The Cheim Manuscript (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  Got him?

  Whats left of him. His body was at the side of the road. Mustve been shoved from a car traveling seventy, eighty miles an hour. He’s torn up, but identifiable, and with his license, credit cards and such on him. You coming in to make a report?

  Yeah, pretty quick. See you later, Sam.

  I lit a cigarette and had a few puffs before driving west on Cypress until I saw the flashing red light atop the police car. A second car was at the scene by then.

  I don’t really know why, but I wanted to take a look at Kiffers body. I did. Then I wished I hadnt. You wouldn’t believe a man could leave such a lot of blood on asphalt and dirt and still have so much thick redness smearing his own body. Half his face was scraped away, white bone showing.

  It was Mac Kiffer, though. At least, it had been.

  14

  I was back on the freeway, headed toward downtown LA, when the phone buzzed. I checked the dash clock, noting it was a couple minutes after midnight, wondering who would be calling me at this hour.

  It was Gideon Cheim.

  What the hell do you want? I barked at him.

  I was not in a good mood. Id just shot Burper McGee, and had also just come from looking at Mac Kiffers bloody corpse. There was also the incidental fact that Kiffer could not now finish the tale he’d started to tell. I was certainly in no mood for such a charmer as Gideon Cheim.

  You’ve got to come out here! he shouted.

  Quit bellowing at the top of your lungs, dammit. Come out for what?

  I cant tell you. Not on the phone. But you must come.

  Must, hell! I’m on my way to Homicide to dictate a report, and I’ve got at least nine other things to do. All of which I would prefer to seeing you again.

  Please, Mr. Scott. This is of immense importance. I have to talk to you. Something has come up.

  Like what?

  I’m . . . well. I’ll say this. It concerns Mr. Jellicoe. Now will you come to the hospital?

  I said an unpleasant word. The late Mac Kiffers favorite. But Jellicoe was, after all, my prime objective in this now screwed-up case. I asked Cheim, Do you know where he is?

  No, but . . . this concerns him.

  I was only a few blocks from the Pasadena turnoff, so I said, I’ll be there in fifteen or twenty minutes. But this had sure as hell better be as important as you say it is.

  It is. Please hurry!

  When I walked into room 16 everything was almost the same as on my two previous visits. But not quite. Cheim must have gyrated about in bed a bit, for the covers were twisted and tangled, and in the corner of the room was a water glass broken into approximately a hundred pieces. Cheim was sitting straight up in bed, jaws clenched, wing-like brow pulled down so far it was almost hiding his eyeballs. He was rubbing his hands together nervously.

  Well, I said, its good to see you so relaxed. What horrendous development has occurred?

  I’m being blackmailed.

  He had captured my interest, I must admit. No kidding? I said. By whom?

  Why, hell, by Wilfred Jellicoe. Who else?

  Possibly any number of people. Why do you say it was Jellicoe?

  He called me on the phone. Demanded a hundred thousand dollars. A hundred thousand dollars!

  When are you supposed to dig up this hundred Gs — and whats the setup for delivery?

  I’ve two days to get the cash. No arrangement for payment yet. Jellicoe will call me again in two days, the little bastard. The stinking, ungrateful —

  Hold it. You keep saying Jellicoe. Did your caller tell you he was Jellicoe?

  Of course not. The voice was muffled, but . . . who else could it have been? He’s the only one whos had access to —

  He stopped.

  I smiled. I see. I think. Jellicoe what?

  He knew — knows — several things I . . . that mustnt be made public. The kind of things that, well, if I have to I’ll pay him the money. He swore. And probably keep paying. Unless you can get the sonofabitch off my back.

  I kept smiling. How did he find out these horrible things about you, Mr. Cheim?

  Hell, goddammit, it has to be from the manuscript. Which is another reason I’m sure its got to be Wilfred —

  You refer to I!, the autobiography of Gideon Cheim?

  Of course. What else —

  And what you’ve referred to as supporting documents?

  Yes, dammit. But that’s incidental. Primarily what he’s using are items from the manuscript itself, from my autobiography.

  That’s very funny.

  Don’t you understand, you idiot? The manuscript was to be published posthumously. It wasn’t supposed to be read by anyone, certainly not the public, until I was dead.

  He kind of gasped, put a hand over his heart.

  Which may be any minute now, I said pleasantly. If you don’t cool it a bit. So . . . gently, Mr. Cheim. Go on.

  I had to include items, incidents involving me — things I do not want known — in order that people would accept the rest of it as true.

  The rest of it. The unflattering, shall we say, revelations about other people. Guys you wanted to get even with. Gals you wanted to squeeze. People you wanted to ruin. Even if you had to reach out from the grave to do it.

  He didn’t speak. Not with his mouth. But those now familiar flames flickered redly in his black eyes. The wrinkles around his eyes were drawn inward, bunched, as if the wrinkles themselves were wrinkling.

  Boy, you really are a sweetheart, I said. Being close to death changes a man, right? Makes a man realize where he went wrong. Makes him want to take back every mean, bad thing he ever did or said — or wrote.

  I chopped it off. OK, you’re now a victim of extortion. Any trouble about getting the money?

  No. I’ve that much in my vault at home.

  So far all we have is a voice on the phone. Maybe it was Wilfred, maybe not. Hell, by this time he might be dead —

  Cheim shook so suddenly and violently that I continued in an almost jolly tone. — but that’s merely a wild assumption. Probably he’s healthier than he’s ever been. The point is, we don’t know who called you. Right?

  That’s . . . true. It was just a soft, muffled voice.

  Did the caller give you evidence that he does possess material of such importance that you would submit to blackmail rather than have that information made public?

  He did. There were several incidents he mentioned, yes.

  When did the call reach you?

  Cheim looked at a watch on his thick wrist. Its twenty-five minutes after twelve now. I phoned you immediately after receiving the call. Roughly half an hour ago.

  Say midnight. Your call reached me a couple minutes after twelve. Any idea why the odd hour?

  None.

  If it was not Wilfred Jellicoe, do you have any idea who it might have been?

  He shook his head. No. None at all.

  Have you ever been blackmailed before?

  Have I ever — Good Lord, no!

  Anything unique about the call? Sounds in the background. Music, people talking. Was it local or long distance? Any odd noises, beeps, humming, fading of power on the line, bad reception?

  Nothing. Not long distance, so far as I know. A perfectly normal call in every way. Every other way.

  It was a mans voice?

  Of that I am quite certain.

  All right. You’ve dragged me out here again. This time because you’ve been hit for a hundred Os. What, precisely, do you expect me to do about it?

  Get this goddamned blackmailer off my back. And, of course, recover the manuscript . . . and those — uh — supporting documents.

  Nothing has really changed between us since I came in here this morning, Mr. Cheim. You’re a damned difficult man to convince. The job for my initial client — simply locating Jellicoe — is still primary, still first.

  He started to protest, his face flushing a bit, but I went on, However, I am going to do my level best to get my hands on your
stinking autobiography. And if I find Jellicoe, I’ll let you know as soon as possible. And I will then, if nothing has changed your mind, accept you as a client, and do my damndest for you.

  That is sufficient. He didn’t sound too happy.

  Maybe the two things are one — if I find Jellicoe, I solve your problem, too. Maybe not. But — and this is still an assumption — if circumstances change and I take you on, and successfully complete the job, whats in it for me?

  I didn’t, truthfully, give much of a damn. But I did want to know what Cheim would say.

  And what he said, as it turned out, was perhaps more important than it then appeared to be: Anything. Anything I possess. Whatever you want. That is, whatever you want that I can provide. I’m not a damned billionaire.

  OK, I said. I’ll keep my end of the bargain — if you’re leveling with me. If not. God help you.

  Samson looked tired. His pink face was drawn and there were dark shadows under his eyes. But he didn’t sound, or act, any less efficient or alert than usual. He was barking into his phone when I walked in, and as he hung up he yelled at the guys in the outer office, Get some more coffee in here. And hot this time, dammit.

  While I straddled my wooden, chair Sam said to me, Kiffers in the morgue. Not posted yet, but the top of his heads knocked in. Maybe from that last slide he took, but could be he was clobbered first. Main thing, Luddys on his way here.

  You caught up with him?

  Sam nodded.

  In the car?

  Not exactly. Kelly and his partner were rolling up Coral Drive when they spotted Luddy. He wasn’t actually in the car, he was just getting out of it, and then he started walking fast along Coral. They stopped him anyway — and you know what its like these days if you stop a citizen without seven angels standing by swearing he committed a mass murder.

  I nodded.

  Well, Sam continued dryly, the car was Kiffers, all right. Blue Linc, HFZ440. Would you like to hear what Luddy told the officers?

  I cant wait.

  He was taking a walk. Realized he’d been putting on a few extra pounds — which, true, he’s got plenty of — and was taking, as he put it, a constitutional.

  I didn’t know he could even pronounce constitution.

  He cant. He called it a constipational. Well, here he’s getting his exercise and he sees this car, and it looks just like his old friend Mac Kiffers car. He took a gander inside, just out of curiosity, and sure enough, it was good old Macs. It worried him, because what would Macs car be doing parked there in that funny place without Mac in it?

  A good question. He will, I’ll wager, have some more good ones ready by the time he gets here.

  Which will be any minute now, Sam said. And well need a few pretty good questions for him, too. What made you so sure it was Luddy in the car — or both Luddy and Kiffer, with Kiffer beaten or dead — before we found Kiffer or picked up Luddy?

  Simple enough, Sam. When Kiffer called me he named Luddy and Burper as the guys tailing him. He even thought maybe theyd stuck some kind of beeper under his heap.

  Check. Weve brought the Lincoln in; SIDs going over it for prints, bloodstains now. There was a small magnetic transmitter under the frame. No receiver in the car, though, or in McGees, either.

  Luddy would have thrown that away. Like he threw Mac away. Anyhow, when Burper showed up in the woods —

  Sams phone rang. He answered, hung up, then pressed big index fingers into both eyes and wiggled them around. We can finish this later, he said. Clarence Ludlow awaits. He’s in an I room now with Rawlins and Lloyd. His attorney will be along pretty quick, if he’s not here already. After a big half-hidden yawn Sam leveled his brown eyes on me and said, Well, you tagged the car, and Ludlow. And you were right about Kiffer. You got any sly questions for Clarence?

  Maybe a couple.

  OK, you were there when it all happened. Maybe I’ll let you toss some of it at him. Anyway, you might as well come along and watch the fun.

  Rawlins was one of the best in the Division at interrogation. But when we walked in, merely the glance he flicked at Sam and me said he wasn’t getting anything, except perhaps a gripe.

  I leaned against a wall. Luddy sat, at ease, in a chair before a long table. Rawlins was opposite him, standing, while Lloyd sat to Rawlins left. After another minute or so Samson took over the questioning.

  Mr. Ludlow, are you certain you have been informed of your rights, including the right to counsel, and —

  Yeah, yeah, Captain. They told me all that a couple tunes — I knowed it already anyways. I don’t have to answer no questions, nothin. But I feel a innocent citizen should corporate with the farces of law and order, so that’s me all over.

  I had a hunch one of those mispronunciations was not an accident. That’s the way it is these days.

  Nothing was being developed that I didn’t know already, so I spent most of my time simply watching Luddy. I’ve indicated that he was a large, bumbling oaf, about as far removed from genius as it is possible to get without turning into a mineral. But he did have a certain native slyness ingrained in him, a kind of criminal instinct which usually kept him from straying too far into a labyrinth of lies or contradicting himself.

  Then, too, there was that peculiarly pleasant aura of crude charm which he could, when he felt like it, exude. Inside, as I have also mentioned, be must have been filled with enough poisonous wastes and arterial venom to stun instantly a full-grown buffalo, should Luddy bite him. But from those foul innards oozed something that became, on the surface of Clarence Ludlow, a kind of rough charm, a doltish humor which combined with that forced appearance of easygoing and even exuberant jollity to make him almost likable.

  Luddy was laughing and slapping the top of the table at the moment. Samson had once again told him — or tried to tell him — that we knew he had pushed Mac Kiffer from his own automobile, and all he wanted to know was whether Kiffer had been dead or alive when he hit the street. Sam didn’t phrase it quite as bluntly as that, but it was enough to set Luddy off, anyhow.

  Gawdamn, Luddy chuckled, if you wasn’t fuzz I think you and me could be buddies. I know you don’t think so. Captain, but honest to gawd I do. You got the gawdamndest sense of yumer I ever heered, and if all this wasn’t so serious seeming, Id say this was one of the most joyable nights of my life.

  Samson tried a little longer. Only a little.

  It may not be necessary to repeat this, but for full understanding of Luddys attitude and words it should again be mentioned glancingly that todays pro hoods, and even many of the nonpros, know that nine times out of ten they can get away with anything short of goosing a Supreme Court Justice. This, you might assume, gives them a somewhat freer attitude toward the law than might otherwise be the case, and you would assume correctly.

  After another big laugh Luddy said, Jeest, I laft so hard I think I sprang something in my vertumbrays. You mind if I stand up and stretch?

  Nobody minded.

  Luddy stood up — way up. He was a big joker, six four and maybe two eighty. Most of that weight was bone and muscle, but there was a layer of fat over it, too, especially around his middle and filling out his rhinocerous-like behind.

  He stretched, grunted, said, Ahhh, then twisted back and forth a bit, as though working the kinks out of his vertumbrays. For a few seconds he was swinging his immense fanny energetically from side to side, and then out of the blue he burst raucously into: Say-haint Loowee woman . . . and all her boom, barn, boom —

  Well, it probably doesnt sound funny, but it was. The sight of that great, lard-butted animal swinging his hind end like a grotesque pendulum while bellowing forth a sound never before heard on land or sea damn near cracked us all up.

  Even Samson permitted himself a thin smile. And then he jerked a thumb at me. Wanna talk with your buddy, Shell? You’ve been a lot . . . closer to him than we have.

  I shrugged. What did Sam have to lose? What did anybody have to lose? As Sam moved aside I walked arou
nd and stood where he’d been, and looked down at Clarence Ludlow. Luddy had a fat, open, almost comical face. He also had large, square, horselike teeth which, when he smiled, made him look a little like a large, dumb, fat horse.

  I said, Hi, Luddy, buddy, and he gave me a big dumb smile, showing me the large horselike teeth. He looked very harmless. Do you swear, I went on, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and everything but the truth?

  He started to reply, then cocked his head on one side. Hey, that’s good. Yeah, I’ll do it. Then he assumed an expression of mock solemnity. But I know my rights. I demand to be treated like a crook.

  I laughed. I’ll bet we hear that one again. Look, Luddy, why don’t you confess the whole bit? What have you got to lose? Even if the case gets to trial, there are lots of judges who wont convict a hood of any crime except suicide.

  He guffawed and pounded the table, and shook his big, fat head. Gawdamn, Scott, I like the way you talk. I always did kind of like you, pally, you just never knowed it.

  Uh-huh. Then you and Burper didn’t toss a coin to see who got to shoot me? He won, because you couldn’t bear to kill a guy you like so much?

  The dumb smile again.

  Luddy, I was out there, remember? I’m the guy who knows what happened. You in the car with Mac, Burper waiting for me, then you taking off with Kiffer in his Lincoln.

  Man, you know moren me, then. I know from nothin.

  Then allow me to fill you in. You and Burper caught up with Kiffer when he was phoning me, bent him around or beat on him till he puked all there was, including where he’d set up the meet with me. Proof of that is the fact Burper — not Kiffer — was waiting there for me.

  I paused, but he merely said, I declare.

  Somebody had to stay with Mac, who was probably still alive — until you were sure he’d spilled the straight goods, at least — and that somebody was you, Luddy.

  This is sure interestin. But you got me confused with a bunch of other ghees.

  Nuts. I’ll even tell you why you took off like a rabbit in the Linc with Mac. When Mac spilled to you, he would naturally have included the info that he’d told me both Burper and you, Luddy, were on his tail. So once I spotted Burper, I knew you had to be somewhere nearby. And you knew I knew it, pal.