Slab Happy (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  We let each other go and she said softly, “You'll come back soon, won't you?”

  I couldn't help it. She looked so woebegone and forlorn that I said, “I've changed my mind. I'm not going to leave.”

  “Oh—you —”

  She started to swing a hand at me, but I warded it off, grabbed her and gave her a quick kiss, and then told her good-by and went out the door. When I looked back, she was smiling. That, I thought, was better. If I came back ... and even if I didn't.

  Dr. Fraley was in his early thirties, slim and brisk. He wore horn-rimmed glasses and his forehead was deeply creased with worry lines. We stood outside Room 28 on the second floor of the Cowley Memorial Hospital; inside Room 28 was Arthur M. Worthington—the Viper.

  Fraley said to me, “He's not my patient, but I've talked with Simondsen—the physician who looked him over. The patient might be dissembling, but we haven't proved it.”

  “Give me a chance and I'll prove it.”

  He frowned at me through the glasses. “Now, Scott, we can't have you socking the patient. I suppose that's what you mean to do.”

  “Socking? No, I'm not going to put the slug on him. I'll Just squeeze him a little here and there, poke him a bit.”

  He shook his head. “But he might really be paralyzed. There's this point, too. Even if there is no true organic damage, there might be psychic trauma, a mental block.”

  “He's always had a mental block.”

  “I mean to say, Mr. Worthington may in fact be speechless and paralyzed as a result of the shock of the accident. Without organic damage.”

  “The character you call Mr. Worthington is known to crookdom as Viper. He is a hood, a punk, a parasite on the anatomy of society, biting deeply.”

  “Nevertheless, he is a human being.”

  “That's open to question, too. Well, let me see him, and I promise not to hurt him.”

  He nodded, opened the door, and we went inside. Viper lay unmoving on the bed at our left. In the far wall was a big closed window, and looking through it I could see two nurses in white uniforms walking across the green grass one floor below us. The doctor and I walked to the bed and looked down at the patient.

  His eyes were open. They moved. At least his eyes weren't paralyzed. Those extremely close-set eyes lit on me and stuck. They were a little atilt to begin with, but they seemed to cross even more and get an even more stunned expression in them. He seemed unable to pull his eyes from me, then he closed his lids. I saw his eyes move back to center under his lids, like small moles trotting across his brain.

  “Hello, Viper,” I said. “You remember me.”

  No reaction. The lids stayed closed.

  “Shell Scott,” I said. “The boy Nick chose as his patsy. So he could get rid of Lou and pin the job on me. What were you doing down at McGannon's, Viper?”

  No comment. I poked him a time or two, here and there, but nothing happened. Even if he wasn't paralyzed and dumb, I had to get him somehow into a mood in which he would hunger to tell me all he knew. There was so much I had to know, and so much he could tell. And I had to be sure he told me the truth, too. Just casual conversation between Viper and me wouldn't do.

  I tried a while longer with notable lack of success and then Fraley and I went back into the hall. He said, “You see how it is. Without being actually inhumane, practically monstrous, it would be difficult to determine whether or not he is dissembling.”

  “Yeah. But, doctor, everybody has a weak spot. If you can hit it, guys open up like Chinese puzzles. If only...”

  And there it was. Into my mind had leaped almost eagerly the picture of that hamburger stand and roadside zoo I'd passed between L.A. and the Desert Trails. And a picture of Viper, dripping wet.

  “Doctor,” I said, “I've got it. I know how to find out for sure if that boy is paralyzed and speechless—and I won't lay a hand on him.”

  “Oh? How do you propose to accomplish this?”

  “If you had a guy with claustrophobia and you put him in a closet, he'd talk just to get out, right? Well, by the same token, Viper is so named because he's afraid of snakes.”

  “Snakes?”

  “Yeah. I saw him practically faint and leap smack into a swimming pool all because of a shoestring he thought was a little bit of a serpent.”

  The doctor frowned. “So?”

  I grinned. “So how do you think he'd react to a fourteen-foot python?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  IT took me nearly fifteen minutes to win Doctor Fraley over to my side. And the price of two or three appendectomies. But I won—mainly because come hell or high water I wasn't going to lose this one. I knew Viper could tell me plenty, and now I knew the way to get him talking with great eagerness. If he didn't die immediately.

  And, of course, if he wasn't really dumb and paralyzed.

  Doctor Fraley looked sort of ashen as he said, “All right. I won't inform on you. But I refuse to have anything to do with it. I'm not even going to be in this wing of the hospital.”

  “O.K. And I'll take full responsibility.”

  He frowned. “But how can you possibly induce them to bring the snake here?”

  “Leave that to me. Maybe I can't, but I don't think I'll have much trouble there. All I ask is ten minutes here, alone with the patient.”

  “All ... right. You must never tell anyone that I had anything whatsoever to do with this.”

  “Agreed. You will admit that this should make the man spill his guts.”

  “He may simply spew them out his mouth.” He paused. “You do realize, don't you, that the shock might kill him?”

  I shrugged. “We'll have to take that chance.”

  He clapped his hands to his head. But despite his vow that he would be in another wing of the building, he stuck around. He seemed fascinated, as if hypnotized by the sheer horror of what might be going to happen.

  I made a phone call to the Roadside Zoo. I got the owner, who also was owner of the snake. I told him I was calling from the Cowley Memorial Hospital and that the snake was needed at the hospital. I didn't tell him a thing that wasn't true. I did need that snake at the hospital. I told him that I was empowered to pay him five hundred dollars for one minute of the snake's time, but that mainly he would be doing a great service. I think the five hundred dollars convinced him—people who keep snakes and monkeys and things like anteaters in cages usually are more concerned with the money to be made from them than with the desires of the snakes and monkeys and anteaters.

  But still he hesitated. His name was Jarvis Beeler, and he said, “I'd have to put him in a crate and get a coupla men to help me bring him along. It sounds sort of goofy, don't it?”

  “That's what they said about Freud, you know. And they laughed at the Wright Brothers, didn't they?”

  “Yah, I guess they did, huh? What kind of operation is it you need Oscar for?” Oscar was the python's name.

  I told him the truth again, but tried to sound like a doctor. “There is a recalcitrant patient here at the hospital. My diagnosis is that he is feigning. If this is a valid assumption, and it may be—who knows?—the situation calls for shock treatment. Time is of the essence, it is fugiting, and as this patient has a deep-seated trauma, virtually a psychic abhorrence, with regard to the genus Python, I feel that the prescription is—Oscar.”

  “Yeah, well ... I guess you know your business, Doctor.”

  “Of course I do!” I said sharply. “How many times must I tell you I need Oscar?”

  “Shock treatment, huh?”

  “Yes, it should be quite a shock treatment.”

  “Won't hurt Oscar, will it?”

  “There is virtually no chance that it will hurt Oscar. He, uh ... he won't eat the patient, will he?”

  Mr. Beeler laughed gayly. “No, he don't never eat people. Besides, he just et. He'd ruther sleep.”

  “Fine. You'll bring him in immediately then?”

  “Five hundred bucks, huh?”

  “That
, certainly. And the chance to be of great service to—well, certainly to me personally. And ... let's say service to more than you know.”

  He said slyly, after some thought. “Science, huh? To science? This is an experiment?”

  “Well, it is an experiment, all right, yes, indeed. You may be in at the birth of...” I didn't finish it. I didn't have any idea what he might be in at the birth of. The death of, yes.

  “I'll bet you're just like Dr. Salk,” he said. “Noble, dedicated, sweating for humanity.”

  “Oh, I wouldn't say that.”

  “Five hundred bucks, huh.”

  “Yes.”

  “It's O.K. with everybody there?”

  “Don't you worry about that, Mr. Beeler.”

  “O.K. I'll be there in an hour. With Oscar.”

  “Make it sooner if you can. Time is slipping away from us.” It was, too. It was already after one p.m.

  I hung up. Doctor Fraley clapped his hands to his head again. “This can't be happening. You're not going to bring a fourteen-foot python into these halls, into Cowley's. It's unthinkable.”

  “No, it's not. I thought of it.”

  “But ... what if somebody sees him—sees Oscar? Somebody of the staff?”

  “Then I would give eight to five there'll be hell to pay. But relax, maybe it won't happen.”

  He looked as if ants were biting him. But he stuck with me, fascinated. That helped, because when staff members strolled by, it seemed to explain my presence in the corridor.

  At two-fifteen all was ready. Jarvis Beeler, two of his workers—and Oscar, had arrived. I had prevailed upon Doctor Fraley to get me a white Jacket and one of those concave silvered mirrors with a hole in the middle which doctors sometimes wear around their heads. With the jacket on and the mirror strapped around my forehead I looked quite professional, ready to operate. I had prevailed upon Dr. Fraley to bring a large oxygen tank to the door. Two minutes with the men outside the door of Viper's room, and all was ready. I instructed them that they were merely to introduce the snake into the room and let nature take its course. I assured them that I would be responsible for everything.

  Then I stood on a chair and looked through the transom over the door. Jarvis Beeler opened a hinged panel in the end of his crate, partly opened the door to Viper's room, and I saw the big, fat, angular ugly head slide out of the crate—and around Room 28's partly opened door.

  Through the transom I could see Viper, lying quietly with eyes closed. For a moment my nerve failed me. Everything had so far progressed with wonderful smoothness, but what if Viper was really paralyzed? What if he wasn't faking? What if—but it was too late.

  I saw the whole long horrible length of the monstrous snake, half of it in the room and half still slithering inside. Oscar seemed to gather himself and sniff at the foot of the bed. Without taking my eyes from Viper I waved a hand at Sam and he cracked the valve on that oxygen tank, and the escaping oxygen hissed horribly. About the way a seventy-foot python might hiss if it were angry and preparing to gobble you up.

  From that moment on, it was perfect.

  Viper's eyes opened.

  He squinted slightly, obviously wondering what that hissing sound could be. And right then Oscar started up the bedpost. He went up it smoothly, with startling rapidity, and his head came up over the end of Viper's bed like a slow, scaly rocket. I waved my hand and Sam cracked the oxygen valve wide open.

  Oscar paused in midair, at least four feet of him sticking up into the air above Viper's bed. Already I felt sorry, remembering Viper and that wee shoestring. But being sorry didn't help Viper. Nothing would help Viper now. His eyes had landed on Oscar's head but he must still have been able to convince himself that he was merely nuts, that there couldn't possibly be there at the foot of his bed what he saw at the foot of his bed. That horrible hissing sound, combined with the sight of the greatest, scaliest, hugest, thickest, hissingest snake ever about to gobble up a poor hood was too much for Viper's immediate comprehension.

  He looked, and his eyes came out a little way, and then a little way farther. His mouth stretched slowly, torturously open. And right then realization hit him. Right then he knew. It was a snake. Not, not a snake, but the granddaddy of all snakes, the one you see in nightmares and when you go to hell for shooting people. And by now his mouth was wide open. And he wasn't dumb, either; no, not mute; he hadn't lost his voice. Or if he had, it had just come back. Maybe even better than new, too. Because he let out such a shriek, such a piercing and appalling ululation, such an ear-splitting and thunderous “EEEeeeyoo-o-oow—HaaaAAAAALLLLPPP” that it very nearly took the leaves off the trees. I think it even scared Oscar, because Oscar began wiggling about pretty frantically there, big head bobbing so that it almost seemed he was smacking his chops.

  Viper ran out of that breath in a hurry, he was using so much air so fast, but he immediately sucked in more. This time he let out a sound like a diesel locomotive honking in a tunnel. It ran on up the scale to a kind of gobbling boot, as if frenzied turkeys were mating with astonished geese.

  Well, he honked and gobbled and ran out his tongue like one of those Halloween whistles and his eyes got red and wobbly like railroad wigwags. His face got like fleshy putty, like congealed fog, like a mass of mashed worms, and I figured he was as good as dead right then—but there was still plenty of life left in Viper. And he sure wanted to keep it there.

  Blam, he was out of the bed, either never paralyzed or instantly cured, and he landed clear out in the middle of the room and in a flash was at the window. That unbelievable combination of sounds still issued from his tortured throat, and he just ran across the floor and out through the window with a great shattering of glass, and he didn't even stop running while he was in the air.

  From my transom perch I could see him almost all the way to the ground, and he didn't stop running for an instant while he was in my sight. It was a good ten or twelve feet to the ground, but his legs just kept churning like fleshy propellers. Those legs were going around so fast that it wouldn't have surprised me to see him go up like a small thin helicopter.

  He hit running, smacked down on his face, but was up again in a moment and on his way. He really ran then. The running he had done in the air was as nothing compared to the running he did on the grass. At the speed he was going, in ten seconds he would be just a dwindling white dot, like one of those final scenes in Disney Cartoons where the rabbit goes over the hill. Well, this rabbit was over the hill, too.

  And now that I knew he was neither speechless or paralyzed, I felt quite confident that he would tell me anything I wanted to know, and maybe even more.

  I was right.

  There was quite a bit of activity before I could ask the first question, however. I had to put the word out that a patient had gone overboard and escaped—they caught Viper eight blocks away, just passing a Standard oil truck—and tell Jarvis Beeler that the new shock treatment had been a new kind of shock and the experiment had been a huge success, and then explain to numerous people attracted by the wild sounds Viper had made that everything was under control. There was for a while the kind of bedlam that I seem periodically to become involved in, and then near normality was restored. Except that the superintendent of the hospital, and three other doctors in addition to a sad-looking Dr. Fraley, stood about staring at me.

  I told them this was a matter of life and death, which after all was their business, so they should be interested. It was just as valid and important to save lives with snakes as with scalpels, I told them, and maybe even more important—if it was my life. I was so heated up by the success of the Viper experiment that I even waxed a bit eloquent, and the doctors went along with me, even agreeing to let me question Viper alone. After all, the damage was done. And even there I had them—I had cured the patient, hadn't I?

  Anyway, they let me go through with it. Viper was put into another room—he absolutely refused to go back into that contaminated one. Beeler stood by with his crated Oscar, just
in case Viper needed a peek at the thing again. But that wasn't necessary. Viper was completely won over to my point of view.

  The first question I asked him when we were settled in a room again—with Viper in bed, claiming his legs wouldn't hold him up—was, “Viper, you can start in by telling me all there is to tell about the murder of Lou Rio, and the framing of me for that caper.”

  “I wasn't there. Shortcake was in on it, and all I know's what he told me. Nick and Jabber used the girl—that Suez—somehow to get Lou out there. They blasted him with your gun—Nick had it from the day before. Then Nick left and Jabber stayed behind. The idea was he'd sap you when you come in, then plug you with Rio's gun and leave your gun alongside your body. Nick said it would be so airtight nobody would even ask a second question about it.”

  “How was Nick able to time it so well?”

  “He had Shortcake spotted in the Continental Hotel down the street from you, with a pair of glasses, and the phone already open to Nick and Jabber at the house on Partridge Street. When you took out of the Spartan, running like your pants was on fire, he seen you through the glasses and naturally knew you was heading for Partridge. Shortcake was already talking to Nick on the phone, so he just told him you were on the way. Then one of them shot Lou, and Nick beat it.”

  “Lou was still alive then when I ran out of the Spartan after Suez phoned me?”

  “That's it. Nick wanted the body still bleedin'.”

  “Which one of them actually did the job on Lou?”

  “Well, it was either Nick or Jabber, but you fixed it so Jabber can't tell nobody who done it. Nick's the only man alive who knows the answer to that question. And it ain't likely that Nick'll tell anybody.”

  That reminded me I was probably going to ask Nick that very question tonight, so I asked Viper about Nick's office, and the Desert Trails setup. Of the numerous items he willingly told me, at least one or two were interesting. Regularly after dinner every night Nick slept for an hour, from seven to eight, and especially at that time, but at other times too, one of the boys stood in the second-floor hallway to make sure Nick wasn't disturbed. Even so, it was obvious that the best time for me to try getting into Nick's office would be between seven and eight p.m.