Way of a Wanton

by Richard S. Prather

  I was standing up there shaking like a snapped rubber band, and then the guy with the revolver in his hand pointed to the ladder against the tree. My tree.

  He started to look up. Well, I'd made a nice try, but I'd sure got myself into the damnedest position now. If they shot holes in me, I hoped I leaked all over them. I turned and looked longingly toward where I knew about a hundred people were, all unaware of this matter of life and death—my life and death—and there dangling in front of my nose was the rope.

  Rope? What rope? And then I remembered. Hell, yes, Bruta's rope. It disappeared high over my head, attached to something up there, but I didn't care if an angel was holding it just so it was tied to something. I grabbed it, made sure it was free at my end, and then froze.

  “There's the bastard. Good God, there he is!”

  I looked down and to my left and the little man with the revolver was pointing at me. He was pointing at me with the revolver. There was no help for it; Hollywood had a new ape man. I grabbed tight onto a knot in the rope, shoved off into space as the gun cracked behind me, and then I went flying through the air like a bird.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I HEARD another shot crack out, but it was far behind me now. It had to be; I was going about five hundred miles an hour. Everything was a blur of green and brown and confused colors, and trees and limbs whipped backward past me. Right square ahead of me was a gigantic tree, and it was coming at me like a monster. I swooped through the air in a long arc, swinging almost to the ground, and then I was zooming up at that gigantic tree, hanging for dear life onto the knot in the rope. I was very nearly a gibbering wreck, as I had never conditioned myself to face this particular situation. And I couldn't help thinking what would happen if I let go. I'd simply sail along in a sort of free fall till I hit something and mashed. At the end of the giant swing I felt myself starting to slow down, and there was the platform in the tree ahead of me. I was headed for it, and I'd better reach it or I'd go swinging right back to my two buddies.

  There was a convenient handle already nailed on a limb to facilitate Bruta's big scene, and I latched onto it and clung there desperately, then hauled myself onto the platform. I'd made it this far, and I had more respect for King, who, in referring to this horror, had said, “Nothing to it.” But probably he hadn't yet tried it.

  The other rope was there ready for me. I didn't wait for another bullet to swish past me or into me; I grabbed the rope and took off again. I was almost starting to enjoy it. I was even looking ahead now, wind whistling in my ears as I tried to pick out my next tree.

  Then, too late, I recalled that there wasn't any next tree. With a great sadness I remembered where this scene was supposed to end. Too late, all right; I couldn't go back now.

  So I went piling out between a couple of trees and a mess of bushes, slowing down now at the end of the swing, and as I busted out into the open, lo and behold, there they were: a whole passel of people dancing around a stake. There just wasn't anything I could do about it, and I let go. I had reached the end of my rope.

  I went sailing down through the air, catching a blurred glimpse of cameras and people and what looked like confusion, but if it was confusion right then, it was wild pandemonium when I landed. I hit the dirt and rolled and skinned myself and wound up sitting on my aching posterior staring square at a lady tied to a stake with what looked like solid ropes.

  They weren't solid ropes, though, because she eyeballed me and let out a great big “Aaaahhhhh!” and busted loose with no trouble at all. She went racing away, still screaming. All hell seemed to break loose and I saw another gal screaming, and a man yelled something horrible, and another man yelled, “Cut!” and the script girl started flipping pages frantically.

  I didn't sit there very long. I spotted a rifle near me, right alongside a guy in boots and heavy trousers and a pith helmet, and I got up and grabbed the rifle and went flying back into the jungle.

  I was so mad I was burning to kill somebody, and I was pretty embarrassed, too. Yes, indeed, I was mightily embarrassed. It isn't every day you drop naked out of the sky in front of a hundred people.

  I cradled the rifle in my arm and ran back toward the two men who were, as far as I was concerned, responsible for all my troubles. I was so mad that the first thing I saw that moved I was going to shoot at till it stopped moving. The men hadn't busted out of the trees into the clearing after I had, so I figured they must have heard all the screeching and uproar that had arisen when I dropped in. There was a chance they'd taken a powder; if they had, I'd chase them for a change.

  I paused for a moment and hurriedly checked the rifle before I went any farther. It was a sleek Winchester bolt-action job, the Model 70, with a recoil pad instead of the usual steel butt plate. I could operate the safety lock, so I knew the firing pin was cocked, but I slid the bolt back till I caught the gleam of a brass cartridge case in the breech, then shoved the bolt forward and down and pushed the safety to its intermediate position. I started trotting again, the gun cocked and a cartridge in the barrel; I was ready for an elephant if I saw one.

  Fifty yards farther in the trees I heard the two men. I walked slowly forward until I spotted the guy in the green shirt, facing me and saying something to the other man, whom I couldn't see. I leaned against a tree trunk to steady myself, raised the gun to my shoulder. I thumbed the safety off and curled my forefinger around the trigger, sighted down the barrel, and centered the sights, the dull gold bead of the front sight on the left pocket of the green shirt, squarely over his heart. I took a shallow breath and held it, and started slowly to squeeze the trigger.

  I was tired and a little shaky, and the rifle barrel wavered, the front sight dancing off to the left, then back to the middle of that pocket again, and suddenly the violent anger went out of me, the fury lessened, and I eased the tension on the trigger. I couldn't murder the guy in cold blood. But I could shoot him. I shifted my aim to his shoulder, steadied the gun, held my breath again, and squeezed the trigger.

  The rifle butt kicked against my shoulder and the surprisingly loud blast echoed among the trees as I rolled my head a little to the left and slapped the bolt up and then forward and down again, my finger finding the trigger, the rifle still solidly against my shoulder. For a moment nothing happened. Then Green Shirt swung around, yanking his revolver up. I stepped away from the tree, sighted and fired and worked the bolt again in almost one motion as he spotted me and returned my fire. Then he let out a yell, turned, and started running away from me, followed by the other man. Now I could kill the sonofabitch. I took my time, planted my feet firmly, sighted carefully at the green back, squeezed off a perfect shot, and waited. By God, that one got him square between the shoulder blades. He ran merrily away.

  I let him run. It had dawned on me that something was sure as hell peculiar about this elephant gun of mine. I jacked another shell into the barrel, stood three feet away from the wide trunk of the tree on my left, and shot at it. Then I carefully inspected the tree trunk for the hole. No hole.

  Naturally there's no hole, Scott, you fool. The hole's in your head. Be careful or all the rocks will fall out. Those bullets were as blank as my future. But at least the sound of two brave men up ahead was growing fainter. They wanted nothing to do with me now that I was armed. Hell, I was even out of blanks. I cradled my cannon in the crook of my elbow and headed back for the lake.

  Before I got there I'd had time to inspect myself, and I was going to be quite a while healing. I'd been cut and scratched and I was bruised and pretty well bent. The rope burns on my hands were starting to hurt now, too, but that was the least of my worries.

  At the lake I looked carefully around without seeing anything moving, then got my clothes from behind the boulder. It seemed that my luck had changed: No one had tied knots in my clothes. I went back into the woods and dressed. It was, I decided, about time. I started back toward the set, filled with an almost overpowering desire to go in the opposite direction, maybe as far as the
Pole, but I'd done every last bit of running I intended to do. Even so, each step that took me closer to the recent pandemonium was harder to take than the last.

  I circled around and came out of the trees more than a hundred yards from the cameras and activity. I'd ruined one scene; I wasn't about to stroll into another one. I waited till it appeared that the action had momentarily stopped, then walked up to the crowd from the rear. I headed for Raul. He might be the only friend I had left in this gathering—and possibly even his affection was wearing a bit thin.

  A take had just been finished and I got almost up to the crowd before anybody spotted me. As luck would have it, the first jaundiced eye that raked over me was Louis Genova's. He looked ready to burst out crying at this crisis. That is, until he saw me. He came charging at me, his fists doubled up, and I thought he was going to jump up into the air and clout me one. Frankly, I wouldn't have blamed him, and I don't think I'd even have stopped him.

  He came to a military halt in front of me and shouted, “I'm going to put you in jail! I'll put Bondhelm in jail!” He went on until it seemed clear he was going to put everything but the jail in jail. He told me what he thought of me, my ancestors, and any future offspring I might have. I was the first glaring example of the reversed trend of evolution, and all by myself I was leading the human race downhill. He kept on and on and finally petered out.

  Ordinarily during such a tirade I'd have spun his head on his neck like a merry-go-round, but this time I didn't even get mad. I just stood there, and I was as nearly at a loss for words as I had ever been. I didn't know quite how to start an explanation; there seemed such a lot to explain. And, too, I'd noticed Helen, in a “Jungle Girl” outfit now, standing a few feet away and giving me a friendly I'm-on-your-side smile.

  At last Genova stopped ranting. “Well?” he asked with comparative calm. “Well? Well? Hah? Well?”

  The rifle I'd borrowed was still in the crook of my arm. I said lamely, “I, uh, brought your gun back.”

  I thought foam was going to spurt out of his mouth, but he didn't speak. I said, “Listen, Genova, I'm sorry about the trouble. But if I'd wanted to mess up the take I could have thought of several simpler ways.”

  “Sorry! He's sorry!” Genova's face was getting redder. Then he wheeled quickly around and left.

  Raul had stepped up alongside me by now, and he put a hand on my arm. “Shell,” he said, “what happened, anyway? If that wasn't the goddamnedest thing—what did happen?”

  I told him, “Believe it or not, Raul, a couple of guys were trying to shoot me.”

  He broke in. “I heard some shooting. Hell, we all heard it. Stopped things for a minute, but we started in again.”

  “Two guys,” I said. “They chased me from—for about half a mile and I climbed that damn tree we were at this morning.” He nodded, listening avidly, and I continued. “Well, they spotted me and I took off. Hell, there wasn't anything else I could do. I can't fly.”

  He grinned widely. “Well, you sure tried, pal. You played hell. King won't ever make the impression you did.”

  I looked around. I'd made an impression, all right. If there were a hundred people here, a hundred people were staring at me. One little blonde sweetheart saw me looking at her, put both hands over her mouth, and giggled behind them, going up the scale like Margaret Truman. I believe I blushed. Hell, I know I blushed.

  I said to Raul, “Tell me, how badly did I louse everything up?”

  “Not too much,” he reassured me. “L.G. had a fit, but that's not unusual. We'll still make out O.K. Actually, we can still use the footage we shot.” He chuckled. “Most of it, I mean.”

  He chuckled some more at me, and it's a sad commentary on my mental state at that moment that it wouldn't be until much later that I would realize exactly what he was chuckling about. “Something else, Raul. You see two gorillas around? A couple of strangers? Anybody drive up in a car in the last hour or so?”

  He shook his head. “Nobody. No car, no nothing.”

  It was the answer I'd expected. Two torpedoes would hardly advertise their presence, and they were undoubtedly long gone now. I wondered how they'd known I was here. I hadn't been tailed from town, I knew. The logical answer was that somebody here had phoned from the diner after I showed up. Things seemed to be coming to a head.

  “Raul, anybody make a phone call from the diner since—in the last few hours?”

  “God knows.” His brow furrowed as he got what I was driving at. “You mean—”

  “Yeah. Scott's here; come shoot him.”

  He nibbled at his mustache. “Could have been anybody, Shell. Everybody's been wandering around part of the time. Most of us had lunch at the diner. Tell you one thing: I didn't phone anybody.” He paused and asked, still frowning, “You really had some shots taken at you?”

  “Any number. I got one slice across the back, but otherwise I was lucky. I guess I was lucky. Well, it appears I've done all I can for one afternoon.” I looked at my watch. It was already after four P.M. “Think I'll take off, Raul.”

  He grinned. “We're almost finished for the day. Be through before long. You ought to stick around. Next take is the big one where King swings through the trees. That's the last, and then we knock off.”

  I winced. “I don't think I could bear to watch. But thanks. You can tell me how it comes out.”

  I turned and walked back to my car, a mass of scratches and welts and bruises, some of them mental. The worst spot was where the bullet had burned across my back, but it wasn't bleeding any more and I figured it would wait till I could have a doc pretty it up at my leisure. I started the motor and drove to the diner. The phone booth was outside, and the people inside didn't even know what was on the menu.

  I headed back toward town, but I wasn't even in good shape for driving, and I had a hunger that was kin to starvation. So I stopped at the first clean-looking restaurant and tore into a rare sirloin steak. Over coffee I thought about the case from its beginning until now. I'd talked to everyone who seemed important in the case—though I hadn't chatted very freely with King—and I had quite a bit of miscellaneous information even if I didn't know what to do with it.

  I lit a cigarette and smoked it, frowning. I hadn't checked in with my client, Bondhelm, today, and I thought about him for a few minutes. He was going to be pleased with his choice of a detective when the latest news reached him. I'd considered almost everybody I'd run across in the case as conceivably being the murderer; how about the slimy Bondhelm? He stood to gain one hell of a lot from monkey-wrenching the movie, but I failed to see how strangling Zoe would help him. Furthermore, Bondhelm hadn't even been at Raul's that night. If it wasn't somebody at the Thursday night party, it could have been almost anybody.

  Now I was cooking: It was Zoe's childhood sweetheart from Podunk; he'd followed her to Raul's and strangled her when she didn't recognize him wearing a mustache. I jabbed at my cigarette and scowled at it. Everything pointed to one of the people at Raul's as the murderer, but I couldn't entirely eliminate somebody from the outside. Oh, this was great; I was a Jim-dandy detective. Now I had it narrowed down to the world.

  I sat at the table for a while longer, getting more and more depressed. If I kept going down at this rate I'd wind up psychotic. I didn't have one solid lead I could single out to put my finger on, but that was only half of it. I'd apparently done my best to sabotage “Jungle Girl,” nothing was settled between King and me, Fanny the Fat Girl was roasting me to a crisp brown, Genova was ready to clap me in jail, people were still trying hard to kill me, probably nine-tenths of the “Jungle Girl” people figured I was not off my trolley but clear off the tracks, and both mentally and physically I felt like garbage. I was searching for one tiny ray of light when I remembered I was, at least, a stockholder in “Jungle Girl.” At least I had that.

  And that was the one that just about finished me. Finally the full significance of the pandemonium I'd caused on location hit me, and Raul's chuckling about salvaging mos
t of the footage became horribly apparent. I wasn't only a stockholder in “Jungle Girl"; I was in the damn picture.

  I groaned, sagged a little lower in my seat, and groaned some more. Well, I could always tear up my license and go to Sherry's for consolation. That perked me up enough to get up from the table and pay my check. Then I remembered I hadn't left a tip. The hell with it; let the waiter be sore at me, too. I stopped at a phone booth on the way out, dialed City Hall and asked for Captain Samson in Homicide. There, at least, was one constant factor: While I was getting shot at and running through jungles, the efficient organization of the Los Angeles Police Department—one of the most efficient in the United States—was inexorably sifting a mass of details about Zoe and everybody even remotely connected with the case. Names, dates, backgrounds, records, the works. Might be Samson would have something he could pass on to me. Maybe the case was closed and I could buy a bottle of gin and a sack of oranges and head for Sherry's.

  When Samson came on I said, “This is Shell. How's it going?”

  “So-so. Is that you? You sound sick.”

  “I'm O.K. Must have been something I drank.”

  “Or read.” He laughed uproariously. “I see you got your name in the paper again. One of the myriad local—”

  “Lay off, Sam. You should know that lousy Fanny has eggs for brains.”

  Sam could always sense my mood pretty well. “O.K., genius. What you want? Bail money?”

  “Not yet, but soon, maybe. Frankly, Sam, you've seen me in some pretty screwy situations in the last few years, but I don't think I've ever been screwed up like now.” I briefed him on this lovely day and answered his questions. Finally I asked him, “You getting any dope on the Zoe business? I could use something.”