The Sure Thing (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  I nodded. “Makes pretty good sense. Incidentally, my impression was that Mr. Willifer owned half the well, or at least half the working interest, for his thirty thousand investment. But if he's got seven-sixteenths...."

  Trappman looked—irritated. He scowled. He shook his head, scowled some more, then said softly, in that deep rumbling voice of his, “If we get a dry hole, everybody dies. But we set up splits of production in the event there is production before we make our hole in the ground, right? Start with one hundred percent. The leaseholder gets an overriding royalty, a percent of gross income from production—in this case, Roman has fifteen percent. That is not an unusually large leaseholder's override, if you wondered. Easy Banners gets a one-fortieth, or two and one-half percent, override. Total off the top, seventeen and a half. We'll ignore costs of operating the well, which are substantial for a marginal producer like the Roman, to keep this simple. Remaining for investors and others is one hundred percent of the working interest. One-eighth of the working interest is mine, for managing the well, drilling, getting crews to the site, perforating casing, acidizing, arranging for sale—simply, everything I've learned during thirty years in the business. That leaves seven-eighths of the working interest, right?"

  “Sure."

  “Half of which is Mr. Willifer's, for his thirty thousand, with one quarter allotted to each of the other two investors for their fifteen thousand each. Total, one hundred percent. Are you now content?"

  “Who's ever content? So, ignoring those operating costs you mentioned, Gippy doesn't actually have half of an oil well, that is, of its total production, but seven-sixteenths of the working interest, which is itself eighty-two and a half percent of gross income from production?"

  “Brilliant.” Trappman paused, still scowling, then went on. “I'll say one more thing about Gippy Willifer, since he's your client and the reason you're here. I did not meet him until after we'd brought in the Roman well. He'd written me some whining letters before then, but we hadn't met. If we had, I assure you, Mr. Scott, I would not have allowed that ridiculous little man to invest even a dime in an operation of mine, much less thirty thousand dollars."

  His language irritated me a little. Not that it should have, it just did. So I said flatly, “He's little, all right, but I'll pass on ridiculous. Besides, seems to me this Roman flop wasn't exactly your operation. Not with sixty thousand clams of other people's money paying for it."

  “I think your ten minutes is up, Scott."

  I looked at my watch. “The hell it is. Of course, if eight and a half is ten to you, you're right."

  He gave his head a small quick shake, annoyance evident in the movement. “I didn't know we had to time this interview with a goddamn seventeen-jewel stopwatch. You've got a minute and a half.” As he spoke, he took his watch off and placed it on the desk. “But since you're getting goddamn ridiculous yourself, Scott, when that's up, you're out."

  One way or another, I presumed. “Can I deduct ten seconds for all this blab?"

  His expression indicated that I could not. “Actually, I was all through,” I said, smiling cheerfully at him. “But, since we've got some time to kill, do you know much about a guy named Devin Morraigne?"

  “I've known at least a hundred and twelve deranged Da Vinci's like Morraigne. Did Mr. Willifer mention the marvelous instrument this new Mr. Marvelous invented, or found at the city dump, and employs in mysterious ways?"

  Half the time I wanted to sock this character, the other half I liked the son of a bitch. “I did hear something about the doodlebug,” I said.

  He nodded, curling his lips downward in what I assumed was a grimace of approval. “Right on. You know its name, so you must know what the guy's got."

  “Yeah. Another doodlebug."

  “And that says it all, does it not?” He spread his hands out, lifting and then dropping his wide shoulders. “This odd-sounding noun being one more name for the perpetual-motion machine, and the pot of crap at rainbow's end, and the ghost of Christmas past, all rolled into one."

  “Morraigne did doodle around at the Roman site, then?

  “Most industriously, dozens of times. And, on the Roman site, with great success. Did not his instrument almost go out of its tubes so vast were the quantities of hydrocarbons indicated only six thousand feet below, hardly farther than a large dog can pee? Well, because of that asshole I drilled—against my better judgment, merely to tune out some of the static, and of course because Willifer was helping pay for it—an extra one-fifty to six thousand, and there we struck a lot of dog pee and a little oil."

  “I do enjoy the way you put things, but I sure wish you'd keep the answers shorter."

  He glared at me, then smiled. Glared some more.

  “You were going to give me a couple of addresses?” I said.

  He glanced at the papers before him, scribbled on a notepad, ripped off the sheet, and handed it to me.

  Then he picked up his watch, examined it, put it back on the desk, and stood up, smiling wolfishly.

  “Thanks for the time, Mr. Trappman,” I said, leaving. "Almost used it all up, didn't we?"

  Chapter Seven

  starguide, it said, on a colorful plaque to the right of the door.

  The plaque was about two feet wide and a foot high, done in bright mosaic, with the centered word, STARGUIDE, in bright chips of blue tile surrounded by odd figures or symbols, like doodles, or perhaps even planetary doodlebugs.

  For this was where Cynara Lane, astrologer, reader of moonbeams and analyzer of sunspots, friend of dependable old Devin Morraigne and “advisor” to my client, Gippy Willifer, plied her trade, or part of it, dishing out cosmic wisecracks or gimcracks to the gullible, or whatever it was she did aside from publishing a magazine, also called Starguide.

  But maybe, I thought, I shouldn't put the old tomato down—for a moment there I'd remembered Gippy paraphrasing Spenser to me—until I'd heard her side of any argument we got into. All I really knew about astrology was that it had something to do with movements of planets in the solar system, and either the real or imagined effect of those movements and angles or rays or exudations or halitosis upon men puttering about down below.

  Then, too, just because I thought of her as an “old tomato,” who probably slept under the full moon, with her eyes open, that didn't mean she was necessarily any of those things. Nor did it necessarily mean she was not something worse. In fairness, however, I cautioned myself to withhold final judgment, and not put the dizzy old broad down till after we'd met.

  She was my last stop on this wonderful thirty-buck misguided tour of mine, anyway. After leaving Trappman's office, I had attempted, unsuccessfully, to contact Easy Banners and Ben Riddle From Gippy I'd learned that Devin Morraigne was out of town but might be home tomorrow; from what Trappman had written on his notepad for me, and checking the phone book, I had both an office and residence phone for Ennis Z. Banners, and a single number, a home phone—listed at the address supplied me by Trappman—for Riddle. All I got out of the three calls was a growing sense of frustration.

  Frustration even though I could justifiably claim I had earned my fee, for Gippy was now reunited—or, certainly, almost reunited—with his fearful spouse, and I had at least tried to contact each of the major characters in this adventure with the exception of Miss Lane. Who was next and, presumably, last.

  There were two numbers following her name in the phone book, one at what was apparently her home out in Burbank, the other being the offices of Starguide, which almost had to have something to do with guidance from the stars, or road maps to the homes of famous movie and TV people.

  The door closed behind me with a soft shoosh as I walked into the air-conditioned cool of a small room that could have been the office of a lawyer or doctor or tax consultant. It was empty, so I proceeded along a short hallway to an intersecting corridor. From my left came sounds of some kind of machinery working, thumping and humming. To my right, the corridor extended for perhaps fifty feet,
and I started walking up it, noting that it was lined by more rooms or offices on both sides, some of the doors open, some closed.

  I'd taken only a few steps when a door on my left opened and I saw two things of exceeding interest to me—three, if you include the blue-edged gilt letters on the door spelling out the name “Cynara Lane."

  The other two things were both of my favorite sex, though the gal coming out—apparently a client, a satisfied client judging by the absolutely ravishing smile on her extraordinarily gorgeous face—was at least several hundred percent more female than the old tomato pausing briefly in the doorway and then turning to go back into the office. More accurately, into her office, no doubt, since she almost exactly resembled the picture I had clairvoyantly dreamed up of Cynara Lane, old-tomato astrologer.

  A good, or not-so-good, sixty years old, she was about five-feet-tall, held firmly to earth by the pull of gravity upon at least a hundred and eighty pounds, not quite half of which I guessed was unnecessary, distributed over loosely waggling upper arms, massive breasts, bulging abdomen, broad hips, and several extra chins, loosely dangling.

  Even without the contrast between her and the broad broad, the luscious lovely—now saying, “And thank you very much!”—would have been in a class by herself. Maybe five-and-a-half-feet-tall and a hundred and twenty delectable pounds, clad in a form-fitting pale blue knitted dress, she was everything the other female was not—everything, everywhere.

  Less than half of the other's sixty years, her face was bright and glowing as though freshly scrubbed in the Fountain of Youth, waist trim and taut, hips full and fully rounded, and the breasts, though not “massive,” were about as far as one girl's can get from insignificant. In fact, thought I, as she pulled the door closed and turned, those have got to be significant breasts if ever I saw some, and I've seen some.

  When she pulled the door shut and turned, taking a step, she bumped them right into me, possibly because I was not a long, long way away. “Oh!” she cried, startled, instantly apologetic, “I'm sorry, I didn't...."

  “Don't be sorry,” I said, smiling broadly. “Be glad it's happened at last. Our meeting like this was destined by the Moon's eclipse of Arcturus. Not to mention the sunspots. So, why fight it? They're stronger than we are."

  Her eyes, perhaps a bit wider than they normally would have been, were a soft and luminous brown, or tan, or beige, or something new, soft like the velvet dusk I dote upon. The lips were full, slightly parted to reveal the edges of white, even teeth, pink tip of tongue pressed against them as she looked up at me before saying curiously, “Moon's eclipse of.... Are you sure you know what you're talking about?"

  “Of course not. But why should I be different from anybody else around here? Leave us not quibble with destiny, however. Let me take you away from these unreal surroundings and back into the real world—Emilio's Italian restaurant down the street, for example?—as soon as I've had a brief word or two with our hefty, and probably dizzy, astrologer friend in there.” I stabbed a finger at the door behind her. “OK?"

  “Dizzy? Oh, you're one of those, are you?"

  “One of what?"

  “And you want a word or two with the dizzy astrologer....” She aimed a lovely, curving, graceful—really, it was sexy, I swear—thumb at the door she'd just closed ... “in there?"

  I didn't get it. Not then. Not for some time. And this was destined to cause me some pain.

  I merely said, still smiling broadly, though it was no easy task after all this time, “'Cynara Lane’ it says on the door, and that's who—or what—I'm here to see. I figure Cynara Lane is either an ancient female astrologer or a side street in Glendale. You will wait, while I find out which, won't you?"

  “Oh, yes,” she said, smiling a peculiar little smile. “I'll wait. Why do you wish to see Miss Lane? Do you want her to do your horoscope?"

  "Me? Ha-ha,” I laughed. “Do I look like a man who'd ask an astrologer what kind of day it is?"

  She shook her head slowly. “No. No, you really don't."

  I noticed a glimmer of light in her hair, light glancing from the reddish-brown-speckled horn-rims of glasses she'd pushed up into thick auburn tresses.

  “You're really a disturbingly good-looking wench,” I said. “I know you've heard that sort of thing before, millions of times, but it never hurts to hear it once again, does it?"

  “Do your teeth hurt?"

  “My ... hurt? I asked you if.... Oh."

  I stopped smiling broadly, waggled my chin a bit, rubbed my jaws. “Only a little, now you mention it. I was just ... smiling. You know, it's a thing with the lips and teeth—you ought to try it sometime."

  “I thought you might also have mistaken me for a dentist."

  Didn't even get it then.

  “If you aren't having your chart ordered,” the lovely continued, “why do you want to see Miss Lane?"

  “It's not that I want to,” I said, “at least not more than anything else I can think of. But I've reason to believe she may have helped tout a client of mine—I'm a private investigator, by the way—into a lousy investment a year or so back. A not very oily oil well—but I'm sure you wouldn't be interested in that."

  “Don't be so sure,” she said. “If Miss Lane —'touted,’ was it?—someone like that, she must be a terrible, mean, cruel, sick woman. I'm beginning to hate her now, and I liked her so much before you came along."

  This gal talked funny. Which must be, I decided, what had been puzzling me. “Well, terrible, mean, cruel, sick ... I wouldn't go that far, I don't think. Hell, I haven't even met the old babe yet. Still, she didn't look too well, the little peek I got at her."

  This lovely and exceedingly curvaceous creature, with her soft eyes still on my face, moved even closer to me then, which put us very little distance apart since she'd only been a couple of inches away to start with, and she said quietly, and seriously, “But you're not very nice yourself, are you? I mean, to say such cruel, slanderous things about Miss Lane, even if they're true—and what if they're not true?—to me, a complete stranger."

  “Yeah, you're right,” I said. “You really are. I goofed there. Yep. I apologize to you, and to that old broa—the fat stargazer in there. I don't ordinarily go around slandering and libeling and ruining people with impunity, but I have a little flaw, which sometimes gets me into trouble, but I'd hate to do without it.... What I'm getting at is, when you bumped into me with those ... when we met ... well, who's perfect? And the closer you get, the less sense I'm likely to make. Is that clear?"

  “Perfectly."

  “Swell. Now—I am sorry, dammit, I just goofed. You don't have to glare at me like that, do you? Now, until and unless I have reason to believe otherwise, which will probably never happen in a million years, Miss Cynara Lane is a sweet old lady of sweet morals and impeccable probity and, well, sweet and nice. Also a wonderful astrologer, as I have elsewhere heard. So you'll forgive me, won't you? And join me for a pizza or some ravioli—"

  “What's your name?"

  “Shell Scott. And who might you—?"

  “You're a private detective?"

  “That's right. Carry a little gun and everything. You want to see it? Not everything, just the little—"

  “I'll bet you've never been to an astrologer before?"

  “I'll bet I haven't either."

  “Well, I know quite a bit about astrologers, especially Miss Lane. Would you mind a little advice from me?"

  “From you, I wouldn't mind a whole bunch—"

  “When you go into Miss Lane's office, you should understand that she won't even talk to you until she knows your birth data. You do know when and where you were born, don't you?"

  “Of course I do. What kind of dummy do you think—"

  “Some dummies don't. Miss Lane is quite temperamental, and very busy, so as soon as you see her—don't wait for her to ask anything, or else the old eccentric will just ignore you—tell her your name, and the year, month, and day of your birth. Be dramatic a
bout it, even poetic if you can—but, of course you can—because she gets bored seeing so many ordinary people. It might help if you'd smile that wonderful smile, too."

  “Ah.... You wouldn't be pulling—?"

  “And try to be smooth, suave, cultured, even if it's a little difficult for you just now."

  “Easy. I'll knock her over. I'll give her a whole mess—"

  “It helps a lot if you know the time of day you were born, too."

  “I know that. I know everything—"

  “Not quite everything,” she said.

  “I didn't mean—"

  But by then she had brushed by me—actually moved against me, sort of brushily, gliding warmly past, and it was a moment worth writing a whole cultured poem about—and was walking away from me down the corridor. The walk itself was poetry, too, for that matter, each striding leg with rounded gleam of curving calf and ankle and individual sonnet, fluidly swinging and swaying hips at least an epic, a small but not-too-small volume of beautiful, flowery ... but maybe I was getting overly lyrical about this gal's rear end. Especially when she was walking away from me. Though I wouldn't have known about it if she hadn't been. Besides, I was still on duty.

  So I opened the door bearing the blue-edged gilt name, “Cynara Lane,” and, still seeing in my musical mind those wonderfully rhyming hips, went inside. The overstuffed lady was sitting, slumping, sagging disrhythmically, in an overstuffed chair near a low white desk—not behind the desk, perhaps because the spindly-looking leather-padded swivel chair there would not have supported one of her legs, much less that other enormous object—looking at, well, at nothing apparently.