids and gasses — ah, especially gasses.

  Many hoodlums have bestowed upon them monikers or nicknames for reasons which, to the uninitiated, are extremely obscure. But in the case of Francis Burper McGee, his moniker had been bestowed — as you’ve perhaps guessed — for a reason not obscure in the least. He burped. He burped a lot. He burped and belched, and sometimes whistled and whooped like a calliope.

  He chewed antacid pills, swallowed thick and gooey concoctions, took laxatives and possibly prayed; none of it helped. The gas continued to form, as in the bottom of a well, to rise, and then to sally forth into the outside world. Though sally is a very weak word to describe the way it actually came gurgling or shrieking or thundering out of Burper McGee.

  I looked in at McGees chops. He had a red face, thick lips, bulbous nose and protruding eyes. He made me think of a flesh balloon with the gas inside him expanding, swelling his round belly, the prominent eyes about to pop from the growing pressure inside his head.

  Hi, Burper, I said.

  McGee to you.

  You visiting a sick friend you put in the hospital?

  He didn’t answer. But I could hear the gasses rumbling inside him already. It was probably normal, but it was undeniably true, that McGee had more trouble with his particular type of indisposition when excited or upset, when filled with undue emotion. Probably he was thinking lots of negative thoughts at the moment. He didn’t like me a bit, Burper didn’t. I wasn’t his kind of fellow. I wasn’t even a crook.

  That was a joke, I said. When did Cheim call Eddy?

  Did he? I never knowed he called him.

  Well, Lash is with him now. Or soon will be, I suppose. I just — uh — talked to Eddy. Whats he want with Cheim?

  How would I know? He don’t tell me nothing.

  The rumblings had been growing, swelling, gurgling in his middle. I really affected Burper adversely. And at last the flesh could no longer contain its putrid cargo. Up it came, up and out, hideously musical, approximating an old mans death rattle combined with the cry of a wet infant. It was a marvel.

  Burper didn’t even bother to put his hand in front of his mouth anymore. He’d been eating something, I deduced, which contained garlic, onions and fresh horse manure.

  Well, so long, I said.

  He disdained to say good-bye. He was popping some kind of tablet into his maw and chomping down on it. Even though he knew, and I knew — everybody knew — it wasn’t going to help.

  By 4:30 p.m. I was, once more, near the Western set where Warren Barr was working. He was first on my list, a list of three people. Naturally, since talking with Gideon Cheim, I knew quite a bit about a number of others in and around Hollywood besides those three. I was a walking encyclopedia of scandal and sex and guilt and strange conniptions.

  Cheim had spilled to me a dozen tales, complete with true names and sometimes provable, sometimes not provable, specifics about both the great and the small of the Hollywood movie-and-TV scene. And, in addition, two or three tales concerning individuals in no way connected with the theater, the screen or the tube.

  Only half a dozen of them, though, fell into the category of potential blackmail victims — not only with plenty to lose but possessed of plenty with which to pay. Of those, I had selected three as the most likely prospects, the cream — to a blackmailer — of the pluckable crop. More importantly, they were also the three whom I felt Wilfred Jellicoe himself would have been most likely to concentrate upon. Perhaps not the most likely for Jelly, but surely for the new, gaudier, apparently more daring Mr. Jellicoe.

  Of my three choices. Barr was obvious. Among other reasons, as one of the top Western stars for many years he’d been able to stash away large piles of after-tax loot. I also recalled the tale Lucilla Mendez had told me: the public popping and humiliation of Jellicoe, brought about at the hands of, or rather the fist of Warren Barr. Besides, handsome Warren had often dated Sylvia Ardent, a fact possibly worthy of note.

  Skipping Cheims additional dozen, the other two were G. Lawrence Martin
and Zena Tabur.

  G. Lawrence Martin: attorney at law, member of the ultrarespectable Beverly Hills firm Martin, Reade and Weiss.

  It appeared incontestable that this same G. Lawrence Martin, years prior to establishing residence and office in Beverly Hills, had been a committee chairman in the legislature of another state. A number of individuals of astonishingly dubious character desired to build a dog-racing track near the capital city, on a hundred acres of land where not even bingo was then permitted. A group of legislators including George L. Martin — as he then called himself — overcame the opposition, zoning restrictions and legal prohibitions by the simple expedient of pushing through the legislature a set of lovely new laws and amendments to old laws — lovely for the characters of dubious character — thus eliminating all obstacles in one fell swap, so to speak.

  For, although a group of legislators including George Martin were swept out of office in the next election, a surprisingly large number of them wound up owning stock in the newly legal venture, which in time became a large and magnificently landscaped one-mile sport-of-kings track, upon which raced not dogs but horses, this happy development thus not only increasing revenues to the State Treasury, but helping to improve the breed — at least, of horses.

  George Martins shares of stock, valuable even before he became an ex-legislator, were currently worth at a conservative estimate two and a half million dollars. He’d done very well since those days, too, and had a net worth somewhere above ten million. The entire operation was one not without precedent, and unlikely to send Martin to the slammer, but it was certainly something he wouldn’t be overjoyed to have noised widely about. Not when he was senior member of Martin, Reade and Weiss, had within recent memory been voted Man of the Year for his contributions to civic betterment, and — so it was rumored — was giving serious thought to running for office again. In the Big Legislature this time, the one in Washington, D.C.