The Sweet Ride (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  Good news, I’ll bet, I said to myself. I’m a believer in the idea you’ve got to keep yourself pumped up. Particularly when things are going to hell.

  I grabbed the phone. “Hello?”

  “Shell, this is Delcey. Figured it’d be O.K. to call, not likely your phone there’s bugged.”

  “Not likely. But, Sergeant, I’ve been getting some funny feelings.... What’s up?”

  “I thought you said only two or three men would be at Silvano’s this afternoon.”

  “That’s right. According to Biggers, the place should be practically empty. Which is one reason it’s such a great day.... Why do you ask?”

  “Well, I’m naturally having the place watched. Just got a report, three cars have driven into Silvano’s in the last five minutes.”

  “Five minutes? Ye Gods, that’s when my clock stopped—”

  “What?”

  “Nothing, I—I—”

  “You got any idea what’s going on?”

  “Beats me. Only time will ... uh. If it’s something that came up after I talked to Biggers, he couldn’t take a chance on calling to let me know.”

  “You sure Biggers was leveling with you, Scott?”

  “I think so. Yeah, I’m pretty certain he was.”

  “Well, there’s always something, you know that. These things never go off like clockwork.”

  “Don’t say clock—”

  “So if you want to call it off, we’ll understand.”

  I had my chance right then. But I blew it.

  “No, we’ve gone too far now, Delcey. Of course, if I can’t get inside at all, we forget it. But if I can, Biggers is supposed to meet me, and he’ll be able to tell me what the score is. I’ll make up my mind then.”

  “You’ll see me on Fifth Street in ten minutes?”

  “I’ll be there. You get those toy pills?”

  “Ye-es.”

  He didn’t sound completely certain. “You did get them, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, sure,” Delcey said emphatically. “Got ‘em right here. Had a little difficulty—”

  “I knew it!”

  “—Hollywood was too far away, in the time we had, and it turned out what you wanted wasn’t available in San Francisco. But a very clever officer made three for you. Worked straight through his lunch—”

  “Made them? Delcey, did you say some idiot made them?”

  “That’s right. But what are you getting so excited about? They don’t look like toys at all. They’re beautiful. He even weighed the powder grains so the blast won’t bust open the bullets in the gun barrel. Good thing he thought of that—”

  “Oh, Lord. Who made them, Delcey? Who?”

  “Why, it was ... an officer in our Special Effects Department.”

  “The police don’t have a Special Effects Department. What’s this guy’s name?”

  “Now, Scott, just because I don’t at this very moment know who it was doesn’t mean he didn’t do a good job. You can take my word for it, they’re exactly what you asked me for.”

  “They are, huh? How did they work when you tried them out?”

  “Well, he only had time to make three, Scott—wanted them to be near perfect, of course. And you said you had to have three. So there weren’t any extras to, ah, practice with.”

  “You haven’t tried them out? You don’t even know if they’ll work. Why, they might kill Biggie when I shoot him with the bloody—”

  He interrupted, undoubtedly simply to shut me up. “Didn’t use real blood in them, Scott. He says he knew just what to put in them, combination of glycerine and milk and Nescafé and food coloring and—”

  “Wonderful. Marvelous. I’m going to shoot Biggers with instant coffee.”

  “Believe me, Scott, I’m told this will look exactly like blood. Even better than real blood, they tell me.”

  “Yeah. Great. There’ll probably be enough real blood around to fool anybody.”

  “Transmitter’s here for you, too. I guess that does it.”

  “I guess that does it. Yeah. Uh, you’ve got a watch on, I suppose.”

  “Of course.”

  “It is now ... three-sixteen, right?”

  “On the nose.”

  “O.K.” I took a deep breath. “I’m on my way.”

  I stopped only briefly on Fifth Street, two blocks from Birch and thus a mere four and a half blocks from the entrance to Silvano’s Garage, which was a comforting thought. Sergeant Delcey was there standing next to a plainclothes car with three men inside it. A few yards ahead was another parked car in which were four more police officers, and a black-and-white radio car was a block away. The sergeant wanted to avoid an obvious massing of official-looking vehicles, so the ambulance was cruising, but nearby.

  Delcey gave me what he’d referred to as the ‘toy’ bullets, three of them. Actually, they did look pretty good. The fake bullets, fitting neatly into the ends of .38 Special cartridge cases, were made of what appeared to be a very thin plastic, or maybe hard wax, inside which I could see red gunk. They did not, of course, resemble real slugs very much, but nobody was supposed to see them until after they hit their victim. I simply hoped they stayed together while flying through the air; if they squashed in the Colt’s barrel when the powder banged off, I would appear to be plugging Biggers with an exploding ketchup bottle, which wouldn’t make his instant demise wonderfully convincing.

  The battery-powered transmitter was no larger than a pack of cigarettes, and as Delcey handed it to me he said, “Just push the red button and speak into the circle there. It’s putting out a steady high-frequency tone right now, so we can get a fix on it and tell if you’re moving around a lot.”

  I smiled. “Or if I’m not?”

  He smiled, too. Thinly. About like I had. “Well, you never can tell, Scott. You might light out of there and into your car, go racing off. We’ve got to have some way of keeping track of you if that should become necessary.”

  “Suits me. Well, here goes nothing.”

  We talked a few seconds longer, and that was all of it. Except for three words. He said, “Good luck,” and I said, “Thanks.”

  I drove down Third Street, slowed crossing Birch. The big cement building was on my right again, its mottled white paint appearing even more diseased than when I’d first seen it. The heavy weighted door was still swung up over the gaping entrance.

  As I drove past I looked inside. In the gloom I could see that cement ramp slanting upward, nothing else. At Maple Street I took a right, drove a block to Fourth, and took a right again. Nothing had happened yet, but I had a hunch my pulse was nearing 120.

  I reached under my coat, rubbed the checked grip of my Colt Special snug in its clamshell holster. I had already removed three of the cartridges and replaced them with the “movie” bullets. I could fire six times if need be, first the three toys and then the three Super Vels, which are about as far from toys as you can get. They’re 110-grain hollow-points, and when they hit and dig in they break up. Like little bombs. Three toys would be enough for Biggie, if they worked at all; and I figured three Super Vel pills would be enough for me. If three of each weren’t enough, three hundred wouldn’t be, either.

  I parked the Ford near Birch, got out. Driving by I hadn’t seen any sign of life, no movement in the big yard, just a lot of cars and trucks. I walked back, along the chain-link fence. If Biggie had done what he was supposed to do, the wide gate would be unlocked. It was.

  So I opened it, shut it behind me, burning my bridge, and walked toward the rear of Silvano’s Garage. This was no time for me to be dawdling, even though I hadn’t seen a living soul yet, but parked in a shed at the near end of the lot with its massive front toward me was a big diesel truck, and I had so recently seen one just like it barreling down on me that I had to make sure.

  It took only thirty seconds. I moved behind a row of beat-up cars and pickups and stopped in front of the monster. It was a White Freightliner cab-over-engine diesel rig, towering over m
e, top of the driver’s seat level with my eyes. With its attached trailer, it would weigh out at about forty tons. Its thick, lethal-looking bumper was a good foot and a half wide and at least nine feet long.

  At the bumper’s left edge were some dents and scratches that had been rubbed with something dark like grease or graphite. There was nothing noticeably banged up about the left front fender. So they’d changed the fender, maybe patched up a few other spots. No matter; this was the one.

  And as I stood there with my heart beating too fast, muscles pulled too tight, that now-familiar knot between my shoulder blades, I felt myself letting go a little, loosening, unwinding. Oddly, as I looked at the big sonofabitch that had come so close to creaming me, the tension, instead of increasing, lessened. Not entirely, but enough.

  From where I stood I walked straight ahead to the back wall of Silvano’s, then right along the wall to the rear door Biggers had told me I should come to. It was also unlocked. I closed it behind me, walked up a metal stairway to the end of a dimly illumined hallway, and there he was. Ernie Biggers. Not three guys with guns or clubs, just Little Biggie. As planned. I started feeling almost jolly. For a change.

  Still wearing the gray suit, pink shirt, and blue tie, he stepped back, motioning for me to follow him, opened a door ten feet down the hallway. I followed him into a small room filled with stale air, a scarred wooden desk, chair, overflowing wastebasket, cigar butt on the floor.

  “There’s been some things happening,” he said softly, looking up at me from way down there, with the big mournful eyes staring, like a man on his knees in a bankrupt church. “For one thing, there’s more guys here than I told you about.”

  “I know. How many?”

  “Well, not so many, only seven I didn’t count on, but that’s too many. Plus the usual two, Hot Sauce Charlie and Crazy Mike. Them seven, it’s some kind of meetin’ with Jelly.”

  “Sam Jelly? He’s here?”

  “Yeah. He’s been here all day. I forgot to mention about that.”

  “How could you forget—” I chopped it off. “So that’s ten of them, then. Where are they? Does that screw us up?”

  “Don’t have to. They’re all upstairs—the eight of ‘em, Sam and them seven—in what they call a conference room, clear over at the Maple Street end. If they just keep conferencing, maybe I’m dead and you’re outa here before they can come really kill us.” He paused. “You get them whatyoucallits, like flying cackle bladders?”

  A cackle bladder is the little rubber bag filled with chicken blood, on which the con-man bites when his partner shoots him with a blank. It has helped the boys take marks for millions.

  “Yeah,” I said. “All set. Should have brought a cackle bladder, too, maybe.”

  “I’d probably swaller it. It’s enough you come. I didn’t think you was goin’ to.”

  “I wasn’t too sure myself. You bring the suitcase to carry the stuff in?”

  He nodded. “Now, look, like I said it to you this morning, I don’t know how much time it’ll take me, I got my head in the box, or I’m pilin’ all that junk in the suitcase. So I got to pick my time. Also, when I come out from there and down the hall then downstairs here to where you’re at, I got to make sure Hot Sauce Charlie is sittin’ where he does usual, at the top of the stairs, not off in the can or somewheres, so he sees me get kilt. So just wait for me, huh?”

  “Biggie, I have no plans to go anywhere. I promise to wait for you, and plug you at least twice.”

  “Try to get me in the chest. I don’t want you to knock a eye out.” He closed the big orbs about halfway. “Is it gonna hurt much?”

  I really didn’t have the faintest idea, but I said confidently, “Of course not. Oh, it might sting a little, but it couldn’t hurt nearly as much as getting fried in Crisco.”

  “You got me convinced.” He paused. “I told you the bad news, the seven more guys who’s here. But to balance it up there’s some other news you’ll be pleased to know about. I think. The way I got it, I’m not absolute, but I’m pretty sure it was him.”

  “It was who?”

  “Fowler.”

  “What about Fowler?”

  “He’s alive.”

  18

  “How do you know? You didn’t see Fowler, did you?”

  “Nothin’ like that, it was just Jelly on the phone. I notice Jelly’s lookin’ at his watch every couple minutes, upstairs. This is a little before 2 p.m. Then just before two he goes into his office up there and shuts the door, and I walk over and hear the phone ring. I remember you told me not to do it noticeable, but keep my eyes and ears opened up.”

  I nodded in approval.

  “Obvious he was expectin’ the call, and who would it be besides from Hugh? Besides, I hear him say ‘Boss’ while I’m listening, and then there isn’t much till I hear Jelly ask, ‘And how’s our dear mayor doin’?” I think that was it. Then he says, ‘Still sleepin’ like a babe, hey?’ or words to that meaning. I heard him say ‘sleepin’ for sure.”

  “That’s great, Biggie. Nice going.”

  He looked pleased.

  “And you’re sure Jelly said the mayor. No name or anything, just that?”

  “No name. And it sounded like that almost exactly. It was either ‘mayor’ or ‘mare,’ and I don’t think he’d be askin’ about a horse.”

  “Well, it all fits. We knew Fowler was either snatched and alive, or snatched and dead. And if he’s alive it makes a big difference. To a lot of people.”

  I reached into the left pocket of my coat, took out the transmitter.

  Biggie said, “What’s that?”

  “Miniature transmitter. Sergeant Delcey gave it to me.”

  “Cute little thing, ain’t it? You’re gonna talk on it to him?”

  “Yeah. If I don’t do it now, I might not get another chance—”

  We both heard the scrape of shoe leather in the hall, heavy footsteps coming this way. Not just this way, but here, to the room we were in. There was a rattle as somebody grabbed the doorknob; it started turning and I took two quick steps to the wall behind the door, shoving the transmitter back into my pocket, yanking out my Colt.

  I was looking at the .38, silently swearing, then shoving it back into the clamshell holster and balling my right hand into a fist as the door opened and a man with a deep slow voice said, “It’s you, huh? I thought I heard somep’n. What you doin’ here, Biggie?”

  “I came down to take a crap.”

  “Crap? Here? Crap? Aw....”

  “I always do my yogi meditates here, Crazy. Same time every day.”

  “Naw....”

  “I’m writin’ a book. Don’t tell anybody and I’ll put you in it.”

  “Aw ... Biggie, you’re always pulling my laigs. One of these times, I’ll knock your head off of you.”

  “It’s only because I like you, Crazy. Don’t you know that?”

  “No, I don’t,” he said. But the door closed.

  I heard the footsteps move away, not far, only a few feet up the hallway, then there was the sound of another door opening and closing.

  I stepped nearer Biggie and he whispered, “That was Crazy Mike. Hold it down, he’s in the next room. He finds out you’re here, he’ll wreck the joint.” I nodded, having reached all the same conclusions myself. “He’s strong as a bull, but dumber,” Biggie whispered. “Answer him enough times fast enough and he forgets the question.”

  “What the hell now?” I whispered back. “We’ve got to get started.”

  “He’ll conk out in there. Sleeps a lot. Something wrong with his endychrome—endocrime—his glands are shot.” Biggie gave his head one of those rapid waggles, scratched the wisps of sandy hair on his scalp. “One thing,” he whispered seriously. “One thing, if something should go wrong—even if I don’t get them tapes—you got to shoot me anyways.”

  “Sure,” I said softly, adding with perhaps the falsest confidence of my life, “but what could go wrong?”

  He let
his lids droop slightly over the big dog-kicked eyes, and regarded me sadly. “You mean you don’t know?” When I didn’t answer that, he said, “O.K. We can go now, but eeeasy.”

  He didn’t have to tell me. Biggie opened the door slowly, looked out, pulled the door wide, and stepped into the hallway. By the time I silently pulled the door shut behind me he was halfway up the hallway, moving on tiptoe. I followed the same way, joined him at the hall’s end.

  There was a lot more light here, and from where we stood a much wider hallway—actually more like a cement street bordered by cement walls—extended for perhaps fifty yards to our right. Turning to look straight down it, I could see, at floor level beyond an opening in the wall commencing ten yards away on my left, the upper end of the ramp I’d noticed when driving past on Third Street, tire marks curving away from us up here and extending on into a gloomy and cluttered area.

  From what Biggie had told me this morning, and a few whispered phrases now, I got oriented. Below the floor on which we stood was one huge open space enclosed only by the building’s outer walls, in which were work areas, pits and racks, storage for tires, wheels, engine parts, all the miscellaneous items for repair of everything from sports cars to the big diesel rigs. Here on this level, except for half a dozen rooms like the one Biggie and I had been in, most of the area was devoted to parking space and additional storage. The floor above was given over to offices, including a swank three-room President’s Suite and the Conference Room Biggie had mentioned.

  And, of course, the room “you wouldn’t know it was there didn’t somebody show it to you” where those fourteen wiretaps were monitored and recorded. And where soon—very damned soon, I hoped—Biggers would be opening Hugh Grimson’s big safe.

  About midway between where we stood and the near end of that ramp, but on the opposite side, or to our right, a stairway led upward to the top floor.

  Biggie was rubbing both thumbs over the knuckles of his fingers, rapidly, probably unconsciously. He was nervous. Worse than nervous. When he looked at me a muscle twitched at the corner of his left eye, wiggling the brow erratically. His lips were moving oddly, as if he’d developed several tics in each of them. It didn’t add to my peace of mind.