Dance with the Dead (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  I left, after the crowd. Then I crossed Jeannette Duré, October, off my list.

  And put her down on another one.

  The next morning, Sunday, I woke up, after eight hours of sleep, with that glad-to-be-alive feeling. I wondered why for a bit, then realized it was because I wasn’t dead.

  My head hurt, my knee hurt — I hurt in several places. But I was alive and ready to go again. No bullet holes were in me. Today, I thought, to the Algiers. To Charlene Lavel — and Ed Grey. But first I had a chore.

  That dead face I’d seen in the alley last night, I had seen somewhere when it was alive, I felt sure. And if the man was, as I also felt sure, a hoodlum of any local note or renown, then his chops should be in the Mugg File down at the LAPD Along with Slobbers OBrien.

  So after a breakfast of coffee and sticky mush, I headed down the Hollywood Freeway toward L.A. and the Los Angeles Police Building. It took me three hours, flipping the big pages of the Mugg Books, looking at the faces. Ugly faces, handsome faces, every kind of faces. And then I saw him. The guy in the alley.

  His name was Danny Ax. Twice arrested for homicide, twice acquitted. Arrested on ADW, acquitted. Assault, charges dropped. One bit at San Quentin for shooting a man in the stomach. The man lived. Danny got out in a year and a day. He wouldnt get out this time.

  And then the memory threads tied in their knot. I remembered where I’d seen him, where I’d heard the name. Las Vegas. Supposed to work for Ed Grey.

  I’ve always liked the drive from L.A. to Vegas. Through only a few towns after San Bernardino, but a lot of flat, dry desert, much of it on four-lane freeways. Then, like a concrete and neon oasis: Fabulous Las Vegas.

  That’s what they call it there. And theyre right. It is fabulous. The town is lousy with hoods, but there are a lot of good, clean people there, too — most of them, in fact. The citizens of the city are like citizens anywhere else, with kids, schools, a whole raft of churches, up in the morning and to bed at night like the rest of us. But the town never sleeps. The clubs stay open, the wheels spinning. All night long the money pours over the tables; the white, powdered breasts spill over the low-cut gowns; the liquor flows over the bars. Old women play slot machines for hours, wearing gloves to protect their withered hands.

  But you cant help getting caught up in the pleasant tension, the telepathy of excitement, the sense of big things doing, something always going on. I don’t gamble much; in a goofy kind of way I like to earn my dough, not win it. But I love to stand at the wheels or crap tables, placing a bet now and then, and drinking in the pulse of the town, smelling it, feeling it at the base of my spine.

  I had a little different feeling this time, as I came over the flat desert down the long road that ends in the Strip. A tightness at the base of my skull and in the muscles of my back. There was too little I knew about what was going on. Why the kidnaping . . . murder . . . shots at me. And that alley play last night.

  The case was getting more complex, not the simple affair it had at first appeared to be. I had by now either talked to by phone or seen nine of the Wow girls. All of them had denied any knowledge of Webb’s marriage. So either the girl I was after was one of the three I’d been unable to contact — Loana Kaleoha, Dorothy Lasswell, Pagan Page — or else one of the nine others was lying. Or . . .

  An odd thought struck me then. Or Webb himself had been lying.

  But that didn’t make sense, and I shrugged it off. Maybe Charlene Lavel could tell me a little more. I drove past the Dunes, Sands, Flamingo. Up ahead I could see the top of the Algiers. Ed Grey’s little 500-room hideaway. Where the Wow girls wowed em.

  Let me tell you how it happened that the girls went from the pages of Wow! to the stage of the Algiers. Its a short story of now, of this year, and of Las Vegas today. Las Vegas keeps getting just a little bolder. A little more push of the customer instead of pull. A little more naked. A little harder. And the Algiers is a big part of it.

  It started when the Vegas clubs had a little war, sort of friendly. As more and more hotels went up on the Strip, competition for the tourist and gambling money got more intense. The shows in places like the Riviera, Desert Inn, El Rancho Vegas, all the rest, were what pulled the money-spenders into the clubs. The club with the best-pulling show usually pulled in the most gamblers. And that’s where the money is on the Strip, in gambling, from the gamblers.

  Soon the club owners were spending so much money for the shows, the top acts, that it would have been difficult for them to pay more without printing it themselves. An agreed-upon price ceiling went out the window fast. Show costs soared. Something else was needed. The next angle was to add something to the show itself.

  Came the Stardust Hotel — and the Lido de Paris. The shapely femmes from France.

  When the first bare-breasted French lovely cavorted out onto the Stardust stage, U.S. entertainment history was made. Bare breasts, ah . . . how to fight this? Another club followed with bare-breasted showgirls, then another. It was still good fun, but the novelty was wearing off. It wasn’t an exclusive drawing card any more. What next? Where would it all end?

  You guessed it. Ed Grey subscribed to Wow!

  When he lamped that first glorious behind beckoning so coyly and yet shockingly from the pages of Wow! a great light went off in his head. It is said that, in the presence of three witnesses, he leaped straight up in the air shouting:

  That’s it! That’s it! Fannies!

  It was thought for a while that Grey would have to be put away, be put under observation — but it was not Ed Grey that was put under observation. No, then it was that he and Webley Alden got their heads together. Came the agreement whereby for five thousand dollars a month the Wow girl would, immediately following her appearance in the magazine, when interest was at its peak, so to speak, grace the stage of Ed Grey’s Algiers.

  Well, you know how it worked out. The girls were a huge success. It became necessary to tip headwaiters as much as forty dollars for a good seat. It was a natural. Built-in publicity for both the magazine and Algiers. So far, Grey’s was the only club which featured . . . well, what Grey’s club featured. But soon, inevitably, others would invade the field. Grey didn’t have a patent on it. So in a few more months the novelty, the exclusiveness, would wear off again.

  And, I wondered: what next?

  I pulled into the curving drive before the enormous and ornate facade of the Algiers.

  I’d been here before, but only as a stop on the Strip, while roaming the town, hitting the bars and clubs. I’d even seen Ed Grey, though we hadn’t met. Always smooth, well-groomed, slim as a dancer, he moved sometimes through the rooms, looking over the house and estimating the take. He was affable, smiling, but he’d never spoken to me. He was going to speak to me this time.

  The Algiers was big, not the biggest spot on the Strip, but it had 500 rooms for guests, and offered plenty of entertainment. The big room, for the dinner crowd and main show, was the Arabian Room, which would seat over a thousand people; and there were three smaller cocktail lounges, the Casbah. African Room, and the Oran Bar. The hotels facade was modern-Vegas, a lot of rock in shades of brown and beige, vertical yard-wide strips of wood running up and down its face, sand color alternating with charcoal. A bit gaudy. But Las Vegas is a bit gaudy.

  It was about seven-thirty p.m. when I parked my Cadillac in front of the Algiers. Five minutes later I had a drink in the Oran Bar, then started looking for a guy named Dutch, one of my friends who worked the Vegas clubs. I knew he was currently here at the Algiers — more important, he had eyes and ears that didn’t miss a thing, plus the inquisitiveness and curiosity of a writer. If there was news to be had, I could get it from Dutch.

  The entire center of the Algiers was one huge oval room filled with roulette wheels, dice and blackjack tables, slot machines lining the walls — all the accouterments of easy money the hard way. The Arabian Room and smaller lou
nges all were reached from the central gambling area. In order to eat or get a drink or see a show, the customers had to pass by and among the wheels and tables on their way in, pass them again on their way out.

  And all the long way in and out they listened to the click of the little ivory roulette ball, the cry. Theres a winner! the laughter and drunken conversation of sober people, the even louder cries and whoops of drunks, the whir of the slots — the Algiers siren song. But here there were no masts to chain yourself to, and these cats were none so strong as Ulysses.

  So a lot of fun was had in the Algiers. But a lot of money was lost here, too. A lot of self-respect. A lot of wives, and husbands. A lot of dreams.

  I got a few silver dollars from a redhead at one of the change booths. Her green eyes were heavily ringed with dark pencil, thin painted lines slanting up at their corners to make them look even larger, her dress green velveteen cut very low. Her big green eyes looked tired; her big half-bare breasts looked bored. As if they’d been the life of too many parties, and known too many small deaths of mornings after. She smiled at me and said Hi, and I said Hi, and walked away.

  It started settling in my bones then. This wasn’t going to be a happy trip. The people milled around me, the wheels gleamed in the light, laughter spilled on the air. But I couldn’t shake the feeling.

  I wandered around. My silver dollars melted away, foolishly in the slot machines, a bit less foolishly on number seven at roulette. Then I spotted the guy I knew, short, square-faced, happy-go-lucky Dutch. He was dealing at one of the dice tables. I got some five-dollar chips, stepped up to the table near him.

  His fingers moved like a magicians as he stacked chips, pushed two short stacks to a winner, relaxed. He caught my eye then, raised a brow and nodded but didn’t speak.

  The stick man, wielding his long L-shaped stick expertly, scooped in the dice, passed them down to a fat man. Theyre coming out, he said.

  The next shooter was fat, but he had a pinched face and a worried expression. He didn’t look like a winner to me. Twenty dollars they don’t pass, I said, and dropped four of my chips on the Don’t Pass line.

  He rolled a nine. Then five . . . five . . . eight . . . seven,

  Seven a loser, the stick man said.

  Dutch added four more chips to mine. Buy you a drink? I said.

  Sure. He glanced at his watch. I’ve been on third base ten minutes now. Ten more and I get a twenty-minute break. How you been, boy?

  He didn’t expect an answer. I left my money on the Don’t Pass line. The next shooter rolled a four and then a seven. I picked up my eighty bucks, told Dutch I’d be in the Oran Bar, and left.

  When Dutch slid onto the black leather stool next to me he’d sloughed off his job like a snake leaving its skin. He was relaxed and grinning. Out amongst em again. Shell, you old rip?

  Business, Dutch. Im about to please Ed Gray like cyanide in his soup. You might get a little poisoned yourself just being seen with me.

  Ah, nuts to them all. I can always go back to the farm.

  It was a standard phrase of his. Except for his work here on the Strip, the only time he’d been outside the city limits of anyplace was when on his way to another city. But at least he wasn’t worried about talking to me.

  So I said, Whats with Danny Ax and Slobbers OBrien?

  Whats with em? I don’t know, chum. They hang around here to fetch and carry for Ed. Bums, both of them. I wish that Ax cat would drop dead.

  He did. Last night in an alley.

  Who what?

  I leaned on him too hard in a soft spot. He was at the moment trying to beat my brains out. Along with Slobbers and another egg. I didn’t catch his name.

  Dutch whistled softly. Then what in hell are you doin here?

  They do work for Ed Grey? Slobbers too?

  Yeah. Some work they do.

  So I’ve got to ask Ed about that.

  Ask Ed? He pulled his brows down and looked straight at me. Scott, if the squirrels around here are smart, theyll store you away for winter. Don’t let Grey’s looks fool you.

  They don’t. I knew what Dutch meant. Grey could be a nasty surprise, like breaking a tooth on a marshmallow. He didn’t look tough, but he was. His boys did jobs for him, but nothing he couldn’t do as well — or better — himself.

  I went on, How about this Pagan Page? I get the word somebody had to replace her. How come?

  I don’t know. She was here till Friday night. He thought a minute. Actually, the night before was her last show. She did the Thursday night shows, and Charlie started Saturday. Nobody did the bits Friday night.

  No word why she left so all-of-a-sudden?

  He shook his head.

  And you havent seen her around, heard anything about her since?

  Not a whisper. Maybe she and Ed had a beef. Lovers quarrel.

  Lovers? Was it like that?

  Ed is like that. He likes variety. But he gave her the orchid-and-champagne campaign, pretty trinkets — the lavish Ed Grey act. Hes good at it. It usually works.

  Did it work with Pagan?

  He rubbed a finger alongside his nose. You’ve got me. All I know is they spent a lot of time together. But Eds always spending a lot of time together — with somebody. Just so its not his wife.

  That’s right, I’d forgotten he was a married man.

  So has Ed. Dutch glanced past me. You mentioned Charlie. There she is. A lot of the gals come in about this time for a drink or two before the first show. Its at nine.

  It was just eight p.m. now. I looked toward the front of the room. A striking redhead was coming in the door. She was a big girl, naming red hair cut short, a pretty rather than beautiful face. She wore a smoothly-fitting white-nylon cocktail dress with thin rhinestone-beaded straps over her bare shoulders.

  She walked past us and down toward the other end of the bar, slid onto a stool. She was Just close enough so I could hear her say, Fix me a martini, Tom. Dry. No vermouth.

  Shows going great, Dutch said to me.

  So I’ve heard.

  No kidding, this is the biggest thing that’s hit Vegas yet. If the Arabian Room was twice as big we could fill it. Especially if we had another month like February.

  What was so special about February?

  Biggest draw we ever had, that’s all. Even bigger than the month before when that Raven dish was here with Orlando Desmond.

  Desmond? I heard he did a month or so in the club. He was here when Raven McKenna starred, huh?

  Yeah. Em-ceed and sang. Sang — he sounds like Little Bo Peep, don’t he?

  Im on your side. Tell me more about those big months.

  Raven McKenna was Wow!s Miss December, and thus would have appeared here in January. So in February it would have been Miss January. January, bang, a black-haired lovely lying nude on the black lava sands of Hawaiis Kalapana Beach, face down and a long brush of hair hiding her face. White froth of surf bubbling up her rounded brown calves. Loana Kaleoha.

  Dutch was saying, The McKenna dish was here the fourth month, when the thing was building up. It was great, all right, and the money poured in. Never better since, except for when that Hawaiian honey was here. Kalu — Kala —

  Loana.

  Yeah. Oh, brother. I’ve been here a year and a half. I’ve seen them all. But that one is not to be believed.

  It would be pretty hard to top Raven McKenna, Dutch. Or even Blackie, Sue Mayfair, if you ask me.

  He was nodding vigorously. True, true. But the prize still goes to Loana.

  This January show. Anybody notice Desmond?

  The babes, they all go for him. Even like his singing. Hes a pretty good draw himself — maybe its the way he wiggles his lips when those noises come out. But I noticed him. He dropped a lump. Several lumps.

  At your table?

  At all the tab
les. He couldn’t even hit cherries on the nickel slots.

  He drop much?

  Many Gs, I hear. Many Gs. One of the big ones.

  Pin it down.

  I’d have to guess.

  So guess.

  Maybe a hundred thou. Couldve been more. Like I said, one of the big ones.

  This was during his M.C. job here, huh?

  And since, half a dozen times. You know, they get the fever. And they always come back to get even.

  Did Desmond? Get even, I mean?

  Dutch shrugged. He mustve. When they get into Ed for that much, he takes a personal interest — and I guess you know how personal Ed can get.

  Sometimes he gets so personal he kills you. You know if he put any pressure on Desmond? That kind of pressure?

  Maybe. Those are always private conversations, chum. But he talked a time or two to Desmond I know, and the boy came out of the office looking scared white. Dutch swallowed some of his drink. That’s how come I figure Desmond must have managed to pay off. Hes still around, still pretty. Besides, he got lucky a time or two at the tables after that. Not as lucky as he was unlucky, maybe, but it probably helped.

  Did any of this happen just recently, Dutch? The last week or so? Even the last few weeks?

  No. This was all two, three months back. Desmond did a free month here about April or May. Ordinarily he’d have pulled down maybe thirty thousand for a month, but the scuttlebutt is it went to cover his losses.

  Did you see Webley Alden up here much?

  Alden? The brows came down again. I heard. That’s whats on your mind, huh?

  Part of it. A lot of it. Did Webb come around?

  Few times. Maybe he dropped some lumps, but so what? He uses gold like its brass. Did, anyway. He wouldnt have missed a ton or so. Besides, he was never one of the plungers.

  Dutch glanced at his watch. Got to go. He paused. You’re really going to play it hard with Ed?