The Trojan Hearse (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  He hung up the phone and glared at me, “Well?"

  “I just read the story."

  “Yeah. Your name in it. Again. What the hell did you do to him?"

  “What did I do? Nothing."

  “I've had three calls so far saying you badgered him, gave him a hard time. You're not the most delicate bastard in town, you know. Can't you take it—"

  “Hold it, Sam. I didn't give him any trouble. These calls. Tell me more."

  “Guests up at Troy's place while you were there. They all left right after you—Troy said he wanted to be alone. But they claim—"

  “Don't tell me. Was one of these aggrieved citizens a squeak named Ronald Langor?"

  “Matter of fact, one call was from him."

  “Why, that little—” I said a bad word. A very bad one.

  Sam leveled his sharp brown eyes at me and said slowly, “Maybe you don't love the little man, Shell, but he's a goddamned important writer."

  “Author. And if they used him for fertilizer, he'd kill a whole acre of flowers."

  “Whatever the hell he is, a lot of clucks listen to him. You got me?"

  “I already knew that. It's been making me sad for—"

  “Don't crack wise. He was one who called. The other two also said you were—one said insufferable, the other said brutal. Those were Gary Baron and a poet or something, name of Winston Warfield."

  “He's a ninny.” But I did not any longer feel like cracking wise. Sam's phone rang again and he swore, grabbed it, while I thought some more. And they were increasingly unpleasant thoughts.

  This idea of complaints about my badgering Troy, being insufferable and brutal, did not delight me. That was a new one from the squeaks—private-eye brutality. I didn't like it a bit, however. And the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. Some guys like Ronald Langor, they write a book and hey-presto they're experts on everything from ancient Gaul to politics to—well, private-eye brutality. To a lesser degree the same was true of that weirdo Warfield. But people would pay serious attention to the mouthings of Baron. He was a real cutey. He was an honest-injun expert. His business was experting. He was good at it. He was a liar, yes; but he was good at it. And Gary Baron bent the ears of millions of citizens every damned night in the week except his night off, Monday. Hell, this week including Monday, because of the elections the next day. If he wanted to chew on me a little, he might eat me up.

  For the moment I let myself imagine what might happen if some of that gang assembled earlier in Troy's living room really wanted to do a job on me, with the pack led by Gary Baron. Nearly all of them, including Baron, were Sebastian people, Sebastian clients—and as I've hinted before, nothing except AP, UP, INS, and the White House had a better or more smoothly functioning publicity and press-agentry gang at beck and call than did Ulysses Sebastian of the Ulysses Sebastian Talent Agency, representing—Yeah. Representing several experts more powerful and even cuter than Gary Baron.

  When the possibilities got just a little scary, I stopped thinking about it.

  Sam banged the phone down and growled at me, “Well, what do you want? I may get busy later."

  “Anything funny about the Troy suicide?"

  He shook his head. “No. Not to this moment, anyhow. Powder in the fingers of his right hand, contact wound—you know."

  “Shoot himself through his clothes?"

  “No. Bared his chest. Missed with the first one ... You read the story, I thought."

  “Yeah, but the bare-chest bit wasn't in it. I guess that about does it. Incidentally, you said powder in his right hand. I know he was right-handed, but I was there when he cut his hand—"

  “Oh, drop it, Shell. A guy's going to kill himself, does he worry about a cut hand? Besides, he was drunk, loaded with enough booze to last two men a week."

  “Enough to pass out?"

  “I guess if he'd kept drinking he might have—"

  “I mean, Sam, might he have been passed out when he was shot?"

  Sam's big jaw wiggled and he burned the steady brown eyes into me. Then he said, “I guess it's possible. But it didn't happen that way. I told you to drop it. It's bad enough as a suicide—and you'd just walked out of there after practically knocking him down and jumping on him. For the love of Mike, don't make a murder out of it."

  I knew one of the things that was bothering Sam. He would deny it from here to the Fourth of July if anybody hinted at it. But I was sure the “brutality” bits he'd been getting about me upset him. He'd had some of that himself, but the real reason was simply that he was my friend, in the truest and best sense of that word. What hurt me hurt him. And, of course, vice versa. So he was growling at me even more than usual.

  I stood up, but I had one more thing to say. Or, rather, ask. And I wasn't sure how he'd take it. I said casually, “Sam, you remember when I was in here earlier, on the shoot-em-up party for me. We talked about Joe Rice."

  “Yeah, we talked about Joe Rice."

  “Has there ever been anything to tie either Charley White or Johnny Troy in with him—or anybody like him?” His face was clouding up and the big hunk of his jaw crept forward a little, so I went on rapidly. “Especially Rice, but any other Mafia boy, Syndicate, hoodlums, crooks. I was thinking—"

  “All right. I'll check. And there'll be nothing. But I'll do it so you can sleep. Now get out of here.” He pulled a big wooden kitchen match out of his pocket—damned if I know where he gets them—and lit his cigar. The meeting was adjourned.

  But I stood my ground. “And would you do me a favor? Just a little favor—so I can sleep nights. Check the prints of both Charley White and Johnny Troy. If there's nothing here, try Sacramento and the FBI files. OK?"

  He didn't explode. He blew smoke at me, though. Finally he said slowly, “Have you got anything to go on, Shell? I mean, anything I'd want?"

  I shook my head. “Not anything solid. But it's funny. White's sister hires me to check his death—I told you about that. This Mordecai Withers tells me Charley thought his head was maybe going to fall off, and such. But this you don't know.” I told him of Dr. Withers’ call to somebody, about me, and went on, “Right after that those hoods jumped me on Benedict Canyon. Laying for me—car there, man next to the car on the side from which I would come, third wiper out on the left. And I still think the mug who got away was Joe Rice's little boy Tony. One more thing: I'm hired this morning, Troy kills himself tonight, the same day.” I shrugged. “Hell, I don't know, Sam. But—well, you know me. I've got a feeling. An itch. It doesn't smell right."

  He sighed. “Well,” he said half to himself, “could be. You've been right before.” He glanced at me. “A time or two. Well ... OK, I'll do it. But keep this under your hat. I don't want you starting a riot. That's all I need."

  “Thanks, Captain.” I went to the door, and just before going out I said, “Your disposition's getting worse, Sam. Go home and get some sleep, will you?"

  He grinned. “Sure. Next Wednesday."

  I went out, had a cup of coffee with Rawlins and jawed a few minutes, then headed for home.

  * * * *

  Home is the Spartan Apartment Hotel, second floor, room 212. From a window in my living room I can look right across the street at the green grounds of the Wilshire Country Club. It's almost like being a member. I can even see the people. But they can't see me. Thank goodness. Besides the living room, there's a kitchenette, bath, and bedroom.

  In the living room is a yellow-gold carpet, wall to wall, on top of which sits the massive chocolate-brown sofa, my own leather chair, a couple of leather hassocks.

  To the left of the front door are the fish. Big community tank sporting Panchax, swords, a couple of black mollies, some odds and ends including a couple of prize lyretail guppies and my pet, a cornflower-blue Betta splendens with the magnificent look an eagle would have if it were a fish. Next to the community tank is a ten-gallon aquarium just for guppies.

  I got ready for bed, fed the fish and watched them for a fe
w minutes, thinking, unwinding slowly. Then I turned and headed for the bedroom, waving good night to Amelia. She's on the wall above the fake fireplace, a gorgeously voluptuous nude tomato, gaudy and bawdy and done in fleshy oils, who not only warms the whole room when the fireplace isn't on but is a kind of contortionist. At least, she contorts around enough to smile at you over her superb fanny. Now, I don't care what anybody else has told you, that's art.

  I joke a little. But only a little. As I climbed into bed I was thinking that Amelia looked even better to me tonight than usual, after what had happened to me today.

  It had been a day, all right. Sebastian, Mordecai Withers, hoodlums and banging guns, Johnny Troy. His unfriendly friends. Artists and poets and sculptors and such. I don't know. I couldn't understand those people. We didn't live in the same world. I couldn't figure them, couldn't figure what they got out of it. The world seemed, as a pretty fair old writer once said, out of joint. The old things were being thrown away just because they were old. The tried and true were laughed at, ridiculed.

  It's undoubtedly true, I was thinking, that there are men who see things not as other men, see with a higher vision, look—as they say—upon things as they really are. OK. I'll believe it. But I can't believe what they see is a black line and a red splotch; or an automobile axle and half of a toilet bowl.

  So you can sing the praises of Picasso, applaud the Robert Daltons, get giddy over the Ronald Langors. Me, I'll take Amelia.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The phone ringing woke me up.

  My two alarms hadn't even gone off yet. Who in hell would be calling me this early—on Sunday morning?

  I don't usually wake up all sweetness and light. Sometimes it takes two cups of black coffee before I get sour and dark. So I wasn't feeling comical to begin with when I answered the phone.

  It was a reporter for the L.A. Herald-Standard. I liked the paper; its editorial pages carried columns from both the left and right, but the basic policy of the paper was somewhat on the conservative side—and it was supporting David Emerson for President. Even so, I wasn't as charming as I could have been, because the reporter wanted to know about my visit to see Johnny Troy yesterday. I told him what had actually happened—and was sure I'd get fair treatment from that particular reporter, whom I knew to be honest and capable—but it didn't start the day off right.

  The four similar calls that followed that one later during the morning didn't help, either. Actually, it wasn't at all surprising. The suicide of Johnny Troy was, for the moment, even bigger nationwide news than the imminent elections. I was the only “outsider” who'd talked to Troy on Saturday, so whatever I might have said to him was legitimate news. Consequently my name was being mentioned coast-to-coast in full-coverage reports of his death. Mainly, though, they were devoted to prepared obits on the life of Johnny Troy, starting with his introduction to the public by Ulysses Sebastian. Not much seemed to be known about Troy's life prior to that time.

  I called Homicide downtown but Samson was temporarily out of the office. So I said I'd call back, and proceeded to prepare breakfast.

  Breakfast. Some people are positive geniuses at, say, putting watches together, or cross-pollinating seed plants, or building nuclear reactors. I am a positive genius at not preparing breakfast. I think it has something to do with the way I don't wake up. It shouldn't really be very complicated. You just put the mush in water and let it flop around in the pan for a while. But, well, where some peope have mental or physical blocks I guess I have a mush block.

  Damned if it didn't happen again. I even stood there watching it while it went flop, flop, flop—when lo and behold, there wasn't a flop left in it. The thing just lay there, looking at me kind of darkly. It was dead. I'd killed it. And who wants to eat dead oatmeal? It occurred to me that I'd somehow managed to eat a grand total of nothing all day yesterday, but I'm never hungry in the morning anyway. So I put the pan in the sink and squirted water in it—pssheee, breakfast was over.

  Then I called Samson again. And got him.

  After the hellos, I said, “What about that little favor I asked you for? Anything in the files?"

  “Not locally, Shell. But we got the FBI kickback."

  “Anything?"

  “Charley White checked out clean. But this Francis Boyle spent the first six months of sixty-one, February through July, on a 487, auto, in the county can up in San Francisco."

  Section 487 of the California Penal Code covers grand theft, and Sam's reference to “auto” meant somebody had stolen a car. I said, “You talking in code? Who's Francis Boyle?"

  “Johnny Troy. That's his real name."

  It jolted me for a moment—but only a moment. In Hollywood, you're nobody if you use your real name. Everybody knows about Mamie Amour, who just couldn't make it till she changed her name to Mamie Glotz. That's not so bad, but some of the gals not only use false names, but false hair, eyelashes, teeth, bosoms, and bottoms, and they're working on a couple other things. The day may come when we men will have more fun in a hardware store.

  I said, “Six months, huh? Well, I can understand why he—and his associates, like Sebastian—wouldn't want that noised around. For that matter, ‘Francis Boyle Sings’ doesn't have that old zingo.” A thought struck me. “Anything else? I mean, he hasn't shot any old ladies, or—"

  “No, the one jolt straightened him out, looks like. No sense releasing this to the press. He's dead now—and he's been clean since then."

  Like Jack Jackson's boy, I was thinking. Sometimes one good smack does the job. It's when a kid steals a heap or robs an apartment, then gets slapped on the wrist, does it again and gets slapped on the wrist again, that often after four or five painless slaps he winds up robbing a bank or killing somebody.

  “Well, many thanks, Sam,” I said. “Anything else? Or anything new?"

  There wasn't. No results from the local and APB out on Tony Anguish; Booby hadn't even said boo; and Sam, fortunately, hadn't received any further complaints about Shell Scott's horrible treatment of the late Johnny Troy.

  I hung up, cleaned up, fed the fish, and got ready to go, had a last cup of coffee in the kitchenette and looked my last on the mush. It's surprising that so many of my days turn out so well when so many start out so darkly.

  * * * *

  Sylvia White smiled sweetly at me and said, “Oh, I'm all right now. It's been an awful strain, but I—well, I won't cry at you anymore."

  I'd phoned, filled her in on most of what had happened yesterday, and told her I'd drop by her hotel, the Haller, on Wilshire Boulevard. We'd been sitting here in her room for ten minutes, talking about her brother, the case, Johnny Troy's death. She seemed to be less tense than she'd been yesterday morning, maybe because we weren't meeting for the first time.

  “It's so strange, isn't it?” she went on. “Charley ... and now Johnny."

  “Did you know Troy?"

  “I only met him once. About a month ago, when I went to the Royalcrest to see Charley. He was such a handsome man, he gave me goose bumps."

  She was about the size of a goose bump, I thought. I couldn't get over how fragile and tiny she looked. She was four feet, eleven inches tall, she'd told me. But she was a perfectly beautiful little—well, doll was the word I'd first thought of when we'd met. As we talked, those violet-blue eyes sparkled, and her delicate voice went ting-ting in my ear. She was wearing her black hair on top of her head, in a bun, or muffin, or cupcake, or whatever gals call those things. It made her a whole two inches taller.

  I said, “Can you think of anything else Charley said about Mordecai Withers?"

  “Only what I told you, Shell. That was last Sunday when I was up at his place again. A week ago. The last time I saw him alive.” She paused. “I told you he'd been awfully tense and nervous for a month or so, but that day he seemed more relaxed. I mentioned it and he laughed and said maybe the doctor—‘Old Mordecai,’ he said—had helped him. That's when he mentioned going to see him, but he didn't tell me any mo
re about it."

  I figured Old Mordecai must have helped laughing Charley a lot. Like helping a guy with a cavity to get false gums. Sylvia was going on, “He was in an odd mood that Sunday. And he kept playing that same record over and over. I can still hear it."

  “Record? What record?"

  “The first one Johnny made, before anyone ever heard of him. That ‘Annabel Lee’ thing."

  It was just casual, pleasant conversation, and sunlight warmed the room, but it was as if the sun had slipped behind a cloud. I could feel my spine prickling. “Annabel Lee.” “...we loved with a love that was more than love...” The same record Johnny Troy had been playing yesterday afternoon, over and over.

  “Charley kept playing it?"

  “Uh-huh. It was his favorite record of Johnny's, he said. Even though it was old, scratchy, and not as good as the new ones, of course. Charley thought Johnny had a better sound then, more natural and real, without all the electronic things they've got now to make your voice sound better."

  I knew what Charley must have meant; a singer would be especially aware of it, I supposed, and he'd been a singer. I'd thought before that with all the “electronic things” in use today, the sound is technically better than the unaided voice, but not so natural, not real. But “everybody's doing it, and if you can't lick ‘em, join ‘em,” seemed to be the philosophy of the day. So even the rich, natural beauty of Johnny Troy's voice had to be electronically improved, taped and spliced and retaped until it was as near unhuman perfection as possible.

  But the big thought in my mind was that, finally, I was becoming convinced Johnny Troy really had killed himself. Suppose Charley had jumped off that balcony. After playing “Annabel Lee” over and over. His favorite among all Johnny's records. And then Troy himself, brooding about it for two days, played “Annabel Lee” over and over again, thinking about Charley, their years together ... Then a bullet into his heart. It could be.