The Wailing Frail (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 9

  “You're not at all the way I had you pictured.”

  “I didn't know you had me pictured any way.”

  “I mean when I first started in to see you. Shell Scott. Detective. Little fat man, cigar, movies for divorce cases. You know.”

  I grinned at her. “There's nobody like that.”

  “You're certainly not.”

  “Well, I'll give you a call.”

  “Come here.” She patted the divan at her side. “You can't just jump up and bolt out like a skittish horse.”

  “Oh, yes I can.”

  “Don't be an idiot. Sit down here. Just for a minute.”

  I walked to the divan and sat beside her. It was entirely too close. I could smell the fragrance of her, of something delicate in her hair, and a soft scent upon her skin.

  She said, “You can go if you want, although I'd like to have you stay for a while, Shell. But I haven't even thanked you for the roses. And champagne. And for being so nice.”

  “Toddy, I could hear you better if you had some other clothes on. Maybe you should put on a couple of bathrobes or—”

  “Look at me. Aren't you going to kiss me before you go?”

  “Toddy, if I kiss you, it will be before I go, all right. It will be so long before, that—”

  I didn't finish it because her face came nearer mine. I stopped talking and reached for her. I put my arms around her, pulled her easily to me, watching her head tilt slowly to one side and her lips part and her lids slowly droop over the big brown eyes until the eyes were closed, the smooth rounded lids trembling slightly, her mouth partly open as it reached for mine.

  It was like the kiss yesterday, only sweeter at first, and then with more warmth, more fire; with her body close against me on the divan, her perfume flooding my nostrils. She turned her face, rubbed her cheek against mine, and I pressed my lips against her throat, her shoulder. My hands were at the neck of her blue gown, and almost with a breath of pressure the small bow came undone, fell apart and Toddy raised her body toward me, lifting her shoulders as the blue cloth slid down the whiteness of her to her waist.

  She rested upon the palms of my hands against her back, and I pressed my lips to her warm flesh. Her hands went behind my head to pull it gently, pressing my mouth a little more firmly against her. Her fingers moved, the nails straying easily through my hair as I moved one hand against her back, holding her with the other. My hand traced the smoothly arching curve of her spine, caressed the mound that was her hip and her indented waist and then her breast.

  She slid against me, her cheek touching mine again and then her mouth against mine, her lips moist, her tongue alive and restless, darting and probing. Her hand closed convulsively against my arm, the fingers gripping tightly and then relaxing, suddenly gripping me again.

  Her voice was hot in my ear, the breath washing against my neck as she said softly, “Shell. Oh, Shell darling. This is crazy. Darling, darling—”

  She said some other things, but that one stupid phrase stuck in my mind. “This is crazy.” She'd spoken softly, barely audibly, but I'd heard the words. They slapped across my mind like a wet towel. Crazy—that was the word that stuck. It made me think of Gordon Todhunter. And of me sitting in my chair across the room, a few minutes ago, and getting ready to leave.

  I pushed Toddy easily away from me, looked at her. Her eyes were closed but she opened them and stared unwinking at me. For a moment I looked at her, at the swelling and smoothness of her, my hand touching her breast, her fingers clutched against my arm.

  “Toddy,” I said. “I—That must have been the wrong kiss. I told you to put some clothes on. And I told you I had to go.”

  She moistened her lips, straightened up. “Go?”

  The way she spoke, so softly, her voice slurred, I couldn't tell for sure if the word were a question or a statement. A question or plea, a gentle request. I said, “I should go, Toddy. I'd better right now. If I don't—”

  She sat erect, and blinked once, then pulled the blue gown up over her shoulders, gathered it together in front of her. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I suppose so.”

  That was all that was said. A kind of uncomfortable silence hung around us. It was, I thought, a hell of a situation. I didn't know what was in Toddy's mind or thoughts. I did know what was in mine. She didn't say anything. She didn't even look at me.

  Finally I stood up. “Honey.” She glanced at me then, and away. “I'll call you. The minute I hear anything. I'll call you anyway.”

  She nodded.

  I let myself out. Before I closed the door behind me I looked across the room. In front of the divan was the coffee table, the opened magnum of champagne on it, getting flat. Next to it was the vase of roses. Behind the table, Toddy sat quite still on the divan.

  That was the last thing I saw, the picture I took away from there with me. Toddy's heavy-lidded eyes on me. Her right hand in front of her, holding the gown loosely together.

  Chapter Eight

  I stood outside the door for a few seconds, then went down to the Biltmore's big lobby and stopped. I was really dizzy.

  Man, I thought, you belong at Ravenswood. I thought a lot of things, all of them reasonably stupid. Then I went on out of the hotel and into the sunshine. I took a cab to the garage where my car was being fixed up. The mechanic told me they were about through with it, so I waited twenty minutes and then drove it out and home. It handled just like new. Up in my apartment, I waited for Rule's call. The hours passed; I stayed wound up like an eight-day clock.

  And in the privacy and quiet of my apartment I wondered if perhaps Toddy were throwing darts at a crude drawing of me. Or if she were burning incense to me. Or if she were out helling around with a less idiotic male. And, too, I kept seeing her in front of my eyes, in my mind.

  Just to look at Toddy, to let your eyes glance over her, was enough to rev up a man's generator. But to come from where I had just come from, well, I went in to the bathroom and took a cold shower. It didn't help. How could it?

  I wandered barefoot into the kitchenette, wandered out into the living room again and flopped on the chocolate-brown divan. I leaned back and dug my toes into the thick shag nap of the carpet, and my eyes fell on the wildly colorful nude, “Amelia,” over the fake fireplace.

  I had a mild bourbon and water and called the Civic Building. It was just about time for Paula to be knocking off work. She came on, her voice filled with dusk that brightened when she found out who was calling.

  She was really a delightful creature, I thought. Had a bit of temper when she got aroused, but a little spunk's good in a woman. Yes, I could really go for Paula.

  “Paula, my sweet,” I said, “you've never been up to my apartment.”

  “No, I haven't have I?” she said.

  “No, you haven't. And listen to this. I have steaks. Luscious, thick, oozing-with-vitamins-and-minerals steaks.”

  “Oozing with vitamins?”

  “And minerals. Come up and we will throw them on the range in my cozy kitchenette. I'll take off the grill and throw them right on the gas flame, and we'll have practically charcoal-broiled—”

  “I have to work.”

  “Wha-at?”

  “I have to work. Late, for the Committee. Hearings start in three days, you know.”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  “I'd have loved to come up, too, Shell.”

  “You would?”

  “Uh-huh. Really. I've given you a sort of bad time, haven't I?”

  “How's that?”

  “Never coming up to watch your radio, or whatever it was you said. Not even letting you see the inside of my apartment. It was cruel.”

  “Yes, cruel. For a kind, sweet, lovable, delightful woman, it was cruel.”

  “Shell, you say the nicest things. I'm just going to have to be nicer to you, that's all. But not tonight. I'm sorry, but you know what they say about duty.”

  “Yeah, and I know what they can do with it, too.”

  “'Bye.�
�

  I hung up. I almost wrapped the phone wire around my neck and really hung up. Whew, I thought. Wouldn't that frost you. Or, rather, wouldn't that unfrost you. And she'd wanted to come up.

  Satin, I thought. Too bad she's working at the Melody. Well, I can call and talk to her, can't I? I used the phone again and rang her apartment in the Gentry.

  “Hello.” That was Satin.

  “Hi. This is Shell Scott.”

  “Oh, Shell, hi. Where've you been?”

  “Keeping my distance from you.”

  “Why?”

  “Ha.”

  “But you haven't even been down to the club.”

  “Satin, my lovely dancing girl. If you think I am going to grab a ringside table at the Melody, and watch you prance onto the floor and leap about on the devil and scream and gurgle, while I am at a ringside table, then you are more mixed up than the alphabet in Campbell's Soup.”

  “My goodness. That was almost a speech. You're not still angry because I chased you out of my apartment that day, are you?”

  “Well, I—”

  “I really did have an appointment. Besides—” she paused and a little more hell crept into her voice—"don't you know that anticipation is greater than realization? And it lasts longer, too.”

  “Yeah,” I snorted. “It sure does with you, babe.”

  “Oh, Shell! And anyway, you know what they say.”

  “What's that?”

  “Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.”

  I groaned. “Well, I ought to be nuts about you by now.” Then I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it, shaking my head. I put it back just in time to hear her saying “I don't scream and gurgle anyway. I gurgle. But what girl doesn't?”

  “Satin, wait, please, stop. We better quit this or pretty soon we'll be talking another language.”

  “What?”

  “This is awful. I don't have any idea what we've been talking about.”

  “Oh, you do too, silly. We were talking about—Oh well, it couldn't have been very important.”

  “Satin, listen carefully. Just shut up and listen carefully. Okay?”

  Silence.

  “Satin, you there?”

  “Yes; you told me to listen.”

  “The reason I called is that I thought perhaps, if you weren't working, or the Melody Club had burned down, or who knows, you might want to come up to my place. What the hell, we could dance or something.”

  “Sure, I'd love to. Give me twenty minutes.”

  “Huh?”

  “What's the matter with you?”

  “Don't you have to work?”

  “No, Ed broke his leg.”

  “Ed?”

  “Sure. My partner in the act. The devil.”

  “Broke his leg?”

  “Yes. We were practicing and he stepped in the toilet.”

  I actually dropped the phone. What in hell is going on? I thought. Have I lost my mind? Am I at last hearing those voices they talk about. I knew that if Satin had said it, whatever she had said, it was something that I'd remember until I fell cackling into my grave. I tried to find out with different forms of the same question what she'd meant, but, well ... it was like fishing for minnows, using whales for bait. It just didn't work out.

  And I was in such a state that I actually spent a couple minutes asking her those stupid questions before it dawned on me that she had said she'd love to come up. But once I got that thought firmly in my brain I asked her if it would be all right if I sent a cab for her since I was waiting for a phone call, and she said of course. I told her to hurry, hung up, called a taxi, and started getting ready.

  Cling, clong, the chimes went off and I threw the door wide.

  Satin looked resplendent, lovely, completely delightful in a bright fuchsia dress with a scoop neck, and a silver-blue mink stole draped carelessly over her shoulders. The extremely blonde hair was smartly piled on top of her head this time. She gave me a big smile and came in, looked around the living room and said, “Nice, Shell. Ni—What a ghastly picture.”

  She was looking at Amelia. There has never been a woman up here who didn't make some derogatory remark about Amelia.

  “Oh, she's not half bad,” I said. “Let me take your things.”

  She swirled the mink off her shoulders and gave it to me, and I kept waiting, and she said, “Oh, you're silly,” and I took the stole into the bedroom and hung it in the closet.

  When I got back. Satin was at the phone, and the phone was lying on the table, off the hook. “You calling somebody?” I asked.

  “No. Just taking the phone off the hook.”

  “Why?”

  “So it won't ring. You can have me or the phone ringing all the time, but I don't want to be distracted.” She smiled at me.

  “That's nice. I'm pleased, Satin.” I walked to the phone and put it back on the hook. “But I'm expecting a call.” I looked at my watch. “Should have got it already. Ought to be coming in soon, though.”

  “But I always take the phone off the hook.”

  “I'm sorry, my sweet. But I need the phone. And the bad old company might disconnect it, if we left it off the hook. Besides it might wake the desk clerk up.”

  I made Martinis. Since I seldom fool around with fancy drinks, I had phoned a bartender friend who gave me explicit instructions.

  Proudly I sat them on the low coffee table. Satin lifted hers and took a healthy glug. “Boy!” she cried.

  “Ho-ho,” I chuckled, beaming.

  “These are lousy!” she yelped.

  “What in hell are you talking about? I made ’em exactly—”

  “You got lots of gin and vermouth?”

  “Sure, but—”

  “You wouldn't want to drink these, would you?”

  “Well, now, I don't think they're so—”

  “I'll pour them out, huh?”

  “Oh, hell, yes. Pour them out. Naturally pour them out. What else?”

  Zip, she was in the kitchenette, and zip she was back with two Martinis.

  “That's how you do it, huh?” I said.

  They did go down easily, I'll admit that.

  Satin looked at me and smiled happily. “Good, huh?”

  “Yeah, boy.”

  She spotted the radio and went over to it. She turned it on and stood there switching her hips about fetchingly, tapping one foot and jiggling gayly while the radio warmed up. “Boy, oh, boy,” she said happily. “Zah, zoo, zah. Let's dance.”

  I was aleady over there next to her. “Zah, zoo, zah,” I said. “You bet.”

  She twirled the dial until she found something peppy, then spun about and leaned up against me and we started dancing.

  “Lively enough to suit you?” she asked.

  “Honey, you're lively enough to suit anybody.”

  “I mean the music.”

  “That. Sure. Well, I'll be the devil now, huh?”

  She laughed. “No, no.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “No, no, no,—I don't have my outfit, anyway.”

  “But we can pretend.”

  She batted those ice-blue eyes at me, and smiled, and kept on dancing. The music stopped and we headed for the chocolate-brown divan, but on the way it was zip, gurgle, and back she came with a couple new Martinis. We sat together on the divan and looked at the drinks.

  “I put two olives in them this time,” she said. “We're drinking too much.”

  “Oh.” That seemed to make a lot of sense. Satin seemed to be making more sense all the time. She was bent over my Martini glass, staring down into it. “What's the matter?” I, asked her.

  “Look at those lil ol’ eyes,” she said.

  "What?"

  “Lil ol’ olives, I mean. They look like eyes.”

  She moved her head and I took a look. They were dark green olives stuffed with pimientos, and both the olives in my glass were pimiento-side up. They did look like ghastly eyes, all right. I told Satin that.

&n
bsp; She said, “Like eyes. Lil Martian eyes.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Lil Martian eyes. All bloodshot. Like he's been drinking.”

  “What you expect?” I asked her. “He's in the Martini.”

  “Sure. Poor lil ol’ dear Martian. Drowned, I guess. You gonna leave ‘m in there?”

  “No. What you think I am?” I got up and went to the kitchenette and poured out the Martini and the Martian. Satin came along with me.

  “Oughta tell Orshon Welles,” she said. “We're invaded. They're smuggling ’em in gin bottles.” In an off-key voice she made the trumpet sound of a newsreel, "Ta-ta-ta-taaa-ta-taaa. Flash! Ever where you look. Martians. Landed in Alabama, California, Georgia. Martian through Georgia—hey! Martian through Georgia!”

  She started marching around the room humming Sousa. She was Sousa'd to the eardrums. She marched through the bedroom. She marched into the bathroom, me right behind her, beating a drum and going “Boom. Boom.”

  Suddenly she turned and looked at me wide-eyed, and I went back a full step.

  “Oh, good!” she said. “Shell! Shell!”

  “What? What?”

  “Can I use your bathtub?”

  “What—do you want to use it for?”

  “Silly. What do people generally use bathtubs for?”

  “Most people take baths in them I guess. Never really thought about it much.”

  “Well, that's what I want to do. Soak, I mean. I love tubs. Love soaking in tubs. And, Shell.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I only have a shower.”

  “You poor kid.”

  “Only a shower. And I love a tub. I just love to soak in a tub. Is there anything more fun than soaking in a tub?”

  “I can only think offhand of about seven thousand things—”

  “Shell. Is it all right? If I use your tub?”

  Talk about silly questions. I even turned on the hot and cold faucets for her. She made me leave the bathroom but promised that she'd hurry and join me. I busied myself making Martians.

  I sat them on the coffee table before the divan—three olives in them this time; I was going to scare hell out of Satin. And then I waited. I could hear her splash every once in a while.

  And all of a sudden it dawned on me: Satin, the lovely, shapely, sexy, gorgeous Satin is in there nude with no clothes on, taking a bath in my tub. This was something that had never happened to me before. Really. And here I was out here in the living room. I got up and walked to the bathroom door.