There was only a fraction of a second into which all the gonging and twanging and vibration were crowded, but for that moment of goofy-time everything was bright, crisp and dear. I saw the vibrations, visible in thin pink soup around me, people in motion, colors and bright dots dancing.
And, too, for that split second of eternity, I saw — ten fannies.
I thought: WOW!
They were all racing about, racing past me and away from me and around me. They were everywhere — but still they all seemed to be escaping while at the same time going every which way. Perhaps that is a normal characteristic of fannies escaping — and these were violently escaping — but whatever the reason, it was a grand, a memorable, an almost appalling sight.
And then the blackness.
But I had bare time for the wisp of a thought. A glancing, fading, barely perceptible thought. And it was: if even now a thick bullet was slowly crashing through the convolutions of my brain and this grand sight was to be my last sight on earth, then so be it. I couldn’t kick.
I knew somehow, even without memory of anything but these last few days, that if Shell Scott had to go . . . this was the way Shell Scott would want to go.
Twenty
I don’t know how long it was before I realized I hadn’t died and gone to the Hippy Hunting Ground. I wasn’t very live, either, but at least life still flickered. Whatever time it took was a kind of montage, disconnected sights and sounds and thoughts and smells all jumbled together into a phantasmagoric oneness.
There was the smell of anesthetics. The sound of voices. Pressures and dull pains. Delirium, too. And once something almost beautiful happened. Almost beautiful because it was so ugly.
It was like a living picture painted by Dali with touches of Blake and El Greco. It was a ballet in an open theater, on a green landscape flat and eerie like the Ancient Mariners rotting sea. I was at stage center, lights blinding me. In from the wings danced Slobbers OBrien and Biff Boff in red leotards, pirouetting as gracefully as two elephants tickling each other. Both of them carried huge saps. The huge saps were Wee Willie Wallace and Danny Ax. Slobbers and Biff spun me around, swatting me on the head with the big saps.
Somewhere in the green landscape a thousand-piece orchestra played the Anvil Chorus: Clang . . . clang . . . clang-clang clang-clang, and Slobbers said, Dere playin our song! as he and Biff swatted me with Willie and Danny.
Suddenly Ed Grey appeared, slim and horrible in white tights, performing a magnificent entrechat while carrying a machine gun with which he shot me. Every time one of the bullets hit me I died, then stood there and laughed at him, and another bullet would hit me and I’d die again and laugh, over and over. Others came on stage. Webley Alden, Dutch, lovely girls in high-heeled shoes and turtleneck sweaters, a dancing carved-wood Pan, and more.
And then the worst thing happened, the really shocking part of it all. I was myself, at stage center; but I was also, at the same time, the rest of them, all the rest of them. I was the audience, watching the ballet, I was Ed Grey and Danny Ax and Slobbers and Willie and Biff and the women and Webb, all of them and myself as well. Mercifully, it went away, melted into the green landscape.
Immediately after that, it seemed, I was awake. Alert and aware. Dimly remembered were moments when I had been awake before. I had talked to nurses, doctors — policemen. Even a sergeant named Farley who had some sort of apology to make and who seemed in a state of great unease. And numerous lovelies, I recalled.
Some other things, in talks during those moments of wakefulness, had been made clear. Ed Grey was dead, I knew. But he’d taken an hour or so to die and in that time confessed to killing Pagan. From her dressing room next to Grey’s office she had overheard Grey’s end of the phone conversation when Desmond called him from Hawaii for help in setting up the marriage con; after that Pagan had, at every opportunity, listened on purpose, and had been listening when Desmond phoned Grey on the night he shot Webb. She had foolishly tried to use her information to squeeze money out of Grey. Foolishly because, being Grey, he’d seen no other way out and had killed her. He had strangled Pagan Page. I thought of my ballet, and wondered if they were dancing together, his fingers buried in her throat, her eyes glittering like diamonds.
Somebody had told me, too, that Orlando had indeed been in debt to Grey, to the tune of one hundred and forty thousand dollars. For his help in setting up the marriage con and covering up after the murder, and for trying to eliminate me, Grey demanded the entire amount of the ransom from Orlando, and got it.
The judge turned out to be a judge after all: Manny The Judge Mack, who’d picked up his legal knowledge in prison libraries. An old con man named Doc Wyatt had given Webb and Raven their medical exams and blood tests, somehow managing not to slaughter them in the process. Ed Grey, through his contacts, had arranged the entire marriage fraud, complete with a genuine marriage certificate which was signed by Judge Mack but never filed, so that at every step it had seemed normal and legal. He’d almost earned the money Orlando handed over to him. And a fat lot of good it was going to do him.
There was another hazily remembered scene, too. Soon after my admission to the hospital Dr. Paul Anson had come to see me, and in the first few minutes remarked that he bore glad tidings.
You’re a father, he said.
WHAT!
Relax. Sort of. You’re the father of twenty-two —
Twenty-two! Oh!
— neons.
Who is Neons?
Fish, you fool. Your fish. You still don’t remember?
Of course not. We went through that once before. But I do recall the fish in my apartment. Ah, fish. Oh, boy.
Well, you’ve been trying for years to breed neons. And they’ve hatched, or whatever they do. I put the parents back into the community tank, and Ill keep dropping your infusoria tablets and egg yolk in with the babies till you can take over.
Fine and dandy. Grand. Oh, boy. Fish.
And Ill ask Dr. Bohrmann to come over and take a look at you.
After he left I had lain in a state of near shock, cold skin, pulse weak and thready. When the nurse came in I had been mumbling, Fish . . . fish . . .
But that had been quite a while ago. Now another nurse came in. She smiled and asked me if I wanted something to eat. Suddenly I realized I was hungry. Soon there was food before me. But I had less strength than I’d thought, and at first I ate so daintily that half the time I missed the bite. But in a few more days I was chewing rare prime ribs with all the old verve. By then it was time for me to leave.
The day I walked down the hospital steps I stopped for a moment, looked around me at my small chunk of world. The sky had never before seemed so limitless and blue, the air so clean and good.
We strolled along, arm in arm, and for a minute or two I let my thoughts wander back over the past month.
It had been a good month, all in all. My neons were thriving, and had good color now. Raven McKenna and Orlando Desmond were in the can, awaiting trial. All the appropriate people were in jail, and the story was out of the headlines now. But that magnificent photo of The Ten had actually made the three-page spread in Wow! Possibly the issue would yet be jerked off the stands, but publishing history had been made.
I’d seen Blackie a time or two, and that had of course been fun. Referring to the night of the Anniversary Party she had said, Shell, you were so brave! and I had replied, You were so squaw! and wed let it go at that. Then there’d been interviews with some of the Wow girls, a sort of gathering up of loose ends, and that had been fun.
Life had, in a word, been fun.
But never more fun than now.
Because we were walking in scented dusk through the International Market Place in Waikiki, and the we was Loana Kaleoha and me.
The real Loana this time, the genuine article. Gorgeously Polynesian Loana, of the volcanic eyes and breasts and dev
il-red lips, of an intoxicating sweetness like honey and wine. Loana, of the golden voice and velvet eyes.
She held my arm tight, softly rounded hip brushing mine as we walked past exotic and colorful shops. I had flown in from the mainland today, found Loana at her home. Wed been together for an hour now, and I’d told her much about what had happened since wed last been here.
Now she said, I see. But why did Raven say you were Webley Alden?
That was after I told her I had amnesia, remember. I had also told her I thought I might be either Shell Scott or Webley Alden. Shed already said she was Loana and, therefore, would naturally be expected to know who I was. The reason she couldn’t tell me I was Shell is simple: that’s who I was.
Loana’s black brows lowered over the velvet eyes.
Look, I said. I was out of my skull. And Raven didn’t want me back in it. If I’d managed to get to the cops, for example, and said My names Scott and I’ve got trouble in my head, they’d soon have checked and learned that was the truth, perhaps even gotten me to a doctor for some repair. On the other hand, if I’d gone to the law and said, I’ve lost my mind, but I know one thing: Im Webley Alden, they would probably have netted me and clapped me away forever. It would sure have slowed me down, at least, and from Ravens point of view anything that slowed me down was good. Anything that helped to keep me from discovering — or re-discovering — the truth about her and her pals was good.
Loana smiled. It worked out all right, anyway.
Yeah, and the way it worked out proved the rest of it. Once I figured Orlando and Raven as the two who’d set up Webb, all I had to do was go back through everything that had happened — including Ravens act in the Pele — and fit the two of them in. Some hoods who jumped me outside a club called the Parisienne and grabbed a photo I had, a couple more muggs waiting at Webb’s home for films to arrive from Hawaii because Raven knew they’d be arriving — and so on, all the way down the line. Entering Orlando or Raven, or both, in each case — not Loana — was the only way it all fit. And it wouldnt fit any other way.
Loana said, What ever happened to that big enlargement . . . of Raven?
Oh, I still have it. Sort of a souvenir. I grinned at her. I may hang it on my bedroom wall.
Her eyes flashed. You’d better not!
I laughed, then said, You know, that photo puzzled me from the beginning. I was never able to figure out why Webb, on his wedding night, would have been talking pictures of his bride. Instead of . . . well, instead of. It seemed goofy, warped even. It just didn’t make sense as long as I tried to figure out why Webb would have done something like that. But it made sense once the night of August fourteenth became, not a normal wedding night, but part of a murder plan, mechanics engineered by the bride. Raven, of course, was responsible for that complication, too. The police got the whole story from her and passed it on to me in the hospital.
Loana looked at me oddly then. She seemed about to speak, but remained silent. I finished it up, That night Webb was quite ready to retire with unprecedented speed. But Raven wasn’t about to retire, that not being included in her and Orlando’s plans for Webb’s evening. So, pretending to a shyness she probably hadn’t felt since the age of eleven, she suggested the photographic interlude as a sort of warm-up, a prelude to more fascinating adventures — her purpose being merely to keep Webb otherwise occupied until Orlando could skulk up and shoot him.
I paused. It was fiendish. In fact, thinking about it since, I’ve decided its the most fiendish murder I ever heard of. Well, if that idea hadn’t worked, our bright little gal would no doubt have thought of something else, but Webb went along with it — although I’d guess he thought it not quite cricket. As an added precaution Raven made sure her face wasn’t in the picture, even though she naturally didn’t expect to leave any film in the camera — a precaution, incidentally, which almost worked. The whole thing worked, up to a point. And it would have worked all the way if I’d arrived at Webb’s five minutes later.
We walked on to Don the Beachcombers Bora Bora Lounge and went inside, sat at the Dagger Bar. Loana ordered a Cherry Blossom and I ordered, after slight hesitation, a Puka Puka.
Loana told me what shed done on that night when I’d clunked my head. Under the peculiar circumstances, she knew neither of us would want to be identified and questioned if we could possibly avoid it. So, naturally appalled by what was either my clumsiness or stupidity, when I lit out over the landscape shed gathered up most of my belongings and flown.
Sipping her Cherry Blossom she glanced sideways at me and said, I went home. I hoped you’d phone, but I certainly didn’t want to talk to anybody else. The next day I noticed two men watching my house. Ugly-looking men. After what you’d told me about gangsters hunting you, it . . . frightened me.
Yeah, while I was coming to and going out in the hospital the police told me what they’d gotten from Grey and the others. Once Raven had told me she was Loana, it wouldnt have done for me to run into the real Loana, you. So, after another call to Ed Grey, a couple of his tough boys were dispatched from the Pele gang here to grab you. Maybe just to hang onto you . . . maybe worse.
She shivered. They actually started trying to get into the house, and that frightened me. I went out the back door, into my car.
She said they’d chased her for a mile or so, but knowing the roads well shed gotten away, and had then spent a few days with friends on the windward side of Oahu. By then I’d made my appearance at the Anniversary Party and she was no longer in danger.
Loana looked at me and said, You must hate them, Shell. All of them, after what they did.
No . . . not really. From somewhere came fragments of that goofy dream or delirium I’d had, the weird ballet. I don’t hate them, I said. I . . . just don’t like the way they dance.
She didn’t understand, and I didn’t try to explain.
A little later we were outside again in the Market Place. The flame of a Hawaiian torch close by turned the darkness red. Our white-turbaned waiter took out his big key, unlocked the big padlock at the base of the Banyan Tree. People moved around us, colorful lights seemed everywhere. A few yards away traffic purred along Kalakaua Avenue.
Loana put a hand on my arm. I looked down at her. The lovely lustrous hair was long, heavy against her shoulders. She wore a smooth-fitting holomuu, a red hibiscus blossom in her black hair, a lei of vanda orchids around her neck.
Shell, she said softly. You havent mentioned anything about it. And I’ve been almost afraid to ask.
Ask away.
Well, all the things that happened before — before you fell . . . She glanced past me, up toward the little tree house. You keep saying somebody told you this happened or that happened. Or you found out in the hospital. Or you figured it out, it was the way it had to be. She moistened her lips, looked up at me seriously. Don’t you . . . remember?
I started to speak, but she was going on in a rush, Don’t you remember being here before, with me . . . in the tree house and all . . . Are you still —
I interrupted her. Our waiter had the gate open, was waiting for us. And I’d given my real name when I’d made reservations for the dinner and champagne — I wasn’t going to fall out of the tree this night.
I said, They had lots of time in the hospital, Loana, to hack away at me and probe and peer and jiggle things about. And they did.
Then do you . . .
Yes, my sweet, my sweet Loana . . . I grinned at her. I remember.
Her teeth flashed white as she smiled. She looked at me for a moment longer, then turned, walked past the open gate and up the wooden steps.
And I followed Loana, happily, up into the Banyan Tree.
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 pe
rmission 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 © 1960 by Fawcett Publications, Inc.
Copyright renewed 1988 by Richard Scott Prather
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ISBN 978-1-4804-9907-2
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Dance with the Dead (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 22