Honey West: A Kiss for a Killer

by G. G. Fickling

  “I still don’t get that bit of hocus-pocus,” the deputy said, watching me shift the car into low, moving us out of the hospital’s parking lot. “The Angel’s in the County Morgue.”

  “Of course, she is. But somebody took the liberty of resurrecting her. At least, for the moment.”

  “Who?”

  “Thor Tunny. He’d been a carney man in his early days. Done everything from voice imitations to ventriloquism. He had his suspicions. His performance last night really electrified our murderer.”

  “I can imagine. But what’s on the tape?”

  “It’s sort of Sol Wetzel’s last will and testament. I thought we’d listen to it while we had our drink.”

  Mark nodded dismally. “Okay, by me.”

  Lights still blazed along downtown streets as we turned into the parking lot behind my office. Dawn cut the sky deeper and wider. We crossed the asphalt slowly, shoes clattering. Upstairs behind the frosted glass door that read: H. WEST, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR, I poured two drinks, then spooled the tape onto my recorder. I ran it back to the beginning and reversed the reel.

  “I made a mistake night before last,” I said. “Not realizing this was the front half of a broken tape I played it and got nothing. That was because I forgot that a split reel placed on the other spindle plays the opposite side.”

  “So what does that prove?” Mark asked, sipping at his drink.

  “You told me that you checked out some of Sol Wetzel’s party-goers. One of them said he thought some of the hi-jinx was pre-taped. Well, this I believe is the tape.”

  I pressed the PLAY button and a voice laughed, “Hey, that’s fun. Why not try it on Sol?”

  Other voices shouted, “‘Yes! Good idea! Make Sol sweat!”

  “Not me,” Sol Wetzel’s voice floated up. “I don’t like that kind of stuff. Let’s play strip poker instead.”

  “No!” argued another. “Put Sol under. Make him confess his sins!”

  “Okay,” Wetzel said. “But you’ll all be sorry.”

  There came a general rush of laughter, then footsteps clattered.

  “Where do you want me to sit?”

  “Here,” a woman said. “In the light.”

  Mark’s forehead ridged. “That sounds like Toy Tunny.”

  “It is,” I said.

  Toy’s voice continued, “You feel very tired, Sol. Relax all your muscles and imagine you are going into a deep sleep. Look up into the light. Keep looking at it. Just relax. That’s better. You feel yourself drifting. Falling sound, sound asleep. Deeper and deeper and deeper.”

  Mark got to his feet. “She’s hypnotizing him.”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “You’re sleeping now, Sol,” Toy continued monotonously. “A deep sleep. One that is becoming deeper and deeper. A pleasant sleep.”

  Laughter broke, died. Mark’s eyes studied the turning reels intently.

  “When you wake, Sol,” Toy’s voice droned, “you will not be as peaceful. You will be angry. Your worst enemy will be standing near you, even though you won’t be able to see him. He’s come to harm you, Sol. Do you understand? He’s got a gun and he’s threatening you with it.”

  “No!” Sol Wetzel’s voice exploded.

  Toy’s tone lowered. “But you’re not afraid, Sol. Not at first. Tell him what you think of him, but look out for his gun.”

  After a long moment of silence, Wetzel’s voice lifted, “You fool! You think you’re smart, don’t you? Well, you’re not. You’re a fool!”

  Mark straightened, shooting a narrow-eyed glance at me.

  “I’ll kill you!” Wetzel’s voice rose defiantly. “If you come closer, I’ll kill you!”

  “But, that’s—” Mark stammered, staring at the whirling reels.

  “No!” Wetzel cried. “No! No! No!”

  The tape jerked off the end of the spool and spun, clicking harshly on the half-filled reel. Mark advanced toward the recorder, eyes wide.

  “But, Honey,” he protested. “That’s exactly what you told me Wetzel said just before he died.”

  “That’s correct, Lieutenant,” I said, shutting off the machine. “There’s concrete evidence. Wetzel was dead long before I ever entered that room.”

  “But I thought—”

  “What, that Fred killed him? Don’t be ridiculous, Mark! Fred was only a post-hypnotic pawn along Toy Tunny’s vengeful road to murder. She killed them all. Rip Spensor, Angela Scali, Sol Wetzel—and indirectly Adam Jason.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Mark opened the cell door and stared in at Fred Sims, who was hunched forward on a bunk, head in his hands.

  “Come on out, killer,” the deputy said lowly.

  “Leave me alone,” the newspaperman murmured. “Just leave me alone.”

  “Honey and I have something to tell you, Fred.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “This might make good front page copy.”

  “Yeah,” Fred mumbled, staring at us in the dim light. “Like reporter goes berserk? Makes up for lives he saved during war? And that’s all he wrote.”

  “Not all, Fred,” I added. “Come on, we want to show you something.”

  He shrugged, lifted on his cane and went into Mark’s office with us. I showed him a book on hypnotism.

  “Ever read anything on this subject?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you know what a post-hypnotic suggestion is?”

  “Vaguely,” Fred answered, brushing at his face.

  I dropped the book on Mark’s desk and said, “Well, until you struck Toy Tunny down you were under a pretty severe one. Severe enough to kill under the right stimuli.”

  “I—I don’t get you.”

  “Didn’t you tell me, Fred, that on the day of Angela’s death you underwent two periods of mental blackout?”

  “Yes.”

  “The first occurred after you found Angela’s body hanging from the tree, isn’t that so?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “What was your reaction upon making that discovery?”

  Fred slumped into a chair, face contorted. “I—I cried like a baby. I thought my insides would drop out. It was the worst moment of my life. Then everything went blank.”

  “Did you remember that she was dead when you came to in her shower stall?”

  “No,” Fred blurted. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Probably temporary amnesia,” I said, looking at Mark. “The impact must have thrown him for a loop.” I studied Fred again. “Then you didn’t remember her death when you drove to my apartment later that same morning?”

  “No.”

  “Nor when you returned with me to Meadow Falls?”

  The newspaperman shook his head dazedly. “I—I didn’t remember until Mark came into the temple and said he’d found her by the falls. Then—then I knew I’d killed her.”

  “Why, Fred?”

  “Because I recalled washing her blood off my suit. I remembered reaching up for her.”

  “But you also said you had the recollection of finding her already dead. Didn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “Of course. But somehow I couldn’t believe it. Not until after I talked with Toy.”

  “When did this conversation occur, Fred?”

  “In Thor Tunny’s office, shortly before the other blackout.”

  “Do you recall what was said?”

  “Some of it. Toy told me she thought she knew who had murdered Angela. I became very frightened. Sick to my stomach. I laid down on the couch, and—”

  “And what, Fred?”

  “Then—then—”

  “You went blank again.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll tell you what happened, Fred. Toy hypnotized you.”

  “What?”

  “She convinced you that I killed Angela Scali. She even went further and suggested that until I was dead you’d never have a moment’s peace.”

  “But that’s fantastic, Honey,”
Fred protested.

  “Not half so fantastic as your attacks upon me in the mountain cabin, the gate shack and again on the roller coaster. Your subconscious was convinced of my guilt. And not until Toy screamed for forgiveness for Angela’s death in Sol Wetzel’s living room was the spell broken.”

  “Honey, you mean Toy Tunny killed Angela?”

  I nodded.

  “How about Spensor?”

  “Spensor and Wetzel. Jason committed suicide, but obviously through her influence.”

  “I thought—”

  “Sure you did,” I said. “Toy inflicted you with that thought. The same as she did with Adam Jason. He was so convinced of his own guilt he even wrote out a confession.”

  “But how did she do it, Honey? And why?”

  “Sol Wetzel denied he was ever in love with Angela. But he said he knew of someone who was in love with her. That was the key to the whole case.” I took a diary from my purse and tossed it on Mark’s desk. “I found this in Toy’s handbag. It belongs to Wetzel, and apparently is the object he was looking for when he went into his bedroom. It tells of a mixed-up love triangle between Toy Tunny, Rip Spensor and Angela Scali.”

  Fred jerked to his feet. “What?”

  “Wetzel says in his diary that Toy was deeply in love with Rip Spensor. So was Angela. To Rip, both love affairs were a sometimes pleasurable game that he kept going for the fun of it. Apparently Toy found out about Rip’s association with Angela and me, and her evil little mind began creating all sorts of pictures. She must have decided if she couldn’t have Rip Spensor, no one could. So she plotted the destruction of Angela, Spensor and me.”

  “Incredible,” Fred murmured.

  “At first Toy must have figured on Angela being accused of murdering Rip and me. But she didn’t count on my escaping the tarantulas. Nor Angela coming to me.”

  “Where’d the tarantulas come from?”

  “From a cage buried in Rip’s backyard. Adam probably stole them, at Toy’s hypnotic command, and then placed them in my car.”

  Mark lifted a shade behind his desk, allowing light to flood into the room. Fred blinked, shaking his head dazedly.

  “It might clarify things if you start at the beginning, Honey,” the deputy suggested. “With Rip Spensor.”

  “Okay,” I said. “That night, following the Rams-Forty-niners game, Angela had a rendezvous with Rip at his house. Toy followed her, no doubt spying on their movements inside the house. After Angela drove away, Toy slammed the steam roller into high gear and caught Rip flat-footed on the road.”

  “But Angela,” Fred blurted. “How could Toy have lifted her up onto that tree branch?”

  “She didn’t,” I said. “You remember the wind was blowing quite violently that morning just before the storm broke. Toy must have stabbed Angela by the mountain stream. Then when one of those tree branches was blown close to her, she caught it with a rope, tied a noose and slipped it around the Angel’s neck. Then she let the limb spring back into place.”

  “But why Sol Wetzel?” Fred asked, regarding me tautly with his steel-grey eyes.

  “As I explained. Wetzel said he had something to show me. Toy must have become frightened when he showed her the diary while I waited outside the bedroom. Not realizing what was going on I switched on the radio. Unfortunately, the sound drowned out any sound of murder. Then Toy played the tape of Wetzel’s speech, which provided her with an alibi.”

  “How’d you figure that one, Honey?” Mark asked, shaking his head.

  “First, I believed Ray Spensor when he said he’d heard no one come down that walkway behind Wetzel’s house. Secondly, I couldn’t find the other reel of that broken tape.”

  “So that brings us to Adam Jason,” the deputy said.

  “Yes, Adam was one of Toy’s hypnotic pawns. For a second time she sent him to murder me, but Adam apparently couldn’t go through with it. Instead he took the poison that was meant for me and that was finis for him—and Toy Tunny.

  “You see, Fred,” I continued. “Under hypnotic suggestion a person will not commit an act or crime which is against his will or morals normally. In your case, on the other hand, the burning love you felt for Angela drove you to violent hatred toward her murderer. For you, a person who was forced to kill again and again during the war, murder to avenge the death of your love was an automatic thing.”

  Fred got up slowly and hobbled to the window. He stared out at the new day and at the city that was beginning to stretch in the morning sunshine. Then he groaned.

  “What about Toy Tunny?” the newsman asked.

  “She’s going to live,” Mark said. “At least until she reaches the gas chamber.”

  “You mean—I’m free to go?”

  “Not quite,” I said. “There’s one thing we haven’t disposed of.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My brakeless ride down the mountain. Who slipped me the brass ring?”

  “I—I don’t know,” Fred stammered.

  “You were driving the car. Didn’t you notice anything wrong with the brakes?”

  “No.”

  “Where’d you park the car after you returned to the camp?”

  “Behind the temple.”

  “Were the keys in it?”

  “Yes,” Fred answered, after a moment.

  “Must have been Adam Jason,” I said. “Under Toy’s spell he probably figured I’d try to escape in that car while they were hunting for me. Poor Adam. He was under the same sort of hypnotic trance that you were Fred. Toy had you both eating out of her hand.”

  “Remind me never to look anybody straight in the eyes again,” Fred managed, brushing at his brows.

  I smiled. “And remind me never to take a roller coaster ride without a parachute.”

  “I—I’m sorry, Honey.”

  I patted his cheek. “Well, I’m not. If you hadn’t jumped me the way you did I probably never would have figured Toy Tunny. Worse, you might have killed yourself as Jason did.”

  Mark Storm got to his feet, stretched and wrapped his thick arms about my neck. “How about you and me taking a little ride.”

  “Where to, Lieutenant?” I said slyly.

  “Into orbit.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  We started for the door. Fred’s voice stopped us.

  “She’s got you in a trance, Marcus,” the reporter said, grinning.

  Mark grinned back. “Good,” he said. “It’s just about my turn, isn’t it?”

  Outside in the corridor, he shoved me against the wall and kissed me.

  “You feel very tired, Lieutenant,” I whispered in his ear. “Very, very tired. You are going into a deep sleep. Deeper and deeper. Your eyelids are heavy.”

  He lifted me into his arms.

  “You have me in your power,” he said. “What is your command.”

  “Take me to your launching pad, commander!”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  We staggered down the steps to the street. I smiled up at him. Next stop. The moon!

  “I slipped into a pair of panties and a bra, then encircled my right thigh with a garter holster and inserted my pearl-handled .22 before getting into a blue cashmere sweater and skirt. The clamor of the Pike’s merry-go-round and roller coaster was stilled now in the late-night darkness and fog. The horn of a ship trapped somewhere in Long Beach Harbor moaned faintly …”

  L.A.’s nerviest, curviest P.I. is up to her navel in trouble again, and this time the murder rap has been framed on her. The victims: Honey’s boy toy Rip Spensor, a Los Angeles Rams QB who got sacked by a steam-roller (“ground right into the asphalt”), and Angela Scali, an Italian Hollywood bombshell that set out for an innocent weekend at a nudist colony run by some quirky evangelical Christians and ended up hanging dead in a romantic mountain glade (“the grass underneath red with her blood”). What connects the two? Both were associated with a certain blonde gumshoe with an unmistakable 38-22-36 figure and a license to carry.

&n
bsp; To dodge this rap Honey has to get around a convertible full of tarantulas, the macabre machines of an “adult playground,” and more than a few doped-up martinis—not to mention the real killer, who has it out for Honey, too!

  G.G.FICKLING is the pseudonym of husband and wife team Forrest and Gloria Fickling. When asked about Honey West in a 1986 interview with the L.A.Times, Forrest Fickling said “I first thought of Marilyn Monroe, and then I though of Mike Hammer, and decided to put the two together.” The Ficklings are widely credited with creating American fiction’s first female detective: in 1966, at the height of Honey’s powers, the Encyclopedia Britannica described her as “the leading female fictional character in the world.”