Dead Heat (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  It stuck him pretty good. At least his teeth came apart. I waited for his answer, but there could be only one answer. If he had known who Noble really was, he certainly would not have introduced him to me at the Beverly Club as Dr. Noble, nor would he have so innocently informed me that the doctor’s office was in the Western Insurance Building. He’d thought he was telling me the innocuous truth.

  Finally Wyndham said, “Not a doctor?”

  I said, “He is one of the slickest confidence men in the state of California, at least, and among his fellow felons he is known as Dandy Dan Quick.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Prepare yourself,” I said. “Because you’re going to see the impossible.”

  * * *

  We parked in front of the Angeles-Sands and went inside as fast as I could force Wyndham to move.

  There was reason for hurry. There were sirens warbling all over the place. Wyndham had dressed with speed and we’d driven through town in his big black Cadillac, he at the wheel and the back seat occupied only by me, me and my empty gun. On our drive it became evident that the police were still busy. I was popular tonight; I was really wanted. But nobody had better try stopping me now, I thought. Not this close.

  We went up to the third floor in the elevator, down the hall to 308, and knocked.

  Footsteps. The door opened. It wasn’t Dandy Dan, but Mrs. Quick, the Bikini-bottom blonde with the supercharged top. This time she was wearing a robe that hid everything below her face.

  But it was her face at the moment that counted. She looked at Matthew Wyndham, past him to me, then at Wyndham again. She shrugged, sighed, then said to Wyndham:

  “Hello, you fat old bastard.”

  “My God,” he said. “My God!” And fainted dead away.

  “Well, Ardis,” I said, “you could at least help me drag him in. The jig, as they say, is up.”

  She let the robe fall open. “Couldn’t we talk this over — ”

  I laughed. “Not a chance, baby. So turn off the heat. You’re dead.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Wyndham lay on a couch with his mouth open, still out. Ardis — actually the real Mrs. Dan Quick, if you’re interested in these insights into the criminal character — sat beside me on a divan. Dan was out in some bar somewhere, she said. I didn’t much care if he was or not; I didn’t really need him now.

  Mrs. Quick — Ardis to me — knowing she had been irrevocably stabbed, was spilling all without restraint. She knew it would soon come from Wyndham anyway.

  She told me how, working for Axel Scalzo, she and Dan had slowly and expertly built the con around Wyndham, wound him up tight, bled him for money; how after her “death” the fake Dr. Noble had further bled him, in order to get the hooks in deeper and deeper, and then “turned him over” to Scalzo.

  “Matt didn’t even let out a peep,” she said. “Dan could have turned him over to Lassie and he’d have started barking.”

  “So at that point Wyndham thought only Scalzo and Dan knew about his sinful relations with you, right?” She nodded and I said, “I suppose Dan visited Wyndham in his office this week because John Kay had started nosing around?”

  “Yes, Kay hit Matt’s office last Friday and scared him half to death. When Matt told Axel about it over the weekend, all shook up, Axel had Dan drop in on him a couple times to cool him down, keep him in line. You know, remind him of dear dead Ardis and so on.”

  She didn’t know for sure, but I figured Kay must have told Wyndham he was working for Gabriel Rothstein. There’d been no murder at that time, and thus less reason for secrecy and caution. Which would explain why hoods had been watching Rothstein’s office — especially after Kay was killed.

  “How did you make Wyndham believe you were dead?” I asked her.

  “By that time he would have believed Scrooge was Santa Claus. We had him so tight we could have sent him to Alaska for ice cubes. I just stretched out on a slab, naked, and he took one gawk and started blubbering. ‘Ardis, dear Ardis, she’s gone, I’ve killed her.’ And things you wouldn’t believe.”

  “I’d believe them.” I pulled an ear. That was one thing I could rub without starting blood flowing again. “What I can’t believe is that your breasts were cold when he touched you.”

  “Thanks lots,” she said without conviction. “Dan rubbed me with ice. It even made me look deader. I damn near froze.” She shook her bead. “You know. Matt grabbed one and I thought he was going to pull it off. ‘dead!’ he yells. I just about came to life right then, and that would have fixed it. It was like getting tickled in church. I almost busted to keep from laughing.”

  “Yeah, hilarious,” I said.

  And right then Matthew Wyndham stirred, sat up, and looked at Ardis Ames, his risen love, with ashes in his eyes. Slowly his chest heaved from his labored breathing. He stared. Then he got to his feet, walked to her, and dropped to his knees. He took one of her hands in both of his, felt the warm flesh, and looked up at her face.

  “Ardis,” he said. “Ardis. Thank God.”

  Ardis Ames — Mrs. Dandy Dan Quick — looked at me and jabbed a thumb at Wyndham. “Get him,” she said.

  Yes, that’s the way it is with con men — and women.

  They’re usually lovely people, charming, intelligent, quick to laughter — with tongues of gold-plated brass and the conscience of hell’s harlots. They can take your money, and break your heart, and laugh, and laugh, and laugh. While they count your money. Oh, they laugh a lot, all right. They’re happy sonsofbitches.

  We sat in silence, each of us with our individual thoughts. After a minute or two I said to Wyndham, “I suppose you’ll tell me now. Right, Mr. Wyndham?”

  He nodded briskly. Strange, maybe, but he looked almost happy. “Yes, Mr. Scott, I’ll tell it all.”

  And with that I prepared to face the music.

  So I called the cops, and they arrived very soon. You wouldn’t believe how soon. . . .

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Of course, they had to put me in jail.

  It was only for three days, but I guess I was lucky it wasn’t life. Actually, it wasn’t the slammer, but the prison ward of General Hospital. And, frankly, I didn’t mind at all.

  They estimated that of the approximately six quarts of blood in a human body, I had lost, through spurting and seepage and various other ingenious means, no less than eight gallons. That’s what they said, but they were probably joshing me a bit.

  On the third day, Gabriel Rothstein visited me in the hospital ward and he was a man renewed, revitalized, rejuvenated. I guess when he was feeling good he talked a little louder than usual, and while his voice didn’t actually chip plaster, it brought patients back from the edge of the next world, which is pretty far away. He was happy for many reasons — one of which was that he was making money. After all, there’s nothing wrong with making lots and lots of money; it’s all in how you make it. See: Axel Scalzo, Wyndham, Dandy Dan and Mrs. Quick.

  Universal Electronics stock had moved a point higher on the American Exchange Monday morning. Each day since then it had climbed upward, and when it was official that Ryder Tangier — proved innocent by Wyndham’s detailed confession — was being released from San Quentin and would return to UE, his remarkable noodle teeming with genius-type inventions and products and projects, the stock took a spurt that made even me start thinking of yachts.

  Rothstein happily offered me more stock, more money, which I refused. I did, however, accept his offer to pay any unusual expenses which I had incurred in the course of my investigation. He was delighted to do it, but no more delighted than I, since some of those expenses were unusually unusual. He settled happily with everybody, including citizens whose cars or property had been stolen or scraped, such as cops.

  The annual stockholders’ meeting, held on Monday, must have been dandy. I wasn’t there, but Rothstein was and told me about it. By then the news was all over town that “gangsters and hoodlums” had been boring
into the company and trying to win control of UE.

  That, of course, had been Axel Scalzo’s design from the beginning, why he’d used Mr. and Mrs. Dandy Dan to get his hooks into UE’s president, why he’d been buying stock himself and through fronts. Scalzo hadn’t anticipated Wyndham’s stealing — to conceal from his own wife, and their joint accounts, the fact that he was being bled for thousands — but crooks, whether gambling for pennies or millions, always make some kind of mistake, and Scalzo had made several.

  At any rate, it was thought for a while that the stockholders’ meeting might have to be held in the L.A. Coliseum, but they finally found a hall big enough to seat the gang that showed up. The story was told, and after some confusion, the share owners went away convinced UE’s future was now brighter than ever. Gabriel Rothstein himself told them so — and that I wish I could have heard.

  So the score was:

  Dead: Axel Scalzo, Hale, Deke, Luke, Foster.

  Jailed: Matthew Wyndham, Dandy Dan, Mrs. Quick, miscellaneous hoods and connivers.

  Freed: Ryder Tangier.

  Richer: Gabriel Rothstein.

  Wiser: Mrs. Matthew Wyndham, among others.

  Still Sick: Eddy Sly.

  Pooped: Me.

  And that was about it. No, I haven’t forgotten Julie Tangier. I haven’t forgotten Doody. Forgotten? Me?

  It was a week after Thunder Boy had won the seventh race — the one we hadn’t bet on, when I’d finally picked a a winner. Another Saturday. Or, rather, Saturday night. I was no longer pooped. On the contrary, I was full of beans. Feeling great. As for my wounds and bullet holes, there were still a few twinges, but, as you may have suspected, I heal fast.

  So Doody and I had gone out amongst ’em, out on the town. She’d had the glad reunion with her father, Ryder Tangier; all the duties were done, and it was one of those nights when everything’s right, when you’re really glad to be alive. We’d eaten at an expensive restaurant where the headwaiter kidnaped the tables and held them for ransom, dinner complete with cocktails and wine and flaming things, then dancing, strolling, riding.

  Riding in the Cad with the top down, along the Hollywood Freeway, into Vine, down North Rossmore, and — imagine! There’s the Spartan Apartment Hotel. How about that?

  In my apartment Doody glared at Amelia, smiled at the fish, burned me with her eyes. We sat on the oversize chocolate-brown divan, she curled in a corner, me with my feet propped on a leather hassock. The drinks were Scotch-and-soda for her, bourbon-and-water for me.

  We talked about the evening, about the case, a little of everything.

  “Here’s a thought,” I said. “Now that I no longer fear the gas chamber — and we’re both unemployed — why don’t we take off on a little cruise? Gabriel Rothstein’s planning a vacation in Acapulco — for his nerves. And he’s invited us to join him on ‘The Golden Bull,’ his zillionaire-size yacht.”

  “Invited us?”

  “Well, me. But I can ask the lady of my choice. Let’s see, there’s Carmen — no, not Carmen. She goes wild when the sun comes up. Ah, there’s — ”

  “There’s me.”

  “I don’t know. You’re too bright. You’d probably want to talk to me in Greek.”

  “I could whisper to you in Greek, Or” — she smiled — “or I could be Doody.”

  I laughed. “That might do it. Doody speaks only one language. My language.”

  “So does Julie,” she said quietly. Then she smiled. “You’re nobody’s fool, Shell. But that night when I was with Scalzo and those awful men I thought he’d finally outwitted you. He had, all right — like Custer outwitted the Indians. When you came through that door I thought my heart would stop.”

  “So did I — mine, I mean. The truth is, I didn’t really want to be there, but in a moment of weakness I volunteered.”

  “You’ll always volunteer, Shell. That’s one of the things I like about you. You’re a nut.”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  “So come over here and sit by me.”

  “I’ve been wounded, you know.”

  “You only think you’ve been wounded.” She smiled a slow smile. Then — that magic again. The eyes a little wider, mouth a bit more rounded, voice thinner, higher in the scale.

  “Shellie,” she said sweetly. “You’re ordered to volunteer again.”

  Eyes that sizzled and lips like flaming puckers — or unforgettable eyes fringed with lashes like lace, voice soft and lips honey-sweet — Julie or Doody, brilliant or batty, it made no difference. “Shellie. . . .”

  The rest is none of your business. Suffice to say — as she might have said — a word to the wise is efficient: I saw my Doody, and I did it.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1963 by Richard S. Prather

  Copyright renewed 1991 by Richard S. Prather

  Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media

  ISBN 978-1-4804-9901-0

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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