The Case of the Vanishing Beauty

by Richard S. Prather

"What the hell? What happened? Hey, you O.K.?"

  "Yeah, I'm fine. I couldn't call you sooner. Those guys were holding the sister of the Martin girl out there. I brought her home."

  "Damn you, Shell. O.K., we'll get out there."

  "And Sam. This Tracy. Tracy Martin—the sister. Somebody might try for her again. She's home now, but it would help a lot if somebody could keep an eye around there."

  "Yeah, yeah. What else, Commissioner?"

  "That's all, Sam. I'll recommend you for promotion."

  "You go to hell!"

  "Yes, sir. I'll be down to see you later."

  "Don't make it too much later. I got to sleep, too, pal. A bachelor like you wouldn't understand, but my wife misses me when I stay here twenty-four hours a day."

  I told him to quit pulling my leg, and hung up.

  I turned to Cornell Martin. His face was puzzled. "Holding her?" he asked. "But why?" His blue eyes stared at me and he rubbed one thin finger alongside his sharp nose.

  "Frankly, Mr. Martin, I'm not sure. I was lucky to find her, and luckier to get her here. Tracy can tell you about it."

  "Do you know who…who killed Georgia?"

  "No. I've got some ideas, but I'll keep working on it. Mr. Martin, Tracy said you had guns in the house. That right?"

  "Yes. I have a fine collection."

  "Just so they shoot. If I can make a suggestion—same one I just made to your daughter keep some of them loaded and handy just to be on the safe side."

  "I shall. I see what you mean."

  "I think there'll be someone out from the police department, but it wouldn't hurt, anyway."

  He was looking at me curiously, at my face and my clothes. "Good Lord," he breathed. "I was so pleased to see Tracy, I hardly noticed the condition you were in. Are you all right?"

  "Yeah. Look, I've got to take off. I don't have anything definite to give you now, but when I have I'll check back."

  He smiled. "Tracy is definite enough for me, Mr. Scott," he said warmly. "Do whatever you think best; I'm sincerely grateful. Oh, and I've mailed you a check."

  I opened my mouth, but he cut me off characteristically. "Say no more about it. Can I offer you a drink.

  "No, thanks. Next time, maybe. You might not hear from me for a day or two—I'm a one-man agency, no secretaries or anything—but when I have something solid I'll phone or come back out."

  He shook my hand. "That will be fine, Mr. Scott. Thank you. Oh, and Mr. Scott—there are some peculiar red smudges on your mouth."

  He grinned gleefully at me as I wiped off Tracy's lipstick.

  I parked across from the Spartan Apartment Hotel, went up to my room, and let myself in.

  Lina put down the quart bottle of bourbon she'd been preparing to bat me with, stepped back from the door, and shrieked, "Dios mío! What happened to you?"

  "Hi," I said.

  "But what happened?"

  "I had an argument."

  "This argument. Did you lose?"

  I chuckled. "Nope. I won. Just barely."

  "Pobrecito," she sighed.

  "Be right back," I said. "You won't know me. Mix us a drink, Lina."

  I went through the bedroom into the bathroom and took a look. Friend, I was one God-awful mess. The blood I'd smeared on my face was dried and ugly-looking, and my jaw swelled out like a misplaced goiter. On each shoulder, the tan gabardine was laid open and white tufts of cotton and cloth stuck up like comic epaulets. Where there wasn't blood on my face there was dirt from the floor I'd slept on, faintly streaked with perspiration. I looked as if I'd been resurrected after a week in a moldy grave.

  It pained me to do it, but I climbed out of the suit, cleaned out the pockets, and stuffed two hundred bucks' worth of cloth into the wastebasket. I saved the suspenders.

  A hot and cold shower made me feel better and look more like myself. In the bedroom I dropped shirt, shorts, and socks into the laundry bag, climbed into clean shorts, and picked out the teal-blue, tropic-weight, double-breasted suit from the four left in the closet. A white shirt with a wide, spread collar, a blue and yellow tie, knit wool argyles, and a pair of barely broken-in cordovan shoes, and I was ready to start all over again.

  When I got back into the living room the combination of Lina and the bourbon and water she handed me made me feel like spending a quiet evening at home, but I knew that was out. The mess was coming to a boil and I wanted to be around when it spilled over.

  Lina had discarded the costume she wore in her act and had on one of my white dress shirts and a pair of dark-brown gabardine trousers rolled up so they didn't drag on the floor. The black hair she'd worn piled high on top of her head was loose and fluffy around her shoulders, and an old pair of my slippers flopped around on her small feet when she walked. She was dressed like a man, but she didn't look like one; she didn't even look like a boy. I told her so.

  She laughed. "You are the man. Come, sit down with me."

  I shook my head and stayed on my feet. I knew better.

  "Sorry, honey. I've got to leave right away. Couple things I've got to do."

  "But you have been gone so long, Shell. I was worried. All day you were gone. I wish you to stay with me a little. I am lonesome."

  "I know it, Lina. So's Georgia." I downed my drink and put the glass on the coffee table. "So long, pepper pot. I'll see you later."

  She pouted. "I will call the doctor. With his soft hands he will bandage me."

  "Uh-huh," I growled. "With my soft hands I'll wring your neck, too. You're strictly out of touch with everybody for a while. See?"

  "I see."

  At the door I turned and said, "You stick tight. See you later."

  "Marrano cochino!"

  "Sure, kid. Same to you."

  She stuck out her tongue at me and shut the door in my face.

  I'd been sitting in my Cadillac, off the road and under some trees at the side of Silver Lake Boulevard, for over an hour and nothing had happened. The black buggy I'd swiped to take Tracy home in was down at Headquarters, and I'd since picked up my Cad where I'd left it before visiting Narda's sunrise services what seemed like days before. Apparently nobody had paid any attention to it where it had been parked; at least it didn't blow up when I started it.

  I looked at my watch. Almost eleven o'clock Sunday night. It had been quite a day. I was starting to wonder if maybe staking out at the IW temple hadn't been a waste of time, but I decided to give it another half hour.

  I didn't have to wait that long. In less than ten minutes, a banged-up little coupe raffled down Silver Lake Boulevard from the direction of town and turned in the graveled drive alongside the temple. About all I could see was that there was one guy alone inside it. I patted the little .32 automatic in my pocket, wondering if Sam's boys had got out to Aloha Street in time to pick up the twin I'd left sprawled out there with his dead brother. If they hadn't, there wasn't much doubt that one Seipel was gunning for one Shell Scott. It wasn't a particularly happy thought.

  The coupé stopped halfway down the drive and a guy got out. I was too far away to get a good look, but it seemed as if he was carrying something in his hand. He walked to a door in the side of the house and was let inside immediately.

  I slipped out of the car and trotted across the street and down the drive. Opposite the house, on the far side of the driveway, was the clump of thick bushes and tall eucalyptus trees I'd noticed on my first visit there. I left the drive, went into the bushes, and squatted down where I'd be hidden, but had a good view of the door the guy had gone in. The car was only about ten feet from me.

  I'd no more than got settled when the door opened again and the guy came out. In the brief splash of light as the door opened, I saw the turbaned, black-robed Narda framed in the doorway for a second before he shut the door. The guy climbed into his coupé, went in reverse out into the street, and started back the way he'd come.

  I'd sure learned a lot. I was really sleuthing. I knew from nothing.

  I sprinted bac
k to my car, slipped it into gear, and followed the bouncing taillight up ahead. Twenty minutes later he turned off Hollywood Boulevard into a parking lot beside the Cinema Hotel. I ducked into an empty parking spot about fifty feet before I reached the lot, got out, and started walking down the sidewalk. He came out of the lot just before I reached it and I got a good look at him. I'd never seen him before. He was a kid in his twenties, nice-looking, about five-eleven or maybe six feet. He was wearing dark slacks, a vivid sport coat, and a multicolored sport shirt buttoned at the throat. He turned and walked up the steps of the Cinema Hotel. Me too. A sign out front said, "No Vacancies."

  He paused inside the door and lit a cigarette. I walked up to the desk.

  "Good evening," I said. "Any vacancies?"

  The clerk took a mangled pencil out of his mouth and said, "Nup." Then he looked past me. "Hi, Jord." He reached into one of the pigeonholes behind him, pulled out the key to 316, and tossed it to the kid I'd been tailing. He went on up the stairs.

  I said to the clerk, "Thanks. You've been a great help."

  "Nothin'," he mumbled, the pencil back in his mouth.

  "Mind if I take the load off my feet for a minute?"

  "Nup."

  I sat down on a couch and waited for ten minutes to go by. I wanted the kid to be relaxed, maybe even in bed, when I went up.

  At eleven-forty I glanced over at the clerk. His back was to me and he was reading the late edition of the Examiner. He didn't even budge when I got up and quietly walked across the floor and upstairs.

  I knocked softly on the door of 316.

  Springs squeaked inside, then a voice on the other side of the door said, "What is it?"

  I didn't say anything. I knocked again.

  The door opened about halfway and the kid stood looking out at me. He had on a brown robe and his hair was rumpled. A partly filled highball glass was in his right hand. I walked right inside, past him, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  "What the devil goes on here?" he exploded. "Just who the hell do you think you are?"

  I still didn't say anything. I looked him over. He wasn't much over twenty-four or twenty-five and he was a nice, pleasant-looking guy. I couldn't figure where he fitted into a setup like the Inner World bunch.

  He came over and stood in front of me, left hand jammed into the pocket of his robe. "I don't know what you want, mister," he said quietly, "but I do know I don't like people busting in on me." He looked me up and down. "I don't know if I can toss you out on your ear or not, but if you don't tell me what you're doing here, I'm sure gonna try."

  I peered up at him. "You don't look like a hired killer. You don't look like any I ever saw."

  His eyes bugged at me. "What the hell are you talking about?" He laughed a little, then sobered. "Hired killer? You kidding?"

  I shook my head. "Uh-uh. That was my first guess. You don't keep very good company, friend."

  He pulled up a chair and sat down in it. "Will you please gimme the score? You don't make any sense at all. Who are you, anyway?"

  "Scott. Shell Scott. I'm—"

  "The hell. I know you. Heard about you, I mean. Got anything to prove it?"

  I tossed him my wallet and he looked through it and tossed it back to me. "This is good," he chuckled. "I'll be damned. Maybe I can use it." He chuckled some more.

  "It's not funny, friend. I followed you into town from Silver Lake Boulevard. I saw you go in that phony temple and I tailed you back here. I'm curious to know what you've got to do with an outfit like Inner World."

  "Is that all?" He took a swallow at his drink and grinned. "This is gonna kill you. I'm a Writer, Scott. Jordan Arthur Brent, that's me. You never heard of me, but I'm Narda's thunder."

  Well, well. He started making a little sense. I said slowly, "There's been at least one murder that I know about and a couple more tries, not to mention a kidnapping and God knows what else. And that Narda you mentioned so casually is mixed up in all of it some way."

  "Murder!" He stared at me. "On the level?"

  "On the level. And if you're pulling my leg with this surprise act, I won't forget about it."

  He took a long breath and blew it out through his lips. "Good God Almighty," he breathed, "I could use another drink. How about you?"

  I told him O.K. and he dug in a drawer, I took my hand out of my coat pocket when he came up with a bottle, not a gun. A bottle of bonded bourbon, yet. I warmed to this guy. He said, "You'll have to take water, Scott. Nothing else here."

  Yes, sir, a prince of a fellow, this Brent.

  He got another glass from the bathroom and mixed a couple of healthy highballs. He handed me one, then sat down again in front of me.

  "Honest to Christ," he said, "you knocked me for a loop. Bring me up to date, huh?"

  "First, what were you doing out at Narda's tonight?"

  "Like I told you, I'm a writer. Wanna see my rejection slips? The hell with it. Anyway, I fell into this deal. I scribble off a bunch of guff about 'the mind is all,' and 'I will take you by your little hand, madame,' and for that I get fifty bucks per copy. And no rejection slips. Softest touch I ever saw. How you think I got this bourbon? Saturday Evening Post? Nope, old holy Narda, that's how."

  "That what you were doing out there tonight?"

  "Fact. Took him out a speech. A beauty. Listen to this. 'Disciples, Disciples—'"

  "Never mind. I've been out there."

  "Yeah? Pretty good, huh? When'd you dig it?"

  "This morning. Never mind that. What else do you know about Narda or his racket?"

  "Racket is right. Did you ever see such stuff? He must be coining the dough, though. Trouble is, Scott, I don't know much about it. All I do is write the stuff and take it out there at a certain time, prearranged. Always the same way: Knock on the door, give Narda the stuff, collect my fifty bucks. And by the way, for the love of Pete, keep it under your hat. That's one of the reasons I get the fifty—keep my mouth shut. You kind of surprised me, and besides, you're sort of a cop, so I thought it'd be all right." He walked over to the dresser and dug a fifty-dollar bill out of his wallet. "Look at that," he said, and planted a big kiss on Grant's whiskers. "Love it. Love it. Hey! You're not gonna mess this deal up, are you?"

  "Maybe. If I'm lucky I am. Look, you might be able to help me. Anything you know about Narda or his gang might help. How about it?"

  He thought a minute. "I'm afraid I don't know much."

  "What did you mean, prearranged? You said you go out there at a prearranged time."

  "Well, they call me when they want some new stuff and tell me to come around on such and such a date at a certain hour exactly. Like tonight it was eleven o'clock."

  "Any idea why?"

  "Uh-uh. Unless they don't want me messing up a conversion or something. Anyhow, they always give me a time. That's all I know."

  "Who calls you?"

  "Narda usually. Sometimes that babe of his."

  "Babe of his?"

  "Yeah. The one that's always making goo-goo eyes at him like he's really got it."

  "I think I know the one you mean," I said. "Loren."

  "Yeah. That's the one. Course, I don't know anything, but times I been out there when they were together, they both looked at each other like they were sick at the stomach. Never lay a hand on each other, though. Not while I was around, anyway."

  "Anxious for you to leave, though, huh?"

  He took a big pull at his drink, made a face, then said, "I thought about that, Scott. But they're funny together. Long looks and all that sort of thing, but the way they act, I'd bet a buck he's never laid a hand on her. Platonic, that's the word."

  "Platonic."

  "Uh-huh. I make it a point to notice people, Scott. That's my business—kind of like it's yours, I guess, only in a little different way. Yes, sir, I'd bet a buck."

  "O.K. How'd you fall into this job? Narda hire you? And who is the guy?"

  "Don't know who he is. Seems like nobody knows. Just Narda's all
there is. Funny how I got the job. Here I am with no checks coming in. Maybe once in two, three months. Really hard up. Well, I did some odd jobs for folding money, and one of them was a publicity job for this little night- club. The old gal liked it so well that about a month later here she comes with a proposition and gives me the address of old Narda."

  "This gal," I said, just as if I didn't have the faintest idea. "Who was this gal?"

  "Don't remember her name, but she was the most God-awful old bag I ever saw in my life."

  I let that seep in. The "most God-awful old bag I ever saw" could be nobody but Mrs. Margaret Remorse. Enter Maggie again. I said, "This night, club. Could it have been a little dive called El Cuchillo?"

  "Yeah!" He snapped his fingers. "I'd forgotten—so long ago. Now how the devil did you know that?"

  I didn't explain. Instead I asked him, "How long ago was this—when you started the stuff for Narda?"

  "Let's see…about a year back. Yeah, almost exactly a year now."

  "And you don't have any idea who this guy is that calls himself Narda?"

  "Nope. I went out to see him. Him in his fancy robes and turban—who's he think he's kidding? Always decked out like a sultan. Anyway, we gab a little and he tells me he wants speeches—you know, you heard one. He tells me about what he wants, then he tells me what I'm to get paid and he's got a deal so fast it must have made him dizzy. Fifty bucks. Man!"

  "How often you take him this stuff?"

  He shook his head. "Not much any more, damn it. At the first, I did a whole flock of the things. Thirty of 'em. Christ, that was fifteen hundred bucks. I'm still using it. Now it's only once, maybe twice a month. Hell, they can use the same ones over and over. The suckers don't know the difference. Besides, he gets a new bunch—class, I guess you'd call it—about every month. 'Novitiates,' he said they were. They graduate or something."

  Something else was puzzling me. "How's he make any money? I didn't see any collection plates."

  "Must have been a new bunch—first time. He usually starts them off on a Sunday. About every fourth Sunday. I wrote him some special tripe for those deals. I've been to a few of the things. Don't worry, the old collection plate comes out soon enough. When you're hooked good. He does all right."