Kill Him Twice (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  "Yeah. O.K."

  Just to be sure, I added, "You'll have to puke on Al."

  He looked at me. "I'll puke all over him," he said.

  Then he walked toward the witness stand.

  TWENTY-TWO

  "Mooneyes," I said, "do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"

  "I hope to shout."

  He was seated in the witness stand, and I stood next to him. Beyond him on my right was Judge Blaine, and on my left the spectators in the courtroom.

  "That's the spirit," I said. "Where were you on the night of — two nights ago, shortly after nine p.m., when you were driving a black Imperial sedan to Finley Pike's home?"

  "That's where I was."

  "Where?"

  "Where you said. Toolin' the heap to Finley's."

  "You and who else?"

  "Me at the wheel and J. B. next to me, Hoot and Tom-Tom in back."

  "That's J. B. Kester, and Hoot who and Tom-Tom what?"

  "If you say so."

  "I mean, what are the last names of Tom-Tom and Hoot?"

  "Damned if I know. Just Tom-Tom and Hoot. Like, 'Hey Hoot — '"

  "Skip it. Why were you racing to Finley Pike's residence?"

  "It wasn't no race. We was the only — "

  "Why were you in such a sweat to get there?"

  "Al told us to do it."

  "By 'Al' you mean Aldo Gianetti, commonly known as Al Gant, your — your employer."

  "That's him."

  "Now, what is — was — the relationship between Al Gant and Finley Pike?"

  "They ain't related."

  "Strike that. Al and Finley were acquainted, they knew each other, and were — in a sense — in business together. Right?"

  "Right."

  "What was the business?"

  "Blackmail."

  Because I was concentrating on the dialogue with Mooneyes, I had almost forgotten the spectators in the courtroom — and the fact that at least thirty-eight of them, counting Ed Howell and Morrison Blaine, were active members of the movie and TV industries and thus individuals very familiar with Inside, and with Finley Pike. At least since Pike's death and the revelation that he'd been Amanda Dubonnet.

  There was a gasp from those people, a big gasp, so big it must have come from nearly all of those thirty-eight throats. The knowledge of blackmail had been so much a part of my thoughts for this past day I'd forgotten that these others knew nothing at all about the Amanda-Pike blackmail operation. That hadn't hit the newspapers yet.

  I went on — noting that Ron Smith's fingers were expertly tapping the stenotype keys, "Just tell us, in your own words, about this blackmail business, how it was conducted, and the relationship — association of Al Gant and Finley Pike."

  "Back from the beginnin'?" he asked.

  "All the way back."

  "Well, Al knowed Finley quite a spell, four, five years. Put him into some good things from time to time, thinkin' he could get the favors back later. Like he usually done. Couple years ago Al got a bug to start a magazine or a newspaper, so he put up a pile of cash to start one."

  "That was the trade paper now called Inside?"

  "Yeah."

  "Did Al choose Gordon Waverly as the man to publish the paper?"

  "I wouldn't know about that."

  True, there were a lot of things Mooneyes wouldn't know about; but I was delighted he knew as much as he did. I said, "Did Al give the money to Waverly?"

  "Beats me. Way I got it, he give the cash to a old beat-up bag name of Willow. He had some kind of dirt on her, so she'd do what he asked her to. She's the one he told to make sure Finley got a job on the paper."

  "So Al Gant insisted Finley Pike be employed on the staff of Inside, and utilized the services of Miss Madelyn Willow to ensure that result?"

  He blinked the big pale eyes, then said, "I guess so. Yeah, that must be what he done. She was to sell him to this Waverly guy."

  "Did Al also insist Pike was to write the column, 'Lifelines for the Lifelorn'?"

  "Well, that came later. Al had it all planned that way from the start, but he let Pike bring it up hisself after he'd worked on the paper a while. That was the whole idea — get him on the paper and then start him doin' the column."

  "Why was it important that he do the column?"

  "Hell, that was the whole bit. See, Al wanted his guy on the paper in the first place because, like he said, there was so much dirt in Hollywood you could scoop it up with a shovel. The paper was, like, his shovel — all kinds of dope would come in to a thing like that. About actors, actresses, stars, movie guys — rich people. Then besides — and he figured this'd be the best angle of the whole deal — there'd be all kinds of cats and dolls in trouble writin' to that there 'Lifelorn' column. Some of 'em would be in big trouble, so big Al could bleed 'em good."

  There had been a few more gasps and exclamations from the people gathered in court, but all of them were listening silently now.

  "Did it work out like that?" I asked. "Did Al Gant in fact — by selecting damaging information from the material gathered by the Inside staff, plus that in letters written to the so-called Amanda Dubonnet's 'Lifelines for the Lifelorn' column — come into possession of information about many individuals in and near Hollywood, which he was then able to use for blackmailing those individuals?"

  "Say that again."

  I repeated the question, breaking it up into three or four shorter chunks, and Mooneyes said, "You know it. Man, even Al was surprised he got so much dirt. Some of it was just from runnin' down leads from the stuff what come into the paper. But the real good stuff was from the letters to Finley."

  "You mean the letters addressed to Amanda Dubonnet, the pseudo — the pen name Finley Pike used."

  "That's it. Him as Amanda. Some of them letter-writers, you'd think they was askin' to have the bite put on 'em. Letters from guys who'd stole from the boss, embezzling, wives and husbands all screwed up with other people's wives and husbands — even a couple of husbands with husbands. Like that actor who starred in — "

  "Whoops," I said. "We won't mention the names of people who were being blackmailed. Wouldn't want to get sued. After all, we're not in a court of — whoops. Ah," I paused. "Isn't it true that much of the information valuable to Al Gant in his blackmail operation came from the letters to Amanda, but indirectly? That is, the information was not damaging so much to the person who wrote the letters but to other individuals named or implicated in the letters?"

  "Oh, yeah. Sure. There was plenty of that. Like some babe would write saying a guy had raped hell out of her, and she'd name who the guy was that raped hell out of her. Then Al would get his hooks into the guy, see? Not the babe that got the hell — "

  "I see."

  "It was about half and half. Of the ones Al could use, that is. Half was the one who wrote the letter, the other half somebody else named in it. Sometimes they wasn't named, but from what was said Al could figure it out, or run down who was meant."

  I turned and walked toward the spectators, back toward the witness stand again, pacing back and forth as I talked. "Your testimony, then, is this. The letters to Amanda Dubonnet were, for the most part, from people in trouble. Sick, confused, tortured people. Some of them people who had committed crimes or transgressions against either legal or moral law and were disturbed, even anguished, by conscience, guilt, remorse, many of them either physically ill or mentally disturbed. They wrote — and that they acted foolishly in doing so isn't important here — for help, or to unburden themselves of some of the weight of that guilt, or for advice. Yet Al Gant, and you and the rest of Gant's men, didn't give a damn about that, did you? You just went ahead and got your hooks into them and bled them white."

  He blinked. "What else?" After a short silence he added, "Hell, that's what blackmail is, ain't it?"

  Yep, I thought. That's what blackmail is.

  Really puzzled, Mooneyes mumbled, "It made 'em easy pickin's."

&n
bsp; Still pacing, I said, "Let's take an example of Al Gant's operation. Perhaps this will make the technique clearer — for the court." I glanced at the judge. He was all ears now, too.

  "One of the persons who wrote a letter to Amanda," I went on, "was a girl named — well, we'll skip the names. She had gone, again for help, to a psychoanalyst."

  I was walking toward the spectators' seats in the courtroom and I saw Vivyan Virgin sit up a little straighter. "An extremely successful Beverly Hills analyst," I continued. "During analytic treatment the phenomenon known as transference is not unusual, which is to say the patient becomes dependent upon or even greatly attached to, sometimes falls in love with, the analyst. The result in this particular case was unusual. The girl became pregnant; the analyst gave her a thousand dollars to pay for an abortion, which she did not have; instead, she had the child — but did not tell the father, the analyst. She did, unfortunately, tell Finley Pike. That is, she wrote a — an anguished letter to Amanda Dubonnet."

  I saw Vivyan's mouth open and then close in a silent "Oh."

  I walked back and leaned on the edge of the witness stand, saying, "The girl wasn't important to Al Gant — but the analyst was. And how he was. Because among his patients were many very wealthy and important figures prominent on the Hollywood scene."

  I heard another gasp. It wouldn't have been Vivyan, but I didn't look around to see who it had been. "So, when Al Gant, with his hooks deep in another victim, began blackmailing the analyst, it was — predictably — not merely for money but for the on-the-couch outpourings of each and every one of the analyst's patients. Complete with records, notes, tape recordings . . . A blackmail bonanza — as the result of just one hastily scrawled letter from a single girl in trouble. Who wrote to Amanda. To Finley Pike. To, that is, Aldo Gianetti."

  I paused, letting that sink in, then said to Mooneyes, "Isn't that right?"

  "Beats me," he said. "I never seen all the letters and stuff, I just know about the general operation. But Al did have a couple psycho — head-shrinkers on the string, I know that."

  "All right. Back to the scene at Finley Pike's two nights ago, Mooneyes. How come Al Gant sent you and the others to Pike's?"

  "Just before then he got a call on the phone from Finley — Al was in the Apache, you know?"

  "You refer to the restaurant Gant owns — through a front, as usual — on Hollywood Boulevard."

  "Yeah. Finley told him — I didn't hear him do it, you understand. This is what I got from Al and the boys — what you call hearsay?"

  "Sure. Go ahead. That's all right."

  "Finley says someone was there beating me — beating the hell out of him. Like to of killed him. Finley told the guy where the file was at."

  "The file? Would this be what we might refer to as the Amanda file? The letters to Amanda, which Gant was using for blackmail?"

  "That's it. They was in a box, or actually a kind of suitcase."

  "Attaché case?"

  "I guess. What the hell. But that's what it was Finley was mentioning about. Incidental, Al didn't do the work himself, that was Finley's job. Him, and a associate what did the actual picking up of the cash and payments."

  "Uh-huh. The Collector, an unwashed slob with big feet."

  "Big? You know it. Hey, how did you know it?" He half-eclipsed his pale eyes again, then said, "Yeah, we figured you must've pooped him. Is that what — "

  "Go on, Mooneyes. Finley phoned Gant. . . ."

  "Well, Finley told Al he'd spilled to this guy knocking him around where the file was. And the guy was out in the garage looking for it — that's where Finley kept it hid."

  "How come Pike was able to make the call? Seems odd the other man would leave him near a phone."

  "Finley said the guy must've thought he was out of consciousness. He played — like a possum, see? Anyways, he was able to pull the phone off of the table and call Al. He asked Al to get some of us over there fast before the guy got away with the letters and stuff."

  "Who was the guy? The man beating Pike?"

  "You got me. Finley maybe would have got to more of that part but they was just a big clunk then."

  "Clunk?"

  "Yeah. Al says that must've been when Finley got clunked on the head. Al could hear over the phone somebody moving around, or noises anyways, but he couldn't wait and listen. The guy might get away with the file. So Al hung up and raced around getting us boys. Me and J. B. and Tom-Tom and Hoot, we went there — you know, you seen us."

  "Yeah. Did the guy get away with the file?"

  "Yeah." Mooneyes nodded. "Boy, was Al in a sweat."

  "Where's the file now?"

  "I ain't exackly sure. But I know Al ain't worried about it no more. He's either got it or he knows where it is."

  "Come again?"

  "Later that night Al got another call from somebody. And it was about the letters and all. I don't know what else, but it relieved Al. . . . Hey, you was there, Scott. Remember? When he got the call."

  "You mean in the Apache? When I walked in on you and Al a little while after Pike was murdered?"

  "Sure. You remember."

  I did remember. I remembered, too, that Al Gant had indeed seemed relieved following that call.

  "Who was on the phone then? Who called Gant?"

  "You got me, Scott." Mooneyes was right at home now, leaning back, one leg crossed over the other and swinging slightly.

  "That call couldn't have been from J. B. Kester, could it?"

  "I don't see how. Al sent him to the garage to see if maybe the stuff was still there. That was before Al got the call. But you know what happened to J. B."

  "Yeah. He tried to shoot it out with the police and got killed for his stupidity. O.K., Mooneyes, here's a kind of important question. Why did Al Gant bring in a hood to kill Natasha Antoinette?"

  "All I know is he sent outa town for Pete Dillerson, and Pete done it the next morning. Why, I don't know."

  "Pete Dillerson is the man you drove to my apartment last night?"

  "Yeah. He was watching for the Dayne dame, but a bell-monkey drove her heap up front. So we followed her. When we seen where she drove, Pete says he could kill two birds with one stone." He paused. "Which he was kind of wrong about."

  "Except for the fact that Gordon Waverly is publisher of Inside, is there any other relationship between him and Al Gant? Are they partners in anything else?"

  "I don't know nothing else about him."

  "Did you ever see them together? Know of any personal contact between them?"

  "None I know of. Could be. Like I said, I just get a thing or two here and there. From Al, or the guys, maybe drivin' the heap someplace. I don't know half of what Al's up to, and that's the truth."

  "How about Jeremy Slade? He in anything with Al?"

  "Couldn't prove it by me."

  "You ever see them together, know of any contacts, meetings?"

  "News to me. Did they?"

  "I don't know. I'm asking you, Mooneyes."

  He shrugged. Then he blinked and said, "Yeah, they's one thing. Just a loan, though. Al loans money out all over the place. Lots of legit guys, when they can't get a loan from a bank, they don't mind gettin' it from Al. He's got so much dough — "

  "A loan? To Slade?"

  "That's it. I nearly forgot it. He got hard up when he was makin' a picture. Year ago, maybe — no, less than that."

  "When Slade was filming Ghost of the Creeping Goo?"

  "No kidding? That what it was called?"

  I scowled at him. "That would have been nine months ago, approximately."

  "Sure, about then. He couldn't glom onto the clams anywheres else, so Al give him a hundred-sixty G's."

  "Let's get this straight. Jeremy Slade was unable to borrow the money he needed from his bank, so he approached Al Gant — and Gant loaned him a hundred and sixty thousand dollars?"

  "That's what I just told you."

  "I assume Slade's been paying the money back, or sticking very clos
e to whatever arrangement he made with Gant."

  "Ho-ho," Mooneyes laughed softly. "You know it."

  I did know it. You either paid Al Gant, and on time, and with a big happy smile, or Al Gant killed you. I said, "Then Slade paid his installments directly to Al?"

  "Well, not direct. There might've been talk if he was seen around with Al, you know. So Al fixed it so Slade give the money to Finley. It was O.K. that way, on account of Finley was always around with the movie guys, being a writer on that movie paper."

  I guess I'd become a little too interested in Mooneyes' tale myself. And, certainly, I had failed to keep an eagle eye on the passage of time.

  I had known Judge Croffer would be coming back from lunch eventually. At least, I should have known. Also, undoubtedly, spectators returning to pick up the thread of that pre-lunch trial were returning, or about to return; but we had the big double doors locked. We didn't have the other door locked, though, the one leading from the corridor into Judge Croffer's chambers.

  That became apparent when I looked past Mooneyes and the judge's bench to the far end of the wall, and the door there that led to Judge Croffer's chambers, and became aware that the door was open.

  More important, Judge Croffer's head was poked out past it.

  He was a large man, with a lot of white hair, rimless glasses, a sharp nose, and small eyes. I didn't know how long he'd been standing there, listening; it couldn't have been long, because he was still standing there. But, slowly, his expression was changing.

  It wasn't at all like Jeremy Slade's facial performance. Not nearly so dramatic. This was more subtle. Just a twitch here, the lifting of a lip there, the elevation of an eyebrow. Then his small eyes got even smaller. He squeezed them tightly shut.

  Then he opened his eyes, took off his glasses, and looked at them. Why he looked at his glasses I don't know. But that's what he did.

  "Court's adjourned!" I yelled.

  Bang! "Case dismissed!" Judge Morrison Blaine was already off the bench when I saw him, going at a rapid dodder toward the double doors. They were a long way off. I didn't think he was going to make it.

  People were popping up all over the place. There were squeals from a few gals in the audience. Two men were at the double doors. Yelps and exclamations erupted.