Im not going to hug and kiss him.
Dutch looked at me and said cheerfully, Well, its not so bad, Scott. He grinned. After all, you’ve got a whole life behind you.
I scowled at his retreating back, then walked along the bar and stopped next to the ample redhead. Hello, I said. Charlene Lavel?
She was cool. Im Miss Lavel.
Im Shell Scott. May I buy you a martini? Dry?
The ice thawed. Oh, I talked to you on the phone. I thought maybe you’d seen the act last night and — wanted to get to know it better.
I laughed. I havent seen it, Miss Lavel. But wild hearses couldn’t keep me away tonight. Ill be ringside.
Charlie. Forget that Miss Lavel jazz. She looked me over and said, You can buy me that drink, Mr. Scott.
Shell.
We worked into the drinks with casual conversation, then I mentioned Webb. Since talking to me, Charlie had read about his murder, but said she knew nothing of his marriage or anything else, only what the papers had reported. And the news stories had carried only details of the murder and murder scene, not the info I’d given Farley and the Medina police.
Then Charlie said, I didn’t ask any questions about Pagan, Shell. I got to thinking of what you’d said about it could be dangerous. And just the act I do is danger enough for me.
I grinned. When I told you that, I was guessing. But Im not guessing any more. So don’t ask questions of anybody. Its enough if you tell me what you know now.
She shrugged. I don’t really know anything. Ed called me Friday night. Asked me to fill in for Pagan.
He say anything about why she couldn’t finish her month?
No. Just that I’d have to be ready the next night. Wanted me for the midnight show Friday, but I couldn’t make it. He also said he’d pay me as much for the two-week fill-in as for the whole month of September. Another five thousand — that was all I needed to hear.
The rest of it was merely an echo of what I’d already heard from Dutch. No news of Pagan since then. Charlie didn’t much like Ed Grey, but she sure liked ten thousand dollars.
That Eds a little too smooth, she said. Then she smiled at me. I like a few rough edges on a man.
Whats Grey like? Around you, and the girls, I mean.
Slick as oil. I can tell you that much after being up here two days. Never comes right out with anything, not in so many words. But you cant miss the message. I mean, he doesnt reach out and grab you. But you always think hes going to.
Hes married, isnt he?
Yes, but I don’t think it bothers him. I guess when they said I do he put the ring in her nose. I hear shes a little mouse. Don’t get me wrong, Ed hasnt really pulled anything with me. I just know he would if I unlocked the door. She smiled. Womans intuition maybe.
I looked at my watch. I’d better try to get a table for the show, Charlie. I’ve got a hunch . . . I stopped. The last thing shed said stuck in my mind. What was that about unlocking the door? Figure of speech?
No. I guess you wouldnt know about that. She finished her Martini. When the girls from the magazine first started here, the good dressing rooms were all in use — we were something new, you know, in addition to the acts already here. So they fixed up a big beautiful room for us, best of them all. Real star stuff. Next to Eds office — I think it was part of his office once. Anyway, theres a connecting door. She grinned. That’s the one I keep locked.
Uh-huh. I wondered how many of the other girls had kept it locked.
I thanked Charlie for her help and said I’d see her later.
Youll see me, all right, she said grinning.
Before nine oclock I’d asked for Ed Grey a couple of times and been told he wasn’t at the club yet; and I had a table in the Arabian Room. But it was not, as I had so optimistically told Charlie my table would be, at ringside. It was way the hell in back and off to the side. I had a feeling that the show was in Las Vegas and I was sitting in Reno. Bills peeking from my palm had no effect on the captain; there was nothing he could do at this late hour, he said.
I went out to the Cad, in the luggage compartment of which I keep numerous items of equipment useful in my work. The item useful tonight was a small pair of binoculars which folded up into a small box about the size and shape of a cigarette case. I dropped it into my pocket, went back to my table in Reno, and ordered dinner.
Dinner was fair, the service threatening, and the show was great. I finished eating before the first segment of Charlies act, and ordered coffee. Then Charlie came on. Her first bit was simple. She merely took off her clothes. Strike the merely.
The gimmick was that she started the act wearing street clothes — trim gray business suit and white blouse, high-heeled shoes and nylons, pink underthings — and the action took place in what looked much like a normal well-furnished bedroom. A gal doing a strip, taking off the fancy outfits you see in burlesque clubs, prancing about the stage and emitting high-pitched noises the while, that is one thing. But a luscious, healthy, marvelously stacked gal disrobing in her bedroom, that is another. In effect we were all turned into Peeping People, watching Charlene Lavel take off her clothes in her bedroom. Only, somehow, it was legal.
Came a moment when Charlie was clad only in the briefest of pink step-ins, and it was clear that soon they were going to be step-outs. When she placed her hands at their top, sort of dilly-dallying around with them in horrendously titillating fashion, I got out my little collapsible binoculars.
I felt pretty sure about Charlie already; but what it boiled down to now was freckles. Charlies back was to the audience, though it seems doltish to refer to the view Charlie presented as her back, and her hands moved on the pink nylon top of the step-ins.
Down they went, down, down they slid . . . then just a bit more dilly-dallying . . . and down, down. . . . all . . . the . . . way down. She stepped from the pink wisp of cloth, stood erect and stretched as if yawning. But you can bet nobody else was yawning. Then she bent forward to pick up the step-ins from the floor.
I was madly twirling the focusing dial on my binoculars. Something was wiggling up there. Zoom, there it was! Just a bit blurred yet, then sharp — and blurred again. Too far! I twirled the knurled dial back. Ah! I had it. Never before had I realized how immensely powerful these little bits of binoculars were. From about four inches away I searched for freckles. Not a one, not a one. Good old Charlie! I mentally cried. I knew she was a good one. No freckles on Charlie.
It seemed suddenly brighter. I thought maybe my eyes had busted, but then I heard a whooping sound from very near. I realized Charlie was no longer in my binoculars and glanced toward the whoop, and wished I was no longer in my binoculars.
Two tables away a fat, lard-faced guy was pointing at me and whooping something. Heads at other tables turned. People looked at me and appeared to be greatly amused.
I snapped my binoculars shut and, since the thing does look a bit like a cigarette case, snatched at it as if plucking cigarettes from it. It was no use. I wasn’t fooling anybody. I looked guilty. I felt guilty. Hell, I was guilty.
An uneasy moment; it got worse. Because of the pointing and such, heads had turned, and one of the heads was at a table next to the wall. Not far from me.
It was a man, smooth-faced, impeccably dressed, sitting with a shapely platinum blonde. Ed Grey. He was lifting a bite of food to his mouth and when his eyes fell on me he got a look as of sudden stabbing pains. As if he’d swallowed the fork.
I dropped the binoculars into my pocket, got up and walked to Grey’s table. On the way I passed the lard-faced guy and said casually, Were you calling me?
He didn’t say anything. But Ill bet it was a long, long time before he whooped. Then Ed Grey was looking up at me. Composed. Pleasant Charming.
Mr. Scott, isnt it?
Yeah. But Danny Ax didn’t tell you.
He was hard to ruffle, but
that ruffled him. His face wrinkled, but he ironed it out. What do you want, Scott?
I want to talk to you.
We cant talk here.
I didn’t mean here.
He looked at his half-empty plate, then threw his napkin on top of it. Lets go to my office.
The platinum blonde spoke querulously, But, Eddy, you cant go off and leave —
Oh, shut up.
I grinned at her. Parting is such sweet sorrow —
Knock it off, Scott. Grey was losing his usual air of affability. That was fine with me.
He stalked off. I turned to follow him as the platinum blonde, still bugging me with her big eyes, said, What in the hell did you say?
I waved at her and followed Ed Grey. I wasn’t about to let him talk to one or a dozen of his boys while my back was turned. Another brief act had been concluded and now Charlie was back on stage again, doing something. Even so, I didn’t look. Charlie, after all, would be here for another six weeks. And that was six weeks more than I could be sure of. I kept my eyes on Grey.
He walked through the big main room to the clubs rear, across a hallway, and into a spacious office, dark carpet on the floor, walnut-paneled walls, leather chairs and a small brown desk with a padded swivel chair behind it. On my right was another door, now closed, probably the one leading into the girls dressing room.
Grey sat down behind the desk and I took a chair in front of it. Ed Grey was close to six feet tall, maybe an inch less, slim. Straight brown hair lay flat on his head and a neatly trimmed brown mustache adorned his upper lip. His eyes had the hard, shiny and glassy look, of cheap artificial eyes, and were an odd bloodshot brown like curdled Coca-Cola. He wore a dark brown suit and a beige tie. His tie clasp and the too-big links in his shot-forward French cuffs looked like, and probably were, solid gold.
He said, What do you want?
You know what I want. I just came here to talk to you about it.
Tell me more.
Start with Danny.
I don’t know any Danny.
Not any more you don’t. Keep sending friends like that to see me and youll lose friends fast. If Im lucky.
Lucky. He sneered. I’ve heard that word a lot around here.
Not from me you havent. The Danny is — was — Danny Ax.
He shrugged. So?
Try Slobbers OBrien then.
I don’t know any . . . what did you say his name was?
You know him. He works for you.
The hell he does. You got it wrong this time.
He spoke vehemently, positively. I wondered if I could be wrong. I said, Lets talk about Pagan Page then.
It was a shot in the dark. It landed. I couldn’t tell if it did any damage, but it stung him a little. He leaned forward sharply, one hand sliding flat on the desktop. Then he settled back in his chair. Pagan. Now theres a beautiful girl. Wish she could have finished her month. Supposed to be here all during August, you know.
Yeah, I know. Why isnt she?
You’ve got me. She didn’t say, just told me she was leaving. Next I knew she was gone. Had to scramble to get Charlie in. He paused, the hard brown eyes on me. If you just came here to talk big and tough, I’ve still got time to finish my meal. So —
That was as far as he got. The door behind me opened and somebody came in fast. I looked around as the man walked up to the desk and leaned over it, saying, Boss, Willie just told me he seen Shell —
He turned and lamped me and his mouth dropped open.
Uh-huh. Slobbers OBrien.
He was called Slobbers largely because his lips were kind of loose on his chops. In fact, they looked as if they were going to fall off. His expression said that he couldn’t get two points on an IQ test without cheating. His head didn’t come to a point, but his neck came to a lump. Slobbers OBrien who didn’t work for Ed Grey. No, Ed didn’t even know a Slobbers OBrien.
Slobbers gasped hugely when he saw me. Then he gasped again, much more hugely, as I came out of the chair and landed my right fist in his stomach. As he doubled over, I bounced a high hard one off his cheekbone. He went backward flailing his arms. There was a sharp sound on my right. Grey was digging into a desk drawer.
I jumped around the desk, got next to him as he yanked out a small pistol. I smacked it aside with the back of my left hand, and put everything I had into a right to the side of his head. I was a little off balance, without real leverage when I swung, but it was enough to slam him against the back of his swivel chair and send the chair over with him.
Grey sprawled on the carpet, rolled over slowly, movements not coordinated, as feet thumped in the hallway outside. I swung around as two men came in. They were in a hurry, but there were no guns in sight yet. I yanked out my .38, stepped back to the corner of the room where I could cover them all. I waited. No one spoke. Apparently there werent going to be more reinforcements.
So I said to the guy farthest from me, Shut the door, friend.
He pushed it closed with his foot. Grey got shakily to his feet, leaned forward with his hands on the desk. A discolored blotch was already showing high on his left cheek. He was going to have a beautiful black eye. Beautiful to me, not Ed Grey. He stared at me, ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth.
Let me introduce you to Slobbers OBrien, I said to him.
Slobbers was still prone, unconscious.
Grey didn’t say anything. I could see his cheek muscles moving as he shoved his jaws together.
The other men werent moving at all. I recognized one of them. A mean, deadly little hoodlum called Wee Willie Wallace. The name was misleading; it sounded harmless. I knew a lot about the history of Wee Willie. He was only about four inches over five feet tall, and scrawny. A little man, but the kind of guy who sends chills up and down your spine.
He was about fifty years old, white and unhealthy-looking, the skin of his face very smooth and an odd ugly white, as if blanched and peeled like an almond. He combed his thin black hair straight back, flat on his small head. The hair looked dirty. He had white flecks like dandruff in his thin eyebrows, and the eyes of a corpse. Willie was a professional killer. Not muscle, not the lead pipe or extortion or clever con for Willie; he was a specialist. He killed people. He liked it.
Wee Willie Wallace was a classic case for Krafft-Ebing or Kinsey, Stekel or Freud. He had little use for women. He detested dirty jokes, pornography, conversations about sex. But he truly enjoyed killing, the act of killing, enjoyed it in a most peculiar way. Stated simply, whenever Willie killed a man he achieved a sexual climax. The blunt phallic bullet penetrating living flesh, ripping arteries and smashing bone, held for Willie the warped intoxication of rape. He’d worked for half a dozen mobs to my knowledge. Now he was working for Ed Grey.
The other man who’d come in with him was a stranger. I kind of wished they were all strangers. And I decided to go. I’d learned all I was going to learn here anyway. At least for now. I waved my gun toward the wall and Wee Willie and the other guy moved over there quietly.
Then, finally, Grey spoke. Take a good look at this bastard, he said, and his voice was like ice breaking up in Alaska. Pass the word around. Next time you see him, no matter where it is, kill him.
I started wondering how I’d get outside. Once on the road, in the Cad, I’d take my chances. But I wanted out in the open, not cooped up in here with no telling how many more of Grey’s guns handy. I looked around the office. As far as I could tell, the only way Grey could get in touch with people elsewhere in the club was by using the phone on his desk.
So I said to him, Pull that phone cord loose.
You go to hell, punk.
Ed, I said quietly, moving the gun around until it was pointed straight at him. Im not like you. I need a very good reason for shooting a guy. You’re not there yet. But you’re very close. The phone, Ed.
He burned. For a while he didn’t move, just burned and glared at me. Then with a convulsive movement he grabbed the wire, yanked it free. I stepped to the door. All of you stay in here for a while, I said.
Then I jumped into the hall, slammed the door shut. And stood there. I even moved a little closer to the door, gun held not quite six feet up its front. It took about two seconds. Then the door was yanked open and Wee Willie Wallace started to leap into the hallway. A snub-nosed .38 revolver was in his hand, but it wasn’t pointed at me. It wasn’t going to point at me.
He stopped so suddenly his feet slipped and he cracked into the doorframe. I had to lower my Colt to get it pointed at his head, but that took no time at all. Willie froze.
He started looking even sicker than usual. He loved killing, yes; but the idea of getting killed, no. When he’d first jumped toward the hallway his lips had been loosely pulled apart, a fleck of saliva on the lower one, and there had been something like a light in his eyes. But the light went out, those eyes actually seemed to die. The eyes of a corpse get a kind of gray film over them, sink into the skull; that’s what seemed to happen to Willies eyes. He rolled them sideways in his pasty white face, sideways toward the bore of my gun.
I said, You want to be with Danny, don’t you?
He didn’t quite turn green, but he changed color.
Back in there, I said. And stay in there.
Willies breath hissed through tightly pressed lips like gas leaking from a balloon. He backed inside, slammed the door shut.
I put my gun away and strolled through the club. Snatches of conversation floated to my ears. A young guy and girl were sitting at a table. She reached over and hit him lightly on the lips with her fingers. He, agonized: Hey, you hurt me on the damn mouth. She, shocked: Oh! You said a naughty word. Ill never speak to you again. He, repentant: Lets have another drink, honey. She: Oh, what the hell. And at another table, two men talking, one saying, Then, just as I started getting hot, I went broke.
I reached the front door, went through it. The doorman nodded at me, and smiled. I headed for my Cad.
Dance with the Dead (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 9