The Amber Effect (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  Jersey,he said.

  And that was the last word from either of us. As I shoved back my chair, got up, started walking out, Hooten was dribbling booze slowly into his beer from both sides of the mug, staring with apparent fascination and possibly mild pleasure. I could still hear the faint trickling sound as I went out the door. Into the clean smog, and the brightness of cloud-dimmed sunlight.

  It took a while after that for me to get all my bounce back, but after dropping in again briefly at the LAPD, a real steak-and-eggs breakfast with more coffee and smokes had fully restored all my beans and then some.

  Consequently, bright of twenty-twenty eye, when about two p.m. I passed the Weir Building on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Whicherly Drive, I made the guy even though his back was to me and I caught him — at first — only from the edge of one eyeball.

  It was merely a ripple at the rim of sight and memory for a second or two, but when I cranked my head around and took a good look at the Weir Building’s entrance on my right, the tall but sagging figure, and the face seen in profile, head sort of slumping down and out on the bent-forward neck, tagged him in that moment: Hauk. Alvin Hauk, or Al the Clam, the charmer who’d been walking his bulge on North Rossmore last night.

  He wasn’t alone.

  He stood a few feet outside the massive glass-and-stainless-steel doors of the building’s entrance with three other men. One of them, short and chunky, was turning to go into the Weir Building — and Hauk followed him immediately, close behind and with his long torso blocking my view — so I never did get a look at the chunky guy’s face.

  I knew one of the other two, though. We hadn’t met, I’d never seen him in the flesh, but in my coat was his mug shot. Tall, nearly bald, red-faced Elroy Werzen, monicker Puffer. The con who’d spent more than a year sharing a cell at San Quentin with the late Edward BuddyBrett.

  As Hauk followed the chunky guy through the Weir Building’s entrance, Puffer Werzen and the other man stepped briskly toward the street, where I was rolling along in moving traffic. That fourth man was a stranger to me, about fifty years old, six feet tall, weight maybe two hundred pounds, with a lot of it crowded into his midsection.

  I had to pull my eyes briefly from him and Puffer, but then braked the Cad, slowed, eased to a stop several yards farther up Wilshire, parallel to the solid line of parked cars on my right. I considered trying to catch up with Hauk and whomever he was with, but only for a moment. The building was twelve stories; there were probably a hundred offices and suites in it. Besides, at the moment I was more interested in keeping a tail on Buddy Brett’s former cellmate.

  Two cars swung out and around me, but the last guy gave me a blast from the born and gunned me with mean eyes as he went by. Both of my men climbed into a black Mercedes parked at the curb twenty-five yards to my rear. Three cars were stacked up behind me now, apparently not planning to swing around my Cad.

  So I took my foot off the brake, eased forward, waving an arm to encourage the people behind me to pass. A couple of them did. I waited long enough to see that black Mercedes edge from the curb into the traffic stream, then drove ahead.

  With any luck, I could tail the men from in front until there was a chance for me to fall in behind them. Sure — I lost them at the next stop light. When the light turned green I drove ahead, checking the rearview mirror, and caught the flash of black as the Mercedes swung left. I hit the brakes, stuck my head out the window, got a glimpse of the license plate. But that was all, just a glimpse, then the black sedan was out of sight.

  I turned left, sliding, at the first cross street, took another fast left a block farther on. I’d missed part of that plate but was pretty sure the last three letters were KDG. Either KDG or KDC. And the middle letter might have been an O. Not enough; but it was all I was going to get.

  Ten minutes later I quit trying to spot the Mercedes, parked, and phoned the LAPD. Because I’m not a member of the department, instead of dialing Communications direct I placed the call to a friend of mine in the Auto Theft Division, a Sergeant Gageron, and asked him for a make on the partial registration.

  Could take some time,he said. The little you’ve got.

  That’s O.K., Gage, I’ll check back later. But another reason I called you, I’d like to know when this guy Lindstrom phoned in last night about his stolen Continental, when exactly. I think it was a couple minutes before six, but I’d also like the time I asked for the check on it. I’m not certain when I called in.

  Sure, hold on a minute,he said. By the way, that Continental was found abandoned a mile from your place last night, half a block off Beverly. Latent Prints checked it out, didn’t find anything important. Owner’s already been notified.

  Speedy. Must have made Lindstrom happy.

  Don’t ask me, I wasn’t there. O.K., hold on.Then, a few moments later, You’re right, Scott. Lindstrom phoned in just before six p.m., five fifty-eight it was. Got your call at five-fifty.

  Uh-huh. Thanks.

  Mean anything, Scott?

  I’m not sure.

  The stolen vehicle report had been logged by the police eight minutes after I’d called in. Add four or five minutes while I checked the Lincoln, trotted back up to Aralia’s, apartment, jawed briefly with her.

  The way it figures, Gage, the owner called about his stolen heap not more than fifteen minutes after I braced Al Hauk there near the Spartan. Kind of close, but it doesn’t have to mean anything.

  Well, you never know. Here’s one other bit you might want, Scott, since you’re interested in this guy. Four, maybe five years back — Lieutenant French was mentioning it to me this morning, so if you want more you can get it from him — was the only other time we heard anything about this Lindstrom. He reported his kid missing, afraid the boy had been kidnapped or maybe run over by a truck. Called back next day to report the boy home again. Kid just ran away, pooped around for maybe twenty-four hours, got hungry, and came home for dinner. So Lindstrom informed Missing Persons, anyhow, with some small embarrassment.

  All Gage could add was that Lindstrom had been a widower for a couple of years at that time and his only child, Sven, was then twelve years old. I thanked Gage for the info and filed it away, next to the mental wastebasket. Maybe it would come up during my conversation with Gunnar Lindstrom himself, which would commence in about twenty minutes, I estimated, since Lindstrom Laboratories was on Olympic Boulevard, only ten minutes driving time from where I’d parked my Cad.

  I used the extra ten minutes to visit the Weir Building, where I easily restrained myself from spending a day and a half visiting all twelve floors of offices. Instead, I contented myself with reading the board, listing occupants of those offices, on a wall inside the building’s entrance. Doctors, lawyers, merchants; no names that meant anything to me. But I read them all a couple of times, then headed for Olympic.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LINDSTROM Laboratories was a solid-looking two-story building filling half of a city block, its entrance facing Olympic Boulevard. The walls were of off-white cement bricks, their surfaces smooth, equally smooth lines of gray mortar forming a checkerboard pattern of neat and perfectly straight parallel lines across the building’s face — its solid face: the walls were unbroken, windowless.

  I parked at the curb, walked toward heavy wooden doors. Above them was the street number, that was all. No name there, or on the solid-looking doors themselves. I knew without looking that there wouldn’t be any mat at my feet with Welcomecrocheted on it.

  There was, at least, a bell to the right of the entrance, with a small sign saying ring bell. I rang bell, waited. A minute passed. Another. Then one of the two doors opened halfway and a short evil-looking guy about forty years old looked up at me.

  I told him who I was and that I wanted to see Mr. Lindstrom. He said I couldn’t see Lindstrom without an appointment. I said I wished to discuss the matter of Mr. Lindstrom’s stolen automobile. He scowled fiercely, closed the door again. I waited some more. After an
other couple of minutes the short man opened the door again and said simply, Follow me.

  I walked behind him down a softly lighted corridor, my feet silent on slightly spongy gray plastic tile, past closed doors with small nameplates affixed to them. From inside some of the rooms came unusual sounds. Unusual, at least, to me. Tinny hammering; ticking; a muffled mushy thudding that could have been heavy hail falling on a wet lawn; a series of sharp, rhythmic clicks almost like a dozen golf balls being hit in rapid succession, interrupted, then repeated over and over; and from one room a strange high bone-stretching sound, a tremulous humming, like a hundred-foot bow being drawn over a thousand-foot-long bass fiddle. That one was unpleasant, disturbing; it made my skin prickle and chill and I felt hairs on the back of my neck wiggle like splinters of ice or tiny half-frozen worms crawling out through my skin.

  It says a great deal for Gunnar Lindstrom that though I first saw him while that nightmarish hum was still faint and cold in my ears, I liked the look of the man. Even then. And even though he was bending upon me a gaze of such probing intensity it could have bored holes in a Ping-Pong ball.

  We had stopped before an open door about halfway down the long hallway. Inside, a short man with a large leonine head upon which a mass of pale brown hair streaked with gray was in great disarray, as though attempting to fly from his scalp in several different directions at once, stood staring at us from heavy-browed dark eyes. He stood behind a gray desk upon which were stacks of papers and several objects like parts of a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, arms folded over his chest, while fixing us — or, rather, me — with that pointed and penetrating gaze.

  Come in, Mr. Scott,he said.

  The voice was soft, even gentle; but in it was something rather like a muted version of the bone-penetrating sound I could still faintly hear. The little man who’d accompanied me went silently back the way he’d come. I stepped inside.

  I am Gunnar Lindstrom,he continued. You wished to discuss my stolen vehicle?

  Yes. Among other things.

  Among other things? Are you a police officer?

  No, I’m a private investigator.

  I see. All right. You may have three minutes of my time.

  Lindstrom sat in a black-leather-padded swivel chair, and as I moved to another chair and sat in it, he reached for a small wood-and-curved-glass object atop his desk, and turned it over.

  It looked like one of those little hourglasses with little bitty grains of white sand inside it. Sure, there were the little bitty grains starting to fall down to the bottom of the thing. I wondered what it really did.

  What’s that?I said.

  It is an egg timer. It requires precisely three minutes for the sand to be transferred by gravity flow from the upper chamber to the lower chamber.

  Precisely three minutes . . . ah, I get it.

  I would be astonished if you did not.

  In a few more seconds it became clear that this guy wasn’t going to be a lot of additional help. I stopped expecting any comments like What is your problem?or How may I be of assistance to you, Mr. Scott?or even You now have only two minutes left.

  Well, sir,I said briskly, you own a gray Lincoln Continental sedan. Last night I spoke to a man who was strolling a few feet from where it was parked on North Rossmore and asked him if he owned it. He denied that he did, but I have reason to believe he almost immediately drove off in your car. It is perhaps not significant, but of some interest to me, that about twelve or thirteen minutes after I braced this guy you phoned the police — at five-fifty-eight p.m. — and reported your car stolen. Do you know any of these men, Mr. Lindstrom?

  By then I had pulled from my coat pocket three mug shots and spread them on the desktop in front of him.

  Before examining the photos, Lindstrom said, I detect a certain emphasis upon the twelve or thirteen minutes’ intervening between your — what was it, bracing? — yes, bracing this individual and my report to the police. Do you imply that there might be some connection between your bracing and my reporting?

  I imply nothing at the moment. You may infer anything you wish.

  Hmm, you do not look like a strict logician,he mumbled softly. Or even grammarian. Ah . . .Lindstrom was glancing at the photos. Yes, this gentleman is employed here at Lindstrom Laboratories. I have on a few occasions seen him in the company of this gentleman. The other I do not know.

  He had indicated the mug shots of first, Elroy Werzen, and then Alvin Hauk. The man he professed not to know was the late Buddy Brett. I put the pictures back into my pocket and said, I don’t mean to be picky, but those lobs are not gentlemen. You say Puffer Werzen works here?

  Puffer?

  Elroy — Puffer’s his monicker, his hood name. Both of those creeps have lengthy arrest records, and Werzen’s done time at San Quentin.

  I am aware that Mr. Werzen is an ex-convict. I presume you agree it is better that ex-convicts be gainfully employed rather than continue to pursue the occupation that eventuated in their becoming ex-convicts.

  It depends.

  Upon what?

  Lots of things, like do they maybe, after their hours of gainful employment and on weekends, go around hitting people upon their heads and borrowing all their money. But I hate to use my three minutes being so negative.

  Ah.

  After a moment, Lindstrom eyed the hourglass — or, more accurately, three-minute glass — then turned it over on its side.

  I considered that an encouraging thing for him to do, and said, From the little I know, not to mention the otherworldly sounds I’ve heard in this place, I would assume that many people with admirably convoluted brains work here upon various complex items of machinery, invent great leaps forward, perform thunderingly abstruse operations —

  You do not have to talk to me like a man with little bells attached to his epiglottis, Mr. Scott, simply because it is rumored that I am a genius.

  It sounded sarcastic, even nasty, but with the words Lindstrom smiled — his first unmistakably cheerful expression since we’d met — and it was such a bright, boyish, winning smile that twenty years fell from his face and his sharp features seemed almost to glow. There was also a definite twinkle in those dark eyes of his, I noted. Certainly, when accompanied by that smile, there was no sting in the words.

  O.K.I grinned back at him. It’s a habit of mine. I talk like a hood to hoods, and when yacking with doctors I sometimes sound like a vet myself. Well, I figure the people who work here, at least most of them, must have more than plenty of noodles, where as it’s likely Puffer may not have enough for a thimbleful of weak soup. So —

  Yes, I had anticipated your question. Mr. Werzen does think a slide rule has something to do with a close decision at home plate, but he is a man nonetheless of considerable physical strength, and also remarkable mechanical ability.

  Uh-huh. So Puffer’s employed to hold things up — strike that — lift and carry, fix nuts and bolts and such?

  In an institution such as this there are many repairs necessary which do not require the talents of an engineer. Mr. Werzen is most efficient in repairing a wide variety of electrical instruments, constructing tables and platforms for which we would otherwise have to hire carpenters and several union vice-presidents, and fortunately, he approaches genius in his rapport with plumbing.

  Fortunately?

  Lindstrom smiled again. We have sixteen toilets here. Thanks to Mr. Werzen, never have less than fifteen of them been functioning perfectly at any one time. This is a prerequisite for optimum efficiency since, at Lindstrom Laboratories, it is not true that he also serves who only sits and waits. Mr. Werzen is virtually a Renaissance man of the toilet.

  I would never have guessed it in a million years. I hope you got him cheap.

  I’ll admit, employing Mr. Werzen here in several minor capacities has saved us some money — which is a consideration not to be ignored. You see, Mr. Scott, Lindstrom Laboratories, unlike the many tax-exempt foundations in this country, is privately s
upported. It is a private enterprise, an institution designed to make money. The more we trim from overhead and operating expense, the greater the profit for our stockholders. All of Lindstrom Lab’s employees are stockholders, by the way, which experience has shown to be most instrumental in stimulating employee loyalty and incentive.

  Makes sense. Back to our Cellini of the can; you say you’ve seen him with Alvin Hauk?

  Our what? With whom?

  Puffer, the foe of constipation. With this guy.I showed him Hauk’s mug shot again, and spelled his name.

  Lindstrom nodded. I did not know the man’s identity. But, yes, I have seen that individual in Mr. Werzen’s company on a few occasions.

  Here at the lab?

  Yes, on each occasion. Mr. Werzen does not drive, at least he does not drive his own automobile. Usually he comes to work with Mr. Collett, who is in charge of our bookkeeping department — our accountant — and leaves with him. On the few occasions I’ve mentioned, I happened to observe Mr. Werzen near, or entering, the vehicle driven by your Mr. Hauk.

  You remember what kind of car Hauk was driving?

  Lindstrom reached up and tugged on a hunk of hair, eyes half closed in concentration. Then he let go of the hair and it slowly fell down in front of his right ear as he said, Yes, a Chrysler Cordoba, two-tone green sedan, this year’s model.

  Would you mind describing Collett? I’m interested in any of Puffer’s pals.

  He gave me a brief but very clear description, which sounded like the fiftyish heavy set guy I’d seen with Puffer earlier, in front of the Weir Building. It would be interesting,I said, if Collett happens to drive a year-old Mercedes-Benz with a license plate ending in KDG.

  I believe he does, Mr. Scott. I have no idea what the license number is, but I’m quite sure his vehicle is a black Mercedes. A four-door sedan.

  What’s his first name?

  James. James M. Collett. Is it important?

  Might be. O.K. if I use your phone? Is that a phone?