We pulled in low over the coastline, the pilot turned north, and soon I could see the lights of L.A. International Airport below. The plane dropped down, landed easily. I followed the other passengers out of the plane, and across the field, walked down the cement ramp to the baggage area. I didn’t have any baggage, so I went straight through to the street outside the terminal, started looking for a taxi. Something hard nudged my back, but I thought someone had accidentally planted an elbow over my kidney.
I took a couple more steps down the street, and the nudge got uncomfortable. A big guy loomed on my right, eyes level with mine. Another was on my left; he clamped his hand tight around my biceps. There had to be a third guy, too. The one with his elbow in my back. A .38- or .45-caliber elbow, undoubtedly. I stopped. The gun dug into my spine.
A voice said, Keep moving. And don’t get cute. I could blast you right here and get away with it. The voice was high, hard and rasping.
I looked over my shoulder. He was quite a ways down, a very short guy. He held a coat looped over his arm, and the gun was out of sight beneath the coat. The expression on his smooth white face said that he would be glad to shoot me. He looked as if he might have barely strength enough to do it. He was not only little but scrawny, the face pale and doughy, as if blood was a thin tide in him, and the tide was out. His odd, washed-out eyes gave me a creepy feeling. But the gun was solid in my back, so I turned and took a step forward along the walk.
The guy on my left was probably not a genius. His mouth was open, and his lips hung down from his teeth in distressing fashion. Looking at me, with his flappy lips wiggling, he said, Ha, ha.
The other egg still had my arm tight in his fingers. It burned hell out of me, but I kept walking. In a few more seconds I was in the back of a black Lincoln sedan with the loose-lipped character and the third man. The little bloodless guy held his gun on me while the others wrapped my wrists and ankles with adhesive tape. The little guy got behind the wheel and started the car, drove out of the airport and south for a few blocks, then off onto a darker street.
The loose-lipped guy on my left had a leather-wrapped sap in his big right hand, a partly-empty fifth of bourbon in his left. He tilted the bottle up, gulped a large shot from it and wheezed mightily, lips flopping about in unbelievably gruesome fashion. Then he passed the bottle to the egg on my left and said to him, Want a snort, Biff?
Don’t mind if I do, Slobbers. If you left any. Which you probly dint.
The guy called Biff took the bottle and guzzled at it. Apparently the man on my left, with the indelicate lips, was Slobbers. Biff was a large fat-faced egg with big eyes and wispy hair. His shoulders were so wide he had to lean forward so there’d be room for Slobbers and me on the back seat.
Slobbers said to me, Wheres the films of the weddin in Hawaiya?
What films? What wedding?
Splat! It was Biff, on my right, swinging his sap. Not hard, but painfully. So wheres them films? he asked.
I already . . . I stopped. These muggs were touchy. If you didn’t answer right, they touched you with a bat. And that can make you batty. So I said, Lets discuss this sensibly . . . gentlemen. Like . . . gentlemen. And gentlemen don’t sit around swatting each other on the head, do they?
Swat! This time it was the loose-lipped sapper, Slobbers. Nothing worked with these guys. Through the horrible ache in my head I heard Slobbers saying, That was for fun. And for the one you hung on me in Eds office.
I said, I don’t know what in hell you guys are talking about. I looked at the man on my left and said, And as far as I know, I’ve never seen you before in my life.
Surprisingly, he didn’t sap me again. He let out a great yok and said to Biff, Get him. Get him. Who do you think you’re kiddin, jerk? Who in hell do you think you are?
That one I can answer. I am Webley Alden.
He let out another yok, and this time the driver and Biff joined in the hilarity. When Slobbers stopped chortling he said, Alden! That’s a good one. Pal, I almost got to hand it to you, almost. And I believe I will. He raised his sap.
Wait! You can pound me unconscious, but all I can tell you is what I know. I am Webley Alden, the millionaire playboy. Actually, I don’t remember anything about —
Hold it, pal. Slobbers wasn’t amused now. I don’t know what you’re pullin, but it aint goin to work. Just tell us where them films is, and the negative of that picture Alden took the night he was killed.
I looked at him. Then at Biff. The night he was . . . killed? I said slowly. You don’t mean tonight, do you?
There was silence for several seconds. Both men in back with me looked puzzled. Biff said finally, Hey, you think hes outa his skull?
Maybe hes pullin somethin.
Yeah, maybe its a . . . a trap.
But . . . how could it be? We got him, don’t we?
I dunno. I hear this bastard is tricky.
You heard right, Biff. Hes up to somethin.
Biff said, Hey, Willie. That paper still up there?
Willie spoke. Yeah, here on the seat. He passed a newspaper back to us. Biff held the front page before my eyes and turned on the dome light. In the lower right-hand corner was a story headed, Last Rites Held For Local Millionaire.
I read the story. It described the funeral, on the day just past, of Webley Alden. I thought about it. Not very long, though. Either they’d buried the wrong guy, or . . .
I said, Is this on the level?
Come off it, Scott. Its all on the level except for you, jerk. And you better start leveling fast.
Scott? Something began to wobble gently in my skull.
Would you mean — Shell Scott?
Who in hell else would I mean? Slobbers leaned over and peered at my face. Are you tryin to tell me you don’t know you’re Shell Scott? The private eye?
I sighed. So that’s who I was. Shell Scott, private eye. Some detective. I had set out to find Scott, traveled twenty-two hundred miles to find him. Well, by golly, I’d found him!
I said, Listen, I fell out of a tree and banged my head; I don’t remember anything about myself. Including you apes.
Slobbers said, Amnesia? Is that like . . . like . . .
Its when guys lose their remembering of things, Biff said. And its baloney. He just don’t want to talk about nothin. Pret-ty tricky.
Slobbers leaned toward me again. Lets try you out on Pagan Page. What for were you askin around about that broad? Why her, Scott?
As far as I know, I never heard of any Pagan Page.
Silence again. The car was off the main highway, now on a lonely road with little traffic and few lights. Biff and Slobbers passed the bottle back and forth a time or two, then Biff dropped it onto the floorboards, empty. It rolled up against my foot as he said, Lets work the bum over. Maybe thatll make him talk.
I said, primarily to change the subject, Talk about what? Which of you brilliant characters thought of this dopiness?
Why, this was Eds idea, pally.
Ed?
You still gonna claim you don’t know Ed Grey? Or us?
That’s right.
Lemme introduce myself, he said, grinning nastily. I am Biff Boff.
Nobody is called Biff Boff.
He leaned closer to me. I am called Biff Boff. When he said it that way, I believed him. He went on, And that there is Slobbers OBrien. Drivin is Wee Willie Wallace. It don’t ring no bell in your head?
There are some bells ringing up there, but that’s not one of them.
Slobbers chuckled. Scott, we know you is supposed to be a regular ball of fire. Well, we is goin to put the fire out.
Biff chuckled this time. I’ve heard tell sometimes you get a crash on the head and lose your noodles. Well, sometimes another crash on the head brings them back. He laughed. Lets help Scott get his noodles back.
I knew he was jo
king, but Biff gave me a crash on the head anyway. Slobbers did his bit from the other side. Before you could say lickety-split I could remember lots of things, but they were all previous blows on the head. And then . . . nothing.
I came back from somewhere. Time passed. I lay there gathering my weakness together. I seemed to be huddled on the floorboards. Up above me Biff and Slobbers were talking.
Slobbers said, his voice slurred from the liquor, What you think he was pullin with the yak? Think hes stirry?
No tellin. Maybe he don’t know nothin about Pagan. There aint no way he could know about her ridin the earie when the boss was talkin on the phone them times, is they? He couldn’t have been around too, could he?
Don’t seem likely, Biff. But he has to know about them films — we seen him lift them. Maybe we oughta quit foolin around and plug him. Willies plain dyin to plug him.
Yeah, he aint killed nobody in a long time. He really needs to kill somebody. But if we dump Scott outa the car we could make it look like a accident.
Maybe it already is, Slobbers said. I could sure use another drink.
And then I remembered that fifth they’d been guzzling from. I’d felt it roll up against my foot earlier. Something was lumpy under my thigh now, but I hadn’t even noticed it before. My hands were taped in front of me, and slowly I moved them toward the thing caught under my leg. It took about two minutes, but then I had the fingers of both hands around the neck of that whisky bottle. I felt dizzy still, and full of aches, but stronger. Judging by the motion of the car we were moving fast. That suited me. I waited.
Biff said, The bastard may be just restin down there.
Lets haul him up here and slap him around a little, get him woke up.
I felt hands under my arms, pulling me upward. I held myself limp until my rear end touched the seat and their fingers loosened a bit. I could feel the sudden thump of my heart, the prickling chillness sweep over my skin. I opened my eyes, tensed my muscles and shoved both legs back against the seat, pressing my feet hard against the floorboards.
The two men let out yells as I pulled from their grip and half fell, half jumped forward. I brought the bottle up, fingers clamped tight around its neck. Willie started to jerk his head around as his partners yelled, but he never made it all the way. As his head turned I was swinging both arms as hard as I could. The bottle glittered in the faint light, then crashed explosively against his hairline.
He didn’t let out a sound. The bottle broke, sharp fragments flying through the air. Willie fell forward and the horn blasted briefly as his head slammed into it, then he toppled sideways. Our car veered sharply to the right. Something spun me around. My taped ankles bent. I couldn’t keep my legs under me and went down, knees hitting the seat. Biff had his left hand outstretched, right hand holding the sap upraised. I was facing him now. He swung the sap down toward my head. Because I was already falling, the club missed my skull, thudded against my right shoulder.
Pain ran down my arm, swelled in my wrist and fingers. But I didn’t drop the jagged stub of the bottle. The force of Biffs blow bent him toward me. I brought my hands up fast, slammed the jagged glass toward his face like a short, ugly spear. It hit his neck.
I felt the slivered shards drive into his throat, felt the resistance of thick muscle and fragile bone. Felt the muscle and bone give way. The bottle stub went clear in. My hands stopped against his skin, the glass spear buried deep in his throat. The blood came out so fast it warmed my hands before I could jerk them away.
He let out a soft sound. Just a little sound, a lot of blood.
On my right Slobbers reached for me, empty hand outstretched. I managed to grab one of his thick wrists, twisted, felt my slippery fingers slide over his skin. The car was veering sharply, tires skidding. Slobbers swung his other hand and it cracked against the side of my face. But then we hit.
With the jarring impact was the sound of fenders and hood buckling, the shrill scream of metal sliding on metal, the crash and shock as we slammed into something, lurched, swung halfway around. My back banged into the rear of the front seat and my head snapped against it too, seeming to split open and fill with the wild crunching and grating noises around us. Slobbers body hit the seat ahead of him, his nose banging into its top.
I felt the car tilting over, too far over. It crashed down on its side, the side nearest my feet. My body lurched in the air, my legs hit something. I saw Slobbers body jerk near me, his head cracking against the doorframe.
Suddenly the car stopped moving. Everything was blurred before my eyes, but I was conscious. The car was on its side, Slobbers beneath me. I heard one of the cars wheels turning slowly with a low grinding noise. A piece of glass fell tinkling to the street.
I managed to pull my legs around in front of me. Then I bit at the tape on my wrists, got an edge of it caught between my teeth, started ripping it free. In less than a minute I had the tape off wrists and ankles, felt quickly over my body. Nothing was broken, but I’d picked up a couple more sore spots. Biff had bled enormously. But he wasn’t bleeding now. He was dead. In the dim light I could see the butt of a gun in a belt holster at his side. I grabbed the gun, a Colt .45 automatic, stuck it into my hip pocket and tried to stand. I made it, and with my feet on Slobbers unconscious form reached the door above me and forced it open. I waited a while, dizziness blurring perception, then hoisted myself up to the doorframe, swung my legs outside.
We had skidded into one of a row of eucalyptus trees off the right side of the road, bounced around and slammed over on the edge of the asphalt. The Lincolns hood was crumpled back and slanting up into the air. I dropped to the ground, the impact jarring my head. Pain lanced through my right shoulder where Biffs sap had struck it. I took a few shaky steps toward the trees, then started trotting forward into the darkness.
It was well into the next afternoon when I got out of a pickup truck in which I’d hitched a ride into Hollywood. I’d slept for a long time on the back seat of an old car in somebodys garage, awakened slowly and painfully like a man coming to in his casket. I’d washed at an outdoor water faucet, later cleaned up in a gas station rest room, and walked most of the stiffness out of my body before flagging the pickup truck.
Now I found a pay phone booth and flipped open the phone book. Under S I found what I was after: Scott, Sheldon, Spartan Apartment Hotel, the address on N. Rossmore and a phone number. There was also an office number and address in Los Angeles listed. I jotted both down, and caught a cab.
I walked up the Spartans cement steps and into the lobby, stopped at the desk. A young man behind it grinned at me, then frowned.
What happened to you, Shell? You look like you lost a fight.
I won.
He reached into a pigeonhole behind him and pulled out a key, handed it to me. It was for apartment number 212. I walked up the stairs, down a hall and stopped before 212; it was as if I’d never seen that door before. I put the key in the lock, turned it, then stepped inside.
On my left were three aquariums, brightly colored tropical fish cavorting in them. On the wall at my right was a yard-square painting of a sensationally shaped nude tomato. There were hassocks scattered on the yellow-gold carpet, a low coffee table before a squat brown divan, a deep leather chair nearby. The place looked comfortable, casual, pleasant.
I stood inside the door for several seconds, hoping something in the room would start a faint stirring of memory. But nothing happened. It gave me a queer, disoriented feeling. And then I heard a soft sound in the room farthest from me.
This was the living room. I could see into a kitchenette ahead of me and on my left. Beyond it a door was open before what was obviously the bedroom. I could see a black carpet, a low bed. The soft sound came again. I walked forward.
As I reached the bedroom door a girl came out through it. We almost bumped into each other. She saw me and started to jump aside, her mouth pulling open in
the beginning of a scream.
Hold it! I yelped. Its me — Shell. Relax, its all right.
Shell! she gasped. Her lovely face was pale with sudden shock. You — frightened me. I . . . She stopped, breathing heavily.
I was almost as startled as she was. What in blazes are you doing here? It was Loana.
That’s who it was. My Loana Kaleoha.
She put one hand to her throat, moistened her red lips. Shell . . . darling. You’ve got your memory back!
Fifteen
Im afraid not, I said. How did you get here? What are you doing here?
Color slowly came back into Loana’s beautiful face. She frowned slightly. What do you mean, you’re afraid not?
Im afraid I havent got my memory back. Not yet.
But you’re . . . here. In your apartment.
I know Im Shell Scott, but only because somebody told me. Hit me with the first clue, so to speak. The rest of its still . . . I stopped. Yeah, and I remember you told me I was Webley Alden.
The hand slowly came down from her throat, brushing the high, Jutting breasts. She wore a pale blue blouse and dark blue skirt, a cloth belt tight around her small waist. Her black hair was gathered in a thick mass at the back of her neck.
I know I told you that, Shell. But there at the Pele it was all so . . . strange, and sudden. I honestly thought you were fooling with me somehow. Well, I — she shrugged — I just went along with the gag. What I thought was a gag, anyway.
Loana, I had never been more serious than when I asked you to tell me who I was.
She smiled. Maybe you knew that, Shell. I didn’t. Wed been . . . together not long before, you know. And everything had been, well, fun and pleasant. I’d never met anybody who’d actually forgotten everything like that. I thought you were just being crazy. She smiled, the white teeth gleaming, dark eyes starting to smoke a little. At least they seemed to smoke a little. You’re kind of crazy, you know. And you left in a hurry. You do remember that, don’t you?
Dance with the Dead (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 16
