The Sure Thing (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  I didn't discover any door open, or windows unlocked—or, oddly, even broken—at the building's rear, so I found a window that I could reach, in the building's wall beyond the shed, and broke out the glass in it myself.

  I'd brought with me a roll of thin plastic tape, and once strips of it were crisscrossed over the window pane it was a simple matter—though a bit noisier than I liked, since it was heavy frosted glass with little wires fused into it—to hammer on the glass and then pull taped-together hunks of it out, placing them in a pile at my feet, until there was a hole big enough for me to climb through.

  Inside, it was as silent—and seemed as empty—as the deserted garage I'd earlier been in. Outside, the sun would still be shedding a glow over the land and the city, not yet beyond earth's edge; but along Esther Street the surrounding buildings turned any late afternoon into dusk, and inside this abandoned supermarket the darkness was almost, not quite but almost, complete.

  After a minute my eyes, more familiar with the darkness, could make out old shelves and bins, still in place but empty now. Shelves where not many years ago cans of soup and packages of bread and bars of soap, even toothpaste and deodorants and Permagrip glue, had been arrayed in bright packages, all of it looking good enough to eat. Now, bare shelves and dust.

  I'd come through a window in what—looking in from the street out front—would be the building's right wall, and I stood about halfway between the front and back of the store. In the rear wall, approximately at its center, there was a little brightness still, a glow; somewhere over there a light was burning. A light burning in an abandoned supermarket, a Lincoln Continental limo in a shed; I could feel tightening of tendons alongside my spine, involuntary clenching of buttocks, band of muscle pulling between my shoulder blades.

  With the Colt Special in my hand, thumb moving slightly against its checked grip and my index finger barely touching the curved trigger, I walked past empty shelves where all the bright goodies had been, back to the rear wall and halfway along it to where the light glowed, quite brightly now.

  It came from beyond a pair of metal-covered swinging panels, each less than a yard square, hinged at both sides of an otherwise open doorway with empty spaces both above and below the panels. You sometimes see them in the rear of supermarkets, separating shoppers from an area back there containing storage space and often a paper-piled desk, sometimes little offices.

  I bent my knees and squatted, feeling a quick sharp stab of pain in my left ankle, started to lean forward—then froze as I heard a sharp click followed by a scraping sound. I waited, slowing my breath, let half a minute tick by, then squeezed the Colt's butt tight, moved quickly under the metal-covered panels and stood erect inside the room.

  Plenty of light now, coming from my left, very bright down there. Old bins and wooden shelving were back here, too, and beginning near where I stood, extending almost to the far wall, was a high four-foot-deep wooden structure with both large and small cubical compartments in its face, like the surface of an irregular honeycomb, where tins and boxes and sacks of produce must once have been stored.

  When I turned to face the light, with that honeycombed structure on my right and on my left the bare wall I'd just come through, it was like looking down a square ten-foot-wide tunnel at—well, at the light which, according to mystics and wizards and philosophers and even dingbats, is supposed to be at the end of the tunnel.

  I'd never believed it before, not for an instant; but it was possible that the mystics and wizards and philosophers and dingbats had just been joined by a new believer.

  I could see clearly through my square tunnel into what must once have been a small office—about ten feet square, base of wood for the first three feet up from the floor and glass from there on to the small room's ceiling—and beyond the glass, inside the room, a flurry and flutter of movement and color and girls that was a shock to my entire optic and even parts of other systems, not because it was unexpected, for it wasn't, but in part because it was so bright and vivid after the dimness and bare dusty shelves where I'd been.

  But, even as that sight gladdened my eyes and made my heart pump a little faster, my ears took some of the pleasure out of it all. Part of what I heard was the not entirely depressing blending of feminine voices in a sort of squeaking and squealing and trilling high-pitched pandemonium, faint from behind that office wall, but nonetheless audible, entirely too damned audible. Because the other part of what I heard was the same scraping sound, or something much like it, that I'd heard before; and I wasn't sure what it was at first, but then realized it was a man walking.

  A few feet before the glass face of that softly squeaking and trilling office, very close to the left wall, was a wooden chair, empty, near it on the concrete floor an overflowing ashtray, paperback book, a folded newspaper. Undoubtedly a man, a guard, had been sitting in that chair, was walking back to it now—the thought was no sooner in my mind than the man himself was in my sight, stepping past the far end of that honeycomb and moving toward the wooden chair on my left, but not looking toward it. Nor was he looking toward me. And naturally he was not looking behind himself, either. Where was he looking, then?

  Right, he was staring intently, and with growing alarm—as far as I could tell from the back of his head—directly at the glass-enclosed office, wherein those dizzy foreign-brained broads were not exactly concealing how thrilled they felt about being practically rescued, which didn't exactly thrill the hell out of me, since this could hardly fail to arouse some curiosity, at least, in the guard, who no matter how extensive his experience of guarding offices almost surely had not known one before that broke out into squeaking and trilling.

  That, needless to say, was not all it had broken out into.

  Every single one of those babes—yes, each of the six—was waving, and/or jumping up and down, and/or waggling both her hands, and/or spinning about in a fine frenzy.

  In a way, I was pleased. It meant they were glad to see me. And I allowed myself an instant, while the guard was starting to turn around—or, it might be more accurate to say, spinning about like lightning—to savor the thought that, for at least once in my life, a real, live and luscious, mind-blowing, the-kind-you-dream-about harem had, merely at the sight of me, gone out of its gourd. Or, out of their gourds.

  Whichever, I would have liked to savor that instant longer, but we don't always get what we'd like in life, and it sure looked as if I wasn't going to in this one, assuming nothing terminal happened to it in my immediate future.

  It perhaps should be mentioned that this guard was not a little fellow, not one of those scrawny unfortunates you see in the “before” pictures of advertisements gracing the pages of Barbell and Muscle and Beautiful Hunka. No, this guard looked like the guy who beat up the guy in the “after” picture, and really ruined him.

  He was a big one. I'm pretty fair-sized myself, but this bald-headed egg—not a hair on his head—was at least as tall as I am, and a lot thicker; I'd have put him at two hundred and forty or fifty pounds, and I'd have preferred to put him in a cage somewhere—somewhere else—and feed him hunks of cheap meat.

  He was the size guy who, if you have to fight him, you'd like to shoot first, to make the odds more even. But I couldn't take a chance on shooting him—though I seriously considered it—because if I missed him I would inevitably hit at least one and possibly more vital parts of the harem directly behind him. So I shoved the Colt back into its clamshell holster and sprinted toward the burly bruiser.

  He didn't have a gun. At least there was none in his hand or belt, and if he had one in his shorts, or out in the car, I knew I could sprint to him before he could draw—even though I wasn't sprinting like I used to.

  I decided I'd been wrong this afternoon in assuming, when I'd been shot on North Rossmore, that the slug hadn't broken any bones in my ankle. Obviously, it had broken all of them. If they weren't broken, I knew it would have to work better than it was working now.

  But I believe when you ma
ke an irreversible decision you should stick with it, even if it's a wrongo, so I kept hobbling at him.

  I wasn't really worried. It didn't even bother me too much that the guy was bigger than I, and heavier than I, and probably had two good ankles. Some men are expert at golf or tennis or bridge or changing tires, everybody's got some sort of special talent, and I can say without real modesty that what I can really do well is fight.

  I fought in school, and during graduation, and in the Marine Corps, and in a number of streets and houses and alleys, and once in a girl's dormitory. I became an expert in unarmed defense while in the U.S. Marines, and went on from there to study and practice half a dozen more eastern and western, and I think even one northern, manly arts.

  So, I wasn't worried. I knew once I got to him it would be Goodbye Emily, and then I could proceed to what I'd come here for in the first place. So, I wasn't really worried. Except about one thing. That was getting to him.

  But surprise was on my side. Those girls had surprised hell out of him. And after he spun around he hesitated for a second or two, with his huge arms dangling like tree limbs, or trunks. And when I was only a couple of yards from him and slowing down, I started to grin —

  The thing is, I knew I could handle him. No matter which arm he came at me with, or even leg—I tiptoed through kung fu years ago—and I could hardly wait for him to start his attack, so I could counter it. Left hand, right hand, left leg, right leg, even knee or elbow, I didn't care. I was ready. The only flaw in my analysis was—well, what the son of a bitch did was, first, he didn't wait there till I got all the way to him but sprang toward me, bringing us closer together, or rather absolutely together, somewhat sooner than I had expected.

  But the really dirty thing was, instead of flailing his arms or even legs about where I could get at them, he simply bent over and aimed his huge bald head at my stomach. Well, from that distance, he couldn't miss, and he sure didn't.

  I felt my feet come off the floor and knew I was sailing back through the air a surprising way, and I also knew when I came down it was going to be a mess, and since I had not in my wildest imaginings expected to get clobbered in the gut by a head, there was probably less air in my lungs than at any time since six months before I was born.

  I never did go completely out, and fortunately I kept my wits about me. I knew at all times where I was. I knew I was on the floor of an old supermarket, that's where I was, feeling like last year's lettuce.

  The big bruiser took full advantage of his temporarily superior position, and came over next to me, and kicked me in the side. I let him kick me that once. I knew I wouldn't feel it much, and it gave me time for my next move. However, his move was to try to kick me again, but this time in the head, and that was a nearly fatal mistake—for him—because, no matter what anybody says, I've got a pretty speedy head.

  As his foot kicked through the air I sped my head out of its path, almost completely, and while he was off balance I managed to get onto my knees, and grab his foot, and somehow I got all the way up on my feet knowing all the bones in my ankle were gone, but I still had his foot and his leg was in the air and I started cranking it around like Henry trying to start the first Model-T Ford.

  And this time it was the guard who wound up on the floor.

  Now that he was down, he probably expected me to kick him, and I did not disappoint him. I aimed at his head, to get even, but got only his chin a glancing blow as he rolled away with surprising speed, and sprang up and hit me with even more surprising speed. It was a little unnerving. I like to keep my confidence up, any way I can, even with little poems and affirmations, but with this kind of guy something more was needed.

  However, I ducked a couple of his roundhouse swings and landed two very good ones in his gut, each of which slowed him down a little more, and there came a moment when he was staggering backward with his arms at his sides, not much with it any longer, and I knew I had him.

  We'd moved around more than a little, and as he staggered and then steadied himself, slowly raising his arms, I noticed that we were almost back where we'd started. That is to say, directly behind him was the glass-enclosed office, and behind the glass were those six lovely girls.

  They weren't yelling or screeching, or making any noise at all now. All six were close to the glass window, side by side, staring. And I realized then that this, too, was the sort of thing a man might dream about.

  Yes, if he'll admit it, almost any male between the ages of twelve and a hundred and twelve will admit he might dream, and be forgiven for dreaming, of taking on a monster in a winner-take-all battle to save the lovely Guinevere—or whoever—who, when the dream's really good, is not off in a castle someplace but right there watching him, fascinated, torn between hope that he'll win and save her and fear that he'll be messily killed and she'll get ravaged by the monster, but naturally he saves her, and what else? Why, he claims his prize, that's what else. And ravages her. That's the way it is in all the books I've read. Which, before long, was going to tell me something.

  At the moment, though, I was overwhelmed by the wonderful thing that was happening to me; yet, in a way, I was disappointed. Disappointed that I had only this instant realized what a wonderful time I was having. I'd wasted at least two or three bloody minutes, while these beauties had been admiring me and pulling for me, concentrating all my thoughts on somehow getting this big ape to fall down again. Of course, that was a pretty good idea, considering what a difficult thing it was turning out to be.

  But, man, I thought, what a dream of dreams I had going for me here. Before, I was just fighting a big ugly bald-headed bruiser. Just him and me. Where was the romance in that? Give me even one beautiful broad, though—to watch, and pull for me—and it would have to steam me up twice as much. So take one gorgeous tomato, like Guinevere, make her a hell of a lot better-looking, and multiply her by six! How lucky could one guy get? Talk about inspired! Right before their twelve admiring eyes, I was going to kill this son of a —

  I knew where I was. I remembered it from before.

  When I got up this time, I was mad. I mean, I was furious. For one thing, he'd hit me with his head when my own head was turned. But I told myself that wouldn't happen again, and it didn't. I really concentrated on chopping him down, and as a result the fight only lasted another two or three minutes.

  But, by that time, I'd won. He was on the floor, and I was not, and it was certain he didn't have the least idea where he was, either. In fact, I seriously doubted that he would come to in less than an hour. So, I guessed it was time to claim my prize. Or, prizes. That's what the dumb books say, only the guys in them never felt as lousy as I did.

  After another minute or two, while I got used to breathing deeply with what felt like several cracked rib cages and a bone-bruised stomach, during which time I also mopped my face with a handkerchief, which I then looked at briefly, with real concern, and threw away, I approached the now silent and big-eyed hareem.

  I smiled at them all, as best I could, then plucked at the door. Which was locked, naturally. I went back to the unconscious bruiser and found a key in his pocket—how, I wondered, and where, did he get a key to a room in this joint?—then unlocked the door and swept it wide.

  As the girls filed out and formed a group a few feet from me, looking at me—silently—I didn't say anything myself for a while. I just looked. I drank them in. I memorized them, absorbed them, imprinted each and every one of them on the fabric of my mind.

  There was no question about it, they were beautiful. Almost irritatingly beautiful, if that makes any sense. Now that I could really look at them, really see them, it was with a sense of something close to physical shock. That is how gorgeous, how shapely, how softly feminine and wonderfully warm and sweetly desirable each of them was.

  Of course, that's the only way a real harem should be, I suppose. But how often are things what they should be? Besides, Sheikh Faisuli had gone on and on, and yet on, so much about his flaming femininities and
so forth, that almost without being aware of it, even while I “pumped myself up” with positive hotsy-totsies and visions of angelic belly dancers flaunting excitingly busy navels in an ultimate Paradise, I'd gradually been veering toward a half-formed conclusion that the lecherous old sheikh might not actually know a good-looking babe if he saw one; that for all I really knew he might be weak in one eye and stone-blind in the other; that he might think a fine-looking lass was one three axe-handles across the rear, in each direction, and without more than a couple of moles on her nose.

  What a fool, I thought, I was then.

  Perhaps things are not always what they should be; but once in a while they're better than they should be, or at least better than you expect, better than you've even begun to imagine. Like this, the six-pack hareem of Sheikh Faisuli, the me-I-am-the-ruler-of-Kardizazan, on the shores of the Persian Gulf.

  These were all, indeed, absolutely and compellingly gorgeous, entrancingly lovely of both unforgettable face and magnificent form, with those high-and-full-breasted, incredibly trim-waisted, lusciously and provocatively hipped bodies clad super-seductively in filmy ghazikhs and shoup-shoups—now I knew what they were, and they, too, were even better than I'd imagined.

  These six sweethearts were—well, you wouldn't believe it. No, you wouldn't, and even I had some difficulty.

  “Well, girls,” I said finally, smiling, then reaching up to feel it and make sure, “I guess you feel pretty happy, huh?"

  Right then, before I could even get rolling, the bruiser who was going to be unconscious for an hour started coming to fifty-six minutes early.

  “Excuse me,” I said to the girls. “I'll be right back—don't get impatient."

  I hauled the guy, who was beginning to wiggle and mumble, down the corridor, or tunnel, and around the end of that wooden honeycomb, so my harem wouldn't have to watch if it became necessary for me to sock this guy again. They'd seen enough; I didn't want to spoil them in one night.