When I went back into my apartment. Spree was standing before the two fish tanks. I joined her as she said delightedly, “They're just beautiful. Shell. What's that one?"
So I told her, and we chatted about tropical fishes for a minute. Then I said, “It was Kay Denver in the lobby, all right. Waiting to get a look at you, I'd guess—but I've no idea why. So I'm going to make another call or two."
Ten minutes later I hung up the phone. Of my two contacts at the phone company, the first one hit the bull's-eye for me. A two-minute long-distance call had been made from the Spartan's lobby phone at 8:16 a.m. The call was to a business number, a company called Exposé, Inc. I got the address, and the phone number, but didn't place a call. Whatever Exposé was, I intended to check it out in person. The address was on North Hayden Road in Scottsdale, Arizona.
I did, however, make one last call to Arizona, to Bentley X. Worthington. I filled him in, told him my companion and I would see him this evening—no time specified—and asked him to wait in his office till we got there.
I had already packed a suitcase, so I went into the bedroom, strapped on my gun harness, pressed my Colt .38 Special into the clamshell holster, then put on an off-white sport coat. When I sat down at the end of my couch again, Spree joined me. I thought it was nice that she sat down only a foot away, instead of at the far end. I looked at her for a moment, still marveling. I always felt like smiling when I saw that face. Maybe because Spree smiled so often herself.
I said, “We'll drive to your apartment, then stop at the Dorchester. After that, to LAX and on to Phoenix. You'll see your father an hour or two after we get there."
“Did he ask about me when you were talking on the phone?"
“Yes, wanted to know how you were, said he was—anxious."
“But he didn't ask to talk to me, did he?"
“No."
“I think that's a little ... odd."
“So do I."
“And that beautiful woman in the lobby. I wonder what it means."
“I don't know, Spree. Maybe nothing."
I was silent for a few seconds, thinking of all those women who had called Hazel, and had even shown up here at the Spartan, in response to that little ad of mine. After my years in this business, knowing some people would kill for an amount of money so small it was almost a debt, I should have expected that. That and a good deal more. Because we were talking about a lot of money, several million bucks.
“Maybe nothing. Spree,” I repeated. “But ... maybe it means the fun's over."
* * * *
Spree drove her sleek Chevy Corvette back to her apartment building in Monterey Park, and I followed her in my Cadillac. She left her car in the underground lot, packed one large suitcase plus a smaller overnighter, then joined me for a late lunch at a nearby cafe. By 4 p.m. she was seated next to me in the Cad as we rolled up Wilshire Boulevard.
At the Dorchester Arms, I offered the bell captain twenty bucks, bargained shrewdly, settled for fifty. That came to twenty-five singles for each minute I spent inside Kay Denver's still-empty suite. One minute would have been enough. I checked the shower, bedroom, bed, all the rooms. There wasn't a single place in the suite where any of those nude photos of Kay could have been taken.
It cost me nothing to confirm that Miss Denver had checked out at 8:55 this morning, and that she had reserved her suite by telephone on Monday afternoon and registered, or checked in, three hours and twenty minutes later, at 7:15 that night. This was Wednesday. Kay had “lived at the Dorchester” for slightly less than thirty-eight hours.
Before we were halfway to L.A. International Airport, I knew the black Pontiac Grand Am was on our tail. I edged over into the Freeway's right-hand lane, slowed to forty-five miles an hour, rolled down the window on my side, then pulled out the Colt .38, held it in my lap.
“Shell,” Spree said. “Is that a gun?"
“It's a gun. Don't let it bother you."
“How am I supposed to do that? I hate guns."
“I'm probably being overly cautious. Spree. But I figure that's better than not being cautious enough."
The Grand Am wouldn't pass me. It pulled over into the right-hand lane also, but stayed well behind my Cad. I said to Spree, “I may be driving a fraction over the speed limit for a mile or two. Depends."
“How ... much is a fraction?"
“Whatever it takes."
I eased into the next off-ramp and slowed almost to a stop. The only other car within a quarter of a mile, in the far right lane with me, was the black Pontiac sedan. I left the decision up to them, knowing they couldn't actually park the damned thing behind my Cad. The driver elected not to pull in behind me, but instead roared by in the far left lane going about sixty miles an hour and accelerating. Two guys in the car, both in the front seat of the sedan. That was all I could tell from the brief glimpse of them I got.
I swung off the freeway, then right back up the adjacent on-ramp as Spree asked, “What was that all about?"
“I thought a car might be tagging along behind us. Could be my imagination."
“Why would anybody be following us?"
“I wish I knew. It's probably nothing."
Our flight was a Western Air Lines 737 departing LAX at 6:08 pm, arriving at Sky Harbor in Phoenix an hour and ten minutes later. But because California was still on daylight saving time and Arizona was not, it would be only 6:18 in Phoenix, or about sunset, when we landed.
By 5:30 I'd found a place in the lot for those parking a full day or longer, locked the Cad, and got our luggage from the trunk. Then I walked with Spree toward the Western Air Lines terminal.
And that's when I saw the black Grand Am again.
We were in the lined crosswalk, moving from the parking area toward the terminal, when I spotted that familiar Pontiac sedan about twenty yards away on the right, coming our way. Two men in it, driver and one guy next to him, both of them gawking around like teenage drama students on their first visit to the Big Apple, which is why I never did get a good look at them. Because the driver spotted us at the same time, or maybe half a second sooner—with my size, white hair and brows, I'm not easy to miss, and neither is Spree—and all I saw was the driver's mouth moving just before his big hand went up and covered most of his face.
We waited while they went past us as speedily as they could move in the traffic, guy on the right looking away from us toward the terminal, driver rubbing his face as though it itched severely.
Spree knew something had happened. She looked up at me, toward the car moving along at a pretty good clip by then, and back at my face. But she didn't say anything.
* * * *
Spree hurried through the security checkpoint ahead of me—we were running a little late and there were only about ten minutes left before takeoff—and I had actually started to zip heedlessly after her when I stopped suddenly, thumped the palm of one hand against my forehead, backed up, stepped out of line, let a stout lady carrying a small suitcase go through ahead of me. Through the little passageway that guides you past the magnetometer. The magnetometer that detects any stray chunks of metal you may have secreted upon your person. Like, say, a Colt .38 Special with a two-inch barrel and six cartridges in its cylinder. Like that.
I caught Spree's eye, wiggled a hand at her, and when she joined me again, looking puzzled, I said, “I goofed. I'm still carrying my heat."
“Heat? What's your heat—?"
“Shh.” I put my mouth close to her ear and whispered, “My thirty-eight, my gun. Since we've already checked our bags, I'll have to leave my little Colt—"
“Oh, good. I told you, I hate guns—"
“Acck—shhh!” My mouth was still near her ear. Not that the position of my mouth was helping me much. “Don't say anything, dear, just listen. No, just wait here—I'll explain later. Be right back."
Then I sprinted for the nearest bank of lockers. Later I could explain to Spree that if I had cleverly packed the Colt in my luggage, in a hard case
, with the cartridges in another package separate from the gun, and declared it, and gotten permission from the airline, then I could have shipped the Colt to Arizona. And that I had not done any of those things.
I stuck two quarters in the slot, put my Colt Special in the locker along with a five-dollar bill in case I was gone more than a day or two, slammed the door and took my key, and sprinted back to Spree.
We made it aboard with at least a minute to spare. I fastened my seat belt and tried to relax, thinking that although I was still wearing my gun harness there was no Colt Special in it. But I didn't really feel naked without it. Not at all. I merely felt as if I'd come aboard without my pants.
By the time the “Fasten Seat Belt” and “No Smoking” signs came on during the approach to Sky Harbor, I had spoken to all four of the female flight attendants, and found one who'd worked a Monday afternoon flight from Phoenix to Los Angeles. The flight had left Sky Harbor at 1:35 p.m. and arrived at LAX at 3:45 L.A. time.
The timing struck me as pretty good. I knew Kay Denver had phoned the Dorchester Arms and reserved her suite at about 3:55 Monday afternoon, and I was thinking that she just might have been calling from the airport. But the young and bubbly flight attendant drew a blank when I described Kay.
As we fastened our seat belts, Spree gave me a blinding smile and asked sweetly if I was making dates with all four of the young ladies. So, naturally, I had to tell her what I'd been doing.
Spree said, “Why do you think she could have been on that flight? Just because of the timing?"
“Not entirely. There wasn't any point in burdening you with the info before now, but while she was in the Spartan's lobby—just before you arrived—she made a phone call to Scottsdale, Arizona. And I remembered..."
Once again, I had almost put my foot squarely into my mouth. What I had started to say was that learning Kay had called Scottsdale triggered memory of where I'd heard the name “Goldwater's,” which was on the tag inside Kay's black suit jacket. It was a large and luxurious department store at the corner of Camelback and Scottsdale roads in the heart of downtown Scottsdale.
Having cleverly not finished that virtual confession to Spree, I could not think of how to get cleverly out of the situation, so my last words sort of hung in the air, faintly echoing, “remembered ... embered ... ered..."
“Remembered what?” Spree asked.
“I ... don't remember. Ah—but, anyway, the flight attendant couldn't remember seeing her, although I described her—” I stopped. No way out of it. “I described her with the keen eye of a trained investigator. Because, of course, I knew—know—the lady, I have seen her, and therefore know what she looks like..."
“Of course. You described her to the stewardess?"
“Yes. But she couldn't remember—"
“How did you describe her?"
“How? Why, with the keen—"
“No, Shell, I mean—describe her for me."
I did, stating that she was about twenty-five or -six years old, possibly twenty-seven, tall and slim, with a good figure, dark hair done like a professional wig, very attractive, with dark eyes and very interesting lips, et cetera.
“Et cetera?"
“Well, I was just—compressing it."
Spree gazed straight ahead, chewing on the corner of her mouth for five or six seconds, then she said to me, “Call her over here for a minute, will you?"
“Call Millie?"
“Whoever the pretty little stewardess is."
“That's Mil—she told me her name was Millie."
Spree nodded, and as Millie happened to be walking by our row of seats at the time, I crooked a finger at her and she stopped.
Spree leaned toward her, smiled beauteously, explained that Mr. Scott—a thumb indicated me—was trying to find out if a Kay Denver had been on her Monday flight.
“Yes,” Millie said, nodding. “He already described her, but I couldn't recall—"
“Let me describe her for you, all right?"
“Sure. Sometimes men get things a little twisted. Even wrong.’”
“Don't they?"
They were smiling at each other like old chums having an ecstatic reunion. This continued while Spree said, “She's about five-nine, maybe five-ten, nice figure except she's quite hippy, hair is dyed black. She's probably over thirty, maybe thirty-one—"
“No, no—” I started, but only started. Both of them glared me into silence. “What'd I do?” I asked. But nobody was listening.
“Quite beautiful, but very hard-looking, you know?” Millie knew. While she nodded. Spree continued, “Almost the look of a high-priced, very high-priced call girl.” She went on for another few seconds, describing somebody totally different from Kay Denver, or anybody else I had seen lately.
But for some reason Millie said, “Sure, that's her. Now I remember.” She pointed to a seat several rows ahead of us. “There's where she was sitting. I talked to her a couple of times. And her name was Kay. But not Denver. It was Kay Dark."
“Thanks, dear."
They shared some secret joy for another second or two, then Millie went on down the aisle and Spree said to me, “Dark. Kay Dark. Isn't that interesting?"
“Yeah. Fascinating. How did you do that?"
“Do what?"
I shook my head. “Never mind. I don't want to know."
* * * *
After we picked up our three pieces of luggage. Spree walked with me to the VOS RentaDrive—VOS being short for Valley of the Sun—with whom I'd arranged for a rental car at the same time I'd made flight reservations. They had only two Cadillacs available, and I'd arranged for the use of one of them.
But at the desk I canceled the request for a Cadillac and chose instead a year-old Chrysler Laser sedan. The young man behind the VOS counter looked about twenty years old, but he was efficient, with sharp eyes.
“Has anybody asked here if I reserved one of your cars?” I said. “The name's Scott. Shell Scott."
He shook his head. “Not me, sir."
“Anyone else? Besides you?"
“Well, maybe Jeannie.” He glanced toward a girl ten feet away, stacking several white cards together. “Just a minute."
He spoke to her briefly, came back. “Yes, sir. A man, about forty, tall, mustached. She doesn't remember anything else about him. Just remembers that much because he said he was meeting you, and asked which car was yours."
“I suppose she told him it was the Cadillac?"
“Yes ... Is anything wrong? I hope—"
“No problem.” I smiled. “Just a chap who wants to surprise me. And thank you very much."
I found out where the Cadillac was parked. It was thirty yards from the Chrysler that Spree and I got into. I drove clear around the lot so that I could pass the Cadillac with it on my left, near my open window.
Not far from that Cad I'd originally arranged to rent were two guys who couldn't yet know I'd switched to another car. So they perhaps should not have been able to recognize my face—particularly since both of them were doing most of their eyeballing toward the Caddy. But they made me. Both of them. And there was no doubt about it. In fact, their reaction told me for sure they were the lads hoping to “meet” Shell Scott. And, very likely, meet Spree.
The taller of the two was about six-three or so, lean, wearing whipcord pants, a beige western-style jacket with brown trim, a dark brown shirt, and a bola tie around his neck; he was about forty, with dark hair and bushy dark brows, a bristly black mustache. The other man was smaller, maybe five-nine and thin, approximately my age, wearing dark gray slacks, a pearl-gray open-necked sport shirt, and a lightweight white cloth jacket. He was a good-looking black man with arched brows that probably gave him an almost constant expression of surprise. But what was most remarkable about the men was how stupendously surprised both of them looked when they lamped me, and how wide and staring all four of their eyes instantly became.
Five minutes later, when I was sure there was no tail on us—which I
hadn't expected there would be, since those lobs had been afoot when I'd startled them—I said to Spree, “Time to bring you up to date, I think."
“I think so, too."
“I didn't want to alarm you unnecessarily before. But it's no longer unnecessary. There was definitely a tail on us—two guys following us in a car—when we were driving to LAX. And now two guys here, at this end, waiting to pick us up. So we know for sure that somebody—somebody with a long reach, a lot of pull, muscle—is very damned interested in you. You, Spree, not me; I'm an incidental character at this point."
“But why? Just because I'm here to see my father again, and sign those papers?"
“That's got to be part of it. Maybe all of it. We just don't know enough of the why yet. We'll know more when we see Worthington.” I paused. “If we get there."
Maybe that was an extreme statement of our position. But I didn't want Spree thinking this was a lark, getting complacent, not being aware of what our position might be. I honestly, now, thought Spree might be in danger.
Leaving the airport, I had taken the 24th Street exit north to Van Buren and there turned left toward downtown Phoenix, heading for Central Avenue.
“Those two men here...” Spree said hesitantly. “They were just—watching, weren't they? Maybe they weren't even looking for us."
“Dammit, no more wishful thinking from now on, OK? The tall cowboy asked for me at the VOS desk, remember? But you're right, they were just watching—and that's what bothers me. I think they expected to take us right there at the Cadillac. If they were planning a tail they would already have been in their own car, ready to follow us. Damn, I wish I had my gun. I wish you had a gun."
“Don't say that! Shell, I told you, I hate guns and violence, men being brutal, and hitting each other, and ... It's stupid, just stupid! Violence never solves anything—"
I interrupted her. And maybe my tone was sharper than it should have been. But her attitude was typical of the innocent. And it's usually the innocent who get taken. Or killed. I said, “Lady, I'll give you eight to five the next frog you kiss won't turn into a handsome prince with a marshmallow castle no matter how much you'd like to believe it—"
Shellshock (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 12
