The Amber Effect (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  You know, Tom,he said dully, looking straight at me, I think I’m through.

  That’s what he said; there wasn’t any question about it.

  One can never say for sure, in advance, how one will react to an unusual situation, right? If you were driving along in your car, say, and two or three little bugs hit your windshield, and then a cow hit it, who is to say for sure what your reaction would be? Who is to determine that it was not the most natural thing under the given circumstances?

  Well, anyhow . . . I unclenched my fist, waggled the fingers, then rested my weight on one hip as the guy slowly rolled over and sat up, wearily and with a pained expression, as though all his creaky bones were being chewed by little dogs.

  I looked at the old boy sympathetically. Through?I asked.

  Yeah, I’ve had it. That’s for sure. And I was the best, Tom. Ha — was. Was!

  Was?

  That’s it — was. Thirty years at the top. You want anybody killed, you just get ahold of old One-Shot. Yeah, old . . . they’ll be callin’ me Melvin now. They always said, old One-Shot never misses. Satisfaction guaranteed. Never misses — never misses — never misses — NEVER —

  I guess you missed, huh?

  He cocked his frail head on one side, staring at my ear with those glazed and glassy eyes. Well . . . yes. And . . . no. I did . . . and I didn’t.

  What do you mean — Melvis? Or Elvin? Albert? What was your name again?

  Don’t you know me, Tom?

  Sure, Old Timer. Go on. You were saying yes and no and did and didn’t.

  Yeah, that’s as close as we’ll get. She’s out there, see. Practically asking for it. In numerous ways. Now, that first one, I put it smack into her, dead center, prettiest thing you ever did see. Had her right in the crossed hairs. Bang. Drilled her kerplunk perfect between the tits and they didn’t even wriggle. She didn’t even wriggle. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. She just stands there with her arms out, tits out, legs out, everything out. Nothing happened.

  Must have made you feel funny, huh?

  Funny? I’m lying on my face here, and I like to took a crap straight up in the air. Oh, it was bad, Tom, bad. Oh, Tom — Tom — Tom —

  I’m still here, Old Tomer. Timer.

  — Tom . . . I couldn’t comperhend it. I am so spooked I don’t react with my usual speed. No, that ain’t right. I never had to react before. Old One-Shot never misses. Not till this broad. Well, she’s turning around afore I can get absolute control of my bowels once again, so I get her lined up and bingy, I get her in the head this time. You guessed it.

  Just like before, huh? Nothing happened?

  I don’t know how, but you figured it out. All I will ever have to say about this after this, it is a very good thing I ain’t had much to eat for a couple days. She’s walking away now. And I am staring at her, saying, Die! Die! Fall down! Or at least bend over a little, you dumb broad. Still she’s walking away. It was just instink kept me going. I acted like a automatic robot, got her in the scope, and thinking maybe to change my luck I shoots her in the ass, bingy-bangy — twice. First in the left ass and second in the right ass. Well, I give up then.

  No wonder.

  What hurts most, Mom must be overturning her grave, rest her soul. I always lived by what she told me from a boy, and she made me what I am today. All I am or ever hoped to be, I owe to my darling —

  What the hell did she tell you?

  Many basic maxioms. If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Find a need and fill it. A good day’s work deserves a good day’s pay. Practice makes perfect. Mom ought to have knowed, she run her own whorehouse for twenty years.He sighed. All them maxioms, they stood me in good stand till today, and helped me shoot to the top of my profession, but — where are they now? And them self-starters was always what kept me going, Tom. Till now. I got nothing to keep me keeping on now — that’s another one, Keep on keeping on —

  How about,I offered helpfully, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again?

  It don’t work.

  Yeah, I guess that was a dumb question to ask. Ask you.

  It sure was.He shook his head again. No, I’m through, Tom.

  You sure are. By the way, who’s Tom?

  Huh. Boy, you’re worse off than I am, ain’t you, Tom? Who’s Tom?’ Tom says. Why, you’re To . . . Oh, oh.

  As I drove back to Hollywood with Aralia snuggled up against my right arm, she said to me, One last time, Shell, thanks. For everything. And especially for introducing me to Harry Feldspen.

  Well, to be honest as the day is long, I never did get around to looking him up and arranging everything just so. After your little talk, and all, Harry found me first, you see, and insisted — asked if I’d be good enough to bring you two together . . . ah, arrange an introduction. In fact, he threatened —

  That’s nice. He really did seem interested, didn’t he?

  I guess you could say that.

  Do you think I’ll really have a part in his next movie?

  I think you’ll have all your parts in his next movie. If Harry said he’d do it, and he said it, he’ll do it. I have a feeling you’re going to go a long, long way, Aralia. If you can just stay alive while you’re going.

  About that, Shell. Isn’t it strange that nobody knew anyone shot at me?

  Not really, now I’ve thought it over. Even up where I was, the howling of all those guys was loud enough, and anybody close to that yelling, or doing some of it, would not likely have heard anything else less impressive than a ten-minute replay of World War Two. Besides, when people are shot over and over again, they are expected to react in some noticeable way. There is evidence — some holes in the Great Wall of Japan, for example — but it’s possible today’s guests would assume they were made by Mitsui’s chopsticks. Nobody heard anything, nobody saw anything, nobody felt anything —

  Why, Shell.

  Aralia, please. But at least I’ve got an eyewitness. Unfortunately, his testimony is suspect.

  Who’s that?

  The suspect.

  Oh, the fellow you told me about? Was it this One-Shot?

  It was. I don’t remember what he calls himself now.

  What happened to him, anyway? Where did he go?

  He didn’t go anyplace. I tied him up with a brassiere —

  You what? You tied his arms with a brassiere?

  Arms and legs. I put him in the Cad’s trunk. That’s where he is now, dear, right behind us.

  In the trunk? He must be awfully uncomfortable in there.

  I think not. It’s possible he still isn’t aware that he is, or is not, anyplace.

  After a few moments she said, I see. You beat him up, didn’t you? For me.

  No.

  No?

  Yes. Oh, before I tied him up, I did crash one down on him. But only one. I didn’t want to. You may not believe this, but I had begun getting an almost warm feeling for the Old Timer.

  But you did hit him?

  Boy, did I!

  Well, if you didn’t want to, why did you?

  He went wild. Berserk. Maniacal — felt I’d betrayed him.

  I don’t understand.

  Well, on top of all the rest, I guess the last straw was when he found out I wasn’t Tom.I paused. Dear, would you mind very much if I didn’t even try to explain?

  Four-Shot Melvin Voister sat opposite me, at the other side of the long table in one of the LAPD’s Ior Interrogation rooms. Lieutenant Bill Rawlins lounged against the wall, letting me handle the questioning this time.

  Let’s run through it again,I said.

  Voister had been looking down at the tabletop. He glanced up at me and his shiny cheeks puffed out as he blew air through his lips.

  O.K. But this is the last, Scott. I don’t care what you do to me.

  We aren’t going to do anything to you. The lieutenant already told you three times you can have a lawyer —

  Skip it. The whole thing again?

  Ju
st a few high spots. Maybe you’ll think of something else.

  Rawlins jerked his head and stepped outside. I told Voister to sit tight, and joined Bill in the hallway, closing the door behind me.

  If there is anything else, you better get it quick,he said. I’m damned if I can see any way we can hold this guy. You know how it is. Besides, even from the crazy story he tells, he hasn’t actually committed any crime. Unless it was discharging a firearm in the county.

  Well, I told you —

  I know what you told me, and it wasn’t enough. Everybody else I’ve checked with who was at that barbecue today swears nothing happened. One man — one — says he did hear something sort of whistle or snap through the air a time or two. He thinks. But he wouldn’t swear to it. Now, how the hell can that check with attempted murder? By one of the coldest, deadliest, professional hit men in the country?

  It was a little ticklish. To charge a man with making a premeditated attempt to murder a victim, there must in fact be a victim upon whom the attempt is actually made — not merely contemplated. And One-Shot had not in truth and in fact shot any living being, or at any living being.

  Rawlins went on. I know you got a tip One-Shot was out here. Did you manage to slip blanks into his gun? Screw up his rifle? Something like that?

  No, not — not that, Bill.

  Then what the hell are you leaving out, Shell? Holding out on me, I mean. What else?

  He was quite displeased with me, which didn’t help.

  I still hadn’t introduced him to Aralia, as promised — though I hadn’t ever said exactly when I would consummate the introduction — and it did bug Bill somewhat when he learned that I had, at least sort of, introduced her, without a single stitch on, to four hundred other guys in the meantime. I suppose he had a point, but this put a bit of a hitch in our usual buddy-buddy camaraderie.

  I didn’t really want to tell him what had happened this afternoon, anyway. In fact, I couldn’t. Once I started trying to explain — not that I could ever successfully have done it — I would have had to wind up, inevitably, bringing in Gunnar Lindstrom. And Norman Amber. And the Amber Effect. And everything else I’d assured Gunnar I wouldn’t spill without his express and prior approval.

  So I said, I’ve told you, there is more to it, Bill. And you’ll get every last bit just as soon as I can fill you in. But I wish you wouldn’t push it right now.

  He shrugged. I’ve got work piling up in the office. Stop by the squad room when you’re through with Voister.

  O.K.

  He walked down the hall and I went back into the I room.

  One more time,I said when I sat down again, just the top, and we’ll drop it. You were hired to hit Aralia Fields, and the guy who phoned you back in Jersey was Elroy Werzen.

  Yeah. What’s it make now, nine times I told you it was Puffer?

  Ten. You want to bad-mouth me, pal, we can try for twenty.

  He didn’t say anything. I went on. When did he call you? And try to pin it down closer.

  It was Thursday night, and like I said nine times, now ten, it was after I had the spaghetti and fish chowder, so it was maybe eight of the p.m. that night. Maybe seven-thirty, maybe eight-thirty, maybe eight forty-two and a half. I don’t write it down, Dear diary, tonight Puffer give me a call and requests I hit a broad named Aralia Fields, and his welcome invite come in at eleven minutes after —

  You took the first flight out and got to L.A. International Friday morning.

  Yeah. Puffer meets me there at the airport and gives me half the ten G’s for the job, the rest to come after I do it. When I make the hit, I don’t call him, he calls me. I told you where.

  I nodded. That posed a small problem. One-Shot had a room in a local motel, and undoubtedly there had already been several calls made to that room — not, of course, by Puffer Werzen — which One-Shot hadn’t been there to answer. And I wanted that line of communication established so a suitable but phony story could be passed back up the line. But Bill Rawlins would help me set that up. I hoped.

  O.K.,I said. You weren’t told anything about why they wanted the girl killed, or who was paying for the job?

  Hell, no. All I got was what I told you come from Puffer, and it’s enough. Why tell me all that crap? It’s got nothing to do with my end.

  You had a caller last night at your motel, about ten-thirty, and got the word that your mark, Aralia, would be making a personal appearance at the Doubless Ranch today. But you don’t know who that man was?

  Just tells me he’s a associate of Puffer’s, who has himself been called away.

  I find it hard to believe he didn’t give you a name.

  One-Shot smiled. No, you don’t, Scott.

  He was right. But One-Shot had described his visitor several times while Rawlins was in the Interrogation room with us, and the description was good enough that neither Bill nor I had to do much guessing about the man’s identity.

  I’ll tell you who it was,I said. Al Hauk. They call him the Clam, or sometimes Clammy. Not because of the way he looks, but because he’s got a reputation on the turf of having an iron jaw. Nobody’s ever made him puke. He doesn’t spill anything to anybody, just clams. That ring any bells?

  It don’t ring nothing. I never heard of him. He give me the other five thou last night, in advance, which is unusual. And explains why I’m to stick around after. First thing was the girl. That’s where I concentrate. But I’m to stay put after she was done, in case they hadn’t killed you yet. With maybe another ten-G job I ain’t about to split without doing the first job, even if I’m already paid up for it — if I was that kind of rip-off, which everybody knows I ain’t.

  So Hauk, your visitor last night, is the only man you had any conversation with about blowing me away?

  Only one. It don’t take more. One, plus ten G’s, is a crowd.

  All right, let’s push some more on how I’m supposed to be set up. Tomorrow I’m expected to drive out to the Green Mesa Resort for some kind of meeting, and just stand there looking around dopily while several bastards shoot holes in me, and several more watch.

  That’s about it.

  All these guys — how many again?

  I ain’t sure, but it’s at least half of a dozen, and maybe a couple others going to be there. It’s part like you put it, but more they ain’t about to take no chance you pull out alive from this one.

  Uh-huh. First, what makes those jerks think I’ll let myself be set up like the world’s prime patsy, and second, how come you know so much about those nice little details, like exactly where I’m to meet whoever it is?

  Dammit, Scott, you asked it the same way last time, and I already told you —

  Tell me again.I leaned toward him, not feeling — or, I imagine, looking — very happy about this particular point in our conversation. Since I’m the guy who’s supposed to be slaughtered, be sure to add anything you left out before.

  Didn’t leave a goddamn thing out, I told . . . Well, I know where it’s set up to be done and all that, because if I didn’t hear nothing from nobody after I’d finished up — with the girl, I mean, after the job today — that’s where I’m to meet this guy who told me about it. Meet him and some others.

  And help them do the job on me.

  Wasn’t said like that. But I’m told to bring along the tools of my trade, if you know what I mean.

  Don’t get cute with me, One-Shot. Now, Hauk mentioned my name. But he didn’t show you a picture, or even describe me, right?

  That’s it. Just the handle.

  So, as far as he knows, you don’t have any idea what I look like?’

  He nodded.

  I don’t get it,I said. All these guys out there waiting for me, and I’m expected to simply stroll in and wait for it?

  Well, you ain’t supposed to know nothing about all the boys going to be there ahead of time, as you could guess without me mentioning it. They wouldn’t want to try it with just one or two because you’re supposed to be a lucky sonofa
— they already missed you a time or two, as I get it. And it’s no secret you’re supposed to be damn near as good as me with your own little piece, so they don’t figure on getting any of themselves killed even by accident.

  Well, I might not be good enough to beat a whole goddamn convention of hoods, but I’d take a few if Samson hadn’t —

  I chopped it off. I had almost, without thinking, mentioned that I’d not been carrying a piece around, that Samson had my Colt .38 right now. Maybe One-Shot wouldn’t get a chance to mention that bit of intelligence to anybody, but it would not be wise to let him know about it.

  Samson?he said, twisting his face up slightly.

  What’s the matter?

  Is that — did the lieutenant make a mention about a Captain Sam while he was in here?

  He might have. What of it?

  Well, I think something come to me. Something I’d forgot.

  Which is why we go over and over the tale, One-Shot. Spit it out.

  Well . . . it ain’t really nothing, not to me. The dude didn’t say much, just something to an effect they’d make you think this Samson, a police captain — is it Homicide he works from?

  He’s the captain of Central Division Homicide, same office Rawlins works out of here.

  That’s it. All I got, and I’m not even sure, is they figure on making you think it’s him wants you out there at Green Mesa.

  How the hell could they do that?

  His face was squinted up again. He shook his head, saying, I wasn’t paying much attention, and it was just a tossed-off thing that was said, anyway. Maybe like one of them was going to make a phone call to you tomorrow and say come out.

  You mean imitating his voice, some slob, or maybe even a pretty fair mimic, pretending to be Samson? He’d have to be damn good to make me buy it.

  One-Shot shook his head some more. It was him, I’m near sure the name’s right. And you’ll get a call in the a. m. sometime. Anything beyond that, I can’t tell you nothing. Of course, Scott, you could just wait for the call and see how it’s done — or maybe ask them when you get out there.