The Sure Thing (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  We arrived at no wonderful conclusions, didn't even decide if those shots had most likely been aimed at me, or Morraigne, or possibly at both of us. After brief discussion, we just let it simmer.

  Dev seemed to be a short distance into shock, and I felt like going home and checking my anatomy, to make sure it was all there, so after those five minutes I shook hands with Dev, yelled goodbye to Petrushka, and—with reasonable care, looking about and moving without undue delay—went to my Cad and headed for the Spartan Apartment Hotel.

  By two-thirty p.m. I was back in my three rooms and bath on the second floor of the Spartan, fresh from the shower and climbing into some clean clothes, indeed into another splendid outfit, I thought. By two-forty-five I'd quick-fried a thin New York steak, plopped it atop a piece of toast, and was chewing away, while seated on a stool before the two aquariums just inside my front door.

  I was still seated there watching the fish when my phone rang, and then Eddy, downstairs on the desk, was saying softly to me:

  “Shell, there's a kind of weird guy down here...."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Flat on my back in the middle of North Rossmore, I heard the engine-whine and shrill tire-screech as a car accelerated in one hell of a hurry, leaving, getting away. Getting away with, undoubtedly, the son of a bitch who had shot me.

  Shot me twice. But I didn't know how bad....

  Gingerly probing, moving carefully, I felt myself over, finally got straightened up, and sitting in the middle of the street—on my so very recently sprung rear end—decided that not even this latest physical insult was going to stop me. It would slow me down some, yes; but stop me, no.

  One of the slugs, the first one, had crunched along or bounced off my left ankle, and the second had whistled—probably when I was going down, moments before I smacked my head against the street—between my chest and left arm, taking a pretty good chunk of flesh from the underside of that arm. The arm was bleeding, and there was blood from the torn skin at my ankle, but the ankle bone wasn't broken. Maybe chipped, and for sure painfully bruised, but not broken. I had a perfectly marvelous ache in my head, but no holes in it, and I felt lucky simply to be alive.

  I got up, stood erect, easing weight onto that left foot, and it felt as if I was standing in a burning barbecue pit, but I could walk if I didn't mind making a few faces. On my feet again, I looked toward the top of the Spartan's steps, and there—before the open doors behind him—stood Sheikh Faisuli. All in black, he was standing with his legs spread, arms crossed over his chest, and even from here I thought I could see sunlight glitter on the arched bridge of his nose as it might glance from the sharp blade of a small scimitar.

  And at that moment he unfolded his arms, walked springily down the stone steps like a man leading a parade, waited for me on the sidewalk as I limped to it, finding I could negotiate at least that small distance without extraordinary difficulty.

  Facing me, looking up at me, his piercing eyes dark and hot as desert night winds, Faisuli said calmly, “For several of these most recent moments, I feared you might be very much unable to find my hareem."

  “I will tell you, Sheikh, Sir, what you can do with that misbegotten hareem. Six of them, hey? Well, one at a bloody time, and preferably feet first—"

  “Please, I speak thus, of things of no importance, because it is the way of men, or should be the way of men. Indeed, I feared for you. Truly, I feared for you. But we need not speak of this, is it not so?"

  Something in his tone got through, made me feel that he really meant it—or else, having a few other things on my mind, that's what I wanted to believe. Anyhow, I said, “Yeah, sure, so it is. Or, it is so. Man, I'd like to get out of this goddamned street, the woods are alive with assassins."

  “It is less unnerving, less perilous, than this city of madness even in Azdrak,” he said.

  “Azdrak,” I said. “Azdrak.... Yeah, I wonder why I didn't pick up on it the first time. That's where Dev said he spent his dandy week—in Azdrak.” I shifted my weight, moved my flaming ankle around a bit. “If you'll join me in my apartment again, Sheikh Faisuli, it strikes me we may have a new thing or two to talk about."

  Patched-up and professionally bandaged by Paul Anson, MD, friend, and occupant of Apt. 208 two doors down the Spartan's hall from me, and once again where it had all started—started, that is, with Sheikh Faisuli, which is to say seated on the oversize chocolate-brown divan in my front room—and, wearing my third outfit of this wearing day, I talked to the Sheikh and he talked to me.

  But, at the beginning, it was mostly me talking to him. Things like, “...and having thus gaily gone forth to look for your vanished harem, and having instantly been shot twice, you can perhaps understand why I am not wild to go looking for any more harems."

  And, “That's true, I said it, yes—I did tell you I'd take a poke at this problem of yours, and because I said it I'll try mightily to do it, but unless you spill one whale of a lot more about what's what I may not try with all my might."

  And, “There is something fishy in Denmark, Sheikh. I know it, and you better believe it—which phrase I'll bet a bag of Mexican jumping beans you picked up from Devin Morraigne."

  Whereupon, the Sheikh said, “The you-better-believe-it one, yes, that one pleased my ear from the tongue of Devin Morraigne. But what is this of fish in Denmark?"

  “This is from somewhere else, it's not important. Your reason for being here is, though, and your reasons for saying my problems are closely entwined with your own difficulties is, and a whole lot of clarifying explanation from you is. Is important to me, anyhow. So, if we're going to get along really swell, you might consider telling me now what you implied you'd spill after I found your gals, I should get so lucky. OK?"

  Sheikh Faisuli considered this. He considered it for some time. And as he did so, silently, a scowl growing upon his bronzed and leathery face, that expression I'd thought might hint at hardness or strength within him looked more like the gritty stamp of cruelty than it had at any time before. Which didn't mean he was a cruel or vicious man, not at all. But he for sure was not a guy I'd want angry, or even seriously uneasy, with me.

  “I may use your phone, Mr. Scott, yes?"

  “Sure."

  He was already seated at the end of the couch where my front-room phone rests on a small stand, and after checking one page of a small red book he returned the book to a pocket of his black suit and swiftly dialed a number.

  After a moment, he said, “Ah, so, you are there. Excellent. This is Sheikh Faisuli.” He listened briefly, smiled—again looking extraordinarily handsome, teeth and eyes flashing—then said, “It is so. I am here, which is to say there, now, at this moment. It is he I am with presently. And he insists with some belligerence of suggestion that I tell him all those things we discussed partially, and even more. Yes ... yes ... no ... yes."

  What the hell's going on? I wondered. And who's he talking to? Even then, though, I had a little bit of a hunch about the second question I'd asked myself.

  “What?” he was saying. “Ah, this, yes, his insistence arises from the condition that he was shot at. No, at. Well, slightly otherwise. Just now, yes, only minutes past.... Indeed, it is a pretty good reason, you better believe it. No, he is walking about and speaking with me now, he is a man, this one. The bullets struck him and off-bounced from his invulnerability”—and here, while still speaking, Sheikh Faisuli actually glanced at me, and winked, really winked, smiling that white and bloodless smile, then continued—“while hugely he roared, this one. It was incredible.... Yes. Yes, with much seriousness."

  Following that, he listened for almost a minute without speaking, said, “Splendid, I thank you. I shall reward you—no, no, I insist. You will hear from me.” And he hung up.

  “What was that about?” I asked him.

  “All is well. I have been assured by Miss Cynara Lane—"

  “Dammit. I had a little bit of a hunch, but—dammit."

  “—that I may div
ulge to you my secrets, secrets of huge import and peril, and they will stay undivulged from you. I need not fear that you will reveal to anyone—"

  “You mean, for Crissakes, she told you I can keep a secret? For Crissakes, couldn't you ask me?"

  Sheikh Faisuli appeared puzzled. He gazed upon me from the burning black eyes and said seriously, “Why should I ask of you? Wisdom requires that I ask of one who knows and will reveal this knowledge without consideration of personal interest or gain from doing it. How could I know if you spoke truth or pulled the wood over my eyes?"

  “Wool."

  “Wool? What is this?"

  “Never mind. Go on. Tell me about me."

  “If you assure, vow, swear as one would an oath, that what I say will not pass from you to others, I may be peaceful in the thought—thus assures me Miss Lane—that none will hear from you my secrets even should a querent tie much of you to several horses going in many directions. These are not precisely Miss Lane's words, I possess some of it mixed-up."

  “I sure hope so."

  “But the quality is similarly strained. Therefore, will you now vow not to repeat—without previous my granting of permission—what I now proceed to tell you?"

  “Sure."

  “What?"

  “Sure."

  “Is that all? Just sure?"

  “What more do you want?"

  “Why, perhaps you could arise, and ... make motions with your hands? Or some little ceremony.... It hardly seems enough."

  “Look, I promise. Cross my heart and hope to ... uh. Cross my heart. Honest. Your secrets will be—secrets with me. And, Sheikh, I wish you'd get started. I'm consumed with curiosity. Overconsumed."

  “Let it be done, then. Prepare your attention.” That almost metallic but flowing and resonant voice of his rang in the room.

  There was something different following that moment, there really was. Most of it arose from the obvious seriousness with which Faisuli gazed at me, the importance he unquestionably attached to what he was about to tell me. And part of it, too, was in the complete gravity with which he spoke his next words.

  “For knowledge of what I am now going to inform you, Mr. Scott,” he said, “there are men—some of whom I know well—who would murder a man, or a thousand men, or a nation."

  He paused, either considering his next comment, or to let that one sink in. Whatever his reason, that one sank in.

  “But, let us present this as a detective might wish it,” he said with less gravity, in fact with most of his former lightness. “In the order chronological, as it proceeded. First, it is known that in my land, and the lands surrounding—the several states or emirates of the Persian Gulf—there is oil. Much oil. Indeed, recent estimates issuing from knowledgeable men in this country, your country, place the proceeds to the owners from these vast quantities of oil reserves at and near the headwaters of the Persian Gulf, at a trillion. This is not the total return, but the return only to those of the Persian Gulf area itself, the owners and rulers thereof, for their own purses."

  “I missed something,” I said. “Return of what? And what's a trillion?"

  “Return—or payment—of dollars,” he said. “And a trillion,” he gently added, “is a lot of dollars."

  “Uh, that kind of trillion. It's a lot, all right. Man, it's plenty."

  “I would say so. I say also, there is great—worldwide—interest in this area, and its oil, and the finding and producing and sale of this oil. This is not difficult to accept?"

  “Not difficult."

  “My own country, the capital and heart of which is Azdrak, is not large in size, and we have ... how shall it be said? ... lagged behind our brothers in finding and development of our own reserves of oil. In all of Kardizazan—"

  “Is that where you're from, Sheikh? I wasn't sure if I got it before—"

  “—at least until very recently, there were only one hundred and twenty wells, producing only a little more than seventy thousand barrels of oil a day."

  “Only seventy thousand.” I nodded.

  “Now, it happened,” said Sheikh Faisuli, and, as he then gazed past me toward the wall of my apartment and continued, that softly ringing musical voice of his took on almost a meter or rhythm, and he spoke as though he were spinning a tale from a time not recent but long and long ago, “that there came to Kardizazan a man, this Devin Morraigne, a man of genius and remarkableness by many unsuspected, unsuspected even by the ruler of that land—me, I am the ruler—and this Morraigne searched for a ship lost centuries past, using for this accomplishment an instrument of much ridiculousness, because of which many spoke of him in whispers. Yet the ship was found. Yet the ship was found very swiftly. Of all this the ruler of Kardizazan—me, I am the ruler—was kept informed without exception, including that which the ship-finder himself professed, that his instrument of ridiculousness was designed not for ship-finding but for directing its possessor to oil, to reserves of oil no matter where they might be, no matter how deeply buried. So, being wise, which is necessary thing for rulers, this ruler invited this Morraigne to stay, as his honored and most welcome guest, at the royal palace."

  “Uh-huh,” I said, mainly to myself, “that's where the memorable week came from, all right."

  “Since this ruler was of power, possessed of forty-seven succulent wives, ruler over innumerable other succulents, absolute owner of vast quantities of moneys and jewels and other desirable things, it was made possible for him to prevail upon this Morraigne to demonstrate his oil-finding ability, made possible mostly by the cleverness of presenting to this Morraigne—"

  Of a sudden, Sheikh Faisuli stopped speaking, sort of blinked, shook his head.

  “Go on, go on,” I said. “And then what? Presented him with what? Open, o Sesame? Vast quantities of moneys and jewels—?"

  “With nothing."

  “You've got to be kidding."

  “Nothing he could put into his purse. Sincerely, no, there was no cash payment, no jewels. This Morraigne, so confident was he of the virtues in his instrument that willingly to take nothing he agreed, no payment of moneys, only my promise—which is like one all those horses going wild, you recall, could not change a single iota—that if after drilling where indicated by him, should we do so, oil was produced, for his purse he would receive a return of five percent. Off the top, that is how he put it."

  “Sounds like him. Boy, this is fascinating. Did you drill a bunch of wells and—?"

  “Let me proceed as I was proceeding and fascinate you with how and what happened, in due order."

  “Well, OK."

  “On four days, of those seven days as guest in my palace, this Morraigne went with men of mine who are most knowledgeable in the ways of oil, and also, on twice of those, was accompanied by the ruler—me—and on these days he indicated, and my men marked with stakes in the ground, drilling places for oil. Now, partly as a test for him and his machine, my men represented to him other places where they had made preparations to commence drilling holes, making oil wells. They insisted he tell them, of those places, how much oil and how deep, all these interesting things of importance."

  “Did he do it?"

  “He did do it. His answer, of how much oil and how deep, for two of these places, was none, and nowhere."

  “No wells, were there at that time, right? This is where your oil guys were going to drill?"

  “Precisely so. The other two places, said this Morraigne, from the first, two hundred barrels daily if done properly, drilling to a mile and point-one-four-eight something or other in depth."

  “That's him, all right."

  “And from the other, four hundred barrels, similarly. Of the greatest interest, he indicated his own six places, his personally selected locations, of which he waxed wildly glad, claiming impossible oil quantities, saying all his life this was where he had been looking for."

  “Well, then,” I said, “if I've got it straight, Dev Morraigne told you what to expect at four locations picked
by your men, and also at six sites chosen by him alone. Is that it?"

  He nodded.

  “Well, how did he do? You drilled the wells, didn't you? You are going to tell me, aren't you?"

  “I am telling you. This, all of this, was mostly three months past, now behind us. We were not impatient to drill these wells of Morraigne, having had some experience of similar instruments, which proved not only useless but very expensive. Some of those men who proclamated such instruments would now be unable to locate their heads even if they could know where to look for them, or how."

  He didn't pursue that any farther. I didn't want him to pursue it any farther.

  “So, first were drilled the four wells we most were sure of, leaving the selected six for later times. As for those two wells, of which Morraigne said none and nowhere, it was as he said it."

  “None—and nowhere?"

  “You better believe it."

  “And the two-hundred, and the four-hundred barrel—"

  “Precisely so."

  “But ... good God Almighty, that's—wow."

  “You can say wow again."

  “How about the six others? The locations he picked out?"

  “All producers. As he said. Within reasonable allowances for error, yet all vigorous producers. One of them, this Morraigne said, at a depth of twelve thousand feet would from there produce ten thousand barrels a day. This equals one-seventh of all production from the entirety of one hundred and twenty wells before this in all Kardizazan. Consequently this happening was not possible. You will agree with this, surely."

  “Surely. Sure. Of course, it's impossible. But...."

  “Precisely so. The impossible was—is—possible. Was—is—ten thousand and four hundred barrels a day."

  There was silence.