The Cockeyed Corpse (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  My God, Ed said. Whats that? Whos that?

  I waited till he looked at me again. Then I said, I thought I told you, Ed. That’s the guy I just shot.

  His lips appeared to get dryer as I watched. His face paled and seemed to shrink, the way brain surgeons tell us an exposed brain does before an epileptic seizure, and he moved his lips as if trying to say something, but didn’t make any sound. Clearly, he hadn’t believed all I’d been saying. But now he was a believer.

  I glanced at the four girls. See you in the bar, I said. They didn’t look at me. They were staring at the dead man.

  This time the horse didn’t run from me. I took the reins and led him back toward my Cadillac.

  chapter four

  After I’d dumped the body on the Cads floor, behind the front seat, and tied one end of a rope to the horse and the other end to the cars rear bumper, I climbed behind the wheel and started driving slowly toward the Sun and Sage — with plenty on my mind.

  I hadn’t seen that second cowboy clearly enough to identify him later, but he obviously had known who I was. And when a man knows what you look like, while all you know about him is that he wants to kill you, that’s a little like playing Russian roulette with the other guy holding the gun, and cheating. And that second cowboy had headed for the Sun and Sage.

  Perhaps even more important, the first cowboy, the one now getting colder by the minute behind me, was Karl Hooper. Moreover, now present at the Sun and Sage were Handsome Hal Calvin, cold-eyed Tay Green, and — according to little Zia — Farmer, the hayseed assassin. Each and every one of them had been part of what I still thought of as the Jules Garbin gang. Whether the presence of these creeps here at the Sun and Sage had anything to do with Jeanne Blairs death or not, it was high time for me to do some thinking about creeps. And no matter where I started, the thinking always led back to Jules Garbin. Even dead, he gave me a bigger pain than most men alive.

  How long ago had it been? Over a year, well over a year. When I’d met Jules he was well on his way to becoming the little Napoleon of the L.A. rackets. He had his fingers in everything: gambling, prostitution, wire services, the union rackets, narcotics, extortion, murder — and it was extortion, then murder, that brought me into the picture.

  Jules was forty-one then. Five-seven, a hundred and seventy pounds, a mean, violent character, belligerent and anti-social, with a sour thick-lipped mouth and deep frown-lines between glittering gray eyes the color of a cold morning. He had the kind of blue-black beard always visible under the skin, and his skin was dark and leathery as if his face had been tanned like an animal hide. Eternally angry, foul-mouthed, continually griping, he acted like a man with curdled blood or snake venom in his veins, and I always wondered why such a miserable s.o.b. didn’t poison himself with his own juices. He just hated everybody — which made it seem strange to me when I learned his right-hand man was Harold Calvin. Not that Hal was anybodys angel, but at least he was a man of charm and grace and wit, pleasant and polished — everything that Jules was not. But I didn’t know, at first, that Hal was Garbin’s lieutenant.

  The way it started, I’d been hired by a man named Sloan, a wealthy industrialist who owned a company manufacturing a number of items in aerosol cans, everything from paint and shellac to throat sprays and pancake mix — carefully marked, so you wouldnt shellac the frying pan or coat your throat with little flapjacks. Sloan had been approached by two men and told to take out accident insurance at $1,000 a month or thered be accidents; Sloan refused, and sure enough, accidents started — fire in his factory, sabotaged production lines, damaged supplies, deliveries late. That was when Sloan called on me.

  I was on the case four months. There’s no point in covering all the details — that’s another story — but in the first week I learned the two salesmen were Jules Garbin’s men. Right after that I was warned to drop the case. They had a cute way of warning me. Three large hoods — named Farmer, Dodo, and Karl Hooper — cornered me in a mens washroom, and beat He’ll out of me. Not without suffering some damage, but they caught me off guard and definitely won the battle. Dodo was hanging onto one of my arms. Farmer the other, and my legs werent quite springy enough to hold me up. Then Karl Hooper stepped to the door, opened it, and let in Jules Garbin.

  That was how I met Jules.

  I could still see through puffed eyes, and Garbin was dressed — as he always later was — in beautifully tailored black suit, custom white shirt with high collar, white silk tie, immaculate French cuffs held by solid-silver links, glossy black shoes. While they held me, he went to work. On my head, chest, stomach, with quiet concentration, cold efficiency. He didn’t seem to get any fun out of it; this was business.

  He kept on slamming me until I dropped, and probably afterwards. Because when I came to in the hospital there were black and blue marks all over me, in addition to the three broken ribs and bruised kidney. I spent two weeks in that hospital. When I got out, I went back on the case, and of course it wasn’t just a case any longer.

  When the warning didn’t take, later came the attempts to kill me. Two attempts: slugs whistling past me in the night. I’d never been sure who fired the shots, but I thought it had been Tay Green; if so, I was probably the only man Green had ever missed twice.

  After four months I had almost enough on Garbin — and Sloan was murdered. I’d been reporting to Sloan every night, and on the night of the murder Garbin himself and one of his gunmen called unannounced at Sloans West Los Angeles home. Sloan saw them park in front and phoned me before letting them inside. During the violent argument that followed — while I was on my way to my clients home — Garbin yanked out a gun and shot Sloan twice. I arrived as the two men ran from the house; I saw them run to their car and race away. Sloan wasn’t yet dead when I got to him; he had time to tell me whod shot him. I told the law, and the law grabbed Garbin and his sidekick, who spilled his guts and drew a sentence of life imprisonment in Folsom.

  Garbin got the gas chamber. But the gas chamber didn’t get Garbin.

  Long before Garbin’s sentencing, though, months before he was tossed into jail, I’d met or learned about most of his hoods and hangers-on, including Hal Calvin — and Letty. Letty was Letitia Garbin, Jules wife, and the lives of Jules, Letty, and Hal were wound together in a most peculiar way. Some of it I was told, some I guessed, but it was a sure thing that Letty had married Jules solely for his money — counting cash in and out of banks, property, stocks and bonds, he was worth three to four million dollars — and in her own sweetly feminine way, Letty was as big a thief as Jules. On their wedding night and succeeding nights the marriage was, in that quaint phrase, consummated; but after some time had passed Jules learned to his exceeding consternation and shock that there would be no more consummation, though he would not — and did not — express it in precisely that way, being a man no more refined than a belch after Italian meatballs.

  Sexually, Jules was a man of gargantuan profligacy to begin with — again, stating it delicately — and seldom since the discovery of consummation had a man been so consternated; among other things, from that moment, if not before, he began cutting a wide swath among Hollywoods models, waitresses, starlets, and even school girls. The marriage could not be annulled; and if he had attempted to divorce Letty she fully intended to stick him for at least half of his sizable estate and, through alimony, bring thievery to an artistic peak worthy of Eight-Finger Eddie, who between vacations in stir stole a million bucks for each finger. Jules, of course, would have died before letting Letty grab a penny of alimony; in fact he was known to have said exactly that:

  I’d die first.

  While I was working on Jules during those four months I learned that Handsome Hal Calvin was often — but not constantly — at Jules Garbin’s side. Not constantly, because he came to spend more and more time with Letty, and was with her practically day and night while hubby Jules was in jail. What they did, I dont know, but I have a hunch, based on what happened later. Because two month
s after Jules was lowered into his grave, Letty became Mrs. Hal Calvin.

  It would almost have seemed that Hal had planned to knock off Jules so he could grab off Letty — except that nobody killed Jules. Except himself.

  That was the night I wouldnt forget.

  From the very moment of his sentencing in L.A. Superior Court, Garbin swore he wouldnt die in the gas chamber. One way or another he’d beat it. He really sounded as if he meant it. And I guess he did, because he beat it.

  Even before his sentencing a jailer had found him with his wrist cut. It was bleeding profusely, but Garbin was still conscious enough to swear filthily at the jailer. Then came the night when Jules was scheduled to be removed from the jail and transferred to San Quentin the next morning.

  For some time he’d been popping off, swearing he had enough dirt on everybody from the governor of the state on down through the L.A. mayor and including police and other city officials to send them all to Q. with him. Nobody really believed him, but a reporter got much of it into an issue of an L.A. paper and it caused a little stink.

  On that last night he got to Phil Samson, Captain of Central Homicide, and said he would turn over to me — nobody but me, Shell Scott — all the papers, photostats, tapes, the whole jazz he claimed to have on the officials and others he’d named. Well, Sam set it up, and I went along not only because Garbin had named me, but because Sam is my very good friend, and I’d stuck Garbin in the first place. We didn’t know what the He’ll Jules was up to; we figured he was lying, or foolishly hoping to make a break, or maybe was trying to get back at me some way — but there was just a chance he was telling the truth. He wasn’t , of course. But we didn’t know that then.

  Two odd items: First, he wouldnt say where the stuff was hidden, just that it was hidden and he’d take us to the place; and second he insisted he get to dress in his fine duds, black suit and high collar and all — for the last time, he said. That was his price for taking us to the cache of information. It didn’t make much sense then — later, of course, it did.

  Sam and I, and six well-armed police officers, took Garbin from the can. We didn’t know where he was going, but he had been living in one of the penthouse suites of the swank Hollywood-Crown Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard, and that’s where we went. In, and up to his suite on the sixteenth floor, as high as the elevator went.

  When we were all inside the suite Samson stopped, grabbed Jules by the arm, and said, Garbin, if this is a gag —

  It’s not a gag, cop. Garbin’s gray eyes had never been colder, his expression never more cruel and sour. The stuff’s here.

  Samson looked just as hard as Jules — maybe harder. His big jaw wiggled a moment, then he said, You must know we searched this place. Just in case.

  Sure. Did you search the bedroom carpet? Under it? More important, in it?

  Sams face told me Jules had scored a small point. Maybe a large one. Jules did a good job; he really built it up.

  He laughed, jerked his arm free from Sams hand and swaggered across the room — accompanied by all of us — into the bedroom and toward a window through which could be seen that marvelous view of Hollywoods lights at night. Two policemen went with him to the window. There Jules bent over, pulled at the carpets edge, ripped it free from the molding, then stepped backward pulling the thick cloth with him.

  Get the He’ll off the rug, you goddamn fuzz, he said, sweetly cheerful to the last.

  By then we were all actually interested, half-believing him. Nobody was even near him when he moved. He dropped the carpet in the middle of the room, bent as if to fumble with something on the floor, then suddenly sprinted for the window he’d just been standing near. We were, all of us, caught flat-footed. He leaped to the window sill, crashed through the glass, went through and out. There was no stopping him then; he’d beaten the gas chamber, all right — but maybe, in that last split second, he changed his mind. Because he screamed.

  Only a short hoarse scream, quickly bitten off — then a moment later bursting out again, even louder and higher than at first but quickly fading. This time he didn’t stop. He screamed all the way down, screamed for the rest of his life.

  We were on the sixteenth floor.

  I saw him hit.

  He’d moved so fast I didn’t even jump forward until he’d gone through the glass, and at that I was the first one to reach the shattered window. I looked out and down, and he still had a good two floors to go. He hit and bounced — they do bounce, from that height — and even from the sixteenth floor I could see the horrible spurt of blood, and hear the slightly delayed sound of his impact.

  None of us spoke for several seconds. Then Samson said savagely, I’ll be goddamned.

  When we got down to Hollywood Boulevard a crowd had gathered around the mashed and misshapen body. A siren was already cutting through the air. Those French cuffs were red again — as theyd been red while Garbin was beating me in that washroom.

  Well, this was Hollywood Boulevard. The main artery cutting through the heart of the cinema city. When a man splashes himself on Hollywood Boulevard, it’s news; when the man is a Jules Garbin, and eight husky men were supposed to be on their toes and guarding him — and especially when there is a hint or two that in order to avert a major scandal maybe the police, and Shell Scott, helped Jules Garbin out the window — then it is really news.

  It died down finally; but it left scars. Even dying, Garbin had slipped us the sharp end of the stick.

  And now, braking my Cad in the Arizona desert and looking at the people — including, undoubtedly, several of the late Garbin’s hoodlums — moving around the Sun and Sage, I wondered if I was about to get stuck again. . . .

  chapter five

  I slowed even more when I caught sight of the low cream-and-beige buildings of the Sun and Sage. It was after three p.m. As I got closer I could see people moving around among the buildings and near the sparkling swimming pool, and soon the sound of voices carried to me through the hot, dry air.

  Of several buildings only one, by far the biggest, was two stories. That was the main building of the Sun and Sage, containing the hotel, desk and lobby, rooms for guests, cocktail lounge, and card-and-game room. Scattered around the two-story hotel were a couple dozen small buildings, each separate from the others; these were individual suites called cabins. Two of the cabins, the Phoenix Suite and the Tucson Suite, were quite a bit larger — and more expensive — than the others, and I assumed from what Ben Freedlander had said that I might wind up in one of them.

  I stopped in a parking area near the hotel entrance, made sure a blanket still covered the dead guy, then climbed out of the Cad and walked into the Sun and Sage.

  The lobby was big, high-ceilinged, with colorful Indian rugs on the parquet floor. Heavy couches and chairs of rough wood were scattered around the room. Fifteen or twenty people were moving about or seated in the lobby, but I didn’t recognize any of them. A male clerk behind the desk blossomed there like the flowers which bloom from cactus: White Stetson with a rim approximately two yards in circumference, pink shirt, yellow neckerchief, cream-colored whip-cord pants, and — believe it or not — pale blue chaps. I leaned over the desk far enough to see his feet Yep, high-heeled cowboy boots — blue, with jewels on them. I could almost have kissed him.

  I said hello, adding, I’m Shell Scott.

  Who?

  He didn’t know me. That was good. Too many cats here did know me. Wheres Russ? I asked him.

  Mr. Cordiner?

  Yes. Mr. Cordiner.

  Why, he’s out at the stables, sir.

  Fine. Thanks.

  The stables were behind the hotel and fifty yards north. I went behind the hotel and fifty yards north, following my nose into the heavy, not unpleasant smell of the stable area. There I spotted Russ looking a horses hoof. He didn’t see me until I stopped next to him and spoke.

  Looks as if the animal has bruised his left wither, I said. Or is it fetlock? Anyway, I’ll bet youre going to have to
amputate his udder —

  Not at all, Russ said dryly, without looking up, he’s merely hurt his paw. And I’ll bet that’s a Scott named Shell. Then he straightened up, and socked me in the stomach.

  Russ was nearly as tall as I, but his weight could almost have been reported in ounces instead of pounds. He was spaghetti thin, but hard and tough as jerky. The Sun and Sage was not only a dude ranch but a working ranch as well, though not on a very large scale, and Russ, despite his fifty-nine years, did plenty of the work. He bred both Brahma bulls for rodeos and wiry little quarter horses, some of which he raced at tracks and fairs in the Western states.

  He had bright, alert brown eyes, crooked teeth, a prominent Adams apple, and a great mass of thick white hair so long it was virtually a mane on his neck, plus a magnificent white mustache, neatly trimmed. He looked a little like the skeleton of Buffalo Bill.

  After wed poked each other stupidly — an action men sometimes indulge in for no apparent reason — he said, Well, things should liven up now youre here, Shell.

  There’s a dead man in my car, I said.

  There’s a what?

  A dead —

  No. Dont tell me again. Not yet. His Adams apple bounced. Then he said, Yes, things should . . . liven up. All right. Show me.

  I showed him. After a few seconds he dropped the blanket back over the man’s face and said, Hooper. Karl Hooper.