Kill Him Twice (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  Her voice, always soft, was like two shreds of velvet rubbing together. Then she smiled, the slow, brilliant, beautiful smile for which she was famous — one of the things for which she was famous — apparently back to normal once more. But her eyes still wobbled a little.

  Slade looked pretty sick himself. If his star conked out on him now, he'd be in a pickle. He licked dry lips, caressed Natasha's brown arm with a rough hand. "You O.K., baby? You sure you're O.K.?" His voice was high, thin, and fluting. But, then, it always was.

  She seemed to shrink from him, pulling her arm away.

  "I'm fine, Jerry. Just give me a minute, will you?"

  "All the time you want, sweetheart. You'll be able to do the dance, won't you? Think you'll be able to do the dance?"

  "I'll do it. I'll do it, Jerry."

  The newspaper she'd been reading was spread out at her feet. It was this morning's L.A. Herald-Standard, but that was all I noticed before someone picked it up and crumpled it. The crowd bunched around us began milling slowly, starting to break up. Cameramen and technicians went back to the set. In a few more minutes the actors and actresses — including Natasha — were in their places, action about to start.

  And while waiting for the cameras to start rolling I wondered, among other things, if Natasha Antoinette might really have had a big, filling, nutritious breakfast this morning.

  I knew Natasha and liked her — in fact, she and Ed Howell had joined me and a giddy redheaded tomato at my Hollywood apartment a few weeks back, for an evening of highballs and hamburgers, and we'd all gotten along marvelously well. True, Nat was a very high-strung gal, but one thing she didn't look was undernourished. That night, for example, she'd eaten three hamburgers. With onions.

  Besides, there was that phone call last night. The call and what had followed it — which was what I wanted to ask her about. The sniffling woman on the phone had said she was Natasha Antoinette, but I didn't have any proof it had really been Nat.

  More, Gordon Waverly had also said he hadn't killed anybody — and just possibly he'd been lying. If so, maybe I was in a pickle. Because Gordon Waverly was my client. And somebody had indubitably been killed. Very messily, quite positively, killed.

  So as Walter Phrye called out, "All right, ready, everybody? Roll . . .", I thought about all that. About last night, and Natasha, and Gordon Waverly. And murder. And, of course, the hard-faced hoodlums, alive and dead. . . .

  TWO

  This was a grand night for it, I thought.

  A grand night for gently stirred Martinis and charcoaled steaks — rare — and maybe a little wine with the steaks — red wine, to match the steaks, and the rare wine-red lips of the lass sitting on the chocolate-brown divan in my apartment, number 212 in Hollywood's Spartan Apartment Hotel.

  I'd spent the day in my L.A. office downtown, watching the fish — guppies, in a ten-gallon tank atop the bookcase — and reading Emerson, and waiting for the silent phone to ring, which it didn't. I'm a man who requires action to use up the thyroxin, or pituitrin, or twitches, or whatever builds up in me while I'm idle, so when the phone continued not to ring, I used it myself — to call the lass now sitting on my chocolate-brown divan.

  The compact Japanese brazier was chock-full of charcoal, sitting in the middle of my yellow-gold carpet, and I had already doused the coals with fire-starting juice but had not yet held a match to the concoction. The living-room windows were open — because this was an experiment, and the way I cook it was conceivable that something might go wrong, like my burning down the apartment and the rest of the block — the first Martinis were mixed, the lass was smiling, and all seemed in readiness.

  She said, "Shell, do you really think this will work?"

  "Who knows? We have adequate ventilation. We have charcoal. We have booze and wine and steaks. And even if all that goes to pot, we have you and me. How can we lose?"

  "But . . . won't it be smoky?"

  "Perhaps," I said mysteriously. "Perhaps not." I spoke mysteriously because it was a big mystery to me. I didn't have the faintest idea. I had never tried charcoaling steaks in my living room before; but picnic spots are hard to find in the heart of the L.A.-Hollywood cement. The green grounds and fairways of the Wilshire Country Club, directly across North Rossmore from the Spartan, would have been dandy; but even the members can't light fires on the Wilshire Country Club grounds and fairways.

  "The only way to find out," I said, "is to find out. What if the Wright brothers had sat around saying to each other, 'Brother, do you think it will fly?' What if Papa Dionne had said 'Fooey?' What if — "

  "Oh, Shell."

  "There are risks in practically everything, my sweet. That's what makes life exciting. Isn't this exciting?"

  "Not very. I'm hungry."

  She was dampening my ardor. She was a model, and this was our first date, and she was gorgeous, but she was dampening my ardor. She didn't wear a brassiere; she wore a living blouse; still, she was dampening my ardor.

  I said, "You won't feel so hungry after we've eaten. Neither will I, for that matter. It's a simple matter of mathematics — "

  "Light it, will you?"

  The damned woman was taking all the fun out of cooking. And I don't much like cooking to begin with. The hell with her and her living blouse.

  "O.K.," I said glumly. "But anticipation is sometimes greater than realization, and I have the feeling it will be much more fun anticipating this meal than — "

  "Light it, will you?"

  Well, the time had come. I guess that, subconsciously, I'd been dreading it. I squatted over the coals and lit a match. It was a moment of some suspense.

  The phone rang.

  "Huh," I said.

  "Well, answer it."

  "I'm afraid to."

  "Don't be silly."

  "I mean, it might be — oh, somebody murdered or something. Then I'd have to leave this gay party."

  "Don't be silly."

  The phone rang again.

  "Shell, answer it. I'm hungry."

  I answered the phone.

  Sounds of a fish dying in a pool. Sniffling and snuffling, moist sounds.

  "Hello?" I said again.

  "Is this Mr. Scott?"

  "Yeah. What's — who's calling?"

  "Shell? Is it you?"

  "Hell, yes, it's me. Who else? So what's the matter?" I wasn't at my amiable best.

  "Good. This is Nat."

  "Who?" It didn't register right away.

  "Nat — Natasha Antoinette."

  "Ah. Yes." It registered.

  Beauteous film star, bit parts and then second leads, and lately femme lead in a monstrosity called Ghost of the Creeping Goo. But a stunning gal. Especially after falling into water.

  "Hello, Nat," I said, at my amiable best. "What can I do for you?"

  "It's not me, Shell. I just wanted to be sure it was you. Mr. Waverly wants to talk to you."

  "Not you?"

  She was gone. Then a man spoke to my ear. "This is Gordon Waverly, Mr. Scott."

  "So?" I was a bit disgruntled. The good-looking women seemed to be getting away from me tonight. Maybe it was one of those nights when the planets form malefic aspects and shoot poisoned darts at you. "What happened to Natasha Antoinette?" I said.

  "She is right here beside me, Mr. Scott. It is primarily because of her that I am calling. Ah . . ." He hesitated. "I would prefer not to explain everything over the phone. Could you come to my office tonight?"

  It was nine p.m. Chow time. Martini time. Lass on the divan time. I said, "Right now?"

  "If it is convenient, sir. I'd like for you to conduct an investigation for me. There may be nothing . . . ah, there may be little to my suspicions. But, on the other hand, if they are well founded, this could be a very grave matter, of the greatest urgency." He paused. "Perhaps my name means nothing to you, Mr. Scott. I am the publisher of Inside magazine."

  That rang a bell. Inside was a two-year-old weekly slanted for the movie and televisio
n industry, and now ranked right up there with Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. You just weren't with it in Hollywood unless you could quote the latest news or quips or barbs from Inside. And Gordon Waverly, because of his position as its publisher, was one of the most influential men in the tinsel town. He was on a first-name basis with many of the great and near-great of Hollywood, had entree to the homes of producers, stars, top-dogs, and bottom dogs. If he had trouble for which he might require a detective's services, it was probably interesting trouble.

  I said, "Can you give me an idea what the problem is, Mr. Waverly?"

  "I would prefer to tell you in person. This — well, if what Miss Antoinette has just told me is true, we may be on the verge of an enormous scandal in Hollywood. Enormous. I would much prefer that you meet me here, if it is at all possible, sir." He paused, and then went on again. "Oh, I shall gladly pay your usual fee. And I now guarantee you a minimum fee of one thousand dollars, merely to hear my story and conduct a brief preliminary investigation. Assuming you can come to my office immediately. Can you, Mr. Scott?"

  I looked at the unlighted charcoal. At the undrunk Martinis. At the lass on my chocolate-brown divan.

  She said, "Hurry up. I'm hungry."

  That did it. "You," I said grimly, "are going to get a mite hungrier." Then into the phone's mouthpiece I said, "Sure, Mr. Waverly. I've a — chore to take care of first, but I'll be with you in half an hour."

  "That will be satisfactory, sir. I'll have a check waiting for you upon your arrival." We hung up.

  The gal was scowling. Or pouting, or breaking up. Doing something unappetizing with her face, anyway. "Well, hell," I said. "You told me to answer it."

  THREE

  The offices of Inside are on Hollywood Boulevard east of Vine, about a block past the big Paramount Theater building. I found a parking spot across the street, climbed out of my sky-blue Cadillac convertible, and stood next to it waiting for a break in the traffic.

  While preparing to jaywalk, I glanced at the pink face of the Inside building. It looked as if it were blushing — as well it might. I gazed across the width of "glamorous" Hollywood Boulevard at the blushing-pink façade of the Inside building, and wondered. Wondered, as I sometimes do, about "Hollywood." And also wondered — with, I'll admit, some anticipation — what I was getting into this time.

  It could be nothing — or anything.

  Weird things happen in Hollywood. Errant twitches gather in high-powered noodles and on occasion erupt into mania. We natives live in the midst of controlled madness, on the thin edge of convulsion. It could hardly be otherwise. People who sell dreams have to expect to buy a few nightmares.

  But more. Hollywood has been described as a state of mind, and if so it's a state that hasn't quite been admitted to the Union. It's a dream world with make-believe boundaries, an Idea of ideas, a rainbow-colored aura-in-the-round, an invisible cloud of thought — billions of old and new thoughts, bright and dull ones, cold and hot ones, lurking in and above the city's physical body. It's the city of "everyday people," and also of everything from born geniuses to self-made bastards, a place where you can peel off make-up and get down to the real make-up; and it is also the continual paradox — like my standing on "glamorous" drab Hollywood Boulevard, outside Inside — a never-never land where it's always always. "I'll love you always," "You'll aways be with Magna Pix, doll," "I always said you'd be bigger than Valentine, sweetheart," — and "always" means "at least till tomorrow, baby."

  It's the land of the false front and the falsie and even the detachable behind, where you knock on a door and open it to find yourself staring at the Hollywood Hills, where the Oscar should be made of foam rubber and candlelit cleavage. A land of magnificence, and soaring talent, and gorgeous flesh and fire and magnetism; but also of the tall children, the frauds and phonies, the weepers, and the creeps. It is also a land where the knives drip honey and the guillotine hides behind smiling lips. Maybe it's only a little different from Chicago, or New York, or Philadelphia, Pa., but that little goes a long long way; they bite in all those places, too, but in Hollywood the teeth are sharper.

  Some of the sharpest teeth in the entire U.S. of A. were affixed to the pink gums of Inside.

  Not that the writers who phrased news and columns for the weekly were vicious or sadistic. Not that at all. They were simply bright and clever and very truthful. And truth is sharper than knives and needles; it can cut deeper than the quick — especially can it cut, and wound, those who have had little acquaintance with it.

  Needless to say, into that category fell many who dwelled in "Hollywood." Why not? Many whose careers consisted of pretending to be somebody else — in a play, a movie, a TV segment — kept on pretending after working hours; they might be Casanova or Marie Antoinette for a month — then, for six months, Rasputin or Saint Joan. Some of them never did learn who they were; some of them didn't care. Some of them lived their shadowy roles so well that they became impotent or frigid while playing a eunuch or a nun, and hell on springs while starring as a libertine or a bawd. Much of Hollywood's "scandal" was the result less of weakness or design than of words typed on yellow paper by professional scribblers and lived too well by professional pretenders.

  And these were the people who, every Monday, devoured — and sometimes were devoured by — Inside.

  Engrossed in my idle thoughts I had somehow managed to stroll idly across Hollywood Boulevard without suffering a broken neck. Something, I sometimes think, watches over me. My good fairy, maybe. Whatever it is, I now stood before a building in which it looked as if several good fairies might happily abide: the bottom floor of the Garrison Building, filling half a block from left to right before me; mostly glass — with a faint pinkish tint — and a kind of foamy pink molding at its top like frosting on a big rectangular cupcake; gauzy draperies inside the glass walls, just thick enough so passersby couldn't peep in at the Insiders working like beavers.

  You almost imagined the staff in there clad in veils and berets and dirndls, dancing around a candy-striped maypole. It looked so harmless. It made me think of Mrs. Dillinger saying, "John's such a sweet child," or of Jack the Ripper in knee pants.

  It was nine-thirty-five p.m. I'd made good time, considering the ten minutes I'd had to spend telling my date that business should come before pleasure, duty before dissipation, virtue before vice; that my business and duty and virtue — and livelihood — reposed in my answering the calls of citizens in distress, day or night, like a kindly old country doctor; and that, dammit, she'd asked for it.

  Nonetheless, when I left her she had retained on her face an expression as though something she'd eaten with joy and anticipation lay souring in her pretty tummy, refusing utterly to digest. But I knew that couldn't have been it and for a guilty moment I thought of her sitting, grimacing, listening to her stomach growling; but then I cast guilt and the past behind me and forged ahead. Into the future. Into Inside.

  They were swinging doors. Not the kind that close with a pssss of compressed air, but those that waggle back and forth, gently, to a stop. They swung almost silently shut behind me, with only a little poof, poof, pooh-pooh-poo of wind.

  A blonde puff of peaches and cream and the kind of bosom displayed in bosom-building advertisements as an example of what can happen, sat behind a fragile-looking pink desk on my right. An empty desk was opposite her, and at the rear of the room a carpeted hallway led left and right to hidden offices. The walls were papered with something glittery, bearing a faint design which appeared to be ghostly gazelles and unicorns leaping about in passionate frolic. Indirect lighting suffused the air with a soft, pleasant glow. With incense burning, and a big brass gong hanging in the corner, it would have been a great room for an orgy.

  I merely glanced at all that, then returned my attention to the blonde. Secretaries and receptionists are often either very decorative or very efficient, but not often both at once. I played a little game with myself, trying to guess which this one was. And it didn't
take me any time at all to find out.

  She said, "Helloo-o," in a voice like doves making up, then added, "Are you Mr. Scott?"

  "You bet I am."

  "Here." She handed me a slip of paper.

  It was a check for one thousand dollars. Waverly sure hadn't been kidding when he'd said he would have a check "waiting for me." I pocketed it with mild misgivings. I didn't like getting my hands on a retainer until and unless I'd definitely taken a case. Which I hadn't done yet — not quite. But I figured I could hash that out with Gordon Waverly himself.

  The blonde just sat there batting her eyes at me, so I said, "I have an appointment with Mr. Waverly."

  "He isn't here. He — " She hesitated. "He left in quite a hurry. Just — suddenly raced out."

  "Oh? Did he say I should wait here for him, or what?"

  "Well, he didn't say. Shortly after nine he buzzed me and said to expect a Mr. Scott in about half an hour. And to have that check ready for you. Then a few minutes ago he just left his office and went out past me. Shouting. Quite rapidly."

  "Shouting quite rapidly?"

  "No." She smiled dreamily. "Went out quite rapidly."

  "Uh-huh. Fine. What was he shouting?"

  "'Finley Pike! I'll fix that Finley Pike!' It gave me quite a startle."

  "I'll bet it diddle. Now, what is a finleypike?"

  "Mr. Pike. Mr. Finley Pike. He's one of our vice presidents. He works for Inside."

  "Ah. And Mr. Waverly said he was going to fix him."

  "Shouted. He shouted it. Then raced out."

  Well, we were getting somewhere. Muddle was coming out of confusion. Maybe I was learning why Inside wasn't a daily.

  "Can you add anything helpful, ma'am? Like, did he shout anything else? Was he carrying a naked sword, or a wrench, or anything? Did he say what, or how, or why he was going to fix Mr. Pike? Was he alone? In the midst of a crowd — "

  "It was just as I told you. And of course he wasn't in a mist of a crowd."