Dead Heat (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  I knocked at Eddy Sly’s door, went inside when he opened it.

  Two fingers were in splints and a white patch loomed over one bloodshot eye, but otherwise he looked normal. Which is to say, on the verge of collapse.

  He blinked through the bifocals at me. “What brings you back?”

  “I’ve got a check in my pocket to cover, at least in part, services rendered so far.” I slipped the check from my wallet and handed it to him. “And there’s one more job for you, Eddy, if you feel up to it.”

  He looked at the check, scratched his thin black hair, raised his eyebrows, lowered them. “Well, I don’t really feel up to it,” he said. He looked at the check again. “But I feel better than I did. What’s the job?”

  “Simple enough. I want you to tag a guy for me if you can. If you can’t make him, O.K., I’ll try another way.”

  “Just so I don’t have to get shot or strangled or anything unnecessary like that.”

  “We won’t let it happen unless it’s essential.”

  “You’re fun,” he said.

  Eddy and I went down to the lobby where I put in a call to the Spartan Apartment Hotel, which I call home, and got Dr. Paul Anson.

  “Hi, Paul,” I said. “Shell. I’ve got a medical question. Your usual fee?”

  “Indeed. Three Martinis. Shoot.”

  “What kind of doctor is a gynecologist? I know roughly, but give me the sharp picture.”

  “Well, first of all you mispronounced it, you imbecile. You might find it your way in dictionaries, but among gynecologists themselves — sometimes gynies, familiarly, as among nurses — it’s pronounced with a hard g and to rhyme with wine, not gyne, as in gyne-and-vermouth. That will be three Martinis, very light on the gyne.”

  “Try for six.”

  “A gynecologist, who is usually also an obstetrician — hence our unpronounceable abbreviation for them: obgyn — is a physician and often surgeon who specializes in the treatment of women and their diseases, their hygiene, the weird and baffling and at times wholly imaginary afflictions to which the fair sex is heir, and they are very heiry when it comes to weird and baffling — ”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  But he told me anyway. More, much more, than I had ever hoped to know. “Fine,” I said. “Fine; shut up! Look, I owe you a whole damned case of Martinis, O.K.?”

  “That’s the spirits. I knew psychology would work. But let me tell you one more little thing, which will simply ruin your life — ”

  I hung up on him.

  * * *

  We sat, Sick Eddy and I, in my Cadillac, at a spot from which we could watch the South Seas parking lot. I hadn’t been back inside the place, but Dr. Noble’s car was still there, so apparently he was still inside the club. I’d checked the registration slip in the Electra and it was made out to Fleming Noble, M.D., with a San Francisco address. Eddy sat on my right, holding a pair of my binoculars.

  About forty minutes after we’d taken up our position I saw them come out and walk toward the Electra — Doody first, followed by the tall, thin cat with the negligible mustache.

  “There they are,” I said. “Get with it, Eddy.”

  He was already peering through the binoculars. “Easy,” he said.

  “That’s the guy I want,” I told him. “Dr. Noble.”

  “Dr. Noble, hell. That is Dandy Dan Quick.”

  I grinned. “It figured. I kind of thought a gynecologist would know how to pronounce it. Now, Eddy, how thick is Dandy Dan with Scalzo?”

  “Very thin. No connection I know of.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Dandy’s been around Southern Cal a handful of years but I never heard of him messing with Scalzo. They’re different types, different kind of work. Could be. Maybe I just never heard nothing.”

  “Yeah. Well, he and Scalzo are at least acquainted. And they’ve known each other for some time. Unless . . . somebody’s conning me.” I glanced over at the Buick Electra again. “Incidentally, I don’t suppose you know the gal with Dandy, do you?”

  “No, but I wouldn’t mind. If I was healthier, that is. She’s almost too much for my constitution even from this distance. But that’s the kind he always uses.”

  “Uses? Uses how?”

  “Dandy’s one of the slickest con men this side of the slammer, but he’s a highly horny papa besides, and usually works grifts like twists on the badger game, or a knock-up con, or maybe a little polite blackmail if the mark writes suitable letters to Dandy’s roper — which is always a choice-looking bezark like that blonde there. Dandy could make it very large working the big con with top men, but he likes it his way, since like I said he is a highly horny papa. Plenty good men he could team up with, but he just don’t like working with men.”

  Dandy Dan Quick — Dr. Noble had driven out of the lot without, I was certain, spotting us. I started the Cad and pulled into the street after him.

  “Tell me more about the grift, Eddy.”

  Most of it I knew, but he filled me in.

  The con man is usually a consummate actor. He has to be because he plays many parts — doctor, lawyer, banker, stock broker, mining engineer, you name it. He gets your money by making you believe the unreal is real: that a race is fixed, say; that a stock is going up, when it isn’t, because if only you knew, you dear, there isn’t any stock; that all the yellow stuff he shows you from the Good Fortune Mine is gold, when it is realty yellow stuff. The con man is clever, convincing, well-informed, and through such dodges as the race and stock and gold and others he hypnotizes loaded people, and proceeds to unload them, often in such clever fashion that the mark never wakes up, never even knows he’s been dozing.

  The trick is to stick the hooks into him at first ever so gently; then a little more, a little more, a little more. At first the mark believes a little, then more, and finally conviction is absolute — just as intelligent people once were convinced that the earth was flat and if you looked over the edge and said oops you were gone. The trick is to start small and build big, acting the right part as you go along, playing on the mark’s hopes — and fears — and then, at the psychological moment, move in for the painless kill.

  Even though sometimes it isn’t really painless for the mark, it’s never painful for the con man. They feel no pain. They laugh and laugh and laugh, while they count your money. They’re happy sonsofbitches. And don’t say it couldn’t happen to you.

  A top-notch confidence artist is usually a lovely person on the surface, warm, charming, intelligent — but he’s got the grift in his eyes and larceny in his heart, and he speaks novocained words that go in your ears and paralyze your noodles. Add a woman to that and, man, it’s murder. The con man with the gentle touch can make you believe Disneyland is South Pasadena and you can buy it for ten bucks a month. Consequently, the good ones live very high — not on the hog, rather on prime beef, crêpes and caviar, and those little chickens called Malayan hens.

  When I asked Eddy what he’d meant by the “knock-up con” he said, “Well, Dandy Dan works a lot of variations on the basic bilk. That one’s when he has the bim roping for him locate the mark, and if the mark’s ready they manage to find a sack somewhere and toss around in it for a spell. After a couple months or so she ups to the mark and starts calling him Daddy.”

  “Uh-huh. And the sucker is probably married and has seventeen children.”

  And a large bank account. From that point you can work it north, south, or up. Maybe a cash payment, maybe dough for an abortion, maybe checks every month — choose your pick. Once the mark gets the convincer, and has spontaneously emptied his bladder, he is usually ready for about anything. Then Dandy works an out-and-out squeeze sometimes. Like if the mark is hooked and writes the lady letters saying, ‘I shall never forget those mad nights in the sack, which I shall always remember’ — like that, Dandy sells them back by the paragraph. Hell, Scott, there’s a hundred gimmicks, and Dandy Dan is a expert at all of them.”

  Dandy Dan was n
ow on Sunset again, and I was a block behind. It looked as if he was taking Doody home. I kind of hoped that if he started in with her, he would trip on the sill and break his mustache.

  A block before we reached the Lanai Apartments, where Doody had told me she lived, I turned off Sunset, U-turned, and then parked facing Sunset near the intersection. I sat there, impatiently watching Dandy’s car. When he finally came back to the Electra, only half an hour had dragged by. But it was a long half hour.

  I caught him in three blocks and it was a repeat of the earlier episode. He went straight to the Angeles-Sands. I double-parked, told Eddy to slide under the Cad’s wheel. Dan was stepping into the elevator as I entered the lobby. I walked briskly to the stairs and up them in a hurry.

  He was still in the third-floor hallway when I got up there. I watched him use a key and go into 308.

  In the lobby again, I stopped at the desk and said to the clerk, “Say, I just saw a man I think I know going into room 308. Would that be Mr. Angstrom?”

  He checked his cards and shook his head. “No . . . Quick, Daniel. Mr. and Mrs. Quick in 308.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Quick? You’re sure it isn’t Angstrom?”

  He smiled. He was sure. So was I. I thanked him and went out to the Cad.

  When I left Eddy in his room at the Gable I gave him another check.

  “You don’t need to give me no more loot, Scott,” he said, taking the check. He peeked at it and smiled. “Though it do help make up for the terrible risks we just took.”

  “Yeah, but you were very brave, Eddy. Seriously, friend, thanks. I think this was a profitable night.”

  “You and me both,” he said.

  I went to the door, amused by an idle thought. For at least an hour, Eddy hadn’t told me how painfully he was dying. He hadn’t even mentioned any new symptoms.

  But just as I opened the door he said to me, with an intent look on his face, “Scott, I was thinking.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What kind of doctor is that you were talking about? That gynerocerus or whatever you said — the kind Dandy isn’t.”

  “Gynecologist?”

  “That’s the baby. I was wondering, maybe I should get one to check my plumbing. I been having some queer rumblings and twinges — ”

  “Not,” I said, laughing, “queer enough.”

  “What’s so funny?”

  I didn’t tell him, but the thought helped cheer me on my way.

  * * *

  The Spartan Apartment Hotel is on North Rossmore in Hollywood, hard by the Wilshire Country Club. I went up to the second floor, down the hall to my rooms, and inside, turning on the small lamp just inside the door — the dim one that lets the fish get used to some illumination before I turn on the brighter overhead lights.

  The fish are inside the door, on the left as you enter my living room-bedroom-kitchenette-and-bath — a guppy aquarium and a community tank containing Panchax chaperi, Rasbora heteromorpha, several neons, mollies, and swords, and a few other varieties, including one splendid cornflower-blue Betta splendens, a particular prize not only because of the huge anal fin and rippling caudal, but because I hatched him myself from a wee egg. Yes, folks, I’m his mother.

  After feeding the fish and watching them dash and glitter for a minute or two, I beamed at Amelia, my colorful-as-guppies nude in her yard-square frame over the fake fireplace, then walked to the chocolate-brown divan, sat, and picked up the phone.

  It was not much after 1 a.m., so I called a bar where I’m known and ordered three dozen Martinis, mixed and poured into a jug, the jug to be delivered tomorrow, with one olive, to Dr. Paul Anson.

  Then I thought if it wasn’t so late, and if it wasn’t so likely I’d have a well-crammed day tomorrow, I’d make one more call. I’d call Carmen.

  But I steeled myself, sighed, got up, showered, and went to bed.

  Thoughts rolled and silently collided in my head.

  When I remembered Doody dancing, her nude-but-not-nude body swirling like smoke in blue light, I thought about Carmen again. But I pushed her out of my mind. I’m made of stem stuff.

  I rolled over, thinking. Man, if I didn’t have such a big day coming up tomorrow. If it wasn’t so late. Man. Waowoo. Woweewow.

  Hell, I might get killed tomorrow.

  I called Carmen.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Came the dawn.

  Like thunder.

  Like an enemy, creeping up on me.

  I opened my eyes, smacked my lips. “Bluh.”

  “Hey, Carmen,” I said.

  Boy, I felt awful.

  My head hurt, my knees hurt from falling on them, my chin hurt, and I guess you know what else hurt. Hell, I’d been shot in it.

  “Hey, Carmen.” No answer. Maybe she was dead. That made sense, since I was dead. We had both died in the night. But it seemed I could feel something moving in me, like cold molasses. My blood. There was life in the old boy yet.

  “Hey, Carmen.”

  I opened my eyes and rolled over. I couldn’t see a damn thing. Yeah, she was dead, all right; they’d come in and hauled her away.

  No, now I remembered. I remembered her leaving. Clearly, now, I could recall her saying, “Caramba! Ees that sonlight? Ai, Chihuahua, eet ees the son coming op! Madre de Dios! Shellscott, gardamn you, eet ees the son coming op!”

  “What’s coming op?”

  “The son!”

  “How do you spell that?”

  Zip, thump, swish, clatter — and she was gone.

  I was puzzled. If the sun had been coming up then, and was just coming up now, how long had I slept?

  Great. I remembered closing my eyes for a minute. Next thing was the alarm ringing. Yeah, I’d had some sleep. About a minute. Nothing like springing out of bed full of that old zip, hey? I sat up on the edge of the bed, and slowly fell backward.

  Well, now I knew how Eddy felt all the time. But there was no help for it. I had to get up. I made it. As I said before, I’m made of stern stuff. I got up on the edge of the bed again. Then I was on my feet. I was standing. There’s nothing a man can’t do if he puts his mind to it. That gar-damn Carmen, I thought. That miserable Carmen. Anger plopped in me. Fire flared in my loins. No, not in my loins. But new strength trickled into me somewhere. And I tottered forward bravely, into the bright new day.

  * * *

  When I’d parked next to Pete’s and walked back down Broadway to the Hamilton Building, I spotted the guy just inside the entrance, studying the building register. It’s one of those boards listing all the tenants and their room numbers, so constructed that with a minimum of effort the letters or numbers can be removed and new ones inserted. Like if I got killed at 2 p.m. today, by 2:05 the management could have my name off the board and another in its place. Which shows how gay I still was this morning.

  This guy wasn’t much over five feet tall, fat and about forty. He didn’t even glance around as I walked in. And that struck me as a bit odd. I went up the stairs, looked back at him. He was still studying the board.

  I went on up to my office. I sat behind my desk, pulled the Colt Special from under my coat, and held it out of sight below the desk’s edge, muzzle pointing toward the door.

  In half a minute the door opened and the little fat man came inside. He nodded at me, said, “Good morning,” and stepped toward the desk, reaching casually toward the left inside pocket of his coat.

  I raised my gun.

  He stopped, corners of his mouth pulling down and his eyes narrowing till they were almost shut. Then he said, “Easy, Scott. Easy.” He moved his hand slowly inside his coat and when it came out he was holding, not a gun, but a thin sheaf of green bills.

  I kept the gun on him, let him hear the click as I thumbed back the hammer.

  I still hadn’t said a word, and he licked his plump lips but slowly stepped closer. Then he dropped the bills on my desk and with a careful finger pushed them toward me over its mahogany surface.

  “Will you put th
at heat away?” he said. “It makes me nervous.”

  “It’s supposed to. Come on, what do you want?”

  “A friend of mine — and yours — says he knows you got to work to earn a living, and you’re on a job. Well, this loot is so you won’t have to work for a while. You can take a vacation.”

  “A kind old philanthropist, huh?”

  “What’s that?”

  “In this case, a loser.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  I eased the Colt’s hammer down and put the gun away, then picked up the money. There were fifty one-hundred-dollar bills.

  “Five G’s, huh?”

  “It’s a living.”

  “Our friend must be interested in making sure I take a good long vacation.”

  “Well, he doesn’t want you to get killed.”

  “Who is this friendly sonofabitch?”

  He scowled a little, but said, “Don’t be a jerk. I wouldn’t know. I’m only a messenger boy.”

  He knew. But he wouldn’t tell me unless I pulled off his ears or performed some equally painful operation on him, which I wasn’t going to do. But maybe I could find out who’d sent him anyway.

  I said, “There must have been ninety-nine guys who tried to buy me off at one time or another, and it’s never worked yet. I thought the word would be around by now.”

  “There’s always a first time.”

  “Wrong again.”

  “My friend would maybe up the ante. Maybe plenty. Don’t kid me, everybody’s got some kind of price — ”

  He stopped because I had spread the bills, then slowly torn them in half, which wasn’t easy. I slipped the top C-note from the bills without his noticing, then stacked the rest in a fairly neat pack and tossed them across the desk top.

  He stared at the bills, then at me. After a while he picked up the money, looked at it for several seconds, and finally shoved the wad into his coat pocket. He stood there a little longer, as if undecided what to do, then turned suddenly and went out.