Opposite the box office was the large photo of a large gal, and even though she was a young and shapely creature, especially in contrast to the others pictured here, and even though she was a long lush blonde with equipment which looked like what we might expect on next year's model, that wasn't why I was blinking.
I was blinking at the name printed on the picture's base—Ilona, the Hungarian Hurricane.
Ilona?
Just a few hours earlier I'd been talking to another Ilona, my client, Mrs. Johnny Cabot, who was the only Ilona I'd talked to in months, maybe even years. I looked the picture of this one over carefully, but she was for sure a different Ilona. I went inside.
In a couple minutes I'd located the manager inside his office. He was a pale, cigar-chewing man named Dent. I identified myself and said, “I'm trying to locate Johnny Cabot. He still work for you?"
The manager nodded and said around his long brown cigar, “Yeah. That's funny, y'know? You comin’ here."
“How's that?"
“Private detective, I mean. You're the second one been here in the last couple weeks."
“Oh? Who was the last one? What did he want?"
“Guy named—ah, Wells—Welch, that's it, Welch. Wanted to talk to Ilona. She's just started here, new to the business. He talked with her, then left with Johnny."
“Johnny Cabot?” Dent nodded and I asked, “What did he want with Cabot?"
“I dunno. I just saw them leavin’ together."
“When was that?"
Dent checked some records in his desk. “Fifteenth, it must've been,” he said. “Johnny asked off on Saturday the seventeenth, for ten days, and that detective guy was here a couple days before that. Johnny just got back today."
“Back? You mean he's here now?"
“Where'd you expect he'd be? Sure he's here."
“I—Did Cabot say why he wanted time off?"
“Just that something important had come up."
I was remembering that Cabot and Ilona Green had met on Saturday the seventeenth. “Okay if I talk to Cabot?"
“Sure. Have to wait a few minutes. He's my singer."
Dent showed me to a box seat at the side of the stage, briefed me on what remained of the show, and left. The chorus was currently occupying the stage. It consisted of about twenty girls, or rather females, all leaping about with complete disregard of the pit band, shaking to the left and shaking to the right, and backward and forward; but the kindest thing I could say about them was that they were no great shakes.
When they trooped off into the wings, a tall, thin, bony babe trotted listlessly into view, smiling as if it were painful, and proceeded to take her clothes off like a woman preparing to go to bed alone on a freezing night, with only one thin blanket in the house. There just wasn't any joy in it. Her performance didn't make me feel good all over, as the saying goes. It didn't make me feel good anyplace.
Finally it was finished. The chorus trooped back on and began tap dancing to one number while the band played another, and a tall dark guy walked onstage carrying a microphone and its stand. A couple yards in from the wings he stopped, placed the mike before him, spread his arms wide and started singing.
So here, at last, was Johnny Cabot. Somehow I hadn't quite believed Cabot would be there, not until this moment. If the story Ilona Cabot had told me was true, Cabot's being here four days after his marriage, singing in a cheap burlesque house instead of home with his bride, just didn't make good sense to me. Not yet, anyway. But it was the gladiator boy all right. Sharp, good-looking features, heavy eyebrows, thick dark hair. He had that surly look still, I noticed, even though he was smiling most of the time.
But I wasn't smiling. The sounds banging in anguish at my eardrums were coming from Johnny Cabot as if they were escaping. He had a high, squeaky voice that sounded like a musical saw being played in a swamp full of mosquitoes, and his stiff gestures might have been Frankenstein's monster blowing kisses at King Kong.
The girls swung to their right, bent their knees and threw their hands into the air, looking up toward the ceiling, as if they had all seen hairy tarantulas dangling from a crosswalk; then they all spun to the opposite side and did it again, while Johnny cried, “Tem ... toy ... shun!” It wasn't the right song. Nothing would have been the right song, but Johnny made even “Temptation” sound like something midway between rock-and-roll and rack-and-ruin.
At last it was over. Johnny bowed and beamed to a complete absence of applause, then went offstage. The girls trooped out of sight. I got to my feet, ready to go backstage and talk to Cabot, but a voice cut in over the p.a. system, saying that we had reached the climax of the show—Ilona, the Hungarian Hurricane. I watched it all.
The number was Diane, played slowly and deliberately, and Ilona was slow and deliberate in her movements, of which there were a great many, and many of them great. She was tall, wearing heels at least four inches high, with a lot of blonde hair and a lot of blonde skin showing, and she seemed to be enjoying herself almost as much as I was.
Let's face it. Men like to watch women take off their clothes. When the day comes when that isn't true any more, then we will have entered the Mental Age and will get our kicks at brain operations. But that day is not yet, so I gleefully ogled the last twitch of tassel, the final flick of bead, and then, when Ilona, the Hungarian Hurricane, bounced and jiggled out of sight, I got up and headed backstage for my first words with Johnny Cabot.
4
I found him in a small room off a hall smelling of powder and perspiration. A stagehand pointed to the room and when I knocked Cabot opened the door and glared out at me. That is, he looked out at me, but the general arrangement of his features made it appear that he was always glaring, or perhaps on the verge of biting somebody.
He was about my height, but slimmer, with thick wavy black hair and light blue eyes. I'm pretty brown myself, but this guy must have made a career of soaking up sun because he made me look anemic by comparison. Those pale blue eyes were startlingly light in his darkly bronzed face.
He was good looking, all right, but to me, anyway, he had the look of those guys who star in pornographic movies. He looked weak, much more physical than mental, not clean-cut, not pleasant. He stood there smiling at me, and while it wasn't a bad smile, I almost wanted to go at it like a mad dentist. Once in a while you meet guys like Cabot. It's as if odorless skunk waves keep coming out from them at you. I wondered how my client had failed to notice it. But maybe he affected women differently.
He had his shirt off, and thick muscles moved on his chest. It seemed incredible that a voice so thin could come out of a chest so thick. “Yeah? What you want?"
“You John Cabot?"
“Yeah. So?"
I flipped open my wallet and flashed the photostat of my license in front of his face. His eyes aimed at it and barely focused on it as I snapped the wallet shut and stuck it back in my coat. Sometimes, if you do that fast enough, people think you're some kind of important official. Like a policeman.
“I'm Scott,” I said brusquely. “Mind telling me where you were this morning? Early—say about three to six a.m."
He said slowly, “I had a supper date. You know, real late. From about one till after six."
“Six in the morning?” That seemed like an odd time for a date of any kind. Well, almost any kind.
“Yeah,” he said. “Gal didn't get off until after midnight."
“Get off where?"
“Club out on Beverly,” Cabot said. “The—Grotto.” He paused. “Say, you're not a cop, are you?"
“Nobody said I was. I'm Shell Scott, a private investigator."
He spat out foul words. “Private! Why, you son—"
“Hold it, friend. You can watch your tongue or the ceiling."
He bit off the rest of his words, but said, “What in hell do you want with me? What's the score?"
“I'm checking up on an attempted murder."
He grinned, unpleasantly. “I haven't tried to
kill anybody, Scott. If I had tried, I'd have killed him. Who was the victim?"
“The attempt was made on your wife. Matter of fact, she sent me out to find you."
“Ilona? She sent you? How in hell did she know—” He bit it off.
“How'd she know what, Cabot?"
“Beat it."
“Aren't you interested in an attempt on your wife's life? She thought maybe it was an attempt on your life, too, since somebody poisoned the milk and you might have drunk some. I don't see it that way, but—"
“I got no more to say to you."
“What about Welch?” For a stab in the dark it got quite a reaction.
“Huh?” Cabot's face got almost pale. The blood did leave his face for a while, and that tan over pallor made him look sick. Maybe he was sick. “Welch?” he said. “I—I don't know anybody named Welch."
I grinned at him. “No. You always look like this. You know who I mean, Gabitocchi. A detective named Welch."
He stared at me stupidly. His mouth opened and closed. But then he balled up his fists and stepped toward me, anger flushing his features and making him appear normal again.
I thought for a second I was going to get to hit him, but something made him stop. A sort of crafty look appeared in his pale blue eyes. He took a deep breath and let it out, then said levelly, “Out. Out you go, Scott. You're a private dick, and if you bother me any more, I'll—” he grinned nastily—“call a cop."
Then he just stood there and looked at me grinning. He was right, too. A private detective is merely a private citizen, and if I were to let my emotion rule my knuckles, I could very well wind up in the clink. I left.
I had a lot more to puzzle me now than I'd had when I'd come into the Westlander Theater. I'd found Cabot, all right, but the big half of the job was no closer to a solution; I still didn't know who'd tried to kill my client, Ilona.
The thought of one Ilona led logically to thought of the second one. After half a minute and one more question of a stagehand, I was knocking on another dressing-room door. This time it was the dressing room of Ilona, the Hungarian Hurricane. A voice inside said, “Just a minute,” with no accent at all except the feminine one. Then the door opened.
The only similarity between this gal's expression and Johnny Cabot's was that she looked as if she were going to bite somebody, too. But gently. With eclat, verve, abandon. “Yes?” she said softly.
“Yes, indeed, I just saw your act—"
“Oh, good. Come in.” I went inside and she said, “I'm just learning, you know. Did you like it? My dance?"
“You bet. It was real ... likable."
“Wonderful!” she cried enthusiastically, and gave a little bump from sheer joy. “Wonderful!"
Ilona was wearing an abbreviated robe which looked a bit like one of those shortie nightgowns and fell down her thighs only about halfway. It was blue, and made a pretty contrast with her white skin.
“I practice all the time,” she said. “You know what they say, practice makes perfect."
“That one was pretty near perfect right there."
"Thank you,” she squealed.
“Uh, my name is Shell Scott.” I finally got to tell her I was a detective, and asked her about her co-performer, Cabot. She thought he was real nice. She'd been working here only a little over two weeks, and Cabot had been here the first week only.
So there wasn't much she could tell me about Cabot, but remembering his reaction to detective Welch's name, I asked the Hungarian Hurricane, “Do you know a man named Welch?"
“No.” She was walking around the room, snapping her fingers and everything. “Who is he?"
“Another detective. I understood that he talked to you here a couple weeks ago. About that long back."
“Oh, him. Yes, sure. What about him?"
“Would you mind telling me what he wanted with you?"
She was standing in front of the full-length mirror, leaning slightly back from it and practicing; then she glanced at me and said, “You don't mind if I do this, do you?"
“No.” I grinned. “Go right ahead."
“I just want to get the rough edges off this movement. I think I've got most of them off now."
“I'd say so."
“What was it you asked me?"
“I don't remember."
“Oh, yes. About that detective. He just asked me if I'd ever been in the Bunting Orphanage here in Los Angeles, and I told him no, and he thanked me and left.” Suddenly she let out a wild, high-pitched noise.
“What was that?” I said. “You all right?” She hadn't even stopped what she was doing.
“Oh, that was just my squeal,” she said.
“Your what?"
“Squeal. You know, toward the climax of my act, when I'm all a-frenzy, I squeal. It adds something."
“I see. Yes, it would add something. Bunting Orphanage, huh? What did he want to know that for?"
“I don't know. That was all he asked me, and then he left."
“You ever see him before?"
“No. Nor since."
“Do you know if he was a friend of Johnny Cabot's?"
“I don't know. Johnny asked me what the detective wanted with me, though—right after the detective talked to me."
“He did, huh? What did you tell him?"
“The same thing I just told you."
She described Welch as about five-ten, slim, with a black mustache and black hair, beginning to get gray. She had no idea where Welch lived, but she didn't think he was a Los Angeles detective.
That was about it. She was almost ready to squeal again, anyway, and as a matter of fact so was I, so I thanked her and went out. Not all the way out, though; Johnny Cabot was waiting near Ilona's dressing room for me. He waved a hand at me and I walked over to him.
“Listen, Scott,” he said grimly. “Get something through your head. I don't want no more trouble from you."
This guy irritated me like a slap on sunburn, but I kept my voice quiet enough as I said, “If you don't want trouble, you're sure going at it the wrong way, Cabot."
“Yeah? Well, I'm telling you, stay away from my wife, see? And from me, and anybody connected with me. If you snoop around any more, get in my hair any more, I'll bust your skull."
“Quit wiggling your muscles, Cabot. At least you admit you're married."
“So my wife hired you. Well, you're fired."
“I'll wait till I hear it from your wife."
He glared at me. “It's enough if you hear it from me. You're finished; no more job."
“What are you afraid of, friend? You didn't try to knock off your wife, did you?"
He was burning. “If I wanted to kill somebody. I wouldn't use cyanide, I'd use a gun. And a bullet can poke a hole in you just as easy as anybody else, Scott. Remember that."
He spun on his heel and stalked off before I could reply. It was just as well; I had rapidly been reaching the point where my next reply would have been to sock him in the teeth. I went out of the Westlander Theater, found a phone booth in a drugstore, and dialed the number my client had given me this morning.
There wasn't any answer to my ring. I frowned at the phone for a moment, then went back to my Cadillac and drove toward Robard Street.
From my client's house and on past it for perhaps a quarter of a mile, Robard was a one-way street. I parked at the left curb and walked up to the front door. There was no answer to my ring, and I'd started to turn away when I noticed the front door was ajar. I knocked loudly, then went on in.
It was a small, neat place. There wasn't anything unusual about it except that it was empty, and on the kitchen table were some dirty dishes, one of them containing part of a lamb chop and some broccoli. A half-glass of milk sat beside the dish containing the meat. It appeared as if whoever had been eating had left in a hurry.
I lit a cigarette and looked down at the kitchen table, thinking. It seemed fairly clear that Cabot must have immediately phoned Ilona after I'd talked to him at t
he burlesque theater—before I'd phoned her. One word from him and his bride would naturally have flown to him as fast as she could—not even waiting to finish her lamb chop and broccoli.
I was becoming more and more worried about Ilona Cabot. Somebody had tried twice to murder that mousy, sweetly miserable little gal, and I was pretty sure whoever it was would keep on trying. The thought struck me that I had no proof she was still alive.
I kept thinking about that angle as I got into the Cad and headed on down Robard. The first street at which I could turn off was Garnet, and I swung right there. I'd barely straightened the car out when it happened.
I heard the sound of the shot, but didn't react for a second or so. The slug splatted through the glass and I saw the hole suddenly appear far over on the windshield's right side, as the heavy sound of the gunshot reached my ears. For a second or two I looked stupidly at the hole near the windshield's edge, at the white lines radiating from it and spreading like thick cobwebs over the glass. And then I hit the brake pedal so hard that I shoved myself back into the upholstery of the seat behind me.
The power brakes caught and grabbed, tires shrieking on the pavement as the car slid and turned slightly toward the curb. I jerked the steering wheel left, then slapped my foot onto the accelerator again. I straightened the Cad out and let it pick up speed for half a block, then pulled in to the curb and stopped.
I had the door open and was starting through it, right hand under my coat and touching the butt of my .38 Colt, when I stopped. There wasn't much point in charging back down the street like an Olympic sprinter. Whoever had taken that shot at me was almost surely a lot farther away now than he'd been when he let the slug fly at me. Or when she had. A bullet out of the night is anonymous.
But I could count the people who might know that I was going to visit this address on one finger, or two at most if I included Ilona herself. Somebody might conceivably have tailed me from downtown and then waited near the turnoff on Garnet; but it didn't seem likely. So I was extremely anxious to see Johnny Cabot once again.
Three's a Shroud (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 7
