The Kubla Khan Caper (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  16

  I walked over to them and said, “Hi, Jerry.”

  He glanced around. “ ‘Lo, Shell.”

  “Want to introduce me to your friend?”

  Maybe he was Jerry’s friend but he was sure no friend of mine. Not if I could read between the lines of his expression.

  “Who?” Jerry said. “Oh, this is Warren Phelps. We just met.” He performed the introduction, anyway.

  “Mr. Phelps and I met last night,” I said. “Sort of.” Neither of us offered to shake hands.

  “He’s anxious to get in touch with Miss Jeanne Jax,” Vail said, and added with a glance at me, “I told him I hadn’t seen her but would, ah, let him know if I did.”

  “Uh-huh. Seems reasonable,” I said.

  Jerry glanced at his watch and shrugged. “Meantime, the work goes on.” He nodded at Warren Phelps and me. “I’ll be in my office most of the day. Except for the ribbon-cutting at noon. You’ll be there, of course, Shell?”

  “I imagine so.”

  “You really should be. Don’t you have a meeting pretty quick?” He looked at his watch again. “Nearly eleven now.”

  “Meeting? Oh, yeah.” The meeting of contest Judges, I remembered. Instructions, clarification of judging method and such. A girl gets demerits if she bakes a cake. I wasn’t wild about going to the meeting, but Monaco had instructed me to go. I kind of begrudged the time it would take—not that it really made any difference at this point.

  Jerry nodded again and strolled away.

  Phelps started to walk off, too, but I said, “Just a minute.”

  So far he hadn’t said boo to me, hadn’t opened his mouth. I stepped up by him again and said, “Mind telling me why you’re so anxious to see Miss Jax?”

  “Yeah, I mind.”

  “OK. You can tell the fuzz, then.”

  He didn’t have any difficulty understanding who I meant by the fuzz. The brows pulled down over his eyes. “Why would cops be interested?”

  I shrugged. “As Mr. Vail just indicated, Miss Jax doesn’t seem to be around. They’ll be interested in that. In fact, I’ll have to. tell Sergeant Torgesen you were asking Mr. Vail about her. Asking Carol Shearing last night. And a flock of others, for all I know.”

  He was quiet for several seconds, looking past my shoulder. Then he decided, apparently, to become somewhat. more communicative. “Hell,” he said, “it’s natural enough I’m interested in where she is. I was supposed to see Jeanne last night. At least she was supposed to call me. Today, too.”

  He stopped. I didn’t say anything, just waited. Finally he went on, “We’re supposed to get married. Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  “Well, if she ever gets unhitched.”

  “Yeah. I thought I heard she was already married.”

  “She was. Still is, I guess. Sonofabitch took off, left her.”

  “When was this?”

  “Year or more back. What’s it to you?”

  “Let’s say I’m a friend of Sergeant Torgesen’s.”

  He scowled again. Mr. Phelps didn’t seem to be in love with the fuzz. I said, “What’s her husband’s name?”

  I thought be wasn’t going to answer, but finally he said, “Maurice. Maurice Boutelle.”

  “You know where they were married? And when?”

  “San Jose, she told me. Maybe a couple of years ago. She was Jeanne Curtis then.”

  “So why didn’t she call herself Jeanne Boutelle? Or even Curtis?”

  “Ah, she had stars in her eyes. Some press agent sold her on the Jax handle. Better screen name, more punch, that kind of line.”

  “Married in San Jose, huh? In Northern California?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “He took a powder? Ran out on her?”

  Phelps nodded slowly. “With about seven thousand bucks she’d made, at that. From modeling, mostly.” He paused. “We were getting along real good. I’d sure like to know . . . You got any idea where she’s at?”

  “Afraid I can’t help you there. But I might want to talk to you again. You staying here at the Khan?”

  He shook his head, gave me the name of another local hotel.

  I said, “Incidentally, I saw you talking to Carol Shearing last night. What did you do after that? Stay around for the party?”

  “Maybe another fifteen minutes. I was just trying to find Jeanne. Fact is, I wasn’t supposed to be here at all. So I just crashed for half an hour.”

  If true, he couldn’t have been the man who’d cracked me on the head. But I hadn’t supposed he was, anyway. Even if he had been, he sure wouldn’t tell me.

  When I left Phelps I looked for Torgesen, but he’d gone, so I called his office in Indio—twice. The first time I didn’t get him, but he’d arrived by the time I completed the second call.

  I passed on what I’d learned from Phelps and he said, “Thanks for the information, Scott. I already knew she was Jeanne Boutelle—info from DMV. The missing registration slip slowed us down, but not much. It was her own car she was driving. Didn’t know the husband’s name, though.”

  “I suppose you’ll check with San Jose?”

  “Right away. Jeanne Curtis and Maurice Boutelle; married about two years ago, you said?”

  “Roughly. Phelps couldn’t pin it down any closer. Sergeant, when you get word back, I’d much appreciate anything available on the husband. Age, description, you know. The works.”

  “We’ll see,” he said. “I’ll be in touch with you later today, anyhow.”

  “Right. I don’t suppose you could get the information in the next half hour.”

  It was a joke, of course. He thought it very funny.

  I hung up on him.

  Between the two calls to Torgesen I’d phoned Lyssa’s room, but there hadn’t been any answer. I tried again, once more without success, then dialed Misty Lombard’s number.

  She answered with a soft, sweet, hot hello that went into my marrow, and cooked it, and there ensued a little jolly dialogue which need not be here reported.

  Then I said, “Honey, I hear they cut the big ribbon and make some smashing speeches at noon. How about going to the ceremonies with me, to relieve their inevitable dullness?”

  “I’d like to. Shell. But I can’t.”

  “Can’t?”

  “I’m going with somebody else.”

  “Somebody else? But you—I—we—I thought—”

  “He called only a few minutes ago. If you’d phoned me ten minutes sooner I’d have said yes. You shouldn’t have neglected me all morning.”

  “Neglected you? Dear, I thought—Who you going with?”

  “I’m not supposed to say.”

  “Not supposed to say? What does that mean?”

  “He asked me not to say anything about it, that’s all. He’s going to pick me up just before noon and he’ll explain everything then—some kind of special ceremony, I gathered. And I’m to be part of it.”

  “Listen, if he tries to talk you into leaping out of a big firecracker—”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “You-can’t trust these men.”

  “I know,” she laughed.

  And there was some more jolly dialogue, which need not be here reported. After a few moments Misty said, “I’ve got to hang up. I’ll see you at the meeting, anyway. I’m just leaving.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll save you a seat.”

  “I’ll be sitting with Mr. Leaf.”

  “Are you trying to avoid me?’

  She laughed again. “Not really. I’ll see you later, Shell.” She added something dandy, and I hung up still smiling—but wondering, too, with whom she was going to the ribbon-cutting. And why she was supposed to say nothing about it.

  But the time was ticking close to eleven, so I headed for the Executive Room, where what I expected would be a hugely dull meeting was about to start. I was right; it was about to start, and it was hugely dull.

  I did meet some of the other judges, in
cluding a New York fashion designer with a toothbrush mustache which looked as if it had been used to clean too many teeth, and his most celebrated high-fashion model, who was not quite as tall as I, and weighed nearly as much as my left leg. I figured she wore a brassiere primarily for warmth, like Band-Aids for goose bumps, and I couldn’t imagine how either of them was going to vote for any of the contestants. But there were eight other judges, including Misty and Simon Leaf and me, so perhaps it would still be an exciting contest.

  Misty came in—with Simon Leaf. She gave me a smile but no words, and he gave me a nod and a curt “Morning, Scott,” then they proceeded, still talking animatedly, to their seats.

  I said “Psst” at Misty a couple of times, but it didn’t do any good, so I found my own seat. It was a good ten feet from Misty’s. Things weren’t working out so well. I wondered if it was an omen.

  Somebody passed out little folders with rules for judging various portions of female anatomy. Interesting enough, I thought, but I had my own ideas about that. Then Onnand Monaco came in, rapped for order and gave us a little speech. He was delighted we could all be here to help in this great enterprise; he knew we would, each of us, do all in our power to make the Khan’s grand opening, succeeding festivities, and the conclusion of the talent search a joy and a delight and practically heaven on earth. Then he introduced Mr. Leaf, who would say a few words, and left to continue preparations for the grand-opening ceremonies.

  Simon Leaf stepped to the front of the Executive Room, stood behind a small lectern and gazed upon us with the air of the first man to espy, through shrouds and mists, the shores of North America. “Dignity,” he said.

  He continued to gaze upon the foaming surf, spreading lands, rising mountains. “Dignity,” he said again.

  Well, this wasn’t much so far, I thought. I leaned over and tried to catch Misty’s eye. “Psst,” I said. Didn’t work this time. either.

  “Dignity!” cried Simon Leaf.

  Shee, I thought. Some speech. Maybe he was following the old advice to “Tell ‘em what you’re going to say, then tell ‘em-what you’re saying, then tell ‘em what you said.” OK, I’d got it. We’d all got it.

  “That is my message to you this morning,” said Simon Leaf. “My entire message is contained in that one word.”

  Those three words, I mentally amended.

  “All preparations have been carefully made,” he went on, “to ensure that from the opening ceremonies at noon through the afternoon’s events to the conclusion of the contest this evening, the proceedings not only go forward with professional smoothness and dispatch, but that there may reside in all our activities an air of complete propriety, an aura of good taste, a suffusion of that dignified élan to which none, even the most censorious, could even minimally object.”

  He should have quit when he was even, I thought. I’d pegged Leaf as one of those guys to whom the sound of his own voice was sweeter than harps in heaven. But, perhaps, I was a mite prejudiced against him.

  “The eyes of the world are upon us!” he sang. “What we say here may not be long remembered, but what we do here . . . ah.” He’d lost his place. “Ah, uh.” He rolled his eyes around. Maybe from where he stood he could see not merely the coast of California, but clear to South America. Clearly he was a man with vision.

  “What we do here will echo to every cran and nook—nook and cranny—all over the world. A great responsibility lies upon us. Each of us, individually and collectively, represents the Kubla Khan, the flower of youthful, vital, shapely sex—ah, uh—youthful, innocent womanhood. And”—his eyes rolled again—”and . . . Simon Leaf Productions!”

  Ah, there it was. But I wondered how each of us collectively could do something which would echo. I was really getting interested now.

  He went on for another minute, stressing that there be no jollity among the judges—and certainly no drinking, at least until after the judging was completed, and that we should appear before the “eyes of the world” as though clad in the raiment and wisdom and nobility of monks and hermits and saints and angels, to the end that all the world would know the Kubla Khan, the flower of womanhood and Simon Leaf Productions stood foursquare near, at, around and even smack-dab on . . . He took a deep breath, rolled his eyes, shook a little:

  “Dignity!”

  Well, of course, that was the high point of the meeting. After Simon Leaf, the other specific instructions—time and place where we’d meet before the contest began, résumé of awards to be presented and such—was terribly anticlimactic. But it was ended before eleven-thirty, and after failing to disengage Misty from Simon Leaf, boy Demosthenes, I left.

  Lyssa Weldon’s room was an outside room in the Khan’s north wing, and this time instead of phoning I walked over there, filling my lungs with clean desert air on the way, and pressed the button at 218 and rang her bell.

  She was in this time.

  And though she did not press my button, she also rang my bell.

  17

  The door cracked and one of those big eyes, dark and brown but with a flicker of hot green in it, peeked around its edge at me.

  Then the eye widened further and took on even more of that look of constant surprise and she opened the door wide saying, “Shell, love. I thought maybe it was Bull. But it’s too early for Bull.”

  “Maybe it’s too early for me.”

  I guessed she was fresh from the shower, for there were tiny sparkling diamonds of wetness in her short black hair, and moistness glistened faintly on the silken brown skin of her shoulders and throat and upper part of her chest—and very nearly the under part of her chest, since she was clutching a fluffy white towel to her breasts and had apparently clutched it in a hurry.

  Lyssa corroborated at least one of my deductions by saying, “I just jumped out of the shower. Getting ready for when they cut the ribbon thing. Come on in.”

  “In the shower?”

  She laughed. “You can shower if you want. But I’m all through.”

  “Yeah. Well, I guess I’m all washed up myself. But I don’t mind coming in, don’t mind if I do.”

  And in I went. “Close the door quick,” I said, “so we don’t get trampled in the rush.”

  “Rush?”

  “There may be guys out there watching. Lock and bar the door, shove the bed against it. I’ll shoot the first six guys inside.”

  “Oh, not the bed, love,” she said. “Shut your eyes.”

  “What for? They just got here.”

  “So I can fix my towel.”

  I did it, and did not even peek, until she said, “OK, now I’m all covered,” and I took a good look and said, “That is a matter of opinion.”

  The towel went under her arms and concealed the vital third of her splendidly shapely body from the swell of her breasts to about halfway or maybe merely quarterway down her sleek thighs, but left all the sizzling rest, including her rounded shoulders and upper bulge of bosom bare as a baby’s bottom and in fact much barer than that.

  “I’ll get dressed in a minute,” she said. “I suppose you want to know if I talked to Bull Harper.”

  “Yeah, that was it.’

  “I did. He said Jeanne saw him, and told him she’d tried to see Mr. Sardis but couldn’t get an appointment with him. She asked Bull to fix it for her.”

  “Did he fix it?”

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. He’s funny—if he gets tired of talking about anything, he’s tired. You can’t budge him at all.”

  “I had a hunch he was like that. When did Jeanne talk to Bull?”

  “It was late on Thursday. She went out to the place to see him.”

  “The Sardis estate, you mean?”

  “Yes, that’s where Bull was then; it was a little before 4 p.m. You want a Martini?”

  “What?”

  “You want a Martini? I made some just before I jumped in the shower. Thought I’d need something to last me through the noon thing. When they do all the speeches and talk
about how wonderful everybody is.”

  “Well, I don’t usually drink Martinis at noon. But . . . yeah, maybe I’d better. Just one.”

  “Whoever heard of Just one?” she said, and heat lightning flickered in those almost virginal eyes. “I made a whole pitcher.”

  “So start pitching.”

  While she poured to the clink of ice in the pitcher—wrong way to make Martinis, by the way; you should never leave the ice in the pitcher—I said, “Did Jeanne tell Bull why she wanted to see Sardis?”

  “No. He asked her about that, but she didn’t say exactly why. You’ll have to drink from this big old glass, don’t have any of the cute little ones. Sit down and rest your bones, we’ve got a couple minutes.”

  Couple minutes for what? I wondered. But I sat on the edge of the bed after taking the nearly full water glass she’d handed me.

  It was a small room, the neatly made bed in one corner, low dresser of dark carved wood against a wall, little stained-bamboo bar in the corner on my right, and straight ahead the half-open door of the bath. I could see a dark-red bath mat on the floor and an edge of the shower stall.

  I swallowed about a half-ounce of the Martini and went up an inch off the bed. Maybe you should leave the ice in.

  “Glaa,” I said, involuntarily.

  “They all right?” Lyssa asked me. “Maybe I made them too strong.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Glaa, fine. Just don’t rub two of them together.”

  “I can’t remember if I put the vermouth in. Does it taste like it?”

  “How can you tell? Beats me. In a minute, though, it won’t make much difference.”

  “You don’t like it.”

  “Sure I do.”

  “But you keep making that noise like a billy goat.”

  “What do you mean? Glaa. It’s—it’s swell.”

  “It’s some gin I never heard of.”

  “Huh.”

  “Sure warms your stomach, though.”

  “Well, that’s where it starts.” I’d had another half-ounce by this time. “Bet this would cure ulcers. They’d close right up like dying sea anemones.”

  We yacked about nothing much for a bit. I asked her where her roommate was, if she had one. She had one—a Chinese girl named Wong—but she’d left the room hours before. When I couldn’t resist commenting that I was glad her roommate was Wong gone, I shut up for a bit, wondering if I should drink the rest of the Martini. The hell of it was, by then I’d drunk the rest of the Martini. Well, practically.