Three's a Shroud (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  “Lorry,” I said, “don't tell me you peeked over Blake's shoulder and saw him twirling dials. A guy as careful as he is? I find it difficult to believe."

  She frowned. “That's not a very nice thing to say."

  “I knew that when I said it."

  She stared at me for several seconds, then said slowly, “It's a new combination. He had a man change it about a week before we split. Nobody knew it except Joe, and he wouldn't write anything like that down. I guess he thought about it a lot so he wouldn't forget.” She paused, then said flatly, “Sometimes he talks in his sleep."

  “I'm a low, fiendish type. Lorry. But I'll never doubt you again. Tell me anything at all and I'll believe you."

  “You're an idiot."

  “I believe you."

  “You're a nasty old man."

  “I'm not old.” There was something I'd wanted to find out before, but she'd wriggled carelessly and I'd forgotten. I said, “About Stu Robb. He ran off at the mouth to you last night, then took off, huh? What time was that?"

  “He came up at ten and stayed maybe an hour. Left about eleven, I guess. Why?"

  “Honey,” I said, “don't you know Robb's dead?"

  9

  Her shock could hardly have been faked. “Dead?” she said finally. “What do you mean, he's dead?"

  “Just that. Highway Patrol spotted him around midnight. Him and Willie Fein—that's two people dead already. So excuse me if I say some things you don't like."

  “I see.” She was quiet for a while, then said softly, “Could I have had anything to do—"

  “Don't worry about it. You didn't say anything to Hershey until today, anyway. So relax."

  That was a laugh. If she got any more relaxed I was going to take a cold shower.

  “That's right,” she said. “I don't know where Ed Garr came from there at the Starlight, but he's crazy about me, you know. And plain crazy. I guess when he saw me with Paul—of all people—and dancing like that, be must have flipped. He isn't stable."

  “He did flip.” Lorry didn't sound angry any more. And she had said dancing “like that.” So she did know how she danced. I excused myself for a moment, walked to the portable record player I have in the bedroom—and it is none of your business what my record player is doing in the bedroom—switched it on, complete with a couple Stanley Black records. Rumbas!

  Then I slyly took off my shoulder harness and that lumpy gun, walked back into the living room in time to a whole mess of drums and people shrieking. As I sat down on my hassock I said, “Pretty, huh? You know, I feel rhythmic as hell."

  Her lips were curved into a slight smile, a good sign, and she was gently chewing on the inside of her cheek, her lips moving sensually. Anyway, they were moving, and as far as I was concerned they were moving sensually.

  “It's good to be here,” she said. “I was so scared. I knew I couldn't go back to the hotel. Couldn't go much of anyplace dressed like this.” She smiled. “Besides, I wanted to bring back your coat."

  For one wild moment I thought maybe she meant to give it to me right then. But she didn't. She said, “I thought you might be willing to help me."

  I told her I was more than willing, that she could hide out here for weeks. Even as I said it, though, it occurred to me that my apartment might not be the best spot for her to hide out; not with Blake looking for her. But my mind at this point was not up to grappling with such complicated thinking.

  I was looking at Lorry, my brain merely a sponge soaking up sensation. It had happened. I could hear her talking, and somehow I managed to answer her. I was hired, I was to help her, protect her, be her bodyguard, keep Blake and Garr and Company from shooting holes in her.

  She said, “I feel so much better, Shell. I don't have any money on me—” she laughed throatily—“as I suppose you'd guessed. I understand investigators are usually given a ... what is it, retainer?"

  “In this case we can skip it. You don't even have to pay me.” I was clear out of my head.

  She chuckled. “How nice. I could kiss you for that. Maybe ... maybe we could call a kiss the retainer."

  “Baby, we could call it the fee."

  My voice sounded hoarse. So would your voice have sounded hoarse. Lorry was sitting on the couch facing me, leaning back, relaxed as hell. For a while she'd held my coat together with one hand, but she was doing that no longer. So far the coat had been doing a fairly good job of things. But now all that had changed; it was doing a simply horrible, or completely marvelous, job of things. Depending, of course, upon your point of view.

  Somewhere in my mind a small voice was saying, “Look away, look away,” but that voice was so very small, and there was another voice, a great big booming voice, crying more interesting things in my head.

  I heard some small noises, but supposed it was only blood cells exploding or my discs slipping, and I guess I heard the door open, actually heard it. But it didn't mean anything to me; nothing was going to distract me now. The only thing that could possibly interrupt my reverie would be for somebody to hit me on the head.

  And wouldn't you know? Somebody hit me on the head.

  10

  My first thoughts on awakening were very dim ones, jumbled and not at all clear. I thought: Lorry, what did you do? And why? We were getting along famously, weren't we?

  All this time I was sprawled on the carpet, but by the time I struggled to my seat I'd remembered other things. Those noises, the sound of the door opening; slowly the rest of my memory came back. Lorry had jerked suddenly away from me and cried out, “Ed!"

  She'd had time for only one word, and if I'd had time for even one word it would have been a coarse word indeed, but I'd had no time. Anyway, Ed would have been Ed Garr, and he'd hit me on the head. It seemed that history was repeating itself. When Lorry had danced with Hershey, Garr had suddenly arrived and hit him on the head.

  Could Lorry, I wondered, have gone through all this routine just to set me up for Garr? Could she have been pulling my leg? But I knew I'd locked the door and she could hardly have unlocked it without my seeing her do it. I'd never taken my eyes off her ... except when I'd put on records.

  My thoughts were still somewhat addled, so I got to my feet and lurched into the bathroom, bathed my head and face with cold water, then thought some more about this mess, the whole thing from the beginning. Until now a lot of things had been twisted around like a loose girdle, but after a couple of minutes all was clear; I'd had my leg pulled all right, I'd been set up, I'd been had.

  I went into the bedroom. According to my watch and my best memory, I couldn't have been unconscious very long, but then I've got a thick skull. A very thick skull. My gun and holster were still alongside the record player. I strapped the harness on and went back into the front room for my coat. It wasn't on the hassock; it was gone.

  They'd have been in a hurry, at least Garr would have been and it would seem that Lorry Weston was still racing about in my coat. I got another coat from the closet, took a box of .38 cartridges from the dresser and dropped a few extra shells into my pocket, then put a sixth slug in the empty chamber I usually keep under the revolver's hammer.

  On my way out I checked the front door. It was my guess that Garr had used a knife-edge Stillson wrench on the lock to screw it out. Anyway, it was on the floor. And so would he be if I found him.

  11

  I reached the rear of Blake's house without any trouble, so at least he didn't have radar. My Cadillac was parked a hundred yards down the dirt road, unlocked, keys in the ignition and the side door standing open to save time if I were in a hurry later. Light slanted from under the partly drawn shade of a window near me and I could hear the faint sound of voices. The room, if I remembered the house's layout, was Blake's bedroom, where I'd talked to him earlier.

  In another second I was standing before the window, peering through it, careful not to touch even the pane of glass. I'd brought a ring of skeleton keys along, plus a small metal block and a razor-sharp spr
ing leaf for a jimmy, but not for windows because it was a foregone conclusion that all of them, and the doors, were wired. I could see inside easily enough, though. I could see Blake, still in his robe, Ed Garr—and Lorry. This was the safest place for them, here in Blake's wired house with several of his hoods around in case of trouble. It was not, of course, the safest place for me.

  As I watched, Blake stepped in front of Lorry and said something to her. She stood straight before him, Garr off to one side looking at her—yeah, she was still in my coat—and practically drooling. Or maybe in fact drooling. Then Blake slapped Lorry hard twice, whipping his hand forward and then hitting her again with a backhand.

  A tough man, that Blake. Tough with women. Lorry's head jerked from one side to the other and she staggered slightly but straightened while she threw words back at him.

  I walked away from the window, revolver ready in my hand, hammer cocked; but the last thing I wanted to do was use the gun. One shot and up to half a dozen men, men with guns, would start charging around shooting their guns. At me.

  The window was closed but its shade wasn't even drawn and I could see the whole room clearly. This was the room where I'd seen Martita bound and gagged on the bed. Poor, helpless Martita. She was still there, but naturally not bound and gagged. Martita was painting her toenails with red gook, legs twisted awkwardly and her delightfully sensual face screwed up in concentration on the job. No bruise on her cheek, either. By now she'd have washed her face, washed off whatever they'd put on her cheek so it would appear bruised.

  The cheek, I remembered now, that she'd pressed against the pillow when I'd come close to her. She'd kissed the noble Galahad's hand, of course—“Shell, thank you (sucker)...”—but she'd been damned careful to keep her bruise hidden in the pillow.

  So Martita was not an old ex-flame of Blake's, but the new one, the new one who'd come in when he'd kicked Lorry out. There must have been a little leak about what Hershey and I were doing, but the big leak had come after that reached Blake, had been one he'd set up himself: Martita Delgado. The rest was easy to figure. He'd fixed her up with a fake story, complete with authentic-sounding names and dates he could supply, then planted her in the Parker Hotel and made sure I heard about her.

  But the big thing was the timing, the bits Lorry had told me about. Martita had been “picked up” by the two men and had checked out of the Parker at seven p.m. last night. But, according to Lorry, Garr and Robb had lifted Hershey's safe about an hour before Robb had come to see her, which would have made it close to nine p.m. And inside Hershey's safe were the statements signed by Willie and Nelson—and Martita Delgado. Blake had gotten Willie's name, and Nelson's, from those statements, but he couldn't have found out about little Martita from them. Not two hours before the safe was stolen. He'd known about her all along; if she'd left a forwarding address, it would have been Joe Blake's. Some deal Joe had made with me. No strings.

  As I walked toward the front of the house my heart began punching the inside of my chest. On the drive here I'd decided there was only one way I might manage to get inside, and it wasn't through a window or down the chimney but through the front door. I knew there was a big ugly man there. And Ugly would look out the door and see me and yell bloody murder. Maybe.

  I went out to the grass near Blake's maroon Lincoln, then turned and headed toward the steps, whistling. I stuck the gun back into its holster and kept whistling through rapidly drying lips, walked up the steps and knocked briskly on the door, bum-de-dum-dum—dumdum, like a teenage boy calling on a teenage girl, then went back into character and pulled my right fist behind my head about a yard. When I heard movement inside I said, “Telegram,” and Ugly opened the door and I punched him on the chin, whereupon he fell down for the second time tonight, caught by surprise even though I had telegraphed my punch. And then I was inside with the door shut behind me and the gun in my hand again.

  12

  He'd made a small thump when he fell, but it didn't draw anybody out to investigate, so I grabbed him by his shoulders and hauled him over to the corner in shadow. In his hip pocket I found the sap I'd seen there earlier, held it in my left hand, revolver in my right. The house was quiet.

  I walked to the end of the short hall, cracked the door there and looked through. Light spilled from the bedroom down the hall on my left. A man came through the door, slammed it violently behind him and walked away from me. It was Blake. He went into Martita's room.

  He'd come out alone, but Garr was almost surely still in there. The last time Garr had been alone with a woman he'd been with Martita; but that had been just a bound-and-gagged act for my benefit and Martita hadn't been in any danger. This time he was with Lorry.

  I stepped into the hall and walked rapidly to the door Blake had come through, dropped the sap into my coat pocket and put my hand on the doorknob, started turning it slowly. I could hear them inside, hear the two voices, Lorry's high and taut, Garr's mumbling.

  The door cracked and a strip of light fell on my face. I held the .38's muzzle against the crack as it widened, my eye a foot above the gun, but I knew unless Garr's back was to me there was going to be one hell of a lot of yelling and racing around and shooting in about five seconds. Because if Garr saw me, gun or no gun, that pig brain of his would send him at me—and I'd have to plug him.

  I didn't mind the thought of shooting him at all, but I hated the thought of the noise it would make. The crack widened but I couldn't see them, only hear them, and I began figuring that no matter which way Garr was facing, with Lorry in there he'd hardly notice me. And he hadn't noticed the door moving yet. So I stuck my bead through and looked into the room.

  Garr's back was to me, his thick arms wrapped around Lorry, pinning her arms to her sides. A yard beyond them was the bed. Lorry was gasping, straining away from him, her face twisted, pained, and her eyes closed. For a moment after I stuck my head inside the room she struggled violently, then she opened her eyes and saw me.

  It was almost funny the way her expression froze for a long second, then relaxed and grew a twisted, lipstick-smeared smile. She gasped “Oh—” and for a moment I thought she was going to yell my name halfway to the civic center. But she cut it off and pressed her teeth together. Garr grunted, started to turn around.

  I jerked my head back, all my muscles suddenly tense. The gun in my hand started quivering I was holding it so tightly. Garr's voice rumbled, “What's with the door?"

  I put my left hand against it, ready to slam it open, holding my breath. But then I heard Lorry's voice. “It didn't shut when Joe slammed it. Don't worry about the door. Ed. Ed, look at me. Please, Ed."

  There was a short silence, then she said softly, “That's better. That's better, Ed."

  I relaxed a little; she was talking to me, not Ed, telling me that he wasn't looking my way now. She had his attention—and that made me start feeling much better about how this little caper might come out. I reached into my coat pocket and took out the sap again, slipped its leather loop around my left wrist. Because if Lorry had Garr's attention, she was the gal who could keep it. How well I knew.

  “Ed, honey,” she was saying, “if only you wouldn't be so rough. If you wouldn't hurt me ... it'd be better, Ed, honey."

  I no longer had any doubts at all that I could stick my head inside, and almost gayly I looked, then took a step into the room, eased the door nearly closed. Garr still held Lorry's arms, but she was leaning away from him, smiling up into his face. When I stepped inside, her smile got tighter, but she kept on talking softly.

  “Let me go, Ed. I can't get away—and I'm not even going to try. You'd ... like it better if I didn't fight you, wouldn't you?"

  “Yuh!” Garr said.

  He released her arms and she stepped slowly back from him, smiling up into his face. I took a step forward, hoping nobody came up behind me and hit me on the head, and hoping further that, if they did, they missed the crack. Lorry sank down onto the edge of the bed, leaned back—and suddenly all of th
is struck me as something which had happened before.

  “Just half a minute, Ed,” she said, and it sounded like a woman whispering to a man in her bed. “Think of me, how I feel. Just a little. Talk to me. A woman likes to hear nice things. Just tell me a nice thing or two."

  This, of course, was far beyond Ed Garr's capabilities, but no matter, what there was of Garr's mind was occupied, and his back was to me—getting closer to me at that. Even at this rather precarious moment I felt like grinning, and I was so little worried about the outcome here that I switched the gun to my left hand, the sap to my right.

  I had wondered back there in my apartment, and later, if Lorry had any idea of what she was doing, and doing to me, or if by then she'd been wearing only my coat for so long that she thought it was a complete outfit. But that question was a question no longer: she knew.

  If this thing worked it was going to be about the most poetic justice I could think of. Lorry laughed, leaned back even farther and said a couple words to Garr, and all this time I was walking toward him.

  I was moving quietly, tiptoeing even, but I could have been a herd of stampeding stallions and Garr would have paid me no heed. Lorry, in her own way, was a genius; she had a technique which swept all thoughts but one from a man's mind, and that one thought had nothing to do with ears. He wouldn't hear me. He didn't.

  13

  I was smiling when I raised the sap, then I slammed it down on Garr's skull, and just as I had predicted he fell to the floor. Maybe Garr was a match for two ordinary men, but he was no match for me and Lorry. I had no time to drink in the scenery, or even say to Garr, “How do you like it?” because Lorry was off the bed and throwing her arms around me.

  “You came for me!” she cried.

  “You can say that again!” I cried right back at her. “But that's not all. I also came for whatever's in Blake's safe."