The Scrambled Yeggs (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

I pulled her arms down, pressed them to her sides and said, “Home we go, little girl.”

  She sighed, “Okay, old man.”

  “Don't call me old man.”

  “All right, daddy.”

  I considered. “Well, that's a little better.”

  “Anyway,” she said, “I'm not a little girl.”

  I looked at her. All of her. “The point is well taken. Now let's get out of here.”

  Sara left me at the door saying, “Just a minute, Shell. I'll turn on a light.”

  She didn't turn on the overhead fluorescents but walked across the room, her footsteps inaudible on the thick carpet, and switched on the pin-up lamp at the corner of her “Self-Portrait.”

  She said, “Shut the door and come on over.”

  The light fell directly on the painting and spilled onto the white bearskin rug beneath it. Diffused light escaped into the corners of the room, but almost all of it was lost in the black carpet and divan. I sat on one of the creamy-white cushions of the divan. The cushions, the white bearskin rug and the painting seemed to be the only solid things in the room; but even they seemed disembodied, insubstantial, floating in pools of blackness.

  Sara kneeled and then lay on her back on the bearskin at my feet, the black dress hugging the curves of her small body, sharply outlined by the white of the rug beneath her.

  Posing again. Still the affected, artificial, strange and oddly beautiful woman. But pose or not, it was effective. She looked utterly and infinitely desirable. Except for the swelling curves of her body, she could have been a child or a woman of a thousand years ago. Ageless and timeless, as sin is ageless and timeless.

  She rolled, propped herself on her right elbow, facing me, and said softly, “Shell.”

  I didn't say anything.

  “Where I was kicked, where I was hurt, Shell.”

  With her left hand she lifted the hem of her gown high on her leg. In the dim light I could see the dark discoloration on her thigh. It was there; it wasn't just something she'd invented to play with me, tease me. The firm flesh was pinched in at the tight roll of her dark hose, then swelled and curved, gleaming like old ivory, between the top of the hose and the draped, black hem of her gown. She let her hand relax and the smooth jersey slid back down her thigh like a lover's caress, easily, softly and covered the pale, gleaming skin.

  She got to me, got under my skin with some dark, mesmeric distillation of her own unique fascination. It was distinctly her own as the room was hers, as the almost insane, brooding painting ominous above us was hers.

  Still lying relaxed at my feet, she reached up with her left hand and took my hand in hers. The palm of her hand was hot, moist. And trembling, as I remembered her hand trembling on my wrist once before.

  She pulled me to her. “Shell,” she whispered through her teeth, “I want to kiss you, Shell.”

  She kissed me with small, moist lips. Easy, lingering kisses. She ran the tip of her tongue lightly across my lower lip, her green eyes wide, almost black, with tiny embers of fire burning in them from the light spilling down from above us. She kissed me softly, like the caress of cool fingers, and said, “Kiss me Shell. Hurt me.

  She bit my lip. Hard.

  I didn't know whether I liked it or not. But I put my hands behind her back, pulled her roughly to me and mashed her lips under my own.

  I snapped on the lights in the front room of my apartment and the guppies leaped and scurried back and forth, frightened. Dirty trick; I'd forgotten about the fish.

  I said, “Sorry, fellows,” went into the bedroom and undressed. It was ten minutes after 1 A.M.

  I turned the water on full blast in the shower, hot and steaming, and jumped in.

  I yelled at the top of my lungs and jumped out as if I'd been jet-propelled.

  I walked into the bedroom, dripping on the carpet, stood in front of the full-length mirror and looked over my shoulder at my back. On each side of my back, running from the shoulder blades down to my waist, were four vivid, scarlet furrows, raw and angry.

  I looked at them and swore through clenched teeth, “The little bitch. The ... little ... bitch!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE BELL kept on ringing and I started coming alive with the bell ringing in my ears, and I buried my head in the pillow. I could still hear the damn ringing so I climbed up out of sleep like a man crawling from a barrel of molasses and the ringing stopped and I pawed for the phone beside the bed. I got an earful of dial tone. I hung up.

  I sat up and threw back the sheet and rubbed a hand across the perspiration on my chest. It was hotter than hell in summer. Sunlight spilled into the room and was blotted up by the black rug on my bedroom floor. My back stung like bloody hell and suddenly I remembered.

  I sat in the middle of the bed for a few seconds, remembering, a vacuous smile on my face. I stared at my big toe; it was still there. That was a break.

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed, grabbed the phone and dialed ULrich 3-1212. A feminine voice, precise as a dance team at the Ambassador, said in my ear, “At the tone ... the time will be ... five ... one ... and forty seconds.”

  I walked over and grabbed my watch off the dresser, checked it and the two alarm clocks. The voice was right; it was after five o'clock. I'd slept for almost sixteen hours and I still felt as dopey as a waiter in an opium den.

  I got a robe out of the closet, went into the kitchenette and started coffee. I put on a pot of mush and stood staring stupidly at it. It went plop, plop, like a witches’ brew.

  The phone started ringing again and I grabbed it.

  “Yeah?”

  “Mr. Scott? That you, Mr. Scott? This is Kelly. Where've you been? I've been trying to get you.”

  “Where have I been? I've been in bed. Where the hell have you been? I thought maybe you were dead.”

  “I did it,” he said excitedly. “I did it. It worked.”

  “You did what? What worked?”

  “What we talked about. You remember, when we had dinner? You remember? Don't you remember?” He sounded a little scared.

  I woke up all the way. I got cold all over.

  “Kid,” I said. “Kelly. Old pal. Kelly. You didn't. You were drunk; you didn't mean all that idiot-talk you gave me at the Seraglio.”

  “Well, sure I did, Mr. Scott. All of it. I got a little drunk, I guess. I don't remember everything too well, maybe, but I thought it was all set. What's the matter?”

  “Nothing,” I groaned. “Nothing; just everything. You really did it?”

  “Well, sure I did. Golly, I gotta talk to you. I been trying to get you half the afternoon.”

  “It's good?”

  “It's terrific. You won't believe it. It's colossal.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “I'll believe it. I'll get dressed and come down. Where are you?”

  “Hansen's Drugstore up on Hollywood Boulevard.”

  “Can you spill any of it now?”

  “Not over the phone. Except that Captain Samson was on the right track. Only there's more. You better come on down here.”

  “Give me fifteen minutes; you got me out of bed.”

  “Bed.” He sounded disgusted. “I'll wait.”

  I hung up, went into the bathroom and took a quick cold shower and rubbed down with a thick Turkish towel. Easy on the back. Very easy.

  Kelly. Tommy Kelly, intrepid reporter. The crazy damn fool. If he messed around long enough, he could get us all killed. It was still sinking in; the idiot had actually gone out and put somebody on the spot. Spot!

  A cold, clammy idea climbed up into my brain by way of my spine. If I recalled Kelly's drunken conversation correctly, the guy on the spot was me.

  What did he think this was, anyway, a scavenger hunt? He was chumming around with homicidal heavies as if they were customers at a society bazaar. It was colossal, he'd said. I hadn't even heard his story yet and already it was colossal.

  I quickly picked out a tan tropic-weight suit and my .38 Colt r
evolver. A lot of guys prefer a bigger gun than a .38, but the Special tosses out a pill that's .358 inches across its fanny. Tossed in the right spot, I figure that's big enough for anything up to elephants.

  I smelled something, went into the kitchenette and noticed the mush had stopped going plop and just sat on the stove and smoked. I stuck the pan under the faucet in the sink, let it hiss and sizzle for a minute, dumped it into the garbage and was ready to go.

  On the way out I stopped at the fish tanks and said, “Good afternoon, fish.” They didn't hear me. But the guppies crowded up against the glass of the small aquarium and banged their noses waiting for food. I should have saved the mush, I thought, but I grabbed a little dried shrimp and crab meal and dumped some in the feeding rings in both tanks. They glutted themselves while my stomach growled and bubbled.

  I turned on the lights over both aquariums and went out. It was five-twenty-five in the afternoon, and maybe things were starting to pop.

  I parked around the corner and walked inside Hansen's. Kelly was in one of the booths at the left. When I joined him, the first thing he said was, “Gee, hello, Mr. Scott. I forgot to mention it; did you, well, bring a gun?”

  “Yeah. I brought a gun. Think Ill need it?”

  He looked a little embarrassed and said, “Well, I don't know. You know...” and stopped.

  I said, “Yeah, I know,” got up and ordered toast and coffee from the counterman, went back and sat down across from Kelly.

  I said “What happened?”

  He looked so nervous and apologetic, I didn't even bawl him out. He fiddled with a pencil in his hand, opened his mouth, shut it, took a deep breath and said rapidly, “Well, you know what I was going to tell them. I got out there and made the arrangements with them and you'd said it was all right if I gave them your name,” he swallowed nervously and finished in a rush, “so I did. I was scared to death. Oh, man, I was scared. It seemed like a sort of lark, but when I really got there, when it really was happening I almost wet my pants.” He looked at me as if he thought I was going to eat him alive.

  “Look, Kelly,” I said as calmly as I could, “I don't follow more than half of what you're giving me. Take it easy, start at the beginning and give me the whole picture just the way it happened.”

  He wet his lips. “Well,” he said, “I told you I've got some sort of shady friends. Saturday after I got up I felt awful.” He smiled wryly, “I guess we did have quite a lot to drink Friday night.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Now what happened Saturday?”

  He went on, “Well, in the morning I went down to the paper—I had some things to get cleaned up. Then I had a little lunch and went around to some of the bars, had a few drinks and acted like I'd had quite a bit more. Every time I'd run into one of these characters I knew, I'd buy him a drink and we'd get to talking. I let it be known that there was a guy that was really in my hair; then I'd start asking if there wasn't some kind of an outfit that took care of problems like that for cash. Kind of mysterious, you know. Not letting on too much, but acting like I was really interested in finding out if there wasn't some organization or individual that handled jobs where you want to get rid of somebody.”

  “Real cagey,” I said.

  He grinned half-heartedly. “Sure. Wait'll you hear what happened. This went on about all afternoon. I must have talked to a dozen guys and I left a lot of whisky on top of bars. I still had quite a bit myself. Well, I went home a while after six o'clock and had dinner. Boy, my wife smelled the liquor on my breath and wanted to know what the dickens I was up to.” He peered at me, “She seemed to think I'd been with you. Isn't that funny?”

  “Hilarious.” My toast and coffee was ready so I started on it and said, “Look, I'm eaten up with curiosity. Run through it quick, will you? Well clean up the incidental details later.”

  “Okay. After dinner, about seven o'clock, I started out on the bars again. I didn't really expect anything to happen so soon, but things sure started going. I went into the Blue Moon up on Sixth. You know, where you go downstairs off the street. Well, the rest room's in back and I'd had a little beer, so I went inside. I heard somebody come in behind me but I didn't see him. I didn't even think about him. I'd just got there, hadn't had a drink or talked to anybody or anything. Somebody must have got word to him and he must have followed me in. Anyway, he went into one of the booths where I couldn't see him and he started talking to me. Sure surprised me. I'd been running off at the mouth, he said, about some guy I wanted out of the way and I ought to be careful what I kidded around about.

  “Well,” Kelly took a deep breath and sighed, “I figured maybe this was the lead I was looking for, so I said I wasn't kidding and what's it to you? Took a little chance, I guess.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “A little one. Go on.”

  “The upshot of it was he said if I wanted to talk business, to get out of the bar and go to Pershing Square and stand on the sidewalk right in front of the statue of Beethoven, on the north side. He said it like beet, Beetoven. He said for me to go straight out of the bar and there was a guy in the bar watching to make sure I didn't hang around or pull anything. I was supposed to stand in front of the statue and pretty quick a car would drive up Fifth Street and blink its lights once. On and off. I was supposed to run out and jump in the back of that car.”

  Kelly paused and licked his lips. “It sure was funny; kind of scary. Well, I went down to Pershing Square and waited. It was fairly dark and I started getting kind of nervous and then all of a sudden the car came along and I jumped in and, wham, I got a rag stuck in my face. I think it had chloroform on it. Anyway I almost passed out, not clear out, but everything was crazy. Somehow they put a blindfold around my eyes and we drove around for a while. Where, how long, I don't know. I felt sick as the dickens. Finally the car stopped and we went inside somewhere and they opened a door and shoved me inside and shut the door behind me.”

  I asked, “You got any idea where you were?”

  “Uh-uh. It could have been almost anywhere. I was almost passing out anyway. Well, I got the blindfold off and I was all alone in the room, nobody else. I tried the door and it was locked so I couldn't get out. There was a table and a couple of chairs so I sat down in one of the chairs and waited for something to happen. There was a little light, but I couldn't see much of anything, it was so dim. It seemed like I waited a long time and then's when I really started getting scared, just sitting there. Finally, a man started talking, like over a mike, but there wasn't anybody in the room, so they must have had a speaker rigged up so they could talk from somewhere else.”

  “Make it short, Kelly,” I said. “What's it boil down to?”

  He looked at me with a sickly grin on his face. “Well, this man or this voice, I mean, came right out and said if I wanted a man taken care of, killed, they'd see the job was done for a price. He asked me my name and I had to tell him, and I said yes, I wanted a man out of my hair and he asked for your name.”

  I said, “Then he asked for my name, huh? My name.”

  “Yes. That is he asked who I meant and I told him your name.” He grinned, sickly, some more, “You know, like we talked about when we had that dinner.” He looked pale and scared. Scared of what I might say. “I guess maybe I should have left well enough alone, huh, Mr. Scott? But I got into it and I didn't know what to do, I was so messed up. You, uh, are you mad, Mr. Scott?”

  “Relax, Kelly. I guess it's all right. It has to be. Incidentally, you might as well call me Shell. Anybody who knows me well enough to arrange my murder is entitled to at least use my first name. By the way, what reason did you give this guy for wanting me knocked off?”

  “I didn't have to give any; he didn't ask. All he seemed interested in was who the man was I wanted, uh, taken care of.”

  “How about the dough? Or am I for free?”

  “Oh, that. I have to pay him five thousand dollars. I'm supposed to carry the money on me tonight and go around the bars. Somebody's supposed to get in
touch with me. No special arrangements.”

  “You got any idea who this voice was? Did you see or hear anybody at any time that might give you a lead to who's behind it?”

  He shook his head slowly, staring at me out of wide eyes. “No. Not anything. I guess I sure messed things up.

  “Okay,” I said. “What's your next move?”

  He just looked at me and swallowed with an effort.

  “I'll tell you what it is,” I said. “You get the hell down to headquarters and tell Samson if he's there—or Lt. Rawlins if Sam isn't there—every damn thing you've told me and anything else you know. There's a pretty good chance we'll both wind up in the gutter, if your bloodthirsty chums get any ideas this dream of yours is a plant. And they might get just that. Anything else happen while you were there?

  “Something awful funny happened. Just before I left.

  Incidentally, I left the same way I came. All the lights went out and some guy came in and I got the same treatment I'd got at Pershing Square. They let me out on a dark road out of town and I finally got a ride in some time this morning. I was sick as a dog. I went in the house and crawled into my bed. We've got twin beds so I didn't bother my wife much. She just mumbled if that was me and I said yes and for her to go to sleep. I didn't wake up till this afternoon and I left the house and started calling you.”

  “What happened before you left that was so funny?”

  “Well, it seemed like everything was all set and ready for me to leave and I wondered what was going to happen. The guy had already told me the lights would go out but not to be alarmed. It was just so I could leave and I was to understand they had to be careful. Guess they didn't want me to recognize anybody. I thought the lights were going to go out and I was waiting, when all of a sudden this guy's voice started in again. Same question as he'd asked when I first went in. I thought it was peculiar, but I started to answer and then I heard my own voice answering. I just sat and listened through the whole thing again. Everything I'd said, everything he'd said, my name, your name, the whole works. They must have made a recording of the whole conversation. Anyway, it was all there, every bit of it. And when it was over, the guy said I could see how foolish it would be to get any wrong ideas. Dangerous ideas, I think he said. Then the lights went out and you know the rest.”