The Meandering Corpse (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  “We might as well get this straight right now. I'm not going to help. I don't work for crooks. And I am not going to do Cyril Alexander's dirty work for him. The answer is no."

  She said, almost casually, “I knew you'd say that."

  I looked at my watch. Man, if I didn't get a wiggle on I was going to be late. And I wasn't about to be late for Sivana. I had a hunch she had an Irish-Egyptian temper. Whatever that is. I didn't think it was good.

  “So, dear little Zazu,” I said cheerily, “I think you'd better go now. It was a nice try, and I can understand your concern for Daddy, but ... Holy mackerel!"

  She'd stood up as if to go, but she wasn't going.

  I'd noticed the big buttons down the front of her up-to-the-neck coat. They were just for show. Underneath was a zipper. She unzipped it and slipped out of the coat. Underneath she wore a white skirt and white blouse, the skirt very wrinkled, the blouse ripped to hell and gone, practically baring her breasts.

  And I mean breasts. Not brassiere. She'd torn the bra apart in the middle, and I could see part of its lacy pink cloth bunched beneath one of the big rips in her blouse. One big firm, high breast was halfway out into the room. Way out into the room.

  It shocked hell out of me. But mainly it was the suddenness of it all. I just gawked for a few seconds, then I recovered and said slowly, “Baby, it won't work. This gag is as old as—"

  “Oh, yes, it will,” she said flatly.

  She'd sat down on the divan again and placed the white coat next to her, a hand in one of its pockets. Don't tell me she's got one of Daddy's heaters in there, I thought.

  I leaned toward her, and she said suddenly, “Don't. Don't even try to get to me. You know I'll scream."

  “I don't doubt it."

  “I can scream loud. Louder than anything."

  “I don't doubt that, either. It still won't work."

  “Sure it will.” She took her hand out of the coat pocket. It wasn't a heater she'd had in there. It was a pair of pink pants. Also torn. Not much, just a little bit at the top. She threw them to the end of the divan.

  I must have moved a little, because she threw both hands up beside her face and opened her mouth wide.

  “Hold it,” I said. I wanted to think about this a little.

  She smiled. No kidding, it was a nice smile. “I read all about that other time,” she said sweetly. “So did millions of other people."

  “You know damned well—"

  “I know you didn't do it. Most people know it. Most. Not everybody. And a lot of them would believe it this time. A lot of them. I thought it all out. I thought about it all afternoon. Ever since they tried to kill Daddy."

  I tried to think of something to say, but there wasn't anything just right on the tip of my mind. I glanced toward the door.

  “You wouldn't lock the door, would you?” she said. “That would be good. If I screamed, and they came up here and found the door locked. And me like this..."

  I opened my mouth. Then I shut my mouth. I still couldn't think of the just-right thing to say. I knew I'd think of it, though. It had to be there somewhere. Obviously this little monster couldn't get away with her—extortion, that's what it was. Not with me, she couldn't.

  She kept smiling and went on, “Of course, Mr. Scott, you could try to force my pants back on me. Maybe that would help. Of course, I'd fight you. And scream, and scream, and scream. And if they came in and found you fighting with me like that..."

  She didn't have to say any more. Would you believe a mouth reasonably full of hot saliva could get bone-dry in, say, three seconds? Well, I can. I tried to swallow, and it practically pulled my tongue down my gullet.

  She had me.

  She really did. She had me.

  Well, it was going to be rough. There'd be a stink, a scandal, probably headlines in the newspapers. But possibly I'd survive it. “So go ahead and scream,” I said. “And when the echoes die I'll start working on your daddy. And before I'm finished with him he'll be rotting in Q."

  “Q,” she said. “San Quentin."

  Yeah, she knew the language. And why not?

  I started to get up.

  She didn't scream. At least, she hadn't yet. Instead she said, “That's what makes this so good, Mr. Scott. San Quentin. That's where you'll go. I'm only seventeen. And they're sure to send you to San Quentin. If Daddy doesn't kill you. And all the people—"

  She went on, but I missed the rest of it. In fact, I missed practically all of it.

  As I said, I'd started to get up. But I only started. At a crucial point, I froze, sort of in mid-air, in a stooped and squatty position.

  Slowly it sank in.

  The part I'd really heard was the “teen” bit. Some-thing-teen.

  Nineteen? No.

  Eighteen? No, that wasn't it, either.

  I, frozen in my squat, I said, “Don't scream. Don't make a sound. Just a minute. I'll get it. But—don't scream."

  Seventeen. That's what she'd said. I was sure of it. I guess I'd been sure from the moment she said it, but my; entire nervous system had to recover, come back to life, start throbbing feebly again, before I could face it.

  “Baby,” I said. “I mean, baby. You're only...” I couldn't say it.

  She said it. “Seventeen."

  “Yeah. You mean you're ... under eighteen, huh?"

  “I won't be eighteen for twenty-two more whole days."

  “That's grand. Great. Oh, boy."

  “You're all right, aren't you, Mr. Scott?"

  “Sure. I've just never been sicker in my life, that's all."

  “I guess you wouldn't want me to tell Daddy you got fresh with me, then."

  “I guess not."

  “Or tell lots of other people. Or scream, or anything."

  “I guess not. No, I guess not.” I paused. “You wouldn't want your daddy to kill me, would you? Or crazed mobs to tear me limb from ... Oh-h..."

  Slowly I sat down on the hassock again. My back felt stiff, as if I'd been in my stoopy squat for a long, long time.

  “Well, Zazu,” I said dully, “I imagine that when Daddy kicks the bucket, you'll take over the mob."

  “I suppose,” she said smiling.

  I scowled at her. “You sure as hell put some thought into this, sweetie. It just occurred to me—Hey, you didn't go out and attack some poor boy, just to—Skip it.” I didn't like her smile. I didn't want to know. I wanted a Martini.

  Martini—Sivana. Well, that was shot, too.

  My life was crumbling in ruins around my head.

  Zazu said softly, “I'm really almost sorry, Mr. Scott. I am sorry. But I'm only thinking of Daddy. I love my daddy, Mr. Scott."

  "Will you for Pete's sake quit calling me Mr. Scott?" I lowered my voice. “After all, I just raped you, didn't I?"

  She smiled again. She smiled a lot. But, of course, she had to smile for both of us.

  “Then you'll help? You'll help Daddy?"

  I looked at Zazu's bare breast, the one sticking way out into the room. “You know,” I said abstractedly, “you sure as hell look older than seventeen."

  “I started developing when I was only twelve years old. It was awfully embarrassing."

  “Yeah."

  “When I was fourteen, all the older boys..."

  “Yeah."

  “You wouldn't believe all the trouble it caused me."

  “Yeah.” I sounded like a sick Beatle.

  I was thinking that maybe I wouldn't believe all the trouble it had caused Zazu. But I'd have bet, bet almost anything, that it was nothing to the trouble it was going to cause me....

  3

  I was sitting there outside the Jazz Pad, in my Cadillac with its flat tires, feeling my lumpy head and groaning aloud. Not from the pain in my head, and ribs, and virtually all my anatomy—though that wasn't lots of fun, either—but because of thoughts of Zazu going through my brain like cannibal termites.

  Merely the thought of Zazu wasn't the whole of it, either. There was S
ivana. She'd hurt my ear. When I'd phoned her—only ten minutes late—to tell her we'd have to postpone our marble game because I had lost my marbles, I learned what an Irish-Egyptian temper was like. I'd been right: It wasn't anything good.

  Her voice cracked my eardrum. I really shouldn't have listened to it all but I was trying to get a word in edgewise. Thus the tremendous sound of her hanging up the phone did my eardrum a lot more good. I'd stood there holding my ear—I'd dropped the phone—and thinking. Well, that tears it, I thought. Then I thought: The hell with her and her goddamn belly button. There are other belly buttons.

  Before leaving the apartment I had talked to Zazu for another ten minutes, fondling my ear. She really did know a lot about me. For example, she knew that, if I promised her something, I'd keep the promise, unless I got myself killed, and even if she'd blackmailed me into the promise. Which is why I have to be careful what I promise people. The upshot of it all was that I told Zazu I'd give her twenty-four hours. I'd do my damndest to strike terror into the heart of Nickie Domano and his Domino gang; I'd give it my all, my utmost—for twenty-four hours. And, of course, she'd never get into my apartment again. Maybe nobody would get into my apartment again. At least, not without a birth certificate. So she'd never have another chance like this. She could take it or leave it. She took it.

  Then she told me the Domino gang had begun hanging out at the Jazz Pad, which had once been the public headquarters of “Daddy” and his hoods. She also told me she knew who'd tried to kill Alexander and had popped Geezer instead. I didn't go along with her logic there but I did want to know who'd shot Geezer. She said Alexander had seen the man and knew who he was—and that she'd tell me his name if I got back. When I got back.

  Yeah, Zazu was still in my apartment. With her coat back on, of course.

  I left the Cad where it was, called a cab. Then I called an all-night garage, ordered four new tires and a speedy job.

  Riding home, I rolled a few thoughts around in my head.

  I wasn't doing so good.

  I was working for a crook. I didn't like that much. And I was supposed to strike terror into the hearts of some other crooks. It struck me, instead, that I wasn't doing so hot at either end of this case.

  When I walked into my apartment again, Zazu jumped up from the divan where she'd been sitting.

  She looked me up and down. Wide-eyed, she examined what was left of me. She looked at my head, my soiled and rumpled suit, the positively enormous lump just left of center on my forehead.

  And she said, “Oh, good! You found them."

  How about that? Wasn't she a little darling?

  “Get your seventeen-year-old ass out of here,” I said. I very rarely swear. And I don't snarl at little girls. Not even little girls so well developed as Zazu. But I wasn't myself, you know. Tonight I had been through—maybe hell is too strong a word. And maybe it isn't

  "Get your—"

  “What happened?” she said. “What happened?” She really seemed interested.

  “What do you suppose happened?” I said sweetly. “They beat the living hell out of me, that's what happened."

  “I'm sorry. Did you ... did you kill any of them?"

  “Ah-ha. That's it. You wanted me to go down there with a machine gun and rip their guts out. You want me to slice them open with a big knife and yank out their hearts and eat them. You—"

  She interrupted. “Mr. Scott, I—"

  “Don't you dare call me Mr. Scott. I have given you the best night of my life. I have given you my head, at least one rib, and possibly my liver. Don't you understand? We're friends."

  “Shell,” she said. “Shell, I just hoped it would be different. I told you, I honestly think you can do things nobody else in the whole world can do. That's why I came here. And I know, if anybody—"

  “Flattery will get you—"

  “—can help Daddy, you can."

  “To hell with Daddy."

  That shocked her a little, finally. “What?"

  “To hell with Daddy. If I can, I will ruin your daddy."

  “You mean ... you're going back on your word?"

  “No. I promised you I'd spend twenty-four hours trying to massacre the Domino gang. Well, that's out, too. What I'm going to spend is the rest of my life, if I live that long. Not for Cyril Alexander. For me. If that makes Daddy happy, fine and dandy. He can sing and dance, if he gets that happy. But he'd better not get in my way, either. I'll make you an orphan. Or at least half an orphan...” I stopped, remembering Alexander was married. At least he had been married. Or ... maybe not, at that.

  But I was sure I'd heard something about Mrs. Alexander. A regular rip-roaring old battle-ax, I'd heard.

  I looked at Zazu. “Won't your mommy be worried?” I asked. “You being out so late? And in a man's apartment."

  I thought that was rather good. But she topped me.

  “Oh, Mama knows where I am,” she said. “It was my idea, but Mama helped me figure some of it out."

  Well, what could I say? I walked over to one of the hassocks and kicked it. Kicked it clear over to the fake fireplace in the wall, under Amelia. Amelia is the garish yard-square nude I picked up in a hock shop, Amelia, peering from the wall, around her glorious fanny, at me and my criminal genius. Even Amelia didn't look so hot to me.

  I stepped to the other hassock and plopped down on it. “What did I do?” I said. “What did I do? I know I must have done something. I'm getting paid off somehow. Maybe it's all those women I—"

  “Shell.” Zazu was walking over the yellow-gold carpet toward me.

  “All those women I—"

  “Shell, tell me something."

  “Don't you want to hear about it? You should gobble it up. Should be right down—"

  “Shell, are you really going to stay on the case? Really?"

  “I told you, didn't I?"

  “Oh, I'm so glad.” She beamed down at me, on my hassock. “It's just what I wanted."

  “Merry Christmas."

  "Just what I wanted."

  "Just what I wanted,” I mimicked her. “Just what I wanted. What is it?"

  “Shell, I'm so glad."

  “Great. Let's go out and celebrate. I'll take you to the Trocadero. No such place any more, but I'll take you to the Trocadero. I can do anything. Or maybe you'd rather go to Heaven. I can fix ... No, some things I can't do. But anything within reason—"

  “Shell, you're simply wonderful,” she said. Then she bent swiftly and kissed me on the mouth. It wasn't a little-girl kiss, either. Of course, she'd told me herself she'd been developing since she was twelve.

  “'Bye,” she said from the door.

  Click went the door as it closed.

  I sat there drumming on the side of my hassock with my fingers. Then I got slowly to my feet, crept to the bathroom, and showered my aches and bruises.

  In bed I lay awake for a while. Lots to do tomorrow. I'd have to call on Cyril Alexander, for one thing. And, by golly, I'd forgotten to ask Zazu who'd killed Geezer. I wasn't surprised. Nothing would surprise me. It wouldn't surprise me if, by the tune she got to be fifty, Zazu—if she lived that long—owned the world.

  Not even my dreams surprised me. But you'll just have to guess what they were.

  I woke up angry and stiff and sore. My body felt as if rigor mortis had tried to set in and died trying. It was morning. Great. Big deal. Morning again. Same old thing, day after day.

  I stayed in the shower for a long time. Hot, cold, then hot at full blast. It helped. Didn't make me look any better—I counted six separate areas that looked gangrenous, on side, back, and chest—but I felt better, and that was the important thing. The pot had finished perking, and I had three cups of strong coffee while I used the living room phone.

  Half an hour later I had my lines out. I'd talked to seven of my best sources of information: four ex-convicts, a retired cop, a male hairdresser—women tell male hairdressers the damndest things—and a bartender. That was enough; they'd spread
the word among others. By noon fifty people would be working for me, on spec; that is, they'd get paid or otherwise rewarded when and if, and only when and if, I got something of value to me. That's free enterprise.

  The word was out that Shell Scott wanted info about Nickie Domano and members of the Domino gang, primarily the kind of info they wouldn't want me to have. I couldn't be much more specific at this point, but that was all right. It was enough that they knew war had been declared; and my agents were in the field.

  While I was at it, I asked for the same kind of dope, if available, on Cyril Alexander and his pack of hoods. Not only was there a chance, in a case like this, that I might wind up as the hunk of meat between two packs of wild hyenas, but if the Alexander decided to retaliate—for the hitting of Geezer, say—against the Dominos, I wanted to know about it in advance, if possible.

  That done I checked the Spartan's garage to see if my Cad had been delivered during the night. It had. So I climbed in and drove to the Police Building in downtown L.A. to see Samson.

  The Homicide squadroom is on the third floor, and a couple of the men on the day watch were in there, drinking coffee from paper cups. I waved at them and stepped toward the closed door of the Captain's office as somebody behind me said, “Hi, Shell. What brings you to the working—"

  He cut it off as I turned around and he got a good look at my face. Actually, it wasn't all that bad. The lump on my forehead was still pretty big and now discolored; my right ear was red and scraped a little, and my right cheek was puffed and bruised; and, of course, I had a dandy black eye.

  “Morning, Bill,” I said. It was Lieutenant Rawlins, another of my very good friends in the department. Except for Samson himself, who rarely went out on a squeal these days, I considered Bill Rawlins just about the best and most knowledgeable detective I knew. He was in plain clothes, a freshly pressed dark suit, crisp white shut, blue-gray tie; a handsome but almost boyish-looking man, two years older than I.

  “What are you doing here?” I went on. “I didn't know you were working the day watch."

  “I'm not,” he said. “Not exactly. Putting in a little extra since that shooting yesterday.”

  “You mean Geezer?"