The Meandering Corpse (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  “You think he might have sent his boy up here to chill her?"

  “Could be. I'd like to talk to her."

  “I want you to talk to her. You know her a lot better than any of us. You might get something we missed."

  “Well, we're not exactly, uh, thick as thieves, you know. Just hello, and an occasional belt or two."

  A fleeting grin came and went on his face. “You mean it isn't like the enduring relationship between you and Zazu—"

  “But—"

  “Yeah.” He looked toward the divan, caught the plain-clothes man's eye, and moved his head slightly. In a few seconds the detective got up and came over. Bill spoke to him briefly and sent him away. Then he said to me, “She's yours."

  “Let her sit there a minute or two. Let her think about it alone for a while."

  “O.K. Well, what's your impression?"

  I looked at the two bloodstains, fifteen feet apart. “Could've been somebody here with her. They traded shots, and Werme got the big one."

  “We'll check those stains out. If they're from two different people, that'll sure make Lilli a liar, won't it?"

  “Sure will."

  “No sign of a slug anywhere in the walls or furniture, none that we've been able to turn up yet. If another shot was fired, it must have hit somebody."

  “So you can check the docs, of course. If a slug hit him it must still be in—Wait a minute.” I stopped thinking. “When did this happen. Bill? Pin it down as close as you've got it so far."

  He pulled a notebook from his coat pocket, flipped it open. “Call came in to the complaint board at nine-forty-seven p.m. I was rolling home in my own car when Sam called me on my mobile phone, and I got that at ... nine-forty-nine, two minutes later. I got up here in the suite at nine-fifty-four p.m. Checked in with Sam, called you at ten-oh-five."

  “Lilli called the complaint board?"

  “Right."

  “And that was at nine-forty-seven. Say Werme was shot right before then, or even a few minutes earlier .... Bill, a minute or two after ten, just before you called me, I was talking to Matthew Omar."

  “You called him?"

  “No, he called me. That's why I think it might be important.” I told him about the conversation.

  He grunted. “Funny."

  “Maybe it gets funnier. Let me throw a wild one at you."

  “Throw it."

  “Omar was here with Lilli. Werme comes in—to hit Lilli—and trade slugs with Omar. Omar's the brain boy, fast with the figures and books, but he probably carries a gun. Werme went down right where he is now. Omar bled a little, there—” I pointed toward the stain before the bedroom door—"then fixed up a fast story with Lilli and took off before she called the police."

  “And called you? Why? Alibi?"

  “Maybe. Depends on the timing. He said he was home—he might have been, for all I know. He could get there from here in fifteen, twenty minutes. But he could have phoned me from anyplace, pay phone booth, you name it."

  “Some holes in it."

  “Maybe. And maybe we can plug them up. What gets me is his calling me in the first place. He never did tell me why."

  “And he sounded—"

  “Nervous, worried, under strain—I thought then. But he might have been hurt."

  “Let's check it."

  I gave Bill the name of the street where Omar and Cork lived, and he said he'd call in and get the number. He turned and walked toward a phone on the dark wood and leather bar.

  And I walked across the room toward the teal blue divan and Lilli Lorraine.

  6

  “Hello, Shell,” she said, when I sat down beside her.

  “Hello, Lilli."

  “You look awful."

  “Yeah. You look great."

  It was starting. Every time I got within eighteen feet of this female, I got a sort of warm, fuzzy feeling, the way a peach must feel when it's ripening. It was as though she had a warped terminal somewhere that reached out and grabbed me by a kind of aerial osmosis.

  She was wearing a pearl gray dress made out of jersey or one of those new miracle fibers, and it looked miraculous on her. It was cut down to approximately her navel—for a brief hot moment the vision of Sivana flashed before my eyes—but the bottom half of the long V was held together by three little bitty white buttons. To hold the top half together would have required at least three great big huge nuts and bolts, I figured. The way she dressed wasn't really fair to her face.

  I looked at her face, the yummy red lips, creamy complexion, sparkling blue eyes—just a bit less sparkling than usual because of the recent tears. “You killed him, huh?” I said.

  “Yes. I feel terrible, just terrible."

  “You're a good kid, Lilli."

  “Terrible. It was awful. Oh-h—” She sobbed a little. A few tears, real tears, came out of her eyes. Maybe three. “Oh-h,” she said again. “Shell ... is my mascara running?"

  “No. Not really. I think it's walking a little. Tell me about it."

  “About what?"

  “The murder."

  “I didn't murder anybody. I shot somebody. But I didn't murder—"

  “Don't get excited. I meant the shooting."

  “Well, I came home. He must have been going through my drawers and he found my little green box."

  “Your ... green?"

  “That's where I keep my jewels."

  “No kidding."

  “So I shot him."

  “I don't blame you."

  “I'd turned on the lights in the living room, and he was just coming out of the bedroom, with my jewels in his hand. I saw them sparkling, and I guess I thought he had a gun. I was just terrified, anyway."

  “Yeah."

  “So I shot him. He fell down, then got up and came toward me. I backed up to the door. He just kept coming toward me. But just before he reached me he fell down again. Then I called the police."

  “Rawlins, the lieutenant, told me there was no gun found on Werme. He always carried a gun. So what happened to his gun?"

  “I don't know. Shell."

  “O.K. Who was with you when you blasted him?"

  “With me? I don't know what you mean."

  “Who besides Jay Werme, I mean. Like boy friend, lover, girl friend, aunts, uncles—"

  “Nobody."

  “O.K. You said you were out and came home. Where had you been?"

  “To a movie."

  “In that outfit?"

  “Of course."

  “O.K. What was the movie?"

  “It was that new one from Carbuncle Productions, called Youth's Fling. It's all about these students who sign a petition against studying. Then they decide to go on a riot. It was very exciting."

  “I'll bet."

  She told me some more about it, clear up to the climax when the kids set fire to the university. She'd seen it, all right. Of course, it had been playing for two weeks, but Lilli said she'd seen it only tonight, her night off.

  We talked another minute, then I got up and walked across the room to Rawlins. “You come up with anything?” he asked me.

  “Yeah. She didn't do it."

  “How'd you figure that out?"

  “Beats me."

  “Well, we'll take her downtown and interrogate her."

  “You'd better do it by telephone."

  “What does that mean?"

  I was coming back to reality. My fuzz was wearing off. “Maybe its just me,” I said. “Next time I'll send her a telegram. You come up with anything on Omar?"

  “Yeah, I just got a call. Checked his house. His buddy Cork is there, but Omar isn't. Cork claims he'd just got home, didn't have any idea where Omar was. Pretty well boozed up. The team's still going through the house. There's a desk in the corner of the living room, phone on the desk. Under a throw rug next to the desk—rug looked out of place, so the men moved it—there was fresh blood."

  “Uh-huh. And no sign of Omar, huh? Or maybe no other sign."

 
“That's right. Something else interesting. This Lorraine woman's been living here the last two months, at the Wilmington Hotel before then. You got any idea how much the rent on this joint is? A thousand a month."

  “Maybe she's got a friend. She sure makes a guy feel friendly—"

  “This is the top, the fourteenth floor. Actually there are only thirteen, but it skips from twelve to fourteen. Private elevator for the two penthouses."

  “Two?"

  “Yeah, this one and the other across the hall. Two months ago a man calling himself Mr. Ames leased the other penthouse for six months, paid in advance. Tall, nice-looking guy with short legs. Deep voice.” Rawlins paused. “I might have missed it, except you and I had been talking about a guy looks like that.” He gave me the rest of the description he'd gotten from the manager of the Madeleine; it even included the deep cleft in Mr. Ames's chin.

  “Matthew Omar, huh?” I said.

  “Sure sounds like him. And it seems to fit."

  “It does, at that."

  Rawlins looked at Lilli. “Were you serious when you said she didn't do it?"

  “Well, not exactly. Not then. But I am now. One thing's sure: Werme wasn't here to lift brooches and earrings. She either shot him for another reason, or murdered him in cold blood, or somebody else shot him and she's covering up for the somebody. And that's the one I buy, the last one."

  “I'll buy it, too.” Rawlins chewed on his lip. “Werme without a gun bothers me. If he came up here to kill her, chances are a hundred to one against it winding up like this. Unless she's a hell of a lot better with a heater than we've any reason to suppose."

  “Yeah. But there's one way she might have got the drop on him. She's got a couple of heaters .... No. It wouldn't work on a guy with eyes like Werme's."

  They were taking the body out now.

  Rawlins and I talked a couple more minutes, and he said he'd let me know how all the bloodstains checked out and if they dug up anything important or found Omar.

  Then I headed for home. As I climbed into my Cad, the ambulance was just leaving with Jay Werme's body. On the way to the morgue. Where he'd sent Geezer.

  I was having black coffee again in the morning when the bedroom phone rang. That's the unlisted phone, and the guy calling was one of my informants who knew the number.

  “You're interested in what happened to Matt Omar last night, aren't you?” he said.

  “You bet I am. What you got?"

  “Word is three of the Domino guns went into his pad and scratched him. He was alone, else they might have got some more. You hear about it yet?"

  “First I've heard."

  “That's good. Remember I got it to you first."

  “I will. What do you mean, first? Expect me to hear it again?"

  “Well, it's all over town, how it happened. Doesn't seem to be no secret about it."

  That was a little odd, I thought. It took no stretch of the imagination to imagine Domino's hoods killing Omar and any other of Alexander's gang within range, but it hardly followed that they'd broadcast news of the killing. There was the call I'd received from Omar last night, too.

  “You didn't have any trouble getting this dope? And don't worry—I don't care how you got it. The info's the main thing."

  “Hell, I heard it three places already."

  It sounded as if the story might have been deliberately spread. And I wondered if maybe Omar—wounded, perhaps—was holed up somewhere and had himself spread the story of his getting shot to pieces. By, naturally, the Domino gang.

  “Where's his body supposed to be?” I asked.

  “I don't know. It supposed to be somewhere?"

  “I know it wasn't found in his house. That's where it's supposed to have happened, isn't it?"

  “Yeah. Well, I guess they hauled it away somewheres."

  “Maybe,” I said. “If Omar didn't just walk out."

  He laughed. “Who ever heard of a corpse walking around?"

  “You get anything on who the guys were who shot him?"

  “No. Just that they work for Domino."

  “What time did it happen?"

  “You got me. Last night some time. Want me to try digging it up?"

  “No ... I think I know about when it happened."

  I thanked him, told him I'd be in touch and express my thanks more suitably, and hung up. During breakfast—two more cups of black coffee—I thought about the affair at the Madeleine last night, that call this morning, a few other things. There was one way it all made sense, maybe a couple of ways. I let it simmer.

  At eight a.m. I phoned the Police Building and got Captain Samson. After the hellos, I passed on the bare facts I'd been given on Omar's alleged killing, and he said, “Yeah, we heard the same thing a few hours ago. Even got a couple names. Guy named Chunk, and a heavy they call Two-Time."

  “Well, I know Chunk. At least, I met his knuckles. Never heard of this Two-Time.” I lit a cigarette from the butt of another and added, “Maybe it really happened."

  “What does that mean?"

  “Just thinking out loud, Sam. You got anything else you can pass on?"

  “Couple things. Blood in the penthouse at the Madeleine and the smear found in Omar's house; it's still in the works. Precipitin test proved it's all human blood, and it's all type O. But that doesn't mean much. We'll have more later this morning."

  “Both stains in the Madeleine were type O?"

  “That's right."

  I knew that more than forty per cent of Caucasians had type 0 blood, so the tests hadn't proved anything yet; but it was a step in the right direction. I'd have been happier if those stains in the Madeleine had been two different blood types, though.

  “No sign of Matthew Omar yet? Or his body?"

  “No.” Sam swore. “And I hope he doesn't show up dead. One more corpse will make it about three too many. Worries me we haven't got a line yet on Domano and his punks, too. Be just lovely if they're all shot up somewhere."

  “Not likely. Sam, you're getting pessimistic in your old age."

  He grunted. “Maybe. But I'll feel better when they get Dyke put away."

  “Dyke? Oh, yeah—Geezer.” That was right; he was going to be buried at Eternal Peace today. In his two-and-a-half-G casket. “You get word to Alexander that his boys are to leave their machine guns at home?"

  “You damned bet I did. Talked to him myself.” He sighed. “I've arranged for a few teams to be in the area. I'm going out there, too. I don't like all those hoodlums being gathered in one place—especially with the word out that the Domino gang hit Omar. From what we hear, the whole Alexander bunch is boiling now. They were hot enough after the Dyke hit."

  The situation struck me as more than mildly explosive, too, but I didn't say that to Sam. Instead I told him, “It'll work out. Don't forget, I'm on your side."

  “That's what worries me. I wish you'd join the force, so I could keep track—"

  I interrupted him, “You bring Lilli Lorraine down last night, Sam?"

  “Had her here a couple hours. Tested both hands. Nothing. Either she wore gloves—which she'd already denied before the tests—or she didn't fire a gun. Couldn't shake her story, though."

  That was all the news of importance, so I told Sam I'd check with him again later, then went and looked into the refrigerator. Eggs. It was either mush or eggs. But I usually ruin the mush, and eggs look so horrible lying there in the pan, all sloppy and hideously naked, that they're not much fun, either. No matter what I cook, the food spoils my appetite, anyway. I had a glass of milk.

  By nine a.m. I was ready to go. I'd stayed near the phone till then, either using it myself or waiting in case a call came in. Two more had, reporting or corroborating the info about Domino's mugs blasting Omar, but there'd been nothing new. So at nine o'clock I was sitting before the fish tanks, watching the assorted tropicals and home-grown guppies eat some brine shrimp I hatched from eggs.

  I don't mean I sat on them, or anything like that. You just
pour the little sand-colored eggs into salt water, and they hatch all by themselves. I noticed that the female guppy who'd been gravid two days ago, when this case had started, was darting after the little white shrimp as speedily as her brothers and sisters. Even though she'd given birth to several fry, and had gobbled them up. It's not all sweetness and light in the fish world, either.

  I strapped on my gun harness, put on my coat, and the phone rang. In the bedroom again. I grabbed it.

  “Scott?"

  “Yeah."

  “Can't tell you who this is. But I tipped you to something pretty good three months ago. Almost to the day. You got it?"

  “Well...” The voice was familiar, but I couldn't pin it down.

  “You give me a C-note. Nearly three months."

  That tied it together. A short, thin guy named Kahn. Ben Kahn. He'd been a mildly successful stick-up man for a year, and then had been retired to San Quentin for two years. He'd added it up and decided to go straight, being a pretty smart character to begin with. But he still knew most of his former associates, and hadn't informed them he'd turned square.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I've got it."

  “Meet me the same place."

  “O.K. I'm just leaving. Give me twenty minutes."

  He hung up.

  On the way out I glanced into the two aquariums again. The brine shrimp were gone; the frantic feeding activity had diminished. My sleek, sharklike Panchax chaperii male was nudging his sweetie toward a massed clump of green myriophyllum, and a color-splashed male guppy swam lazily through lighter green cabomba. A small, half-grown catfish scavenged in sand at the bottom of the guppy tank.

  It was the lovely, peaceful scene I often watch, sometimes for hours, feeling the blood slow down, the nerves relax. My daily medicine: fish therapy. I carried some of the calm with me out the door. Peace ...

  Maybe, I was thinking, this would after all be one of those peaceful days.

  I should have known better.