The Sure Thing (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  The man came around quite fast. So quickly that, while he was still pretty much undecided about anything, I found some wire, in the absence of rope, and wired him up. Not long after that he was able to talk. And, happily, willing to talk as well.

  “Shee-it,” was the first thing he said to me after I asked him how it happened that he was here guarding a harem—"I knowed this one was screwed up as soon as I was put on it. One broad's trouble, but six? And, my God...”—his already deep and scratchy voice got deeper and practically all scratch—“such broads!"

  “Yeah. What's your name?"

  “Call me Clam, if you want to."

  “Clam?"

  A hood—and this one sure struck me as a hood—with that monicker, I was thinking, shouldn't be spilling so freely. Something was very wrong here.

  No, it wasn't.

  “It's that I like clams,” he said. “Like to eat ‘em. Fried or raw, any old way. Drink clam juice, love ‘em, I'd probably keep ‘em for pets if I knew how. Raise ‘em up, then eat ‘em—"

  “You do like clams, don't you? Listen—Clam, how about spilling this to me as simply as you can? OK, Clam? Pretend you're dictating a short confession to the police. Which, by the way, is what you're doing."

  “I know, I know. I got a right to a attorney, if I can't afford it you'll get me one—"

  “No, I won't."

  “So what do you want to know?"

  “Everything you do."

  From there on, it was a breeze.

  He'd been paid a couple of C-notes by a longtime acquaintance of his, whom Clam had helped out on a couple of capers before, to spend a day or two here keeping an eye on “six broads,” with another hundred bucks due him if he had to guard them more than twenty-four hours. Which his acquaintance hadn't expected would be necessary.

  “Who was this guy?” I asked him. “What's his name?"

  “Easy,” he said. “Easy Banners."

  “Uh-huh. Did somebody else snatch the broads for him, or did he do it himself?"

  “Did it himself. Clever how he done it, rented a Conty sedan exactly like a limo for a whole month just to use it a day, and drove up to wherever these broads was, with a cute cap on his head—they being in expectance of a limo—and chauffeured ‘em here, which probably surprised ‘em when they seen what it was like here."

  “You know where he picked them up?"

  “No, don't know that."

  “He picked them up at the airport, L.A. International. Private jet from overseas. You didn't know?"

  “No, I didn't. How about that? I thought them broads looked foreign. Airport, huh?"

  “Yeah. Did Easy say how he happened to know these gals would be arriving there?"

  “News to me. I don't know nothin’ about that."

  “Who was in this with Easy? Besides you, I mean."

  “Beats the socks off me. That wasn't mentioned."

  “You know anything about Arnold Trappman?"

  “Who?” I gave him the name again. “He's news to me, too."

  “What was the idea of the caper, what's Banners after?"

  He didn't know anything about that, either; Clam had just gone along for the two hundred.

  “And maybe a little fun with a half-dozen broads?” I asked him.

  “Shee-it,” he said, “no way. Easy says I'm to act around this stuff like I'm a younuck, or else that's who I'll be one of."

  “A eunuch?"

  “That's him. I didn't know what it was. Easy told me. You know what I says to him?"

  “What?"

  “I says, ‘I wish you hadn't told me.’”

  There wasn't much else for me to get from Clam, and when I was about ready to leave him he said, almost plaintively, “Ain't it strange how things happen? I was just setting’ here, watchin’ the broads a little, and readin', and scratchin’ my ass, all very peaceful. Then there you are, comin’ at me like a goddamn engine of some kind. Hell, I didn't bring no heat along, and I sure didn't want to get in no fight—not over broads, that's for sure."

  “You what? You didn't—?"

  “If you'd of just give me a chance, I'd have done whatever you wanted, peaceful as a clam. I sure didn't want to get the shee-it beat out of me."

  “Clam, you know what?"

  “What?"

  “I wish you hadn't told me."

  He'd been groaning quite a bit during the last minute or two of our talk, so I asked him, “Anything I can do for you?"

  “Ain't you done enough?"

  “I mean, the way you're groaning and everything, well, are you all right?"

  He looked at me as if he'd bitten down with his sorest tooth on a clam with too much hot sauce and its shell still on. “Of course, I'm all right,” he said scratchily. “I'm fine, I'm just groanin’ because I'm feelin’ so much better."

  I guessed he didn't have much more to spill, so I left him there and went back to the harem. It was, or they were, still waiting patiently, silently, gorgeously.

  I stood before them, and rubbed my hands together—which didn't mean anything special. I knew, of course, especially now that I'd calmed down a bit, and my brain wasn't working so feverishly, and now that I was so exhausted after forcing Clam to half kill me, that I not only would not “claim” anything whatever from these dream-boats, no matter how overwhelming their gratitude, but I could not. And/or must not. I had no difficulty in recalling certain significant things the good Sheikh had laid on me, even including a verbal picture or two of one very significant Harim Babullah.

  I wondered how much bigger than Clam Babullah was. Probably twice as big.

  Still, there was no reason why these fine girls and I couldn't at least get a little better acquainted. A little friendlier. A little—closer.

  “Well, girls,” I said for the second time, still smiling, “I guess you all feel pretty happy, eh? Eh? Pretty charged-up? You know, glad, glad that I came along and saved you from a fate worse than.... Well, saved you? Who cares from what? I'll bet you're all.... Hello?"

  I tried a different tack. The old tack wasn't doing me much good. I couldn't remember all the unfamiliar words and phrases Sheikh Faisuli had used when speaking to me, but I sure enough remembered the six gorgeous names of his six gorgeous wives.

  I poked a finger toward a stunning brunette, recalling Faisuli's rhapsodizing about the “bountiful breasts of” and I said, “You're Zezik, right?"

  Nothing.

  “Visdrailia? Monesha?"

  More nothing.

  The wife next to whoever that one was, well, she was almost impossibly difficult to believe, even when she was only a couple of feet away, gazing magnetically upon me. Really something

  So I said to her, “You've got to be wild-eyed and blossom-lipped Rasazhenlah.... No?"

  I quit then.

  Since I am, after all, a detective, and thus accustomed to swiftly deducing, I knew instantly that there were only three possible explanations for this impasse: All of these succulent wives were deaf; or none of them spoke so much as a letter of English; or—I hated even to think of it—I had saved the wrong harem.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It costs no more to spend a weekend at the Casacasbah then it would to fly to Morocco and rent a little casa and spend a month in the real thing; besides which, to me, it had always seemed a bit snobbish and stuffy.

  Despite this—and its name—the Casacasbah is one of the loveliest and most efficiently run hotels in Los Angeles, or in the entire U.S. of A., for that matter. It boasts an experienced and professional staff, one capable of handling with aplomb and dispatch almost any situation that might arise.

  Almost any.

  After getting the six girls moved from that former supermarket into my Cadillac, which I accomplished with the expertise of a cowhand herding sheep into a Volkswagen, I had been planning, at my first opportunity, to phone the police and report the exciting events I had just been so thrilled by. This was a most natural thing—especially for me—to do; but it was at
that point I realized I had got myself impaled upon both horns of a dilemma.

  First horn: I couldn't tell the law about my rescuing a harem, for I had assured Sheikh Faisuli he would get his “secrecy to the utmost” doubled and redoubled from me if possible. Not only had I meant it when I said it, but after what that flaky Cynara had told him, he would have lost all faith in human nature, and even wild horses, if I'd blabbed it around about anybody's six vanished wives. But the cops take a dim view of this sort of thing.

  Second horn: I couldn't even let Clam confess to the police, which he'd seemed quite eager to do the last time I checked with him. Not only would that blow the harem bit all by itself, but Clam very likely would tell, even convince, the fuzz that I had attacked him viciously without provocation and —

  To make a long dilemma short, I had not phoned the law; and, still wired-up, but conscious, cramped into the trunk of my Cadillac until I could arrange more spacious accommodations for him, was Clam, who was getting pretty sick of me.

  So it happened that when I pulled up in front of the colorful awning before the Casacasbah and stopped just so at the end of the brilliant red carpet on which guests were allowed to walk to and from the spacious lobby, that had genuine banana plants in it, I was concerned about many things, but feeling a kind of groggy peace, a well-earned—I thought—letdown, and becoming more relaxed than I had been for some time. I had quite a bit left to do, of course; but I was ready for a change of pace, a brief respite in the battle.

  I cut the ignition. Looked around at the gorgeous haremness in which I was virtually inundated. Said, smiling, “Well, girls, here we are! Soon, in only a minute or two more, you will be restored to your maker—master—and ... ah, drop dead, why don't you?"

  From them, nothing, of course.

  I got out, trotted around the car and opened the door for them, again a natural thing.

  I had been to the Casacasbah before, but I'd forgotten all the spit-and-polish overassistance here, reminiscent of those TV commercials about gas stations where, when you drive in to check the air in your tires, a whole army of nuts in padded uniforms dash out and do everything but give a driver a bigh-octane enema on the spot, so upon beholding all the activity, I was slightly taken aback.

  There was a liverish, or liveried—I never can remember, not at the Casacasbah—doorman; and a tall old guy of indeterminate identity who, unless I am mistaken, was a general in the Peruvian Army; and a bell captain and two bellmen; a youth to drive your car away; and, I think, a guy to shine up your golf clubs, if you had any.

  They were there, all of a sudden, looking at me as if I was the last of the big tippers.

  “Well,” I said agreeably, “I think there may be enough of you. But—what did you have in mind?"

  The General stepped forward, smiling a smile so false I wondered if a dentist had made his lips, too, and said, “Welcome to the world-famed Casa.... What was that? Sir."

  “What was what?"

  What else could I say? Clam had been a bit edgy all along, and he wasn't a guy of the most even temperament to begin with, and he was inside the trunk, kicking on things. Kicking on the trunk lid, it sounded like. Or maybe beating his head on it. Probably that, because there was only one big thomp, but it was a big one.

  “My word, what is that?"

  There had been another one.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “But I can hear it, we can all—"

  “Nothing. Well, it's—just a guy I know, that's all. Nothing to worry about."

  “I beg your pardon, sir ... ?"

  I had not the faintest idea how I was going to explain this, but explanation turned out not to be necessary.

  The doorman, the bell captain, the two bellmen, and the youth who drives your car away advanced in a swarm upon my Cadillac from all directions, preparing to do whatever such swarms do, but then, at the same moment, all in a kind of rhythm, they slowed, stopped, and simultaneously achieved a rigid state that looked like permanent paralysis.

  Shereshim, or at least a vision I had decided must be Shereshim, was stepping with the grace and beauty of a flesh-and-blood goddess from the open door of my car, followed by the lovely lissomeness that was Yakima, then one more, another, still another, and the last the incredible Rasazhenlah.

  We just strolled—the seven of us—away from the statues and over the red carpet and into the lobby, with the banana plants in it. I didn't even have to tip anybody.

  * * * *

  The “Penthouse” elevator, which temporarily served not only the top or penthouse floor but the floor beneath, was on its way down when I glanced around and saw Cynara Lane half trotting across the lobby toward me.

  I hadn't seen her for what seemed a very long time, but she still looked like the class of anybody's harem, especially moving like that.

  “Shell,” she called while still several feet away.

  As she stopped near me—us—I said, “Can't you see I'm busy?” But I said it in a jolly way, with a big smile. I thought.

  “Why, what do you mean?” she deadpanned. Then “What happened to your—to you?" she asked, staring at my mouth, nose, eyes, ears, legs, all over.

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot. I'm surprised they let me in here. Well, I....” I pressed the fingers of both hands against the sides, or lopsides, of my head. “This job of mine, it's sure rough on clothes. Well.... Do I have to tell you?"

  “No, I only.... I stopped you because Gippy's been trying to reach you, Shell. There's something he wants to tell you, I think. None of us knew where you were."

  “Neither did I. I mean, I wasn't sure of my destination until I got there.... Gippy didn't tell you what he wanted?"

  “No, he phoned me earlier and asked if I knew where you were. But I think you should see him, or at least call the hospital."

  All this time her eyes were going crazy, pretending to look at me but flitting from flower to flower, so to speak. She was dying to ask what was going on, I knew, but the elevator reached the lobby and its door slid open. Then we were crowding into the elevator, me and my harem, and I could see Cynara walking quickly away, as the doors closed and we started upward.

  I was delighted that things were going along so smoothly. I had stopped only briefly at the desk, and said merely, “Good evening, my name is Shell Scott"—when there was nearly as much activity in here as we'd experienced outside.

  The clerk hit a bell four times, hit another bell five times, and I think if he'd had a piano he would have played it. In swift succession the manager of the hotel, then the owner of the hotel, and I believe the chairman of the board of the conglomerate which was planning to buy the hotel, asked what they could do for me.

  “Well, I'd just like to go up—” I said, pointing, and needed explain no more. I was directed to the proper elevator, assured my desires were the Casacasbah's commands, and wished everything but a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

  I had merely considered it wise to make sure there would be no difficulty in my escorting the girls to their floor next to the top, which presumably might be surrounded by the National Guard, or Harim Babullah. Apparently I needn't have worried, and I remembered Sheikh Faisuli telling me he would arrange for "carte blanche of the most-high degree,” which unquestionably he must have done. No argument about it, the Sheikh was as good a man to have on your side as any.

  There were twenty-two floors in the Casacasbah, and soon the elevator doors opened silently at twenty-one.

  I made waving motions with my hands, indicating to the girls that it was OK for them to move. I had them trained pretty well by now, because they were all out of the elevator before I could even attract their attention to wave at. But, at least they were out, and that's what I'd wanted, even if the dumb broads weren't paying any attention to me.

  So I stepped out of the elevator myself, its doors closed behind me, and I realized: We'd made it. I began realizing even more: By golly, I was thinking, I'd actually gone out there into the wilderness and found t
he Sheikh's harem and rescued it single-handed and brought it home to him all in one piece. Well, six pieces. It almost overwhelmed me. I started feeling stupendously pleased with myself, and I admit it freely.

  But this bit of my job wasn't completed, really, not until I'd actually made delivery, and maybe got a receipt. The girls had found their tongues, and were using them, making trilling noises and looking around, becoming quite animated. The whole gang was tripping lightly down the hallway, squealing and trilling, and it sounded like—even looked a bit like—a whole flock of giant colorful birds hopping about in a long carpeted cage.

  I waved my hands at them, before they disappeared, saying, “Yeah, that's it. That's the way to go."

  Then I called out, “Harim? Oh, Harim! Hello! Mr. Babullah? Anybody?"

  Nobody answered.

  Sure, I thought, if Sheikh Faisuli was in the hotel he'd be on the floor above, and Harim would undoubtedly be with him, having had nothing purposeful to do down here before now. So I walked ahead over red carpet that was thick, spongy, almost like foam rubber underfoot. The birds had flown in several directions, and doors were opening and closing to the accompaniment of more noise from the gals than I had believed them capable of creating, noise that increased in volume when one of them—Yakima, I liked to think—stood with her back to a door she'd left open behind her calling out, “Kooluminemamararakizzamaiziziam!” or something in that general area.

  At which the other five lovelies converged excitedly upon Yakima, and all of them disappeared into that room, whatever it was. Hoping it wasn't a bathroom, I walked over to the open door and followed the gals inside. And just stood still, and looked, for a while.

  That's what the girls were doing, too, and once again in silence.

  This enormous room occupied, I guessed, nearly a fourth of the entire floor, and either the Sheikh himself or the management must have spent a fortune making it look like something out of the best parts of A Thousand and One Nights.

  The carpeting was white and fluffy, with at least a hundred brightly colored pillows and hassocks and cushions scattered upon it, and there were velvety couches, and low tables, massive vases filled with flowers, huge baskets of fruit. Tapestries and loosely woven panels covered the walls, and gauzy draperies of shimmering cloth that almost glowed in the soft light separated parts of the whole room into smaller, jewel-like areas.