The Meandering Corpse (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  “Werme's? Hey, he took Werme's piece. What else?"

  “What else, indeed. Good for you, Luddy. And it turns out the bullets Werme fired into Geezer and those which Cyril later fired into Omar—from the same gun—matched under that comparison microscope you mentioned. As they had to."

  Luddy was pleased. He was thinking. He was biting hell out of his tongue. And he asked a very sensible question. “So how come the boss went and pooped Omar?"

  “Because Cyril certainly realized somebody must have told Werme he could be found at the Madeleine as Mr. Ames. Knowing that, he would also know it had to be Omar. Omar, who acted for Cyril in practically everything, and who in fact had rented the suite in the Madeleine for Cyril. He was undoubtedly one of the few people, maybe the only person other than Cyril and Lilli themselves, who knew the score. Omar, the ambitious one, the man who knew all details of all Alexander's operations. Omar, the thinker, who wasn't the type to do his own killing. Omar, who was best equipped, and undoubtedly most eager, to take over Cyril's operation—including the Lilli Lorraine operation, you can bet. You can at least swallow that part, can't you?"

  Luddy—and twenty-seven other hoods, who had cast lingering eyes upon Lilli Lorraine—not only could swallow that, but appeared to be digesting it. A little stick-up man named Squeak started chewing on his lower lip as if it were a filet mignon, and Big Horse lifted his .45 and scratched his cheek with it, dreamily. Luddy filled his chest with air, and that was a lot of air, then sighed tremulously. Stiff blinked slowly several times, as if fluttering soft earth from his eyes.

  But when Luddy finished sighing he said suddenly, “The bastard.” I looked at him. He went on. “You said Domino, heard you talkin’ to Lilli about him, and she puked all over him. Maybe Jay went up there to bang Lilli."

  “Maybe, but not her alone. If Werme had gone there only to kill Lilli, Omar would still be alive."

  “Huh?"

  “It's simple. Cyril's motive for killing Omar was his knowledge that Omar had tipped Werme to the fact he'd be alone—without bodyguards—with Lilli at the Madeleine, that he was, in a word, Mr. Ames. We've already been through that part.” I paused. “Besides, it's eight to five Werme told Cyril who'd fingered him before he conked."

  “Who says?"

  “The bloodstains in the suite says. Two of them, fifteen feet apart, both from Werme. So Werme didn't die right away. A corpse can't get up and walk. He flopped, got up and made it at least fifteen feet, then flopped again. There was time."

  “Time for what?"

  “Skip it.” That's what I said. But then I repented. Luddy was obviously wrestling valiantly with the various problems, and had asked a couple of fairly probing questions at that. So I went on. “Look, we can say Cyril was fingered, right?"

  “I'll go along with it. I'll buy that"

  “O.K. You can bet whoever fingered Cyril would suddenly, immediately, almost instantly, wind up dead. So who suddenly, immediately, almost instantly wound up dead? Omar. So who fingered Cyril?"

  A look of gladness came into Luddy's eyes. “Omar!"

  “You got it."

  “It don't sound good,” Stiff said. He was getting almost gabby. “I don't like it. So it was Werme's piece used on Omar. So maybe Werme used it on him."

  “Nope, Omar was shot with Werme's gun, sure, but when it happened, Werme was dead, and the police were already at the Madeleine. Omar was waiting by the phone at home—probably for a call from Werme, saying the job was done. Well, he didn't get that call and he must have realized what that meant. He called me, but not quite soon enough. The point is he got hit right then, at the phone. He didn't get plugged at the Madeleine, say, and kick off later. He died when he got hit. I had a look at his body today. He had three pills in him, and any one of them would have done the job. Naturally enough. I imagine Cyril was only a few feet away when he shot Omar."

  Luddy, almost convinced now, said, “Yeah. Yeah ... but the boss said Domino's droppers done it. He seen them—"

  “Sure, he told you and half the county that. If it had been Domino, you can bet the word wouldn't have leaked so fast; this was like a flood."

  Luddy looked at Cyril Alexander. “You fink,” he said.

  I'd won. Won something. But what? My head was hurting, clear down to about my fourth lumbar. But I finished it up.

  “There's plenty more,” I said. “For one thing, I learned my phone was bugged, and used the bugged phone to say I expected to soon know where Omar's body was. Minutes later four guys were on the way to Omar's grave. But not from Domino's—from Alexander's. At the same time twenty-five thousand clams was offered to any guy who killed me, not ... not by Domino, but by Alexander. Hell, it's obvious. Alexander bugged my phone, and Alexander was the one who didn't want the body, or the bullets in it, found. Alexander put up the twenty-five G's for anybody ... who ... "

  It was funny. Every time I mentioned the twenty-five thousand bucks, twenty-eight guys moved. Not much. Maybe a little jerk here and a twitch there, a lip lifting, nostrils pulsating. Probably I shouldn't have mentioned it. Shouldn't have reminded them. Certainly not twice in a row.

  Besides, I realized, all these guys had been moving forward while they hung on my words. They were practically on top of me now, and there seemed to be an extraordinary amount of movement that struck me as, well, restless. These natives were restless, all right. There were twitching lips and pulsating nostrils and all kinds of jerky movements everywhere I looked. These guys weren't much fun to look at to begin with, and now ...

  Yeah, time to wrap this up and get the hell out of here.

  So I looked at Cyril Alexander and said, “Well, that's it Cyril, your goose is cooked."

  “It's a bum rap,” he said. “I been framed. I want some lawyers."

  16

  I said, “Huh?"

  I was looking at Alexander. The hoods were on my right, pretty close. And, like the slow, deliberate movement of a many-hooded monster, the mass of twitching, snorting, pulsating crooks surged even closer.

  But there was also movement farther to my left, past Alexander. Even past Samson. Four men running this way, then two more, followed by another four.

  Cops.

  Beautiful cops.

  I'd been expecting to hear sirens. But obviously they'd come zooming up with sirens silent. Perhaps wisely, at that. There'd been moments when a sudden backfire, or even an explosive sneeze, might have gotten half a dozen guys plugged here. Sirens could have had the same effect on people allergic to sirens.

  “Fuzz!” somebody yelled. “All kinds of fuzz!"

  It was a sticky moment. But in a few seconds the stickiness ended.

  In five more minutes all the guns—and hoods—had been gathered up.

  With everything under control, for what seemed to me the first time in at least a week, I suddenly felt hauled down by gravity, as if I still had Geezer on my shoulder.

  Samson had been directing the roundup, calling in for more cars, efficiently bringing order out of near chaos. I was sitting on the grass, leaning back against a tombstone, when he walked over and squatted next to me.

  He looked at me, then at the tombstone. He peered at it, as if reading. “Here lies Shell Scott—"

  “I am not a liar. Everything I said was the truth."

  “Yeah. Well, you covered everything but the color of Alexander's socks. You didn't leave anything out, did you?"

  “Oh, sure, lots of things. Like Lilli the hood-lover breaking it off in Domino, telling me she thought he'd had one guy killed already, and Cyril knowing it was Domino's charmers who pounded on me, things they just might have learned elsewhere but probably learned from each other. And we all knew Werme wouldn't have gone to the Madeleine without his gun—"

  “I'm sorry I asked. One thing, Alexander was playing footsie with Lilli Lorraine, huh?"

  “Well ... footsie? I rather imagine, not only with both feet—"

  “You know what I mean."

  “Yeah, he sure was.
But I can't find it in me to think too harshly of him for that. After all, he had a monstrous cross to bear. Her name was Clara. And a grosser looking bear I've never—"

  “That's Mrs. Alexander? I never met the woman. What's she like?"

  “It's a little difficult to say, Sam. I can't think of anything to compare it with. But I can tell you this. She would darken a room at high noon. She—"

  “Ah, the hell with you. We've got enough. You want a ride to town? You've got a flat tire."

  That reminded me. Not that I'd forgotten, really. “There's one more thing."

  “Yeah? Like what?"

  “Nickie Domano. There's still one whole gang of hoods at large. We must keep on keeping on, strike before the iron rusts, attack until every hood in the world—"

  “Yeah, how'd you find out about that bomb? You know where the Domino gang is? By the way, your eyes look a little glassy."

  “I know where they were. Probably are, for that matter, crowded around a TV set.” I stopped. “Also, there may still be a very odorous hood, lying where I left him. Glassy?"

  It was nearly seven-thirty p.m., dark now.

  We were half a mile up that dirt road running north from Cypress Road. All was in readiness. Last act of the drama coming up. We knew that, but we didn't quite know what it would be, or how it would end.

  The odorous hoodlum, Arthur Silk, had indeed been where I'd left him. Or at least near there. He'd made it about a hundred yards west and then passed out. When he came to he was scared—and very talkative.

  Domino and his whole gang were in the house off Cypress Road, he said, at least, so far as he knew. They'd planned to stay there, keeping the television set on for the newscasts, knowing that, if they managed to blow up the Eternal Peace Funeral Home, it would be on the airwaves for sure. They figured they'd very likely be suspected but that nobody could prove they'd planted the dynamite in Geezer.

  Sure, they were nuts. Even more nuts than that. Silk repeated, and again repeated, that in case anything did go wrong the whole gang was in the house, armed to the teeth and tonsils with virtually every kind of artillery except an antiaircraft gun, and with not the slightest intention of peacefully surrendering to anybody.

  At least, that's what Silk said, and he added, “You better believe it."

  Well, I believed it. If they weren't warped to begin with they wouldn't have been hoods, especially the kind of trigger-happy, bloodthirsty hoods we knew them to be. And anybody who would massacre seventy people in order to blow up a dozen or so ... Yeah, I believed it.

  We knew they were still there.

  A team of officers had kept the place under observation during the afternoon, while a whole passel of thugs was being booked, mugged, printed, and jailed downtown. Besides, when the small army of us arrived, after dark, there'd been lights on inside the house. Samson used one of the bullhorns, told the men they were under arrest, ordered them to come out peacefully, the usual. Nothing happened—except the lights in the house went out.

  So we knew they were there—and they knew we were here. Only they couldn't be sure, not really sure, why we were here. Because no word had been leaked about the explosion at Eternal Peace, or the mass arrests. Not yet. Sam, with a good deal of help from the Chief of Police, had managed to keep the lid on.

  Yes, he and the chief were practically kissing kin again. When Sam walked in with the entire remaining troops of the Alexander gang, plus several other assorted thieves, muscle men, arsonists and such, and with valid reason to book the entire assortment, the chief had been—shall we say pleased?

  So nothing now remained except to gather up the creeps almost but not quite responsible for Southern California's biggest and bloodiest mass murder.

  Only that—and my personal Alpha and Omega in this case.

  It had started with soft-voiced, pimp-pretty Nickie Domano and his hoods; and it was going to end, one way or another, with Nickie Domano and his hoods. It was funny. I'd started out at least to annoy, if not entirely demolish, the Domino gang. The Everest of my achievement in that endeavor had been plinking one little guy in the middle—but I'd managed to help put my “client” and his whole caboodle of crooks behind bars, every man jack.

  It seemed backwards. But the way my head felt, backwards was not easily distinguished from frontwards. Ah, my head ... but I'll get to that.

  In the meantime, while the Alexander gang had been approaching its just but unlikely fate, the intended object of my disaffections had been ruining me. First that sap in Nickie's practiced hand, followed by his and Chunk's and Jay's hands and feet all over me. Then earlier today, after tossing several slugs my way, he'd gotten to within a second of killing me. And it was because of Nickie and his dynamite that I'd spent what I would never be able to think of as a restful afternoon.

  So it wasn't merely the old truth that if you let a hood—or anybody, for that matter—get away with pushing you around, you are, if not actually dead, at least dying. That's true for everyone, but especially for a guy like me. For a guy like me, if you let them get away with it you're a sabre-toothed tiger without any teeth; and when you live in the jungle you either bite or get eaten.

  Well, my teeth felt as if they were sharpened to little points. From about seven-thirty p.m. Sunday night until now, for almost exactly forty-eight hours, the festering thought of Nickie Domano had never been far from my mind. Even when I'd been carrying Geezer, consciously concentrating only on that TICKTICKTICK and running like hell, a part of my mind had identified every ache in those six gangrenous-looking parts of my body and every pain in my head and neck and spine and legs and even my aching butt with Nickie Domano, and in a black recess of my subconscious I'd been saying, “Nickie, you bastard, I'll get you."

  Well, now was the time.

  It was ironic the way everything had worked out so far; but maybe, very soon, I could strike while the irony was hot. Or at least strike back. It wasn't just me, of course; not by a long shot. I didn't know how many police officers were here—local, Beverly Hills, from Hollywood, and the L.A.P.D. Central Division downtown—but I guessed there must have been fifty. I say “I,” however, because I got to give the signal. The signal that would burn the bridge and start a lot of cops—and me—advancing forward, up the low bare hill toward, well, toward whatever was going to happen.

  We were all in position. Everything was set, ready to go. Just as soon as I gave the signal. Because of the bit at the cemetery and because I'd led the police here—and, partly, because Sam knew I badly wanted at least a small part in the ruination of Domano—I'd been granted that honor.

  Actually, there was nothing much to it. All I had to do was say, “Go.” It was a pretty big thing to me, though.

  I was keyed up, you can bet.

  I heard big feet crunching in the near darkness, and Samson stopped next to me. “Well, we're all set. You ready?"

  “Ready. You bet. Yeah."

  I'd been ready for forty-eight hours. A little too long, maybe. I peered up the hill toward the house, no more than fifty yards away. I—and the policemen, of course; couldn't forget them—were in the only cover available. Shrubs, bushes, a few trees. For a radius of roughly fifty yards all around the house the growth had been cleared away, and the house sat alone, dimly visible at the top of the gently rising hill.

  Sam's words meant that police officers were on both sides of the house and beyond it, waiting. At my signal half of the assembled force would advance, the remainder waiting. Waiting to see if we got killed. At least that's the way I had it figured.

  Almost like war. Yeah, I thought, bang, over the top, charge, rat-tat-tat —

  “What?” Sam said.

  “What?"

  “What did you say?"

  “Beats me. What did I say?"

  “Something like rat, tat ... or—"

  “Ah, those dirrty rats. Those dirty rrrats! Oh, actually I was thinking about when we move out. When we go. Seems like we ought to have some music. A martial air, tramp, tramp,
tramp, the boys—or something like, 'they're breaking up that old gang of mine'; that's the ticket—"

  “Not so loud. How do you feel. Shell? You've had a pretty busy day."

  “Splendid. I feel splendid."

  I did. At least, sort of. I really wasn't tired, as I'd been earlier. I was just filled with a sort of quivering intensity. Part of it was undoubtedly because of what I'd been through, getting killed and all that. And the tension building up now. All the glands working overtime, filling my bloodstream with extra adrenalin, thyroxin, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and maybe even neon gas for all I knew.

  That was an interesting thing, by the way. I did seem to be sort of flickering on and off inside, like a neon sign. I almost wanted to step outside and look in my open mouth to see if I was lit up down there.

  “You know how to use the Vocom, don't you?” Sam asked me. “New issue, but nothing to it."

  “Yeah, I got it."

  He referred to the compact, self-contained transmitter I held in my hand. Vocom was short for Ultrasonic Voice Communicator, and it was almost like an ordinary walkie-talkie, except that the beam or wave was a sound beam—ultrasonic, at a higher pitch than the human ear can hear. The little gadget converted the spoken words to ultrasound and then, at the other end, reduced the beam to an audible vibration. They were effective only for short distances, but the signal couldn't be picked up by anybody else unless they had a Vocom, too.

  “Well, it's practically foolproof,” Sam said. “Just press that little red button there."

  “Yeah. Little red button.” Ah, Sivana, I thought.

  “And talk into the screened hole there.” Sam pointed to the hole. He didn't really have to point at it. I knew where it was. Hell, it was the only hole in the damned thing. Who could miss it?

  “Uh, Shell, you all right? Your eyes seem ... Well, you look sort of feverish."

  “It's probably the moonlight.” I looked overhead. The moon was in its last quarter. Just a thin sliver of silver, I thought poetically. A man doesn't know what he can think till he thinks about it. It looked as if a dragon had gobbled a big gob out of it I shook my head. No, poetry wasn't my line.