Joker in the Deck (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  I didn't beat around the bush. I told him what I'd seen and guessed, and finished it up with, "Does it sound like there might be oil on Brea Island?"

  He opened his desk drawer, took out a cigar, bit off the end and spat it into a wastebasket, then slowly pushed the drawer shut. "Well, I'm an old wildcatter myself, Mr. Scott. The only thing you can say for sure about finding oil is: Oil's where you find it." He struck a match, puffed on the cigar. "But it sure sounds like you got a well out there." He blew some smoke in the air. "Describe those pipes and all again."

  I told him once more, as accurately as my memory permitted.

  "That there is a Christmas tree, Mr. Scott," he said. "Sure, it must be a well, all right."

  "What's a Christmas tree? — and keep it simple."

  He smiled. "That's just a name for what you call the pipes and valves at the top of the well's casing. It's so you can control the flow of oil, cut it down or shut it off." He drew a picture in the air before him with his cigar. "At the bottom you've got the biggest pipe, maybe a foot and a half diameter, and a valve or two, then she goes up" — he lifted his cigar — "to a There, say, with a couple of more valves, more pipe. Higher up she goes, the smaller the pipes and valves get. Looks kind of like a metal Christmas tree, which is where the name comes from."

  That was it. That was what Jim and I had seen.

  Klein said, "What in hell did he have it all boarded up for, like you said. Was he trying to hide the damn thing?"

  I nodded, "Yeah, that's what he was doing. Only he didn't hide it well enough."

  "A Christmas tree's a pretty big thing to hide, Mr. Scott."

  "Uh-huh. This thing went up six or eight feet above ground. I guess he did the best he could." While puzzling over Aaron's attempt to hide the evidence, I said, "Mr. Klein, when a well comes in, is that what you call a gusher? Oil all over the place, all over the ground?"

  "Well, that was mostly in the old days. That was because of the gas pressure pushing the oil up, sending it up in the air, clear over the rig — yeah, all over the place. But it's not likely you'll see a gusher in California any more." He sounded a little sad. "Most of that pressure's gone, all been let loose now. You got to pump now, pump the oil up." He shifted his cigar, chewed on it. "On this island way out there, though, it could be. Could be plenty of pressure down there."

  He leaned back in his chair and looked up toward the ceiling. "Nothing like a gusher. Nothing in the world like that feeling. I've brought a few in, and the funny thing, Mr. Scott, is that when she blows you get the best damn feeling, and it's not the money you're thinking about. It's a kind of — victory. It's like you dug down there with your bare hands, like it was there waiting for you, and fighting you every inch, and you licked it."

  He suddenly sat up straighter. "Maybe that don't make a bit of sense to you."

  "It makes a hell of a lot of sense." I grinned at him and he grinned back. In a way, he made me think of Drake Patterson. I hoped it wasn't a vanishing race; it was the only race I wanted to belong to.

  Klein said, "I'd sure like to see one more. I'd even like to see this rig out there on the island."

  I looked at my watch. It was only twenty minutes after two in the afternoon; it wouldn't be dark for another six hours or so. I said, "Matter of fact, I'd very much appreciate it if you'd go to Brea with me, look the place over, tell me what really is out there. I might be able to make it later this afternoon, and if you'll go along with me you can name your fee."

  He chewed on the cigar. "Well, since it sounds kind of interesting, you pay me fifty dollars and I'll be glad to check it over for you."

  Five minutes later I got up to leave. I'd mentioned Jim's boat, but that was too slow for Ed Klein, and he said he had half a dozen friends who owned planes, including one who owned a seaplane. He'd told me to phone him when and if I was ready to go and he'd meet me off Balboa, adjacent to Newport Beach. Off Balboa — I was to have somebody take me off shore in a boat and the plane would set down and pick me up.

  It sounded a little tricky to me, but I was reassured by Klein's casual acceptance of it all. Apparently the plane's owner was a marvelous pilot. I was halfway out the door before the thought hit me. I stopped and said, "Oh, oh."

  "What's the matter?"

  I had just remembered those baby-food manufacturers.

  I explained to Klein the kind of men who were on the island, not trying to make them sound any less horrible than they actually were, and finished, "So we'd better make it another day."

  He grinned. "Somehow you don't strike me as a man who'd let a little thing like that stop you from — "

  "A little thing? There must be a dozen of those apes out there, at least. Probably more."

  He grinned. "Son, I was in Hogtown in '17 and '18 — when they changed the name to Desdemona — clear through to the end, and there was never a boom like that before or since. I'll bet you a pint of Old Crow I've seen more dead men than you have. I was eighteen years old when the Hogtown well blew out and caught fire, and I was nineteen when I got shot for the first time. Spilled a roughneck's drink by accident and he shot me on purpose. Knocked me clean off my feet. But I got up and killed him." He knocked ash off his cigar. "You want to go out there, I'll go with you."

  I just looked at him for a few seconds, then grinned. "Ed, I'd be afraid not to go now. If nothing goes wrong in the next hour or two, I'll give you that call."

  He nodded, leaned back and put his feet on the desk, and I went out.

  Horace Lorimer wasn't in the Standish Hotel and it took me twenty minutes and a ten-dollar bill to find out where he might be. The ten spot went to the doorman in front of the Standish, who told me he'd brought Lorimer's black Lincoln Continental over from the lot an hour or more ago and Lorimer had driven off in it. He added that Horace often visited a joint called the Purple Room, and gave me the address. For free, he gave me Lorimer's license number.

  The Purple Room was on a side street a couple of blocks off Wilshire, a cocktail lounge I'd never been in, hadn't even seen before. But across the street, in the club's parking lot, was Lorimer's black Continental. I drove a block past the club, pulled around the corner and parked. For a few seconds I let my head rest against the back of the car's seat and closed my eyes. It was almost like getting sapped. My lids tried to stick together, and the blackness was warm and comfortable, a welcome blackness I could have dived into for a good twelve hours, or more. But I pried my eyes open, stretched my face around and yawned, then walked back to the club, under the awning, and into the Purple Room.

  Places, like people, seem to have their own aura, a vibration, their own "feel," something almost tangible which affects the senses. Whether that's true or not, this Purple Room sure gave me a queer message.

  I stopped inside the door, and I hadn't stood there more than ten seconds before my spine started to bristle. I couldn't see much. The place was not quite as dark as a tomb. I could hear voices, soft, subdued, murmuring. Then I heard the light tinkle of a piano. I felt — well, a little creepy, ill at ease, uncomfortable. And I didn't know why. The air was a bit sweet and stuffy, that was all.

  My eyes became adjusted to the gloom and I could see people sitting at tables, drinking and talking. I stepped forward, perched on the edge of a chair beside a small empty table and looked around. The piano was at the end of the room on my right, about twenty feet away; small tables filled the space between and lined the walls. Directly ahead stretched a bar, from behind which two bartenders in purple jackets served the half-dozen customers occupying stools. Hell, it was just an ordinary cocktail lounge, doing a good early afternoon business. I even recognized one of the bartenders, a guy named Jerry something or other.

  I hadn't known Jerry here, though. I'd met him at another bar — in San Francisco, I remembered, a year or two back when I'd been working on a case, the nature of which escaped me at the moment. We'd had a couple of long conversations, a few drinks together.

  I got up, started toward the bar, a
nd stopped. I'd just had the jarring impression that I'd seen Eve Angers. I looked again. On my right, about halfway between the piano bar and where I stood, at a table against the wall near me, sat a black-haired gal talking to another woman. The one with her back to me looked like Eve. The other woman was — well, she was weird. Her hair was as blonde as Eve's was black, almost white-blonde hair that fell inches beneath her shoulders, but it hung completely straight, without a hint of wave or curl, as limp and lifeless as a wig made of thin spaghetti. She was thin herself, angular, her mouth a straight slash without makeup. It was a face like skin stretched over bone, a face to be presented only to steel mirrors, like the face on the bride of Death. I shuddered, really shuddered, looking at her.

  I moved across the room to the bar, a bit nervously, because for some reason I didn't want to be seen, not by anybody who knew me. I didn't know why for sure; I just knew I didn't want to be seen. Tension built up in me gradually, rose along my spine and gathered in a knot at the base of my skull. I could see the black-haired gal now. It was Eve, all right. Across from her the other woman, with hair like thin strips from a shroud, smiled at Eve, talked to her, smiled.

  My head throbbed; I could feel heat at the spot where the shotgun pellet had hit me last night; I wondered if I could be in some kind of shock, induced by the wound, the lack of sleep and rest, the emotional hammering of these last few days, and even hours.

  I looked around. At men and women, sitting at tables, drinking, talking. There seemed nothing unusual. But then the scene seemed to shift. It was the same — yet different. I had looked right at it, it was there in front of my eyes, but it hadn't impressed me until now. Men and women were sitting at tables, true; but at no table was a man sitting with a woman.

  There were two women at a table, three, even women alone. And men alone and together. But not one man with a woman. I glanced up. At the end of the piano bar sat Horace Lorimer, a pink cocktail in front of him, leaning toward the male piano player. The piano player sang, showing a lot of flashing white teeth, singing, "Thank Heaven for little — boys . . ." and smiling at Horace, smiling at Horace Lorimer.

  Glasses tinkled behind me and I turned to the bar. Jerry was rinsing some glasses, swishing them through tubs of water. I caught his eye, motioned with my head. He frowned, then recognition showed on his face.

  On my left, at the end of the room opposite the piano bar, a purple-draped doorway led into another room. I pointed toward it and Jerry nodded. I walked into the other room and waited. The room was empty, chairs stacked on top of the tables. In one wall were two doors, marked "Girls" and "Boys." I supposed they were rest-rooms.

  In two or three minutes Jerry joined me. We stood inside the purple draperies at the door and he said, "Shell Scott, isn't it?" I nodded and he said, "Gee, it's been a couple years, hasn't it?"

  "That's right. You still enjoy picking up a buck, Jerry?"

  He grinned. "You know it."

  "A double sawbuck, say?"

  "For what?"

  I pulled back the drape with one hand and pointed. "The guy at the end of the piano bar. You know him?"

  "Old fatstuff? Sure . . . Lorimer. What about him?"

  "You've seen him in here before, then?"

  "Sure, a lot of times, regular hangout. But I knew him and his wife in San Francisco before, served them there lots of times when I was at Lupo's. You remember Lupo's."

  The name jogged my memory; that was the bar where I'd met Jerry.

  He was going on, "He's been here a lot, but it's only this last week or so he's come in with his wife."

  "With his wife? They've both come here?"

  "Sure, he and Gerda only been in together a couple of times. Never sit together, though. Just like now." He yawned, bored with eccentricity.

  "She's here?" Lorimer had told me, I remembered that his wife's name was Gerda; but he'd also said she was in San Francisco.

  Jerry stifled his yawn, nodded, and pointed. He was pointing straight at the table where Eve sat, straight at the curse of death, at one of hell's harlots, at the white-blonde weirdo. "That's Gerda," he said.

  She looked like a Gerda, I thought, and I said, with massive understatement, "Not much to look at, is she?"

  "Who looks?" he said. "Who looks at the pigs?"

  And that snatched up another bit of memory — the case I'd been on when I met Jerry. It had been a crime of passion: one young boy, who waited on tables at Lupo's, had killed another young boy, crushing in his skull with a gold-plated miniature of the Hermes of Praxiteles. It had struck me as strange that Jerry would have known Lorimer at Lupo's and be here, now, in the Purple Room. But it wasn't so strange after all. There wouldn't be many bars like this; and Lupo's was a bar like this.

  Confusion tangled my thoughts. What the hell? Why would Eve be here, talking to Gerda — to Horace Lorimer's wife? Why was she here at all?

  Lorimer sipped at his pink drink then slid off his stool, started to walk this way. Probably coming back here to the Boys' room.

  "Jerry, is there a back way out of here?"

  "Sure, parking lot in back. Some of the customers don't like to come in the front way."

  "Show me." Lorimer had stopped at the table, was speaking to Gerda. Then he said something to Eve and headed this way again. I got a twenty-dollar bill from my wallet, handed it to Jerry as he started toward the back of the room.

  He opened a door and I went through it, saying, "You didn't see me, Jerry. I wasn't here."

  He nodded and closed the door behind me. Just before it shut I saw Lorimer step past the purple drapery. I looked around, at ten or a dozen cars, Eve's white T-Bird among them. At the back of the lot was an alley. I walked to it, then trotted to my Cad.

  Twenty minutes later Lorimer came out under the awning in front of the Purple Room. He was alone. I was parked half a block away, pointed toward Wilshire Boulevard. The attendant got Lorimer's car for him; he got in and drove toward Wilshire. I followed him. He left his car at the curb in front of the Standish, went into the hotel. By the time I'd parked and followed him in he was out of sight. But the elevator needle rose to point at the top floor, the penthouse suites.

  When the elevator reached the lobby again I climbed in. It was self-service, and I pushed the top button, the cage moved upward. Thoughts turned and tumbled in my head. The elevator stopped, the doors opened. I stepped out into a short hallway fronting the two penthouse suites. Lorimer's was on the right. I stepped to his door, pushed the button.

  One soft sound, like a gong, boomed inside the suite.

  The knob clicked, the door opened.

  And she stood there, wearing a linen sheath in light chartreuse, a shade that almost matched her eyes.

  And her hair wasn't white — it was black.

  Eve.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I didn't really react.

  There had been, I guess, too many shocks to my nervous system in the last few hours. Or maybe this, and all it meant, had to fuse somewhere inside me, sink in, pull the rest of the pattern together.

  Whatever the reason, I simply stood there, feeling numb, staring at Eve. She seemed shocked, but recovered and spoke first.

  "Shell, what in the world are you doing here? What do you want?" But she spoke — or it seemed to me she spoke — very slowly, an appreciable pause between the words, each word individually spaced and surrounded by its measure of silence.

  I didn't say anything, stepped forward pushing the door wider. She moved back, then turned and walked over the lavender carpet toward the white divan where Lorimer and I had sat last night. Her coat lay across the back of the divan, the big black bag on the floor near it.

  She was saying, speaking more briskly now, "This is the strangest thing — your coming here, I mean. I just came up to see Horace, I've only been here once before, but I had to ask him something. And then you show up." She stopped by the divan, bent and picked up the black bag, turned to face me.

  I walked up to her, stopped a couple o
f feet away. Eve was fumbling with the leather drawstrings at the top of the bag, pulling it open. She reached into the bag for something, but Horace Lorimer was just stepping through an open doorway, wearing a magnificently beaded and embroidered robe, white silk or satin glowing with color, vibrant with beads and threads of red and blue and gold and green. He might have been a prince of Xanadu or Samarkand, except for the round, fat, pink Kris-Kringle face.

  He saw me the instant I turned. He stopped, his mouth dropped open, and he screamed. It was faint but piercing, high and piercing, the way a startled woman might scream. Without a moment's hesitation he spun around and jumped back into the room.

  Then, it happened. In that split second. Something happened to time — in much the same way time had been distorted, speeded up, in the strange film Jim had made. Something seemed to dissolve in my brain, not merely in imagination but as though an actual physical change, or melting, occurred in one small group of cells. Everything that had happened, all I'd heard and done and seen in these last days, was present now, immediate, before me; dozens of scattered pieces fused into a thing without crack or crevice, every part fitting where it belonged, and I knew it all.

  I turned fast, swinging my left arm up, balling my fist. I didn't try to pull the punch, I was trying to knock her head off. My fist landed on her temple, a glancing blow, not solid, but solid enough. She was unconscious as she fell.

  And I was just in time. Barely in time. She didn't quite, not quite, have time to pull the trigger.

  The gun she'd taken from her black bag fell, bounced on the carpet. I picked it up. Lorimer was still making noises as he scurried back into the living room, high, frantic, hysterical noises. He burst from the door into the living room. A frightened, wild, hysterical fat man. He had a small gun in his right hand.

  He might have been able to hit me with a bullet from that little gun. I don't know. I didn't think much about it. I shot him four times, once in the chest and three times in the head.