The Cockeyed Corpse (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 8

  . . . A do and a do and a little more do . . . chicken in the bread box, up you go . . . one more turn and home you go . . .

  I just stood there, teetering on my high heels.

  Then April grabbed me, and we ignored Zeke, and by the time wed finished I was enjoying square dancing. She said breathlessly, That was fun. Promised somebody, got to go. And she was trotting away.

  I saw Hal come in again, much slower than he’d left. He spotted me, cupped a hand around his mouth and called, No wonder I was sick — my stomach was full of puke.

  I started laughing, even while I winced, and then I stopped laughing. Because there was another door in the back of the barn, open to provide a little circulation of cooler desert air, and through it like an I’ll wind came Tay Green. He was looking around, all business, and when he spotted Hal he went straight to him. He was so all-business I wondered if something important had just happened and checked my watch. It was not quite ten p.m.

  They talked earnestly, Hal nodding from time to time, then Hal turned and walked briskly toward the open door. Green called something to him and Hal stopped, waited while Tay walked to him and said something else.

  Since I’d been here in the Cactus Corral, and dancing, I’d naturally kept my eyes pretty well peeled. I hadn’t spotted the three muggs I’d had the beef with earlier, but I hadn’t expected to. I’d seen just about every other hoodlum I’d marked as being at the Sun and Sage, however, except for Green, and he was here now. If they stayed here, fine; because wherever Hal was going, I figured I would go. I’d been on the receiving end of the pushes so far; it was time I initiated a little pushing.

  I walked to the entrance, through which Hal and I had come earlier, paused for a last glance around. Hal was just going through that other door. Nobody seemed to be looking my way, but I couldnt be sure. But what the He’ll; you can’t wait till youre sure of everything. Green was lighting a cigarette. I turned and went out.

  Several people were still around the barbecues, some at tables eating. Hal walked past the tables, but I skirted the lighted area, keeping him in sight. He went straight to the Tucson Suite and inside. By the time I got there no light was showing. I could hear the mumble of voices, though, and started hunting for a spot where the mumble would become distinguishable conversation.

  This was the other end of the two fifty-buck-a-day suites, and Russ had told me one of three men whod been here for about a year was in the Tucson. And now Hal Calvin was in there with him. With Simon Everett. Interesting. I’d been wanting to talk to Everett.

  It took me a minute or so, and I was lucky, but I found a window slightly cracked. By putting my ear up against it I could hear the voices inside, not clearly but well enough to understand what was being said.

  I was just in time to hear, . . . so shes got to go. That’s all there is to it.

  Another man said, I still dont like it. It’s too damn much. The fuzz was already out here about Karl today, and before that on the Blair twist. If Scott and another gal get knocked off therell be a helluva stink.

  I blinked. That was a lot to absorb suddenly. Besides which, there was something about that first voice, that poked around in buried memory. The voice was like a couple of steel files rubbing together, and I’d either heard it, or one very much like it, before. He- was talking again, Let it stink. It’s better than having the whole goddam thing blow up. If this was L.A., or something to bring the feds in, itd be different. But this way, no sweat, we got the fix in here. Why the He’ll else you think were stuck in this godforsaken desert?

  I know, but —

  Shove your buts. We didn’t get no heat on that Blair thing, did we? He’ll, no — it’s Scott and that woman we got to worry about, not the local law. You set it up tonight and dont miss this time, goddammit.

  Yeah. Well . . . I can see Scotts got to go, sure.

  That voice sounded like Harold Calvvin’s. The one saying, I can see Scotts got to go. Good old Hal.

  The girl, too, the other voice continued. Even if she dont know how much she knows, it’s too much. And Christ knows how much Scott said to her that we dont know about.

  Well, that told me a few things. The second man in the conversation was good old Hal for sure; and Pete must have heard more than I’d thought — enough anyway. And Jeanne Blair had been murdered. Obviously these coldblooded bastards were talking about my conversation with April, there at the bar. Something began building up in my thoughts, but building in a strange and almost frightening way.

  Hal was saying. You want it to look like an accident?

  I dont give a goddamn, just make sure theyre both fatally dead. If you can make it look like accidents, O.K. If not, just get it done any way you can, but fast.

  I left Scott at the square dance. I can probably get him out of there without anybody noticing the action. But it might be harder with the girl — those four twists stick pretty close together. I know. They even sleep two in a room. And she wont have anything to do with me or the other boys, now.

  There was silence for a few seconds. Then the rasping voice said, Well, Scotts more important than the girl. Maybe you can dump him in with that crazy horse, let the horse jump on him a little.

  Diablo?

  Yeah, that’s the crazy one. And if you can’t get to the girl tonight, have one of the boys pick her off tomorrow morning while theyre screwing around with that movie. Tell Farmer and Green to squat up in the hills there and pick her off with a rifle, if you got to. It wont look like no accident, but there’s just no time to do it cute. Besides nobodyll know who done it — and I can fix it to pin the rap on somebody else if it comes to that.

  It sounded as if Hal was about to leave — and I sure as He’ll didn’t want him getting this word to Farmer and Green, or any of the other hoods in the area. Besides, the two men inside — at least I guessed there were only two, since I’d heard only the two voices — couldnt know I’d overheard their conversation. Which meant there was a chance that, right now, I could wrap up most of what I’d come here to do.

  So I didn’t wait. I walked quickly to the front door and knocked.

  chapter ten

  As soon as I knocked the talk inside came to a stop.

  After seconds of silence, I heard a mumble of words and then footsteps approaching the door. I made sure my jacket was unbuttoned but still covering my .38 Colt, tried to push a pleasant expression onto my face.

  Light streamed out on me as Hal Calvin opened the door.

  Hi, Hal, I said cheerfully, and walked right in past him. Thought I saw you come in here. Pretty fancy. This your suite?

  I cut it off as the other man in the room made a sudden movement. For a nerve-jerking second I thought he was reaching for a gun, but he’d merely grabbed a pair of big Hollywood-star-type dark glasses and shoved them on. It was the short, stocky guy Hal had called Everett, all right. The cat who made caskets. He needed a shave.

  What the He’ll do you mean busting in here? he rasped.

  Hal stepped up next to me, looked at the other man and said quickly, It’s all right, Si. He must have thought this was my suite. This . . . maybe this is a stroke of luck. Youve been wanting to meet Shell Scott, you know. Well, here he is.

  I’d glanced around the suite, seeing nobody else, then looked back at the other man. He was obviously angry, or at least worked up about my appearance. The muscles around his thick-lipped mouth moved as if he were jamming his jaws together.

  Shell, this is Simon Everett, Hal went on. I told you about him. Si, Shell Scott.

  I said hello, but the other man didn’t speak. One of his hands clenched into a fist, then relaxed, clenched again. I’d thought he looked familiar when I’d first seen him near the pool with Hal, and I still thought he did, but I couldnt make him. But there was something . . .

  A queer alarm raced through my nerves, alerted my senses, the way a sudden soft sound near you will on a quiet night. It was like that queer and almost frightening sensation I’d felt while listenin
g to his voice outside. I couldnt figure out what was causing it, and the strangely disturbing sensation grew.

  Hal said something but it didn’t register. The other man was looking straight at me, and I stared back, noting the short-cropped gray hair, the bristly black mustache. And the dark glasses. That was one of the things bothering me — why would a man suddenly put on dark glasses? And inside his rooms, at night. Almost surely because he didn’t want to be recognized — which meant he must have reason to fear I might recognize him.

  I nearly had it. Then Everett turned his head a little, as if looking past my shoulder at the door behind me, and slowly nodded. I almost turned, then stopped, managing not to smile. They werent going to fool me with that old trick.

  Not me.

  No, sir. I’m too smart,

  And then: BLAM!

  It might have been blam, or smack, or clunk, whatever sound a sap — or gun butt, or house falling on you — makes when it contacts your skull. But it was a He’ll of a noise.

  I dont know how it is that you can know youve been sapped, when the fact of the matter is that a split second after being sapped youre unconscious. I guess it’s just that my mind works with lightning speed — because I knew I’d been sapped.

  There was even time for several other lightning thoughts and fantastically fast-moving pictures to swish before my minds eye: the man’s face as he’d put on his dark glasses, Aprils smiling face, the words I’d just heard and the thoughts I’d just thunk, the certainty that these guys would now haul me away out in the desert and kill me and bury me — lots and lots of interesting things. It was a brilliant performance. I even had time to consider it’s brilliance and to think, just before the looming, booming blackness: Yes, I’m sure a smart one. . . .

  I was climbing out of a dark, slippery hole, and soft tentacles of blackness wrapped themselves around me, holding me back. I knew I was coming to, coming out of some kind of thick darkness, but it was almost as if I were watching someone else struggling to rise up out of unconsciousness. It was much like a weird dream I’d once had. I had dreamed that I was dreaming; and that dreamed dreamer, shrinking from the nightmare it was dreaming, forced itself awake and rose from sleep and moved through it’s separate life — while I continued sleeping. When I had finally awakened, for weirdly warped moments I had wondered crazily if some other I was dreaming me. It was a pretty jarring experience, I can tell you.

  And so was this.

  Because now, in this black-and-blue-laced consciousness of unconsciousness I knew I was coming to, but at the same time felt I might be dead, rising out of death into — whatever follows death. With me was a dead man, at least the man was with me in my mind or thought, and I knew this man was dead. The face before me shifted and changed, as sometimes faces in dreams will change; at first it was Everetts face, with the short gray hair and bristling mustache and big dark glasses, but then the face seemed to melt and the mustache disappeared, the hair became long and black. The glasses melted, drooped like objects in paintings by Dali, became liquid and flowed away, exposing the man’s eyes, glittering gray eyes the color of a cold morning.

  And then, of course, it was not Everetts face but the face of Jules Garbin. And I knew Jules Garbia was dead. I knew because I had seen him die, and had seen him horribly dead.

  Sound, from far off, brushed against my eardrums. Something shook me gently. The darkness slipped farther away. It seemed to take a long time, a very long time. But then my eyes were open. Near me was Russ Cordiners thin face. His lips and flowing white mustache moved slowly. After a while I heard him saying, Shell? You all right, Shell?

  I licked my lips. Are we both dead?

  Wha-at? He laughed. Dead? He’ll no. Shell. Youve got a lump on your skull, but youre still with us. And lucky to be here, believe me.

  I said, But I just saw — I stopped.

  I had tried to sit up and the movement sent pain crashing through my skull. Pain swelling, growing, filling my skull and spreading down into my neck, my shoulder muscles, the length of my spine.

  I flopped back on softness beneath me, felt a pillow under my head. I was in bed, apparently in my own rooms. Russ said, You saw what. Shell?

  I . . . I dont know. Something was still there, in my thoughts, but fading. As consciousness returned, the memory of whatever had been there in unconsciousness diminished, faded, and was gone, leaving behind only a definite unease. In a few minutes I was able to sit up.

  I looked around again. I was in my rooms, all right, the Phoenix Suite. What the He’ll happened? I asked Russ. Howd I get here?

  One of the hands and I brought you here. We were in the truck, coming back from delivering those two Brahma bulls, you remember?

  Yeah.

  Truck lights fell on a couple men carrying somebody — I didn’t know it was you, then. I pulled up right in front of them and they dropped you and ran to a car nearby — guess that’s where they were carrying you. Got in and beat it. I didn’t follow them, because when we found out it was you, knocked cold, we brought you here.

  Where was this? Whered you spot the guys carrying me?

  He pointed. Over there on the little road in front of the Tucson Suite and the cabins. Pretty near the Tucson Suite. Simon Everetts suite.

  Yeah. I remembered seeing him with Hal near the pool earlier today. But it seemed there was something else, just below the surface, just out of my reach. I said, Did you get a look at the men hauling me around?

  Russ nodded. One of them was that fellow I told you about, registered as Thad Gray. Other was the big blond fellow, Calvin.

  Handsome Hal. And Tay Green, the man with the little scythe and hourglass; Young Death, with tombstones for eyes. Green, and charming Hal Calvin. Marching me to my grave, undoubtedly.

  Russ stroked his magnificent white mustache. Whatd they do, slug you?

  Damned if I know. I dont even remember . . . I stopped, frowning. Lets see, I went to the square dance, then Green came charging in and talked to Hal. Hal . . . I wasn’t sure what had happened then; that part was all mixed up with people square dancing, and the old guy cackling out the calls.

  I told Russ what I could remember, then asked him, What time was it when you spotted the two men with me?

  Must have been about ten-twenty. When we brought you in here I had Doc Brown take a look at you, and he got here at ten-thirty.

  I remembered it hadn’t been quite ten p.m. when Green had come into the Cactus Corral. I remembered checking the time. What had happened between then and the time Russ spotted me, I hadn’t the faintest idea. But it didn’t seem likely I could have been knocked on the head there in the Cactus Corral.

  I explained that to Russ and he said, Well, just lie quiet for a minute. Shell. I want Doc Brown to look at you again, anyway. He went out.

  When the Doc came back with Russ he thumped me and probed me a little — they always thump you and probe you a little — then flashed a light in my eyes, and even looked in my ears, as if expecting to find some of my brains in there, which wouldnt have surprised me greatly. Then be straightened up and said, You dont recall anything except the square dance? Around ten p.m.?

  Nope. Of course, I might have been unconscious from then on, for all I know.

  Hmmm, possibly. Or could be a slight general amnesia.

  Oh?

  Temporary amnesia. It often follows a concussion, or solid blow on the cranium.

  I felt my head. I seem to have had that, all right.

  Doc Brown continued, Sometimes the amnesia is for only a few minutes or hours immediately preceding the blow, occasionally for the weeks or months preceding. Yours is a mild case, apparently.

  It doesnt feel very mild. He laughed, amused. I said, You mentioned temporary amnesia. How temporary?

  In your case, assuming you do recover the memories, if any, it might require only a few hours. Rest and sleep, that should do it. Youll probably be sound as a dollar after a good nights sleep.

  That’s not sound enough.r />
  Assuming, of course, there is no irreparable organic damage.

  Irreparable org — what do you mean, assuming there’s —

  Now, now, we must be calm. We dont want to get excited.

  That’s easy for you to say — what are you doing?

  He had stuck a big ugly needle into a little bottle of clear fluid in his left hand, the needle projecting from a big ugly syringe in his right hand.

  No, you dont, I said. I’m not a bull. You dont stick me with that —

  Not a bull? He chuckled. This is to help you.

  Yeah. Sure. I’d just as soon get —

  He pulled the needle out with a little nerve-scraping smuck and I concluded — bitten by a horse.

  Now, now, he said. This wont hurt a bit.

  You can say that again. Because youre not going to stick me with that — get away from me!

  Doctor Brown paused, taken aback. I do believe, he said to Russ, he means it.

  Yeah, he does, Russ agreed. I can tell.

  But I always . . . nobody ever objects . . . I’ve never . . .

  What is that stuff? I asked him.

  This? He waved the thing. Why, it’s merely a sedative. Good for your nerves. Itll help you sleep.

  What kind of sedative?

  It’s a new compound called Psylofarbicran, containing erthomedicillin.

  Good God, it sounds fatal. Whats in it? What is it, really?

  The doctor was silent for several seconds. Then he said bemusedly, Why — I dont really know.

  Uh-huh.

  But according to the literature —

  So give me the literature.

  He pierced me with a gaze very nearly as sharp as his needle, then said abruptly to Russ, Will that be all, Mr. Cordiner?

  Yes, and thank you. Doctor. If he gets violent I’ll sock him into his amnesia.

  Out the doctor went. Russ said to me, I guess youre all right. Shell. You seem to be your usual obnoxious self.

  I wasn’t being obnoxious. I simply — hey, what the He’ll time is it? I was looking at the window, and there was a light like gray dawn outside.