Double in Trouble (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  “What happened?”

  “We never even got to talking. A couple of Ragen’s muscles showed up.”

  “And Marker took off? He won’t go back there, will he?”

  “Hell no. But from the look of the place someone ... was keeping house for him.” He gave me the address.

  “A woman you mean? She wouldn’t be stupid enough to go back there now.”

  “I don’t know. Ragen’s muscles are too busy looking for Marker, too busy getting ready ... to move in on Dr. Frost. They only jumped in for a minute anyhow. Long enough for Marker to go out the window. Long enough for them to take me out with them and work me over. Maybe they didn’t figure a woman was living with him. Hell, they’re not detectives.” His battered face gave me a bitter look. “Sometimes I wonder if I am.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve given us the one lead we’ve got.”

  “See that Cora takes care of the kids, huh?”

  The intern’s head appeared in the doorway. “Mr. Drum,” he said.

  I squeezed Dan Moody’s good shoulder and headed for the door.

  “Drum?”

  I turned around.

  “I ... never mind. It’s nothing.”

  A nurse was sitting in the corridor with Cora Moody. “You going home?” I asked her.

  “Yes. I just wanted to see him once more. Will that be all right, doctor?”

  The intern nodded. The sergeant asked me, “What’d you get?”

  I told him, and he turned to the patrolman standing nearby. “Who’s in the car?”

  “Miller, sarge.”

  “Okay. You stay put. The captain wants a guard maintained around the clock here, just in case. You want to drive out there with us, Drum?”

  I nodded and gave the keys to the Ford to Cora Moody. Then the sergeant and I went outside to the patrol car.

  We got to the rooming house a little before three, Miller tooling the patrol car slowly through the clogged clots of traffic on Main Street, past the strolling sloe-eyed Mexican girls and their small, tight-bodied men who had claimed the center of the sprawling city as it spread out into the canyons.

  The house was one of those sad relics of the 1920’s Midwestern colonization of the West. With its asbestos shingles and gabled roof and fenced porch and dormer windows it could have been transplanted from Illinois or Iowa, a symptom of the homesickness of one of Horace Greeley’s addicts.

  In the small weed-choked front yard a black-lettered sign on rotting white wood bore the single word, rooms. The boardwalk porch was pulpy and sagging underfoot. A fat Mexican landlady opened the door for us.

  “Marker?” the sergeant asked.

  The woman looked at his uniform suspiciously, then shook her head. "No tengo Marker aqui."

  In Spanish the sergeant described his man. The woman’s eyes narrowed, then widened. "Sí, sí. Pero no está a casa."

  “What’s his room number?”

  "Quatro. Vengan ustedes conmigo."

  “No. We’ll go in alone. Where is it?”

  “First floor, back of the house,” the Mexican woman said in English. “I don’ wan’ no trouble.”

  A recessed door bearing the numeral four in white paint had the end wall of the hallway all to itself. The sergeant motioned Miller to one side of the door, stationed himself on the other side. I went over there with him. This was approved entry technique, straight out of the police manual. We listened. We didn’t hear anything inside at first. Then I thought I heard a woman whimper.

  Rapping his knuckles sharply against the door, the sergeant said, “Open up in there. We’re police officers.”

  The answer, which came immediately, was the explosive sound of confined gunfire. Two holes exploded in the door.

  “Jesus, Miller,” the sergeant barked. “The window. Get around back.” He took out his service revolver and fired twice at the door just below the knob. Ducking and moving fast, Miller sprinted along the hallway. I heard the front door slam.

  Then the sergeant placed the sole of his shoe against the door below the knob and leaned his weight on it in a sudden, lunging motion. The door gave, slamming against the wall inside the room. The sergeant and I went right in after it.

  The first thing I saw was the window, directly across from the door. It was open, the dirty lace curtain sucked out by the draft. Through it I could see Miller running, chasing two men through the thick growth of knee-high weeds. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” he cried, and fired once into the air. The men kept running. Then Miller tripped, went sprawling and disappeared for an instant in the weeds. Then I saw his head, and his forearm, and he steadied the forearm with his other hand and fired twice. The men didn’t stop. They went around the side of the house. Miller got up and plunged after them.

  I had a quick glimpse of a small room, sparsely and cheaply furnished. There was a bed, and on the bed sat a woman wearing a slip and a terrified expression on her face. The sergeant went through the window, and I went through after him.

  When we got around the side of the house to the sidewalk, a crowd had gathered. A Merc was leaping away from the curb a couple of dozen yards ahead of the police car. Miller and the sergeant got into the police car, and Miller had it rolling before he shut the door. For one moment more I saw the Merc ahead of them, turning into the traffic on Main Street. They followed it fast. Even from here I could hear the shriek of their tires.

  The Mexican woman stood on the porch of her house and shouted, “Go ‘way, is nothing, go ‘way. All of you go ‘way.” Then, “Shooting up the place, goddam cops,” she muttered, and slammed the door.

  Gradually the crowd dispersed. I stood on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette. I could have gone in there and questioned the woman in Rex Marker’s room, but I didn’t. She wouldn’t stay here long, I thought. And she had no reason to go out the much-used window. When she came out she’d use the front door. I’d be waiting.

  Up the block I found a taxi and got in back. The driver took his last bite out of a sandwich and crumpled the crust of bread up in a wax-paper ball which he tossed on the seat beside him as he craned his neck at me. “Where to?”

  “No place yet. Just stay put.”

  He shrugged. “If you’re paying for it.”

  He swung down the flag on his meter, and we waited.

  It was ten minutes later when the woman in Rex Marker’s room came across the porch, looked both ways with the exaggerated mannerisms of a small child who had just learned to cross the street, and started up the block. She was a good-looking woman, if you like them slightly on the heavy side. She was walking fast, twitching her hips.

  “That’s the one,” I said. “Don’t lose her.”

  We started moving. Walking very fast, the woman turned the corner on Main Street. Halfway up the block she got into a Plymouth parked at the curb. We drove by in second gear as she started it.

  “What do we do now?” the cabbie wanted to know.

  “Take it slow. In this kind of traffic it’s easier tailing from in front anyway.”

  The Plymouth followed us for several blocks along Main Street, then turned left. “Hey!” the cabbie cried.

  “Make a U-turn. Hurry up.”

  He grumbled something under his breath but made a U-turn in the middle of the block. A big semi-trailer coming the other way on Main had to jam on its brakes.

  I saw the Plymouth a block and a half ahead of us after we made a right turn. We followed it for ten minutes along Olympic Boulevard. As it reached the corner of Alvarado, the Plymouth slowed almost to a stop near a big, low one-story building set off the street behind royal palms. Above the double glass doors I saw the sign: national brotherhood of truckers, southern california local.

  But the woman changed her mind. We were close enough to hear her clash the gears of the Plymouth as she sped away. Fear, I figured, and whatever feelings she had for Rex Marker had fought in her, and for the moment at least Marker had won.

  Fifteen minutes later she pulled into the
entrance to a shopping center. When she parked, I told the cabbie to stop up the block.

  I smoked half a pack of cigarettes and watched the sun set while she spent three and a half hours primping in a beauty parlor. The afternoon limped by like a wounded animal. When she came out her hair was in tight ringlets against her skull. She got into the Plymouth, turning on the lights and engine. If the time she’d spent in the beauty parlor meant anything, she was finally going to visit the boy friend.

  The place was one of those fancy new motels off the San Bernadino Freeway, glass and redwood in a single long U-shaped building around a courtyard. The woman pulled in near a long, sleek Lincoln, got out fast and knocked on the door of the motel unit. The door opened far enough for her to slip inside, and banged shut behind her.

  “This it?” the cabbie asked me hopefully.

  “For now. Don’t go away.”

  “Not when you owe me twelve-fifty, I won’t.”

  I walked between the Plymouth and the Lincoln. The unit had a large picture window, but it was shut tight and the blinds were drawn. Probably the entire motel was centrally air-conditioned. The cabbie stuck his head out the rolled-down front window and gave me a conspiratory smile. Armed with it I went to the door, took a deep breath and knocked.

  “Yeah?” a voice called.

  “Manager,” I said. “I’m sorry as hell to bother you, but our kid got to playing with the registry cards and yours is missing.”

  “I’ll fill it in tomorrow,” the voice said.

  “Well, the State insists we have them. I could get into a mess of trouble.”

  He made a noise that might have been a four-letter word and opened the door. He had a strong, square face topped by dark black hair thinning over his scalp. He wore a white shirt open at the throat. His right hand hung out of sight at his side behind the doorjamb. From what I could see of him through the partially open door he looked as strong as a tank and only a little less unfriendly.

  “Okay, give me it,” he said.

  He reached out with his left hand; his right in all probability held a gun. I rammed a shoulder into his chest hard, got a knee against the door and shoved, crossing my right hand under my lapel and reaching for the .357 Magnum at the same time.

  He stumbled back a foot or so, startled. That was far enough for me to get inside, and I did so. He had an automatic in his right hand, and he brought it up. I pointed the muzzle of the .357 at him.

  “That’s right, Marker,” I said, “let’s both shoot holes in each other.”

  SHELL SCOTT LOOKS AT THE BARE FACTS

  Los Angeles, 6:40 P.M., Friday, December 18

  We were cruising at 30,000 feet, doing nearly ten miles a minute, and the jet was less than an hour from L.A. when Alexis sprang the surprise on me.

  We had been talking pleasantly, and the moments of friction seemed behind us now. She looked at me, cheek resting against the cushion of the seat behind her, and her blue eyes warmer than they had appeared before. A thick loop of that blonde hair rested against the creamy skin of her face.

  “Shell,” she said, “when you told me Dad left the house alone, in his car, it just came out of the blue. And it changed my thinking. Until then I’d been sure somebody forced him to leave. But if he left of his own free will, it was probably because he just wanted to get away for a while before the hearings start.”

  “Maybe.” I knew there was more to it than that, but I left it unsaid.

  “He had a lot to think about. It’s not an easy thing to testify against a man who’s married to your own daughter. He knew Mike and I were having trouble, but it must still have posed a problem for him.”

  “Understandably. You think he just went off to worry about it?”

  “He must have had good reasons. I can’t be sure why he went, but I think I know where he must be.”

  I sat up straight. “You know? Where?”

  “Dad has a cabin near Lake Arrowhead. Actually at Blue Jay, three or four miles from the lake. We used to go up often, but it’s been—oh, ten years or more since I was there. I was only a kid the last time.” She was quiet for a while, then said, “If he wanted to get away, be alone for a few days, he almost surely went to Blue Jay.”

  “Then we’d better get that word to the law, and fast. Even if we went straight there from the airport it would take two or three hours to make Blue Jay. The pilot can radio—”

  “Why the police?”

  “So they can reach him before some of those union goons get there. Maybe your husband is pure as Ivory Soap, but I know John Ragen and his musclemen would give half of California away to get their hands on him.”

  “I don’t doubt that. But, Shell, they can’t possibly know where the cabin is. Even I didn’t think of it until after you told me he left alone.”

  “Well ... maybe you’re right.”

  She smiled. “He’s been gone for five days already. Two or three hours now won’t make any difference. There’s no phone at the cabin, but we can drive up tonight. If you want to go with me.”

  “You bet I want to. I’ve some questions to ask Dr. Frost.”

  “So relax.” She smiled. “Everything’s all right. There’s no hurry, no worry now.”

  That’s what she said.

  I parked the Cad before the Spartan Apartment Hotel and Alexis went up with me. All I meant to do was make a quick change into some clean clothes. I’d been living in my African outfit for two days now, and felt a little bit like a savage old witch doctor.

  But when I pushed open the door of my apartment, everything changed. I no longer felt like a witch doctor, but I could feel the savage growing in me. For about a minute I just stared, not saying a word.

  Alongside me Alexis was saying, “What ... what happened? Why, how awful. Who could have done a thing like this?”

  The place was a mess.

  It looked as if somebody had gone over it with a knife and pitchfork. The neat, comfortable apartment, my pride and joy, was not neat, not comfortable. The cushions were off the chocolate-brown divan, scattered on the floor. The divan itself was upended, cloth at its base torn loose. A bookcase had been turned over, hassocks ripped or cut open, the leather chair I like to sprawl in had been slashed, stuffing pulled from it.

  In the kitchenette, the refrigerator door was open, stuff had been dumped from shelves. In the bedroom, the livingroom shambles had been repeated. My suits, sport coats, black and white dinner jackets, gaudy sport shirts, everything was strewn on the floor. After a while I straightened Amelia. She was hanging awry, and she hangs enough awry without being slanted on the wall. I couldn’t do much about the rest of it.

  I said to Alexis, “Well, they sure gave it a tossing.”

  “It’s awful, Shell. Who would do a thing like this?”

  Mink and Candy, I said to myself, who else? But to Alexis I said, “Some guys who are going to get pretty much the same kind of tossing one of these days.”

  “Why did they do it? What were they looking for? Or were they just tearing up your apartment?”

  “Both.” They must have been looking for the stuff Braun had stolen from Ragen, mainly the tape recordings, probably. And Dr. Frost had those now. At Blue Jay—if he was really there. I began feeling uneasy. “We’d better get to Blue Jay,” I said to Alexis.

  She moistened her lips. “This can’t have any connection with my father, can it?”

  “It might.”

  The nagging worry stayed with me. And slowly another worry joined it. I was thinking about Kelly. She was probably all right; no reason to be worried about her. If she’d stayed in the Garden of Allah there wasn’t a chance in a thousand anybody could have found her.

  But I stepped to the phone, anyway, picked it up. Way up. The cord had been jerked loose from the wall. Somehow that increased the pulse of worry in me. I took another look at the ripped hassocks, the rest of it, and saw it all in a little different way. The boys had obviously done a complete job. A slow, careful, even lazy job. It was alm
ost as if they’d known they had plenty of time—perhaps known I was out of town.

  But the only person here who knew I’d left L.A. was Kelly. She wouldn’t have told anybody. Not if she could help it. I told myself I was imagining things, but it still bothered me.

  I said to Alexis, “Let’s go. I’ve one more stop to make if you don’t mind. The Garden of Allah.”

  I walked rapidly past the bar, alongside the huge Garden of Allah pool, and on to Kelly’s villa. Moments after I knocked I heard that cool, gentle voice from inside the cabin. “Yes? Who is it?”

  Suddenly I felt very good, like jumping up into the air and making my heels go click. Me and my imagination. Nobody had squeezed any info out of Kelly.

  I said, “It’s Shell, honey.”

  “Oh, Shell!”

  It was good to hear that sound in a woman’s voice again. Again for me, that is.

  She threw the door wide and I stepped in, slammed the door and grabbed her. There was a wonderful flurry of soft green eyes and soft white arms, hair on fire and lips on mine. After a bit of that I said, “Kelly, I’ve only got a minute. And we just used it up. I wanted to make sure you were all right, that’s all.”

  “Oh, yes, I’m all right. Especially now. No trouble, Shell? Everything’s fine?”

  “Better than fine. You sit tight. I’ve got a trip to make, but I’ll be back tonight. Right back here.”

  “Wait. I want to tell you. Something ... funny happened. While you were gone. A man came here. I don’t know how he found me. But he did. That detective.”

  A cold electric shock grabbed my spine. “Who?”

  I knew before she told me.

  “Chet Drum.” In the silence after that she went on, “Is it trouble?”