The Cheim Manuscript (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  Despite that, Lash somehow had time to get out his gun and shoot at me.

  And the thudding of big feet became instantly much speedier and thuddier.

  But in all that thinking, when I thought of soup, the natural corollary was alphabet soup, and the flow of thought simply went, inevitably, sort of ABCDEFGHI, and I knew I wasn’t wrong.

  All of this was before Lash, after having a little trouble getting his gun out of his coat pocket, where it stuck for a second or two, shot at me — and missed.

  Well, lets say for a while there I wasn’t sure whether he missed or not.

  But as for me, now at last sure, and certain, too, that if I stood there like a dummy, thinking like lightning, any longer . . . well, Lash, at this range, couldn’t miss twice in a row.

  But neither could I miss. Not even once in a row. And I didn’t. I put three into him, first one in the head, then two more into his chest for good measure, but those last two were probably unnecessary even as insurance because he must have died as soon as the first slug plowed through his brain.

  At a moment like that you have to give all your concentration to the one thing that, first of all, has to be done. So I fired even as I heard those thudding feet so close I knew they were only yards or possibly inches away.

  Inches was more like it. The third shot had barely cracked from my Colt when something large and solid — it felt like a charging mastodon, or possibly a falling building, but I had a hunch it was Luddy — slammed into me so hard that I literally left my feet and flew through the air.

  I don’t know how far I flew, but I did know that when I stopped moving it was because after hitting some kind of table, which didn’t slow me down a bit, I slammed into a wall, and that hitting the wall addled me as much if not more than being crashed into by Luddy.

  It was Luddy, all right; my hunch had been correct.

  And I had another hunch: If I didn’t rise quickly from the posture in which Id landed after sliding down the wall — sort of reclining on my right side, elbow holding my chest a foot off the carpet and my head sticking up even higher than that, as inviting a target as Luddy could hope for — then Clarence Ludlow was going to kill me.

  Because after smashing into me on the run, he had kept coming toward me and was now preparing to swing his right foot forward and get me solidly in the middle of the face with it. In fact, he’d already started his leg swinging.

  I dropped flat, pressed my face and spread-open hands against the carpet, and Luddys big foot swished through the air where my head had been, the shoe of his heel close enough to brush my short-cropped hair.

  As his foot banged into the wall, I pushed myself up, got my feet beneath me and straightened, shoving with every bit of muscle in my thighs and calves, and caught his outstretched leg against my back, raising it high enough to send him stumbling and turning away from me. But he didn’t go down.

  By the time he’d swung around, though, I was ready for him. As ready, at least, as I was likely to get for a while. My head had cracked into the wall hard enough so that I was still dazed, my reactions not nearly as sharp as they should have been. And I knew I wasn’t holding my Colt any longer.

  But Luddy didn’t have a gun in his hand, either. Maybe he hadnt been wearing one in the safety of Lashs penthouse, or maybe he’d simply started running after hearing that first shot, and just kept on running into me. At the moment, Luddy looked as if he didn’t need a gun, anyway.

  That big, six-four and two-eighty-pound clown didn’t look very clownish, either. The face I had thought rather comical now wore an expression that wasn’t even mildly amusing. The wide jaws were clamped together, lips tight, eyes narrowed, and he stepped toward me almost gracefully, feinting with his left and then letting fly a hard right hand at my head.

  That fist appeared to be the size of a medium-large ham, and if it had landed my head would have been in much worse shape than it already was, and possibly of no further use to me at all. But I slipped beneath the blow and slammed a hard, a beautiful and solid and thunderous right into his gut.

  He grunted. He went back maybe an inch and a half. Then he swung another right hand, which bounced along the side of my face and seemed to take my ear with it as it went on by.

  Fat, Id thought him. Yeah. There was a little fat over his midsection. Approximately one-eighth of an inch was my guess, and beneath it a layer of cement. Luddy was still turned partly away from me, the force of that last all-out swing pulling him off balance, and I aimed the next blow at the side of his neck beneath the jawbone.

  Not with my fist this time. With my hand spread open, thumb jutting out and stretched back. He was too close for me to get all the force into the shot I wanted, but it was a pretty good shot nonetheless. The little-finger edge of my palm landed where Id aimed and the blow staggered him. He took a half step away from me, bending slightly forward and pressing his right hand against the wall for support. He didn’t go down, but he wasn’t functioning well for a second or two there.

  Which gave me time to pick up a ceramic lamp I spotted atilt but unbroken on the floor near me. Presumably it was the one that had been on the little table Id flown into moments ago, but I didn’t care where it came from. I simply picked it up and cracked it against the back of Luddys head.

  He went down. Finally. Onto his hands and knees, head hanging limply for half a second, then lifting slowly as he tightened the muscles in his neck. But by that time Id moved next to him and was preparing to kick him as solidly as possible on the side of his skull. I got him quite squarely on the head just aft of his left eyebrow. He went all the way down this time, finally flat on the floor.

  But I thought I detected slight movements, still. I found my gun, shoved it back into its holster, picked up Eddy Lashs .357 Magnum from where it lay some feet from his corpse, and smacked Luddys skull with its butt, after which I detected no further movements.

  Then I stood quietly for a while looking at the two prone bodies, one lifeless, and one presumably still living but giving no visible evidence of it, and contemplated my misgivings. There were a few to contemplate.

  Where was Vic? Where was Cheims manuscript and the supporting documents he’d claimed were with the autobiography? If Vic hadnt brought the package here, I was in a little bit of trouble. Another thing was that unease, like goose pimples on the brain, which I hadnt been able to identify. Sometimes it seemed I would almost grab it, when thinking about Vic, or Sylvia, but it slipped away every time.

  After a quick prowl of the master bedroom I walked, gun in hand, to Vics two rooms, his bedroom and sitting room. Both rooms were empty, at least as far as Victor Pine himself was concerned. But on his bed was a metal case — open — and papers were spread over half the bedspread.

  I just looked at it all for a few seconds.

  I knew, of course, that here, finally, was I!, the autobiography of Gideon Cheim, and I had a general idea of what the rest of the papers were. But for a short while I simply stared at them, and at the metal case, thinking that it was a little like Pandoras Box, thinking of all the mess and misery, troubles and death that had flown from it once it was opened. And also thinking, a little bitterly, that Wilfred Jefferson Jellicoe sure as hell hadnt had any idea of what he was getting into when he’d opened it.

  Then I stepped to the bed and went through the papers. Everything Id expected to find was there — and more. The handwritten confession, just as described to me by Mac Kiffer, complete with fingerprints and Henny Augrests scrawled, fat signature. I read it through. No surprises; Id had the alphabet figured, just as it turned out, in fact, to be. There were a few surprises among the other papers, several of them reports from the detective agency and various private investigators Cheim had hired over the years.

  Some big names, some not so big, a bit of spice here, a juicy scandal there, evidence of serious crime, felonious misbehavior, in a few cases. Mostly it was dirt. So was Cheims manuscript, at least judging by my impression after a hurried scanning of some of
its pages.

  A more careful perusal could wait. I stuffed everything back into the metal case, wondering — again — where Vic was, why he hadnt been here with Eddy and Luddy. Obviously he had been here; he’d brought the box, the manuscript.

  I walked into Lashs bedroom again, set Cheims metal case on the floor, and bound Luddys hands and feet together behind his back, using cord from the lamp with which Id whacked him.

  That accomplished, I stepped briskly toward the bathroom, thinking, At last! But also thinking still of Victor Pine, wondering about Sylvia, too, Vics alibi girl for a while. But Sylvia was safe. Police officers would guard her cottage during the early-A.M. hours and on through the day until —

  And then I got it. Finally I got it.

  Id been worried about Sylvia because she was a danger to Vic and there was at least a chance a three-quarters-psycho hood might try to put her out of the way so she couldn’t yank his alibi from under him.

  But there was another gal who could blow up that alibi, too. Zena Tabur.

  That was what had been bugging me, the offbeat spark in my synapses, the goose bumps on my brain: During most of the time Vic had claimed to be with Sylvia, Zena had been with her.

  I found Lashs phone, dialed Sylvias number. She sounded wide awake when she answered.

  Shell Scott, I said. Sylvia, this is important. When Vic — Victor Pine — phoned you, did you mention that Zena had been with you for much of the evening?

  Why . . . I’m not sure. I wasn’t really concentrating very —

  Think, dammit! Did he ask if anyone was with you, or did you mention Zena to him?

  Well, yes . . . Just a minute. Now I remember. He did ask me. He wanted me to say he’d been with me from about nine p.m. until a little after eleven, and I told him a girl friend had been with me from maybe eight oclock until half an hour or so before he called.

  I groaned. Sylvia, did you tell him who was with you? Did you mention Zenas name?

  Ye-es. He asked me, kind of casually, who the girl was. And I told him. I didn’t think it would make any difference if I said Zena was with me —

  Get off the line, I said. Hang up.

  I wasn’t sweet-mouthing the words, and I heard the click as she hung up fast. I pressed down on the receiver, jiggled it, got the dial tone and rang Zenas number. I let it ring ten times, then slammed the phone back on the receiver and ran out of Eddy Lashs suite, stopping only to scoop up the steel box on the way.

  Twice more, while driving at illegal speed toward Zenas home in Bel Air, I used my under-the-dash phone to call her, and twice more there was no answer.

  I felt quite cold. By the time I skidded to a stop at the curb in front of Zenas small house there was sweat on my forehead and on my upper lip, but it was cold sweat. The house was dark; no lights showed inside.

  I ran up the narrow path to her front door. It was locked, but I simply kicked it in and I must have put more force into that thrusting leg and foot than I knew I had in me, because the door sprang open as if made of balsa wood, sprang open and swung around to crash with a hell of a clatter against the wall inside.

  But by then I was making a bit of a clatter myself. I was inside, running toward the bedroom, running with two thoughts in my mind at the same time: Either Vic hadnt come near here, hadnt yet come or didn’t even plan to come — or I was too late, too late by far, and there was no point in running.

  Still, I ran. Into a chair — something, anyhow, which moved, tumbled, bounced, clattered a bit in the darkness. Ran . . . into a wall.

  But, reeling slightly, I ran some more and found what I sincerely believed to be the open door to the bedroom and, Colt gripped in my right hand and feeling for the light switch with my left, wishing Id taken a tremendous leak in Lashs splendid marble-walled bathroom before doing all this driving and running and bumping into things, and prepared for anything, the best or worst, trying to hold my emotions — among other things — in check, steady and controlled, found myself clawing frantically at a completely bare wall as lights blazed blindingly.

  I swung around, revolver aiming — aiming here, there, here again, there again. But I found nothing dangerous to aim at. Unless Zena Tabur was dangerous. Which, I suppose, in a number of ways she was.

  Zena was sitting up in bed wearing huge black eyeshades which she had pulled down till they dangled beneath her chin, and some kind of plugs in her ears — and very little else, a fact I report merely in the interest of accuracy, since I had at that moment neither much time nor inclination for dwelling on that sort of thing. It was fortunate — for Zena — that she did have plugs in her ears, for of a sudden she let out a most piercing scream. It didn’t last long. It lasted only about three seconds, or four, a brief eternity. Yet it was one of the longest and loudest and highest and most God-awful shrieks I had ever heard,

  Even after it ended I reached up and stuck my thumbs in both ears hoping they wouldn’t simply slide inside and meet in the middle, and rubbed, gently, my tortured aural orifices, the two-inch barrel of the Colt in my right hand incidentally scratching the right side of my skull. The scratching hurt, too, since it was the right side of my skull, which had clobbered the wall after Luddy picked me up and threw me at it, or whatever it was he’d done to me.

  After that one incredible blast from her open mouth, Zena pulled the plugs from her ears. I saw her mouth moving.

  I pulled my thumbs out of my head and said, What? I couldn’t hear you.

  I said, What the hell you doing? You going to blow your brains out?

  I thought shed gone nuts for a moment. But then I got it. Oh, you mean this? I said, putting my thumbs in my ears and wiggling them as I had before, scratching my sore skull with the Colts muzzle. Goodness, no. I was just . . . playing with my ears.

  Oh, she said. Oh? And after a short pause, in the voice people use when speaking to little children, or maniacs, You . . . like playing with your ears? Does it . . . do zomething for you?

  Don’t be ridiculous. You screamed like the Jolly Green Giant — Maybe you didn’t hear it, but I heard it, and it pained my ears severely. I was — oh — just making sure they were still intact, I suppose.

  She looked relieved. Thank goodness. I thought maybe you came here to zcare me to death and then blow your brains out. Like a zecret zuizide pact nobody but you knew about.

  Blow my brains . . . Ho-ho. Such a negative thought never entered my — I came here to kill Vic, if you want the truth. I came here to save you from getting shot, strangled, to save your life, Zena.

  Well, thanks. You got a kind of zilly way to do it.

  Yeah, maybe, but things have been going on you don’t know about. This Victor . . . I don’t suppose you’ve seen Vic Pine tonight, have you? I had it all figured —

  I stopped. I could see now that it was a dumb question.

  Why are you zquirming around like that, Zhell?

  Zquirming? I’m not, either. Am I?

  You’ve been zquirming ever zince you got in here.

  Well, I . . . how shall I say it? There is, in all truth, something long, long overdue. . . .

  You want to go to the bathroom?

  You dear, you. You read my mind, didn’t you?

  I read your zquirming.

  Suddenly she laughed, flopped back on the pillow behind her, and said, Well, you know where everything is, don’t you?

  Everything essential.

  Five — yes, five — minutes later I was a new man.

  Yes, a new man, all right, brain clicking, confidence back, at ease, relaxed, flooded with a sense of sweet fulfillment and an absolute certainty that I had this case cracked, had it all wrapped up. Except, where was Vic? And maybe a couple other little things. But I was confident I could figure all that out easily now.

  I very quickly explained to Zena what I had feared and why, stated that even though I had not been able to crash in here and save her life by shooting Victor Pine in the last half second before he did away with her forever — which is how, I
suppose, I had kind of dreamed it — there was still at least a faint possibility that Victor might come skulking about.

  Besides all the logical reasons for thinking Pine might attempt to harm you — at least, while I was thinking them they struck me as logical — I phoned you at least four or five times without getting an answer.

  She lifted one of the earplugs. I zleep a lot in the daytime. Zometimes I take the Chinese head off the phone, when I want to make zure I don’t get disturbed, put in the plugs and wear these — she touched the black eyeshades — to keep the zun out of my eyes when it comes up. Naturally I don’t hear the phone. I don’t want to hear the phone.

  Well, Id already figured that out — just now, believe it or not. But getting no answer when I called did — ah — concern me more than a little.

  She smiled. You’re zweet. Zweet to worry about me.

  Zena was really wearing very damned little. Especially with the earplugs and eyeshades off.

  Duty, I told myself. Zena, may I use —

  Again?

  May I use your phone?

  Go ahead.

  I got through to Samson once more.

  Now that my mental processes were back to normal, I was able to explain not only that I was at Zena Taburs but why, in no more than fifteen seconds of succinct, rapid exposition.

  I wound it up with, So the only thing that worries me is the whereabouts of Victor Pine.

  The only thing, that is, of which Id informed Samson. I had not yet told him what awaited the arms — and eyes — of the law in Eddy Lashs penthouse. That I would tell Sam when Id jollied him into a little better mood. He didn’t seem to be in a real good mood yet.

  In fact, he hadnt even said boo yet. Id started right in quite rapidly, and I presume be hadnt been able to get a word in edgewise. Now that he had a chance, however, he still didn’t sneak a word in edgewise.

  Sam, I said in a jollying tone, you still there?

  I am here, Sheldon. The voice slow, deep, a little like the spooky voice of doom. And . . . not Shell?