Dead Heat (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  “Tangier’s daughter?”

  “Yes, Julie Tangier. A young girl whose brilliance equals her father’s, I would say. And beautiful as well, a striking red-haired creature with all the feminine endowments, in addition to a remarkably keen brain.”

  “What did she tell him?”

  “Mr. Kay did not specify.”

  “Well, if she told Kay, maybe she’d tell me. Where is she now?”

  “I presume she is still at the Watson-Parker Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard. That is where I talked to her.”

  “When was this?”

  “Approximately a month ago, slightly more, perhaps. When Mr. Tangier was arrested, his daughter was out of the country, in Europe I believe. Apparently she didn’t learn of her father’s difficulty until long after he’d been arrested, and then she flew straight to Los Angeles. Subsequent to my last interview with Mr. Tangier I went to the Watson-Parker, where he told me she was staying, and talked to her. She, of course, had no evidence that could help her father, and merely insisted he couldn’t possibly be guilty. I was greatly impressed by both of them.” Rothstein fell silent, running an index finger down the bridge of his nose.

  I said, “You say Kay had come around to thinking Tangier was innocent. Had he tagged anybody be thought was guilty?”

  “No, at least he did not so report to me. We know, of course, that Mr. Tangier thought his friend, Mr. Wyndham, was the responsible person. That’s a strange thing, however.”

  “How?”

  “Mr. Wyndham is a millionaire. Why would he embezzle a paltry seventy-six thousand dollars?”

  “Why indeed? But wouldn’t the same reasoning apply to Tangier?”

  “To some extent, yes. His net worth is approximately two hundred thousand dollars exclusive of — I repeat, exclusive of — his sixty thousand shares of stock in the company. Mr. Wyndham’s wife is herself quite wealthy, and Matthew Wyndham, when the firm was incorporated nearly ten years ago, provided nearly all of the original capital. Mr. Tangier’s contribution was, essentially, his brain. Which, I assure you, could be worth many millions of dollars to Universal Electronics. And possibly to me.” He plucked at the point of his nose. “I have no answers, Mr. Scott. I merely give you what facts are in my possession. I want you to provide the answers.” He looked at me and smiled. “Will you?”

  “I’ll give it a good try.” I thought a minute. “About Axel Scalzo, Mr. Rothstein. I’ve never heard of his being interested in stocks or the market. So naturally I’m curious that his name would crop up here. Do you know of any connection between him and Ryder Tangier?”

  “No.”

  “How about the president of the company, this Matthew Wyndham?”

  Rothstein shook his head. “No, I have been unable to uncover any evidence that Mr. Scalzo even knows of the existence of Mr. Tangier or Mr. Wyndham — or anyone else associated with UE. On the surface, at least, Mr. Scalzo is simply a man who has purchased a sizable amount of Universal Electronics stock. I suspect others may also be buying UE stock for him, so it won’t appear in his name, but stock that he could vote.”

  “How’s that?”

  “The annual stockholders’ meeting of the company is scheduled for Monday. Three days from now. There is this . . . index of urgency, I might say. But I don’t wish this to unnecessarily accelerate your investigation, or lead you to take unnecessary risks. At Monday’s stockholders’ meeting the new board of directors will be elected. Or re-elected. Should Mr. Scalzo control, directly or indirectly, a sufficient number of shares, he might be able to elect a director or two.” He sighed. “However, I don’t intend for you to worry about that, Mr. Scott. I certainly don’t expect you to accomplish all I ask by Monday.”

  I grunted. “Kay knocked off yesterday. Stockholders’ meeting this coming Monday. You’re hiring me today — ”

  “Yes,” he interrupted, nodding. “Events do seem to be moving toward a focus, don’t they?”

  “Or a boil,” I said.

  In the next few minutes Rothstein covered some incidental points and gave me his card, which bore only his name and two phone numbers. He explained that he was seldom in his office after 3 or 4 p.m., and the card listed the number for his office and also his home in the San Fernando Valley. I stuck the card in my wallet and was ready to go.

  Almost ready. When we discussed my fee, Rothstein smiled oddly, reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Holding it in two fingers he said, “I have been informed that your usual fee, for an investigation of this nature is a hundred dollars a day.”

  “Plus unusual expenses. Right.”

  He handed me the paper. “This is what I intend to pay you, Mr. Scott. This and only this. Whether your investigation requires a day — or a year — of your time. And you must give me your solemn word that you will complete the investigation, without fanfare, especially without involving me, if possible.”

  This guy kept hooking me. With real interest, I unfolded the heavy rectangle of intricately engraved paper and saw the figures “1000” in the upper corners. “This,” I said, “is the damndest thousand-dollar bill I ever saw.”

  “It is much more than that, Mr. Scott. Or much less. I have signed the certificate on its back and — while eventually it will have to be sent to the company’s transfer agent and be reissued — it is now in your name. You own one thousand shares of common stock in Universal Electronics, Incorporated. You are now a part owner of the company.”

  I started getting it.

  He went on, “At this moment the stock certificate in your hand is worth approximately three thousand, six hundred and twenty-five dollars. If your investigation requires a month, you will receive slightly better than one hundred dollars a day. But if you should complete the job in a week . . .”

  He smiled.

  I smiled. “And if I should operate like a madman and not get killed and free all the slaves and wrap this up in the next forty minutes . . .”

  “Precisely.” He was enjoying himself. “You would be earning whatever you’re really worth.”

  He waited. Waited as if expecting me to say something else. And for about three seconds I had no idea what it could be — and then it smacked me all at once, like simultaneous hot and cold showers. “Hey, this goddamn thing could be worth — hell, approximately twenty bucks if — ”

  “Precisely,” he said again, playing happily with his beak. “Should Mr. Tangier in fact be guilty, or should you fail to prove his innocence, or for any other combination of reasons should the company founder or fail, it is quite possible that the stock will soon be worth even less than it is today. It might eventually reach a value of — nothing.”

  I glowered at him. “Great That’s all I need. Nothing. And a hole in my head for laughs. Great — ”

  “On the other hand, consider this. If all that I hope comes to pass, and if the future of Universal Electronics is as bright as I visualize it, the stock might in time climb to twenty, forty, it could even split, climb to forty again. . . . It is entirely possible that your thousand UE shares will eventually be worth, oh, let’s say fifty thousand dollars.”

  Wow, I thought. Fifty G’s. Not bad for a couple days’ work. Money floated before my eyes. Visions of sugarplums danced in my head. In all three primary colors. Blonde, brunette, and redhead.

  “We have an agreement, Mr. Scott?” he asked.

  “We do. And you are a monster, Mr. Rothstein. You do not want me needled by any sense of urgency. Not much, you don’t.”

  He laughed, thunderously.

  I looked at the stock certificate in my hand, getting a whole new feeling about this case. What I did in the next few days, or even hours, might very well have a great deal to do with what that hunk of paper would eventually be worth. It slowly sank into my noodle: I was indeed a part owner of Universal Electronics. I was now vitally interested in whether its products were good or bad, whether it succeeded or failed, in the management of the company, Matthew Wyndham among others,
and of course Ryder Tangier — and I hadn’t met a damned one of them yet. And if Scalzo was, in some complicated fashion, trying to muscle in on UE, why, the s.o.b. was trying to muscle into my company.

  I looked at Rothstein and said slowly, “You know, you’re pretty good.”

  He smiled.

  I grinned at him and said, “Well, we’ve got a deal. And I like it this way.”

  He grinned back. “I thought you would.”

  He walked with me to the door. With the door open, I paused for a last word.

  “I just thought of something else,” I said. “I know there’s all the time in the world. No hurry, nothing like that. And I shouldn’t stick my neck out, of course. But I’ll bet it wouldn’t actually displease you if somehow, even if I got killed doing it, I managed to tie everything up in a ribbon before Monday. Before that annual stockholders’ meeting.”

  “It is gratifying, Mr. Scott,” he said, “that you do in time become aware of the obvious.”

  We grinned at each other again, and I left.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  For a while I just sat in the Cad, smoking a cigarette and lining up what Rothstein had told me.

  There were four separate hunks to chew on, it seemed to me. First and of prime importance was the embezzlement, the theft from Universal Electronics and the guilt or innocence of UE’s brainy backbone, Ryder Tangier. Next was the question — just in case Tangier was innocent — of the guilty party’s identity, whether that party was Matthew Wyndham or somebody else intimately associated with UE. Then there was Axel Scalzo, and what skulduggery — if any — he might be up to. And, finally, the murder of John Kay.

  There might be no connection at all among those chunks; or there might be among them two or more pieces of the same puzzle. If puzzle there was.

  If Ryder Tangier had in truth swiped the loot and legitimately gone to the sneezer, then that was it, period. No point in checking on Wyndham or anybody else at UE. Scalzo was just playing the market. Kay had been knocked off by Aunt Suzie. But if he hadn’t . . . I got busy.

  * * *

  From the police I learned that John Kay had been shot in the back with a .38, the gun held against his coat and the bullet severing his spine. It had happened during or after the running of the seventh race, on the ground level in front of the grandstand, near the rail, only a few yards from the gate leading into — or out from — the Clubhouse. That area, almost directly opposite the finish line, is generally the most crowded spot at the track, especially during and at the end of a race. There must have been thousands of people milling around when it happened, but nobody had been found who’d heard a shot or noticed anything unusual.

  The police had located a man named Murphy, with whom Kay had keen sitting, but he said he’d never met Kay until that day. Kay had asked if he could share Murphy’s box, and Murphy, alone and glad to have company, had agreed. He’d gone to place a bet on the seventh race and when he returned to his box Kay was gone. He didn’t see him again, and hadn’t even known Kay was dead until the police questioned him. Murphy was a solid citizen, married, respectable, and the police didn’t doubt his story. There were no leads, no clues, just a bullet in Kay’s back.

  As far as the police and the D.A.’s office were concerned, Ryder Tangier had been guilty as hell and the verdict a just one. He’d had no defense except denial, and the police had no real reason to suspect Matthew Wyndham or anybody else in the company.

  I got a transcript of the trial, but merely thumbed through it; there was no time to read it then, and the D.A.’s office had given me the salient facts, anyway. Among the meager testimony given in Ryder Tangier’s behalf, had been, perhaps surprisingly, testimony from Matthew Wyndham’s personal secretary, a Miss Alice Brandt. Her appearance had been as a character witness, and her personal opinion about what “a nice, honest man” Tangier was clearly hadn’t impressed the jury. Despite the fact that — according to police friends of mine — she was a “damned good-looking blonde,” built like a brick brick-factory.

  John Kay had been head of a six-man agency, “O.K. Investigators,” but the other members of his staff couldn’t help me; they didn’t know what he’d done on the day of, or the day previous to, his murder. And they didn’t have the faintest idea why he’d been at the race track. Kay had been unmarried, lived alone; no help there.

  I hired one of the big L.A. agencies to do a fast check on all of the Universal Electronics directors and key personnel, routine that would take too much time for me to handle alone. Matthew Wyndham I meant to check out myself. Then I drove to the Watson-Parker.

  It was a big white hotel on Wilshire, plush and expensive, its dining room one of the most popular spots in town among those who didn’t mind paying four dollars for a hamburger. At the desk I asked for Julie Tangier.

  The desk clerk, a short, pleasant-faced man, seemed a bit uneasy as he said, “Miss Tangier is not in, sir.”

  “Oh?” In a big hotel, the desk clerks rarely know all the guests, and whether they’re in or out of their rooms — at least not without checking first. But the answer had been on the tip of his tongue. I said, “Well, what’s her room number? I’ll call or come back later.”

  He glanced past me and nodded.

  In a moment a second man joined us. “Hello, Scott. What you want?” Then to the desk clerk, “It’s O.K., I know him.”

  The second man was a middle-aged red-faced guy, a former policeman named McCoy, now “public relations coordinator” for the Watson-Parker. In other words, the house detective.

  “Hi, McCoy,” I said. “What’s the mystery? I merely asked to see Julie Tangier.”

  He shrugged. “First of this month she pays a month in advance on her suite — five hundred and fifty bucks. She was around a day or two, I’m not sure how long, then she’s just not around any more.”

  “She checked out?”

  “No, she didn’t check out. Like I said, she’s just not around any more. What’d you want with her, Scott?”

  “Just a talk. What the hell? She take her stuff? You know, clothes and — ”

  “Not a thing, far as I can tell. Clothes, bags, makeup, like lipsticks and all, they’re still in the rooms. Everything’s there but Miss Tangier.”

  “O.K. if I take a look?”

  “Sure. Come on.”

  He went with me up to a corner suite. I looked around, but it didn’t do me any good. There were a lot of expensive clothes, ten pairs of high-heeled shoes, the usual feminine things, including makeup. Everything but Julie.

  When I left, I asked McCoy to let me know if she showed, thanked him, and said next time I was by I’d bring along a jug of bourbon.

  “Make it Johnny Walker Red,” he said. “I’m drinking Scotch these nights.”

  I told him it was a deal and went out.

  * * *

  I’d phoned half a dozen of my “underworld” informants earlier in the day, and now I was looking for Sick Eddy Sly. He’d fallen twice for burglary, once from Sacramento and once from LA., and done two jolts in San Quentin. Since the last bit he’d been out for four years, always “on the verge of imminent dyin’” to hear him tell it.

  Eddy knew practically every thief, grifter, and heavy man in Southern California, and was one of the most valuable sources of info I had. A year ago I’d been hired by a man whose home safe had been torched and emptied of forty thousand clams in cash. I turned up the thief without leaving my office by phoning Eddy Sly and asking him if he knew who’d pulled the heist. The police picked the thief up with the loot, and I gave Eddy my five-hundred-buck fee, more as an investment in the future than as payment for service rendered. As a result, Eddy was always anxious to tell me more.

  I found him in his room at the Gable Hotel. Still sleeping, at four in the afternoon. He let me in when I knocked, mumbled something unintelligible, then plodded barefoot back over the carpet to his mussed bed and slumped down on it. He was wearing shorts and a cotton undershirt with a hole in it, and did not loo
k like Charles Atlas.

  He was called Sick Eddy because about three-fourths of his conversation was devoted to descriptions of his real or imaginary ailments. He was a hypochondriac’s hypochondriac, but he sure didn’t look well. His complexion was the shade of sick oysters, his eyes were perpetually bloodshot, and he was so skinny he must have had a thin skeleton. All in all, he looked like Dracula in daylight. He was forty-eight years old, about five-six, with sparse black hair streaked with gray on his narrow head, and a brown mole on his long upper lip.

  “Oo-oh,” he groaned. “Waowoo.” He shook his head, smacked his lips. “Think I got athaletes’ foot in my mouth.” He got up and thumped to a washbasin visible through the open bathroom door. He took a slug from a bottle of Old Crow, gargled noisily, swallowed with the sound of water going down a bathtub drain, then came back and sat on the bed again.

  “That killed the little athaletes,” he said morosely. Silence.

  “Sheldon,” he said finally, aiming the red eyes at me, “the private fuzz. What the hell. What brings you calling on this fine day? Or night. What is it?”

  “Four p.m. How you feeling, Eddy?” It was a question I had to ask him. He’d never forgive me if I didn’t ask.

  He smiled slightly, cherishing his agony. “What kind of question is that?” he said. “Same as usual — worse than usual.” He peered around the room. “Where you at?”

  I found his bifocals on a bedside table and handed them to him. He put them on, saying, “Don’t make no difference. My eyes is so bad I can’t see my glasses.” He burped, lovingly. “Man, I got more gas than Standard Oil. What you want, Scott?”

  “I guess you heard about John Kay getting hit yesterday.”

  Eddy nodded. “Yeah, he got pooped at Hollypark, didn’t he?”

  “Right. Any rumbles about it?”

  “None reached me. You’re curious about who knocked him down, huh?”