The Wailing Frail (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  But I had to keep Satin going, especially now. “It was nothing,” I said. “Sit still. It happens all the time. Sit still.”

  “Happens all the time? Doesn't it hurt?”

  I said, “No. Here, there is no pain. Get on with it ... You were saying?”

  “Oh, yes. I went with George, but he made me wait in the car. He said there were two armed guards there. I saw them at the big iron gate in front of the driveway.”

  I gulped. “Armed?”

  “Yes. Armed. George said that was because the big boss lived there. The one he worked for. I remember now.”

  “What was his name?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Sebastian Wise?”

  “I don't know. George didn't tell me who it was. There, you did it again.”

  “Sit still!” I looked at her sternly. And in my condition, that was about as stem as you can get. She sat still. Then, with horror, I noticed that the sun was coming up. I was looking out a big window that aimed dead east. The first strong rays of the sun were about to leap up and smack me in the kisser.

  I said more rapidly and not so sepulchrally, “Satin, tell me all you know about what George did. His work, the people he associated with, everything.”

  “He didn't talk much about it. But he did talk a little after several highballs. Or a Martini. He listened to other people's phones and things. He got a lot of tape recordings and records of conversations. He gave all of it to the man he worked for. Once he said a lot of it helped get some laws passed. It was for lobbying or something. I thought that was nice.”

  That was about the same info Stone had given me at the Melody. Satin went on, mentioning several things that seemed of little help, but then suddenly she stopped speaking. She leaned forward in bed and peered at me. Then she actually swung her legs out of bed and got up, standing on the floor. That put her legs squarely in front of my lamp. Moreover, the worst had happened. The sun had come up. I knew that now, finally, I stood before her in all my natural horror. With no ultraviolet, and with sunlight on me, and what probably appeared to be egg on my face.

  Satin was gawking at me. “How did you do that?” she asked me.

  Well, she had me there. “What do you mean?” I asked, stalling for time.

  “Well, first part of you went away, then it came back. Then you went all away, and now here you are.”

  Boy, she was getting me confused.

  “I mean,” she went on, “you don't look dead at all!”

  Then I guess it hit her. It took a bit of time for this to penetrate to the depths of Satin's intelligence, but then she cried, “It's a trick! You're not dead! Oh, how dirty!”

  “Now, now, Satin,” I said soothingly. “I am, too, dead. But I ... I decided to come back.”

  “What?”

  “From where I was. Over there. I ... wanted to see you.”

  “Shell, how nice. You mean you can come back? You really can?”

  “Yeah, sure. Anybody can. Only it's so nice there hardly anybody does.”

  She looked at me for a long time, and it became obvious that she didn't believe me. She just wouldn't go along with this. “You,” she said. “You!” she yelled. “You really aren't dead!”

  “Now, Satin—”

  “Don't Satin me. Why you miserable fathead!”

  That told me where I could get off. I'd had it now. And, of course, our conversation was over. Satin was, in fact socking me. She swung and slapped and clawed and scratched, yelling, “Ho, dead, hey? Well, I'll kill you again, and we'll see who comes back. Miserable—” and all the time swinging.

  I got the hell out of there. I even left the ultraviolet lamp, but I figured I could send somebody around to pick it up later. I was running through the lobby before I really started settling down. And right then there was a high-pitched yell.

  It came from the desk in the lobby, and I noticed the clerk was pointing at me and jumping up and down and yelling. I probably did look like something that had slithered slimily up the drain from about twenty thousand fathoms down in the murk, or maybe the clerk had been seeing a lot of those horror pictures where ghastly things go around leaping at women. But anyway he had stopped shouting words and was now making a noise like an air-raid siren. It followed me out of the hotel.

  Cold air and bleak sunlight hit me and I suddenly wondered why I was running. That clerk's screeching revulsion must have been contagious. Anyway, I stopped trotting along, and let my mind glide back over the minutes in Satin's apartment. At first I thought it had been a waste of time, all my plans had gone awry. But then I realized that it had worked out exactly as I had planned.

  It sneaked into my brain like that, just sort of filtered in without any great excitement or roaring sound or anything. It sneaked in and settled there, and then came the explosion. It was as if all my convolutions straightened out and then curled up again while my gray matter blanched and then went back to normal.

  Satin had told me. And how she had told me. I loved her, and Madame Astra; and my horrible paint and powder. I wheeled around and ran right back into the hotel. I dug into my pocket but there wasn't any change there, so I fished the last dollar out of my wallet and ran to the desk.

  The clerk leaped back two yards, flinging his arms across his chest like a coy maiden suddenly realizing she'd forgotten her bra and he cried, “No, you don't!”

  I stopped at the desk. “What?”

  “Don't you touch me! Don't you dare!”

  “Relax. How about change for a buck? I want to make a phone call.”

  I had to threaten him, but I got the change and had him point out the phone booth. I ran to it and put in a call to my apartment building and Doctor Paul Anson again.

  I woke him up, but when I had told him in fast sentences what I wanted he seemed alert enough. And he knew me well enough to know when I wanted no idle chatter, no questions. This was one of the times.

  He said, “Forget the chloral hydrate. You might kill them with that. It's tricky.”

  I had told him, essentially, that I wanted to go into a place where there were two tough bodyguards, and that I wanted to feed them knockout drops or something which would incapacitate them. Naturally I didn't want to kill them—but I didn't want them to kill me, either.

  He had paused, thinking, and now he said, “How you going to get them to take the stuff, anyway? You can't jab a hypo into them.”

  “I haven't even thought that far ahead, Paul. Probably in food or drink.”

  “You gonna pretend you're the Red Cross or something?”

  “No, but I might be able to work something like that. Take them coffee. At this time of morning anybody should want coffee. But first I have to know what to put in it.”

  “Well, here's a thought,” he said. “And I can handle it myself.”

  He told me what he'd come up with, and it was exactly what I wanted, so I told him to get busy because I'd be there as soon as I could drive the distance. Then I hung up and raced outside. I was headed for my Cadillac—but I suddenly headed in the other direction. A black radio car had pulled up alongside my buggy and a guy in plain clothes was peering into the Cad.

  I ran around the corner in the other direction. They were closing in on me. All this activity was beginning to affect my nerves; I realized that I had been going like a fiend ever since yesterday afternoon. I stopped running when I got around the corner, but I kept walking rapidly. I knew that as soon as that police officer back there could radio his information in, there'd be a whole flock of prowl cars converging on this area and I had to be out of sight or I'd be in the clink. This, of all times, was no time to be tossed into the clink.

  Now that I knew where I was going, Toddy's face kept coming before me again and again. The lovely face, the electric voice, that incredible body. A siren cut through my thoughts. It wouldn't be long now—and then I saw what might be salvation. A taxi pulled up at the curb a few yards ahead of me. The driver got out, opened the door on the opposite side of th
e car and helped an old lady to the street. Then he picked up a couple of suitcases and walked toward a hotel with her. Probably she'd just come in on the train, but it made the moment just right for me.

  I guess I hurried it too much. I should have waited until he was clear out of sight. But I started to climb into the car and he must have glanced over his shoulder right then. “Hey!” he yelled. “What the—”

  I swung my head around to see him dropping the suitcases and starting toward me. Suddenly he stopped. He shook his head, wiped his eyes, and looked at me again. Before he'd recovered, I was in the cab. He'd left the motor running, and I made a U-turn and was gone.

  Of course, this cab's license number and description would soon be reported to the police. They'd talk to the driver. But I had a little respite now. And I couldn't help thinking of what that cabbie was going to tell the police, and how happy the policemen were going to be. Usually the interrogating officers ask a witness, “Was there anything about this man that would help us to identify him? Any marks or scars? Anything unusual?” Usually the witness shrugs and says “Nah. Just a guy.” This time it was going to be different. This time the answer would be a policeman's dream.

  I drove the cab hell-for-leather to the Spartan. Paul Anson was waiting in front with a big thermos and some paper cups. His stare reminded me about the gook on my face so I merely yelled at him to dump the stuff in the cab, then raced by him and up the stairs to my apartment. There I splashed soap and water on my face, quickly cleaned up a bit and put on a different sports jacket, then ran down to the cab again.

  Paul pointed at the thermos resting on the front seat and said, “That's really loaded. And those are the biggest cups I could scrounge.”

  “Swell, Paul.” I tapped the thermos. “This won't kill them, will it?”

  “No, but a few minutes after they drink it they may wish they were dead. It hits like lightning.” He frowned at the broken-down taxi. It was old, with muscle steering, hand choke, and no extras. “What happened to your Cad? You get it painted?” Never serious, that's Paul.

  “I traded it in,” I said. “Couldn't resist the terms. Seriously, I stole it.” I handed him a paper on which I'd scribbled an address while driving here. “Wait twenty minutes and call the cops, Paul. Give them this address. Send them along after me. I think I can take care of the bodyguards, but after that I may need some help.”

  I was serious, but as I drove off I could see Paul reflected in the rear-view mirror, waggling his head about and slapping his thigh. By the time it dawned on me what that meant, it was too late.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I drove to 954 Fern Road, where a monstrous two-story brown house was barely visible among a whole flock of trees, and a monstrous guard soon peered out at me from behind an iron gate barring the curving drive. He was a rough customer, and with another one like that behind him, I figured maybe I should wait for the police.

  I knew the police would soon be on their way, but I had this planned so that it required rather delicate timing. I had to get past those guards and into the house, if I could, before the cops showed up. I knew that the instant the police got close to me, I was through. They would clap me into their deepest dungeon. They'd tie me to the bumpers of patrol cars. They'd shoot me.

  I got out of the cab and walked up to the gate. “You gonna stand there gawping at me all day, Mac?” I said.

  “Haw?”

  “Open the gate, boy. Let me in.”

  “Haw?”

  That's what I like about most muscle men. They are chosen only because of their muscle.

  “That's the boy,” I said. “I got the coffee.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Yeah. You know, that Brazilian stuff that comes from beans. You drink it, and then you are full of beans.”

  “Brazilian?”

  It looked as if I might have to try a new tack. But then he said, “Coffee sure would taste good.”

  “Well, open up. I got a whole gallon of it. If you don't want it, why did you call me?”

  He leaned back and looked down his nose at me, mouth open. After a while he said, “Did I call you?”

  “Man, if you don't know, then I ain't got the faintest idea.” I paused, wondering if this was how a cab driver would do it, and deciding that perhaps a cab driver would not be doing it at all, which is a big tribute to cab drivers. Then I added, “Somebody called me.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Must've been the boss.”

  “That's right,” I said. “That's who it was.”

  He opened the gate. I drove in and parked before cement steps leading up to a front door the size of those they used in Gone With The Wind.

  The big ape had locked the gate again and now he strolled up and looked in my window at me. He was really large. He was about the size of the front doors they used in Gone With The Wind.

  “That coffee for me?” he asked.

  I took my first chance then First big one, that is. “Coffee for two is what I was told.”

  But apparently ray information was correct about the number of bodyguards, and this one didn't get irritated or put out. I would have hated to get him irritated, because then I would be the one put out. I handed him the thermos and about four big paper cups.

  “Nice of the boss,” he said.

  “Yeah. Going to do this every day from now on.” I was just making conversation. But that wouldn't last me long, I knew. And I had to stick around until some coffee was drunk. This big boy didn't seem the suspicious type, and he would hardly be worried much about me alone, but I was pretty sure that soon I would be sent on my way.

  The other guard strolled over. This character was bigger than I am, too. At least a quarter of a ton and probably more was spread around between those two. The gate guard poured himself a cup of coffee, then gave the thermos and a couple of cups to the other guy, and explained that the boss had sent for coffee; they were going to get it every day. He looked at me. “Ain't that right, bo?”

  “Well, you're sure going to get it today. That's what I hear, I mean. Coffee every morning.”

  The second guy smiled and said they needed something to wake them up. Well, I thought, this is the stuff that will do it.

  “Thanks,” the big guy said to me. “So long.” He walked back toward the house.

  “What's your name?” I asked the other king kong.

  “Me? Bim. Just Bim. You better beat it, pal.”

  “Bim. Bim. Ain't we met before? Folsom? Q? Cannes?”

  “Pal, we ain't met, yet. You better beat it.”

  “How about my thermos?”

  “Pick it up in the morning.”

  He was gulping at his coffee every once in a while. With that coffee, it would take only a few gulps. But it appeared to be time I moved. I started the cab, grinned at Bim and told him I'd see him in the morning, and the car started.

  The drive curved around in a complete oval so that cars would go out at the same gate through which they'd come in. I drove almost to the gate, and for quite a spell before I reached it I had the hand choke pulled all the way out. Finally, when I thought I would be clear outside before it happened, the engine died with a gurgle, beautifully flooded. I could smell gas all over the place. Bim was standing by the open gate. When my cab stopped, he glared at me like a bull sighting the matador.

  I pushed the choke back in, got out and raised the hood. Then, for just a second, I turned and looked at the big house. I was almost sure that Todhunter and Toddy were in there. There were a lot of windows in the front of the house, but I didn't see movement at any of them. I hadn't expected to. There had been almost no noise here except for the sound of the cab's engine and our soft conversation. Soon, however, there would be quite a lot of noise.

  Counting the time that it had taken for me to get out here, it had been well over twenty minutes since I'd handed Paul Anson this address and told him to send the tops here. Should be hearing sirens before long.

  And that was when I remembered Paul yocki
ng and slapping his thigh and waggling his empty head about. He must have thought it was a gag. I looked at Bim glaring down at me, and then, with a great sadness, I realized that the cops would not be coming. I was alone. Me, alone with two great apes and no telling what else.

  I turned back to the engine and stared down at it. Bim walked over and continued to glare down at me. I got the impression that he had run out of patience with me. His big fist slowly closed on the paper cup, squashing it before he threw it away. But the cap had been empty. That meant Big Bim was full of it. And what was he full of?

  Well, the concoction that Doctor Paul Anson had prepared for me was merely a super-potent mickey. Although it hardly seems right to speak of any mickey as “merely.” It was coffee, yes, but coffee laced with some potent foreign matter. It made even the caffeine completely unimportant.

  This Bim, even counting all the other monsters I've seen, was the tallest, widest, and heaviest He would therefore probably have an enormous capacity, let alone an enormous resistance. So I knew that when the stuff hit him—if it was ever going to—I would soon win the battle. Win, that is, if I were still alive and in the fight. The whole idea of this operation was for me to stay alive and operating until these bodyguards were shell-shocked. That, it had seemed to me, was the only way I could get into the house to do what I had to do, and get out alive with Todhunter and Toddy.

  But Bim might merely have taken an aspirin. He said, “What're you tryin’ to pull, bo?”

  “Engine died, Mac. Does that once in a while.”

  I was starting to sweat. This couldn't go on much longer. My nervous system simply wasn't going to hold up much longer. I had been so jangled up with those three babes last night, and then the bits with Doe, and at Ravenswood, then with Satin, and everything else up till now, that soon there were inevitably going to be numerous mental and nervous short circuits in me. I would be seeing voices and listening to colors and smelling clouts on the head.

  But then—at last, I thought, at last—there was a hoarse shout from out behind the house somewhere. The other guard that I had seen before came running around the house and at us. He didn't quite make it.