The driver didn't pay any attention to me. He was intent on his radio, which was spewing wild information about Shell Scott. It was awful. I hadn't done half those things.
I'd heard most of it already. In my travels since leaving the club, I'd heard radios, TV sets, and even yelling people filling the air with similar intelligence. I had sneaked into bushes, hidden under a house, hailed one cab before this one. So far, I was still moving. And I knew, too, where I was moving.
I'd had another idea.
Probably my last for a while. I hoped so. I'd had quite enough of my ideas. But the news had carried to all the local citizens—and a lot of foreigners, too, in places like Istanbul and Krakow, and by drum to the Zambezi—numerous facts. The invasion from the sky had commenced at 4:40 p.m. First city to be hit was Hollywood. Then havoc on the Freeways. Then befuddlement in Los Angeles. Consternation in the Police Building. Conniptions in City Hall. The Mayor had issued a statement. The Chief of Police had issued a statement. So had congressmen, senators, and the Governor issued statements. The gist of it was: Be calm.
I had been called a Communist. Worse, I'd been called an anti-Communist. But most of all I'd been called a maniac. I was obviously a violent paranoiac, agog with homicidal urges, my batty resentment directed against the entire State of California. The ravings in my pronunciamento posed a clear and present danger to the health and spirits of Ulysses Sebastian, obviously, and ten minutes after the alarm, a police cordon had been thrown around the entire block where stood the Sebastian Building.
Protection from the invasion would also be offered Gary Baron and Mordecai Withers when they were found. They hadn't been found yet—maybe Scott had done away with them already. Nothing was said about Mafia boss Joe Rice. The body of Tony Anguish had been found where I'd said it was; a police ballistics test had already proved the lethal bullet matched slugs from my .38 Colt, which slugs had been on file with the police.
There were going to be suits for libel, slander, commitment, and littering the streets. The FBI had been called into the case. The League of Women Voters had leaped into the case. The Republican Party and the Democratic Party and the Socialist Party and the Communist Party had all joined the party. The Boy Scouts had offered their services in tracking. The Girl Scouts had said they'd make cookies for the Boy Scouts.
Well, I'll admit it. I hadn't anticipated every little thing. In fact, I hadn't looked very far ahead, now that I looked back. After all, I'd thought I was doing something good. I'd only wanted to be helpful.
Anyway, I still had one idea left. It was a great one. Just like my other ideas. It was useless. What I had in mind, or whatever it was in, was based on three bits of knowledge. First, whatever the “secret” meeting was that Tony Anguish had told me about—which was one bit I'd left out of my scattered message—both Ulysses Sebastian and Joe Rice, undoubtedly along with others, were to have been present. Second, that meeting was to have begun at about 4 p.m., to last at least an hour or more. Third, within ten minutes after I'd dropped my first paper bombs—at 4:40 p.m.—a police cordon had been thrown around the block where the Sebastian Building was, which meant that by 4:50 nobody could go in or out of the Sebastian Building without first identifying himself to the police officers.
Conclusion: Either the people who'd attended that meeting had by now left the building, not being concerned about being identified; or, if they wanted either their identities or presence kept secret, they were still there. Because the police cordon was still there.
And I very much wanted to know who was, on this election eve and in the midst of all the furor I'd stirred up, meeting with Sebastian in his office in the Sebastian Building.
So when the cab driver asked me where I wanted to go, I told him the Sebastian Building.
Or almost. I told him to drop me around the corner from Sunset, on Genesee Avenue, which would be just a block from the Sebastian Agency, where I'd been for the first time two days ago. As was getting to be my usual habit, I didn't have the foggiest idea what I'd do when I got there.
But maybe that “cordon of lawmen” had been exaggerated. Newspapers sometimes do that sort of thing. Maybe the cordon consisted of two cops, and I could sneak past them. If I could somehow get to the Sebastian offices and inside, I was sure that one fact alone would cause sufficient commotion to bring both those cops, and perhaps eight hundred more, on the run. I'm always hoping, and I not only hoped to find out, myself, who was cahooting up there with Sebastian, but to make the info—assuming it was of any value to me—as public as everything else about me seemed to be. There was only one thing wrong with the idea: it was impossible.
It was 7:15 p.m. and dark now, which helped. Not a lot; but I was grateful for a little. Even so, before I got out of the cab on Genesee, it had become clear that this time cordon meant cordon. From a block away I could see four uniformed officers, and there were probably some in plain clothes. A police radio car passed the cab as we pulled into the curb.
I didn't hesitate this time. The time for hesitation was past. I'd burned my bridges and scattered the ashes. It was onward and upward now, as they say in the inspirational books, until and unless I was stopped by a blank wall. So out of the cab I jumped, dropping the fare plus a buck on the seat—not too much, but enough so he wouldn't remember me with suspicion.
He pulled away and I was standing across the street from the block where the State Bank Building had stood a few weeks ago. Now the whole block was a shambles, like my life. Ruin lay everywhere. I walked across the street—into Ruin.
It was my idea that by going through the shambles I could avoid walking in plain view on the street, and also duck behind a crumpled teller's cage, say, if anybody approached. But nothing happened. No guards were posted among the hunks of concrete and piles of splintered wood. I imagine the police didn't really expect me to be within several miles of here, certainly, not this close. They were doing their job, on the qui vive, but not really expecting what happened. Who would expect what happened?
I skulked forward, dashing from teller's cage to lumber pile, slinking from ruin to shambles, and when I was three-quarters of the way through the urban-renewal block I saw the slanted steel spire rising toward the sky. It was Jack Jackson's truck-crane. The latticed boom looked just a little bit like a ladder. And in the deeps of my murky gray matter, down about the brain stem, something wiggled.
Suddenly I became aware of a strange fact. Or rather the absence of a fact, like having an ache for several days then suddenly realizing you're not aching. I wasn't hungry.
I knew I hadn't eaten. So why wasn't I even hungrier than before? Had I eaten my stomach? Was it down there digesting itself like a snake swallowing its tail?
I shook my head. Was this logical thinking? It was important that I think logically from now on, that was sure. Then I remembered that people who fasted—on purpose—often lost their hunger entirely after two or three days. Now I had the logical explanation: I wasn't hungry because I was starving. That made sense. It made me feel better to be so clear-headed.
A little lightheaded, too. It was as though the emptiness of my stomach found its parallel inside my skull. Sure, that was it; I was lightheaded because my skull was empty, and my skull was empty because I hadn't been eating. It gave me a renewed surge of confidence to know I still had my wits about me. Nothing could stop me now. Onward and upward! Down the hatch! Avast and belay there! I was full of inspirational messages.
Fragments of an inspirational poem flitted through my mind like fairy butterflies. It was something about “They said it couldn't be done,” and the guy who rolled up his sleeves and plunged right in, with a bit of a grin; something like that. There was my kind of fellow. A fellow with confidence. Just show me that old problem, I'll put on a bit of a grin! I'd been moving forward, and now saw—movement? Yeah, something had moved there, in the cab of the truck-crane. A man, climbing down ... Hell, it was Jackson.
I walked up behind him and said softly, “Hey, Jackson."
“Shush. They'll hear you in Glendale."
“Haaallp!"
“Shut up, Jackson. It's me."
“You!"
“Jackson, we're friends, aren't we?"
It took me thirty seconds of the fastest talking of my life—with my left hand behind his neck and my right fist raised like a club—but he calmed down a little. Especially after I explained that my beard was merely a disguise, and not contagious. I told him I had been grievously wronged, that not more than ninety per cent of what he'd heard was true, and so on. He was almost over on my side again—but by that time a police officer was trotting across the street toward us.
“Jackson,” I said, “if you tip him, I'm dead. Tell him you fell asleep, were having a nightmare."
“I thought I was."
I flopped on the ground and he went forward to meet the officer. I guess my fast talking had convinced Jackson enough; at least, the policeman didn't come over and grab me.
Jackson came back and sat down on the ground next to me. “Told him I had a nightmare, like you said. Fell asleep in my cab. He knows I been working here.” He pulled the canteen from his belt and had a belt. “Shell?” He offered it to me.
It seemed a logical thing to do. Maybe it would steady my nerves, I thought I had a belt. Then I explained rapidly some of what had been happening, and asked him how come he was still here.
“Worked till about half an hour ago,” he said. “Boss is anxious to get this job finished so we can start wrecking the next block. I stuck around because of all the excitement over around Sebastian's. Thought I'd watch it awhile."
“Uh-huh. Well, Sebastian is why I'm here. I want to get into his office, but there's not a prayer I can get past those cops. But, Jackson, I ... well, with a little help from you I might turn the trick."
“Help from me?"
He didn't sound like a man dying to help me. But he didn't sound exactly sober, either. Probably he'd been pulling at his canteens all day long, and now into the night. Probably hadn't eaten yet, either, so the booze would hit him a little harder. That's why when he tilted the flask again I didn't stop him. Maybe if the booze hit his half-empty stomach, it would spread like wildfire into his blood and he'd be less inhibited, more inclined to lend me a hand.
“Shell?” He held out the flask.
“OK, thanks, Jackson. Just a little one."
I got just a bit more than I'd intended, and as I handed the flask back, a strange sensation began creeping over me. I got hot, flushed, perspiration popped out on my face, my eyes popped out, my tongue popped out. It was like—like wildfire in my blood.
“Er, uh,” I said. “Think that's enough for me."
He said, “What kind of help you mean?"
“Ah, yes. That. Well, it's really very simple. I want to get up into Sebastian's office, right? Right. I can't walk up. Can't climb up. Can't float up. But if you'd just kind of put that boom up to the fourth floor there, I could scramble right up it and jump in Sebastian's window. Right? Right. So—"
“Wrong. See where my truck's sitting?"
I saw. It was parked just this side of the sidewalk. Beyond it, across the street, was the Sebastian Building. “Yeah,” I said. “I see. I got it. What's it mean?"
“This particlar boom's too long for ... what you said. Forty-five-tonner with a hundred and twenny feet of boom and jib. Real long sonombitch. Have to bring the truck practicly back here and then lay the boom over if you want it to reach as low down as them windows. See? What I mean, if I didn't move the rig back, the end of the boom would be way up there.” He pointed. “See?"
“Sure."
Jackson considered the problem soberly, then had another nip from his flask. Gave me a little nip, too. Just a little one. Then he said, “You don't want me starting up the engine and tearing around the place, do you?"
“Heaven forbid! That would bring some cops over here, sure."
“Right. So we don't want to move the truck. Whatever we do gotta be done fast, right?"
“You bet. Fast as hell. Faster than cops."
We were in rapport. Our minds were working with the beautiful precision and logic common to drunks.
He said, “But I know how to do it without moving the truck an inch. Not an inch.” He paused, pleased, then went on. “We leave the truck where it is, start her up and real quick turn the crane-cab out facing the street. Lower the boom just a little. Do it fast so nobody notices right at first. Of course, they would eventually."
“Sure they would."
“Then I could give the ball a little swing, and I bet if I timed it just right I could lay it right up there alongside of those windows of Sebastian's office. I could do that fast enough so nobody'd notice—not till it was all over, anyway."
“Uh-huh. I can see that. But what good would it do me? Unless I was up there on the ball..."
It's funny how you can be led down a garden path, everything bright and cheery, and then suddenly—one false step—and plunk, you're in the swamp.
At first the idea struck me as foolish. But then I decided to throw away all preconceived notions and look upon this problem as if it had never been examined before. Look at it, in a word, logically. OK, say I'm on that old skull cracker, I thought. No trouble hanging onto the cable. If I were standing up there on a solid stationary platform outside Sebastian's office, it would be no great trick to jump through one of those big windows. I've jumped through windows before. Cut the living hell out of me, sure, but there hadn't been anything enormously difficult about it.
OK. Once I'm up there, it's simple to jump through the window. Only difference is that my solid stationary platform isn't stationary. It's moving. And, of course, it's round. No, not even round—pear-shaped. Not quite as good footing as a real platform. Not nearly ... I got a little twinge of doubt right then.
But I remembered that inspirational poem. Not all of it, but the general idea. “They showed him the thing that couldn't be done; with a grin he went right to it....” That was the stuff. Wished I could remember the last of it; I could use all the encouragement I could get. All right, I'm up there on the ball. And if Jackson timed it right, it would come to a stop a foot or so from the windows. For perhaps a second or two it would be stationary, just ending its forward movement and barely starting back. I could do it. It wasn't impossible.
“Jackson,” I said. “I am impersed with your presspicacity. There is some merit in your proposal. However, it is essential that you have a steady hand and clear eye. Can you swing that ball of yours up there close—close enough?"
“Nothing to it. I'm an expert with that ball. You know that."
“Sure. You can hit a fly, or—I forget. Anyway, you figure you can swing the ball up there, with me on it, and then I'll jump through the window, right? Which window? We'd better decide that."
“Well, I'll aim at the strip of wall there between the two windows. Got it?"
“Sure.” I remembered that two-foot-wide hunk of wall, all right. Robert Dalton's famous “Life and Death” was on the opposite side of it, inside Sebastian's office. “Perfect,” I said.
“Now, I might be just a leetle bit off to one side or the other. But when you get up there and the ball slows down, you can decide which window is closest."
“Won't have much time for thinking, will I?"
“Not a hell of a lot."
“Have to be a pretty quick decision."
“Pretty quick.” He nodded soberly.
“Well, uh, what if I don't decide, and jump, quick enough?"
“I don't know about you, but the ball's gonna be comin’ back."
“You're right.” I thought about it. “Jackson, what if you're way off?"
“Not likely,” he said. “Not likely. Don't you worry about that, Shell, old buddy. Even if I was, you could make up your mind when you got there. No sense asking for trouble."
It seemed to me there should be some other way. Maybe an easier wa
y. Besides, I wasn't sure Jackson knew exactly what he was saying. I didn't even know what canteen he was working on. But we talked about it a little more, and couldn't think of any other way. Besides, if the police got me—if I wasn't shot on sight, which was a possibility this close to the Sebastian Building—they'd hustle me to a cell or cackle factory. And once they had me, the police cordon would be withdrawn. Which meant whoever might be in the Sebastian suite could then walk out free as birds.
No, I still felt the way I had originally. If a thing is true, it's true forever and ever and ever. I had to get inside the suite and draw the law up there. Then, no matter what happened, I would at least have accomplished what I'd set out to do. There was that little poem, too, which was especially encouraging because my dream, in which had been the clues to all kinds of things, had been in verse, too. It seemed a good omen. And I believe in good omens. You can bet I do.
“All right, Jackson,” I said. I paused. There was a queer humming sound inside my head. Yes, it was still working. All was well. “Let's go!” I said.
I got on the ball. Jackson meshed gears and started hauling me up.
The higher I got, the clearer my thoughts seemed to become. I remembered the last time I'd been up in the air. It had been in that Spad, or whatever it was. That hadn't worked out so well. Maybe...
Boy, I was way up in the air. It seemed as if the high altitude started clearing my skull, like there was a draft in there. “Jackson,” I said. “I...” Of course, he couldn't hear me. I was talking more to myself than him, anyway.
Clank, crunch, he was working those gears down there like a madman. I could see him. I could see him tilt his canteen and have a nip. Hell of a time for him to be drinking. Then, with a sound of growling and gears meshing, he swung the crane-cab around at right angles to the truck so it was aimed toward the Sebastian Building across the street. And I was moving. I was out over the street now myself, clutching the steel cable. It wasn't easy. My feet kept trying to slip off the top of that steel pear. I had a feeling it wasn't going to get easier. Jackson did something and the ball swung backward with a graceful, sickening motion—way back, back, a momentary pause. Then we were going forward. This was it. No turning back now. The ball picked up speed horrendously, plummeted downward, reached the bottom of its arc and started up.
The Trojan Hearse (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 17
