I could imagine cameras grinding, centered on the hero’s profile. I lifted my head a little, jutted my honest chin forward another inch, aimed and fired. Then I fired again, aiming carefully: click.
This can’t be, I thought. Click. Either my gun was empty, or my head was doing that thing again. It had to be my head; in movies, the guns are never empty. Click!
It can’t be! If my guns empty, the villain will kill me! Click-click-click. The sonofabitch was empty!
And I had been tearing along, too, gaining on the villian rapidly. Certain of Justices triumph in the last reel I had galloped to within ten feet of Jules, and now he was turned in the saddle, reins in his left hand, great big gun in his right, the gun aimed with stupendous accuracy squarely between my eyes. It hadn’t bothered me until this moment. Now it bothered me.
I saw his face contort in an expression of fiendish joy.
He squeezed the trigger. He fired. Click.
Somebody had goofed. Both guns empty, eh? Somebody was going to pay for this. I threw my gun at him, and missed. He threw his gun at me and hit me. Everything was going to He’ll! The gun bounced off my skull, and a furious anger flamed in my loins, even though he’d hit me in the skull. I let out a wild yell. And his horse fell down.
To be perfectly honest, even though my yell was pretty wild, it didn’t really affect the horse. But when Jules threw his gun at me he had unthinkingly yanked on the reins, and his horse charged left into a clump of something or other which looked very prickly. Down he went. Jules did a flip, rolled, started to his feet.
Now I had him. I let out another yell and dived at him, leaping from my horse, hands outstretched to grab him.
Thunk something went. My leg broke. A great invisible hand grabbed Jules and yanked him rapidly away from me. And then somebody hit me with the desert. It flew up and smacked me right in the mouth. This was all wrong. I was plowing up the desert, leaving a shallow furrow behind me. Jules receded. Stop, goddammit! I yelled. Stop!
And then my horse was racing away, with my leg flopping from a stirrup, and I was sitting bewildered on the desert. No, my leg was still attached to me. It was my boot in the stirrup. I managed to get up. My leg wasn’t broken. It just felt broken. I looked around. Ah, there was Jules. The Hell with him. No, I’d come to this stinking place to get him, and I was going to get him.
I hobbled at him.
He waited.
He bent, did something near his feet, then straightened up and walked toward me. The distance between us narrowed. We stalked each other, alone in the empty desert, hands hovering near our empty holsters. It didn’t seem right.
We were five yards away. Three. Then two feet. Something had to happen pretty quick.
A little trickle of sand trickled between his fingers. Ah-ha, I thought. He’s going to blind me with sand. Not me, he — aaah!
I was blinded.
My goddamn eyes were full of sand.
Pow, bang, whop, he was all over me. Sock, smack. I swung wildly, connected with something — it had to be Jules, since there wasn’t anything else for miles around. Unless I’d hit a horse. I kept swinging, and finally was able to see out of my left eye. I saw a fist. Smack. That was a good one. Right in the left eye.
I managed to grab him, clinch, hang on. I rubbed my eyes against his shoulder, got enough vision back to see him as a blur, got a hand on one of his shoulders and spun him — and hit him with a good right hand: the first good blow I’d landed.
It hurt him. My sight cleared even more and I saw his knees buckle. He almost went down. I measured him, slammed a left hand at his face. It landed high, on his forehead, but he went back, stumbled and fell. Jules shook his head, spat, started struggling to his feet. I stood over him, left arm high, hand stretched open. I knew in two more seconds it would be over. But then I stopped, stepped back a foot, let him wobble to his feet.
He was disoriented, movements not coordinated, and I had quite enough time. As he got up I thought briefly of that night when he’d worked me over in the restroom, the dozens of blows he’d slammed into my face, my stomach, my ribs. And of the shots at me, the sapping last night, of Jeanne and April and all the rest, even Hal the Bastard.
And when Jules Garbin was almost straightened up I launched the final blow. I had my legs spread, feet well-planted in the sand, body set, right arm pulled back, fist cocked. I just uncoiled, trying to get every ounce of flesh and muscle and bone into the blow. I guess I did.
My fist landed on his chin and his chin snapped far to the side with a sound like sticks breaking, and he spun clear around in a circle, arms flailing, before he hit the ground. He trembled slightly, as if an electric current were running through him, and then lay still.
Too still.
I knelt beside him, felt for his pulse. I couldnt find it. At the back of his neck, little bones bulged oddly under the skin. I rolled him over, put a hand on his chest, above the heart. His chill gray eyes stared blankly. Over one brow a cut had dripped blood down into the eye itself; his nose was broken; his chin lay, sagging, unbelievably far to one side, twisting his mouth into a grotesquely crippled grimace.
His face was just about as mashed and twisted and distorted, as cockeyed, as had been Dandy Eddies face.
And he was just as dead.
chapter twenty
It was nearly dark when we arrived at the Sun and Sage again.
Next to me in the Cads front seat was lovely chestnut-haired April, of the sweet-hot voice and torch-blue eyes, and all the other goodies. On her right, wantonly-fashioned Delise, blonde hair pale in the fading light, eyes now like moss in even deeper shadow. In the seat behind us were Zia, hair and eyes and brows as black as night, lips silently frying each other; next to her curvy Choo Choo, silent, not cricketing at all.
There had been a little conversation on the way, but not much. Perhaps because we had left at the cabin behind us, Jules Garbin, dead; Hal Calvin, dead; Tay Green, dead; Pete, only half alive, but still breathing; and Farmer and Dodo, sleeping a most tranquil sleep.
As we parked before the hotel entrance, April said, Shell.
Yeah.
What are you going to do now?
Well, I imagine I’ll be pretty busy for an hour or two. I’d seen an official car, a sheriffs car, parked ahead of us. Therell be explanations, statements. I wouldnt be surprised if Captain Samson shows up here from L.A. later. I’ll clean up the loose ends. Then — I dont know. I’ll probably have numerous drinks, and fairly stiff ones at that.
I’d like a stiff one myself, said Delise.
And from the back seat, with a sizzle and high-pitched cricketing, in that order, That’s for me, and Wow, and how!
And April whispered, Me, too.
That reminded me. What are you gals going to do now? I mean, Eds . . . no longer with us. The movies kaput. What are your plans?
As usual, it was yak-yak all at once. What it boiled down to was their real boss, Ben Freedlander had laid down the law a week ago, and they were all supposed to go back to Hollywood tonight, whether the picture was finished or not, which it wasn’t . If they didn’t, Ben might even shelve the picture, and after theyd put in so much work on it. Of course, that had been mainly to make Ed finish the picture, but now Ed was dead and they didn’t know what would happen. Theyd all planned — since theyd all decided to do everything together — to stay on at the Sun and Sage for a few days, just to relax and rest, unwind, sort of have a vacation. It would really be fun now that everybody wasn’t killing everybody else. But now — well they couldnt afford to do that if Ben —
Look, I said, thus interrupting all four of them with one word, I sort of need a vacation myself. To recover from my vacation. Now what if I could sort of smooth things over with Ben —
Yak-yak. Boiled down: That would be ecstatic.
Well, I said, grinning, feeling life flowing back into parts of me I had thought dead, I, uh, may be able to work something out.
After the squeals and bubbles and yips an
d such it was agreed that we would meet, in two hours, in the saloon. They went their separate ways, and I went hunting for Russ, and the law.
An hour and a half later Russ and I were sitting in his living room, having highballs. I’d turned Clyde loose as promised. I’d finished my stint with the police, and wires were humming between here and Los Angeles. And, I gathered, clear across the country, because the Jules Garbin story was front-page copy for all the wire services.
Russ had missed most of my talk with the sheriff and his deputies, and now he said to me, I understand this Garbin was supposed to have killed himself, and even how he made it look like he was dead. Seems a pretty complicated scheme, to me.
Not so complicated, Russ, not really. Jumping and grabbing that ladder, for instance, would be a fairly simple job — if you were two feet off the ground. Not much to it, really. But sixteen floors in the air? Well, that would have made it a lot tougher.
And he planned all this because he knew he was going to prison?
Yeah — or, rather the gas chamber. It wasn’t enough just to escape, even if he could have managed it, and have thousands of policemen looking for him. But if he was thought to be dead, no search would be made. Besides, there were the other considerations.
You mean his wife? And this Calvin fellow? I nodded and Russ said, shaking his head, That’s still not clear to me, Shell.
It’s simple enough. Remember, Garbin hated his wife with a passion. Moreover, he couldnt divorce Letty without getting stuck with a horrendous alimony grab. In fact, he is known to have said that he’d never give her a nickel of alimony — in his exact words, I’d die first. Well, ironically, when he died she inherited everything. And Garbin was worth at least three or four million dollars, counting the stuff stashed in safe deposit boxes and elsewhere.
But Jules took even this into consideration, Russ. All part of the one plan. You see, he figured nothing was too good for Letty. He figured his fortune or half of it was too good for her, ten bucks was too good for her, and even nothing was too good for her. Besides, if he lived he wanted those millions of goodies himself. So he had Handsome Hal smooch up to his wife, then after Jules died Hal married Letty, with her late husbands blessing. So Letty actually committed bigamy. Then, later, Garbin killed his widow, in an automobile accident. So naturally Hal inherited from his wife, Letty — and Jules got his goodies back. What it boils down to is that Garbin inherited his own estate from himself.
Stop, Russ said, white mustache wiggling. Go lie down.
He’ll, it’s true, Russ. He inherited it back — minus, of course, the estate and inheritance grabs. You see, Jules Garbin —
Stop, he said. Killed his widow, committed bigamy, inherited from himself — I refuse to listen to any more of this nonsense.
I grinned. Well, knowing that much, you can figure out the rest of it for yourself.
Lets have another drink instead.
A capital idea. Lets. We did.
I was only five minutes late when I walked into the saloon. There was a new bartender, of course. But in a booth — the same one in which wed sat before — were April, Delise, Choo Choo, and Zia.
I joined them. Same as before. Except that this time all four of the gals were dressed in city clothes — low, plunging, décolleté and all that, and I mean all that. Boy, it was really exciting.
After a while I yelled, SILENCE!
It worked every time. Girls, I said what about The WILD West? I mean, is all your work going to waste? Suppose Ben gave you girls a free hand? Do you know how it’s supposed to be finished?
Lots of noise. Finally Delise made herself heard.
Maybe — you know . . . I wonder. With Ed . . . gone. His partner, I mean Mr. Freedlander, surely still wants the movie —
And it’s practically finished, said April.
I know what youre thinking, Zia said brightly. We could almost finish it ourselves, couldnt we?
And Choo Choo cricketed, Why not?
Slyly, I led them on. By golly, you may have something there. Yes, sir, that makes a lot of sense.
April, falling willingly into my trap, turned the flame of those hot blue eyes on me and said, Shell, do you know how to use, or work, or operate, a movie camera?
Do I know how to use, or work, or operate a movie camera? Do I?
As soon as there was a moment of near-silence I went on, Girls, I’ll confess. I have news for you. Just a little while ago I talked by phone with my client, Ben — Mr. Freedlander. As I told you, I’ve known Ben for a long time, and I handled a little job for him these past two days. As for my fee, he told me in the beginning that wed work something out later, and it is now later. Well, he definitely does still want the picture finished. But the demise of Ed Finch means the demise, naturally, of Edben Productions. So Ben Freedlander is forming a new company, operative at least until The WILD West is completed. So you four girls can just stay on here at the ranch until —
No! But how wonderful —
Shell!
You mean —
Really? Are you saying —
I’m saying that, if youd like, you can stay on here at the Sun and Sage as the guests of Ben Freedlanders new company, Scott-Free Productions —
Bubble and squawk and all that, the usual.
Finally April said, But, Shell . . . will you be here?
What do you mean? Do you think I’d leave? I looked at the four of them and added, Dears, I am the Scott of Scott-Free Productions.
Lots of noise again. Then I said, Girls, girls. There’s no problem, nothing to decide right now, really. Relax. These things will all work out in the restful, carefree days ahead, here at the Sun and Sage. I looked from one of them to the other. Agreed?
Well, it was agreed, all right, it was sure agreed.
And the din, here in the saloon, became almost painful to the eardrums. On and on it went, on and on into the night.
Blah, blah, blah, squeal, yak-yak-yak.
Women! I thought. Who needs them?
Well, by now, I guess you know who needs them.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1964 by Fawcett Publications, Inc.
Copyright renewed 1992 by Richard S. Prather
Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media
ISBN 978-1-4804-9913-3
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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The Cockeyed Corpse (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 16
