Shell Scott's Seven Slaughters (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  “No, it's not."

  “—but I almost have to fight it sometimes."

  “Robbie dear, don't fight it Don't you know suppression can warp your tender little brain all out of whack? You can get whacky, you can get—complexes and all that jazz."

  “Some of those girls must have fun when they slither out on the stage—” she made a little slithering motion—"and sway and wiggle around—” she made some little swaying and wiggling around motions—"and then—get all wound up—and let—go — Oh, what am I saying? I almost got carried away."

  “Don't stop, don't stop. You were just going good there—"

  She laughed again. “I've seen them on the stage in the lights. The men just whoop and holler, you know it?"

  “Yeah, I know it. In fact—"

  “And they actually whistle when the girl glides around and then stops and—gets all wound up—and lets—go — Oh, there I go again."

  “Drat it, you didn't go. Robbie, you can't just—are you going to leave everything so—all half-finished—and just dangling like—"

  “I tell you what I'll do, Shell."

  “Yeah?"

  “I'll do it. Do a striptease, right here I mean, just like on a stage. And you can make a movie of it—if you promise never to show it to anybody but me."

  "I promise!"

  “You won't think I'm awful, will you—?"

  “What a ridiculous—"

  “—or a brazen hussy, or bad or anything?"

  “No, no—"

  “I just feel so free—"

  “Free—"

  “—so good—"

  “—Good—"

  She'd been prancing about, but now she stopped and stared at me, head slightly lowered, smiling, white teeth pressed together. “I'll really do it—unless you stop me."

  Well, you know it: I sure as hell didn't stop her. Still smiling she began to dance again. Slowly at first, then a little more wildly.

  “Make the movie!” she said laughing.

  I shot a few feet of film as she spun and arched and whirled. I thought something moved again on the edge of that cliff, but just then Robbie stretched both hands behind her back, reaching for the bowknot of the bikini bra. And I forgot to look away. The movement made her breasts seem to swell, burst forward against the cloth as if they were going to thrust completely through it.

  She pulled at the strings of the bra and it loosened, started to fall. But she brought one arm forward quickly, pressed her hand against the middle of the cloth, held it there while the outer edges fell, half baring the white roundness of her breasts.

  Well, it began feeling as if my blood were vulcanizing the lining of my veins, as if I were cooking from the inside out. I could actually feel the increased heat of my skin. Because there was something unique about this Robbie, a kind of wild witchcraft or mesmerism, an electrical atmosphere all around her, impalpable and invisible but there just the same.

  It was like getting hit with an invisible sap, almost as if, when she stood twenty feet away and I looked at her, there was really no distance between us. As if she moved in some fourth dimension of her own—and that fourth dimension was sex. It wasn't anything conscious or purposeful; it was just there, all the time, and you couldn't ever be completely unaware of it even when she was sitting still. And she was not sitting still, she was moving, swaying almost lasciviously now, the bra sliding, slipping.

  And I guess I slipped, mentally, into some kind of different dimension myself. Because there were men on the brink of the cliff now, two of them clearly outlined against the sky. A tall man and a short one, the shorter man slumped, held almost erect by the other. Part of my mind noted those other movements, registered them all, but none of it penetrated more than a few cells deep into my brain, not at first.

  Robbie laughed softly, delightedly, let her arm fall to her side, the pink brassiere dangling from her fingers. Sunlight silvered the tops of her full, bare breasts, shimmered on them as they swayed and trembled.

  On the cliff, the men awkwardly moved a step or two forward, onto the very edge, seeming to float above the emptiness at their feet.

  Robbie spread her legs and leaned back, away from me, shoulders rocking slowly, then faster, faster. The film mechanism stopped. She straightened again. I found the camera quickly as she twirled the brassiere around her head, threw it to the sand. I put the camera to my eye again, let film click past the lens. She stood in one spot for seconds, posing. Body straight, head back, hands gliding slowly up her sides and past her face, brushing her thick, red-brown hair with the backs of her hands and letting it fall, tangled, against her shoulders.

  The taller man gave the other a shove. He went over the cliff's edge, fell, turning. Robbie's hands were fumbling at the side of her narrow bikini trunks. The falling man hit a projecting ledge of earth, skidded, went spinning over the side, arms and legs flailing crazily. There was another forty feet of space between him and the rock-studded beach below.

  It was sudden, quick. I knew what was happening, but dimly, vaguely. It was occupying more of my mind. Not quite enough yet.

  Robbie said something to me but I didn't understand her bubbling words. The bikini briefs were untied now, held up only by the light touch of her fingers, hands at the curve of her hips. She leaned forward slightly, breasts swaying, slid the bikini briefs down. It seemed to me that she moved very slowly—and that the tumbling man fell very slowly, too. The pink cloth slid downward, her hands brushing the white flare of her hips. Then I heard the thud.

  He hit the beach almost two hundred yards away, but I heard the dull, deadly sound clearly. Before, it had been like a silent movie, shadow without substance; but that ugly sound suddenly made it real. I jerked my head. The other man was scrambling down the path.

  From the corner of my eye I saw Robbie bend forward, raise one leg, reach and grab something pink before she straightened up. Only now the impressions were reversed. Robbie was on the periphery, and in the center of my consciousness was—murder.

  It sent a chill over my skin. I glanced at Robbie. One vivid glimpse of her standing a few feet away in sun-limned nakedness, splash of pinkness in one hand, standing straight, back slightly arched. Just a glimpse of her, half a second—and then I was running. That taller man was still scrambling down the path. He'd probably thrown the other man over the cliff alive but unconscious, and was going down to make sure he was dead.

  When I was halfway to the body, the man saw me. He froze on the steeply slanting path, jerked his head toward me. Then he turned started back up in a hurry, feet sliding. There wasn't a chance I could catch him. He'd be gone in seconds—and I didn't have any idea who he was, what he looked like.

  The camera was still in my hand; I'd forgotten it, been unaware of it while running. I slid to a stop, raised the camera and centered it on the man, shoved the Zoomer lever forward as I started the film unwinding. His body grew larger in the viewfinder. I shouted as loudly as I could, and he turned. He stared—and I had him. Then I lowered the camera, ran forward again. Twenty yards away now lay the sprawled body. As my eyes fell on it, there was a sudden sharp sound. A spurt of sand leaped close on my left. That sound I knew well—a gunshot. I dug one foot into the sand, skidded, slowed and then jumped forward, jerking my head up. He was below the top of the cliff, facing me, right arm extended. The gun cracked again, but the bullet hit yards from me. All I could think of for a moment was that if I got a film of him shooting at me, his goose would be cooked to a crisp. It didn't occur to me that I might get a film of the ape killing me; that the .38 Colt Special I usually carry was now 200 yards down the beach; that I was standing out here in the bright sunlight shooting a camera at a guy who was shooting a real gun at me. I just swung the camera up, held it on him for two or three seconds getting a stupendous shot—through the telescopic lens I could even see the faint flash of fire from the gun's muzzle. It was an astounding, a remarkable shot, a real murderer, real bullets —

  That was the one that filt
ered. That brought me to my few senses. Real—bullets?

  I let out a great blast of sound and jumped six feet through the air. That gun cracked again. I felt the impact, the sudden shock. It jarred me, turned me. The camera flew from my hands. I slammed down on one knee. I rolled, got to my feet again, squatting low, looked up. The man was scrambling upward again, and as I watched he went over the cliff's edge and out of sight.

  Slowly I straightened up, heart pounding. I looked down over my bare skin, felt over my back and swim trunks. No blood. No holes. Then I saw the Bell & Howell on the sand. He hadn't hit me; he'd hit the camera. It was twisted, case sprung open and film half out of the sprockets, sunlight glaring on it all.

  I clambered up the face of the cliff, but he was long gone. A haze of dust hung over the dirt road leading to Coast Boulevard a quarter of a mile away. From the cliff's edge I looked down the beach. The sun was getting low, and the hellish glare that, at certain hours, bounces from the sea, almost blinded me. I couldn't see Robbie unless I squinted and looked carefully—which explained why the guy hadn't seen us down there.

  On the beach again, I picked the camera up, forced the gate closed over the ruined film walked to the body on the beach. The man was quite dead. But he was still warm, limp, not dead long. Almost surety he'd been alive when pushed over the cliff's edge. It would probably have passed as an accidental death, instead of the murder it was. He was a short man, maybe a hundred and fifty pounds, bald, his skull caved in above his left eye. His face was deeply pimpled where it had hit the sand.

  I left him, walked back down the beach.

  Robbie was in her bikini again, still a gorgeous sight, but somehow not quite the same now. The difference between my one brief but marvelously vivid glimpse of Robbie unadorned, unashamed, compared to Robbie adorned—even in a brief pink bikini—was the difference between prime ribs and hamburger, between wine and sour grapes. And in me started growing a cold, concerntrated, surging desire to get my hands on that slob who'd just gotten away, and slowly pull off his head.

  As I stopped near her, Robbie said, with a chill as of early winter in her voice, “You can take me home now, Scott.” Scott. Not Shell any more. That probably meant she wanted to hit me over the skull with something large and heavy. What was the matter with her? Didn't she realize I'd had no choice?

  I said, “Simmer down. Didn't you hear those shots?"

  “Shots? Is that what they were? I heard some noises.” She tossed her head. “All I know is, there I was all—well—and off you went. Actually running. Running away."

  Nobody will deny that women have a different approach to logic than do men. They sort of sneak up on it from behind, like an Indian skulking through the grass. But this was too much.

  “Robbie, my dear little imbecile,” I said with some heat, “I have just been eyeballing a most unpleasant corpse, not to mention the fact that I just got shot at several dozen times—three or four times, anyway—and the stupendous damned movie I took of the killer is all shot to hell—get it through your head a guy has just been murdered."

  “I'll murder you."

  “I'm serious!"

  “I'm not?"

  “Robbie. You really don't understand!” I took a deep breath. “Dear Robbie. I am aware of what's eating you. I realize it is not considered cricket in your dizzy set—in which at the moment I include all women—for a man to race wildly over the sand immediately after—"

  “What do I care? I really couldn't care less. I really couldn't. Take me home."

  I grabbed her shoulders, looked into her face. “I have a surprise for you. There is a dead guy lying down the beach a ways. His head is all crashed in, and most unbeautiful. That's why I went tripping away, dear heart. I saw a tall cat fling him off the cliff."

  Apparently she hadn't seen anything except me whooping along the tidemarks, running like a coward. Coward—little did she know.

  “Of course,” she said. “There's a whole massacre."

  I grabbed her hand and yanked her after me. In arguments with women there comes a time when words are useless, and positive action is indicated. I hauled her after me, her feet dragging and kicking, and she rattled a great deal of popcorn-popping Spanish at me, a language she used when at a temperature which would split clinical thermometers. She didn't even see the dead man until we were almost on top of him.

  Then I stopped, turned her around and pointed. “There, lamebrain. I was telling you the complete and total truth. I did see a guy fling him off—"

  I won that argument. She fainted.

  Night fell softly as we drove back toward Los Angeles. The police had been notified, the body trundled away, and Robbie and I had that behind us now, the evening ahead.

  She had forgiven me. Not all at once, but unreservedly at last. Now she was snuggled close to me on the seat, hanging onto my arm. The top was down on my Cadillac, and a spiced breeze washed around us.

  We had been discussing the afternoon, and now she asked me a question she hadn't asked before. “Shell, the man who pushed the other one off the cliff. What did he look like?"

  “Why, he was—I don't know. I was so busy trying to get the film of him, and then dodging bullets, I never did really get a look at him.” I considered the sad fact. “I haven't the faintest idea what he looks like. And I don't have the film now, either."

  “How will they catch him?"

  “Part of it could depend on how soon they identify the body. There were no papers on him, no clue yet to who he was. Once they figure out who had a motive to kill him, the field might narrow down. Right now it's wide open."

  “Maybe he'll even get away with it."

  I snarled silently, glaring ahead. “Not if I—have anything—to say about it.” I was remembering what he had interrupted back there on the beach. Of all times for an ape to start sailing bodies around. And that slug in my camera had not only ruined the shots of him, but of Robbie. “I will tear him limb from limb. I will beat one half of him to death with the other half of him."

  She purred softly, snuggled closer and hugged my arm.

  I discovered I was halfway into the left lane, driving along with a sappy smile on my face. I pulled over where I belonged. Once again I had been remembering Robbie standing on the beach, blue sea behind her—just before that other body went flying through the air. I'd gotten one look, but only one, and oh so brief, of her standing there, pink pants in her hand. Maybe in the space of a few seconds then, I had been subjected to so many sensational sensations and brain-twisting sights that it had blown a neuronic fuse in my nervous system—but something new had indeed been added.

  Robbie was—and for that one super-stimulating half-second there on the sun-warmed beach had been—so absolutely stunning that now it was as though a small perfect replica of her had been heated to a white-hot sizzle and used to brand my brain. It stayed up there, about the fourth convolution over, glowing and letting off pretty sparks. It was a new experience in many ways. I could merely close my eyes and see us up there, sparking. Or, rather, see her up there. I shook my head, trying to organize my striking thoughts. But they remained disorganized.

  Robbie didn't speak again until we were on North Rossmore in Hollywood, almost to the Spartan Apartment Hotel, where I live. And where we were going. Then she said, “I was just thinking about that man, Shell. You don't know what he looks like. But I wonder if he got a good look at you?"

  I hadn't carefully considered that angle until now. I pulled over to the curb, parked across the street from the Spartan. “That's a good question,” I said.

  I took the keys from the ignition, opened the car door and stepped into the dimly-lighted street. “A disturbing question, Robbie. Unfortunately, I don't have the answer.” I stared around to open the door on her side, and blam-blam, two quick shots, one after the other. The first one got me. It spun me to my left, banged me against the car, knocked me off balance. I fell awkwardly, turning, thudded down on my right shoulder and rolled onto my back. I came up fast,
yanking the .38 from under my coat, bent forward in a crouch. I didn't even know where the shots had come from. But then I heard the slap of fast-pounding feet, a short silence, then the roar of a car's engine, the shrill scrape of tires sliding on asphalt.

  I jumped toward the Cad, then remembered I'd had the keys in my hand. I'd dropped them, they were somewhere here in the street. I found them, but by then the guy was at least a mile away.

  I swore softly, then felt over my chest and arm, near where that slug had smacked me. I didn't know how badly I'd been hit; you seldom do for a while. But then I found the spot. The bullet had passed between my bolstered gun and side, gouging out a cubic inch or two of skin and flesh. Nothing serious. My holster had taken most of the blow; that had really been what spun me around. My gun seemed all right, but the holster was ruined. Fine; that was better than me being ruined.

  Robbie's head appeared in the window on my side.

  “She-ell,” she said shakily.

  “It's O.K., honey. Everything's all right. Except that sonofa—he got away.” I paused, hauled in a couple of deep breaths. “Incidentally, Robbie. That question you just asked me. Now I can answer it."

  “What—what'll we do?"

  “We'll go inside, up to my apartment, and have a tall, cool, potent drink."

  We did. I unlocked the door of my apartment, pointed out the tanks of tropical fish for Robbie, ignored Amelia—Robbie would inevitably lamp that yard-square nude painting I found in a pawn shop, and cherish—and showed her where the booze and ice were in the kitchenette.

  “Fix us something exciting,” I said; then went into the bathroom, peeled off my coat and shirt.

  The slug had chewed me up a bit, and the wound was beginning to feel unpleasant, but it wasn't bad. Just bloody. There was quite a lot of blood.

  I dunked a washrag in warm water, and right then Robbie said from behind me, “Try this."

  I turned around. She had two tall glasses in her hands. Then her eyes dropped to the side of my chest and her mouth stretched wide as if she were going to scream, though no sound came out.