The Amber Effect (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  I trotted down to the lobby. The Spartan Apartment Hotel faces North Rossmore and the Wilshire Country Club’s green acreage across the street, but I didn’t go out that way. Instead, I went through the rear exit, moved at a brisk walk past enclosed parking spaces and garage, on up to the alley’s end at Rosewood Avenue, and then turned left, walked the few yards to Rossmore.

  Standing at the intersection and looking back toward the hotel, I could see only two cars, both parked at the curb on this side of the street. And there was only one person in view, a man, tall and thin, about fifty feet away, walking up the sidewalk toward me.

  It was that quiet predusk hour, with plenty of light to see by but a softness in the air, much cooler than it had been an hour before. The nearer of the two cars was a blue Mercury with paint scraped from one front fender. As I walked toward it, the man stopped on the sidewalk, fumbled in his pocket, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

  I checked the Mercury’s registration. It belonged to a woman, Mrs. Eleanor Wesson, address nearby on North Rossmore. It smelled of leaking oil, perfume, and powder. When I stepped back onto the walk the man was puffing on his smoke, strolling this way again, long legs swinging, shoes scuffing against the cement, making a wispy scraping sound.

  When we were a yard apart I stopped and asked, I beg your pardon, but is that your car?I nodded toward the year-old but polished and gleaming gray Lincoln Continental ahead, twenty yards this side of the Spartan’s entrance.

  He stopped, blinked at me from small dark eyes. Then he glanced at the sedan, back to me. Wish it was.He smiled a thin, not overly joyous smile. But that was all he said.

  Do you live around here, sir?

  The straight black brows twitched down over his eyes, rose slowly. Yes. At the Canterbury.He paused, gazing steadily at me. My wife and I . . .

  The Canterbury was a new condominium complex little more than a block from Rossmore on Beverly Boulevard. Could be. Possibly the man was a ladies’ underwear salesman, getting a few breaths of pollution while his wife took dinner out of the freezer and started melting it. But there was something odd about this guy.

  He was around forty, maybe a year or two older, and even taller than I, probably six-three or -four. But his eyes were level with mine because he slumped, sagged, as if the little flesh he had was loose on thin bones. And his neck stayed bent forward slightly, lowering his head even more, much as a vulture’s neck curves and lets its head slope forward.

  All things together, the guy wasn’t exactly standing there in a snappily erect military posture; it was more as if most of his muscles were at ease, and a few of them possibly even AWOL. The left side of his face was slightly larger than the right, or appeared so. Not much, only a little, and it probably wasn’t, really. He was just . . . odd.

  He sucked on his cigarette, held in the smoke so long that when he exhaled, very little of it came back out.

  Why do you ask?he said softly.

  I expected to meet a guy here. Thought maybe it was you.

  What was his name?

  I don’t know yet.

  Apparently he failed to find that curious. At least, he didn’t make any comment.

  I said, Would you mind telling me where you were going?

  If someone had asked me that, I very likely would have said I minded. But this one merely replied, I’m walking my dog.

  I actually started to look around for the mutt, then noticed, again, that thin juiceless smile. A smart-ass.

  Why, of course,I said jovially. Taking a leak on your pants leg, isn’t he?

  It was my most rewarding moment of the day — with him, that is — when he started to look down, caught himself, stared back at me again. But what then happened to his chops, his eyes, his expression, might best have been characterized as ominous. The eyes, small to begin with, got about the size of dried black-eyed peas, the lips thinned still more, and his entire face seemed to get — cold. Very cold. As if, should you wet a finger and touch him with it anywhere in that area, even on the tip of his nose, it would stick there until it thawed.

  While he was presumably off balance, I threw a last quick one at him. He wore a dark suit, loose-fitting coat, but I got the impression it was — somewhat like the barely perceptible lopsidedness of his face — not so loose on the left. Filled out a bit more there at the armpit, where a man might carry a gun, if he ever carried a gun.

  So as he said gently, Good evening,and started to walk past me, I stabbed a finger at the left side of his chest, not touching him, and said quickly, By the way, is that bulge a heat?

  There was no delay, no hesitation. Just What’s a bulge?as he moved past me, long legs swinging, shoes scraping the cement.

  So he sold ladies’ underwear, did he?

  I let him go. Felt a small chilliness behind my ears. But let him go. The Lincoln was registered to one Gunnar Lindstrom, of West L.A. My smart-ass acquaintance didn’t look like a Lindstrom. I checked the plates, made a note of the number.

  The door of Apartment 218 swung open mere seconds after I knocked. Aralia smiled out at me, looking even more radiantly gorgeous than when I’d left, if that was possible, and I decided it was possible.

  I’m the dead guy’s partner,I said cheerfully, aiming my finger at her and wiggling my thumb. And I came here to kill you. Bang. Thanks for opening the door like the sweet trusting soul you are. Bang.

  She blinked, then put the smile back on. Thank God,she said. I was afraid you came here to rape me.

  What the hell was going on around here? Did everybody have to top me? Don’t be a smart-a — don’t be stupid,I grumbled sourly, I just came here to bang you.

  Well, you might as well come in then,she said. But after a moment she sobered. I do see what you mean, Shell. I just didn’t think. I can’t get used to the idea that anybody would really want to kill me.

  I nodded, silently, as I went inside. Recent events had been unique enough in my experience that I hadn’t gotten around to wondering much about that myself. I noticed that while I was gone Aralia had draped a blanket over the body.

  I said to her, We’d better start at the beginning and go over this whole thing again, but first things first. Which means I call the cops.I spotted the phone on a small table in the corner, dialed the complaint board, told the answering officer who and where I was, and filled him in. I told him about the man I’d briefly spoken to, gave him the description of both cars parked on Rossmore, and hung up.

  Aralia was sitting on the purple couch by then, and when I joined her there she asked me, Did you see somebody down on the street?

  Yeah, a weird character. But just because he looks like a guy who picnics in cemeteries doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with him. I probably annoyed him as much as I could afford to — especially if he’s a run-of-the-mill taxpayer. Any more, and word of my terrorizing innocent citizens might have reached my old buddy, Samson, who already today has chewed — warned me about bugging the populace, in a convincing way he has.

  Samson?

  Captain of Central Homicide, downtown. Good friend, but he’s become a mite annoyed with me lately, and with Sam a mite is more than plenty.

  What did you do?

  A muscle-bound hood, ex-pug and ex-con, beat up a client of mine. Smashed him around pretty good, put him in the hospital. I tailed the mug to a house on the corner of Fletcher Drive and Vista Street. At least, that’s where he disappeared. So I crashed into the place, gun in hand, gnashing my teeth and all. Turns out he was in the house next door, not the one on the corner.

  Golly, what did you do then?

  Well, since the nice old couple who lived there were entertaining four invalid friends of theirs, all recovering from severe heart attacks, and I made a bit of racket kicking the door in, and my appearance, especially when I am not expected to appear at all, is apparently not such as to spread peace and joy unalloyed over six octogenarians having a vegetarian dinner after lots of elderberry wine, I had some small difficulty in convincing them I
was not from another planet.

  You must be exaggerating.

  Yeah, I must be. Sometimes I do that. But, this time, not much. Would you believe that they, collectively and individually, reported me to the police, the district attorney’s office, the humane society, and NASA?

  No.

  Well, they sure called the cops. I have this on good authority. Namely, the cops they called.

  Golly,she said again, those bright blue eyes widening. What did they say to you?

  The police officers? Right at first, nothing, because by the time they showed up, I was next door. You will be pleased to hear that I kicked in the right door this time, and there found, and formally placed under arrest, the culprit.

  Well, you did that part right anyway. . . . You didn’t?

  Not exactly. I am allowed to make a citizen’s arrest, true. But when one arrests an individual these days, one is supposed to do certain things. I did all these things. I advised the subject of his rights, apologized for the inconvenience, promised him a pension at sixty-five, and offered to give him a rubdown. Unfortunately, he was unconscious at the time.

  Oh, oh.

  Well put. More, the suspect displayed upon his person numerous suspicious-looking bruises. Besides which, there was his broken leg.

  He broke his leg?

  I broke it. See, he knocked me down, and that griped the hell out of me, and then he tried to kick me in the head — forget it.

  I see. And all that made your friend mad at you?

  Oh, boy.

  I guess that means yes.

  I guess. You can take my word for it, during the next few days, perhaps even years, if I unduly annoy any innocent citizens — or even hugely guilty citizens — I will be in much deeper trouble than they.

  I shut up, shook my head a bit, then said to Aralia, It might be a good idea for you to slip into something more . . . adequate. Since you’ll be spending a little time at the police station.

  Oh? Will I have to go there?

  Yep. Me, too. Dictate statements, sign them, answer lots of questions, that sort of thing.

  All right.She got to her feet, looked down at me. I’ll hurry.

  Do. We should talk a bit more before the police arrive, anyhow. And it would be better if you were then clad very sedately, preferably in something hideous. You see, some of my friends downtown, and also from the Hollywood Division here, are uncouth types who delight in — joshing me, shall we say? About matters we need not go into at the moment. And that gets a bit thick at times, it really does. Especially, should the first officer to arrive be someone like Sergeant Kowaski —

  There was a loud, solid, authoritative crash of knuckles against the door.

  Why, who would that be?Aralia asked curiously.

  Who do you suppose?I looked at the door, still vibrating from the blows upon it. Is that you, Sergeant Kowaski?I called.

  I shouldn’t have called. The door wasn’t locked, and Sergeant Kowaski, hearing and recognizing my voice, naturally took my query as an invitation to come in and see the corpse. So in he came, followed by his partner, also in uniform.

  Aralia reached up to fluff her ripe-strawberry hair, which was already in place, into place. Why do women do that? Don’t ask me. Don’t ask them, either. Nobody knows.

  But women seem always to do it when about to see — or be seen by — a stranger. It doesn’t make any difference who; it could be the Boston Strangler, they’d still do it. Needless to say, since that blue robe of mine still had no belt holding it together, and Aralia’s hands while performing the absolutely necessary nonfunction of patting her hair could not hold it together either, nothing held it together.

  Kowaski, all two hundred and thirty pounds of him, thudded into the room, thick face splitting in a muscular grin as he saw me and said, What are you up to now, Shell?

  Actually, he didn’t quite get all of that out. He failed to include the ellof my name. Right after . . . to now, Sh — his very large dark eyes fell upon Aralia, standing there patting, and those eyes I will swear upon a stack of solid-gold Bibles got perhaps larger than they had ever been before, and he just stood there stuck on the start of my name, going SHHHHHH.

  Nothing much,I said. Where were you when you got the call. Sergeant? Downstairs in the lobby? Could you stop making that noise, Sergeant?

  Aralia turned, started to step past me, saying, I’ll go slip into something . . .

  Swell,I said. My voice was dull, very flat.

  She went out of the room.

  Kowaski — after Aralia was out of sight — looked at me, still showing visible effects of sudden shock. How do you do it?he asked me.

  Do what? In case you’re interested, the dead guy is under the blanket there.

  All I got is, there’s a nekkid stiff here. Did she bump him off?

  Don’t be vulgar. He merely had a sudden seizure and fell down dead. Possibly checked out from heart stoppage. Probably. Name’s Edward Brett.

  Brett? You recognized him?

  He’s new to me. I peeked at his driver’s license —

  Scott, you’re not supposed to —

  Knock it off. I was careful, no prints or smudges. Hell, I was curious.

  He shook his big head, then stepped toward the blanket saying, Brett . . . Edward. Would that be a mean, lumpy, strong-arm lad, pimp, ex-con, two-time loser name of Buddy Brett?

  Beats me. You know a Buddy Brett?

  Kowaski had pulled back the blanket, was looking down. Yeah,he said. This is him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I got up and walked over next to Kowaski. He’s got a record?

  That he does. Half a dozen arrests locally, mostly strong-arm stuff, if I remember. Have to check it. Did time at Q in the last year or two, I think.

  See if this rings any bells.I described the man I’d so recently spoken to down on the street.

  Kowaski shook his head. Nobody in sight when we pulled up. And only one car parked in this block on Rossmore. We were cruising on Beverly, got here pretty quick.

  You sure did. Eight to five it’s the Lincoln that’s gone.

  He nodded.

  Aralia came back in wearing a simple white dress with fine red and blue stripes — looking, needless to say, at least twice as good as sensational — then a team of detectives arrived, closely followed by men from the Scientific Investigations Division downtown, the Central Division. Initial statements were taken, then Aralia and I, and the two detectives, left for the Police Building.

  I drove my own Cadillac, a new sky-blue coupe, but Aralia rode with the detectives in their plainclothes car. I had noticed, during those last minutes in her apartment, that she was becoming more and more subdued, quiet, features getting a little drawn, a small frown-wrinkle between those bright blue eyes.

  I was standing on the sidewalk before the Spartan when they drove away. Aralia sat in back, not relaxed, perched on the edge of the seat, her lovely face turned toward me. Lovely, but a bit different now — frightened now. She stared at me for long seconds as they pulled out from the curb.

  So, it was getting to her. Understandably.

  She would be remembering that body sprawled on the floor of her apartment, remembering sudden, unexpected death. And if she’d told me the truth about what had happened, and I had no reason to suppose she had not, Aralia was thinking that it could have been, almost had been, her own body sprawled there. She was, surely, thinking a lot about that.

  So was I.

  By seven p.m., with the routine behind me, I was checking the notes I’d made. I had spent twenty minutes examining some of the record-filled envelopes down in Records and Identification — or the packagesin R and I — and had talked with men in the Intelligence Division. I’d also spent a few minutes with a couple of officers working out of Homicide. I hadn’t seen Samson yet, but he knew I was in the building, and word had been gently conveyed to me that the captain hopedI would drop in and say hello if I had nothing better to do. It wasn’t likely I would have anything be
tter to do this year.

  So, after picking up copies of three mug shots I’d asked for — these being unappetizing police photos of individuals who had run afoul of the law — I strolled down the third-floor corridor to Room 314, Homicide.

  This happened to be one of those rare times when the squad room was, briefly, empty. There were no officers drinking bitter coffee from paper cups, not even one tired-looking cop filling out his final report of a long day. But the door to Sam’s inner office was open, so I said loudly, Still goofing off on the taxpayer’s time, eh, fuzz? Well, how is our leader, the Beast of Belsen, this evening, men?

  Shell, goddammit, I told you —

  For a big man, Samson moved pretty fast. He was filling the doorway, looming there, the gathering storm beginning to darken his usually pink, smoothly shaved face. Just a flick of his sharp brown eyes made him aware that the squad room was empty, and with only a brief pause he went right on. — your goddamn mouth was under arrest. Get in here.

  He was out of sight, back at his desk again, before I got my chops shut. But when I walked into his office he was smiling. As usual, one of his unlighted black cigars was clamped between his strong teeth, so it appeared that at least half of the smile was snarling.

  I grinned, and said hello for the second time this day to Sam. To Detective Captain Phil Samson, big, burly — but solid, as more than one hood who mistook coiled muscle for flab learned the hard way — with iron-gray hair screening his pink scalp, wide mouth over a jaw like the front end of a small diesel rig.

  I grabbed my usual wooden chair, placed it near Sam’s desk, and sat down straddling it, arms resting on its back.

  I’ve been filled in by everybody else,Sam said, including a statement from Kowaski. So give me your self-serving version of what happened. And make it fast. I see the chief in ten minutes.He paused, shifting the cigar from one side of his wide mouth to the other. Not about you, fortunately. Not this time.

  Isn’t a whole lot to tell, Sam.I gave him the story, then, checking my notes, laid out for him the info I’d gathered since arriving at the LAPD.