Lita was quiet for a while. Then she said, “The sleeping pills put him almost out. He was a weak little thing to begin with. He knew something was wrong, so I had to ... choke him a little. Then I got his gun and shot him. I don't think he was dead until then.” After a long silence she said dully, “If only Zoe hadn't seen that photo of me. And if Horatio hadn't lost control of himself that day. All he wanted was to make love to me. Maybe—maybe I should have gone to bed with him.”
“It wouldn't have made any difference, Lita,” I said. “But five ways would really have been too much—that too, would have killed him.”
She smiled then. It was the last smile I would ever get from Mamzel. And only later, on specially lonely nights, was I going to realize how important those smiles might have become....
It took the whole night to wrap it up.
The police arrived and took Lita away. She didn't look back. She walked down the corridor between two officers, hips swinging—and not in time to any funeral march. Maybe justice is blind, I thought, but juries are not; and I could imagine Lita in the witness chair, breathing deeply. And the defense counsel introducing one of the plastic Mamzels as Exhibit Number One.
Whatever happened, it seemed quite certain that Lita would not get what she deserved.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I had to spend several hours at the Police Building, myself. It was the same old round of telling the story and telling it again, going over and over it, signing the reports. But finally it was finished.
When I left it was after eight in the morning. Monday morning. A new week starting. The sky was clear and blue, and there was an early-morning nip in the air.
I think looking at that clear blue sky brought home to me more forcibly than anything else could have just what Lita was facing now. There was a bitter taste in my mouth as I got into the Cad and headed for Hollywood. I was bone tired, and I felt miserable, sour.
As I drove up Sunset toward home I decided I would close up the office for a week, at least. I was going to sleep, and rest, and loaf, and drink a lot of bourbon and water—and try not to think about Lita Korrel.
Then I saw it. Half a mile ahead, on the right of the road, sticking up into the blue sky, was Mamzel.
It was one of the pink-plastic, twice-life-size statues of Lita, and it was mounted atop the Mamzel's salon in which I'd met Lita herself such a short time ago. I had known they were to be mounted on all ten of the Mamzel's offices this morning, Monday, but it was shocking to see one suddenly, now, knowing where and what she was.
I was going to drive right by, but then I realized that probably nobody at Mamzel's yet knew what had happened. Not Lawrance, or any of the Mamzel Girls, knew that Lita was in jail, that the ball was over. I pulled into the lot and parked. It was eight-thirty a.m.
I walked in through the massive chrome-and-glass doors again, under the sign that spelled out Mamzel's in the flowing feminine script, but this time the outer office was empty. I walked down the hall, past the door leading into the silent Contouring Room, and on to the room Lawrance was using for an office.
He was already there, scribbling something on a paper on his desk. He looked up as I entered, and smiled wearily at me.
“Morning, Scott,” he said. “You're around early. Just got here myself.” He leaned back in his chair and stretched, bones popping. “What a mess, huh? After that hellish affair yesterday, I've got to try setting up a new kickoff for the campaign, maybe in a couple of weeks. It's sure screwed up now. But I'll work it out.” He paused, looking at me closely. “You got any late news, Scott? What's been going on? I'm a little out of touch.”
I told him what had been happening. I told him that Lita was in a cell, and what she had done. At first he thought I was joking. He wouldn't, or couldn't, quickly accept what I said as true. But I convinced him.
And he put his face in his hands and stayed like that while I finished the story. I left him with his face still buried in his hands. I hadn't realized it before, but Lawrance must have been in love with Lita, but that wasn't surprising. Everyone must have been in love with Lita, at least a little.
I was pretty well wrapped up in my gloomy thoughts as I walked down the corridor. And as I walked into the reception room I bumped into Didi. Literally. We collided with a soft thump. She reeled back from me, blonde hair swirling, then caught her balance and said, “Oh, it's you. Hi, Shell.”
She was smiling beautifully. Until I told her what I was doing here, told her approximately the same story I had given Lawrance. When I finished, we were quiet for a while. Then I said, “So there it is. I feel like driving out into the country or something. Getting clear away from the buildings and people and smog and maybe just sitting on top of a hill.”
“And just breathing, and making pictures out of clouds.”
“Exactly. Haven't done that since I was a kid.”
“There room for two on your hill?”
“It's a big hill.”
“Don't go away,” she said, then turned and went trotting down the corridor to Lawrance's office. In a minute or two she was back, and we went out to my car together. That's the way it was. I didn't really invite her anywhere, and she didn't really ask anything of me, it just sort of happened. And then we were in the car, heading up Sunset.
I drove to the Spartan, where I live. On the way, Didi told me that under the circumstances Mamzel's would be closed for a while, maybe days, maybe weeks, maybe even for good. But she was free, and her time was her own. And so was mine.
We went up to my apartment and I said, “Want to pack a lunch? Have a picnic?”
“Sure. What'll I pack?”
“Well, you can start with bourbon. That's always good.” A thought struck me. “Matter of fact, we could start with bourbon.”
“Right after breakfast?”
“My dear, it's really after supper. You are confused.”
“You mean what I saw early this morning was the sun going down.”
“Exactly. Soon it will be night —”
“Oh, all right,” Didi said, smiling. “I'll have a drink. Now that it's practically dark.”
I let her mix the drinks while I cleaned up and shaved, then we had another drink, and a lot of enjoyable conversation. We sort of decided not to rush pell-mell out to that hill, not immediately, but it was understood that we would get there sometime soon.
But right now Didi was settled comfortably on my chocolate-brown divan and I was handing her another highball and having a healthy glug of my own. And I was starting to feel very good indeed. I had really been down in the dumps there for a while, low and brooding, with a feeling that life was rotten and miserable. But now, thanks to Didi, I was feeling flashes of the old Shell Scott. Didi seemed to be feeling flashes of the liveliest Didi. We made a pretty flashy couple.
She smiled up at me, looking even better and more appealing than she had when I'd first seen her in Mamzel's mirrored reception room. I was becoming certain now that life wasn't completely shattered after all, not a hopeless mess.
For just a moment the image of Lita Korrel floated up in front of my eyes. But I quickly pushed it away, fought for a moment to keep it away. And then, like a rescue party, sort of half-solid in my mind but seemingly marching right through the room, came the Mamzel Girls.
But in truth they didn't march. They danced, pirouetted, wiggled and bobbed and spun and bent and swayed and did all sorts of fetching things. There was Yama, bending away from me as she had in that first moment when I'd seen her in Mamzel's Contouring Room ... soft, sweetly-shaped Yvonne ... dangerous-looking Lois ... hot-eyed, soft-mouthed April ... Elaine, peering at me from beneath lowered lids ... and Corky, Misty, Frances, Pepper, and Cecile.
And here, next to me, snuggling up warmly against me, was Didi.
Didi, who, as I had thought several times before, seemed to have been put together with the best parts of several people; bright and bouncing blonde Didi, who, I was discovering, could also be soft and sweet and provocati
vely undulating; Didi, whose lips were fire and wine, and whose eyes were a challenge and a surrender, whose breasts and thighs were white velvet, whose heart was warm and good.
No, life wasn't ending. Not unless Didi killed me.
Life, there seemed no doubt, was just beginning.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1958 by Richard S. Prather
Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media
ISBN 978-1-4804-9835-8
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Take a Murder, Darling (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 17