The Trojan Hearse (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  “I will not."

  “Oh, come now. Didn't my secretary explain the procedure?"

  “She did not."

  “Well, it's required, it's essential."

  “For ... what?"

  “For analysis."

  “What are you going to analyze?"

  “Oh, shtop this silly-sallying,” he said sharply. “I mean, stop this shilly-shallying."

  “I am not shilly—skip it. Who was that lovely creature?"

  “Miss Plonk? What is your interest in Miss Plonk?"

  “Ah..."

  He shot air out his nostrils. “Take off your clothes and lie down on the couch, and we'll start."

  “No. You see—"

  “Obviously you do not understand,” he said. “My secretary should have explained. This is part of my technique. All my patients must disrobe and lie on the couch. It's a vast improvement."

  “How?"

  “It helps you cast off your repressions along with your clothes."

  “Not me, it doesn't"

  “It completely releases the odibil."

  “That figures. But what good would it do? She's gone, gone...."

  “I shall have to cancel your appointment, Mr. Chang, if you do not wish to be helped. Don't you want to be well?"

  “I'm not sick. Hell, I'm not even Mr. Chang."

  “You're not sick?"

  “Not sick."

  “Impossible. Everybody's sick. Impo—” He paused. “What do you mean, you're not Mr. Chang?"

  “Who's he?"

  “You. You?"

  “Nope. Not me. Hey, where are we going? There's something in the air—"

  “Where is Mr. Chang?"

  “Beats me."

  “Hmm.” That was him, this time.

  I said, “I'm not even here for an alysis. I mean, a nalysis—the hell with it. I'm Shell Scott, a private detective, and I'm here to talk to you about the death of Charley White."

  I hadn't meant to squirt it all out at once like that, but we'd been getting nowhere, and I was afraid that if I didn't squeeze all my powers of concentration into a dwindling point and make a lunge at it, it might never get said.

  “You're Shell Scott!” he said.

  I looked at my watch. Yeah, it was the right time for my appointment. So I said, “Who else?"

  He looked at my white hair, eyebrows, ears, even my feet—nothing about them, really, to identify me. Except that they're pretty big.

  “Who else?” he said. Then he stood up. “Well, if you're not here for a nalysis ... um. Excuse me."

  He walked across the carpet and into the room where that gorgeous naked babe was and closed the door behind him. What a life! But in about a minute he came back, sat in his chair again, indicated the couch for me. I sat on it.

  Then he said, “I'm sorry. I expected you at three."

  I let it go. What the hell. You can't just go on and on quibbling. So I merely said, “Well, I figured if I couldn't be late, I'd make sure I wasn't early.” That satisfied him.

  “You wanted to speak to me about Mr. White?"

  “Yes. He was one of your patients, wasn't he?"

  “Only for a brief time. We didn't even get started, really. Analysis usually requires years, you know."

  “That sounds like the old Freudian—"

  “No! Not at all!” I'd incensed him. “My procedure is entirely different. In fact, it is completely opposite to the procedure of that freud, Sigmund Fraud ... um. That fraud, Sig—It is exactly opposite. That's the secret."

  “About Charley..."

  “You see,” he went on, warming to his subject, “I was for many years an orthodox Freudian analyst. Did you know that?"

  “I had a hunch, but—"

  “Treated sick people for years. Found they kept getting sicker. The rule: when a procedure produces a certain effect, reversing the procedure will reverse the effect. Child's play, right?"

  “About Charley..."

  “Attend this closely. If the Freudian procedure was making people sick, the way to make people well was to reverse the procedure. Right? Do the exact opposite. Right?"

  Just for fun, I said, “Right!” I like the word, anyway.

  “So,” he went on, “I had my flush of inspiration."

  “Flash? Never mind. I take it back."

  “The secret, obviously, was to reverse every rule, law, term, and technique of Freudian analysis. I did it, I did it.” In his excitement he stood up and gave a little kick, his polished boot gleaming. Then he sat down, saying, “Thus my technique was born."

  “The birth of Brain Withering, hey?"

  He scowled. “Young man, I'll have you know I do not like that term. I did not devise it. That is the creation of the Fourth Estate ... Fifth? Third. The newspapers invented that. The proper name for my scientific discovery is Duerfism.” He paused, expectantly. “You see? Freud—Duerf."

  “Ugh,” I said. “Like sdrawkcab."

  “Which?"

  “That's backwards spelled backwards."

  “Um. In Duerfism, then, there are of necessity no such ridiculous concepts as the Oedipus complex, the id, ego, superego, penis envy, and such rot. Instead we have the di, oge, ogerepus, vagina envy, and Supideo, among other things."

  “What other—Vagina envy? Pardon my language, of course, but—"

  “Of course. We're modern, aren't we? Enlightened? Adult?"

  “While I admit that makes a lot more sense, it still, somehow, doesn't quite exactly make enough sense. That's not really what I mean, but—"

  “Of course it makes sense. Attend this closely. Freud and his millions of followers all stressed penis envy as one of the basic causes of feminine neuroses. Everybody knew about it. Everybody thought about it. Everybody talked about it. Everybody accepted it. We know that was wrong. We know the opposite is right. The opposite of penis envy is vagina envy, right? Therefore, it is the answer to male neurosis. And to think the answer was there all the time, staring us in the face—"

  “Doctor, please."

  “And we didn't know. Not until I put my finger on it. Not until I, Mordecai Withers, had my flush of inspiration did the world learn the true, final answer to the cure of neurosis. Don't you see what it means? The truth at last! There is no Oedipus complex. Supideo proves it is not the boy desiring his mother and hating his father. The truth, of course, is that he desires his father and hates his mother. Could anything be simpler?"

  “No,” I said slowly. “Nothing.” I paused. “Doctor, until today I thought the Freudian philosophy, besides making people weaker instead of stronger, more dependent instead of independent, was the silliest thing I'd ever heard of. But now that you've explained Wither—Duerfism to me”—I let my voice rise, smiled warmly—“I am absolutely convinced that Duerfism makes just as much sense!"

  “Yes, yes,” he cried. “It is the answer. We have the world in our grasp ... um, the cure for the world's ills in our clutches. And I did it, I did it!” All excited, filled with love and compassion for himself, he got up again and gave a little kick. Almost a little dance, like one-two-three-kick.

  But then the door of that adjacent room opened and the lovely gal—Miss Plonk, he'd called her—came out. She was fully dressed, resplendent in a beautifully made white knit suit, with piping the color of sherry wine running along the lapels and around the bottom of the jacket, and white high-heeled shoes that made her legs look even better. What I could see of them. She really looked good.

  To me, that is.

  But Dr. Withers eyeballed her as if in shock. His eyes bugged out and his mouth dropped open and he literally fell back in his chair. His chest even heaved a bit.

  Suddenly I got it. This cat didn't get all shook up by a luscious tomato unless she had all her clothes on.

  No wonder he had them strip. It was the only way he could get down to business.

  Who would have thought it? Dr. Mordecai Withers was sick.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The lovely Miss Plonk sto
od for a moment inside the room—must have been driving Withers mad, judging merely from the effect on me—then she walked toward us.

  She gave me a smile—yes, it was a big, juicy smile—and said to Dr. Withers, “Thank you, doctor. I'll call if—when I want my next appointment. All rightie?"

  “All rightie,” he said, still in a highly nervous condition.

  Then she turned, glanced slant-eyed at me, and very softly said, “Ooeeoo."

  Boy, now I knew it meant something. But what? I'd never rest till I knew. Night after night the question would be drumming in my brain. But what?

  She went out. I turned to Dr. Withers and said for the umpteenth time, “Doctor ... about Charley?"

  “Eh? Ah. Um, yes. What did you wish to know?"

  “What was wrong with him?"

  “A severe case of Supideo complicated by traumatic—"

  “Pardon me, doctor. I'm a simple lad. In simple words, OK? And I'm not so much interested in the technical diagnosis as in what he thought was wrong with him. What did Charley tell you his complaint was?"

  “Merely that he was depressed, had bad dreams, sometimes felt his head was going to fall off. The usual."

  “That's usual?"

  “Oh, that's nothing. You should hear—"

  “Did he give any indication that he might be on the verge of suicide?"

  It didn't shock him. He pursed his lips, lowered his head, and looked at me through the tops of his big hornrimmed glasses. “Not exactly. But I presume it must be considered as a possibility. In fact, I'm certain it was a possibility. I can't, of course, go into real details of what he told me. Professional ethics, you know."

  “I know."

  “But stating it simply, I would say there were indications of a deep-seated Supideo complex which, aggravated by inverted cannibalismus, was approaching irremediable psychosis. Possibly suicidal. If I could only have treated him for a few years, even a few months, just long enough to turn him into a real duerf—cured him, that is—I'm sure he would have been all right. I barely had time to explain to him that his symptoms were due to his deeply repressed unconscious lust for his father—"

  “Yes, thank you, doctor. I'm sure you were a big help.” I stood up. “That's enough for me. Thanks again. I'll see your secretary and pay the bill on my way out."

  And out I went.

  The secretary stopped typing long enough to take my money and give me a receipt. The bill was a hundred dollars. And I thought it was worth it.

  I couldn't get out of there fast enough. It wasn't fast enough. Miss Plonk was gone.

  * * * *

  Back down the blacktop drive I went, and turned into Hill Road. My head was swimming. As if in deep water, and going down for the third time. A very creepy feeling crept over me. What if Mordecai was right? If so, I was in trouble. In times of general insanity, they lock up the sane people, naturally. Only a few had been put away, so I guessed it hadn't really started yet; but in times like these anything could happen.

  It was a little chilly now, and I rolled up the Cad's windows, swung into Benedict Canyon Drive, and headed down toward Beverly Hills. A tan cloth raincoat was on the seat beside me; earlier it had looked as if it might rain, but the sky was fairly clear now, though there was a good nip in the air. Up ahead was a black sedan, parked on my right where a side road intersected Benedict Canyon. I could see one man behind the wheel and another standing near the raised hood. Having engine trouble, I guessed.

  Both sides of Benedict Canyon at this point were lined with scrubby trees and low brown shrubs. As I approached the intersection I thought, for just a moment, that I saw something move or glitter on my left, there in the trees. But I looked that way and didn't see anything unusual.

  But it was enough to alert my senses just a bit more. Enough so that I straightened a little, involuntarily gripped the steering wheel tighter. Maybe it was that movement I'd seen, or imagined; maybe the car close ahead now, on my right, or the posture of the man standing near it. He slammed down the hood, then walked to the driver's side of the car. The driver's side, the side nearest me—not toward the opposite seat where he'd naturally go if he were about to climb in. Maybe nothing. But I slapped my coat over the .38 Colt, just to be sure it was there where I always carry it, and eased my foot off the gas pedal.

  There was no alarm. I was simply reacting in the way that was now normal for me after years of dealing with men whose answer to frustration is violence, the sap or the gun or the muscle. When you know there are at least a few dozen hoods in a big city who would dance on your grave if you were dead, you kind of make a special effort not to be dead.

  So right then everything was routine, like checking the rear-view mirror to make sure you're not being tailed.

  But in one sudden second everything changed.

  Alarm rammed itself into my throat and I hit the brakes, grabbing under my coat for the .38. That black sedan had leaped forward into the intersection, blocking my path, and in the same moment the big man who'd been standing alongside it ran toward me. I couldn't get around the car; but I was already slowing. Then, on my left, I saw movement again.

  A third man had either stood up or moved forward from the scrubby trees there. He wasn't moving now; he was standing still. But light gleamed on something metallic in his hands. Something big. I didn't take a good look at him; there wasn't time. I hit the emergency brake with my left foot, locking it, and used the brake pedal as leverage to shove myself toward the Cad's right-hand door. I flopped on the seat, fingers slapping the door handle while the car was still in motion and swerving as the tires bit into asphalt.

  Moments before the forward motion stopped completely, the door sprang open and I started trying to scramble from the car—but as I flopped out I heard the cha-cha-cha of automatic fire. That's what the bastard on my left had been holding—a machine gun. I heard heavy slugs hit the Cad's body, felt the bite of flying glass as a window splintered.

  Then my shoulder thudded against the street and I flipped over, getting my knees under me, the snub-nosed .38 in my right fist. The black car was still blocking the intersection and I could see the driver jumping out of it; the big man was ten yards away, running at me. The sound of the submachine gun was momentarily silent.

  Near my knees was wadded tan cloth. When I'd come out of the car my raincoat had been pulled out with me. I hadn't planned it that way; but as long as it was here maybe I could use it. The Cad had stopped squarely between me and the guy across the street. I grabbed the raincoat in my left hand and hurled it toward the back of the Cad, trying to throw it high and hard enough so it would fly out past the car's rear before falling to the ground; at the same time I flipped my Colt up and snapped a shot at the man near me. And missed.

  The big man—he wasn't merely big, he was huge—was nearest me, and he had a gun in his band. But he couldn't aim very accurately while running, and it wasn't a machine gun. So I came up onto my feet, facing the Cadillac, snapped one more shot at the big man and thought I saw his right arm jerk, thought I saw his gun spinning in air. I wasn't sure; but it didn't make any difference. I let him keep coming at me from my right, pulled my eyes and gun arm left, straight ahead of me, as another burst of slugs ripped from the machine gun across the street. My tan coat jerked in the air, jerked and fell.

  I bent my knees so I could see past the Cad's open right door and through the car's interior to the shattered window by the driver's seat. That first burst of heavy slugs had shattered the glass, left gaping holes in it. But through the holes I could see the third man, his automatic chopper still aimed away from me. My eye, gun, and the man's chest were in line when I squeezed the trigger, squeezed it again. He was hit; I knew damn well he was hit.

  I heard the slap of shoe leather as the man near me loomed on my right. I turned toward him fast, swinging my left foot up ahead of me and planting it, slapping the gun from right hand to left. He was almost on me. I didn't fire. Beyond him was the driver of that black sedan, also coming t
his way now, a little guy, not in much of a hurry. But there were at least two men on their feet—three if I hadn't dropped the one across the street—and there was only one bullet left in my gun.

  I had time to cock my right fist and start slamming it forward. The big man was a yard away, arms up, hands reaching. Reaching, but empty; so his gun had fallen back there. My fist moved between his hands without touching them, and I got his chin with a hell of a blow, an enormous blow. It felt as if my whole fist exploded, as if the knuckles shattered.

  It didn't stop him. His momentum carried him into me and we both went down. I landed on my back, tried to hold my head up, but it banged into the asphalt hard enough to send silvery dots of light arcing before my eyes. He rolled over me, scrambled on the street. I got up, staggered, saw the little man, his image blurred, between me and the black sedan. He'd stopped running, was standing in the street. A dot of fire bloomed as he shot at me, and the sound seemed strangely loud. Something nipped at my coat, a barely felt tug, as the bullet hissed past.

  I felt my lungs filling with air. The man was turning. I raised my arm, pointed the Colt at him as he kept turning away from me then started to run toward the car. I aimed at his narrow back, fired, and missed.

  The man behind me was trying to get up off the street. His hand clutched at my coat. I turned, cupped the empty gun in my palm, and slammed it down and into his forehead as hard as I could. He let out a little sigh and went back down.

  A car door slammed. There was the deep flutter of the sedan's engine starting. A squeal of rubber tires on asphalt, then he was on his way. I saw the big man's heavy automatic lying a few yards from me, started toward it, then stopped.

  Except for the flutter of the sedan, it was quiet. Then, not a sound. It was like the silence a man would hear when he was in his grave—which, I began slowly to realize, I wasn't.

  Across the street the machine gunner lay on his stomach, feet in dirt alongside the road, side of his face pressed against the asphalt. He wasn't moving. But the huge ape near me was. Not much. Too much. I got his gun off the street and pounded him once with it.