Double in Trouble (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  “Really?”

  “Honest Injun. The name is Chet Drum.”

  She smiled then. “How do you do, Mr. Drum.”

  “How do you do, Miss—?”

  “It’s Mrs.”

  “Mrs.—?”

  “Just Mrs. Really, I have to go now. Thank you for everything.” She looked at me. I didn’t make a move to get up.

  “I’ve been very stupid,” she said at last. She wasn’t carrying a purse, but took a red leather wallet out of her trench-coat pocket. “If you’re a private detective, I guess you want to be reimbursed for your trouble. How much, please?”

  “You weren’t stupid before,” I said.

  “Oh my, then that was stupid of me. Have I insulted you?”

  “I don’t want your money,” I said. “But I’d like to take a look in there.”

  “My wallet? Why?”

  “Call it professional curiosity. I want to see who you are.”

  She smiled again. “You don’t give up easily.”

  “I can be stubborn.”

  “And charming, Mr. Drum. But I can be stubborner.”

  “Maybe you can’t afford to be. For example, you said you weren’t supposed to be in Washington, right?”

  “Yes, that’s right. So?”

  “So the taxi driver was in on the deal with them. You just came in on a plane, right?”

  “Right again.”

  “With luggage?”

  Her eyes widened. “I never thought of that. I’d like to get that luggage back, Mr. Drum. But I didn’t even notice what kind of a cab it was.”

  “I did. Veterans’ Cab. Say the word and I’ll get your luggage for you.”

  She stood up. “It looks like you have a client.”

  “Where do I deliver the luggage?”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow. Will you get me a taxi now?”

  I paid the tab and we went outside. The first slow, fat snowflakes were beginning to fall.

  I saw her into a taxi. I shut the door for her. She waved, giving me her third smile, the million-buck smile which she had held back until then. Those blue eyes smiling that way could take your breath away. The taxi drove off.

  I got in my car and headed through the snow toward the Veterans’ Cab garage.

  SCOTT SHELLS IT OUT

  Los Angeles, 10:00 A.M., Monday, December 14

  I got back to the Spartan Apartment Hotel at ten o’clock that Monday morning. I could still see Braun falling at my feet, saying with his last breath, with blood on his mashed mouth, “Frost...”

  Alexis Frost was registered at the Ambassador Hotel, but she hadn’t been in when I’d called. The police had no leads to Braun’s killer, and they hadn’t spotted the gray Buick I’d phoned them about before dawn this morning, the Buick which had been tailing Alexis. Or ... with her?

  I was getting more and more puzzled about Alexis, and even a little worried for her. But I was more worried about Kelly Thorn. The police told me she’d identified her brother’s body at the morgue. She hadn’t cried. I didn’t like that. I liked even less the fact that I’d been unable to reach her, though I’d phoned her home several times.

  Kelly would be twenty-three years old now. She and Braun had been very close. Kelly was like him in many ways, with a happy Irish face and impish grin, a few freckles, a golden charm. I’d seen Braun a time or two more recently, but it had been six months since I’d seen Kelly. Far too long. I wasn’t sure why.

  I phoned Kelly again, and again there was no answer. So I got out the long list of names I’d developed over the years—informants, tipsters, hoodlums—and started in.

  Forty minutes later a lot of men were primed to pass on to me anything they heard or learned about Braun Thorn or Dr. Gideon Frost. One part of it was set.

  Dr. Frost’s home on Harvard Boulevard was still empty. I started in on the neighbors. After five blanks I rang the bell of a house across the street and got the first nibble. A woman answered the door and told me that she had seen Dr. Frost leave his home about eight or nine o’clock last night. He’d left in a hurry, alone in his black Volkswagen—and with his lights out. She’d thought it was odd. So did I.

  From there I drove up Harvard to Third Street, took a right and headed downtown. Three blocks down Third I passed a year-old green Ford sloppily parked, angled in to the curb. Its left-front fender was buckled inward, touching the tire.

  I drove on past and had gone half a mile before it seeped in. But when it did I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck. It didn’t have to mean anything, but I drove back, parked behind the Ford. Streaks of gray paint marred the crumpled green fender. I checked the registration slip. The car belonged to the Sunset Car-Rental Agency. Under the windshield wiper was a ticket for illegal parking. It had been issued at ten-sixteen p.m. Sunday night. I copied the Ford’s license number. When I got downtown I checked with the Sunset Agency. The Ford had been rented, early Sunday morning, by Braun Thorn.

  I phoned the Police Building, passed on to Homicide what I’d found. Then I concentrated on the hunt for Dr. Gideon Frost. I handled what I could, started investigations I didn’t have time for. I covered the Highway Patrol, police, hospitals, myself. Then I found out where Dr. Frost banked—the Western-National Bank on Eighth Street in L.A.—went there and spoke to the manager. He agreed to let me know if any of Dr. Frost’s checks cleared through the bank. More important, he knew both Dr. Frost and Alexis, and told me that Alexis had entered the bank at ten a.m., gone to the vault and taken something from the safe deposit box there, a box to which only she and her father had entry. She had left immediately.

  I thanked him and took off, wondering what the hell. I phoned the Spartan. There had been no message left for me, from Alexis or anybody else. A mild frustration. From there they built up through the rest of the day. But at five o’clock I phoned Kelly again—and got her. Take it from me: right then the worries, the gripes, the multiple frustrations, melted away.

  When she said, “Hello,” my heart kicked up its heels, and my voice surprised me when I said, “Hello, Kelly. This is Shell.”

  Silence for a little while. Then, “Hello, Shell.” A pause. “The police said you know ... about—”

  “Yes. That’s why I called.”

  Silence again. Sometimes a phone booth is a kind of torture chamber. I said, “Mind if I come by, Kelly? I’d like to see you.”

  “I wish you would. Shell.”

  “If you’d rather just be—”

  “No, please come by.”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  She opened the door seconds after I rang. And she managed a smile. “Hello. I’m awfully glad you came.”

  “I was worried about you.”

  “I’m glad you were. Shell. But there’s ... nothing to worry about.”

  She was five-four, wonderfully fashioned and wearing a green-jersey dress that caressed her fine, full-curving body. I said, “I called you a dozen times—”

  “I was walking. After ... I walked to MacArthur Park. Sat there and watched birds on the lake.” She smiled again. “Don’t just stand there like a big oaf, you big oaf. Come on in.”

  “Okay.”

  But for a few seconds more, I looked at her. And wondered why it had been so long since I’d last been here. Looking at Kelly Thorn, after six months without seeing her, was like coming home again when you’ve been too long away. She’d been crying. Tears had ravaged her eyes. Sorrow had pressed its hurt into her face. But it was easy to see, underneath, the loveliness of Kelly. At least, it was easy for me.

  Scattered freckles showed on her face. Freckles which, ordinarily, she determinedly covered with makeup. Now her face was scrubbed free of powder, almost shiny, and the freckles burst forth from her clear skin like tiny brown islands. She looked even younger than twenty-three, as young as dawn, as sweet as spring.

  She had red hair—naturally red, almost scarlet—and eyes the soft gray-green of shamrocks seen through mist. Her voice was like rain in Ire
land, gentle and kind of pattering over the words, like a light drizzle on leaves. Usually there was merriment in her voice, but today there was just the soft sound of rain, or tears.

  We went inside, sat on a lumpy green couch in the warm front room. She’d made coffee since I’d phoned, and she poured a couple of cups for us. While it was cooling I said, “Kelly, I’m sorry.”

  “I know you are. I know the way it was with you and Braun.”

  I guess I looked a little surprised because she went on, “He thought the world of you. And I know you felt the same way about Braun.”

  “Sure I did. But—”

  “But. You men. There’s not enough woman in you. You’ve got to be rough, tough, two-hundred-per cent male. Why didn’t you ever come around more, Shell?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I didn’t. What the hell, I thought. You don’t have to go around hugging people to let them know you like them. You don’t have to send them flowers. And I thought about the flowers I would sent to Braun.

  Maybe Kelly caught it out of the air somehow. Or saw it on my face. Anyway, she came apart. Right then, all at once, she came apart. A gasp burst from her mouth and she bent forward sobbing, tears starting from her eyes and coursing down her cheeks. I started to reach for her but she shook her head violently and clapped her hands to her face. Muffled against her palms, her voice was barely understandable, twisted, torn.

  She got up, hands against her face, strangled sobs bursting from her throat, and ran toward the back of the house. She fell, got up and went toward the door again, moaning, choking. It tore at my insides; and even when I couldn’t hear them any longer those sounds dug at my brain.

  I sat there, waiting for her to come back. When she was ready. I don’t know how long it took. I had decided I’d probably better leave. I was on my feet when she came in again.

  “No you don’t,” she said.

  I turned to look at her. The eyes were puffier than before, but she was back to normal again. She’d washed her face and put makeup on—there wasn’t a freckle in sight.

  “I was...”

  “I know,” she said, “You were going to scoot out on me. Sit down. What do you bet the coffee’s cold?”

  It was. “We could put some ice in it,” I said, “and have it with pretzels. As long as it’s horrible anyway, we might as well really ruin—”

  She smiled, and it was a Kelly smile. “That’s more like it.” She took a deep breath. “I got the lump out of my system. I’m all right, and I’ll stay all right. I won’t do that again.”

  “It’s nothing to apologize for.”

  “I’m not apologizing. I just want you to know we can talk about Braun, about anything. And it won’t bother me. You know what I mean, Shell.”

  “Sure.”

  She carried the cold coffee out, came back and poured two drinkable cups. Then she said, “The police told me all they could. They said you were with him when he died. Tell me everything you can, Shell.”

  “There isn’t much, honey. He phoned me, managed to say he’d been shot. Probably he was going to tell me more, but he couldn’t make it. I reached him just before....”

  She said quietly, “Did he say anything?”

  “One word, Kelly. The name Frost. Mean anything?”

  Silently she shook her head. Then she asked, “Don’t you have any idea who killed him?”

  “Just ideas. I’d rather hear yours first.”

  She let the green eyes rest on mine. “Who would have wanted him dead, Shell? Who else but Ragen? Maybe not him personally, but that—that rotten crowd. Braun knew they were rotten, told them they were rotten, stood up in meetings and told them. He fought them every day of his life. Besides there’s something else, Shell. Braun took something from the union files Saturday night.”

  It was as if a cold breeze brushed over me. I said, “You’d better give me that slowly, Kelly.”

  “Saturday night Braun and I had dinner here. I didn’t pay much attention at the time, but he mentioned that Ragen and his bodyguards would be in some kind of conference most of the night. And later he talked about the way union records disappear so often—the local’s records have been subpoenaed by the Committee, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “He said this would probably be like other times—the important records would somehow get lost or burned or something. They just wouldn’t be available to the Committee. Well, several hours after he left, about one or two in the morning—it was early Sunday morning by then—he phoned me. He said he’d stolen something from the union and had run into a little trouble, he wouldn’t be around for a while.” She swallowed. “That was the last time I talked to him. Or saw him.”

  “Go over that again. His exact words if you can, just the way he said them.”

  “I answered the phone and he said. ‘This is Braun, Kelly. I’m in a hurry. I took some stuff from Ragen’s files tonight, and I’ll have to stay out of sight for a few days.’ I got kind of excited and asked him what he meant. He said something like, ‘After I grabbed the stuff I ran into a little trouble, bumped into one of the boys. Don’t worry about it.’ I asked him what he’d taken and he said he didn’t know for sure, he hadn’t had time yet to check it. But he was almost certain it was something Ragen hadn’t wanted the Committee to get.”

  “By Committee, I suppose he meant the Hartsell Committee?”

  “Yes. Braun thought there was a chance the hearings could bounce Mike Sand and Ragen too, maybe a lot of the littler officials.”

  “He say much to you about Mike Sand, Kelly?”

  She shook her head. “Just that he was a bigger crook than Ragen, if that was possible. Why?”

  “There’re a lot of screwy things going on. Sand’s at least on the fringes, I think. Maybe in the middle.”

  During the day I’d dug a little deeper into the Sand angle, but it looked as if I’d have to go to Washington, D.C., where Sand lived and worked, if I wanted to learn about his most recent activities.

  I looked at Kelly. “Braun never mentioned the name Frost to you? Dr. Gideon Frost?”

  She frowned, thinking, then shook her head. “No. I’ve never heard the name. Who is he?”

  “The Hartsell Committee had him lined up as a surprise witness. Hardly anybody outside the Committee and its staff was supposed to know about it. But Braun said his name. And I left Dr. Frost’s home this morning and drove toward L.A. Four blocks away was a car Braun rented Sunday morning, a few hours after he phoned you. The left-front fender was buckled, as if another car had hit it, maybe forced it into the curb. And last night I had a run-in with some guys in a car that had its right-front fender banged in.”

  Her face was puzzled. “Why would Braun have rented a car? Why would he have gone to this Dr. Frost’s place?”

  “I don’t even know how he’d have learned Frost’s name, Kelly. I just hoped you could add something.”

  “I don’t understand.” She stopped, shaking her head.

  After another minute I got up. Kelly said, “Where are you going now, Shell?”

  “I’ll take a run down to the Truckers Building. Good chance I can catch Ragen there.”

  “Don’t do anything ... foolish. Besides, even if he’s in it up to his neck, he won’t tell you anything.”

  “Not on purpose, anyway. Ragen wouldn’t give me the right time if he thought it would help me. But if I shake him up a little, something might drop out. You never know till you try.”

  “He won’t be alone. He’s always got those two hoodlums with him.”

  Two hoodlums. Coming out like that, it jarred me a little. The bigger union mobsters usually have from two to half a dozen bodyguards, carried on the payroll as organizers or business agents, and I knew Ragen had two—a thin, greasy little punk named Roe Mink, and a big, handsome, vicious killer named Candy. I thought of those two hoods, and then thought of two men in a gray Buick. Maybe this was a time when two and two didn’t make four, but added up to Mink and C
andy. Or maybe I was trying too hard. But I got a small tingle along my spine just the same.

  Kelly went to the door with me, opened it. Outside it was dark. The street lights were on, and there was a chill in the air now that the sun was well down.

  Kelly said, “Shell.”

  I looked at her. “Yeah?”

  “Take care of yourself. Good care.”

  “Don’t worry. Ragen’s got all the trouble he can use without asking for more. Besides everything else, he’s been subpoenaed to appear before the Committee in a week or so. He’ll be on his good behavior.”

  “Will he?” She was silent for a while. “Really, Shell. I mean...” She let it trail off, then started again. “Now, with Braun ... if anything happened to—”

  “Nothing’s going to happen.”

  She bit her lip. “I feel as if they’d beaten me, too, not just Braun.” Her face twisted. “As if something awful—”

  “Hey,” I interrupted her. “Come on back. Sure, now, they talk about the luck of the Irish, Kelly. But there’s a pluck of the Irish, too.”

  “Sure, now.” She smiled. “And I almost forgot.”

  I bent down and kissed her gently on the lips. It wasn’t really a kiss, more of a peck, a “so long” without words. But when Kelly looked up at me again her green eyes had something soft and strange in them. Not really so strange when I thought about it, though. I remembered I’d seen that look in her eyes before.

  Then she said, “Don’t just stand there like a big oaf. Come see me tomorrow.”

  I walked toward the street. The door closed behind me, blocking off the light. I headed for the Cad.

  And for Ragen, Mink, and Candy.

  Los Angeles headquarters of Local 280, of the National Brotherhood of Truckers, is on Olympic Boulevard near Alvarado, only a couple of miles from the heart of downtown L.A.—almost on the jugular vein, you might say. The location seemed appropriate, since in the Brotherhood emphasis was not so much on the brother, as on the hood.

  It seemed appropriate, too, that the guy poised there like a fang was John Ragen. Ragen was called Happy Jack—behind his back—because he rarely smiled. He was surly to bed and surly to rise, and his idea of a joke was shooting guys in cemeteries. For five years now he’d been president of Local 280, and for five years hoods had been getting out of prison and going straight—straight into Local 280.