Shellshock (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  He was apparently trying to speak, but only garbled sounds came from his wet mouth, no words, nothing recognizable. So I quit trying to communicate with him, lifted him bodily, and planted him in the wheelchair. The wide leather straps were securely fastened, one at the seat and the other to the chair's back. In a few seconds I had the lower strap cinched around Romanelle's thighs and the upper one tight against his chest.

  Then I draped the sheet-sized green cloth that I'd carried all the way to here over his head. It covered his entire body and most of the wheelchair as well. I didn't expect to fool anyone who might see me into thinking I was pushing a laundry hamper or the day's trash, but at least it would temporarily disguise the truth about exactly what, or who, I was trundling down the hospital hallway.

  I wheeled Romanelle out of the room, past Cowboy, who still appeared to be sleeping, and to the door leading to the corridor outside; pulled the door wide, peered around its edge. The corridor was empty.

  I didn't have any clear idea how long it had been since I'd sped past Bliss and Cimarron in that second room from the end. Five minutes? More? Less? They could have finished here, gone someplace else. Or they could be in that last room. No matter, I couldn't stop now.

  So I guided the wheelchair out and started down the polished hallway, picking up speed until I was trotting, straining at the handles behind Romanelle's bobbing cloth-covered head to keep the unwieldy machine from veering into a wall or toppling over. Wheelchairs are not designed for efficient transport at much over a mile an hour, and guiding it occupied so much of my attention that I first saw Dr. Bliss only from the corner of my eye as he stepped from that last room on my left at the corridor's end.

  By the time I saw him he was no more than ten feet away, and I sailed right past him toward the elevator, glancing into the room behind him as I went by. Alda Cimarron was just getting up from a chair, where he had apparently been resting his ton or so of muscle and bone while waiting for Bliss to finish whatever he'd been doing in there. Cimarron wasn't looking my way, and I flashed past so speedily he didn't see me. But I knew that was a temporary condition.

  Because when I saw Bliss he also saw me, and after a brief moment of shocked silence which he may have required to convince himself he was truly seeing what he thought he might be seeing, he let out a high-pitched but extraordinarily piercing yell that probably carried faintly clear down to the morgue, and unquestionably informed Cimarron instantly that something undesirable was afoot.

  What he yelled so piercingly was: “Jesuschristgodalmighty it's Scott—it's Shell Scott—Alda, it's—Goodgodalmighty it's Shell Scott right here in the goddamn hall and he's—"

  I didn't hear the rest of it. Rather, I heard but didn't understand it, because I was occupied with trying to stop short of the elevator. I had speeded up almost to a sprint and was slipping and sliding on the polished floor, pulled forward by the mass of the wheelchair plus Romanelle's weight. Be hell, I thought, with a sort of detached part of my mind, if I rescued my injured client still alive, then killed him by slamming his wheelchair into a door.

  But I managed to stop without crashing, merely bumping the closed doors gently. Well, almost gently. Romanelle's head bobbed forward under the sheet, then rebounded, and for the first time I heard the noises he was making, and realized he'd been making them all along. Not words yet, just noises; but they didn't sound like pleased or happy noises. Well, you could hardly blame the guy. I tie him up and throw a sheet over him, then start racing along like a Mexico City taxi driver.

  But I didn't have time to listen to what Romanelle was noising. I poked the “Down” button to get the elevator up here, then spun around, jumped back toward the open but still-empty door of that last room, going right past Dr. Bliss again, ignoring him. I wasn't worried about Bliss; not even if he'd been a surgeon with two scalpels would he have concerned me. No, the big problem I was worried about was the guy who had heard Bliss yelling about “Shell Scott” and all that other stuff, the guy who would soon be coming through that open door like a cement mixer, like an avalanche, like the solid part of an earthquake, like...

  No, not soon. Now. There he was. It was really a horrible sight. He was already reaching forward as though to grab and crush something into jelly, arms thrust out and fingers clutching, as he leaped into the hallway. His lips were pulled back from those big square teeth, and the teeth were moving, grinding, as if he were gnashing them. You could tell he was really pissed off, really bugged, about something. And I had no doubt what it was that was bugging him.

  But everything at that noisy, tumultuous, shocking moment seemed to have been timed almost perfectly for me. Because as I brushed past still-yelling Bliss and got nearer the door, I hauled back my right arm, bunched my fist into a near-lethal weapon; and just as huge Alda Cimarron leaped through the doorway I was starting to launch that fist; and as Cimarron sailed through the air toward me my fist sailed toward him. It was like when brilliant scientists send up a space probe going along pocketa-pocketa toward a mathematically selected point in space where several years later a planet will arrive and have pictures taken of it by the space probe, one arc tracking through space and intersecting another arc with exquisite exactitude. Like that, only this was instantaneous. Well, practically instantaneous.

  I'll say this about Alda Cimarron, he bad lightning-like reflexes. As he came growling and grunting and gnashing through the open doorway, he saw me right away. Of course, he was looking for me, and I was right there just about to smack him, so that was no great trick. But he also saw my already-launched lethal fist whirring through space at him and, while it would have been impossible for him to get entirely out of the way, he did manage to move his big head like lightning, jerking it to one side far enough that my fist did not destroy his entire mouth including lips and teeth and maybe gums as well. Instead, my bunched knuckles landed squarely against the side of his massive jaw, the flashing are of my swinging arm and hand intersecting the leaping and jerking are of his jaw with a precision as beautiful as space probe meeting planet and with such exactitude that I could not have improved upon it if I'd planned it like a scientist, using computers and drawing paper.

  The sound of my terrible fist meeting his awesome jaw was almost painful to the ears, louder and bonier even than the sound Cowboy's head had made when I'd clunked him upon it with a bookend. And I knew it didn't matter how big Cimarron was, how tough, how resilient, that mighty blow had finished him.

  It didn't do me a whole lot of good either. It felt as though an explosion of flying bone chips traveled from my knuckles through my wrist and elbow clear into my shoulder, as if somebody had doused my arm with gasoline, and sprained it, and then lit it. Cimarron's speedy exit from the room, combined with his solid mass, kept him going in somewhat the same direction he had originally been moving, which is to say slanting into and across the hallway, but slanting even more now and turning, spinning, his arms flailing.

  I didn't even watch him hit the wall over there, but turned toward those double doors at the corridor's end. They were still closed, but I knew the elevator had to be on its way, nearly here, because I'd pressed its button. Hadn't I? Sure ... Rapid slapping sounds were somebody's feet making tracks down the intersecting corridor. The person was out of my sight, but it had to be Dr. Bliss leaving the scene precipitously. That was OK with me; one down, the other one going: I'd make it out of here yet.

  I took one powerful speedy leap toward the elevator—I had pushed that damned button, hadn't I?—and made it about a foot through the air. I would have made it a lot farther, except something caught on the back of my coat and shirt, tangled the cloth around my neck, and forced a gassy "Ghaah!" out of me. That was strange. I hadn't seen anything that could have done that. It was really strange.

  I knew the corridor had been empty except for Bliss and Cimarron and me. Bliss was gone; Cimarron had to be lying over there crumpled near the wall, maybe groaning feebly. That left me. And I knew I hadn't done it. It was almost sc
ary. No, there wasn't any almost about it. The situation was perplexing, impossible, and very scary. Even stranger, whatever it was that caught me had instantly started to yank at me. I'll tell you, when something happens that is impossible, a guy can start wondering where he's at. Thoughts of extraterrestrial forces, and bogeymen, flash into the mind. It was what you might feel—like, horrified—if a giant Killer Egg should start eating you for a change. And the Thing was still yanking, turning me, turning me enough so I could see...

  No. Ah, come on, I thought.

  If I had thundered that mighty blow against Alda Cimarron's jaw, and absolutely ruined him, knocked him senseless against the wall, then who was this huge guy? This guy with his thick lips pulled back from big square teeth that he was moving and grinding and gnashing? This guy with one hand tangled in my clothes, and the other fashioned into a giant lumpy metal hammer like the appendages of those villains in lousy movies?

  It didn't really matter much who, or what, it was. The thing was clearly preparing to kill me. Well, at moments of great peril, like death, the mind shifts into a speedier dimension. Thus billions of thoughts were ricocheting around in my head like sizzling bolts of electricity. Calmly, I selected from those billions of bolts a single nut or two that fit them. This thing, whatever it was and wherever it had come from, had to be a male thing. Not even on Arcturus could females look as horrible as this. Therefore, it would have at least one, and probably two balls. Even though in its home country they might call them fleepobs or zerkles, no matter. And balls, by whatever name, are exquisitely sensitive instruments, as any fellow who has even slightly injured one or two can swear on a stack of Bibles.

  OK, this guy—I had concluded it was definitely a guy—had his right appendage tangled in my clothing up around my neck, and was swinging the left one at about the middle of my face. If nothing interfered with this process, that lumpy hammer was going to crack me smack between my horrified eyeballs. But the guy was also standing in a slight squat, legs far apart and bent at the knees, making him look a little like a great thick inverted wishbone with the whole turkey stuck on its top and napping its bony wings. I knew what I had to do. More, I had not a single hesitation or scruple about doing the dirty thing. All I prayed was that I'd get a chance to do it.

  Somehow I ducked, got my head down far enough that only part of that speeding missile scraped over its top, straightened up so energetically that the grip near my neck loosened, and I then moved my left foot half a step forward, swinging my right leg and foot out and up in the same kind of scientifically calculated arc designed by scientists or professional field-goal kickers, and I got him with wondrous accuracy precisely at the center of his wishbone.

  That did it. That took the fight out of him. It might even have taken more than fight out. He let escape from his widely stretched mouth a totally revolting noise I will not even attempt to describe. His wide face began to resemble the one I had seen on the dead old guy downstairs. He sort of hunched forward, arms crossing in front of him, somewhat like that painting of a nude girl bending forward and shyly trying to hide her priceless.

  He was slowly going down as I heard the elevator doors open behind me. I knew I'd pressed that button. I spun around, jumped to the wheelchair, scooted it and Romanelle into the elevator, banged the button to take us down. As the doors closed, I could see the guy on his knees, hands pushing against the polished floor, arms straightening.

  Nobody else was in sight. There wasn't anybody named Alda Cimarron lying in a crumpled heap at the junction of floor and wall. So I had to face it: the guy straining his preposterously outsize arms to get up off the floor had to be Alda...

  No. Pushing? Getting up? Ah, come on, I thought.

  Not even Alda Cimarron could have both a cast-iron jaw and solid-steel fleepobs. It had to be some kind of monster. Something inhuman and fiendish. About to leap up gaily to dance after me and grab me and squash me. Cimarron? Alda? I worried about it all the way down to the first floor. Longer than that.

  But, yeah, Cimarron. He didn't fight fair, that was sure. Also, if there were other ways to get down here where I was, he would know about them. He wouldn't have to wait for the elevator. Of course, he could probably just give a little hop into the air, and come crashing down through the various floors, or ceilings, 4-3-2-1 gotcha. I was beginning to question my invincibility. Almost.

  The elevator doors opened and I sped out, pushing the wheelchair before me. I noted again that Claude Romanelle, or whatever was under the morgue sheet, was bobbing his head about and making those unintelligible, and unhappy, noises again. But even if I could have understood them I wouldn't have had time to answer. We careened around the last turn and I skidded a yard, slowing to stop at the open wooden door of the morgue—which wasn't open. I had left it open, but it was closed now. Why would anybody close it? I wondered. Who was going to leave? If the same dummy had locked it, I was in some kind of trouble.

  But the door opened easily, and I got Romanelle lined up so I could scoot him through, listening to the splat-splat of rapidly moving feet, like the speedy feet of Dr. Bliss that I'd heard upstairs. No ... That had been more of a pitter-patter; this was kind of thunk-thunk or chugga-chugga, not really like feet at all. More like a lot of trees falling.

  Yeah. I turned my head right a little, and there he was. Way down at the far, or west, end of the corridor here in this, the east wing. Or wherever. I wasn't exactly sure. East, west—it could have been north and south, but wherever all this was happening, that was Alda Cimarron down there, speeding this way, bent forward somewhat and maybe limping a little, going chugga-thunk, chugga-thunk but steadily getting closer, coming right at me like a ferocious locomotive gnashing its cowcatchers.

  If I hadn't been a grown man, I might have cried. It's terribly disheartening to give a thing your best shot using blanks. Or to try, and try, and try again and never succeed. Nobody ever said, “If at fourth you don't succeed...” A man's got to have some little successes along the way—or where's the incentive to do good?

  Of course, I wasn't actually concentrating on all these flights of nausea. I was scooting Romanelle into the morgue so fast our passage probably warmed the whole room two degrees, then yanking those double doors open, zipping outside. And even before I got to that red Subaru coupe—which at least was still where I'd left it—I realized I'd done something dumb. Just one thing, fortunately; but often one dumbness is enough to do you in.

  Actually, it had been a fairly sensible decision to leave the car parked as close to the cement-block wall on its left as possible, to ensure passage for any vehicles that might have to get by. But that meant I could not get in oh the car's left side; I'd have to go in the same door as Romanelle—after I managed to get him in there.

  So I stopped next to the car, pulled its door open, yanked the green cloth from Romanelle and the wheelchair. Ack, the damned straps. Had to get the straps off him. Chugga-thunk. Very close; too close. With the straps undone, I picked Romanelle up and—CHUGGA-THUNK—said, “Sorry, old chap,” and just aimed him at the door and tossed him in. No sooner was my client on his way than I was spinning around, palm slapping the S&W .38's butt at my left armpit. Right after the blam.

  Yeah, right after; I hadn't spun around soon enough. Cimarron was standing in that open doorway at the far side of the morgue. I got a quick glimpse of him there, clearly visible under the fluorescent lights. The sound of the gunshot was not that of his .22, but more like a .357 Magnum. The slug passed from that open doorway where he stood, through the dimness of the morgue, out the wide double doors I'd just come through, and slammed into or bounced off the flesh of my right side, just above the hip bone, then smashed into the car behind me with the sound of a metallic explosion.

  I was sure the slug had barely nicked me, hadn't done real damage, but somehow I was pushed back against the car, my back banging the doorframe with an impact that seemed much greater than the slug's almost gentle slap. I flipped the .38 up, leveled it, fired twice at Cima
rron. His bulk loomed for a moment longer in the doorway then disappeared as he jumped sideways and out of my sight.

  I literally dived into the coupe, going right over Romanelle and banging his legs somewhat on the way. No help for it. Digging the keys out of my pocket, I said, just in case he had some vague idea of what was going on, “Sorry, old chap. I'll apologize properly later. If there is a later. Just doing the best I can, old chap."

  I jabbed the key into the ignition but, before even turning the engine over, leaned far to my right—inevitably squashing Romanelle slightly in the process—fired two more shots at that far door, then started the engine and took off so fast, tires screeching on the asphalt, that the still-open right door of the Subaru slammed shut with no help from me.

  I put the pedal to the metal as the race guys say, risked several collisions barreling through the west parking lot and skidding into McDowell Road. My fingers found ragged holes in my coat and shirt, a rip in the flesh of my right side. The gouge wasn't deep, wasn't dangerous, but it was finally starting to hurt. There was hot wetness on my side and hip, like burning blood. Besides that, I had a tight drawing sensation at the base of my skull, a prickling coolness along my spine. Because I recalled Alda Cimarron, clubbed as though by a sledgehammer but still not going down; then going down but getting back up with unbelievable speed; then chugga-thunking toward me down that corridor. I knew, I was absolutely certain, that he could not possibly be racing along behind us, reaching out to grab my bumper and throw us away. But, still...

  So I just kept on going lickety-split, heeding the advice of that wise old Negro philosopher—he was a Negro then, before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People helped change it to black—Satchel Paige, who said, “Don't look back, Somethin’ may be gainin’ on you."

  Chapter Seventeen

  after five minutes of trying futilely to communicate with Claude Romanelle, I accepted the fact that he was more vegetable than human, at least for the time being if not for all time, and sat by the phone, dialed Hollywood, California, long-distance direct. The Spartan Apartment Hotel. Room 214, Dr. Paul Anson's apartment next door to my own. Paul worked only a half day on Thursdays; maybe he'd be home.