Dance with the Dead (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  Yes. It was true that Loana hadn’t had much chance to make explanations once I started socking guys there in the Pele. And right after that I’d taken off, running like a fiend. Rather nasty suspicions had started swelling up in me a minute ago; but now the swelling was going down.

  I said, Who was that mugg I slugged there in the bar?

  I don’t know. All of a sudden you jumped up and hit him. There was a lot of noise, and people ran out after you. It didn’t seem like a good place to stay, and I left.

  I sighed. I didn’t mention it, Loana, but I am glad to see you. How about a drink? I could use one. I found some fifths of bourbon, and Coca-Cola in the kitchenette refrigerator. That was all right with Loana so I made two bourbon-and-Cokes and took them to the divan, sat next to her.

  We sipped our drinks and I said, How come you’re here?

  I . . . She hesitated. I didn’t know whether it was from confusion, or embarrassment, or because of some other reason. Finally she said, I had to come to Los Angeles. The Anniversary Party is tomorrow night. And I just wanted to see you. I — I thought you wanted to see me, too.

  I did, I do. My home is your home, stay as long as you like . . . what Anniversary Party?

  Why, Wow!s. She bit her lip. That’s right. I keep forgetting you — she smiled beautifully — keep forgetting. Never mind, that’s a long story, too. But I had to be here. All the Wow girls are supposed to be at the party tomorrow and that naturally includes me. She paused. I wanted to see you again. And of course I knew where you lived, so I came up here. She smiled at me warmly. Perhaps even hotly.

  And a grand idea that was, I said, moving closer to her on the divan. She slid a little sideways, an act which didn’t seem to match her smile. I said, Loana, this is Shell, remember? The fellow you came clear up here to see.

  I remember. She glanced at my clothes. You look as if you had a bad night.

  Shed hit it on the head that time. I was wrinkled and crumpled, I had to get cleaned up a bit, present a more dashing appearance. Right now I looked dashing enough, but as if I’d been dashed from cliffs upon rocks.

  But Loana was still smiling warmly — or hotly — so I said, I am about to take the fastest shower in the history of plumbing. Don’t even move — Ill be right back. Just sit there and think wild thoughts. Okay?

  She chuckled. All right, Shell.

  I raced around in two or three directions, but found the shower speedily. While hot and then cold streams of water beat against my skin I wondered what had happened to the men I’d left in that wrecked Lincoln last night. Biff was dead, for sure. But probably both Willie and dim-witted OBrien were very much alive. From that episode had come several bits I could check on, but the start toward clarity could come from Loana now that we both knew I wasn’t playing some kind of game. Of course, the way shed smiled, maybe she was ready for games.

  In the bedroom I chose a neatly checked brown sharkskin suit from clothing in the closet. The gun I’d taken from Biff was still in the pocket of my beat-up trousers, and I put the .45 on my dresser. I noticed then that the bedroom wasn’t very tidy. The bedclothes were in disarray, bureau drawers were open, and their contents jumbled. The place was quite a mess. It kind of disappointed me in me. I had assumed that I was neat.

  I dressed with great rapidity, then pranced beaming into the living room. Loana, my sweet, I said. Hows that for speed? And Im now as good as new . . . Loana?

  She was gone.

  I got the .45 automatic from the bedroom dresser, made sure the magazine was full, shoved the gun into my hip pocket and called a cab. While waiting I looked at the three aquariums.

  In two of them were a couple dozen varieties of colorful little tropical fish. The third tank contained only two fish, but they were the most vivid and striking of the lot, with a brilliant red streak extending from about the middle of the body back to the transparent tail, and bordering the red above and extending forward into the eye, an almost electrically luminous blue-green line. They were beautiful.

  There was a box of fish food handy — Salmon Meal was printed on it — and I sprinkled some in the water, watched the fish for a couple of minutes. Then I noticed something in the feathery green grass — like stuff on the tanks bottom. I had to lean close and squint in order to find it again. Some little bits of colorless things were in the grass. Once in a while one waggled a bit. They were so tiny I could barely see them. Some kind of wee bug, I supposed.

  Inside the entrance of the Hamilton Building in downtown Los Angeles, on a large plaque against the wall, the office occupants were listed. My name was there. I went up one flight and down the hall, found my office. I started to unlock the door with a key I’d found at my apartment, but the door moved ajar. It had been forced; inside, the wood was splintered where the lock had torn out.

  I went in, dosed the door behind me. The office had obviously been searched. At my right was a bookcase, an aquarium containing more bright little fish on its top. But most of the books were out of the case, in a jumbled pile on the carpet. Drawers were open in filing cabinets against the far wall. Papers were strewn on the mahogany desk and its drawers were open too.

  There didn’t appear to have been any vandalism, or wreckage for the sake of wreckage. No papers torn up or leaves ripped from books. Somebody who knew what he was looking for had gone over everything in the place. Either he hadn’t found what he was after, or he’d found it at the very last. Because when a guy finds what hes searching for, he stops searching. And nothing had been missed in here.

  I fed the fish some Powdered Shrimp that was on the bookcase, then sat down behind my desk. My desk. This was my office. I was a detective — presumably capable of solving problems. Well, I sure as hell had some problems. Maybe I didn’t know much about them, and everything prior to the Banyan Tree episode was blank; but I remembered all that had happened since then. It was a start.

  I rummaged through the desk, found a pencil and blank sheet of paper. At first I merely listed the names of the people I’d run into or heard about during the nearly three days and nights since my flight from the Market Place in Waikiki. I played around with names for a few minutes, not getting anywhere, then I wrote down, Webley Alden.

  And something happened. In the cells of my brain, in my consciousness — or maybe only in the subconscious part of me, something stirred. It was a weird, not-quite-frightening sensation, as though an immaterial, intangible breath whispered over some minute convolution of my brain.

  I waited. But that was all. Only the indescribable awareness, the knowledge that something had happened — or almost happened. I sat in the chair unmoving, straining mentally to grip whatever it was, but that was all of it, and it was gone. As sometimes a name will hang on the edge of thought, never quite dropping into consciousness, and then even the almost-awareness of it will disappear.

  I relaxed, slumped against the back of my chair. Not until then did I realize I had been holding my body rigid, the muscles taut, and that I was bathed with perspiration. It had soaked through my shirt, and the white cloth felt cold and a little clammy against my skin.

  I lit a cigarette, smoked half of it, then went back to what I’d been doing. Soon the sheet of paper was filled and I rummaged through the stuff on my desk looking for more. Beneath some typewritten pages were several sheets folded in half and I unfolded them, glanced at the first one. There was pen-and-ink writing on it. The name Webley Alden jumped out at me from the top of the page.

  Seeing it then, after what had just happened, gave me a physical shock. I started to read. Slowly excitement built up in me. I glanced from the four pages in my hand to the sheet on which I had just been writing. The handwriting was the same, my own. The conclusion seemed inescapable that on these four pages I had, days ago, done precisely what I’d been doing for the past few minutes: jotting down facts, salient points, thoughts and conclusions about a case. Obviously it had been writt
en before the Banyan Tree, and — the most important item — it looked like the same case.

  When I’d read all four pages I was sure of it. There were many of the same names, plus others which meant nothing to me now. There was mention of Webley Alden, of Hawaii and his marriage. Ed Grey’s name was there, and I learned as if for the first time that he ran the Algiers in Las Vegas and owned the Pele in Honolulu. And more, a lot more.

  And I got up and walked around the desk shaking my aching head. What in hell kind of affair had I gotten myself into? Man, I thought, no matter what else might have gone on during those dear dead days, they must then have been dear indeed and not at all dead. Fannies? Freckles? Wow Girls? Blackie, Raven, Jeannette, Charlie?

  I sat down, read through the notes again, then tried to line it all up in my mind: The Before part, or as much of it as I’d just read; the After part, which I’d lived and remembered; with the Banyan Tree in the middle. For more than an hour I sat at my desk, making a brief note once in a while, but mainly just running the threads through my mind, trying to sew the separate parts together. The ashtray was filled with cigarettes, and I was a little tired when I finally stood up and stretched, but I felt very good indeed.

  Because I thought I knew the answers now. Enough of them, anyway. And I knew what to do in order to get the rest of them. It wasn’t going to be easy. And it would be dangerous; perhaps fatal. But, if nothing else, I knew it would be interesting.

  I felt charged up, exhilarated. Hell, I thought, I might get killed, but it was worth a try.

  Who lives forever?

  Sixteen

  Back at the Spartan Apartment Hotel, I was trotting up the stairs to my rooms when a tall, sort of rangy guy on the way down slapped me on the shoulder.

  Aloha, Shell, he said cheerfully. Glad to see you back. And where are my hula skirts?

  I blinked at him. Your what?

  Don’t tell me you forgot the damn things.

  Slowly I said, My friend, I forgot a hell of a lot more than that.

  We spent a minute talking on the stairs, then walked up to his apartment — only a couple of doors from my own — and went over it some more there. I found out he was Dr. Paul Anson, a very good friend of mine. I told him most of what had happened to me in these last three days, and it was quiet for a minute or two after I’d finished.

  Finally I said, Anyhow, Paul, when I fell out of that miserable tree I was hanging onto a hula skirt. So I must have bought the things for you. As to when and where, well, it has slipped my mind.

  He looked at me, smoking a cigarette, the smoke curling lazily up from his nostrils. Before that its all blank?

  As if my mind had slipped my mind. You’re the doctor, Paul. Give.

  He stubbed out his cigarette. Well, Im not a psychiatrist. But my practice is about half pills, half psychiatry. And for years I’ve been interested in the brain, as you know. He grinned. Knew, I mean.

  So? What put me into this particular pickle? And how come I remember nothing about me — but practically everything else? Does that put me in a class by myself? At the foot of the class, maybe?

  Not at all. He crossed his long legs, clasped his hands around one knee. Nothing about the brain surprises me much any more. In spite of the enormous amount of work done on the brain, we still know only a 0 fraction of what there is to know. Its mostly unexplored territory, Unknown on the mental map. Consider: in the average brain there are at least ten billion living cells. Approximately four times the number of people alive on this earth. Somehow — we don’t know how — those cells and groups of cells store information, collate it, receive and transmit messages, allow us to see, feel, act, speak — and remember.

  You don’t have to ease the blow, Paul.

  He grinned. Don’t get into a sweat. Amnesia can be caused by brain damage, sure. But also by shock, fever, emotional states, drugs, pressure on the brain, a lot of things.

  And how many of those items are . . . reversible? I lit a cigarette myself, needing it. This may not be much of a brain, but its the only one I have.

  Not . . . exactly, Shell. You can throw away much of your brain and never miss it.

  That’s a hell of a thing to say about my brain.

  Not just your brain. He chuckled. Everyone elses, too. In many cases much of the frontal and temporal lobes of the sub-dominant part of the brain has been surgically removed without apparent loss of any normal function of the patient.

  I looked at him silently for a while. Aside from the fact that I havent any idea what you just said, are you trying in this ghoulish fashion to cheer me up?

  Well, its the truth. Of course I say without apparent loss. There may be interference or loss we cant detect. If so, its part of that Unknown area I mentioned. He paused. You’re right-handed, so the opposite lobe, or left one — the dominant lobe — controls your conscious life.

  I must have given my left hunk a good smack, then.

  Something happened to it. But my point is that a good part of everybodys brain, including yours, is like a spare. If theres malfunction in the, call it vital half, often the spare takes over the job, learns it, performs it as well as the original lobe once did.

  I thought about that. Sure, fine. If the cells that wiggle my ears go kaput, I can teach the other side of my head to let me wiggle my ears. But memory — I cant live two or three dozen years over again. How old am I, anyway?

  Thirty. Well, its reasonable to assume your amnesia was caused by a blow. Maybe theres simply some pressure on the brain, concussion, a small pool or clot of blood against cell groups or nerve pathways, a bone chip pressing. If so, theres an excellent chance a simple operation will remove the pressure. Presto, welcome back.

  Or?

  Face it, Shell. He was sober. If theres true brain damage, cells destroyed, that’s it. After were about a year old we don’t grow any new brain cells; and the brain cant repair itself like skin or bone. He dragged on a new cigarette, not looking at me. Then he added, But don’t forget that’s the worst angle of them all. Could be this is merely due, in whole or part, to emotional, or psychological if you like, stress or trauma, conversion hysteria. Could be a lot of things.

  Yeah. But how come all that’s missing is the thirty years of Shell Scott? And all the rest is — or seems to be anyhow — still up there.

  That’s the easiest part. Often people who havent been in an accident of any kind are found wandering around in a strange, to them, city. They don’t know who they are, where they came from — like you. But the rest is intact, they eat, talk, know how to read and so forth. Consider: all the words you can speak are stored in a little area of the brain called Brocas Convolution. A separate bit of the brain stores all the words you hear. Another all the words you read, and so on. If you learn to read, write, speak, and understand the spoken words of a foreign language, four separate areas of the brain store each of those separate segments of your knowledge, or experience. If the brain cells governing your ability to read that foreign language were destroyed or damaged or even anesthetized, and only those cells, you could still speak that language, write it, and understand it when it was spoken. Similarly, theres a little area of the brain which is developed by each of your ten fingers, by the whole hand, the arm — and so on. O. K. to here?

  I guess so.

  Consider it all from the opposite angle, then, the one important to you. A brain surgeon knows the area of the brain which controls, for example, movement of your right foot. If because of brain damage you became unable to use your right foot, the surgeon — simply because of his knowledge, even before examining you — could come close to pinpointing the area in your left hemisphere where the damage must have occurred. That’s half the battle. The rest is to repair the damage.

  Interesting. But this repair bit . . . even if he knows where the trouble is, he has to — get inside there.

  Of course — if the dama
ge is organic.

  So hes got to sort of hack away and haul things about and . . . oh-h. It sounded perfectly ghastly.

  Paul laughed. Its not quite like blasting, my friend.

  Well, what is it like, then? I really wanted to know. I could see fang-toothed saws whirring, hammers falling, crowbars prying at my giant brain. But I told myself it couldn’t be that bad, probably it was very delicate stuff.

  Well, X-rays of the skull at first, Paul said. That didn’t sound bad. Spinal tap, electroencephalogram — or brain-wave — chart, possibly a pneumo-encephalogram or arterogram, and after that —

  Stop!

  What?

  Don’t tell me any more. That’s — that’s murder!

  He shook his head, smiling. He could smile. You have the usual laymans misunderstanding of technical terms —

  Horror is the word. They all sound like diseases.

  Shell, sit down. That’s better. Relax. Sit down. Now, its very simple. A pneumo-encephalogram is simply a means by which brain shadows of the cavities and sulci can be made to show up in X-rays. We merely take out a little spinal fluid —

  No, we don’t.

  — and in its place inject air into the spine. Its extremely interesting. The air goes up the spinal column into the brain and all in and around the . . . Shell . . . are you ill?

  No, I feel . . . swell.

  I thought I was making you feel better. After all, you asked me.

  Yeah, I havent got a lick of sense.

  Look, Shell, from your description of the way you’ve acted these past days, I’d guess that at least part of your trouble, maybe even most of it, is — well, psychic rather than physical. So it really may not be so bad. Dr. Bohrmann at the County Hospital is a good friend of mine, and hes one of the best brain men in the country. Paul stood up. He can give you all the answers, and I’d say Bohrmanns the man for you to see. Ill give him a ring now and get you over there —