The Sure Thing (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  I turned, looked at him curiously.

  “This I think you would enjoy knowing. No question about it. My mind, it slipped, but to me it has this moment come back. So now I inform you that delivered to your living place, this Spartan, from my personal jetting plane, have been already the ten pouches."

  “The what?"

  “The pouches."

  “Of.... Not of gold?"

  “Why not?"

  “Yeah, now you mention it, why not? Anything you say, Sheikh. But ... ten?"

  “The six, one for each, as discussed between us. And a few more, as—it came to me as a whim. You are offended?"

  “Not so you'd notice."

  “In due time, in a due short time, you would perhaps enjoy visiting me for a few days? At my living palace—which, as you know, is a place?” He snapped his fingers again, sharply.

  But I said, “Sheikh, there's no perhaps about it."

  “We can examine the beautiful oil wells."

  “Yeah, sounds exciting. I hope I can stand it."

  Then he was saying good-bye, and speaking to Gippy and Audrey, and I was shaking Harim Babullah's hand, telling him, “I won't say it's all been fun, but good luck—go with Allah, or whoever. I may even see you in the palace place, Babu."

  He did that thing with his lips, much like a smile. “Babu,” he said, moving my hand gently in his big soft paw.

  Then he, and the Sheikh, were gone, on their way back to Kardizazan. Dev Morraigne had finally hobbled out of sight, aided by his musical companions.

  So, the party was over.

  Except for the Willifers, and Cynara still here saying something softly to Audrey.

  And for me.

  So I waved at those three people, and walked out into the hall, headed for home.

  I was halfway down the corridor when I heard the soft patter of light, quick steps. Then Cynara was walking alongside me, holding my arm and saying, “Will you drive me home, Shell?"

  “Well—I guess—yeah, sure, ma'am. But, first, shouldn't I introduce myself? My name is Shell—"

  “Oh, don't be an old bear."

  “Who's a bear? When you failed to recognize me back there at the party, I naturally concluded we must not have met lately—"

  “Don't jump to any conclusions about me,” she said sweetly, and when I glanced down at her she was smiling a brilliant, almost a dazzling, smile.

  When we reached my car I stopped and hit myself smartly on my forehead while gazing with growing concern at the lid of my car trunk.

  It was still wide open, because the hinges were so obviously bent that it would take some doing for me to get it closed without the assistance of a garage and two mechanics.

  For a moment I assumed Babullah must have lifted it a bit too vigorously, but then I remembered how gentle he was—or, could be when he wanted to be—and knew that wasn't what had happened. And no sooner was that possibility eliminated than I saw in a painful split second, as though in a movie beamed smack into my eye, what had bent those hinges.

  “Poor old Clam,” I mumbled aloud. “I just didn't think—he must have gone straight up in the air."

  * * * *

  On the way to Cynara's home she asked me what it was I kept mumbling about, and why I seemed to rise up in an odd little jump every once in a while. So I told her I couldn't stop thinking of Clam, as the car lid went up, and, finally freed, knowing help had arrived and he was rescued at last. Clam lamped resplendent Sheikh Faisuli, and Harim Babullah.

  So of course then I had to explain the whole thing ... which might have been another little mistake.

  * * * *

  We hadn't been in Cynara's front room for five minutes, and already we were arguing. Well, sort of, the usual kind of picky-bickering we seemed to get into.

  She had the female gall to claim she'd told me yesterday that for a few days I would be likely to overlook or even forget things, maybe leave important items lying about, and she rose to a peak of ridiculousness by claiming that some of tonight's events proved she—and therefore her dingdong astrology—was right.

  Needless to say, I insisted that my temporarily overlooking Clam didn't fall into the category of “leaving important items lying about,” and there it went.

  “All right,” she said, “forget Clam."

  “Maybe I did already. I can't remember—"

  “I mean, if you won't accept that, you've got to admit I told you some things that weren't complete misses. About you, for example, and Gippy—and how about Arnold Trappman and whatever crooked thing be was doing seventeen years ago? Didn't I tell you he was probably into something like that right now, only maybe worse?"

  “Well, yeah, you lucked out—I mean, picked up something there, sort of, I guess."

  “You never did tell me what be was doing then, not exactly."

  “That's what bothers me. It was the same damn thing—on a smaller scale than now, of course, and not nearly so complicated, but it started eighteen years ago, not seventeen, and he was sued seventeen and a half years ago—"

  “Stop quibbling. Shell."

  “I am merely being precise.” I repeated what I'd earlier told Gippy, and finished it up. “So Trappman's settling Dikes’ suit out of court kept the attempted fraud from being widely noised about at the time. And, incidentally, probably kept Trappman from spending a lot of weekends in the old clinko."

  “Isn't that interesting?” Cynara said smugly.

  I opened my mouth to make a devastating response, but she hadn't stopped talking. “The interesting thing about seventeen—or seventeen and a half-years ago is, I didn't see any confinement indicated then. An affliction to his tenth, that sort of thing, but his twelfth house was good, with Jupiter transiting through it. Certainly a different picture then from his chart now."

  “That is interesting,” I said. “If I understood some of it, you mean he wasn't going to jail then, but probably is now?” She nodded, and I went on, “Hey, that's great. I figured he would, of course, but these days you never know. Well, that's a relief.... You understand, I don't believe a word of this."

  Still smiling, she said, “I'll convince you yet, Shell."

  “Ho-ho,” I said. “You wanna bet?"

  She had a nerve, not saying anything, just sitting there smugly like that. I stood up, then sat down again.

  “Well,” I said, “in fairness, for which I am noted among reasonable people, I will say that although I didn't really need your seventeen-years-ago bit in order to solve everything, when I mystically laid it upon Trappman, and for that matter Easy Banners, I believe they went into profound shock, and their temperatures dropped eighteen degrees while I watched"

  “I'd think so,” she said.

  “Such shock that Trappman thereupon put out word that it was his desire to kill me absolutely, and instantly if possible. He had other reasons by then, but that tipped the scales over on top of me, for fulfillment of his desire was attempted almost immediately afterward, at Dev Morraigne's home."

  “Shell, I'm sorry if—"

  “It's all right. It's my fault for going along with such a flaky ... to make you feel better about almost getting me fatally ventilated, however, that shooting, and Dev's subsequent move from his house, undoubtedly kept Trappman from barging in on Dev that very afternoon—this afternoon, by golly—and if he'd got his bloody hand on the Holaselector then, killing Dev Morraigne for sure this afternoon. So, things ... balance themselves out in mystical and hysterical ways—"

  “Shell Scott, damn you! Can't you quit making snide little cracks like mystic and flaky and dumbdumb and — oh! — especially about a scientific art like astrology. How can you be so stupid—?"

  “Stupid? What do you mean, stupid? Just because—” I stood up and snorted and sat down again.

  “Dammit to hell, Cynara,” I said reasonably. “Fun's fun, but there have got to be billions of things you can't see in those weirdo horoscopes of yours—"

  “I never said I could see everything, and I
certainly couldn't see that you were such a closed-minded nincompoop—"

  “Don't you dare call me a nincompoop,” I paused. “What's a nincompoop? Don't tell me. Look, for a rational example, you haven't got room on one of those wacky wheels to put in everything that's happened to me. Why merely my injuries—"

  “Oh—"

  “Please don't keep interrupting. Consider. I was shot at outside Dev's place, at which time he gave me a shot in the head, insuring that I would skin myself all over, especially all over my chin. Then I was shot twice, left ankle and upper left arm, which is two more places. And when I crashed down—"

  “No wonder you're so irritable, you must be exhausted—"

  “No, only a little shot, that's all. But I'll never finish if you keep interrupting. Where was I? Yeah, crashed down on the street. There went my head again. Then a reluctant assassin named poor old Clam—I got even with him, didn't I?—hit me in forty-seven different places, many of them several times. And Harim Babullah destroyed a large part of my skull. And, don't forget, you even bonked me on the head. That must take care of fourteen signs already."

  “There are only twelve signs, Shell—"

  “See? What did I tell you? There isn't room. And I haven't even mentioned that crippling kiss you gave me. What sign do hot lips come under? Must be a fire sign. Hey, give me another of those and I'll forgive you for anything you say—"

  “There you go again. You can't keep your mind off kissing, and sex, and all that, for more than five minutes—"

  “Are you crazy? Haven't you been listening? Who do you think I was molesting when my body was getting torn apart and mangled—?"

  “—I can see it all in your chart! You—and girls—and.... Well, how many girls have you been involved in, I mean with, just during the last day or two?"

  “Well, in—or with? It makes a difference. Hey, watch it, watch the pencil."

  “Oh! Shell Scott, you—you're a fiend—"

  “I am not."

  “Answer my question. How many girls? Just during this—this case?"

  “Well.... Hmm.... Let's see, there was Audrey, and you—"

  “Leave me out of this!"

  “Hell, you were the best part — watch the pencil. And Zezik, Visdrailia, Monesha, Shereshim, Yakima, Rasazhenlah—don't say I told you—and Petrushka. And I guess you could say Mary-Lu Watermooth, and Josephine and Madeleine, and little Melinda, and Lydia, and what's-her-name."

  “All ... of those?" Her eyes got—well, they seemed to get rounder. “Oh, dear,” she said in a soft voice.

  “Just since yesterday,” I said. “And I didn't even count Mrs. Gernbutts. But we're through. All of us are. Except for me and Audrey, of course, and especially me and—do you really want to be left out?"

  This went on until I remembered some sneaky advice from a book a guy had read, and told me about. Something to the effect that if you wanted to manipulate people—though who would want to do that?—you should talk to them about their interests, in their language.

  “I'll show you,” I said, inspired. She had brought out several of those paper-pie horoscopes, including hers and mine, and they were on a table before the couch where we sat. So I grabbed two of them—hers and mine—and said, “You are really going to learn something exciting now, Cynara. About astrology! Fascinating, huh?"

  I could see it wasn't working too good yet, so I put even more enthusiasm into my tone. “Fascinating, huh? Unbeknownst to you, I have been studying various crazy sciences! Behind your back! And behold! Look there!"

  “Where?” She was gazing upon the scribbles at which I was pointing, and I could feel her warm shoulder cooking mine.

  “Why, right there,” I said. “Observe this funny thing trine that funny ... and those little transiting injunctions—"

  “Conjunctions."

  “Right. And these trine things in conjunction with those things there. As any fool can plainly see, it means, according to the latest things in planets, we are now wildly driven—helplessly driven—astrologically driven—to make love! You and me, I mean. All night long! Boy, isn't it great?"

  “That's not what it says."

  “How can you tell? I made it up."

  “Well, I can see what astrology really says, I really can, Shell."

  “Yeah. Yeah. So who believes it? You can see we aren't going to make love all night long, not tonight, not tomorrow, not twelve weeks from tomorrow, not twelve years—"

  “Oh, don't have a fit. There are other things—"

  “Name a couple."

  “And I told you, Shell, don't jump to conclusions about me. I can tell you what astrology says, about us, about now, if you're interested—"

  “I'm interested. If it's nice."

  “—but besides obvious astrological factors, we always have to take into account physical environment. Like your immediate physical environment—you're a wreck."

  “Ho-ho,” I said. “A fat bunch you know. Why, I'm fresh as a—a daisy. No, a lot fresher than that—"

  “We'll see—or let's see, then...."

  She studied the two charts, then flashed that dazzling smile again. “What astrology really says, about this situation, is ... not all night long."

  “You wanna bet?” I said, grinning like Gippy.

  Well, I'll tell you folks, though I sure hate to, I really do—but you know everything else I've told you is true, so it wouldn't be fair if I chickened out right here at the end, would it?—as it happened, long before two o'clock in the morning, long before, I was just about terminally convinced that, though maybe Cynara's ding-dong astrology couldn't tell a guy everything, it was a damn sure thing there was something to it.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1975 by Richard S. Prather

  Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media

  ISBN 978-1-4804-9841-9

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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