The Cheim Manuscript (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  What? he said. What? What?

  That told me all I really needed to know, but when he dropped the phone — actually, he let out a great barking sound and then dropped the phone — I picked it up.

  What was that horrid noise? Mr. Constance asked.

  Would you repeat that information? He did. It had been Cheims five-G check, all right. I thanked Mr. Constance and hung up.

  Aaah, my God, its true! Cheim was having another small attack. But they didn’t bother me much anymore. I was getting hardened to them. The sonofabitch! Cheim bellowed. He did it! He stole it. I’m ruined! How could he? What happened?

  What happened is, as I seem continually to be saying, he thought of you as dead, as the late Gideon Cheim. He wasn’t terrified by the thought of you anymore. I paused. You do get the salient point here, don’t you? Since we can now logically prove that Jellicoe opened the case and found the manuscript and check, that was when he still thought of you as dead, or as good as dead, which was the next best thing.

  Will you quit —

  But then, while at the peak of his euphoria — zowie! — who calls him, big as life? Gideon Cheim. It must have been like getting a collect call from the cemetery. Hello? he says, happy as a bird, and what does he hear? Jellicoe? Gideon! Get your butt over here, bring the manuscript, bring the check —

  Mr. Scott.

  Yeah. Well, even if he greatly desired to wrap everything up again in a wax-sealed package so youd never know what he’d done, that was impossible — he had already cashed the check. There was no way he could keep you from finding out about that. He would have been in a bit of a sweat, what?

  Indeed . . . he . . . would.

  Thus Jellicoe, almost surely, has flown the coop, and will continue hiding out from his nemesis, Gideon Cheim. Especially if he’s already managed to sell the manuscript. . . . Uh.

  For a few seconds I stood quietly, trying to concentrate.

  And suddenly the darkness disappeared.

  So I smiled, not too sweetly, at Gideon Cheim and said, Weve accounted for the five thousand clams, and know Jellicoe didn’t have to sell the script. I paused. But he could have. And for a lot more than five thousand. Right?

  Cheims face was grim. He didn’t say anything.

  Right? I repeated. Well, you do want the damned thing back, don’t you? If he hasn’t peddled it already, he sure as hell could still sell it. Couldn’t he?

  Cheim finally answered. To any number of people.

  I continued smiling. Name some of that number for me.

  Um . . . He thought for a while. But then he plunged right into it. The autobiography is the true story of my life. In addition, it challenges the slanders and lies directed against me during my life and especially this past decade. To effectively accomplish this it was necessary for me to reveal much about other individuals which, unfortunately, might in some cases prove embarrassing to those individuals.

  Including names and dates and places and such?

  True names in some cases. In others, the identities and events disguised. There are laws of libel to consider.

  Sure, I thought. And to circumvent when possible. But a man like Cheim could skirt pretty near the edge — especially when he expected to be dead and buried before publication.

  In Hollywood there are always rumors floating around, stories about Miss A or Mr. X, this married couple or that fascinating orgy, this startling indiscretion or even, sometimes, that major crime — items rarely even suspected by the public at large, but whispered or laughed about by the in crowd, at parties or in barrooms or bedrooms. Usually they remain merely in the category of juicy rumors, though someone, somewhere, always knows the truth behind the rumor — which on occasion is even more juicy or shocking than the rumor itself.

  Undoubtedly Gideon Cheim was, in the case of many of those rumors, the someone, somewhere who held truth by the tail. And apparently in his autobiography he had let it go — in the interest, of course, of justice. Even where false names and invented times and places were used, the stories could have been made sufficiently recognizable that the in crowd would know, automatically, who were the real individuals involved. Cheim could have made sure of that — and, I thought, would have.

  Go on, I said. Get a little more specific, please.

  I pulled a chair over near Cheims bed, found an ashtray, sat down. When he started talking in generalities I said, It wont do, Mr. Cheim. That manuscript is a bomb, and you know it. Its ticking under a lot of derrieres right now. And Jellicoe may be lighting some fuses.

  I cant accept —

  Just a minute. We agree on the meat, lets get down to the bone: Consider Wilfred Jellicoe. He has read your manuscript. He is interested, even shocked, by the revelations therein. And soon he has a splendid — if, to Jelly, somewhat frightening — idea. So again, with greater care and, I imagine, growing excitement, he pores over your revealing autobiography, but this time to pick from it the people named, or almost named, who would on the basis of information revealed in the manuscript be most susceptible to blackmail.

  Blackmail? Impossible. This is preposterous! Goddamn you, there is not any blackmail information —

  Don’t give me that jazz. I happen to know Jellicoe did use info from the manuscript for blackmail. At least, I’ll give ten to one he got the dirt from a few paragraphs of your autobiography — in which paragraphs, I’ll wager, you came out smelling like a field of violets.

  He didn’t get griped at my language. Something else was more important. His black eyes shifted around the room. You know he did attempt to blackmail someone?

  Yes. And succeeded.

  Who?

  That’s privileged information. In other words, I’m not going to tell you.

  But . . . it was Jellicoe? You’re sure of that?

  Wilfred Jefferson Jellicoe. And I’m positive.

  He thought a moment. But you said his rooms were searched, in great disarray. Perhaps —

  Look, when Jellicoe started out on his great adventure be thought you were — I hate to remind you again — dead, or at least dying. He was already in the soup when you so speedily and shockingly recovered, the die was cast, he’d burned his bridges — what could he do but skip? It could be he tossed his own rooms to make it look as if he’d been robbed, kidnapped, killed, anything, then simply flew the coop. I paused. All I’ve got to do is find the coop he flew to. And you’re the guy — maybe the only guy — who can help me do it.

  Cheims black eyes shifted again. Mr. Scott, I cannot agree that in my autobiography there is anything which —

  Wait till I’m through before you tell me how sweet you are. You can take my word for it, Wilfred has already — and successfully — put the bite on one citizen. Therefore, it is not unlikely that he plans to blackmail one or more other citizens. That is, if he hasn’t already tried it. Since it is undeniable that this metamorphosis in Wilfred Jellicoe occurred simultaneously with his discovery of I!, the autobiography of Gideon Cheim, it would to me be a coincidence of stunning dimensions should there be no connection between the two events. Does this appeal to your logic, Mr. Cheim?

  He remained silent. But the skin was more puckered around his narrowed eyes, and he was wiggling his lips while playing with his nose. He seemed pretty excited.

  So, I went on, its reasonable to conclude that Jellicoe would pick for his victims not those whod merely be embarrassed, but the ones whod be ruined or greatly damaged by whatever revelations he could make about them, and from among those individuals the ones who could and would pay cold cash to keep his mouth shut.

  Cheim didn’t say anything, but he was listening intently.

  If that’s true, I continued, and if I can get to those people before Jellicoe does, or even soon after he hits them, then obviously I’ll have a good chance of getting my hooks, on the guy — and very likely on your autobiography as well. You know who theyd be, the people Jellicoe would be most likely to hit — hell, you wrote the damned book. And I think, Mr. Cheim,
youd be wise to tell me who they are.

  He told me.

  When he fell silent I stubbed out my fourth cigarette and stared at him with something approaching wonder. You’re a sweet one, all right, I said. You must have tried to get even with everybody who ever looked cross-eyed at you. I appreciate the pain you must have experienced in telling me about some of them. But there must be more, hey?

  More?

  I didn’t say anything, just waited.

  Well . . . naturally I cant, in a few minutes, relive for you every fleeting moment of my life, Mr. Scott. However —

  I interrupted him. I mean more, about others you’ve been intimately associated with. I thought you just might have left out people like . . . and I rattled off half a dozen names, including Sylvia Ardent and Warren Barr.

  It undoubtedly helped that Cheim was well aware that I knew Jellicoe had already blackmailed one person, but was not aware of which person it had been, and there was always a chance it was somebody he’d not yet included in his tales to me. Perhaps because of that he gave me a little more dirt about two of that half dozen Id named, two others mentioned in his apparently crammed-full autobiography.

  The two: Sylvia Ardent and Warren Barr.

  As for Sylvia, he told me shed been a call girl, the time and the place, intimate details. He’d even dug up — Cheim admitted employing a large private-detective agency at considerable expense — names of hotels, private homes, even spicy quotes from a few apparently hugely satisfied individuals.

  But, oddly, not a word about Sylvia and Gideon Cheim.

  So, since he’d left out quite a bit about Sylvia, possibly he had done the same in telling me what his investigators had dug up about Warren Barr. But he did at least go into quite specific detail about Barr. Enough, at least, so that I figured I could squeeze Barr a little myself, if I felt like it.

  I wasn’t sure I would. But I was pretty sure — now — that Wilfred Jefferson Jellicoe had.

  Following Cheims hesitant admission of episodes he had included in I!, I asked him casually, Do you happen to know a guy named Mac Kiffer? Or Putrid Stanley?

  Cheim shook his head. Then he glanced sharply at me. Putrid? Do you mean you know someone named Putrid?

  I’m asking if you do. His real names Wallace Stanley.

  He shook his head again. No, who are they?

  I described both men, but that rang no bells for Cheim, either. Theyre a couple of hoods, I told him, either one of whom would carve the gizzard out of a crippled old blind lady for a hundred bucks.

  You cant possibly be serious.

  I cant possibly be anything else. Forget the names. Would you have any idea why a couple of hoods would have been on my tail this afternoon, Mr. Cheim? Following me?

  Cheim was becoming less subdued than he’d been for the last fifteen minutes or so. I imagined fifteen minutes was about his limit. Why, you impertinent sonofabitch, he said, with apparent sincerity. I don’t even know any . . . hoods. How could their following you possibly have anything to do with me?

  I smiled. Maybe you don’t know any hoods. But lets be frank, shall we? You are not quite as pure as the driven snow, are you? Not Gideon Cheim, the author of I!

  He balled his hands into fists once more, lifted them up and banged them down on the covers. His eyes looked as if they were going to develop blisters. But finally he said, and again with apparently complete sincerity, Mr. Scott, it is not important what you think of my personality, my character or my actions. I did, in writing my autobiography, reveal much which could cause great suffering to many. Many who caused me to suffer grievously. I did it deliberately. But now I am appalled that I should have done so.

  He was silent for several seconds. Then he said quietly, I was very close to death, Mr. Scott, for the first time in my life. An experience like that changes a man. It has changed me.

  I thought that was all. Rather a nice spot for my exit. But then he added, You must get the manuscript back for me. You must. So I can destroy it.

  Oh? Well, if I’m lucky enough to find the thing, why don’t I just save you the trouble and burn it —

  My God, no! The . . . other, the parts about me — that mustnt be lost. I meant so I could destroy the rest of it.

  I looked at him for a while, thoughts rolling around in my head. Then I said, I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Cheim.

  His lips moved around and his shaggy black-and-gray brows waggled. He seemed still quite shaken when I walked out of his room. I pulled the door shut, started to step to my left and very nearly collided physically with Eddy Lash.

  Think of the devil, I thought.

  Eddy Lash. Himself. In the flesh. Or, more accurately, in the flesh and bone. He looked as cadaverous and creepy — and deadly — as he had the last time Id seen him.

  Which is to say, the last time he’d shot me.

  7

  That’s right. Shot me.

  Two years ago Id been after one of Eddy Lashs men, a hype named Casey, who had burgled the mansion of my client, an eighty-year-old millionaire.

  Id managed to find out from one of my informants that Casey would be dropping by a certain address in west Los Angeles, late at night, to make a heroin connection. When he showed up for the H, I was waiting for him, cleverly eyeing the old frame house from the dimness of an alley across the street.

  Unfortunately, Casey not only arrived in the company of Eddy Lash, but they chose to approach their destination by way of the alley across the street from the old frame house which I was so cleverly eyeing from the alley.

  Even a dummy could have figured out that this put me in a precarious position, not only because they were behind me, but also because I had on a previous occasion severely but not quite mortally damaged a couple of the lowbrows in the employ of Eddy Lash, who therefore was eager to shoot me on sight.

  I figured it out when I heard them behind me.

  It was dimness in the alley, not darkness. There was enough illumination for me to recognize them when I spun around, grabbing under my coat for the Colt .38 Special in its clam-shell holster. Only, not surprisingly, they had seen me first. While I was still turning, Lash was aiming his gun at me. Before I could get off a shot he fired, and hit me.

  The slug went through my shoulder muscle and didn’t hit bone. But Lashs gun was a .357 Magnum, and when you get hit even superficially by a 158-gram slug traveling over 1,400 feet a second, it is going to knock you on your can.

  It knocked me on my can.

  I landed half on my back and half on my right side, but the slug had hit my left shoulder and I managed to keep a grip on my gun. I also managed to roll over and, while still on my back, empty the Colt at the dimly visible figures of the two men not more than a dozen feet from me.

  I didn’t know until later that Lash fired twice more, and Casey once — he was very slow on the draw, I deduced — and that all three shots had missed me. But I hit Casey in the head, the heart and his right shinbone. That is not very accurate shooting, I’ll admit. But you do not have to group your shots closely when you manage to nick the head and the heart. I was lucky to hit him at all. I was lucky I didn’t shoot my feet off. I was, in all truth, just plain lucky.

  Because, while I hit Casey with all three shots I fired at him, I missed Lash with one slug; but I put the other two pills into Eddys gut and gave him indigestion that lasted for three months. Casey went to the morgue. Lash to the Emergency Receiving Hospital. I went to the hospital, too, but only overnight.

  There was an investigation. Nobody was jailed or even indicted. Lash insisted he was merely accompanying an acquaintance on a stroll — why an alley? why not an alley? — when I started shooting at them. I told the truth.

  Well, at least I wasn’t sent to Folsom myself. And Lash did spend three months in a hospital. I heard rumors that he’d vowed, if ever he ran into me again, he would joyously shoot me on the instant. But I hadnt seen the sonofabitch since.

  Not until this instant.

  It was a bit o
f a shock, coming face to face with him thus unaware. It was doubly shocking because, at the moment when I came through the door of Gideon Cheims hospital room. Lashs right arm was extended, his hand open, reaching for the knob of that very same door.

  Eddy Lash? Calling on Gideon Cheim? Who didn’t know any hoods?

  Hello, Eddy, I said.

  He didn’t speak. We stood barely a foot apart, looking at each other. He was six one, only an inch under my height, but I had a good fifty pounds on him, possibly more than that.

  Well, don’t just stand there, I said cheerfully. Shall I inform Mr. Cheim that Edward Lash awaits, without?

  I paused, looking at his appalling pale-blue eyes. You here on business? I mean, you here to shoot him?

  He had not yet said a single word.

  Id never found him a great conversationalist, but now he simply stared back at me, looking extraordinarily unappetizing. And when Eddy Lash stared unblinking at a man with, as now, an expression of pure malevolence on his face it was, even for me, a somewhat chilling experience.

  This guy wasn’t just a bad guy, he was one of the worst of the worst of the bad guys. If ever there was a creepy cat, a spook incarnate, it was this weirdo. He looked like the late Eddy Lash; he looked as if he’d been inexpertly embalmed; he looked like a ghost with a fatal disease. He was tall and thin with the general outlines of a skeleton, bony, angular, cold outside and inside. He was sick-looking, pasty-faced, bloodless, so anemic that when his eyes got bloodshot they turned white.

  Eddy, I told him, you don’t look so hot. Why don’t you drink a couple gallons of blood, then go lie down in your coffin and rest till the next lunar eclipse?

  Still nothing from Lash. Except the stare.

  I suppose he stared silently at me for not more than ten seconds. But it seemed longer, because Eddy Lash actually looked as if he had frostbitten eyes. Man, those orbs were cold. He could have lain at noonday staring at the summer sun and those icy glimmers wouldn’t have warmed up before 2 p.m. Deep-set, dull, pale blue, in that chill pasty face they were little open graves in the plains of a bony Siberia.