Dead-Bang

by Richard S. Prather

  “I’m twenty-five. Twenty-six in two months.”

  “Uh-huh. And thirty in four years. By then I’ll be thirty-four, over the hill. Well, go lock yourself in, dear.”

  “No—I said I was sorry. I won’t … won’t act like that again.” She’d already straightened up and dropped her arms. She moistened her lips, then walked across the room to a teal-blue divan and sat down. “You can sit down if you’d like, Mr. Scott. Please.”

  “Not just yet. You sit and listen—closely. Last night two men fired some shots, presumably at Pastor Lemming, actually at you, shortly after the services ended. A few hours earlier the same two men forced other individuals, whom I needn’t name, into a car in the church parking lot. While one of those individuals and one of the two gunmen were still standing outside the car, a girl drove into the lot, parked, and ran toward the church. As she passed these men, she waved to one of them.”

  Regina’s eyes were wide again. I paced toward the door, and back, restless. “When you and I were talking to Pastor Lemming last night, you apologized to him for being late. We’ll ignore how sweet he was about your tardiness. More important, I’d guess you were just about the last member of the congregation to arrive. Which is to say, the girl in the parking lot.”

  “Yes,” she said softly, curiously. “I was terribly late. And I remember the car, some people—I waved at Pastor Strang. He’s one of the Church officials, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know. Did you get a look at the other man, the one standing near Strang?”

  “Well, yes. I didn’t pay much attention.”

  “Describe him. If you can. Anything at all.”

  “He did look right at me, I remember—I really got only a glimpse of him. Let’s see, he was … shorter than you, and quite a bit slimmer. Dark. That’s all. Oh, I think his hair was lighter, almost white, right at the middle of his forehead. Like maybe it was gray there.” She shook her head, the thick roasted-chestnut hair bouncing. “That’s all.”

  “It’s enough. It’s why he, and his buddy, tried to kill you.” She took a deep breath and I heard it sigh from her mouth. “Regina,” I said, “can I tell you something in confidence? I mean, that you won’t repeat to anyone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not even to Pastor Lemming? Especially not to him?”

  “Not even.…” She was silent for a few seconds. “All right.”

  “O.K. That man you saw, and his buddy, plus a third man they met after leaving the church lot, last night killed André Strang. After you’d seen them together. They murdered—”

  She gasped, lifted one hand to her throat.

  I went on, “murdered him, in a very cruel and cold-blooded manner. Strang’s body hasn’t been found yet, but those hard boys know when it is found and reported, the girl who waved to André will certainly recall waving to him, and very likely remember the man who was with him. Remember that other man well enough to describe him, maybe later identify him. So they also know, if everything’s to be kept tidy, they have to kill that girl. They knew it last night—when they tried to do it, and missed. They still know it. And maybe next time they won’t miss.”

  Regina looked pale. She bit her lower lip, then said, “I can’t believe anyone would want to kill me. Besides, Pastor Lemming said the shots were at him. And if he said it—”

  “Yeah, if he said it, it must be true. If he says roosters lay eggs, hens will start crowing in the morning. If he says the sun rises in the west, from now on we march north to go south. Will you please get rid of the idea that Lemming is the repository of all knowledge and start using your own head for a change?”

  “I—I can’t believe it. Even if it was true, what could I do?”

  “Exactly what I came here to help you do. Get out of this apartment, hole up somewhere else for a day or two. Look, a friend of mine named Hal Prince has a cabin, more of a summer palace, actually, about fifteen miles from L.A. It’s not far, but you’d think you were in Canada. Leave here with me, right now, and I’ll drive you there. It’s isolated, but very comfortable, and you’ll be safe while the police, and I, try to run down those two—”

  “Leave? With you?”

  She was starting to bug me again. “Why not?” I asked icily. “I’ll bet even Jack the Ripper had a good side. Who knows? Maybe he was a dear, sweet boy except for his little problem—” I cut it off.

  “Make up your mind, Regina. I’ve given it to you straight, but you’ll have to decide what you’re going to do. I parked out front on Flower—probably shouldn’t have, but I was in a hurry—and I checked everything I could see in the area. I didn’t spot anything unusual, I’ll admit, but there’s an alley across the street, a service station next to it, an apartment house and half a dozen other places where men might squat if they wanted to stake this place out and wait for you to show.” I paused. “I’ll bet you haven’t been out of your apartment this morning, right?”

  “No.… I haven’t.”

  “If you had, I might have gotten here too late.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating, Mr. Scott.”

  “Yeah, I do it all the time. I’m just trying to send you into shock, so I can drink some blood out of your neck. The hell with it, get a wiggle on and leave here with me right now, or you stay and I’ll leave. Believe it or not, I’ve got a couple other things to do.”

  Regina was still a little pale, but she didn’t say anything. I started to pace the floor again, and apparently Regina had now become as restless as I, because she stood up, tugged absentmindedly at the bottom of her pink sweater, then started walking back and forth, arms behind her and one hand clutching her other wrist.

  It was not a pose she would have adopted unless greatly preoccupied with her thoughts, and certainly not with a sixteen-year-old lad in the same room, much less one such as I. Because, with her arms stretched behind her and shoulders pulled back, her breasts seemed to rise like plump birds and begin pecking at the pink sweater, which was itself pulled back even more tightly against her flesh, molding and cupping and even appearing to the observant eye, which is what I had a couple of, to become thinner, a garment fashioned less for concealment than decoration. And also because the little force she’d expended in tugging her sweater down was entirely wasted, since other and greater forces tugged it right back up. And kept on tugging, animated by her movement. One thing about this gal, it was difficult to stay bugged with her for very long.

  There is a time to pace and a time not to pace, and this was Regina’s time. So I stopped and waited for her to reach a decision. And I didn’t care how long it took.

  After about half a minute she stopped and looked at me, one smooth eyebrow raised. “How do I know Pastor Strang is dead?”

  “Hell, I just told you.… Oh. Maybe I fibbed a little? How do you know I’m not making it up? How do you know he was bound and gagged and looked like an accident in a wax museum and that there was maybe half a barrel of his blood on the floor? Because that’s the way it was, Regina. You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

  She walked slowly to the divan and sat down again, shaking her head, and I knew before she spoke I’d lost the argument. “But I couldn’t just leave, Mr. Scott. Not today—especially not today. All the Church members must be at the services tonight. Why, it’s tonight that our Sainted Pastor—”

  “Yeah. I know all about it. Everyone does. Even on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, the natives are waiting for drums to bring Festus’ words up the mountain.”

  It wasn’t the right touch. Her sweet lips turned somewhat sour, and she said, “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. I want to be there, and it’s my duty to be there. Besides, even if all you say is true …” She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, or probably somewhere beyond. “… the Lord will protect me.”

  I looked at the ceiling myself, then the wall, then at Regina. “O.K. Then you certainly don’t need me or the police or the cavalry—please keep in mind what I’ve told you, though, and be careful. Good luck, and go
od-bye.” I paused after opening the door, but she didn’t try to stop me, so I went out.

  I walked past the door from which the small man had eyeballed me through his glasses, past one other apartment, and on to Flower Street. In a way, I couldn’t blame Regina. We hadn’t gotten into the specifics of what Lemming might have said about me last night, but there was no question that it wouldn’t have made me sound like Saint Shell, and opposed to the pronunciamentos of Pastor Festus were only my wild-sounding statements and warnings, unsupported by anything but my word.

  Besides, I was thinking, it could be I’d laid it on too heavily, that I was wrong. Maybe Regina wasn’t really in any danger—

  Maybe she wasn’t, not just yet, but I was.

  I shouldn’t have been woolgathering, wondering about her reaction, I should have been thinking of what I’d told her. Of the gas station, apartments, and the half-dozen places where men might be staked out, waiting. Including the alley right across the street from the Canterbury’s entrance, which had been the first spot I’d mentioned to her, the most likely spot, I’d thought. Thought correctly.

  Because that’s where the shots came from.

  15

  I’d just reached the sidewalk on Flower when the sharp flat crack of the first gunshot banged against my ears and yanked my wandering thoughts back from Regina to the here and now. To the cement beneath my feet, bright summer sunlight pouring down on me, and a bullet snapping past my head.

  Ten feet on my left was my Cad, parked at the curb, another car was on my right, and there was blurred movement in that alley across the street. I didn’t look toward the movement, not then. My leg was already swinging, and I just let it swing on out in one fast step, slammed my foot against the cement, and shoved, diving toward my Cadillac as another shot cracked out. I heard the slug split the air behind me, where I’d been half a second before.

  I hit the sidewalk inches from the Cad and then slammed against its right front fender, and it was like being swatted by half a dozen guys swinging baseball bats. My head bounced from the metal with a thunk, but before and during that noise both outside and inside my skull there were the sounds of several more shots, half of them the deeper and heavier boom of a .45-caliber handgun. Three or four bullets hit the far side of the car like steel rain.

  I pulled my legs up, scrunched down behind the car, got my feet beneath me, and pushed against the hot cement with my left hand, grabbing under my coat for the .38. I was on my haunches and starting to straighten up, groggy and with a dull pain swelling and fluttering in my head, when I heard a car’s engine catch and roar.

  I stood erect, took a step to my right, and could see the back of a dark blue sedan in the alley. It wasn’t in motion yet, but as I took two more quick steps over the sidewalk and thumbed back the Colt’s hammer, I saw a big heavy-shouldered man climbing in the car’s right side and slamming the door as it jerked forward. The tires spun and squealed as the sedan picked up speed, started roaring away down the alley. I leveled the gun, but a car moving from my right to left on Flower Street was almost directly in front of me, and I held my fire, eased the Colt’s hammer down, and shoved the gun back into its holster.

  Then I scrambled into the Cad and grabbed the phone to put in a fast call to the police complaint board. By the time I realized one of those slugs had knocked out my mobile phone, though I didn’t hunt around to discover what had been hit but merely swore colorfully for a few seconds, I knew the men would be long gone. Men, plural, one driving and the other jumping inside as the car started to move, I hadn’t gotten a good look at the car, but I knew it was a dark blue sedan and that was enough.

  I turned the ignition key—simply to make sure the Cad would start—then cut the engine, ran back to Regina’s door, and banged on it.

  Inside, she squeaked something and I said, “Shell Scott. Let me in.”

  Clink of chain, clink of another chain, scrape of key in lock. I drummed on the wood with my fingertips and let air bubble past my lips. When the door opened I stepped inside, closed the door, leaned against it. Regina had backed away, of course, but only about half as far as before. If things kept improving at this rate, one of these days she’d let me walk inside and bump right into her. Sure, she would.

  “I’ll bet it’s easier to sneak into the sultan’s harem blowing a bugle,” I said. “O.K., get whatever you want to take with you and let’s go. You should know, now, I wasn’t kidding. I suppose you heard the noise?”

  “Yes, I—was it … guns? It sounded like … guns.”

  “Beautiful. That’s what it was. Two guys were shooting at me from the alley—remember my mentioning the alley, Regina?—across the street. But either they were lousy shots or I moved so fast it made them dizzy. I know it made me dizzy.” I shook my head. I was still a little dizzy.

  “It wasn’t just you?”

  “No. Oh, I had a gun, but I merely waved it around in the air a little. It was the two bad men I told you about, they made all the noise.… What do you mean, just me?”

  She didn’t say. She was looking me up and down—I was a bit scraped in several places—and then she actually walked toward me. She raised her arm and tapped my left shoulder with a finger. “Is that … is that from a bullet?”

  I craned my head around, pulled at the shoulder of my once gorgeous cashmere jacket. There was a slice in the canary yellow cloth where one of those slugs—undoubtedly the first one—had burned through the fabric.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t realize it was that close. O.K. if I use your phone?”

  I dialed Central Homicide, saying to Regina, “Those two dandies must have been staked out near here for a while. They weren’t in the alley when I arrived, but it’s eight to five they saw me then. If so, they didn’t shoot at me then because, while obviously they feel killing me is a keen idea, they were waiting for you. If you’d left with me, they’d have tried to gun down both of us. When I came out alone they must have figured half a loaf was better than none.”

  An officer answered the phone, and I asked him to put the captain of Central Homicide on. In the few seconds before Samson answered I said, “They missed me, Regina. But I have been shot at before, and when I hear that unmistakable noise I automatically move like an electrocuted gazelle. Most people, I mean like innocent citizens, pretty girls, say, usually get quite still if they are shot at and missed. First they think, ‘Was that a gunshot? Isn’t that funny?’ And, ‘Could somebody have been shooting at me? But, why? What did I do?’ You get the idea. I hope. Anyhow, I’ll still take you to that cabin if you want to go.”

  At the other end of the line Sam growled, “Homicide, Samson.”

  “Shell here, Sam. I hope you’re in a better moo—”

  “You, huh?” He wasn’t in a better mood. “I thought I told you to keep in touch?”

  “That’s what I’m doing. Sam, old buddy, you didn’t say every hour on the hour—”

  “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for an hour. Where you at?”

  “Well, right now I’m at the Canterbury. But not for long—”

  “I wanted to let you know we found your bodies.”

  “My bodies?”

  “Strang and the one you shot.”

  “Where?”

  “Shallow grave in an acre of onions just outside of Weilton, about two miles from the house on Fifty-seventh. Kid out walking with his girl last night saw a car pull up there, couple men carrying something. Decided to report it after he got up this morning. The press already has the story.”

  “That last part’s not so good, maybe.”

  “No maybe about it. Some of the reporters jumped on Strang’s connection with Lemming like they’d seen the light themselves. Natural enough, after Lemming’s various announcements last night. And the shots at him. And your splendid performance at his Church. Don’t you think?”

  “Well.… You know reporters, Sam—”

  “Yeah. I just got through talking to one, from the Hollywood Informer. He wan
ted to know, in view of all the facts as he put it, why I, your very close friend as he put it, hadn’t arrested you on suspicion.”

  “Suspicion of what?”

  “My impression was, everything.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, except for destroying Sodom and Gomorrah I’ve been a good boy. Ah … that, and one other little thing.”

  I paused. I was going to tell him, but the timing was very important, considering not only Sam’s mood but the reportorial pressure he was undoubtedly being subjected to, and the timing wasn’t quite right yet. So I went on, “Any lead to who the other guy is, Sam? The one I plugged?”

  “Yeah, made him fifteen minutes ago. Local muscle named Monk Cody—not a real monk, by the way.”

  “I’d guessed it. If he was, it would fill me with marvelous suspicions.”

  “Full handle, Arvin Foster Cody. Got the monicker ‘Monk’ when his girl found out he was shacking with two other women and shot one of his nuts off. No connection so far between him and anyone answering the descriptions of the other men involved—no lead to them at all. Lab boys haven’t come up with anything helpful about Strang’s condition, except they never saw a guy so anemic. Hold it a second.”

  I heard Sam’s voice get softer as he spoke to someone in his office or the squad room, and the indistinct mumble as another man replied, then Sam’s voice much louder. “What? Where?”

  I had a hunch. “Sam,” I said, “I’ve got something to tell you. Sam?”

  There was a little more roaring and then Samson said, ominously, into the phone, “Shell, where did you say you were?”

  “Ah, there you are, Sam. I was trying to tell you something—where’d you go? I was about to—”

  “The Canterbury, was it? That’s on Flower, right?”

  “Yeah, I was about to explain—”

  “Would you believe we just got a report of a shooting there? Several gunshots, right here in my peaceful city. As far as I know, there have not yet been reports of innocent citizens killed or wounded, but we can expect the worst, can’t we? If you were involved, that is. You were involved, I suppose?”