Always Leave ’Em Dying (19 page)

"Shell," she said softly, "isn't there another way? Do you have to go out there tomorrow to do it yourself? And all by yourself?"

"Yeah, sweetie, and don't talk like an idiot. I shouldn't have to explain why to you. You know what crowds are like, even better than I do. So you know what that one tomorrow will be like."

"I know. Darn it, I know. But how can you do anything alone?"

"I told you, Lyn, no matter if they had ten years to look for the guy they use, if he's to look remotely like Trammel they'll have to gook him up with plenty of makeup, maybe fake eyebrows, a false nose, some porcelain teeth. Well, right about three o'clock I shall pluck off the character's nose, or whatever is handy. And that should get a real rise out of the recently risen Trammel."

"Shell, we haven't talked about this part yet, the part after you unmask him. Assuming you can get close enough actually to do it just the way you hope to. You just told me I know crowd psychology better than you—and I do. A lot better."

"So? Don't give me any speech. I make the speeches."

"Shell, listen to me," she said seriously. "Even if it goes perfectly and all of a sudden those people do realize they've been tricked, you can't know their anger won't be directed at you. Not at the fraud, but at the man who exposed the fraud. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened. They might turn on you. I know what I'm talking about, Shell."

"Oh, nuts! Why don't you yak about something constructive and shut off this it's-impossible chatter? Why in the name of . . ."

She leaned back a little, but her face was still somber. As my words trailed off, she pursed her lips in a kiss.

"I'm sorry, Lyn," I said. "You know I didn't mean anything. I'm wound up like an eight-day clock."

"I know. Get it off your chest."

"It's off. But, hell, you understand I can't do anything else. You know where I wind up if they pull it off. I've got to do it, and right in front of their eyes, too. If I don't, they'll never believe it didn't happen, and you know it. Those characters are experts in rationalization, baby. It has to be right, complete, with no loopholes they can wish their way out of."

"I suppose."

"It's the only way I can prove two things to those believers: that Trammel is dead, and that the Guardians are hypocrites and liars. And if I do, everything else the Guardians have done and said will be suspect, including all they've said about me. The fact that they must have planned this caper long ago will show they must also have planned to knock off Trammel long ago—and one Shell Scott won't look so fiendish any more."

She smiled, and kept smiling. As soon as I grinned, she leaned forward and pursed her lips in a kiss that was not pretended. There was something else I'd been going to tell her, but I'll never know what it was.

This was the Third Day, the day of the resurrection.

In three hours, it would happen, and I'd be there, and I still didn't know how I could get halfway to that roped-off ring without being recognized and stopped, much less clear inside it.

Lyn said, "Sit down, Shell. Relax. You'll wear yourself out." I had virtually paced a hole in the carpet. I stopped, slumped on the couch beside Lyn, and said, "Here it is noon again. Big day. I ought to be out there now. But I don't want to get stopped before I even get started on my mission."

"You . . ." She stopped. Since early morning, we'd discussed dozens of possible disguises, anything that might get me through, and none of them had been good enough. Lyn probably hesitated at mentioning another feeble one. But she went on: "You might go as a woman. Dress up in—"

"Oh, Lord. Lyn, in the first place, I wouldn't dress up as a woman for any reason. Too damn many comedians and lodge members think that's funny now. Besides, how many six-foot-two and two-hundred-and-five-pound babes have you laid eyes on?"

She shook her head. "Maybe there isn't any way."

"There's always a way."

"Like a way to fly? Shell, I don't want you to go there."

"Uh-uh, baby. We dropped that. That guy just didn't know how to fly, anyway. He went at it wrong. Besides, he didn't have any feathers. Oh, the hell with him." I was jumpy. "I could stuff cotton in my cheeks, dye my hair—even shave my blasted hair off; I could do a lot of things. But I'd still be a big six-two. Out in the crowd of people, a lot of things might be good enough. But there won't be a helluva lot of time; old Whoozit won't be sticking around long. So I've got to be right up there, right in front of a jillion people, and ninety-nine per cent of them will know my size, my shape, and how many hangnails I've got. Oh, Lord, the place is packed already—it was packed yesterday. If I could only shrink!"

It was true enough that almost everybody would know me, and almost certainly be looking for me. Trammel wasn't the only attraction today; this was a double feature. The way the papers were playing up the coming resurrection, you'd think it was the end of the world, but I hadn't been forgotten. Nearly every reporter and feature writer in California had come up with the same idea. Since the maniac had attacked Arthur Trammel, then murdered him and, finally, disappeared "into thin air," it naturally followed that the maniac would be in attendance at the resurrection. That's what they'd said, anyway.

And that was why no disguise had yet sounded good enough. Maybe Lyn was right; maybe there wasn't any. The newspapers and broadcasts had asked the same question about both Trammel and me: Will he return? It was a very disgusting, affair as far as I was concerned. The news boys had taken what was a pretty fair story all by itself, tied me into it, and made this the damnedest story that L.A. had ever heard of. It wasn't just local; it was all over the States. For all I knew, it was all over the world. And I wished it were just all over.

Lyn said helpfully, "At least we've got a pretty good getaway planned."

"Yeah. Good enough." I was twitchy, because I knew I was going through with the plan even if I had to strip naked, plaster myself with feathers, and go as a bird. The getaway part, the route and all, Lyn and I had settled yesterday and last night here in her apartment. It would do, but it didn't appear at this point that we'd be using it. I'd found out one other thing last night. Lyn had driven me near the two-story house and the garage where I'd parked my Cad. The car had still been there, with no cops in it, so they must not have found the buggy. From the trunk I'd taken a ten-pound bag of things called tetrahedrons, which bag was now in Lyn's Chrysler convertible, but it didn't appear we'd use them either.

I got up and started pacing again. "I wish I were two feet high," I said. "I wish I could shrink. I wish I were somebody else."

"Shell!" Lyn sounded excited and I swung around toward her. She was getting up off the couch. "Maybe you can shrink. Couldn't you walk on your knees, like José Ferrer in Moulin Rouge? Put pads on your knees and tie your feet up against your thighs?"

The excitement in me started to die down. And then all of a sudden it roared up in me like an explosion and I shouted. "Oh, baby, you're beautiful, wonderful!" I grabbed her about the waist and swung her off the floor and in a circle clear around me.

Then I put her down and said, "No, I can't shrink. But I can do better than that."

"What? Better?"

"Yeah. And how."

I told her. And then there was frantic activity. It took a precious hour, and we had to get in touch with Randolph Hunt again and let him in on it. He not only offered us his lodge as sanctuary if I lived, but spent money and pulled the strings that got us everything we needed. At precisely one-thirty-five, I was in the bedroom, all set, and Lyn was alone in the front room waiting for me.

When I walked slowly and awkwardly out of the bedroom, she squealed with delight, though she might possibly have gone out of her mind if she hadn't been in on the whole business. Because, aside from Lyn's pancake makeup and eyebrow-pencil pockmarks on my face, I was six feet, eleven inches tall and looked as if I weighed three hundred pounds. I wore a tattered black robe that reached to the floor, had long, long black hair and a long, long black beard that flowed down my chest, and I carried a gnarled staff.

Enter the Prophet! Enter the Master of the Moon People!

Enter Lovable Shell Scott.

 

Chapter Twenty-One

Lyn, instead of suddenly dying when she saw me, let out her happy squeal and said, "Oh! How wonderful you look!"

"Of course." I wiggled bushy, black, glued-on eyebrows at her.

She made a sound suspiciously like gagging, then eyed me up and down. "I think you'll work," she said. "I think if anything would pass, this ghastly whatsit will pass."

"You're right. I don't believe anybody in the world—cops, Trammels, Trammelites, not even Shell Scott—would look for a six-foot-eleven-with-a-black-beard-and-so-on Shell Scott. I am the Purloined Letter. I am cagey as hell. All these cops, all these people, will be looking for a two-foot-high Shell Scott. Aren't I clever?"

"You are nauseous. You are not my love."

"Good. I don't want to be your love, not while I'm in this shape. But just wait till this is over and I'm—"

I saw the sudden pain that marked her face. Her features smoothed almost immediately, but the kicks were gone. I looked at my watch, strapped with its face inside my wrist so I could more unobtrusively check it later. It was time for us to leave.

About a mile from the resurrection spot, we got one short glimpse of the crowd, and Lyn gasped, "My God, there must be at least fifty thousand people there!" I told her that plain old garden-variety revivalists often pull ten thousand customers from L.A.'s two million. Fifty thousand for this was almost disappointing. We drove the rest of the way in silence.

She parked at the side of the road; we could see a small segment of the crowd from here.

"Well, off we go," I said, "into the wild bluenoses yonder."

"Oh, stop it," she said. "I know you don't feel funny at all."

"I feel funny as hell, not to mention the way I look."

"Shell, please." Her voice was stretched tight. "It's . . . almost here," she said. "Don't be glib, as if you're off on a lark."

"All right, honey. I was just making words. To tell you the truth, I don't know what I'm saying."

"There you go again. Shell, tell me, how do you feel?" Her voice was shaking.

"Well," I said, "I can't say I'm overjoyed. As a matter of fact, I'm scared of that—that bomb up there." I looked out the window, up the rise of ground to the shifting movement and color of the crowd. "But think how bad it would be if it was people."

"Oh-h, Shell." All of a sudden her face was twisted, with tears suddenly starting. She said my name over and over again, grabbed me, wrapped her soft arms around my neck, and clung to me with surprising strength. "Shell," she sobbed, her body shaking against me. "Shell, please, please don't go. Forget it, we'll go away somewhere together."

I pulled her arms gently from around my neck. "Lyn, listen to me. I've come all the way up to here, and I'm not going to stop now. I can't."

"Please—"

"Honey! Where would I go? Where would we go? We settled all this. Both of us said we wouldn't talk about it."

She sniffed noisily, pressed both hands over her eyes.

Finally, she lowered her hands and looked at me, dark streaks of mascara on her cheeks. She took a deep breath and said, "All right. God, you're a mess." She swallowed. "Well, go light your bomb."

I pushed the car door open and swung my legs out, got to my feet, and almost fell. I said. "Hell, honey, it'll be all right." She started the car. I turned around and began walking.

From down on the highway, east of that natural amphitheater, I had been able to see only a segment at the top of its western arc, and a small part of the crowd. Now, walking on a newly scuffed path in the brown earth, walking slowly and carefully up the slight rise, I could hear the hum and buzz made by thousands of voices a hundred yards ahead of me. On my right was the edge of the cliff slanting sharply ahead, up to its peak, then dropping down, I knew, to the lowest point and the focus of the crowd that would be gathered there. Beyond the cliff, the lower level of the plain stretched toward green hills, and I could see the place where Lyn and I had lain yesterday.

It was difficult and tiring to walk because of the concentration necessary to keep from falling. My added nine inches of height were provided by small lightweight aluminum stilts—until today, appropriately enough, part of a circus clown's bag of tricks. Each was equipped with two leather straps, one tight around my ankle and the other fastened below my knee.

The black robe trailed the ground and hid my feet and stilts, covered my own clothes beneath it. Walking the last few yards, I leaned my weight on the long staff. I could feel the unfamiliar beard warm upon my face, brushing against my chest, and the mass of tangled black hair thick on my cheeks, corded strands dangling over my eyes. Perspiration formed on my face and chest, though the sun was behind one of several low-hanging clouds drifting overhead.

I walked the last few steps to the crest of the rise, beyond which the earth sloped down to the place of resurrection. Even knowing what was there, having from a distance seen the people, I wasn't prepared for what I saw now. The ragged outer fringe of the crowd began well below me, extending in a loose circle around to the opposite arc and back to this side again, filling the depression down to the bottom of the earthen funnel. There, two hundred yards away, was the empty square, roped off. People were tightly packed all around it, shoving in closer.

In the square's exact center, already in place upon the wooden platform, was the coffin. When I saw it, saw the harsh angular lines of the coffin in that barren square, so still and somber in contrast to the movement and color all around it, a tingle brushed my spine and prickled my skin.

I swore to myself. I damn well wasn't going to get all creeped up—the way everybody was supposed to—by the clever props, the near perfect location, and all the rest that had obviously been so well and carefully arranged.