Shell Scott's Seven Slaughters (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  She made a face, but I didn't know whether it meant that she was appalled or delighted. She was sure a cute thing. This Julie was maybe two inches over five feet tall, but in her bare feet she seemed to be standing on the story below me. She did not look like a “little girl” however, even in a towel. She looked like a pretty big girl. Perhaps twenty-five years old, and with just enough pounds. The towel slipped again. She was a big girl. I was beginning to wonder if perhaps Julie was letting that towel slip on purpose. If so, we might never get out of here.

  But then she said, “Well, I'll get dressed."

  She went into the next room, but we talked back and forth while she was in there. When everything had been explained by me and was clear, she told me that, under the circumstances, she had better go by herself to the “hospital” as she called it, and let me in the back way when I came along later.

  Julie came into the room wearing a pale blue dress, looking chic and shapely, smooth, and even cuter than before. She told me where the hospital was located, and that she would pull up the shade on the back door if the coast was clear. In a couple more minutes, we went outside and she gave me a big smile and left, driving her own small car. I waited ten minutes, then drove after her.

  Doc Layne's “hospital” looked like a place that ghosts would go for. A two-story frame building that had last been painted about twenty years ago, it was fairly well isolated, perhaps a quarter of a mile from other houses, and it occurred to me that it would have to be a pretty loud scream before it would be heard by the neighbors.

  I had parked at the rear of the Clinic and half a block from it, then walked to its small parking lot. There was a lawn back here, but patches of it had turned yellow with neglect. A rusty incinerator was an unsightly blob of reddish brown against a leaning wooden fence.

  I looked at the back door. The shade was up. I loosened the .38 in its holster and stepped out, striding toward the rear door as boldly and openly as if I were the new janitor. Nobody else was in sight. I walked through the parking lot and across the yellowed grass feeling very obvious and unprotected. Windows at either side of the building reflected late afternoon sunlight. I reached the door, put one hand on it and the other on my gun, turned the knob and stepped inside.

  It was dim in the hallway and there was a smell of dust. My eyes weren't accustomed to the dimness, but I saw movement on my left. I swung around, yanking out my gun and slapping it toward the movement, finger heavy on the trigger.

  “Ahk!” It was Julie, still in the blue dress. “It's me,” she said rapidly, “it's me."

  I put the Colt away, looked down the hall. It was a short narrow walk ending in another hallway at right angles to it. One closed door was in the left wall, one on the right. Julie looked scared.

  She swallowed and whispered, “I just finished checking the rooms, Shell. That's why I just now reached the back door. I haven't even had time to change."

  “You find Frank the Mouse?"

  She nodded. “He's in room ten. At least the man brought in last night is in ten. I guess he's the one you want.” She paused, biting her lip. “It really could be dangerous if any of the men here saw you, couldn't it?” She was looking at the left side of my coat. Right at the spot over my gun.

  “If I were recognized, it sure could be. And it's likely the guys in here would be men who'd have no trouble recognizing me."

  She sighed heavily. “We'll have to walk right by the man at the front door to reach the room you want."

  I tried to think of a way we might distract the man's attention, but then I had a small flash, an idea, and I liked it.

  “Is there any place in this joint where there'd be one of those gauze masks that doctors wear over their chops? The only way I can disguise this face of mine is to hide it completely."

  She smiled. “The storeroom. There's even a gown there."

  “Gown?"

  “A white jacket thing that's open in the back—you know, like doctors use when they operate."

  I thought about that and slowly grinned. Then I grinned more widely. “Exactly what I want."

  “Let's go."

  The storeroom was ten yards down the hall to our right and we reached it without any difficulty. We slipped inside and Julie shut the door behind us. Then she pressed a switch in the wall and soft light filled the small room. Shelves were loaded with sheets and blankets, pillows, gowns, items of clothing and equipment. Julie rummaged along a shelf, then turned toward me, smiling. In her extended hands were a surgeon's smock and the gauze mask I'd asked her for, also a small white hat that would hide my hair.

  “Wonderful,” I said, and in another minute I had the gown and hat on and the mask over my face. “In this getup I could walk right past a dozen hoodlums. All I need to make the deception complete is the little black bag filled with knives and forks and death certificates."

  “Of course! And you shall have anything you desire.” Julie turned her back to me, bent forward, and picked something off the bottom shelf. I had not the faintest idea what it was, because she was a delightfully rounded little doll, and the pose she adopted so briefly was like the sight of raw meat to a starving cannibal.

  “Julie,” I said softly. “...anything I desire?"

  She swung around and took a step toward me. “Sure—here's proof. Just mention it and you've got it."

  She was holding a black bag towards me.

  “I can think of a number of other things I might mention, and much more interesting, too—"

  “None of that, Shell.” She smiled, but added, “I thought you wanted to see that gangster."

  Her words were like a dash of cold water. I had actually forgotten for a moment that there were such thing as gangsters. “The hell with him,” I said.

  “Turn around."

  I blinked. “What's going to happen if I turn around?"

  “Well, I have to change, too."

  I then noted that Julie was holding another white uniform in her hand, this time the feminine kind. “You'll be less conspicuous walking down the hallway with a nurse along—me."

  There was a small argument, but only a small one. I was really sort of anxious for her to change. She flipped the light out, and I turned around just as she'd said for me to, but of course I just kept turning all the way around. I couldn't see very much, worse luck, because my eyes were still adjusting to the near darkness. But I could hear lovely soft rustlings and wigglings. I couldn't actually hear the wigglings, of course, but it seemed as if I could, and I knew there had to be lots of wigglings going on.

  “Why, Shell.” Julie said. “You're peeking."

  Peeking, hell, I was practically stretching my eyes in the dimness. But it was only dimness, not darkness. And if Julie could see, now I could also see Julie. Which gave me much the better of the deal. She had wiggled out of her dress and was holding the white uniform while standing there in very little, and I realized that there was sure a lot of little Julie to be standing there in so very little. The next moment I was right before Julie, inches from her.

  “Peeking?” I said.

  “Yes."

  “Sort of."

  “You ought to be ashamed.” She didn't sound all broken up about it.

  “I'm only inhuman."

  “Well..."

  “Uh..."

  “If you're going to kiss me, doctor, you'll have to take your mask off."

  Probably never in the history of medicine did a mask come off quicker. And then Julie was against me, pressing the soft, warm loveliness of her body against mine, her head tilted up and her lips parted and gleaming moistly. I could feel the skin of her back velvety against my fingers as I pulled her even closer, and then the warmth of her full lips against my own. She had so many curves and softnesses and delightful areas that holding her meant that, while time didn't actually stop, it lost any real meaning, and whether seconds or minutes went by I had no clear idea. I do know that it was quite an operation, even for a doctor and nurse in a closet.

 
Finally Julie's lips left mine for the last time and she said, “On with your mask, doctor."

  “But—but I'm not through operating."

  “Yes you are,” she chuckled. “And it was a complete success."

  “Julie! How can you say that, when—"

  “That's enough, Shell."

  “But you—I—we—"

  “Shell."

  And that was her last word. She slipped into the white uniform, handed me a clean guaze mask—I had simply tossed the first one way off through the air somewhere—and said, “Shall we go?"

  “Might as well,” I grumbled.

  And out we went.

  The hallway was empty. We passed the intersection in the hall and I glanced at the door through which I'd come in; then we came to the entrance Julie had mentioned. It was on the right, just a short hallway ending at a door before which a rough looking man sat, drinking a can of beer.

  He looked right at me, then away, eyeing Julie in her starched white uniform, and I breathed a sigh of relief that we'd found the outfit I was wearing.

  Then we were before a closed door that had no number on it, but which Julie said was the one we wanted. “The man I told you about should be in here,” she said. “So look and act like a doctor, now.” She opened the door and we stepped inside.

  As Julie shut the door behind us I took a look at the guy on the bed. It was dough-faced Frank the Mouse, all right. But there was a livid welt on the side of his white face, one eye was blackened, and his chest, uncovered, was heavily bandaged. His left leg was held up into the air by a strange complex of lines and weights—what Julie had referred to as traction, I assumed. I walked over to the patient and as I passed his leg I gave it a playful little swing.

  “Ow. Oh,” he said.

  This was the louse, the bum, the crumby hoodlum who had tried very hard to kill me last night. I said, “Well, how are we today? Hmm?"

  “O.K.,” he mumbled. “I guess.” He looked at me strangely, a bit apprehensively, as if he wasn't sure he liked my looks. In the surgical smock, and with the spooky mask over my mouth and nose, I probably looked horrible enough. That was fine. I wanted to look horrible.

  With a sweeping gesture, I handed Julie my black bag, then leaned over the patient. With four stiff fingers I poked him in his bare middle.

  “Oof,” he said. “Hey, doc, what're you doin'?"

  “I'm, uh, palpating you."

  “Palp—what's that?"

  “Why, I'm thumping you.” I gave him a thump.

  “Oo-ah!” he said. Frank the Mouse looked at his nurse. “What's all this? Where's Doc Layne? I thought I was all through bein’ bandaged and sqozen."

  Julie rose magnificently to the occasion. “This is Doctor Scott. He's been called in as consultant. In case an operation is necessary."

  Frank the Mouse's eyes got large indeed. “Op—operation?” he croaked. “What the hell do you mean, operation?"

  I said, “I fear you may have vertigo of the sacrofibula. It may be necessary to remove the iliac and throw it as far as we can."

  He really did look pained now. Of course, I was continuing to thump and bang and probe him. “Doc,” he said in a strangled voice. “Do you got to—oof—sock me like that?"

  “Of course. All us doctors do it. You laymen mustn't try to tell the doctor what to cut out, you know. We know better than you, I suppose."

  “Sure,” he said. “Of course, doc I—cut out?"

  He seemed pretty well addled so I said casually, “Just how did all this happen to you?"

  “What difference does it make how it happened?” He squinted at me.

  “A great deal. The prognosis is predicated upon the precipitating factors. I have to know whether to shoot you with penicillin, acrophyllin, or plain vanillin."

  He looked a little green about the gills. “Well, it was this bum that—attacked me. He hit me with a chain, see. And I don't know what all."

  “Yes. Hmm. I know all that. It is my understanding that you were employed to attack him. I'm not naive, young man.” I chuckled and added playfully, “I'm a doctor, you know. No need to keep any secrets from me."

  “Yeah, sure. I know that, all right,” he said.

  “Now, then, who was it that employed you to attack this man?"

  “Noodles done it.” He squinted at me, as if finally he might be getting a bit suspicious. “What difference does it make? You ask some funny questions for a doctor—doctor."

  “I'm a specialist.” He wasn't quite ready yet, it seemed. I looked at Julie. “Nurse, my scalpel. The sharp one."

  She looked as if she were struggling to keep an expression of amusement from her features. I held my hand toward her, palm up, and said, “Scalpel."

  It was perfect. Just like the movies. She grabbed a scalpel and slapped it into my palm with a dandy whack. I gripped it and sneered under my mask, leaning over Frank the Mouse and waggling my eyebrows. He got a perfectly petrified look.

  “Wha’—what's this?” he yelped. “What're you doing?"

  “Going to have to go inside,” I said cheerfully.

  “Inside? Inside what?"

  “You."

  “Me?"

  “Who else?"

  “But—now? Here?"

  “Why not?"

  “But—what—what for?"

  “Ah, you laymen,” I chuckled. “Full of little questions, what?” I paused, holding the scalpel handle gripped in my fist like a dagger, the sharp end projecting downward like the blade of a knife, and then I raised my fist up a couple feet over his abdomen and said, “This won't hurt much."

  “Doc! Don't! Wait, help, don't!” Even as I watched his face, it got paler. And paler. Pretty quick he wouldn't be able to get any paler unless he died to do it. And obviously he wasn't dying to do it. I waited, and he said in a crumbly voice, “Please don't, doc."

  “But we've got to get you well,” I said.

  “I don't want to be well. Just leave me stay sick. Don't go—go inside there. No anesthetic or anything—"

  “Ha!” I interrupted him. “Forgot the anesthetic! That's the trouble, knew I'd forgotten something.” I squirmed around and managed to reach under my coat. It was a bit of a job to get under the smock, but I managed it and hauled out my .38 Colt Special. I pointed it at Frank the Mouse's arm and he really did manage to get a little paler.

  “That's a gun,” he said, the way a man might say, “That's a cobra."

  He looked at me and his eyebrows drew down, then went up, and drew way down again. “Something's funny here,” he said.

  I decided the psychological moment had arrived. “You're right,” I said. “I'm not in the A.M.A."

  “Uh-huh. I had a hunch something was—"

  “I'm not even a doctor."

  His lips got all flabby. “Not—a doctor?"

  I leaned close above him, eyes glaring. “No,” I roared. “I'm Shell Scott—and I'm going to cut out your gizzard!"

  With that I yanked off the face mask and glowered horribly at him.

  Well, he fainted. I don't know whether it was my threat to slice him up, or my telling him I was Shell Scott, or just the cumulative effect of it with all that had gone before, but he let out a sort of urping sound and got white and unconscious.

  Julie was snorting and gurgling. “Oh, Shell,” she said, “that was terrible of you."

  “You know, for half a minute I really was ready to go in there. Julie, we've got a little time before this bum comes to. I'll teach him to try killing me. What else is in that bag?"

  We rummaged through it and I chose a bottle of liquid that looked like mercurochrome. I opened it and smeared the red suff on my hands and the front of my gown, and on the front of Frank the Mouse's bandages. Then I poured a glass of water over him. As I finished, he stirred and moaned softly. It sounded as if he might be saying, “Nob-oo-ooo."

  He came to slowly and tried to rise to a sitting position. Apparently he had forgotten for the moment that he was all trussed up and weight
ed down. But he pushed himself up far enough so that his eye caught the wet red stain on his front. He got absolutely rigid, not moving for seconds, then slowly he raised his head until he could see me and my red-stained smock. His eyes travelled up the line of redness to my gleeful face. His expression made it clear that he thought he must have erupted like a geyser. Out he went again.

  I hadn't planned this one, and if it kept up I might really have to go inside and start squeezing the guy's heart, wringing it out like a washrag. That thought gave me another small inspiration. I felt that Frank the Mouse was ready to tell me practically anything, but there was no harm in making dead sure. I spoke softly to Julie and she said, “I'll see what I can find,” and went out. In about two minutes she returned. Frank was still unconscious, but twitching just a bit. Soon he would be back with us—but he would not, of course, know how long he'd been away.

  Julie said, “This probably isn't what you want, Shell. There weren't any appendixes or livers or anything like that in the doctor's lab. Just this. I think it's a monkey's."

  It was a small brain, in a bottle of what I assumed to be alcohol or brine. And though I had told Julie to try to find some pickled gizzards or a stomach or something, this was more than even I could have hoped for. This was perfect.

  Frank twitched a bit more and I moved around to his side of the bed, standing close to him. As his eyes opened, I was holding the bottle about a foot before me, apparently studying the convolutions of the little brain.

  Frank came out of his stupor with a snap. He stared at the bottle and said something completely unintelligible. With one free hand he pointed at the bottle, his finger trembling. He was really horrified this time. Obviously he thought it was his brain, and naturally he felt pretty miserable.

  First he looked stupefied, then appalled and unbelieving, then a little believing but disappointed, as if the brain was too small. Then, slyly, he tried to look back inside his skull to see if maybe his brain was still there. At least that is what he appeared to be doing. His eyes rose and crossed on the way and kept on going back, back, and sort of wobbled gently up there like bouncing ping pong balls.