Take a Murder, Darling (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  He chuckled but it wasn't a happy sound. “Sure, Ark's my boy. Where is he?”

  I didn't answer him. “Why did you have Ark and his chums tailing me?”

  “To make sure you didn't tail me, you bum.”

  That made sense. After my following him around for a day and reporting all I saw to Randolph, Toby would naturally have been anxious that neither I nor anybody else tailed him. But three guys to tail me?

  I waved the gun around a little, then aimed it at his bulging middle. Toby must have known there wasn't a chance in a thousand that I would shoot him, especially not here in his own arena, so to speak. But even so, when a loaded .45—or even .22—is aimed at your middle, that one chance in a thousand suddenly looks bigger than the other nine-hundred and ninety-nine.

  I said, “It could be, Toby, that as the surgeons say, we're going to have to go inside.” I waggled the pistol playfully, like a blunt scalpel.

  “You ... but —” Toby stopped and swallowed, jowls wiggling as his mouth stretched open and the corners pulled downward, making him look like a fat mask of Tragedy. He went on, “You wouldn't ... but what for? All I did was have them tail you. How'd you find out, anyway? I didn't —” He was starting to sound panicky.

  “Toby, you're a liar. Those hoods of yours haven't had an original thought since nineteen-forty. If they'd decided all by themselves to pop me, it would have been a mental feat for them on a par with the invention of the wheel. So start telling me the story.”

  “There's nothing to tell. I'm not lyin', Scott.”

  He sounded almost convincing. I was, however, going to pursue the matter further—only there was an interruption.

  I didn't even hear the guy come in. All I heard was the quick intake of breath behind me and then, before I could swing around, the sound of the slide being thrown back on an automatic pistol. That was all.

  But that was enough.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I held the gun before me, turned my head and looked at the man. It was Lemmy, the guy I'd winged at Horatio Adair's gate, the one who'd taken off in a hurry. He stood in front of the alley door, and held the automatic well out from his body, pointed steadily at me.

  “Better drop it,” he said.

  I stared at him. There was a hole in the left side of his coat along with what looked like bloodstains. A finger of reddish brown on his shirt was undoubtedly blood. I had apparently bounced a .38-caliber pill off his ribs, painfully, but without doing serious damage. A muscle at the side of his tight mouth twitched. It was a hard thing to do, but I peeled my fingers open, let the .45 fall to the floor.

  Toby got up off his back. “Lemmy,” he said slowly, staring at me with hate in his thick-lidded eyes, “if this bum moves half an inch, kill him.” His face slowly got redder. “Hell,” he said suddenly, “kill him now.”

  I swung my head back toward Lemmy just as he shifted the gun slightly aiming it higher on my chest. I could almost feel Lemmy's finger tensing on the gun's trigger. His lips pressed more tightly together and his eyes were narrowed until they were almost shut.

  “What about Ark?” I said rapidly. “And Flavin?”

  “Hold it, Lemmy,” Toby said. Then to me, “What about them?”

  “Don't you even want to know where they are?” I looked at Lemmy and said, “Is this the way your tubby boss treats the hired hands—including you? He doesn't give a damn that you're plugged, or if the other two creeps who jumped me are bleeding to death.”

  Lemmy shifted his gaze to Toby, then back to me.

  I said to him, “Besides, people would hear that cannon go off clear down at the City Hall. Or, rather,” I amended, “the Police Building. Where the jail is.”

  Toby looked at Lemmy. “Where's Flavin and Ark?”

  Lemmy shook his head, but he didn't explain why they weren't with him or where he thought they might be. Apparently he had just arrived here.

  I said it for him. “Lemmy wouldn't know, Toby. I tossed a pill at him and he ran away like a rabbit.”

  Toby snorted in disgust, then asked me, “Where are they? Spill it.”

  “Sure. Just like that, and then you can haul me out in a canyon and finish me. I'll tell you when I'm out of here.”

  Toby glowered at me. “Cops got them?”

  “Look, Toby, we don't play guessing games. My car's parked in front. When we get out there, I'll tell you where your boys are—and I guarantee you'll be able to pick them up yourself if you want to. You can have the bums back. But make up your mind.”

  He thought about it.

  I looked at Lemmy again. “Your boss sure doesn't worry much about how many of you boys he loses, does he? He must consider punks expendable —”

  Toby made up his mind. “O.K. At your car, Scott. I think we could knock you off here, and get away with it. Or make you spill about where the boys are. But it might take a while, at that.” He glanced at Lemmy. “And I'm more interested in helping my men than working you over, Scott.”

  “Sure. Now you are.”

  “It don't make much difference anyway. You won't be hard to find.” Toby leaned closer to me and said softly, “I'll let you sweat a while. You ain't gonna know when it's comin’ or from where. You'll just be walking along or riding somewhere—and bing—that's it.”

  We left by the back way. I went out first and down the alley. They followed me around to Hollywood Boulevard and my car. I glanced into the back seat and saw that the two bodies were still there as I'd left them. Ark was moving feebly.

  “All right,” Toby said. “Where's the boys?”

  I jerked a thumb. “In the back of my Cad.”

  If ever Toby came really close to apoplexy, that must have been the moment. His face got the color of Coca Cola.

  “Haul your pals out, Lemmy,” I said.

  I'd made sure, of course, that Lemmy had put his gun away long before we walked out onto the Boulevard. But he snapped his head toward me and his hand moved in the direction of his shoulder holster. I already had my right hand under my coat, on the butt of my .38.

  “Get ’em out,” Toby said. His voice was shaking.

  Lemmy grunted and tugged and hauled and shoved Ark out after much struggle, and then dumped the dead man half on top of him. Toby was about to have a real fit. Cars continued to zoom by on the street, and several people looked at what was going on, at the two prone bodies on the sidewalk, but none of them did anything except gawk and keep on going.

  I got into the Cad, started it. Neither Toby nor Lemmy said a word, and I didn't say anything to them, either. It didn't seem likely that we would ever again carry on two-sided conversations. Toby didn't even swear again that he was going to kill me, which was a refreshing change.

  I drove off, thinking that Toby was sure full of threats, but that didn't mean they were empty threats. The guy who first said that barking dogs don't bite must have been an expert on cats. Dogs don't bark and bite at the same time, maybe, but they sure bite a lot between barks.

  I phoned Mamzel's. Didi's delightful voice came on and we traded a little dialogue, then I had her get Lawrance for me. I went over the day's developments, ending with my farewell to Toby and Lemmy minutes ago. I wound it up, “So that's where it stands. I had to ad lib most of it”

  “What's likely to happen now?”

  “Anything's likely. That's why I'm phoning. I'm going to call the police and fill them in, but there won't be any proof that Toby's chumps took some shots at me. Except my word. And Toby would have twenty-seven witnesses to the fact that he was in a dirigible flying over the Empire State Building or something. It might be check, but not checkmate. And it's no good just nibbling at him—you've got to eat him up or he'll just keep on being trouble.”

  “Uh-huh, I see. Well...” Lawrance was quiet for several seconds, “Where do we go from here?”

  “I go calling on the rest of those named in the late Zoe Avilla's list—she gave the photographer the name Susan Roeder, by the way. Mean anything?”

  �
��No. Never heard that name, either.”

  I told Lawrance I would keep him posted as well as I could, hung up and called Homicide. I talked to Sam and filled him in on what had happened. He said he'd send a team of men out to see Toby and would haul Toby and some of his boys in for questioning—if they could be located. He also said he was about to haul me in for questioning, but I managed to change the subject and hang up. I put in one more call, to the Ad Agency, and made an appointment to see the boss as soon as I arrived.

  Then I got back in the Cad and headed for Sunset Boulevard—and as I drove I tried to look to my left and right and straight ahead, and watch the rearview mirror at the same time. It seemed settled beyond doubt now that Toby would take the first opportunity to carry out the threat he'd made against me. The only question was where—and when.

  And I had the dismal feeling that my luck was about used up.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I drove to Sunset Boulevard—to the gilded and gleaming hyper-neoned sucker-trap known as the Strip. In a way it's Hollywood's Strip tease, because it always offers more than it gives, promises without fulfillment. In the daytime it makes me think of the city's bones, taking on flesh only at night when the neon flickers and the pianos tinkle in the intimate clubs. The Sunset Strip. Expensive, gaudy, snobbish, designed for the upper crust—so-called, perhaps, because it's on top of the dough. Mocambo and Ciro's, of course. But also Crescendo, Bit o’ Sweden, Garden of Allah, Marquis, Fyell's custom tailors. And the Ad Agency.

  The Ad Agency—that was its real name—was between the Can-Can and “rachel's—fine paintings.” The head of the agency was a man named Bill Adams, known as “Ad” Adams even before he got into the advertising business, so called because it is with artful advertising that manufacturers give consumers the business. And Ad Adams was one of the best con-men in the game that is not a game, but the deadly serious occupation of making consumers buy and consume more and more of more and more whether they like it or not, and if they don't like it convincing them that they do.

  I parked in the adjacent lot and went inside. A platinum-blonde secretary softened the glitter of glass and glass brick, chrome and copper. I told the gal I was Shell Scott and she pointed with an inch-long scarlet nail on her little finger.

  I went through the door the secretary had indicated, down a polished and gleaming hall, past open offices in which well-dressed men gesticulated wildly, barked into telephones, puffed frantically on fat cigars. It was a relief to look into a room that contained only a woman, her back to me as she sketched on a large pad of white paper propped on an easel before her. I watched her for a moment. With a piece of charcoal she drew sweeping lines on the paper and stepped back. Then she glanced over her shoulder at me.

  “Hi,” she said. “Come on in.”

  I leaned against the side of the door. “I'm looking through this jungle for Ad Adams. Which cage is he in.”

  “He's next door. Out for a minute, though. Cage, indeed. But you're right, I suppose.” She turned around and flashed me a smile. She was medium size, with a plain face behind black-rimmed glasses. She was a blonde, too, more yellow than platinum, and with much more intellectual expression than the receptionist's. She said, “Emporium of the hard sell ... the soft sell ... and the padded sell. You'd be Shell Scott.”

  “I would, indeed. How did you know?”

  “Ad told me to watch for you. When he stepped out...”

  “Of a window?”

  “Naturally.”

  “What is that?” I indicated the wiggling lines she'd drawn.

  “It's a foundation garment. The Hugmetite.”

  “You're kidding.”

  “Serious.”

  “Are you by any chance talking about a girdle?”

  She winced. “Please. Call it that if you must, uncouthly. But, really, Mr. Scott, the Hugmetite is a foundation garment. New account. Ad's very proud of landing it. Handled it himself. It gets top priority, right after the Mamzel's account—you're working for Mamzel's, aren't you?”

  “That's right. And you're Miss...”

  “Fern Gladd.”

  “Oh.” I smiled to soften the words and said, “Isn't that the name of the gal who called all the Mamzel's offices and asked lots of questions?”

  She smiled back. “Yes. It was that little woman, of course. The one who got killed.”

  “Zoe Avilla.”

  “Yes. She used my name and my phone.”

  I showed her the pictures I carried and she said, “That's the one.”

  “How do you know she did she phoning?”

  “She stayed in my office while she was here—with my permission. I didn't see anything wrong with it. Anyway, she must have used my phone then to call the Mamzel's agencies around the country—posing as me so she could get away with asking questions the Ad Agency might be interested in. It's the only logical way it could have happened, because I certainly didn't make the calls.”

  “What was she doing here in the first place? And how do you know she called all the Mamzel's spots?”

  She didn't get to answer. From behind me a man's deep voice said, “That you, Scott?”

  I turned around. “Yes.”

  “I'm Ad Adams.” He stuck out his hand and shook mine firmly. He was a pleasant looking guy about fifty, with thick brown hair and lighter eyebrows over brown eyes. He was neatly dressed in a gray suit, an off-white shirt, and maroon tie.

  “How do you do, Mr. Adams.”

  “Ad. Call me Ad. Everybody does.” He glanced at his watch. “Got to rush right into the brainstorm session. Sorry, Scott, I got tied up. You'll have to wait, O.K.?”

  He was already leading the way into his office. “Come along, Fern,” he called over his shoulder. As we followed him inside, he said to me, “You might as well sit in, Scott. Won't take long. Got to get this done. Gibson's anxious.”

  “That's too bad.”

  “Sit down, Scott.” He pointed to a modern leather-and-chrome chair that looked like a small crushed airplane wing and which had probably cost about three hundred dollars. The office we were in was four times the size of the others I'd seen, and nine or ten people were already present, sitting in the crushed-wing chairs around a long rectangular table. As I watched, two more people came in.

  I said to Adams, “I suppose you know I'm working for Mamzel's.”

  He nodded. “What is it you want to know about?”

  “Zoe Avilla.”

  “Yeah, I thought so. Cops were here, asked us about the woman.” He glanced nervously at his watch again, then said to me, “Be with you when we finish this, Scott. Won't take a minute.”

  I shrugged and as he walked toward the other end of the room I sat down at the end of the table. Fern Gladd took the seat next to me and smiled.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi. Well, we sure didn't have much of a —”

  “Sh-h. Session's beginning. Ad's already started the tape recorder. Have to carry on our conversation when he's through. Ad—uh—likes intense concentration from us.” She turned and looked toward the head of the table.

  Adams had stepped up onto a small platform, raised about a foot off the floor beyond the far end of the table. He stood alongside an easel on which was a large pad of white paper. Then he picked up a piece of charcoal and faced the group.

  “We'll warm up on a small account,” he said, “just to limber up our mental muscles.” In his hands he held a pink brassiere. It was a narrow thing, strapless, and was apparently designed to cover only the lower half of what it was designed to cover.

  Ad said, “We are to dream up, think up, brainstorm—a name for this. Or descriptive phrases, slogans. There's not a very big budget, but the name and slogan will get national space. All right. This bra is made by Finder's, makers of fine lingerie; it's a built-up, or padded, bra, and it is, as you can see, especially low-cut so that it can be worn with daringly low-cut or strapless gowns. It is to sell for under five dollars. Which is to say for four-ninety-nine
.”

  He paused, looked around again, then said, “All right. A name for this item, and/or a slogan. See what you can do in five minutes.” He waited expectantly.

  I was getting a little interested myself in seeing what would come of this. This was real life, raw and earnest, the behind-the-scenes drama of Twentieth Century Advertising. There were no more than five seconds of silence. Then a young guy a few chairs up the table said, “Hush-hush.”

  I didn't feel that he had come up with anything astounding, but maybe I was just being negative. I leaned back and listened. Three more names came in the next few seconds: Foreign Aid ... Second Helping ... Trade Secret.

  And that seemed really to warm everybody up. For the next minute or so names and words and phrases flew thick and fast, with barely a second's silence at a time. The excitement seemed to grow in the room, and I even got sort of caught up in it myself.

  Somebody shouted, “Space Station—no, Spice Station,” and I got swept up in the enthusiasm and joined in, “Finder's Keepers!” I cried.

  Somebody said, “Twin-Pipes ... ah, Twin-Pips.” And “Dual Control.”

  “Peek-A-Boo-Boo!” I yelled.

  A woman across the table shouted, “I've got a slogan—Get A Load On Your Chest.”

  I sang out, “Dishonesty Is The Bust Policy.”

  Then there were about half a dozen names and phrases tossed in all of a sudden, and in a short silence I called out, “Susan Roeder.”

  No one even wiggled. More names and slogans flew back and forth.

  Finally Ad held up his hands, brassiere dangling from one, and said, grinning, “That's it. Good enough, ladies and gentlemen, I think that does it. You're warmed up, I'd say. Now we really get down to business. We've got to dream up a complete layout for —” he paused for several seconds and let the suspense build up—“Hugmetite!”

  After listening to the expressions of almost giddy approval, Ad continued, “As you know, the Hugmetite is a quality foundation garment, designed to appeal to those women who get just a little, er, soft or heavy—a tiny bit overweight—say on crepes suzettes and caviar. We're going to go all out on this one, play it sophisticated, rich, expensive, the quality approach. Chosen by TV and movie stars, the healthy wealthy, that sort of thing.”