The Meandering Corpse (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  “Uh-huh. Smart. The prospect of a little competition usually makes a man try harder, hey?” A thought struck me, and I smiled, a little sadly. “Wouldn't it be amusing if one of Domino's hoods could plug me—and collect twenty-five G's from Cyril Alexander?"

  "If it's really Alexander who's behind this. Until we know a lot more. Shell, you'd better take it very, very easy.” He paused. “What happened here? Who's the guy downstairs?"

  “Beats me. You don't know him?"

  He shook his head. “Just an ambitious punk, I guess."

  “There was another guy with him.” I gave Bill a rundown on what had happened and added, “He's undoubtedly ditched that buggy he was in by now. How'd you happen to get out here so fast?"

  “Well, the word about the price on your fat head must have gone out over an hour ago, but when I heard of it I was in my car on the Freeway, heading for Hollywood. As soon as Dope spilled the beans, Samson got it and relayed the story to me. I was nearly in Hollywood then, so he told me to get the hell over here in a hurry."

  He got up and walked to the phone. There he looked at me soberly and said, “Shell, you talked yourself out of going to headquarters after turning those four guys over to the police, but now—with that guy shot down there—you'll have to come in with me."

  I didn't like that. Once I got there I'd probably be tied up for the rest of the afternoon. And being tied up for the rest of the afternoon didn't fit in with my plans.

  “No, thanks, Bill,” I said. “Later, O.K. But right now I—"

  “Dammit, don't give me an argument. Shell. I ought to pull you in just for your own protection. So don't make me get tough."

  I thought about that. With hoods conceivably heading toward L.A. and the Happy Hunting Ground from San Francisco, and maybe even as far away as Seattle, Washington, Bill might actually take me into a kind of protective custody as a “friendly” gesture.

  “My phone's tapped,” I said.

  He yanked his hand from the phone as if it was hot.

  “Use the one in the bedroom,” I said. “But they're probably both tapped, so be careful what you say."

  He frowned, started to ask a question, but then walked toward the bedroom, his back to me.

  As he went through the bedroom door, I went out the front door and ran down the stairs.

  Rawlins’ partner was walking across the lobby toward me, a black notebook in his hand.

  “Ah, there you are,” I said. “Bill's reporting in to the captain right now. He's using the phone in my apartment. Probably be glad to hear anything you've learned."

  “Like what?” he said. But he didn't stop me as I went on past him and out the Spartan's rear door.

  I hustled to the Cad, and in another minute I was well on my way to Cypress Road.

  10

  Heading up oleander drive, i went right past the Eternal Peace Funeral Home. There was already quite a bit of activity. Twelve or fifteen cars were parked along the street in front of the low gray building itself, and I could see a group of six black-suited men bunched at the entrance, half a dozen guys thinking less of Geezer, possibly, than of the twenty-five thousand clams they might have a chance at if they didn't have to stay for the damned funeral.

  Behind the gray building, the flat acres of the Eternal Peace Cemetery stretched green as a golf course, dotted with hundreds of little white hazards: headstones, markers, monuments. Rich men, poor men, beggarmen, thieves; some beneath ten-thousand-dollar monuments, some in the only land they'd ever owned. Kids cut down before their prime, and even guys like fat Geezer.

  Ten miles past the Eternal Peace, I went by Cyril Alexander's big pink house. I imagined that Cyril was already at the funeral home. A minute later I swung right, continued on to Cypress Road, and turned left. According to Ben Kahn—and my view earlier from Channel 14's helicopter—the house reached by that dirt road should be only another five or six miles ahead.

  I'd figured it just about on the nose. My speedometer had clicked up sixteen miles from the Eternal Peace when I saw the dilapidated house on my left, and a big wooden sign in front of it—Eben's Animal Farm. Beneath the name were exciting comments like, “See the wild animals!” and the price for viewing them, “Only 250!"; and at the bottom of the sign was the name of the animal farmer, “Homer Eben!"

  A man whom I assumed to be Homer Eben! was pulling open a sagging wire-mesh gate before the driveway running alongside the old house when I stopped the Cad and got out. Beyond him, parked just off the road, was a pickup truck with a long, rickety, canvas-covered trailer behind it. The truck's engine was idling.

  “Afternoon,” I said, walking up to the guy tugging on the gate.

  He gave the gate a big heave, and it swung open, then he turned to face me. He had a long, thin face, a full white mustache, and a white goatee sprinkled with gray. The goatee was long, like a goat's, and made his face appear about six times as long as wide.

  “Afternoon,” he said. “Not open for business yet. Will be tomorrow."

  I chatted with him for a minute, instead of immediately broaching my reason for stopping here. “Just moving in?” I asked.

  “Yup. Been movin’ two days now. But I'll have her open tomorrow. Just brought in the last load."

  “Load?"

  “My animals.” He turned and appeared to point at the trailer with his goatee. “Get them moved in, I'll be near ready for the first show. Course, I don't expect much till the word spreads around a bit. Usually takes a couple weeks for the word to spread around."

  “I suppose.” I glanced at the trailer. “What you got in there?"

  I half expected he'd tell me he had some goats and pigs and a banty rooster, and maybe one aardvark for a loss-leader. But he surprised me. “Couple lions, a bear, a zebra—she's a little sickly, though. Must be the climate."

  “Or the smog, maybe."

  “Maybe. A crocodile. And coupla sweet little skunks. Well, they will be sweet.” He grinned, showing me teeth that went every which way. “Haven't had time to get ‘era fixed—deodorized—yet. I been plumb worried about Ethel."

  “Ethel?"

  “She's my zebra."

  “You named a zebra Ethel?"

  “Of course,” he said, looking at me as if I were a dummy.

  “Well,” I said, without a great deal of exuberance, “you've sure got quite a circus here, haven't you?"

  He shook his head, scowling. “No circus. Animal farm. I don't make ‘em do tricks. Cruel to make ‘em do tricks."

  But dandy to keep them in little cages, apparently.

  “They just stand there, and you look at ‘em,” he said.

  Well, I'd learned all I really wanted to know about Eben's Animal Farm, so I said, “Say, I don't get out in this area very often, but isn't there another house up there?” I pointed toward the one I'd spotted from the air earlier, with the four cars behind it.

  He waggled his chin whiskers. “Yup. Only other one for a mile or two."

  “Anyone living there? I mean, have you seen cars going to or from the place?"

  “Must be somebody there. Car full of men stopped here yesterday. They pulled out of that dirt road there as I was bringing a load in, late. Stopped here and talked a little."

  “What about?"

  “Wanted to know what I was fixing to do here. Didn't have my sign up then—just finished putting it up a few minutes ago. I didn't tell ‘em nothing. Didn't like the way they acted."

  “Kind of rough, you mean?"

  “Looked kind of rough. It was the way they talked got me down on ‘em. ‘Hey, grampa,’ one of ‘em says, ‘what in hell you think you're doin’ here?’ Like he owned California. Well, even if he does, he don't own me. I told him, watch what he said or I'd bust his nose for him,"

  I groaned inwardly. “What did he say to that?"

  “Just laughed. They all laughed, then drove on in that big black car they were in."

  I guessed, assuming they were Domino's men, they'd figured they had nothing to
worry about from Homer Eben. I asked him if he could describe them, and he tried, but no bells rang for me.

  “You interested in seeing those ruffians?” he asked me.

  “That's right. At least, I'm anxious to know if the ones I'm looking for are the same ... ruffians."

  “Well, here they come again,” he said. “Flag ‘em down and ask ‘em if you want to. Me, I got to get my animals in. Especially Ethel."

  “Sure,” I said. “Especially Ethel."

  His words were just starting to sink in.

  Here they come?

  Yeah. There they were.

  A big black Imperial sedan was roaring this way, heading toward town—toward the Eternal Peace? I wondered. Of course, I shouldn't have been standing there, wondering. I should have been getting the hell out of there.

  The car was traveling about eighty miles an hour, but it wasn't fast enough. Because, as it zoomed by, at least two faces were turned toward me, and it made sense to assume they recognized me—standing there stupidly, wondering—since I had no difficulty in recognizing the gorgeous-but-gooey black hair, the nice nose, and the interested pimpy expression of Nickie Domano on my side of the back seat, and the equally interested but much more squashed and muscular and miserable expression of Chunk, up front with the driver.

  There were one or two blurs on the other side of Nickie, too, so there were at least four, maybe five, professional corpse-makers in the Imperial.

  Even if I hadn't recognized them, I might eventually have figured out something was amiss, because the front of the Imperial dipped down and tires screamed as the wheelman hit the brakes. The car swerved, straightened out; the brakes caught again, and the car swerved, and then—you've got me. I wasn't watching any longer.

  I was running like a fiend toward my Cad, diving in, twisting the key in the ignition. They must have burned ten dollars’ worth of rubber off those tires, though, before they got the heap stopped. They wanted to see me, I told myself; they were anxious as hell to see me. And I had a hunch, though I couldn't be positive, that they wanted to see me so they could kill me. There was twenty-five G's in it, sure. But I had another hunch. I had a hunch they'd do it for nothing.

  Cra-ck-whing!

  Now I was positive.

  They'd stopped the sedan, and one of the men had leaned out, taken aim, and let go with one. It hit the street and ricocheted off over the low hills. I slapped the gearshift and dug out—and hit the brakes, cramping the steering wheel right.

  Homer Eben was in his little truck, pulling his canvas-covered trailer out into the road so that he could drive through the open gate into his driveway. He was just pulling away from the road's edge, but I was parked on the same side of the street, facing him, and had to slow in order to get around him. But there was still room, and I made it.

  With the open road ahead, I jammed the accelerator down and glanced at the rearview mirror. The Imperial was turned around, just straightening out to come after me. I heard two more shots crack out but didn't even hear the bullets fly past. As I pulled my eyes down from the rearview mirror I saw the bulk of Homer Eben's truck and trailer, in the middle of the road now, moving in an arc toward his driveway.

  But then I was staring straight ahead, still going only about thirty miles an hour but thinking of a hundred, maybe a hundred and ten. I got up to forty.

  There were two or three other shots that didn't do any damage, but then one that was different. Immediately after the crack of the gunshot there was a kind of pffeeooo-clingg followed by the clunk-clunk-clunk as my right rear tire went flat and I was riding on the rim against rubber. The Cad pulled hard to the right.

  I had to make up my mind in a hurry. Actually, there wasn't any choice. I couldn't go fast, or far, on a fiat tire. So I didn't fight the wheel. I let the Cad pull right, off the road, threw the door open, then jumped out and started sprinting. A quick glance right and left showed me brush and trees on both sides of Cypress Road, but what looked like heavier brush—and cover—on the left. So that's the way I went.

  I'd barely started to run when the shrill of brakes filled the air again, followed by a hellish crash, and the screaming protest of metal bending, ripping. There was a brief moment of silence and then another crash and the sound of splintering glass.

  I looked back—and stopped running.

  The long rickety trailer was on its side. The Imperial was slewed sideways in the road, almost facing back in the direction from which it had been coming. Its front was mashed in and mangled, the metal of the hood sticking up into the air. The right front door of the black sedan had sprung open, and Chunk sprawled face down on the asphalt.

  But he didn't stay down. As Chunk staggered to his feet, the back door opened and Nickie Domano stepped out, wobbling a little. After him came two more guys, apparently unhurt. When I'd heard the crash I'd thought maybe, if those guys were wrecked, I could get back to my Cad and away, even on the flat tire.

  But no soap. Three guys—I didn't wait to identify them—were already trotting toward me; probably in a few seconds there'd be a couple more. I slid my Colt out of the spring holster—but there were too many of them. And I'd never make it back to the Cad. That would be going the wrong way, back toward them.

  I ran. Only twenty yards off the road was a big clump of weeping willow and among them a few birch trees. I put my head down and sprinted toward them. And it's a good thing I put my head down.

  There had already been two or three more shots as I was running off the road, but all had been well wide of the mark, which was me. But then there was another blast that sounded like the lethal cough of a .45, and the slug actually sizzled through my hair. Even for a miss, that was good shooting, since I don't have very much hair. Or rather, though I have lots and lots of hair, it doesn't stick up very far from my head.

  Consequently that sizzling slug poured adrenalin into my blood and put wings on my feet. I charged at those trees going like sixty—at least sixty, whatever it means—and was well in among them when a strange thing happened. It felt as if those wings on my right foot had picked it up and were flying away with it.

  My foot went sprack and was suddenly way off to the side somewhere. That was one of the feet I was trying to run like sixty with, too, so the next thing I knew I was skidding flat on the ground pointing at a tree trunk with my head—and then: THUD!

  Hurt? Well, I hope to shout it hurt I lay there for a while. Not long, only a second or two. And not on purpose, either. I was trying frantically to get up. I was reaching all around for something solid, like the earth, but I couldn't find it.

  But finally I got my hands on the ground and pushed myself up. On the way I got a look at my right foot. The heel of my shoe was half gone. Shot away—a slug had ripped through it. That was bad. I remembered how they used to do with artillery—one long, one short, and the next one smack in the middle. First my hair, then my heel. They had me bracketed.

  They? There was something about “they.” Who were they?

  I'd been running from somebody. Yeah, that was it I'd been running from they. Or, rather, them—my head was clearing. And I remembered now: Them were going to kill me. That was it. Those guys had been pretty close behind me, too.

  I was all charged up to start running again, only I was still a little addled and wasn't sure which way I'd been going. I wanted to run some more, all right, but I didn't want to run at those guys.

  When I'd clunked my head it seemed to have affected my hearing, but now sounds began filtering through my ears. I could hear the thumping of feet—behind me. Lots of feet. And then, crack, a gun spat and the slug thumped into the tree trunk inches to my right.

  I spun around, crouching, and shot the guy with my finger. At least that's what it seemed like. I hadn't even realized I'd never let go of my gun; my movement was sheer reflex. I aimed fast, raising my right arm, and when I saw the thin gray-haired egg ahead of me among the trees I curled my index finger in. If I had dropped my gun, that would have been the end of me,
because the thin guy had a Colt .45 in his hand, and a few feet behind him, slowing down, were four other men.

  But I hadn't dropped my gun, and the slug caught him in his middle. He didn't fall suddenly but dropped his .45 and started sinking to his knees, hands clapped against his belly.

  A tall, bald-headed ape was closest behind the man I'd shot, and I flicked the gun toward him, fired too suddenly, and missed. I took more time with the second shot and hit him, either in the chest or the shoulder, as two guns blasted and a slug nipped my coat.

  Two of the remaining men were diving for trees, but I could clearly see Nickie Domano, in the open, feet skidding over earth and leaves as he tried to stop. A gun was in his right hand, but it wasn't pointed at me. Not yet.

  I'd kept track in my mind. One slug into the gray-haired man, two at the second ape. Three gone, three to go. I'm smart; I keep track of my shots.

  I aimed at Nickie Domano, squeezed the trigger. Click. Right on his heart. Chunk leaned out from behind a tree, and I snapped the gun onto his head, and click. Domano was still standing, so I poured the last one into him. Click.

  What's this? I thought. What's this click-click-click?

  My head wasn't operating with total perfection yet, but I had enough sense to realize something wasn't quite right What's this click-click-click? I thought again. Shouldn't it go bang-bang-bang?

  Then I remembered: Three into that delivery boy at my apartment. Then sirens, Sam on the phone, Rawlins in the door, everything happening so fast I'd committed the unforgivable sin. I hadn't reloaded my gun.

  That's me. Smart.

  11

  Actually, Nickie Domano got it faster than I did. While I was waving my empty gun around, killing hoods right and left, he threw up one hand and yelled something. I didn't quite catch it, not really caring what he said at that point, but it must have been some kind of instruction to his pals. At least, no more shots were fired.

  Apparently because Nickie wanted that pleasure for himself. And, conceivably, wanted that twenty-five thousand, that quarter of a century of G's, for himself.