Dead-Bang

by Richard S. Prather

  9

  As soon as I had the car in gear, I reached under the dash for the mobile phone. Bruno said, “What are you doing?”

  “Calling the cops.”

  “Could you avoid mentioning my name?”

  Right after that, Cassiday said, “Do you have to notify the police, Scott?”

  “Yeah, I have to. Besides it would be nice if about a dozen officers were handy to welcome your friends when they return to the house, don’t you think?”

  Bruno repeated, “Could you avoid mentioning my name? And, Dave’s, too, for that matter.”

  “Well, I could probably get away with it for a while. But I’d sure need some good reasons. The man I’m phoning becomes instantly suspicious when I hold out on him.” While talking I placed the call to the LAPD and my good but sometimes suspicious friend—and the Captain of Central Homicide—Phil Samson.

  “There are many excellent reasons,” Bruno said. “One is your own report of Lemming’s latest psychotic episode, plus the fact that one of the dead men in that house is André Strang. I’m sure Dru told you he is an official of the Church of the Second Coming, and a rather close associate of the Pastor’s. I think you will agree it would be best if my name—especially tonight—is not closely associated with news of Strang’s murder. Particularly such a … strange murder.”

  I broke it off as Captain Samson came on the other end of the line. “Sam?” I said. “Shell here. I don’t—”

  He broke in, and I could tell from the muffled growl that his teeth were clamped into one of his black cigars, “Shell, if you got yourself shot in the head again, my advice to you is: Bleed to death—”

  “Don’t say bleed—”

  “I’ve put in four nights in a row, overtime on the Kinson case, and I just phoned my wife to tell her I’m coming home. Immediately. You know what she said? She said, ‘Who is this calling, please?’ My happy home—”

  “Sam, I just want to report a couple of dead guys.”

  “A couple—”

  “Relax, I didn’t kill them. At least, not both—they’re both dead, I mean. And they’re in Weilton, anyway. I really don’t have much time, Sam, so here’s the dope. Address: fifteen twenty-one Fifty-eighth Street. Important, one of them was murdered by two men who left the scene approximately forty-five minutes ago. Almost surely they’ll return, but I don’t know when or why they left.”

  He started to interrupt but I kept going, gave him the descriptions I’d gotten from Bruno and Cassiday, then added, “These guys are killers, armed, and definitely dangerous. Officers should approach the scene with care. Suspects are almost certain to return later, possibly even before officers arrive at the address. So have the boys grab ’em and beat ’em with rubber hoses, and I’ll get back to you later—”

  “Wait a minute. How did these people get dead? What have you got to do with it? And another thing—”

  We were on Filbert approaching Heavenly Lane and the dash clock showed it was two minutes after eleven. “Sam, I really meant it when I said I didn’t have much time. I’ll get back to you—and thanks a lot, old buddy.” I hung up.

  “And thank you, Mr. Scott,” Bruno said.

  “Yeah.” I shook my head. “You should see this guy, Samson. He’s big and solid and rough. Jaw like the Rock of Gibraltar. A damn good cop, but tough as gristle. I can guarantee, he isn’t going to let me play games with him very long.”

  I started to swing left up Heavenly Lane when Cassiday said, “Scott, I don’t think you’d better go in, not now. Let me out and I’ll run and get my car, probably no sweat if I hurry, but Doc better not show himself at all. Every one of those Lemmings knows his face—and they’re already loose.”

  He was right. A car was pulling out of the drive, turning left, another was visible well behind it. I swung to the right of the road and stopped, engine idling.

  Cassiday said, “My car’s parked at this end of the lot. Not more than fifty yards from here, so I won’t have to go near the church.” He paused briefly. “And thanks again. I’ll give you the full speech when there’s more time, Scott.”

  “Forget it. You’d better hurry.”

  He did. Zip, out the door, and in a sprint before he was across the street. I looked at Bruno. “Where to now? Home?”

  “I would very much like to call Dru, if you’ll allow me to use your phone. And explain how I operate it.”

  “Hell, of course. I’m sorry—she must be having conniptions.”

  I placed a call to the number he gave me, than handed the phone to him. Three more cars had come out, two turning right into Weilton, but lights from the other flashing over us as the driver headed for the freeway.

  “You’d better scrunch down in the seat,” I told him, and was starting to put the Cad in gear when I heard another car coming, more speedily than those that had preceded it.

  I craned my neck around to see a big Lincoln barreling down the drive. I didn’t know what make of buggy Cassiday drove, but assumed from the speed it might be Dave. It was. He must have seen my Cad about the same time because he came zooming out of the drive, swung right, hit the brakes and skidded for twenty feet, then backed up at a speed dangerous to life and limb. When he came to a sliding stop in the middle of the street and leaned out the driver’s window, he wasn’t more than ten feet away.

  He looked from me to Bruno and back at me again, vast concern on his face. “What’s the matter? Anything wrong?”

  “No—just made a phone call. We’re on our way.”

  “You’d better be,” he said frowning. “Get Doc the hell out of here. The Lemmings are migrating! And where they have swarmed, nothing lives or moves or breathes, not ever “Surely,” I said to Bruno, “Dave Cassiday exaggerates.” manuel Bruno. “It is infinite.”

  “Yes,” he said. “But only a little.”

  “Man’s capacity for self-deception is not large,” said Em-again!”

  I grinned, waved at him, and took off toward the freeway.

  We were turning off the Santa Ana Freeway, with L.A. and Hollywood ahead. Doc had completed his call to a relieved and presumably ecstatic Dru, judging at least by the noises that came out of the phone. She had insisted we both come to her suite of rooms in the Westchester Arms, and that’s where we were headed.

  At the moment the good doctor was continuing, “Lemming’s pronouncement that I am the Antichrist, like most of his other revelations, will at best amuse and at worst annoy rational men. Unfortunately, few men are wholly rational and many are completely irrational. So we are faced with this: Many individuals are actually going to believe I am the Antichrist. This is one of the few times in my life when I am nonplused, completely confused as to how I should proceed.”

  “It’s not the sort of thing you run up against every day,” I said encouragingly. “Frankly, I’m glad I’m not in your shoes. I was there, I saw and heard old Festus. And his Heavenly Choir, for that matter. I wonder if those Lemmings think Heaven is like that?”

  “No, they think Heaven is where they will get all the things they have on Earth, but which they deny themselves here, so they can get them there. You’ve heard the singing of the Second Coming hymns, have you?”

  “Heard them—”

  “I know. I was in attendance a time or two myself. Months ago, but I still hear them singing. They gave off a sound like a horde of vampires, awakening as wooden stakes were pounded into their hearts. A dash of Erovite in their sacramental blood—I suppose they drink blood—would do them a lot of good. But it would absolutely ruin Lemming’s Church, of course. Wouldn’t that be splendid?”

  “I suppose. But you’re the one who should know. After all, you’re the Ant—”

  “Please, Mr. Scott. Levity has its place. But not at the grave.” He paused. “In it, perhaps, but not at it.”

  I turned my head and grinned at him. “Things aren’t that bad yet. And make it Shell instead of Mr. Scott, O.K.?”

  “That is from Sheldon, is it not?”

 
; “Right.”

  “If you don’t mind, I shall call you Sheldon.”

  I said I didn’t mind. “Tell me about Erovite, will you? What is it? And I’m puzzled by the snatch—kidnapping you to force your formula from you. Why? I mean, what’s so secret? Don’t formulas for pharmaceutical products have to be registered with the Food and Drug Administration? Or revealed to the Secret Service or something—”

  “Let me dispose of your second question first, Sheldon. After you have promised not to repeat what I am about to tell you.”

  I passed a slow-moving truck on the freeway, glanced at Bruno. “I couldn’t very well conceal evidence of a crime, but other than that—”

  “It is a crime I intend to reveal.” He paused. “Or, rather, it is and it is not a crime.”

  “You lost me.”

  “No, I only misplaced you. Do you know of the sixteenth-century philosopher, astronomer, astrologer, writer, heretic, the wise and courageous man who also bore the name Bruno?”

  “It rings a bell. Gardan … Cerdan …?”

  “Giordano. Giordano Bruno. He committed a crime, and for this he was burned to death. After deep thought and long study, after discarding much that was in his time accepted without question or examination as truth—which is essential in any search for truth—he came to believe that the awesome and omnipresent ‘Something’ which is in all things and from which all things come, that ‘Reason’ which gives reason to the universe, is God. Inevitably he largely rejected the vengeful and all too human Idiot-God which was then—and is now—the puppet of the Church. Incidentally, though many irrationally insist I am an atheist, I embrace much the same holy pantheism and belief in a God-of-All as did Giordano. At any rate, Giordano Bruno further concluded that the Earth was not the center of the universe, that the Earth revolved around the sun rather than the sun about the Earth, that this planet of ours was but one, and not a very impressive one at that, of a myriad of other planets revolving about other suns or stars. That is, he agreed with the so-called Copernican system of astronomy, which today we know to be essentially the truth.”

  “So where was the crime? Why’d they burn him?”

  “They burned him because he was right.”

  “Will you try that again?”

  “It was—and it was not—a crime, you see. It was a crime by definition. The definition was formulated by the Church. Among other marvelous things, the Church taught that the Earth was the center of the universe—had not God sent his only Son here to save everybody in the universe, then called Israel? Therefore Giordano Bruno spoke blasphemy—as defined by the Church; and was anathema—as defined by the Church; and it was therefore required—by the Church—that he be burned alive. So, after seven years in prison, he was excommunicated and burned at the stake … on February seventeenth in the year sixteen hundred, in the Campo dei Fiori, Rome … in the name of God, who is alleged to have said through His only Son. ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’”

  Bruno paused. “It need not have been the Church. Call it those in control, those of—Authority. They burned the truth when they burned Bruno. And they are still burning Bruno.”

  This time when I glanced at him he was looking at me, a faint smile on his lips. “Now, then,” he said, “you are a detective, a criminal investigator. Define for me the crime, and the criminal.”

  “I’ve a hunch if I listen to you long enough I may wind up in San Quentin.”

  “Many other good men have, for lesser crimes. I shall proceed. You must silence me forcibly or else hear my confession. True, formulae for pharmaceutical products, compounds, cough medicines, miracle drugs, and even drugs incapable of producing miracles, must be registered with the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA, not to mention the AMA and HEW and other agencies, keeps a keen eye on such things. In the main this is very wise and good, when it is to protect the public, to ensure that people do not get poisoned or made uneasy by such items as thalidomide which was sold as a sleeping pill, or chloramphenicol sold as Chloremycetin, or tranylcypromine sold as Parnate, or tripananol sold as MER-29, by DDT and Dieldrin and contaminated cow manure on their strawberries, or by the many counterfeit drugs which in this country are yearly sold by the billions.”

  I went beneath the overpass and headed up the Hollywood Freeway leaving the police building and city hall behind on my left.

  “It is not so very wise and good when it protects the pharmaceutical industry at the expense of the consumer of pharmaceuticals, or restricts the availability of products which otherwise might be of great benefit to the public.”

  “But they wouldn’t let that happen,” I said hopefully.

  “Wouldn’t they? Hmm. I see I must skip a great deal, or I shall be educating you until tomorrow. So, then, to Erovite. I supplied the FDA with a list of concentrated herbal extracts, biochemic and homeopathic compounds, vitamin and mineral additives, animal and vegetable substances, and so forth which comprised the formula for Erovite. And I received in due time my patent on the product.”

  “Patent? Why a patent?”

  “Why not? Wouldn’t you copyright a book, patent an invention? I wanted to make some money out of it, that’s why. I didn’t want it stolen from me. It is of immense value to those who use it, but in monetary terms alone Erovite is worth millions, billions. Which is why, tonight, those retarded individuals seized me and attempted to force—”

  “Relax. I just didn’t know the procedure was so bloody complicated. O.K., you spilled your secrets to the FDA and got your patent, and—for a while—Erovite was on sale. So, I still wonder, what’s so secret? Also, where’s the crime?”

  “I hadn’t gotten to it yet. Hmm, yes. Well, I think of that formula I gave the FDA as Erovite A—or, you might call it Erovite FDA. What we were selling was Erovite B. Probably, since you seem not a dunce, it is beginning to dawn—”

  “You lied to the government!” I said.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “But—”

  “Not exactly. It is a splendid formula which now reposes in the FDA files. Valuable. Helpful. Healthful. Almost a Supertonic. But the complete formula—we’ll refer to it simply as Erovite from now on, rather than Erovite B—which has proved so astonishingly effective, and thus has brought upon me uncountable curses and continuing damnation, not to mention the latest burst of brilliance from Festus … at any rate, the complete formula is the FDA formula plus several other items that Dave and I personally added to the glop in his factory.”

  “Glop? If Erovite is all you claim it is, how can you call it—”

  “Sheldon, it is not like a baby, an only child. It is just a kind of—glop until it is bottled and packaged and promoted and sold. Why, penicillin is a rather ghastly mold, you know, and—”

  “O.K. What would the FDA do to you if they knew what—what I know.”

  “Very likely, put me in prison. Very likely, they will put me in prison anyway. Thank God men are no longer cooked.”

  “Who knows about this crime against drugstores besides you and me?”

  “Dave Cassiday, and my daughter. No one else. You see how I trust you? Of course, you did save my life—”

  “That’s not important.”

  “What do you mean, it’s not—”

  “I merely meant that our recent adventure was not germane to my question. Which is: If it is generally known that products—such as Erovite—are patented, and their formulae on file with the FDA, why would any hoods, or whoever, steal you? And attempt to—”

  “That’s novel. I was stolen, wasn’t I? One usually thinks of jewels and automobiles—”

  “And attempt to squeeze from you the formula for Erovite. Which is on file with the FDA.”

  “There could be any number of reasons. The formula, once known to a criminal, could be changed enough to be patentable as a new compound and yet retain some of its former efficacy. It would not, of course, be as effective—but the criminal is not interested in improving man’s
health and enjoyment of life, he is interested only in what he can steal. Or it could be made surreptitiously, counterfeited, as virtually all widely sold drugs are today counterfeited. Just as money is counterfeited.”

  “Yeah. Still, something’s bugging me. Something that should, I’ve a hunch, be obvious. Maybe it’s Festus, and his Lemmings of the Lord.”

  “Very likely. Perhaps Pastor Lemming was put here by God simply to bug people. There are other rumors about him, you know, which I’ve not mentioned. That he goes through books crossing out the word ‘girl.’ That he puts tiny chastity girdles on the pistils and stamens of spring flowers. That wherever he exhales even crabgrass becomes sterile. That—”

  Bruno had earlier made it clear he wanted me to continue “representing his interests” as he put it, and take whatever steps I felt were necessary, so I let him get other rumors out of his system while I used the mobile phone to contact a couple of my most productive informants. Each of them would in turn get in touch with additional tipsters, thieves and heavy men and various criminal gentry, some of whom were known to me and some of whom were not. So, very soon, a large number of larcenous citizens would be looking and listening for info germane to the events of this evening, with emphasis on the three men, two living and one dead, whom I had described as best I could.

  During the rest of the ride to Dru’s, Doctor Bruno came up with additional “rumors,” and I had to admit some of them were deserving of wide circulation. I also had to admit they weren’t likely to get it. Not, at least, as likely as those dreamed up by Festus Lemming; and it occurred to me that unless Festus was truly out of his gourd, he would know that very few citizens other than those who regularly sat at his feet—or, rather, way down there below his feet—or those who shared their specific faith and/or delusions, would even begin to believe his most recent seizure about Bruno. And I did not think Festus was out of his gourd, at least not all the way out.

  So, unless he came up with something to impress the normal, reasonably rational individual, the mass rage and hatred Lemming clearly hoped to direct against Bruno would be largely confined to members of the Church of the Second Coming. Which was quite a bunch, but hardly the mass a character like Festus would, I felt, hunger for.