Darling, It's Death

by Richard S. Prather

  He shook his head. "It's a secret document, Mr. Scott."

  "It was a secret."

  I thought he paled a little. "Yes. Even so . . . it's likely Mr. Parkinson doesn't realize its significance."

  "Then it is significant"

  This time he actually did get paler; there was no mistaking it. He put one hand on his forehead and rubbed it back and forth, staring at the table. This thing was getting bigger and screwier, and I was getting more interested.

  Finally he said, "As I told you, it is a secret document. I simply cannot tell you what it contains. But, well, it is terribly important."

  "To whom? To you?"

  "Yes, to me. And to you, Mr. Scott. To . . . all of us."

  He wouldn't tell me any more about it. Not right then. I changed the subject. "How about this recording?"

  He gave that to me, almost as if he were eager to talk about something else. The story seemed simple enough, but there was something about it that didn't ring true; something that smelled. He said that half a dozen of his business acquaintances and some other union men had met here at his home at the end of March, just about a month back. They discussed . . . business, union methods. He slurred over it as if it were only a little shop talk and poker among pals. Joe hadn't the slightest suspicion at that time that Gunner, or anybody else, knew of the meeting, or even knew he was yet in Los Angeles. He'd only been out here from New York for two days then, but Gunner had been on his tail. More than that, Gunner had recorded that entire conversation. That was the main reason Joe and I were now sitting out on the lawn.

  When he'd finished I said, "Joe, I don't like to sound like a cross-examiner, but if it was just a friendly get-together, why is that recording so important?"

  He licked his lips. "We discussed business matters. Some union business that . . . that I should not like made public. Out of context . . . you know how strange things sound. And a recording, I understand, can be manipulated or doctored so as to distort completely its original meaning."

  He stopped. I let him stop. But I was getting the impression that Joe was a bigger rat than Gunner. We talked another half hour, during which I learned I would be on an unlimited expense account. The reason both Joe and I figured I could use an expense account was that the last thing Gunner had said to Joe was that he'd see him again in a month or two. In other words, he wasn't going to bother the guy for a while. Perhaps the idea was to let Joe sweat, soften him up. That had been yesterday, which gave Gunner only a day's start if he were leaving the L.A. area for a while, leaving Joe here to worry.

  At the end of the last half hour I said, "OK. I'm all set, I guess. And knowing Gunner, I'd better not sit here any longer than I have to. Oh yes, just one thing more."

  "Yes?"

  "You'll have to give me something, at least an idea, of what that War Department thing is that's floating around loose."

  He sighed heavily. "Well . . . all right. It concerned steps the United States would take in the event of war." His face seemed to sag even more and the lids dropped a bit farther over his eyes. He said, so solemnly that it made a little chill run down my spine, "And I mean war, Mr. Scott. Total, complete, absolutely destructive war. The document you refer to . . ." he hesitated. "It had to do with the possibility of the use of germ warfare by the United States against . . . an aggressor. That's absolutely all I can tell you."

  That shocked me, but for a funny reason: I knew that he was lying. It was nothing I could put my finger on; maybe his face, his words, his expression, maybe the tone of his voice. But when your sole occupation, almost your life, for a good many years has been one kind of investigation or another, including talking to and interrogating thousands of different kinds of people, every once in a while you know positively when somebody is lying to you. Joe was giving me some kind of snow job. And I didn't much like Joe, but I was more anxious than ever to dig into the case.

  I said, "It sounds damned important. This whole thing does. And that document sounds so important that I can't help wondering why it wasn't in the Pentagon, or a congressman's hip pocket, instead of in your safe, Joe."

  Anger flickered momentarily in his eyes. "Mr. Scott, I'm not hiring you to question me, but to retrieve that blackmail file. You forget that I am a man of some importance; I serve on several committees and I'm active in many fields other than the one with which you automatically identify me; I'm quite close to the president himself. Let me say only that there was good and sufficient reason for my possession of the document. However, quite naturally, that's all I can say about it."

  "Don't flip. It just seems to me that the FBI could handle something like this a lot better than I can."

  He straightened. "You may be sure the FBI is working on it. I can state that positively. However, the federal agency isn't concerned with my private—ah, papers. That is your concern. As a matter of fact, the entire mass of dirty, blackmailing filth is your concern. Including that document and that recording. Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money, Mr. Scott." I mentally agreed. He had impressed upon me that that sum would be my reward. He said, "For a job well done, Mr. Scott, fifty thousand dollars would actually be a small fee. I will probably pay a substantial bonus."

  "Sounds good to me. Well, I'll get busy." I stood and looked down at him, remembering that he had lied to me at least part of the time, and I added something I often, but not always, add when I get a new client. "Incidentally, Joe, I've handled a lot of murder cases in this area, as you know. Usually I make it clear that if my client knocked a guy off, I'd turn him in as quick as I'd scuttle anybody else. Quicker." His face flushed and I went on, "I just like to clear the air."

  "So? What can that possibly have to do with me?"

  "Undoubtedly nothing. Like I said, I just like to clear the air before I start a case. If I'm hired, that is."

  "You're hired. And I couldn't respect a man who didn't think along the same lines." He shook my hand before I left. Good, hearty, firm handclasp. A jovial enough guy ordinarily, hail-fellow-well-met, good guy, good Joe. But now he was just a very frightened man. About all he had left was the firm handclasp. I took off.

  That had been the start of it. Screwy enough, but I didn't yet know how big it was. I got an inkling when I found Gunner. I traced him—using methods too numerous to mention; mostly informants and underworld tipsters—to Mexico City; then to the Hotel de la Borda in Taxco, where I found the car he'd rented in Mexico City under the name of Arthur Brand. He was there, registered as Robert Cain, and in a big beam-ceilinged room on the third floor I found Parkinson-Brand-Cain, or Gunner, and he was dead, with a bullet in his brain. There weren't any papers, photos, recordings, or secret documents around. I made a thorough search, but the only thing I found that might help me was in Gunner's wallet. It was a little reservation slip like those you get from travel agencies, for the Hotel de las Américas in Acapulco. The reservation was for Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Brodney and was effective April 28, which was the day already started.

  I sat in the room with the dead Wallace Parkinson for a few minutes, then let myself out and checked, casually, at the desk. Nobody could tell me if Gunner had been alone or with somebody else. He'd apparently come to the desk alone, but that didn't mean anything. I went out to my car and thought a while, wondering what to do next. Apparently Gunner had either been traveling with somebody—who had murdered him—or been tailed by somebody besides me. And, too, it seemed that he had either been going to Acapulco with a "Mrs. Jacob Brodney" or intended to meet her there.

  Also, Gunner would hardly be heading for Acapulco to lie on the beach; not with the blackmail file he had—or had had—on Joe. I thought another minute and made up my mind. I was going to Las Américas and pick up my reservation. From here on in, at least for a while, I was going to be Wallace "Gunner" Parkinson, and see if things didn't start to happen.

  It was daylight when I left Taxco and started driving on the narrow, idiotically curved "highway" leading to Acapulco. A little after noon I checked the desk
at the Hotel de las Américas and learned that nobody had yet picked up the reservation. I claimed it, started to sign the register Jacob Brodney, then stopped. My brain was dulled with fatigue, but that seemed like carrying this thing too far. Particularly if Gunner, as Brodney, had planned to meet somebody here who knew him. I didn't look the least little bit like Gunner.

  I let the clerk continue to think I was Jacob Brodney, but I signed the registration card Shell Scott. Then I gave the clerk, a sharp-looking Mexican named Rafael, the equivalent of a hundred U.S. dollars to swear if anybody asked him that a wire had arrived from Jacob Brodney saying he was delayed, and that Rafael had thus given the room to an odd character who had signed the card Shell Scott. Rafael was more than a little perplexed at this, but for 864 pesos he would have sworn the tortillas were lousy.

  That seemed to cover me in case any homicidal friend of Gunner's wondered what I was doing in the dead Gunner's room, so I tottered down to Suite 103 and fell asleep across one of the twin beds with my clothes on. I woke up before midnight, logy and still tired, had a quick but delicious dinner at La Bocana—noticing some hard, vaguely familiar faces—then went back to bed.

  The next morning I checked at the desk to see if anybody had been inquiring about Suite 103. Nobody had. Then breakfast, another check at the desk, a tedious wait in the lobby, in the bar, and near the desk, with nothing happening except that I saw some more crooks, including a confidence man named Archie Crouse, who owed me a favor. I kept him in mind; I might need a favor. Then I had some drinks at the bar and lunch in the dining room, followed by a dip in the pool. And then came Gloria, walking toward me and telling me she had troubles.

  Now, in my suite, I'd actually spent no more than half a minute going back over part of what had happened since I first got the call from Joe and started on the case. I shrugged, stood up, and tossed my robe on the bed. If nothing else, I had a beautiful suite and all the comforts the management could provide, and right outside were the blue waters of Acapulco Bay and the pool.

  I stretched, and the door opened. The bellhop who came in was the goddamnedest-looking bellboy I'd ever seen, and he walked right in, leaned against the wall, and looked at me.

  He was about five feet tall, and looked five feet wide, and his face could have used a lot of plastic surgery. He was just about as cute as an elephant's fanny, and he should have been in a museum with one of those Latin signs over his flat head. I suddenly began wishing my gun were on me instead of in the bureau drawer. I swallowed.

  The bellhop said softly, "Gunner?"

  I said, "Uh."

  "Get some clothes on," he said in a half whisper. "Fifteen minutes."

  "Uh" had worked the last time, so I said it again. He nodded, went out, and shut the door softly. I didn't know what was going to happen next, but whatever it was, I wanted to be fully dressed—including my .38 Colt Special under my coat.

  Just then the toilet flushed in the john on my left. As I looked at the closed door of the john, it opened, and out strolled a beautiful gal wearing a mink coat and very little else. I gaped.

  She laughed. "My goodness," she said in a silken contralto. "You must be Gunner. You must have known I was coming."

  Yeah, sure. I know everything. She smiled at me, and I took a good look at her. It was worth taking.

  She was swathed in about forty pounds of mink and an ounce or two of gold lamé that was strapless, topless, backless, and very nearly useless. She was dressed for evening, and I wished it were. She had walked out of the john carrying, by the handle on top, a little black box like one of those cases women carry when they intend to stay overnight someplace. She tossed the case onto the bed and then draped her mink carelessly over it, and I took a look at the dress she seemed to be wearing.

  It was cut so low in front that for a moment I thought it was a robe, but it stopped just short of disaster. She was one woman who was obviously unpadded except by Nature, and I'm a Nature lover.

  She blinked blue eyes at me. "Torelli sent me down to keep you company, honey."

  Honey. She had called me honey. I got out a word past my confusion. "Torelli?"

  "Sure. Torelli told me to—uh, talk to you till he's ready."

  Torelli? I didn't know any Torelli. And whoever she was talking about, I didn't know what she meant by that "till he's ready" line. Maybe she was talking about me. Hell, I was already ready.

  She had lovely, curving legs with slender ankles. Her hair was long, the way I like it, but it sure was a peculiar color. It just missed being strawberry blonde. I guess it was orange, but I wouldn't have cared if it had been green. Her narrow waist made her hips look even more delightful. Oh, I looked at everything.

  I was still looking when she said, "Well? How long do I stand here?"

  "Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, sit down." I led her to a chair. "You sort of confused me for a moment."

  I started to ask her what this was all about, and who was Torelli, and so on, but then I remembered I was supposed to be Gunner and have all the answers.

  I said, "Torelli sent you?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Well, good old Torelli."

  She didn't add anything to that, so I asked her, "Like a drink?"

  "Anything you say."

  I laughed at that remark and dug out the bottle of bourbon I had for emergencies. This was an emergency. I poured two stiff drinks, gave her one, and drained mine almost immediately.

  She wore a huge signet ring on her finger, with a raised E on it. I noticed the ring because it was almost as big as the dress she was wearing so carelessly. But with a dress like that, there was no point in being careful, anyway. "Incidentally," I asked her, "what's your name?"

  "Evelyn. You can call me Eve."

  There was quite a bit I could have done with that, but I needed another drink first. I made it while she coasted on her first one.

  She sipped at the highball and said, "How about some music?"

  "Sure. Fine. Like some music. I'm crazy about music."

  She'd spotted the radio, and she got up and waved her hips over to it and turned it on. Music blared from the radio and she turned the dial till she found something she liked. It was sensual stuff with a lot of rhythm; I couldn't have named it. It might have been a mambo, but it was sweet music to me because Eve was keeping time to the beat with one little foot and innumerable other parts of Eve.

  "Dance?" she asked me.

  I had to clear my throat before I could answer. "Hell, yes."

  She wiggled a little, then lifted the dress a bit over her beautiful legs. "Aaaah," I said. She lifted the dress higher and came at me like Gilda Gray.

  Pretty soon we were moving around a lot but not doing very much with our feet, and I was thinking that whoever Torelli was, I owed him a favor. And then the door opened and that ugly bellhop came in and I could cheerfully have boiled him in oil. He could, at least, have knocked.

  "Well, for God's sake," he said. "Ain't you dressed?"

  That remark set some kind of record for nonsense. I said icily, "No, my good man, I am not dressed. And if you will kindly get the hell out—"

  His face suddenly got much tougher-looking, which surprised me because I had thought it could not get any tougher-looking. "You listen to me, Gunner. You got one minute to get dressed, or you go in your swimming trunks. And Torelli wouldn't like you showing up in that outfit."

  Eve said, "Lord, I'm sorry, Gunner. I'll beat it for now. You better jump."

  I was starting to feel like jumping out the window. But she'd been very nice to me, so I walked to the bed and held her mink coat for her. As I pulled the coat from the bed, the little black box under it fell to the floor.

  She squealed. "Oh!" she cried. "My box!"

  I said, "Whoops, sorry," but she was already stooping over. She picked it up and said, "Can't you be careful? You might have broken my box."

  "Honey, I wouldn't hurt it for the world."

  She whirled and walked out with the mink in one hand and her little bla
ck box in the other. The bellhop growled at me that I had thirty seconds and I jumped into a pair of pants and a sport shirt and stuffed my feet, without socks, into my shoes. He didn't even give me time to tie the laces.

  "What's the matter with you, Gunner?" he asked. "You losing your marbles?"

  I didn't say anything and he steered me out the door. This idea of taking Gunner's room and going along as he might have had seemed like a good idea when it occurred to me. Now it seemed as if perhaps it were working too well.

  The bellhop took my arm and led me around the colorful patio. We didn't go up by the desk, but walked outside and headed along a narrow path toward a big bungalow that was more a house sitting by itself a little apart from the main building. The bellhop steered me straight toward it and I wondered who or what we were going to see. The place was the Villa al Mar, one of the three biggest, fanciest, and most expensive suites at Las Américas.

  We reached Villa al Mar and walked up the cement steps onto the long terrace facing the water. I looked across the bay to the town of Acapulco, then at a motorboat cutting across the water in a foaming arc with a man and woman water-skiing in its wake. I couldn't help wishing I were the man. There were dozens of other boats in the water, and two or three big, sleek yachts. Only about a hundred yards out in the bay was a huge white yacht with its stern toward the terrace, and I could make out the name: Fortuna. I remembered that word meant fortune, or luck, and I thought uneasily that the name should mean something to me. I remembered that name from somewhere.

  The bellhop took my arm and pulled me up in front of a door leading inside, knocked four times, then pushed me forward as the door opened. I got a quick glimpse of the spacious living room, cigar and cigarette smoke hanging beneath the low ceiling, a bunch of men sitting in chairs all over the room, and more men grouped around a big square table in the room's center. I walked inside, the door shut behind me, the key turned in the lock with a very final sound.