Joker in the Deck (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  It was a kiss to make monks say the hell with the monastery; to make hermits bomb their caves and start shaving. And I am not a monk, I am not a hermit. I am something else entirely; and this gal had enough electricity in her to turn on all the lights in Carson City, Nevada. She sure turned me on, anyway.

  I said, "Woman, you just burned off all my insulation, short-circuited my generator, blew my fuses — "

  "What are you talking about, Shell?"

  "Don't you know?"

  "Well, I've got an idea."

  "That's the idea."

  I hauled in a big hunk of air. "Yes, you understand, all right." I hauled in another hunk. "That's what we need in this old world, more understanding and . . . and . . ."

  "Sympathy?"

  "Not exactly."

  "Shell, why don't you stop talking and kiss me again?"

  "Why not?" I cried. And that was the one that did it.

  Well, I have done my share of kissing — and maybe even a little more — and I have been around at moments of oscillatory invention staggering to fevered imaginations. But this thing opened up whole new dimensions of osculation. It gave mouths a new meaning, and justified having lips in the first place, and it was . . . well, it was lots of fun.

  I knew I ought to get out of there. I knew I wasn't going to make it. I didn't.

  I walked out of the hotel, into the cool air, and was half a block down the street before I realized my Cad was parked in the opposite direction. When I turned around, I remembered I hadn't done what I'd come to the hotel to do in the first place. I had done something else. But I still didn't have those papers for Jim Paradise.

  I looked at my watch. It was a little after two a.m., but I trotted up to the Claymore's second floor, anyway. Light showed under the door of 213, so I figured Eve was still up. I started to knock, and the door opened, and I almost tapped pretty Eve on the nose.

  She let out a little squeal.

  "Sorry, Eve. I'd just started to knock."

  "My, you startled me," she said, the pale green eyes wide. "I was just leaving."

  She was fully dressed, wearing a dark gray suit and high-heeled gray shoes, carrying a big black-leather bag closed by leather drawstrings at its top. Her glossy hair was neatly in place, with those little-girl curls inky against the smooth white of her forehead. The pastel makeup was expertly applied, oriental eyes accented, orange-red mouth moist and gleaming.

  She was a very striking sight, and to some she would have been feminine pulchritude, beauty, and simmering sex. But nothing stirred. Not in me.

  "Lucky I caught you," I said. "Jim asked me to drop by and pick up the records on today's sales at Laguna Paradise. I almost, uh, forgot."

  "What a coincidence. That's where I'm going now. He was going to call, but he never did."

  "I know. He mentioned it to me quite a while earlier. I should have given you a ring, I guess."

  "I can run them out, Shell. You needn't bother."

  For a moment I wondered if Jim might not be much more pleased to see the voluptuously-fashioned Eve instead of me, but then I remembered the funeral tomorrow. I said, "That's all right. Eve. I'll take them. Jim's probably feeling pretty low tonight."

  "Of course." She smiled slowly. "Well, I didn't need to get all dressed then, did I?" She had a way, all right. The words came out like asterisks, or the dots at the end of jazzy paragraphs in books.

  "You might as well come in. . . ." Eve said.

  "O.K. Just for a little."

  We went into the room. Eve waved toward a little portable bar on wheels in one corner and said, "Like a drink?"

  "Yes, I would. Thanks."

  "Help yourself. I'll be right back."

  She went into an adjacent room. Just before she closed the door I got a glimpse of a bed in there. Her bedroom. She'd better not come out dressed in something "more comfortable," I thought; she'd better not. And I proceeded to mix myself a healthy belt of bourbon and water.

  But Eve came into the living room again after only a minute or two. She had, fortunately, merely removed the gray jacket of her suit. She was still carrying her bag, from which she extracted a sheaf of papers. "Here's the information Jim wanted, Shell" She said, "Mix me one of those, too, will you?"

  "Sure." I looked at the bottles on the little bar. "Bourbon? Brandy? Scotch?"

  "Make it a brandy," she said, "with a little soda. Anything but a Gintini, right?"

  I grinned. "Those were pretty caustic, weren't they?"

  "Like Drano in a — oops. Yes, caustic."

  I spotted a phone on a table, asked Eve if I could use it, and called Jim. Fortunately he was still up, and undismayed by my tardiness. I told him I'd be out in half an hour or so, then joined Eve where she sat on the couch.

  We swallowed some of our drinks, then I asked her, "You know a guy named Horace Lorimer, don't you, Eve?"

  "He's a fat man, tall, red-faced?"

  "That's him. Looks a little like Santa Claus."

  She laughed. "He does. I never thought of it, but he does. Without whiskers." She sipped her drink. "He bought two lots. Might even buy more — he's loaded."

  "You met him a while before he bought the lots, didn't you?"

  She looked at me, raising the penciled brows questioningly. "Yes. Nearly a year ago, I guess. Why?"

  "What do you know about him?"

  "Not much. He makes some kind of cra — oops. Some kind of junk. Baby food, I think. Must sell a lot of it, he sure spends the money." She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, then slanted them across at me, smiling. "Not on me, though. He's not my type."

  That, I thought, might rank as the understatement of the twentieth century. "How'd you meet him?"

  "Last summer, I was with Aaron — " She stopped. "I never mentioned knowing Aaron — or Adam as he called himself — did I?"

  "No, but I already knew you'd gone out with him a few times."

  "How in the world did you know?"

  "I had a talk with Lorimer earlier tonight. He mentioned it."

  "Not that it matters, really. It's just that — well, the idea that I'd go to that party with Jim and you, the same night his brother was killed, and the way the party was . . . it wouldn't seem right to some." She smiled slightly. "Especially the way that party developed. It just didn't seem like the kind of thing a girl ought to talk about."

  She went on to say she'd met Aaron at a Hollywood party shortly after he arrived in Los Angeles. She was already modeling then, and a guest at the party. They'd met there, hit it off pretty well — she would have caught Aaron's eye like a hook — and had gone out together a few times. "But he couldn't be content with one woman," she said. "Flit from flower to flower, sampling the different honeys, that was Aaron."

  The rest of what she could tell me, the parts she knew, matched all that Lorimer had told me. "They had some kind of business deal on," Eve said, "but they never told me what it was all about."

  They wouldn't have, I thought. But at least what Eve told me corresponded with what Lorimer, who impressed me as a pretty tricky talker, had said. So I dropped it, finished my highball.

  "Like another one, Shell?" Eve said.

  "No, that one will bold me. Thanks."

  "Not even a Gintini?" She laughed. I shook my head and she went on, "Speaking of those gin concoctions of Jim's, that really was quite a party, wasn't it? Too bad it had to end."

  "Especially the way it did."

  "Yes. But — let's not dwell on that, Shell. Let's think of the . . . happy things."

  "Sure."

  "And I really did have a marvelous time. . . . That wonderful dinner, and all the rest of it. I'll confess something." She looked straight at me, arms crossed and hands hugging her shoulders, those cat-green eyes narrowed, slanting, fixed directly on my own eyes. "The way we talked before at Laguna and all, it was just — just kicks. I didn't think I'd actually play strip poker."

  I swallowed.

  "Even when Jim was shuffling the cards. Not even then."r />
  "I remember. You, uh, needed a little encouragement."

  "And got it." She breathed a little more heavily, nostrils flaring. "But once I'd started, once I'd thought: Why not? — it was fun." She dropped her arms to her sides, leaned against the cushion behind her and threw her head back.

  Her words led me back to that suspenseful moment when Eve had decided to join wholeheartedly in the game. Or maybe wholeheartedly isn't quite the word. Any more than game is. And there appeared in my mind a vivid picture of Eve sitting on the white carpet, shrugging her shoulders, pink wisp of brassiere falling from her trembling breasts. And with that unashamedly erotic picture branding my brain I suddenly noticed something else that shook my eyes.

  She had removed her jacket in the bedroom, revealing the gray blouse which had been beneath it, and now I could see the voluptuously-rising mounds of her breasts under the blouse, their points thrusting against the thin cloth. I could see the curve, the hollow, the darker round shadow touching the cloth. And it was with an almost galvanizing shock I realized Eve was not wearing a brassiere.

  The blouse was not transparent, but opaque, the material thin and silken, and beneath it the big firm silken breasts were bare. I shook my head, closed my eyes and thought: Wow, opened them and thought: Wow. Maybe Eve in the bedroom, instead of getting into something more comfortable, had gotten out of something less comfortable. And comfort was something I was practically out of.

  "Boy!" I said. "Well, yes, sir, ma'am. That was a night, wasn't it?"

  Something else had been on the tip of my tongue but when Eve leaned forward and — not aware of what she was doing, I presume — sort of wiggled her shoulders joyously from side to wild side, there was almost as much commotion under that blouse as two people kicking each other under a blanket.

  Eve looked at me, green eyes almost glowing, lips parted in a smile, white teeth pressed together as if she were killing something between them, and enjoying it, and she said, "It was a fun night, Shell. Especially, once — once I let go."

  She stretched her arms high over her head, then clenched her hands into fists and put them against the nape of her neck, arching her back, squirming slightly on the couch, moving her shoulders easily from side to side.

  O.K., I couldn't help listening. And I was looking. True, I had only a few minutes before left Laurie, lovely Laurie Lee. But let's not be idiots; even a giddily ecstatic youth on his wedding afternoon will, should he surprisingly find himself in the midst of a nudist camp, glance around. At least glance one quick glance, one fleeting and surreptitious peek. That, heaven help them — us — is the nature of the beast. But, after all, I was only looking. So far, anyway.

  Eve said, "Shell."

  "Yes?"

  "Why don't we . . ."

  "Yeah?"

  "Finish the . . . game ourselves. We wouldn't even have to start all over. We could take up where we left off."

  "What . . . do you mean?"

  She chuckled. "You know what I mean. We wouldn't even need cards — after all, I'd already lost everything. There wasn't anything more for me to lose."

  Maybe that's what she thought.

  She went on, "So it could be just . . . oh, a kind of Garden-of-Eden party." She smiled.

  I smiled.

  "You could be the first man . . . "

  The hell I'd be the first man.

  ". . . and, after all, I'm Eve."

  "But . . . but the snake is — "

  "You could be — the devil!"

  "I'd play hell!"

  She laughed. "Let's do it. Let's play hell!"

  "No."

  "No?"

  "Yes."

  "You mean . . . yes?"

  "No. I mean no."

  Her eyes got colder. Everything seemed to get colder. She said, "You don't like the idea, then."

  "Oh, it's a fine idea. It's just that, well, I have to go. I've got to run along. Really."

  She was quiet for at least half a minute, chewing the inside of her lip, eyes slitted. Then she took a deep breath and said, "All right. It won't happen again. You can bet on that." She paused. "All right. Run along."

  She sat there, steaming, chewing on her teeth and getting steamier by the second. Her half-full highball glass was on an end table near her and suddenly she picked it up and threw the drink in my face.

  Well, I didn't sock her. It would take great, grave, and extreme provocation before I would sock a tomato. But the thought flitted through my skull like a rabid bat, I'll admit. I took a handkerchief from my pocket and, with what dignity I could muster, mopped my face. Then I got to my feet and stalked to the door.

  "Shell. Wait, please."

  Eve got up and came toward me, stopped in front of me. "I'm sorry. It was an impulse. I was — well, I'm sorry."

  I shrugged. With dignity, I hoped.

  "Really, Shell. I don't know what came over me. Don't stalk out like that."

  "I wasn't stalking."

  "You know what I mean. Friends, Shell? Forgiven? Please?"

  I shrugged again. "Why not?"

  I realized, then, that I really didn't give a hoot. Eve had a lovely face, and a body like those pictures that come in plain wrappers, but I looked upon her almost as if she were a shapely statue. Even when the four of us had been playing strip poker, I realized much of the stimulus and excitement for me had been because Laurie was there.

  It was possible, of course, that kissing Laurie had used up all my juice, unzipped my zip, and so forth. Or that drink in my face dampened more than my chops. But whatever the reason, Eve struck me as a gal with all the electricity of a used flashlight battery. It just wasn't there. Whatever it is inside, whatever it is that flows. Eve sure had it on the outside, the shape of it, the form, the semblance, the design. But not the real thing. At least not for me.

  So Eve and I smiled sappily at each other, and I turned and went out the door, and all the way down to the street, and all the way to my car, thinking about Laurie Lee.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I dropped off the papers at Jim's and jawed with him a bit, then drove back up Sunset to Vine and down Vine until it became North Rossmore.

  The Spartan Apartment Hotel faces Rossmore, and sometimes I park in front. But the garages and open-air car slots are at the hotel's rear, so I drove back there.

  I pulled into my slot, stepped out of the Cad onto the cement parking strip — and froze. Froze just for a moment, a split second. I'd either seen something or heard an unexpected sound, but I didn't wait to figure out what It was. I dived forward, dropping, jerking my right arm across my chest, slapping the butt of my gun.

  Before I hit the cement, the night grew bright and sound blasted my ears. The light flared, lanced toward me from only ten yards away, from a spot across the narrow alley behind the hotel. The blast of the gun was hellishly loud, deep and booming. The flame was fat. Something ripped through muscle over my collarbone and I thought: Shotgun.

  I pulled the Colt's trigger, pulled it again, aiming at the spot where that gush of flame had been. I fired twice more and then held my finger from the trigger, not yet knowing why. Then the thought came. There might be more than one man out there. If so, I didn't want to be sprawled here with an empty gun.

  I heard a thump. That was all. No groans, no sound of movement. Somebody behind me in the hotel yelled. Lights came on, illuminating the whole area — and a man face down in the alley. He didn't move. As soon as the lights came on a car's engine, obviously already idling, roared. Immediately there was the screech of tires.

  I jumped into the alley, looked to my left. Barely in time to see a flash of red as a car slid around to the left toward Rossmore. I didn't even see the car, just the taillight's flare.

  "Shell?" It was somebody in the hotel's back doorway behind me.

  I shouted over my shoulder, "Call the police! Shooting, car headed up Rossmore." A door slammed. I stepped to the prone man, rolled him over onto his back. The shotgun had been caught beneath him and I shoved i
t aside.

  He was nobody I'd ever seen before. Two red stains discolored the khaki-brown shirt he wore. One of my slugs had hit him in the mouth, tearing through his lips and teeth and out the back of his neck. The way his head rolled loosely, the bullet must have crushed through vertebrae at the base of his skull, cut his spine.

  That was why there'd been no sounds after he fell, no groans. He'd been dead in the air, his head flopping.

  I could feel the slamming pulse in my throat, temples and wrists, feel it even in the backs of my legs. I licked my lips, surprised to find my mouth dry. I glanced around, stared down at the dead man.

  Then there were cops, and more cops. Questions and more questions. Nobody, including me, had any idea who the gunman was. The police would check. Blood was running down my chest, soaking my shirt. One of the slugs from the shotgun had drilled through flesh and muscle near the base of my neck, on the left side just over the collarbone. It wasn't bad; at least it hadn't hit bone. Somebody put a bandage on it.

  I was still standing in the alley with a police sergeant when a car pulled up near us and out of it stepped Lieutenant Wesley Simpson. The body hadn't been hauled to the morgue yet, and Wes walked over and looked down at the dead man, then stared at me, looked at the corpse some more.

  Then he turned and, walking slowly, approached me.

  "Hi, Wes," I said. "Old . . . friend."

  "I got to sleep this time," he said, and his voice was that of a man with size six shoes on size ten feet, "was sleeping like a babe. How about that?"

  "Wes, I didn't — "

  "Dreaming, I was. Dreaming of sleeping. Then what do you think, Scott? The phone rang. Some guy had been shot — by Shell Scott. That's what the man told me." He paused. "You know what I said?"

  "What did you say?"

  "I said, 'No, you're kidding.'"

  "I'm sorry, Wes. I guess I could have let the guy kill me. But you'd have had to come down anyway, wouldn't you?"

  "Yeah." He nodded. "True. But that way it would have been more fun. Well, tell me the story."

  I told him.

  Then Wes said, "O.K. Come on along, we'll get it down on paper."

  And off I went to the slammer.