Kill Him Twice (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  Profitable. Yes, finally; though it had been a tight squeak for a while. "It looks as if the last Goo film may clean up now," I said. "But Slade was pretty close to the edge, wasn't he? You mentioned being out of the film for a while. . . ."

  "When I was sick, yes."

  It was difficult to think of this gal as ill. If she was as healthy on the inside as she looked on the outside, I gave her another hundred years of vigor. I grinned. "You look healthy as vitamins to me," I said, hoping she'd pick it up. She did.

  "Oh, it wasn't anything repulsive," she said. "It didn't affect . . . I mean, it wasn't anything like hives or — oh, it was more like heebie-jeebies. I was blowing my lines, and I couldn't concentrate. Got to feeling creepy. So I stayed home a few days, then started going to an analyst." I have pretty firm ideas about a number of things, one of them being psychoanalysis. But among the natives it isn't considered jolly to poke pins in the witch doctor, so I merely said, "Better heebie-jeebies than hives. I would have sworn you didn't have a heebie in you."

  It must have struck the right note, because she smiled joyously and said, "Thanks. I'm lots better already, and Dr. Macey says he can cure me completely in four or five years."

  "That's grand. Good for Dr. Macey. He's your analyst?"

  "Yes. Of course you've heard of him?"

  "Nope. I'm not exactly a fan — "

  "He's one of the top two or three in all of Beverly Hills."

  Which meant that, among his kin, he was at the head of the family. There are in Beverly Hills more psychoanalysts per convolution than in any other spot in the world. I'm not sure, but I think there are more analysts there than barbers. Which may be another item of fascination to future historians.

  But we seemed to be getting a bit off the track again, and with Vivyan the straight and narrow was the only road which led away from shambles. So I said, "How badly was Slade hurt when he had to hold up shooting?"

  "Well, he ran out of money, you know. He was sort of gambling we'd make it on schedule, or maybe a day or two over. But his credit's good, I guess. Anyway, I understand his bank gave him gobs more."

  "What bank is that?"

  "I don't know. Who cares? Just a bank. Everything worked out all right, that's the important thing. I felt just terrible, anyway."

  "Yeah. If he'd gone bust, there'd have been no more Creeping Goo." Which, I thought — but didn't add — might have been the greatest blow struck at juvenile delinquency since the abandonment of woodsheds.

  We talked another minute or so, then I told her I'd better get on my way.

  "Oh, don't," she said. "Not yet. It's been so much fun talking to you." She was looking past my shoulder again. And that little peculiarity intrigued me.

  The more you interrogate people for a purpose and try to separate truth from falsehood, the more you look for and hope for the little giveaways, the personality tip-offs. They're not too easy to find, but once found they can be pure gold.

  As: Once, in a table-stakes poker game with five other men, when I was very nearly down to the table, I became aware that every time one heavy bettor ran a bluff he cleared his throat before announcing his bet. That little "ahem" made me well.

  Or, take the wife of a man I was trying to find. She was an apparently honest but extremely nervous gal, and every time she lied she giggled. I simply checked the giggles and found hubby.

  Those happy discoveries are seldom so easily made, and the tips are seldom so obvious. But I felt pretty sure that here again was a nugget — in Vivyan's occasional over-my-shoulder glances.

  So I chatted casually for two or three minutes and then, without changing my tone at all, changed the subject a lot.

  She was half smiling, relaxed, gazing at me with heavy, almost slumberous lids drooping over her eyes, when I said, still casually, "This big, half-bald guy I mentioned, the one I said might have been giving Nat a hard time, why did you tell me you hadn't heard of him?"

  "Why, what do you mean? I don't understand — "

  It was almost perfect. She remained completely relaxed, at least on the outside; she didn't even blink; her eyes stayed sleepy-looking — but they weren't on my face any longer. They even missed my shoulder this time, straying clear off course, way over to the vicinity of a potted plant or something.

  I broke in, "Maybe it's none of my business, but if it is I'll dig around till I get the truth, somewhere else if I can't get it from you. And you know the boy I mean, Vivyan. The grimy slob needing a haircut, the guy I shot this afternoon practically on your doorstep, the citizen with big feet — "

  Something had happened.

  It jarred me; it wasn't part of the pattern.

  She wasn't looking at the wall but straight at me. Her eyes were wide, staring.

  And in staccato, disconnected little groups of words she was saying, "Shot? Shot him — he's dead? Dead? You shot him? You were the — then that's — Oh, thank God."

  I sat there like a piece of furniture. Except for my jaw, which was sagging.

  She had sat up straight and was breathing rapidly and deeply. Her breasts rose and fell under the transparent pink cloth, rose and fell at least six inches, a phenomenon which I would have considered worthy of real attention at any other time.

  But this time I looked at her face as she leaned forward, clasping her hands tightly together, and said once again, "Oh, thank God."

  FIFTEEN

  Silence.

  I could hear her breathing. The big, firm breasts rose and fell, rose and fell, slowing down. Or slowing up. Anyway, slowing.

  I pulled up my jaw.

  Then she said it quietly and simply.

  "He was blackmailing me. Is he really dead?"

  "There's no doubt about it." I got out a cigarette, lit it "Blackmailing you?"

  "Yes."

  "For how long?"

  "Six months. It started almost six months ago. I haven't told anybody; I couldn't . . . God, what a relief."

  It occurred to me that, if a gal was being blackmailed, and for good reason, that might be enough all by itself to send her into analysis. But there were too many more intriguing angles for me to think about that one.

  I said, "How did he get his hooks into you? What did he have on you — or is that none of my business?"

  "It's none of your business," she said, but she smiled to take the bite out of the words. "It's — oh, I didn't kill anybody, or steal anything. I didn't commit any — crime. It's just something, a lot of things, I don't want people to know about. I sure wouldn't want it in the papers or made public."

  She paused, thinking, and unconsciously reached up and cupped her left breast in a long-fingered, red-tipped hand, and rubbed gently. She didn't actually cup it, since there was quite a lot that wouldn't fit in the cup. But there I was, losing the thread again.

  Vivyan's words brought me back to the business at hand. More accurately, the business at foot, the big-footed blackmailer and where he fit into this case. She was saying, "If he's dead — well, you wouldn't blackmail me anyway." She smiled again. "One thing, there was a party up on Crescent Drive one night. Fourteen of us there. It was pretty wild. Somebody said the only thing wrong with nudist camps was they were so fouled up by nature."

  "Nature?"

  "The outdoors — mosquitoes, sunburn, and so on. You were always stepping on prickly things in the grass. And it was cold as Alaska some nights."

  "I'll bet."

  "Anyway, we decided to have an indoors nudist camp."

  "Fourteen of you?"

  "Fourteen. All fourteen — fourteen drunks. You can imagine."

  "Yeah, you've got to watch that drinking — "

  "That was about a year ago — some people were there you'd know if I mentioned their names, which I won't. We, well, we all went to camp for two or three months, then dissolved the group sort of automatically."

  Went to camp, she said. Now whenever I thought of Boy Scouts and other jolly little kiddies "going to camp," Vivyan's words were going to fly in
to my mind like jaybirds.

  "Well, hell," I said, "so you were all naked as — as jaybirds. But even fourteen of you, a whole flock, so what? That is, so what as far as blackmail's concerned. Maybe you were misguided, horribly abandoned, naughty even, but it's not likely you'd be sent to Folsom for twenty years — "

  "Of course not. But if it was public knowledge, names and everything, it would be a mess, all right. Besides, that's just one of the things the man found out about me." She shook her head. "He really did a job on me. But I'd like to know who told him about that party." Then she took a breath and sighed, as if relaxing some more, and said, "Anyway, that was just one of the things he threw at me. I just told you about that to give you an idea."

  "It gave me an idea. This guy, he had quite a bit more than that on you, huh?"

  "Quite a bit."

  I finally asked the question which had been on my mind for a while. Though I figured I knew the answer. "Vivyan, did you, by any chance, ever write a letter to Amanda Dubonnet? To Inside's 'Lifelines for the Lifelorn' column?"

  She laughed, really amused. "You can't be serious. Why would I do a thing like that?"

  Wrong again, I thought. And I also thought: What the hell? If she really hadn't written to Amanda, then what?

  She was saying, "Why in the world did you ask me that, Shell?"

  "Just . . . an idea."

  "Pretty silly idea." She pretended to pout. "Do you really think I'm one of those idiots?"

  "Not all of the people who write to Amanda are idiots, Vivyan. Some of them are intelligent enough, but maybe confused. Or lonely, scared, who knows? For some a letter to Amanda is probably a kind of catharsis more than anything else."

  She had an odd look on her face. "Amanda," she said. "Of course. I read in the newspaper . . . That was Pike or something, the one who got killed last night. Wasn't it?"

  I nodded. "Well, forget that. Vivyan, I hate to mention this, but how do you know that big guy was the only person involved?"

  "He said he was. I never saw anybody else."

  "What if he had a partner, or someone else knows the same info he knew? If so, just because he's dead it doesn't mean your troubles are automatically over."

  We were quiet for a while; both of us had a lot to think about. But after a minute or two I stood up.

  "I do have to go, Vivyan. I hope the big ape was the only one."

  She tried on a smile. "If another comes around I'll tell you about it, and you can shoot him."

  I grinned. "I can't promise, unless — like the joker today — he's shooting at me first."

  "I'll arrange it."

  On that point, with both of us greatly cheered, I left.

  Jeremy Slade lived about three miles from Vivyan's place, and I drove straight there, without calling him first.

  I dislike unannounced drop-ins, myself — they too often catch you with ten o'clock shadow, or enjoying a tasty dish, or at mealtime — but that was precisely why I hadn't announced myself. A maid let me in, thus largely eliminating any chance of my catching Slade, figuratively speaking, with his pants down instead of his guard up, so I told her who I was and that I hoped to see Mr. Slade.

  She showed me into a room that looked like a combination den and library, with animal heads and large, dead-looking fish mounted on the walls between bookcases. In about a minute Slade came in, the floor quivering a bit under his two hundred or so pounds.

  "Mr. Scott," he said pleasantly, extending his hand. "It's good to see you."

  I half doubted that, but he sounded sincere. At least, as sincere as that surprisingly wee voice of his could convey.

  "Good evening, Mr. Slade," I said. "This is probably the unforgivable faux pas, but I was nearby and thought of a few things I wanted to ask you."

  "It's quite all right. I suppose it's about Nat? I was just thinking about that terrible moment this morning. When she was killed." He swallowed, scowling as usual, but scowling gravely. There did, really, seem to be deeper lines in his squashed face, marks of fatigue and perhaps sorrow.

  "What makes you think it's about Miss Antoinette?" I asked him.

  He seemed surprised. "I don't know what else it could be. As I recall, you wanted to talk to her this morning."

  "That's right. But I didn't quite make it."

  "What was it you wanted to see her about, Mr. Scott?"

  "It's not very relevant now that she's dead. Her death was quite a blow to me, personally. But even worse for you, I imagine."

  "That's not important. The effect of Nat's death on the movie doesn't matter. Actually, we can still finish, but even if we had to scrap all we've shot it wouldn't be important compared to the tragedy."

  "I wasn't thinking of the film, but your personal feelings about Natasha. I know you were close friends. Or, rather, quite a bit more than close friends."

  It was hard to tell if he was glaring at me or just relaxing. "What the hell does that mean?" he said.

  "Relax," I said, in case he wasn't really relaxing. "I heard you and Natasha were getting along very, very well lately, that's all."

  "See here, Scott, I'm a married man."

  "Hell, I wasn't talking to your wife."

  Yeah, he was glaring. And scowling and doing a couple of other menacing things with his thick lips, and eyes, and eyebrows, and a little wiggle of his nose, too. He was still standing about six feet from me, but I could see all of that clearly enough.

  "I might just walk over there and knock you on your can," he said.

  "Look, if I'm off base, if it's really true there was nothing between you and Nat but chumminess and friendship, I apologize. But she's dead, and I liked her; and if necessary before I'm through I may ask half the people in town embarrassing questions. Including Jeremy Slade. Now, if you want to try pounding on me for a while, be my guest."

  He'd lifted his hands up from his sides a few inches and balled them into shockingly formidable looking fists. The thought of "pounding" on somebody made me think of Pike's appearance last night, and for the hell of it I took a good look at Slade's knuckles and fingers. But they weren't banged up at all — not yet, anyhow.

  Slowly he unwound the fists and let his arms drop to his sides again. Still glaring, and flaring his nostrils menacingly, he said, "I'll bet you get hit one hell of a lot."

  I didn't say anything. The fact is, I do get hit more often than I like.

  After a second or two, and a small snort, Slade went on, "To satisfy your damn inquisitiveness, Nat and I were friends, yes. That's all."

  "You never went out with her? Partied it up? Had little tête-à-têtes in dimly lighted — "

  "You must want to get dumped on your can," he interrupted. "Listen, the answer to all of that is no. N-O, no. Sure, I stopped in to see her a time or two — last night, in fact. But what the hell do you think a producer is? Just a guy who digs up some money? Don't I wish it! I got to be baby sitter, mother, father, child substitute — hell, half these people are like children themselves. I got to chuck them all under the chin once in a while."

  "You saw Nat last night?"

  He shrugged. "Yeah, yeah. She called me, said she was sick, afraid she couldn't work. Something's been squeezing her for a month or so. Hell, her big scene was coming up today, the death — the dance. So I chucked her under the chin, pumped her up, told her she was the greatest actress since Marie Dressler — "

  "Marie Dressler?"

  "And that she could make Salome look like Sophie Tucker — the same old oil. They know it's oil, but they can't live without it. They live on it. Hell," he grumbled happily, "I got to be a combination of Svengali and Norman Vincent Peale. Not to mention digging up the money."

  "Speaking of money, who's your banker? He strikes me as a guy I'd like to do business with myself."

  "Huh?"

  "Well, he must be one of the friendliest bankers in town. He bailed you out when Miss Virgin held up the show last time, didn't he?"

  "The hell he did."

  "He didn't?"
>
  "Hell, no. I thought I was going to damn near go broke for a while there, but Virge came back just in time." He shrugged those big shoulders again. "I managed to make it without borrowing any more." He lifted his lips away from his teeth, then slid them down again. He was a sight, I'll tell you. "It meant we had to rush the last half a little," he admitted, "but we got most of the scenes in the can with one take."

  I guessed Vivyan had given me a bum steer or two. Maybe Slade was telling me the truth — I'd thought the last half of Ghost of the Creeping Goo seemed a little jerky. But that didn't prove anything; I'd thought the first half seemed a little jerky.

  "Incidentally," I said, "when you saw Natasha last night, did she mention what was bothering her? I mean, any specific thing?"

  He looked at me for a while, trying to hide his eyes under his eyebrow. "Just that she was sick, nerves were shot. I figured it was likely pre-menstrual fits, or maybe she was having her damn period. Hell, she's a woman; could've been one of several thousand ailments."

  I nodded in silent agreement.

  "I don't ask what ails them any more. Sometimes they tell me."

  "You remember what time it was when you dropped in on her?"

  This time he looked at me a bit longer. Then, "What the hell difference does it make?"

  "It would satisfy my curiosity."

  "I don't give a damn about your curiosity."

  "You don't remember what time it was, huh?"

  "Matter of fact, I don't. I was going over a script — stinking lousy script — when she called. I dropped it and drove over. I don't know what time it was." He looked at the wall, his face agonized in thought. "It was still daylight. Probably six, seven, somewhere around there. Hell, I don't know."

  He pulled his eyes away from the wall and put them on me. "Let's knock this off," he said. "What was it you wanted to see me about?"

  "That's all."

  "That's . . . all? What the hell do you mean?"

  "I mean, that's all," I said. "Thanks, and good night."

  He stood there like a captive ape miraculously transported outside his cage. Suddenly among his tormentors, the little peanut-eating people. His hands closed and opened. His eyes virtually disappeared beneath his eyebrow. He peeled his lips up and ground his teeth together as if getting tartar off them, or trying to use them up. His hands closed and opened again.