The Cockeyed Corpse (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  About seven in the morning. Why?

  That was gray dawn outside. I said, You mean I’ve been out for — since ten oclock or so last night? This is already Sunday morning?

  He nodded. That’s right. You must have been hit pretty hard.

  I started getting up — slowly — but a lot of gruesome activity started in my head. I paused, moved a little more, a very little more.

  Where do you think youre going?

  To find some aspirins, and then find Hal Calvin and, or, Tay Green. You said they were casually hauling me about, didn’t you?

  Yes. But theyre not here now. I havent seen them since they left in their car. Theyre not in their rooms.

  I was in my fawn-colored slacks and shirt, no jacket or boots — or gun. But when I asked Russ about the Colt he pointed it out on the dresser; he’d removed it along with the few items of clothing when he and his helper had put me on the bed. I thought a minute, then said, In that case, I’ll call on Mr. Everett, in the Tucson Suite, since that’s where you spotted them carrying me.

  Mr. Everett isnt here, either. I called at his suite, to find out if he’d heard anything, had any idea what had happened. He wasn’t there — and still wasn’t when I was by again a little while ago. Bed hasn’t been slept in.

  For a moment it seemed as if that should be rather important to me, but I wasn’t sure why. I thought about it for a while, then dropped it and found the aspirin, and took four of them with water. The wild exertion wore me out, so I went back and lay down on the bed,

  No sense your leaving the room for a while, Russ said. When youre ready for it, I’ll send in some breakfast.

  Fine. Make it strong and black. In about an hour, say.

  Strong and black — accompanied by ham and eggs, he said, and left.

  I continued to lie on the bed. I wasn’t sleepy, but I didn’t feel like engaging in any strenuous activity. About eight oclock a waiter brought in a tray laden with a lot of breakfast, a little of which I ate, and approximately a gallon of steaming black coffee, much of which I drank.

  By the time Russ came in again I felt ambulatory, instead of ready for an ambulance, and I said to him, Thanks, Russ. That hit the spot. But I have the damndest feeling I should be up and about, doing something decisive and highly productive.

  Such as?

  Youve got me. That’s the trouble. Anything exciting going on this morning? Anything unusual?

  He shook his head. Everything, he said, was normal. People were having breakfast, some had eaten and were already out riding horses. Still no sign of Everett, Calvin, or Green. The movie people had already left for more shooting on their film, whatever it was.

  I know what it is, I said. And they should hold the premiere at my apartment. Theyve already left, huh?

  Yes. Mr. Finch, who is apparently the producer —

  That’s what he is.

  — seems in a great hurry to finish it.

  He’s always in a great hurry. But I gather it’s a matter, primarily, of finishing the thing today for sure. He’s already eight dollars over budget, or something like that.

  Russ went on about his business, and I sat quietly, thinking — or trying to. Trying to remember. I almost had it; I seemed aware of a moment when I had been standing next to the Tucson Suite, listening . . . the sound of a grating, scratchy voice . . .

  It was there; but I couldnt quite reach it. That area of hidden memory was like a bubble about to burst; all I needed was the pin of memory to prick it with. But I poked around for a minute or two, without success. So then, as I often do, I said the He’ll with it and turned the matter over to my unconscious.

  Sometimes when youve pulled and pushed at a problem without getting an answer, or tried to grab a too-slippery memory, if you completely dismiss the matter from consciousness, often — when it’s least expected — the answer will pop up like toast from the depths of your unconscious toaster. I do it all the time. In fact, that may be why some people call me Shell Scott, the Unconscious Detective.

  There was a dull ache at the base of my skull and in the neck muscles; tendons across the top of my back were stiff and sore, almost knotted with tension. A little hot water beating on my back might unwind the muscles, help the juice flow more freely. I undressed, noting that at least Hal and Green hadn’t emptied my pockets. Some change, car keys, wallet, were still in the fawn-colored trousers; my gun and holster were on the dresser across the room. I guessed theyd intended to bury all of my property with me, everything neat and tidy.

  In the shower I turned on the water as hot as I could stand it and let the stream drum on my back, against my head and neck and base of my skull. Slowly the heat melted tension, washed some of the ache away.

  I hadn’t been thinking about anything at all, just soaking almost voluptuously in the moist heat, and cooked nearly pink fore and aft I reached, on impulse, for the hot faucet and turned it off.

  Cold water smacked me like a blizzard of little snowballs and I yelled Yow! — and in that instant I remembered.

  Everything.

  chapter eleven

  I remembered it all. Not in order as it had happened last night — following Hal, the overheard conversation, my knocking at Everetts door — but every bit of it all at once crammed into a split-second now.

  When it all slammed up into my brain it was like getting sapped from inside; a hundred thoughts ripped through my mind. I saw Everetts face — and realized it was like Jules Garbin’s face. The hair and mustache were different, but except for those minor bits it was exactly like Garbin’s face. It was Garbin. And that was impossible — unless I really was nuts. What I’d seen and heard mingled with the shifting impressions which had floated in my mind in those weird moments before I’d regained consciousness, and I wondered for a moment if somehow those dream thoughts had congealed into schizoid reality in my brain. But Everett was the same as Jules Garbin, same face, height, weight, even the same voice, either Garbin or a dead ringer for him. A twin? Some goofy double? That didn’t make sense.

  Simultaneously with those impressions I heard the steel-file voice saying Shes got to go, and saw April smiling, imagined a slug of steel tearing through her skull, ripping it open, twisting her lovely face.

  I was already moving, I leaped from the shower, ran to the door and yanked it open. An old guy in cowboy togs was walking past my suite accompanied by an even older gal with an astoundingly long, thin nose, and clad in pink shirt and fuzzy peach-colored jodhpurs. She was smiling, looking past her nose at the old guy — then at me as I came leaping through the door.

  She let out a dandy scream, threw up her arms as if throwing them away — reeled about and fell like a stone.

  I jumped back into my living room and slammed the door. Pants, I was thinking, Pants, where in He’ll are my pants?

  I spotted them on the bed, climbed into them and then raced out — past the prone gal and vastly perplexed old guy — and around to my Cad. I found the car keys in my trouser pocket, started the car and was on my way.

  Leaning forward and looking up through the windshield I could see the empty cabin at the closed end of the narrow valley, the low shrub-and-boulder covered hills slanting down toward me. I thought something moved up there, three or four hundred yards away, but couldnt be sure. Then I could see the gleam of water bouncing from the lakes surface, figures moving.

  I slid around the station wagon and skidded to a stop, jumped from the Cad and ran toward the lake, yelling. I could see the big fake boulder, two of the girls visible on it’s left, and on this side of the lake two cameras set up, Ed Pinch behind one of them apparently shooting a scene. Something glinted above and on my right and I looked up. I couldnt see anybody there, but sunlight flashed again, like sun glinting from metal. The metal of a gun, a rifle, maybe.

  No maybe about it.

  As I ran barefooted past the big gray boulder I could see April and Zia in the water — at least April was still alive. Delise and Choo Choo were the two I’d first
seen at the boulders left.

  Finch let out a yell and shouted at me, You bastard, you — another scene ruined! And it’s the final scene, the last scene! I’ve got a good mind to —

  Shut up. Somebody may get killed here — get out of sight! I waved an arm. All of you.

  One of the girls on my left, either Delise or Choo Choo, yelped, Killed? Killed? But I wasn’t looking at them.

  I ran toward the water, and April. I splashed in, stopped near her and Zia and said rapidly. There might be some guys up on the hill there — I waved a hand again — getting ready to pick you off. Shoot you. I dont even know why — but there’s no time to explain. Just get out of here. Get behind some rocks, anything.

  I reached for my gun and clawed my bare chest. No gun — of course not; I was lucky I had on my pants. Everybody here heard me, apparently understood what I was saying. They just didn’t believe me.

  Finch yelled, Goddamn you, Scott! I’ve got to wrap this picture up today! It’s in my deal with Ben —

  And Aprils eyes opened wide as she said softly, Kill me? But that’s preposter —

  After that moment, everybody believed me. The sharp, flat crack of the gunshot slapped our ears, then there was the fainter crack of an echo. A small geyser of water leaped from the lakes surface between April and me. Zia screamed.

  Run, I said to them. Run like He’ll.

  I turned, looked up toward where the shot had come from. Seconds passed, dragging, then there was another crack. A bullet snapped by near me, close enough so I could feel the twitch of air against my cheek. This time I saw the faint puff of brightness as the gun was fired. It came from above us, only a hundred and fifty, possibly two hundred yards away, near a cluster of three boulders on the hills crest.

  And the realization seeped in that whoever was up there was not only trying to kill somebody for sure, but that I was the somebody now. Which figured. Me first then April — even if I didn’t really know yet why April had to be killed. I leaped backward, hit the water and turned, digging under it like a mole in dirt, hands and arms flying, legs kicking.

  The water was less than four feet deep and when my fingers scraped the muddy bottom I kept kicking, and pulling with my arms, eyes open. Foam slanted suddenly down through the water before me, like a bar of tiny bubbles, as a bullet tore into the water a foot away. I got my feet under me, stood up, struggled toward the lakes shore as my head broke the surface.

  There was a lot of movement. On my left I could see Pinch running like a rabbit back the way I’d come — past my Cad, heading for the station wagon. On my right, racing toward a narrow path between steeply slanting walls of earth and clustered rocks were Delise and Choo Choo, Delise slightly in the lead. Several yards behind them were April and Zia.

  Another shot cracked in the still air and I felt a sudden sting high on the outside of my bare left arm. The slug had barely touched the skin, burning and breaking it. I made it to the dry sandy earth beyond the waters edge, started sprinting. There were no more shots.

  Either the bastards were pulling out, giving up, or — more likely — knew we couldnt get away from them, couldnt run from them and a rifle or two. From that first shot until now no more than fifteen or twenty seconds had passed, and the first girl was just now going out of sight. Here on the south side of the small lake a natural path led slightly uphill through that narrow gorge. Delise must have headed that way without thought, simply because it was in the opposite direction from which the bullets had come flying. But it had been a good choice, because after a few feet the narrow path veered sharply left behind a mound of earth and soaring rock masses, hiding anyone beyond it even from the men on the hill behind us.

  Delise went out of sight, and immediately behind her Choo Choo. Moments later April, and little Zia. They had all followed Delise automatically, after the fashion of startled and stampeding turkeys. Well, not turkeys. Chickens, maybe? Plucked. That’s not it, either. But turkeys or chickens, they were all naked as jaybirds, such being their apparently near-permanent condition, and I knew that even if I got shot in the head this instant, I would carry a tremendous vision with me into the next world. I will not describe it. I cannot. Nobody could. But I’ll give you a hint: For the last twenty yards of my sprint I forgot all about guns behind me, and was not in any sense whatsoever running away from anything.

  Then I charged around the turn to my left, out of sight of anyone behind, and slid to a stop before what was ahead. And the temporary fever fled my brain, to be replaced by the reinforced and chill realization of the fix we were all in. The girls had stopped several yards ahead of me, clustered together, and obviously extremely frightened. The path slanted gently upward for another hundred yards or so beyond them, apparently ending at the surface of a bare, rolling hill. There was, of course, not a defensive weapon in sight, and the most dangerous objects I had on me were a silver half-dollar, and my car keys, which I’d automatically grabbed and stuck into my pants.

  I turned, walked back until I could look up toward the hill on the lakes north side. I didn’t like what I saw. Two men, mounted on horses, were riding down the side of the hill, skirting boulders and clumps of sage, taking their time. Near the base of the hill one of the men turned and trotted to his left, either headed toward my Cad or trying to catch up with Finch, who had run in that direction. At the rate Ed had been moving, however, I guessed he was by now in the station wagon and a mile away. The other man skirted the lake; he would be coming this way.

  If I’d had a gun — but I didn’t. And if those hoods killed me. . . . The flickering thought that they might kill all of the girls was simply too monstrous to be believable. But for them to sit hidden on a hill and attempt to kill even one of them, April — and me, for that matter — was pretty monstrous itself. I swore under my breath. Unarmed, I didn’t have a chance against a couple of men carrying guns. I glanced around, picked up two rocks big enough to fill each hand, then turned and ran to the girls.

  There wasn’t time for explanations — or need, for that matter. Choo Choo looked as if she had decided to faint immediately, and the other three didn’t look much better. I tried to keep my voice calm, without the slightest success, and said, You gals keep running. Find a place to hide, if you can. I dont know what else to tell you. Just get moving.

  April licked dry lips and said, But what are you —

  Get going. Run, dammit.

  They ran. This time I didn’t watch them. I went back to the spot from which I could look toward the lake. Bent over and peering around a big hunk of stone I could see one of the mounted men. I’d wondered why he hadn’t already caught up with us, but he’d reined his horse to a stop, rifle held in his right hand, waving his left arm at somebody hidden from me.

  Then he glanced this way, and then to his left again. I could just make out his features. Farmer. It was too bad hadn’t hit the sonofabitch hard enough to kill him in the saloon last night. And here the slob was, waiting for reinforcements. As if he needed any reinforcements. But — maybe he thought he might need help. Almost certainly both men had gotten a good look at me, noted I wasn’t wearing a shirt or jacket. But they couldnt be sure I didn’t have a gun on me. Even though I hadn’t fired at them, they couldnt know I was unarmed. And guys like Farmer and his pals, even when they get real pleasure from shooting at citizens, get no pleasure at all from citizens who shoot back.

  I looked at the two rocks in my hand, and swore some more. I might as well have two pebbles, or just my bare hands in my hands, for all the good theyd do me. Then the man turned and started walking his horse toward me, and the cold chill settled in my bones; I knew it wasn’t going to be any good.

  I could feel my bent legs starting to tremble a little beneath me, tension pulling the muscles tighter and tighter. Then there was a sound — from behind me. I whirled, jumped, lifting one rock-weighted hand. And stopped. It was April.

  Shell, she called softly. This way, quick.

  She waved one hand frantically, then turned and
ran up the path. Well, I just stood there wobbling, heart lunging in several directions at once, tongue dangling loosely out of my mouth. If I’d had a weak heart it would have split open flapping like a toy balloon, and I was in no shape to follow April up the path, but I did, even almost caught up to her by the time she slowed, moved left — and disappeared.

  A huge boulder stood there, split down the middle maybe a hundred thousand years before, the once-jagged edges smoothed by weather and time. The opening was only a couple of feet wide, narrowing even more at it’s far end ten or twelve feet away. I turned sideways, followed April in, brushing my chest against the rock as it narrowed. Behind the mass of rock was a small, enclosed space barely large enough for the five of us — since the other three girls were already there ahead of April — to stand far enough to the side so that we wouldnt be seen by anyone glancing in from the path.

  Fine — as long as those guys just glanced. But unless something miraculous suddenly happened, theyd have time to do a lot more than glance. A horseshoe rang on rock; now I could hear the clop-clop as a man rode nearer. I moved back a little — into warm softnesses. Oops, I said, very quietly, and glanced over my shoulder.

  It was pretty crowded in there. Those two softnesses had belonged to two different people. Even Zia, the farthest distant of the lovelies, was no more than a couple of feet away; we were all scrunched together in what, under more euphoric circumstances, an innocent bystander would have considered wildly abandoned chumminess at the very least.

  Stop it, I told myself. He’ll, it’s no use. Clop-clop went the horses hooves, followed by another clop-clopping close behind. Farmer and whoever was with him, getting close. I had to think about getting out of here. Then came a hint, an idea — my Cad. If these guys trotted far enough away and we could run back to my car. . . .

  But at that moment I heard voices, one man calling to the other, They can’t be far away, can’t just disappear. The other said, Well, I ripped the wires on Scotts heap. Take him an hour to start that buggy even if he got to it. So that settled that.