Always Leave ’Em Dying (11 page)

Hunt said, "Like I told you, I plumb forgot to ask Olive about anybody maybe bein' in with Dixie. But I'll run into town and pick her up if you think it'll help you."

"Wouldn't hurt. Incidentally, how long was she in Greenhaven—that first time you took her there?"

"Went in that night, left the next night."

That was a little unusual; plenty of abortionists have the patients walk out half an hour or an hour after they arrive. Apparently, they'd been especially careful at Greenhaven—careful, too, that nobody would see the patients enter or leave. I said, "I could use anything else Olive might add to what you've told me, Randy. And I'm hoping that if Dixon was in with anybody, it wasn't Wolfe. I need somebody who can answer questions; both of them are dead."

He rubbed his scalp and got out of his chair. "You got yourself pretty well messed up, looks like. OK, son, won't take me long. I drive pretty fast."

I had to grin. He started out, then stopped and looked at me. "Hey," he said, "what size clothes you wear? Those you got on look like somethin' to scare crows out of cornfields."

They were in sad shape, all right. I tried to figure out how to pay for new clothes, since I was broke and it wouldn't do to write checks, but he said, "Thunderation, boy, quit tryin' to give me money. That's worse than throwin' sand on the beach. I got so much money, I stink—and I'm gettin' along in years, son. Cain't take it with you, and if you could, what the hell good would it do you?" He cackled happily. "If I dropped down dead, the gov'mint would take it all but a nickel anyhow, and use it for buyin' butter or buildin' dams in the desert. Now, what's them sizes?"

I told him. In another few minutes he was gone, after showing me where a tiled shower was and tossing me a gold-colored robe, probably made from hammered nuggets. As I undressed, there was that screeching of rubber again. I wondered if Jo had gone with him.

 

Chapter Twelve

After a steaming-hot shower I slipped on the robe, went back into the big room, and started looking over the newspapers. Two of them had the whole story; the other one, which I looked at first, had gone to press too soon to carry the story of Dr. Wolfe's death. It bore ordinary, everyday headlines, about an ordinary theft of some more "secret" documents by some more secret Communists, but in the left-hand corner was a two-column head: "Private Detective Runs Amuck in Private Asylum."

The story was handled straight, without much exaggeration. Not that it needed any. My name was spelled right, and I was left in a strait jacket. The second paper was about the same except that by the time it was written I'd become a homicidal maniac, since without provocation I'd killed a "Dr. Frank Wolfe, member of the staff of a local rest home." The killer was still at large.

I picked up the Ledger. The headline read: "Maniac Terrorizes City." Beneath that: "Sheldon Scott Murders Brilliant Doctor."

Yeah, it was bylined Ira Borch. The story was continued on page six. There I found a picture of me, taken a couple of years back on the City Hall steps at night after I'd been awake on a case for thirty hours, during which time I'd been bashed about somewhat. The photographer had been below me, and the light from his flash bulb had slanted upward, giving me a fierce appearance. I looked quite a bit like a madman.

The Ledger cited incidents from some of my previous cases to prove that I had always been a bit balmy, and printed a box in which my previous "murders" were listed, quite a string of names belonging to guys I'd shot. The Ledger neglected to mention that practically all of the deceased had, at the time of their sudden demises, been shooting bullets at me.

In the body of the article was a quote from that leading citizen Arthur Trammel, who reported that Shell Scott had been obviously insane yesterday when he had attacked Trammel, the Guardians, organized religion, God, and helpless puppies. Trammel and the Guardians called upon all decent citizens to give any aid they could in the hunt for "this monster."

I was sitting quietly in the deep chair, papers resting on my lap, when two hands closed around my throat. A few hours earlier, this would have caused me to drop dead of heart failure, but at the moment, I merely started grinning, because the husky voice behind me was saying, "Hi, Shell."

"Hi, Jo."

The arms slid around my neck and there were various other pressures. She said, "Awful, isn't it?"

"Don't be silly. It's wonderful. Don't—"

"I mean those stories."

"Oh, yeah, those things."

She chuckled. "You look nice in that gold thing."

I cleared my throat. "Really? Sweet of you to say so."

She slid around to perch on the edge of my chair. Her left arm was still hanging onto my neck, and this sort of angled her toward me, or rather, since angled was a pretty foolish word for what was happening, curved her toward me. Her lips were curved in that yes-yes curve, which made the view almost too much.

"Shell," she said, "what's happened to you?"

"Boy, if you knew!"

"I mean, you're not like you were in the car."

"This goddamn house isn't jumping around like that car was, either. And that car, right now, is speeding like a rocket ship to get Olive and bring her back here."

"Good. Make a foursome."

"No, I'm going to ask her questions."

"Shell, look at me."

"I am looking at you."

"Look at my face." I looked up and she fixed her big green eyes on me, leaned a little closer, which put our noses maybe an eighth of an inch apart, and said, "He'll be gone a while, won't he?"

"Oh, not long. Not nearly long— Ah, he drives like a pilot."

"What'll we do?"

"Do?"

"Yes. He'll be gone a little while."

"I suppose so. We can talk, or play cards, or . . . talk about something, or—"

"I think I'll sit on your lap." Smiling, she said again, slowly, "Shell, what'll we do?"

There could no longer be any doubt that she knew damn well what we were going to do. She went on huskily, impishly, "You want me to tell you?"

"Tell me? In—words?"

"In words. Right out loud."

"What you think we should do?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

She told me.

"Well," I said, "you bet. Yes, you bet."

There is no telling what I might have said then, but Jo leaned forward and her lips brushed mine. She touched her lips to my mouth, just a feather touch, soft, gentle, and as I leaned toward her she drew back from me. At the moment when I thought she was going to get completely away, she snaked one hand behind my head and pulled our mouths together.

After that first gentle, tantalizing pressure the sudden and almost brutal contact was like an explosion.

All of a sudden she was pressing against my chest, pushing me away, and she jerked her mouth from mine. She smiled, a funny, hot, tight smile, and said, "Shell, I'll tell you something about me."

"Fine. Swell. Tell me anything."

"I'm a tease. I'm a terrible tease."

"You're a what!"

"Oh, don't go all to pieces. I'm a funny kind of tease."

"Yeah? You sure are. You are an ex-tease. Baby, you don't know, but this sort of thing is like shooting a guy. You don't just kill a man a little—you kill him dead. You—"

She put a finger over my mouth, and I stopped, but I figured she had sure as hell better have something more sensible than that to say.

Jo said, "I mean, I like to tease you—for a little while. Just like when I kissed you. Understand? I really like it. It's more fun."

I tried to analyze that, and before I'd finished she leaned forward, brushed my lips again. It was the same routine all over, only this time she managed to keep away from me; her hand didn't go behind my head, her lips didn't press against mine. It was always almost but never all, and the shape I was in, I was about ready to give her a bust in the snoot. But despite my momentary thoughts of busting her, I wasn't about to play any game she didn't want to play. Finally, I pushed her away, leaned back in the chair.

But she had that same hot, tight smile on again. "Don't get mad," she said breathlessly, and then, still smiling, she put her hands on her dress, fumbled with three buttons at her middle, and shrugged her shoulders.

The dark blue silk slid down to her waist. Then she raised her hips, pulled the dark silk over them, threw the dress to the floor. She wore nothing under it but a wisp of light blue nylon over her hips and stomach. She said softly, "Wait for me, Shell, don't rush me," and then we were pressed together. Her hands went to that nylon at her waist and stripped it down, and though my eyes were closed I felt her motion as she threw it from her.

I rested my hands gently against her shoulders, let them slide down her back.

And damned if she didn't scoot out of my clutches like an eel and tear across the floor. It was the prettiest sight you ever did see, but it wasn't exactly what I had been led to expect.

"You come back here," I said. She kept on tearing about.

Well, it didn't look like I was going to do much good sitting here all by myself, so I took out after her. Apparently she did everything the way she kissed. And it was only the memory of how sensational those kisses had been, once you got one, that kept me going. She would let me catch her, but just when I'd have everything practically fixed up she would somehow wiggle away.

It wouldn't have been so bad if it had been a little room, but this was an enormous room, practically an auditorium, and all this running over a hard wooden floor was beginning to tell on me. But Jo seemed good for several more miles. The way this thing was shaping up, I was beginning to think maybe that was all she was good for.

I caught her on the bear rug and a big dreamy smile was growing on my chops—and wiggle, swoosh, and she was gone. That was the third time, and I knew exactly how a mountain climber would feel if he got practically to the peak of Everest and Everest ran away.

It had finally affected my sense of proportion. I was no longer chasing Jo. To tell you the truth, I didn't even see Jo. My world had narrowed down: my world excluded everything except my particular Everest. Once more I caught it, and I said to it soberly, "Look. Listen. Goddammit. Look."

I said, "You fly through the air again and—well, you just keep on going, see? I won't follow you. Hell, there'll be no point in my following you. We haven't got all day, you know."

I shut up for a moment, mainly because I had no breath left at all. Everest stayed right there. This was it.

A little later my thoughts got disjointed, and I was even carrying on a kind of mountaineering dialogue with myself: Man, what a stupid thing this mountain climbing is, after all; takes you nine years to get up there, and before you know it you're right back at the bottom. So you've been there; so what? What you want to climb it for in the first place? Ah, you fool—because it was there!

All of a sudden there was a noise like that of a space ship landing and Jo said the first intelligible words she'd spoken in quite a while. "Oh, Lord. Randy's back."

Up till this minute I had liked practically everything about Randy, but now I knew I had no use for the way he drove. And there I was running like a fool again—only this time Jo was behind me.

 

Chapter Thirteen

I had scooped up my robe on the way out, and when I sauntered back into the front room Randy was just coming in the front door with Olive Fairweather.

He marched up beside me carrying several packages, dropped them on the floor, and said, "That'll take care of you."

"I've been—that is, thanks, Randy. How did you manage all this in so little time?"

"Been gone over an hour, son." He peered at me. "Taken a shower, hey? Look like it rested you."

"Feel better. Better than I have in days. Weeks."

I dressed in the shower room, and since I'd told Randy to get unobtrusive stuff, I wound up looking somewhat like a pallbearer. Black suit, gray shirt, black tie, black shoes, and even a black hat and a dark raincoat. It was a perfect disguise. Nobody would recognize me in this outfit. Randy had stuck a twenty-dollar bill in a pants pocket. When I tried to thank him later he told me that was the way pants came nowadays and to shut up.

I went back into the front room and Randy, Olive, and I spent twenty minutes talking. Olive was a bit nervous at first, patting her mouse-brown hair and blinking those peculiar gray eyes at me, but she soon calmed down. The big item of information, as far as I was concerned, was that Dr. Wolfe had been Nurse Dixon's sidekick in the abortion racket. Since I felt sure that only the two of them, except perhaps for a few cab drivers and bellhops, had been in on the deal, that meant the racket was all washed up now.

By the time Olive finished telling me about Trammelism, I was well versed in Arthur Trammel's routine. Every night except Tuesday, Trammel's day of rest, he held a big meeting in his tent; after that there was another, smaller meeting in the black-painted Truth Room for any who wished "further instruction." Inside the Truth Room building itself was a small room at the end of a hall; this was the so-called Healing Room, and in it was held the last part of Trammel's nightly operation. There, after the final "instruction," could go anonymously any and all Trammelites in distress, or with problems and worries, for the sage advice and counsel of Trammel, the All-High. Olive also corroborated what Hunt had told me, that Trammel was always busy in the Truth Room from about nine to ten—and even after that he usually spent a half hour or so giving sage advice.

I said to her, "He doesn't know who goes to this Healing Room, then?"

"The Master?"

"The Master."

"Of course not. The Healing Room is in darkness, always."

"Do you know if Felicity Gifford ever attended those after-the-tent meetings? The Truth Room jobs?"

"Not so far as I know."

Hunt said he'd never noticed Felicity in the Truth Room at any time.

In a few more minutes, they'd told me everything I thought I'd need to know. Jo had come in by then and was seated in a chair, humming. Randy stood up. "Well, I'll take Olive home."