“OK. But hurry, hurry!"
“Five o'clock,” she laughed.
“Five o'clock is fine, Sylvia. I can last. I think."
We hung up. I was smiling. She was a sweetie. Not exactly my type. But maybe she was still growing.
After I'd showered and dressed, it was only four-thirty. I peeked into the refrigerator and went mmyumm-mmyumm, but restrained my healthy animal impulses. Sylvia would soon be here. I would be strong. Boy, I was weak! But I slammed the refrigerator door and danced around the kitchenette a bit, then went into the living room. How could I have let myself get into such a famished state? Probably I'd lost pounds already. My pants wouldn't stay up. My shorts would fall off. I'd faint. Especially if my shorts fell off.
I sat on the couch and used the phone. Eric Manning Quintet, huh? OK, I'd use the time working, tracing that record down. It was strange that I'd never heard of it, I thought. Two local calls were blanks, then I got the owner of a record-distributing company on Cahuenga.
He told me that Imperian Records was a small Chicago company, about twenty years old and still in business. He checked back into his records and found that he'd received 150 copies of the “Annabel Lee-Comin’ Home” disk several years ago, had sold sixty and shipped the rest back.
I called Chicago. It took a few minutes but I got to one of the executives, named Gordon—luckily, because the company was closed for the day at this hour back there. I explained what I wanted and he left the phone. While waiting for him to return, I looked around the room, peered at the fish, glanced at Amelia, then lit a cigarette. I started to take a puff, and stopped. Something was ... wrong. I didn't know what; just that something had started bothering me. I couldn't pin it down. Maybe I'd heard something? I listened. Nothing; just the traffic moving on North Rossmore in front of the Spartan.
It kept digging at my mind, though, as Gordon came back and said, “Yes, here is the information, Mr. Scott. ‘Annabel Lee-Comin’ Home,’ Johnny Troy vocal, Eric Manning Quintet. We pressed ten thousand in March, nineteen sixty-one, and shipped three hundred and fifty to California. About half of them were returned. Here's an odd thing. We sold the entire remainder, nearly six thousand, to one company six years ago. In ... let's see..."
While he talked I'd glanced around the room, beamed at Amelia. She was a little askew. Of course, she's always sort of askew, but she seemed a bit more askewed than usual. Gordon was going on, “October of nineteen sixty-two, that was. The entire stock, to Trojan Enterprises."
“To what?"
“Trojan Enterprises."
That was the Johnny Troy-Charley White-Ulysses Sebastian company. Well, it made sense that they'd buy up the old records if Sebastian was preparing to put the well-known Sebastian polish on Troy, then introduce him with a bang and flourish. Which he certainly had, with “The Magic of Love.” I guess I'd have done the same thing, particularly if the record wasn't top-quality—and Imperian Records didn't exactly strike me as the Alpha and Omega of the recording industry.
Amelia kept bugging me.
It started to come through then.
Gordon had told me all he knew, so we hung up.
Bugging me. I walked to Amelia, reached for the frame—and stopped. Swore mentally. Went back slowly over the carpet. Whistled a little, stamped into the bedroom. I took off my shoes, got a flashlight, and walked back to Amelia. By pressing my face against the wall and moving the flashlight's beam around, I found it. Small, a half-inch cube. A compact wireless microphone-transmitter.
No wonder Amelia had been bugging me; she'd been bugged.
I went back into the bedroom, put on my shoes again. No sense looking for other mikes. Probably there was only the one. Besides, it would have a range from here of no more than a few blocks. Unless the signal was being picked up, amplified and retransmitted, whoever was eavesdropping on me was probably only a block or so away. And, if I had a little luck, he was in for a very rude surprise.
I moved around, thinking, ran water in the kitchen sink, hummed a little to keep making just enough noise. He wouldn't be directly across Rossmore—that was the grounds of the Wilshire Country Club there, out in the open. And I knew most of the hotel people nearby. The nearest apartment hotel on my right was full up, I knew. But there were a couple of small places.
I checked my gun, started out, then remembered Sylvia. It was five minutes until five. I scribbled a hasty note telling her to go on in and wait, stuck it to the door with a piece of Scotch tape, and left the door unlocked as I went out.
A kind of pleasant excitement was starting to build up in me. That bug had been put in my apartment at least within the past week. I go over the whole place periodically. And I would have given odds it had been put there in the last day or two. In other words, since I'd started investigating the “accident” of Charley White's death.
I stopped at the Spartan's desk and said to Jimmy, “Anybody move in the last couple of days? A man alone, maybe a couple of guys?"
He shook his head. “Nobody for a month. We're filled up. Why?"
“Just looking for a guy,” I said.
I went out. In twenty minutes or so I hit pay dirt. It was a small hotel less than a block from the Spartan. Unfortunately it took just a bit longer there than it should have. The guy on the desk was about as bright as Booby. He was tall and thin, with a skinny head and an obviously squashed brain. He was a good nineteen years old, and not obsessed by life's urgency.
The third time I asked the questions, he said, “Duh ... only guy I checked in was only a hour or so ago, maybe. Man and his wife. A married couple."
“What time was it?"
He checked a card. “Duh ... four o'clock. Maybe just a few minutes before."
“How do you know they were married?"
“They said they was. I didn't ask ‘em to prove it. Yahh.” That was him, laughing at his little joke. That's about as little as they get.
“What did the guy look like?"
It took him a while, but I couldn't miss. Big, bald spot all over his head, wiry black mustache, black suit. Bill Bonchak. Bill Bounce.
The sweaty guy I'd seen at the Diplomat. I guessed Rice had sent him, somehow. Seemed like half the time when I talked to somebody—at least, Dr. Withers, and now Joe Rice—it drove them wild and they sent somebody to shoot me or bug me or otherwise vastly annoy me.
The kid behind the desk was saying, “...and the girl was...” Then he started whistling, rolling his eyes around, and in general acting as if he was having a fit. Maybe he was. But, no, he was describing the girl.
“She's a mess, huh?” I said.
“No, man, she's real snorky, whoopee, boy!” He rolled his eyes like that again. Snorky, I guessed, was whoopee. Whoopee was good, apparently. What did I care? I was here to massacre Billy Bounce.
“What room are they in?"
“Lemmeesee,” he said. He found a card and studied it. “Three?” he said hopefully. “I can't read it."
“You can't read numbers?"
“Can't read my writin'. It looks like a three. Five?"
I grabbed the card and looked at it. “Hell, that's a three,” I said. “Any damn fool could see that."
“If you say so.” He took the card back. “Yeah, I think you're right. Sure. They went into three.” He pointed. “Left there, and down near the end of the hall. Five's the last one, then three this side of it, on the same side of the hall."
I charged to the turn, turned, charged down the hall. There it was. Three. Boy, I was excited. Or awfully hungry. Or maybe I'd caught something from that idiot out there.
Think clearly, I told myself. Forget your goddamn stomach. Inside would be tough Bill Bonchak, and with him—yeah. That's what I'd been trying to think of. With him a wow-whoopee gal. Who else? Rice's tomato, wearing mink pants.
OK, I told myself, he's in there. Listening. To nothing. Somehow, that pleased me. But he'd be alert, on guard—and all over guns. Loaded with guns. Loaded guns. Couldn't give him warning. One kno
ck and rat-a-tat-tat, he'd blaze away. I'd have to kick the door in.
I got into position, lifted my leg—and wham. It felt like it broke my heel. Boy, talk about hurt. And the door didn't go in, either, It's those damned TV detectives; they've ruined it for us real ones. I kicked the door again—that first clunk must have given Bill a little warning that something was wrong—and at last the door went sprack, with almost exactly the sound of a fractured ankle, and flew open, crashing around against the wall.
I limped inside, gun ready in my right hand.
No man in sight. But a girl was coming toward the door. In a hurry. A blonde, wearing nothing but tight white capris and high-heeled shoes, a mink coat in her hand. No blouse, no bra, nothing, just—She was real snorky, whoopee, boy! She came to a sudden stop.
I forced myself to concentrate. “Where's Bill Bouncy?” I snarled.
“Who?"
“Bill Bouncy—arrgh. Bounce. Hell, you know."
“Who?"
The hell with her. I charged through the room. It was easy, since there was only one room. That is, except for the john. I peeked in there. Just a quick peek. Even a hood like Bonchak—that was it, Bonchak—is entitled to some privacy. But he wasn't there, either.
I stalked back to the girl. She had wide-set gray eyes, orange lipstick slightly smeared on a sensuous mouth, a dandy figure—but she wasn't the gal I'd expected to see.
“You get out of my room,” she said.
“Look, you checked in here an hour or so ago with Bill Bonchak, right?"
By now she was holding the mink stole over her bare breasts. “You must be out of your cotton-picking mind,” she said.
Oh, boy, I thought. I got it: Five.
But could there be two gals like this one? Sure. I've seen dozens of them.
That goddamn idiot on the desk. Three, huh? I'd kicked the wrong door in.
“Um,” I said, “excuse me."
Then I charged out of the room, down to five.
Now we're cooking, I thought. Of course, he'd be alerted for sure this time. I'd have to go in like a pro. Fast. Low. Rolling. OK. Wham, it went in that time. So did I. Fast, low, rolling. I came up onto my sore feet, gun ready.
I had them covered. An old geezer and an elderly lady wearing a knitted shawl, and a look of pure astonishment.
The geezer was saying, “Wha ... Wha ... Wha...” But I couldn't take my eyes off the old gal. She opened her mouth wide and her upper plate fell down on the lower one with a delicate chop, and her expression right then gave me a dizzying sensation of unreality. It was a horrifyingly ghastly smile in the midst of crumbling chaos, like Tragedy laughing. Believe me, when the world comes to an end it will start from a spot like that. From such a spot earthquakes, floods, typhoons could commence.
“Oh-h, argh,” I said. “Don't do that."
The old geezer was standing stock still, saying “Wha...” Then he flapped his arms like a rooster. “Wha..."
“I'll bet,” I said, “I'm in the wrong room.” It hit me in a flash. Tricked! I spun around and raced to the next room. Empty. Now I knew what had happened. I'd been tricked. They had flown the coop.
In a flash I was back in the other room. I was getting pooped. The old geezer was still standing stock still where I'd left him. I didn't look at the lady.
But the geezer looked at me. He raised a finger and pointed it at me. He started toward me, combining a dodder with a totter, but getting closer. A queer-expression grew on his face. He head started waggling, and his lips flapped out sideways, and he began clicking his gums together. Not exactly clicking, but knocking them together with a sort of gumming sound.
I said, “I'd like to apologize for kicking your door in. It was a mistake."
He took a deep breath that must nearly have filled his lungs. “I figgered it was,” he said in a high, quavering voice. “I figgered."
“I'll pay for the door. I'm really sorry."
“I heard the commotion. Was comin’ toward the door. If'n you'd waited just a leetle longer, I'd of made it. Halfway there, when bang, she come flyin’ innards. Like to of scared the life outa me—what there is of it."
I left him there. I turned and started running, heart pounding, fear tight in my throat.
It happened in a split second. The whole chain of thought formed and jumped into my mind at once. No telling how long Bonchak had been gone from room three when I finally got there. It had taken me nearly twenty-five minutes just to reach that door, even though things had happened fast since I'd gone into Bonchak's room to see the blonde—partly that was what had thrown me. I'd been expecting to see Rice's hard-looking tomato.
As I ran past the desk, the kid there yelled, “Hey, that blonde just ran outa here. She used my phone—"
I didn't hear the rest. But I knew what it meant. She'd been calling Bonchak—somewhere—to tell him Shell Scott was tipped, running around with a gun. Putting Bonchak on guard. And where would she have called him?
I ran into the Spartan, took the steps three at a time, then moved quietly down the hall to the door of my apartment. It was ajar. I thumbed back the Colt's hammer. If Bonchak was in there, he'd be waiting for me.
I shoved the door open and stepped in, low, both arms forward, right hand gripping the .38, left touching its butt, ready to grab the gun if my right hand or arm got hit.
The door swung slowly around and flattened against the wall.
Bonchak wasn't here. But little Sylvia was. All over blood.
CHAPTER TWELVE
My legs got weak. I felt as if they'd turned to water.
I jumped to Sylvia, kneeled by her.
She was alive. Her tiny mouth was puffed and bloody. Her lower lip hung down and I could see a broken tooth. There was a long welt on the left side of her face, and her neck was bent at a frightening angle.
Her eyes moved, blinked. Then her lips moved.
“Shell..."
“Ah, Sylvia, honey. Don't talk. Don't try—"
Her hand found mine, gripped one of my fingers. “He—"
“Shhh. I'll get an ambulance."
“No. No...” Her hand tightened on my finger. The grip was weak, but I couldn't quite break away.
“Have to tell you. A man—"
“I know. Bald, black mustache."
“Yes. Came in. With a gun, hit me. He looked for you. Then...” Her eyes closed. I thought she'd died. There was a funny sound in my throat.
Her eyes opened again and she said, “Took the record. I don't know why. He took it. Then he waited. For you. I know ... know he was going to kill you."
“It's all right, honey. Be quiet. Be still."
“Shell, he ... then...” She stopped, finished it. “He raped me."
I stood at the phone. Only seconds had passed. It seemed like an hour.
Finally the officer answered in the Hollywood Division. I said, “Emergency. Get an ambulance—and the police—out here. Spartan Apartment Hotel. For God's sake, hurry."
“Spartan ... Shell? Is that you?"
“Yes."
“It ... doesn't sound like you."
“Will you shut your damned mouth and get that ambulance here? And hurry—a girl's been hurt. I think she's dying."
I slammed the phone down, went back to Sylvia.
No need for hurry. She'd lasted long enough to tell me. Just that long.
I stood up, went to the window, leaned out. I could see people walking along North Rossmore. I'd bitten my lip and could taste the blood.
The blur of people walking. A faster blur. Someone running. A flash of white, of blond hair. It was the blond girl. I shook my head, spotted her running diagonally across the street, mink wrapped around her shoulders. She was headed toward a car parked almost a block away.
And running, too, just climbing into the car, was the big bald-headed obscene son of a bitch Bill Bonchak, almost there. I had my gun out and aimed at his back before he climbed in. I started squeezing them off, one after the other, until the gun was empty.
I knew I hit the car. I saw the windshield sliver. But I couldn't know if I'd hit him. Then the car jerked forward, swung around in the street, slammed into the opposite curb. As he backed it up again, the girl reached the car, jumped in. On the street below, a middle-aged couple looked up at me; across the street a child stared.
I jammed the Colt back into its clamshell holster, turned, walked to Sylvia, smoothed her skirt, straightened her arms and legs. Her head still lay over at that odd angle. She was so small, so fragile, her neck would have broken easily.
I left her, ran out of the hotel to my Cad, and started up Rossmore after Bonchak. The ambulance, siren screaming, passed me on the way.
* * * *
I didn't catch him. Somehow I hadn't expected I would—even if I hadn't spent those few moments with Sylvia. He'd been gone in a hurry. It had been getting dark by then. And it was long dark now. I hadn't called the police to report Bonchak. Not yet. I wanted my chance at him first. He was one man above all I wanted to get myself. Of course, Joe Rice had sent him.
When I'd calmed down a little I figured that part out, the when and how, even if not all the way.
Maybe Joe Rice wasn't bright, but he'd been bright enough, this time at least, to sucker me. He'd sent the girl—his girl—to Joe Bonchak with a note. A note written on a check. The bastard had written it right in front of me.
I remembered another thing, too. The thing that had stirred him up, the thing I'd said immediately before he went through that byplay with his hard-faced blonde and gave her the check—which had greatly surprised her, and no wonder.
It was the first time I said “Francis Boyle."
He'd straightened up, written a note, sent it to Bonchak with the girl, then Bonchak had left—and before 4 p.m. Bonchak had bugged my apartment and checked into that little hotel nearby. While Rice fed me enough information to keep me interested, and at the Diplomat.
Maybe it wasn't the kind of evidence that would hold up in court—particularly with one of today's “compassionate” judges presiding. But it was good enough for me. Besides, it's well known my own compassion is warped. I didn't have a goddamned bit of compassion for Bonchak; somehow I couldn't get all worked up about his distress and misfortune. I didn't even feel merciful and forgiving. If I'd found him, I would have killed him.
The Trojan Hearse (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 11