The Sure Thing (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  “This is Shell Scott. I'm a private investigator. And...."

  Audrey had been plucking at her chin, and squeezing her solar plexus, or whatever that thing was she did. She filled me with apprehension.

  I said into the mouthpiece, “I imagine he would have mentioned it to you if he'd been, oh, shot at, or anything unusual like that."

  “Shot at? Did somebody shoot at him?” The sweet voice was a bit less sweet on that one.

  “No, no. Not so far as I'm aware, at least."

  “He'd have told me about anything like that, I'm sure. Why did you ask such a peculiar question?"

  “It's just a way I have. Well, thank you, miss. I'll call Mr. Trappman later—"

  “Isn't he there?” This from Audrey. “Isn't he there? Oh. Oh, he's dead — I knew it—"

  “No, he isn't, and no, you didn't,” I said soothingly. “No, ma'am,” I said into the mouthpiece, “it's just that I've got a complicated situation here—"

  “Oh, Mr. Trappman's just coming in now, sir. Would you like to speak to him?"

  “Dammit, stop — no, ma'am, that was for, ah, something here. Yes, I'd love to speak to him."

  I heard her saying softly that a Mr. Shell Scott was on the phone, and he said he was a private investigator, and he sounded awfully rough, and kind of — odd and Mr. Trappman knew she was pret-ty good with voices, and—"

  Faintly, a man's deep voice, “Will you shut the hell up, Penelope? I got a lot on my mind. What the hell's a private eye want with me?"

  Then, loud, in my ear, “Arnold Trappman. You're Mr. Scott? We're not acquainted, are we?"

  “No, sir."

  “My secretary tells me you're a private detective."

  “That's right, Mr. Trappman."

  “What do you want with me, Mr. Scott?"

  I had been eyeing Audrey warily, and a couple of times I'd make a circle of my thumb and index finger, wagged it at her, smiling broadly. It hadn't seemed to do her a lot of good.

  So I made sure to mention the man's name another time or two. “Actually, it's not so much about you, Mr. Trappman,” I said. “I'm checking on Mr. Willifer, Gippy Willifer."

  “Oh, Gippy. He in some kind of trouble?"

  “No, sir. But have you had any contact with him, this morning? Or, particularly, last night?"

  “No, I haven't, Mr. Scott. Not for several weeks.... Why particularly last night? Did he want to see me then?"

  “Well, I thought he might have. It's a misunderstanding, I'm sure, Mr. Trappman. Nothing very important, something to do with a well, I think. An oil well."

  “Ah, yes, probably an offer I made the Willifers to buy their interest ... but I don't suppose you'd be interested in that, would you, Mr. Scott?"

  “No, sir. Not at the moment, anyhow. Well, I'm just calling around, trying to locate the man. Sorry to have bothered you, Mr. Trappman."

  “It's quite all right."

  We hung up.

  “That was Mr. Trappman you were talking to?” Mrs. Willifer asked me, with some intensity.

  “It was, indeed. So he's perfectly all right, not shot or even winged, and he hasn't seen or heard from Gippy in several weeks. So you can stop worry—"

  “Are you sure it was Mr. Trappman?"

  I sighed. “Well, no. It might have been the Governor of Michigan, but let's take a chance."

  “I wonder ... where Gippy is?” she said.

  “Probably home—speaking of which, what's your home phone number, Mrs. Willifer?"

  She gave it to me. I dialed. Nothing.

  “Give him time,” I said. “Or, give me time. I'll find him."

  “Oh, that's wonderful.” She sighed. “If Gippy is all right, I know he'll want to find out about our oil well. So would I. If it's really crooked and all, I mean, like Gippy says.” She hesitated. “But I suppose that would cost a lot more money to find out, wouldn't it?"

  “Very likely...."

  This babe bugged me. Drowning, always drowning. I could hardly wait to meet Gippy. Audrey Willifer's mate would have to be a marvelous experience. If, of course, he wasn't dead, or dismembered, with his arms and legs scattered every which way....

  Now I was doing it. Audrey was contagious.

  I smiled stiffly. “Mrs. Willifer, first, I confidently expect that I shall find Gippy, and restore him to you, perhaps a little worse for wear, but usable. At the same time, I shall ask around a little—a little — about this bloody well, and it won't cost you another bean. Would that make you happy?” I asked, knowing it wouldn't.

  “Oh, that would be wonderful, Mr. Scott. Thank you, thank—"

  “Don't thank me. Not yet. It might hex—just don't. There is only one more thing of some importance. At least to me."

  “There is? What ...?"

  “My fee. I don't work for nothing, you see. Not usually. And there was some discussion about thirty bucks?"

  “Oh, merciful goodness!” she cried. “I almost forgot that—"

  “Too,” I finished for her.

  Smiling, God knows why, but smiling happily, she dug into a pocket of that gray sweater and pulled out a gob that might have been money or used green bubble gum, and leaned forward to place it on my desk. I pulled it to me, a wad of bills, mostly singles it appeared. As I pried it open—actually, I was going to count it, everything on the up-and-up—some little bitty white things fell onto my desk. Little white bitties, like grains of something.

  “What's this stuff?” I asked, curious.

  “Oh, I—I must've got something on it,” she said, not gazing straight at me.

  It looked like dandruff. Maybe she'd been carrying the dough in her hair—looked like she usually had a bunch of dough in her hair, with not enough yeast to make it rise good. Actually, the stuff was little white things, not so much like dandruff as.... Oh, merciful goodness, I said to myself. It looks like—can't be, but it looks like—sugar. Can't be, though. Nobody keeps money hidden in the sugar bowl. Not anymore. Probably nobody ever did. That's all a myth, somebody made it up. Not in the goddamned sugar bowl.

  Yeah, it was sugar.

  I flipped the wad with my thumb, saying, “Well, no need to count it. Looks about right. Guess we have to trust each other, don't we? Well—"

  I paused. I gazed at Audrey Willifer. She looked as if she'd just been pulled from the briny. An instant before her final gurgling gasp. And hadn't been given her artificial respiration yet. Ah, the poor girl. It had to be at least a bit scratchy, going through life like that.

  So, impelled by forces totally beyond control, or reason, I said brightly, “OK. This will get us started in fine shape. And ... I've got a very good feeling about this somehow, Mrs. Willifer. Your husband, your oil well, your—everything. A very good feeling ... OK?"

  “You do? You really do?"

  “Yeah, sure. I've been in this business quite a while, and you sort of develop a—a sense, a feeling, about different cases. This one's going to work out fine, Mrs. Willifer, take my word for it. Really, I think you can stop worrying. Really. OK?"

  “Oh, my God!” she cried.

  “What?” I said. “What?"

  "Oh, God, thank God!"

  And the dumb broad was suddenly shrieking and gulping and crying and goddamn near croaking and I wanted to kick her bony butt out of the office, and I said, “Will you shut up, for Crissakes? What the hell came over—what'd I do? Will you please stop that horrible—Ah...."

  I got up, moved over to her, banged a hand on her shoulder—very bony shoulder it was, as I had surmised. “Now ... ,” I said. “Come on. Now ... now."

  After a while she said, sniffling, “Oh, thank you, thank—"

  “Don't thank me, for God's sake. Don't you dare—"

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Then she was out of the door, and gone. Out of my office, but—I knew—not out of my life.

  I sat down in my swivel chair. Didn't sink down onto it. Just went plop. And sat there shaking my head for what seemed the longest time. K
new I couldn't shake it much, though. Had to get out there, get cracking, find this Gippy dumbdumb. And fast, no pooping around on this job. If I didn't find the guy, and in a stupendous hurry, the world would come to an end. Well, not the whole world; just Audrey's piece of it.

  The guy was probably, right about now, getting home, I told myself. Sniffing the bean pot on the stove, wondering where his wandering girl was. Had she found someone else? Was she being untrue? Was she stuck in a swamp?

  * * * *

  Actually, Gippy was wondering none of those things. Nor was he at home. He wasn't dead, either. He was about three-fourths alive, which was near normal for him, only slightly hungover, and mentally down to approximately one tick from zero on that scale where zero is the point foul-ups reach at the moment when they jump from cliffs, or walk in front of buses, or blow their brains out. Or just die.

  Physically, he was in the back corner booth of a near-zero “cocktail lounge”—so proclaimed thirteen curved-glass letters of the neon sign, long out of neon—on Sixth Street in downtown L.A. It wasn't one of the places Audrey had mentioned, none of the addresses I'd jotted down. But I went there because of a couple things she'd said, and a hunch or “feeling” I'd had.

  Anyway, it took me less than an hour, and that's where I found him. On Sixth Street, not far from Hope.

  Chapter Four

  It was a shabby little bar, and, if it must be said, Gippy Willifer was a shabby little man.

  Of course, he wasn't at his best when I first saw him. He hadn't shaved for at least a day, maybe two, and the crumpled dark tie he wore was pulled down from the badly wrinkled, once-white collar, the collar unbuttoned and with one tab curling up toward his bewhiskered chin.

  I'd come through the door of the lounge, paused a few seconds to let my eyes adjust to the dimness, felt my nostrils crinkle as the smell of booze and beer and departed bodies brushed them, then walked alongside the bar, looking around. When I spotted him in that back corner booth, it occurred to me for the first time that not once had I asked Audrey what her husband looked like, how tall he was, how much he weighed, hadn't even—as I would have at almost any other time—asked for a photograph of him. I guess I'd felt somehow that, if I ever saw Gippy, I would know him.

  And know him I did.

  At first I thought he was asleep, maybe drunk and passed out. But he wasn't drunk, wasn't asleep. He was slumped in the booth's corner, head against the wall, and his eyes were open. Open, but not seeing much. Not here in the bar, anyway.

  He was wearing a dark brown suit that might once have been presentable enough before it was chewed by a dragon, or whatever had happened to it. I figured he weighed not more than a hundred and thirty pounds, and was maybe five-six, five-seven, thereabouts. Not as tall as Audrey.

  “Mr. Willifer?” I said.

  “Yeah.” It was more like, “Yhhh.” He didn't look at me.

  “My name's Shell Scott. I'm a private investigator. Mind if I sit down and talk to you for a minute or two?"

  “Don't make no difference to me,” he said heavily. “Nothin’ don't make no difference no more."

  I smiled. My guess was that he was feeling hugely sorry for himself, and probably enjoying it. Who had more troubles than Gippy Willifer, who in the whole heartless world? Nobody, that's who.

  So I said, “Well, maybe this will make some difference, pal. I am the meanest son of a bitch this side of the Rocky Mountains, and if you don't very speedily call your wife you'll think that's what hit you."

  He came very speedily to life. But not as would one shrinking from an avalanche. He straightened, turned his head toward me, and smiled. The son of a bitch looked like a small cheerful imp, whiskers and all, when he smiled like that. Almost good-looking, in fact. No, not almost; when his chops weren't hanging down just above his collarbone, but pulled the other way in a smile, he was unquestionably a pretty good-looking guy.

  “Audie?” he said. “Little Audie? You ain't tellin’ me she sent you out to find me?"

  “She, Audrey—Mrs. Willifer—did."

  “I'll be gawdamned to hell,” he said. Then his smile faded, brows pulled together. “What do you bet, this is gonna cost me?"

  “Relax. Fee's paid, and the job's done. Practically."

  “Paid? By Audie? We're damn-near flat, except for a lousy check a lousy crooked gawdamn.... Never mind. Anyway, I got that hid away in my sock—where'd Audie get any bread from?"

  “Not from the bread box. But—I'm curious, really—did you ever see her messing around with the sugar bowl?"

  That went past him. At least, he didn't answer. And I wasn't interested in an answer, because by then I'd spotted the gun.

  Gippy had straightened up, turned more toward me, brown coat hanging open. And I could see the gun's butt sticking up over the top of his pants.

  “Excuse me,” I said, leaned closer and very gingerly pulled the Colt—a little .32 caliber revolver, the big-awful gun Audrey had mentioned—from behind his belt.

  I sat down in the booth opposite Gippy, released the cylinder, rolled it out. The gun had been fully loaded, with a cartridge in each of the six chambers, but one of the brass cases was empty.

  I dropped the revolver into my coat pocket and said to Gippy, “Your gun's been fired. Who'd you kill?"

  “Nobody."

  “I know you didn't poop Arnold Trappman. I checked. So who did you shoot?"

  “Well, it was a oak, or maybe a eucaryplus, they all look alike to me. If you see one, you've seen one—"

  “An oak or.... You mean a tree? Are you trying to say you shot a tree?"

  “I already said it. And I didn't kill it, only wounded it."

  “But—a tree? Why would you shoot a tree?"

  “I was, at the time, peroccupied with a large number of frustrations, many of them big ones. Which is a habit of mine.” He paused. “How much did Audie tell you?"

  “Just about everything, I imagine. And, if you've no serious objections, it would help if you'd do the same."

  “Don't see what good it'll do. But, OK."

  “First,” I said, “though it's not my business, really—except it's part of the job I was hired for—would you mind phoning your wife before her seams split the rest of the way?"

  He smiled. “You sure said it different last time. I must of growed on you in the interim. Does this mean you decided not to hit me into the mountains?"

  I grinned. “Not immediately."

  He looked me over with some care. “I'm pleased to hear it."

  He scooted over the seat, stood up next to the booth, fumbling in his pockets. Then he said to me, “You got change for a eighty-two-dollar check? It may smell a little."

  “Smell?"

  “From my foot. I got it in my—"

  “I remember.” I gave him a dime.

  The phone was out of sight, back near the rest rooms. Gippy returned in a couple of minutes, looking worried. Which, I assumed, was his normal expression.

  He slid into the booth again. “She ain't there. No answer. She ain't there. Something terrible—"

  “Gippy, I mean Mr. Willifer—"

  “Gippy's fine, call me Gippy."

  “Your wife probably hasn't had time to get home from my office yet. Call her again, later."

  “Sure. That must be it. Only, what if—?"

  “Gippy, I have one more little job—a mere bagatelle of a job—to do, which in an unconscious moment I promised your wife I would at least peek into. I refer to your somewhat dubious investment. Your oil well."

  “Dubious? Dumb! Crooked! That gawdamn—"

  “Tell me about it, if you can, without a coronary occlusion, OK? From the beginning. Could you maybe do that in less than four hours and a half?"

  He scowled. “I could do it in four minutes and a half. Less. Was I of a mind to."

  “Well?"

  “So....” He shrugged. “...OK."

  It didn't take him much longer than four and a half minutes, and I had to admit that he to
ld a much more orderly and understandable tale than his wife did. Except that it did not strike me as complete, Gippy having left an item or two out along the way.

  So when he finished I led him back over a few spots. He swore when he'd charged out of his house last night, he'd taken the gun on purpose, having come to the firm conclusion that he was going to shoot Arnold Trappman with it. But he had enlarged upon that very little, saying only he “couldn't even do that right."

  So I said, “Last night, about eight o'clock, you got to Trappman's house. And soon left without banging away at the man. But is that all? Did you see him? He see you? Talk to him? What?"

  “No, nobody saw me, but I looked in a window at his house, and he was just setting at a table in his front room there with some other guy, drinking wine or something. It was in those cute little glasses."

  “Who was this other guy?"

  He shrugged. “Nobody I know, but maybe him being there is why I didn't shoot Trappman. Complicated things some, you can understand."

  “Yeah."

  “I actual aimed the gun at the crook, looked at him over the sights—BANG!"

  I jumped.

  “That was in my mind, what I was thinking. At least a minute, maybe—bang-bang-bang. But I was kiddin’ myself, had been all along, maybe I wasn't never going to shoot him. I should of, but....” He appeared to be feeling sorry for himself again.

  “So you just left then, walked around?"

  “Yeah. That's when I shot the tree. BANG! Give me some satisfaction. Not much. Then I went to....” He looked around. “Well, I come here, where we're at. Spent all the cash I had on me, got a little sauced, you know. Knew I couldn't go home, it was near ten o'clock by then, maybe eleven. Knew Audie'd kill me if I come in then, like that, so late. She'd kill me.” He was silent a moment, then added, “There was kind of a special reason. Why she'd of killed me."

  “Wedding anniversary, wasn't it?"

  He sort of peeled his lips back from his teeth. “Shee ... how'd you know that? Don't tell me. Audie, right? Audie. Shee—"

  “Gippy, your wife's very worried about you. I don't think she'll give you a bad time, all she wants—"

  “I know, I know. I only said that about her killing me. She wouldn't hurt nothing. I just ... well, last night, after ... it being the anniversary and all. I had my head on sideways; anyhow, I couldn't face her. I'd screwed everything up, even our anniversary—had a reservation for dinner, going to dress lah-di-dah and I'd screwed that up, too. I just screw every gawdamn thing up. If there's anyone dumber than I am I'd like to see him, just to look at him once. It's not I want to hurt her none, only nothing works out."