The Shell Scott Sampler (11 page)

“Not by a long shot. Spaniel didn't heist the Da Vinci, so who did? Spaniel didn't send that hood gunning for me, so who did?”

“Maybe … maybe he did send the hood, Scott,” Lupo said hesitantly. “Just because he didn't know by sight the person who hired —”

“Quit trying. There's plenty more. For one thing, Spaniel didn't get that phone call when he was with Ardith Mellow until a little after ten thirty.”

“Ardith Mellow? You're kidding. Nobody can be named —”

“That's her name. You must have seen Alston with her, in order to be able to describe her—and very well, by the way, a superbly fat redhead with green eyes, to change your description a little. But you didn't get in touch with Spaniel the
first
time I talked to you. You just gave me a song and dance and got in touch with that hood instead. After I charged in on you the second time—still alive, and full of fun—
then
you called Al. The important point is, Spaniel didn't get that call from you until after the hood had tried for me at the Spartan and missed. That hood was dead and all through bleeding by ten p.m.”

He rolled it around in his head, nodded slightly, looking depressed.

“Lupo, I told you I suspected three men of the heist, one of whom was Alston Spaniel. You yourself told me the only one of the three you contacted was Spaniel. So the guy who sent that hood to stop me—to stop me from getting to the guy who really stole that quarter-of-a-million-buck Da Vinci—was one of four men who knew I was on the prowl for it. And he was the one with the most to lose. Either Spaniel himself, you, a guy named Zeke to whom I told the same story I gave you, or my client. I arbitrarily eliminate Zeke for many good reasons. Good enough for me, anyway. It wouldn't have been my client, says the simplest logic. From talking to Spaniel's two tomatoes—and Spaniel himself, for that matter—I know it wasn't Spaniel. That leaves you, Lupo.”

“I wish you were dead,” he said, almost brightly.

“Yeah, I know.”

“You want to buy me another drink, Scott?”

“Sure. I'll buy you champagne if you want it. This is a night for celebration.”

He smiled sadly.

I ordered one more drink, for him. Mine was three fourths full. But that's usually the way it is, you can almost look at the glasses and tell who's been doing all the talking. Lupo's turn was coming, though.

“Hell,” I said, “I should have realized Spaniel wouldn't have been cavorting with two babes, not if he was preparing to get rid of a hot Da Vinci. Not even Alston Spaniel. And if he wasn't selling the Da Vinci, who was? But there's one more little item—then it's your turn, Lupo.”

“What's the item?”

“The first time I saw you Wednesday night, here in Dolly's, you were at the bar, talking to a flabby, heavy-set man. He disappeared, almost immediately. The second time I saw you, in the Happy Time, a guy—who, I noted even then, looked much like the character I'd earlier seen with you in Dolly's—was jawing with you. And he took off like a scared rabbit. Just like the first time. I'll give you eight to five he was your customer, the guy you were dickering with about the price of the Da Vinci. How much did you get, by the way?”

Lupo was looking at his drink. Finally he raised his eyes and stared at me silently for maybe ten long seconds. Then he said, “A hundred thousand. He had it with him the second time you spotted us together. My cut was forty G's.”

“Who took it off your hands for the hundred big ones?”

“Finster.”

At first the name didn't register. Then I remembered where I'd heard it. Sure; it made sense. “OK, Lupo,” I said. “The rest of it.”

This time, while he talked, I did the drinking.

* * *

It was only a few minutes after eleven p.m. when G. Raney Madison once more opened the door of his Bel Air home and looked at me. Looked wearily at me. Undoubtedly the hours since I'd left here hadn't been especially pleasant for him.

But then he turned his gaze toward the man with me and said, “Who is this gentleman, Mr. Scott?”

“He's the guy who heisted your Da Vinci.”

Madison suddenly stopped looking weary.

Inside, we left Lupo standing before the big carved-wood doors and went on into the library. The whole gang was still gathered here, all looking uncomfortable. One of them, of course, exceedingly uncomfortable, even if the totality of discomfort failed to show clearly as yet.

I walked toward the group sitting on the divan or standing near it, and stopped.

“OK,” I yelled. “You can come on in.”

Then I turned and said pleasantly, “I want you to meet a friend of yours, George.”

Uh-huh. George. Even if I hadn't already been sure it was young G. Raney Madison, Jr., I would have known from his reaction when he lamped Lupo. Already pale as milk, he clabbered. He got about the color of a winter turnip; his jaw sagged; breath sighed from his open mouth.

I merely noted all that, then turned to look at my client.

G. Raney Madison looked worse than Junior. I'd told him to be ready for anything, even for the worst; and I think probably he already knew, or at least feared he knew. None of that helped, though. He looked like a man beginning to die. And maybe he was, at that. Requite thee with death, I thought.

There was thick silence, which thickened some more.

It was broken only when George Raney Madison, Jr., said something.

It was just one word. But it was not a lovely word….

Theodore Finster—whom Madison had told me was one of the final three bidders on the Da Vinci—also lived, conveniently, in Bel Air. The trip to his home, and picking up the Da Vinci, was anticlimactic. It took less than thirty minutes for me to drive there, do the job, throw the fear of ghastly retribution into him, and drive back to Madison's for the last time.

With the Da Vinci once more on the wall of his den, Madison turned from his examination of it, looking tired and old.

I said, “At this point it's really none of my business, Mr. Madison. So just tell me to blow if you want to. But did you really believe it was Jim Chance?”

He hesitated before answering. Then he said, haltingly, “I think so. I know I wanted to believe it, painful as the thought was. The other was simply too —” He didn't finish.

We were quiet for a while. I was thinking of George, who had liked the idea of upping his weekly allowance by approximately $60,000 for the week; and of Theodore Finster, unsuccessful bidder, who had liked the idea of buying a $280,000 Da Vinci for $100,000. And of Lupo, who was in it for $40,000. I couldn't know what Mr. Madison was thinking, not for sure, but I had a pretty good idea.

Finally he said, “Did my—my son approach Mr. Finster?”

“No. It was his idea, but the guy he approached was Lupo.”

“How did George happen to know such an individual?”

“He met him at Doll—well, at a bar. What he was doing there isn't important now, but it's important that he did meet Lupo, and knew quite a bit about him—for example, that he was an ex-art thief. At least, I thought he was ex. Maybe when George told him the setup it looked like too soft a touch to pass up. George did know, of course, who the other unsuccessful bidders were and passed the info on to Lupo. Lupo took it from there. In fact, he was still dickering with Finster when I walked in on them the first two times.”

“He really tried to have you killed?”

“Yeah. He knew—even if I didn't then—that I'd seen him
with
Finster,
with
the guy who was going to buy the Da Vinci, which linked them together like handcuffs. Incidentally, George had phoned Lupo shortly before I found him, and told him I'd just been talking to you, and must be on the case—so when I walked in on Lupo he knew what I was after. He might even have thought I was already onto him. If I pinned the job on him he'd go back to the slammer, not to mention the fact that he'd lose his forty thousand clams—and guys have been killed for forty cents. Anyway, it gave him enough of a scare so he sent a wiper to poop me.” I paused. “Actually, if he hadn't, I might not have gotten onto him. But he reacted like a guilty man, which is the hell of being guilty.”

“Poop?”

“To plug me, shoot, kill. To erase me entirely.”

“Yes. So this Mr. Spaniel you mentioned had nothing to do with the theft?”

“Nothing. Hell, he was too busy with—other things,” I finished. “It was clever enough of Lupo to send me on a wild-goose chase, sure, but what he did was listen to me tell him what I suspected and then feed it back to me. No wonder I believed it—it was my own idea. Lupo figured, correctly, that with all my attention focused on Spaniel I wouldn't even think of checking on anybody else, including Lupo himself.”

“Mr. Scott,” Madison said soberly, “when I first spoke to you on the phone I said I knew of your reputation for getting things done, even though sometimes by unusual methods.”

Boy, I thought, you don't know how unusual.

He went on, “And you have, indeed, done precisely what I asked of you. I wish it could have ended differently, but I am nonetheless very grateful.”

He reached into his pocket, took out a piece of paper, and handed it to me. It was the check. The very lovely check.

“Your part in this affair is concluded, Mr. Scott. You may be sure I shall take that action which is appropriate. The thief will be prosecuted, Mr. Finster will pay his debt one way or another, and as for what happens to my son —” He sighed.

“Yes, sir.”

We shook hands. “I wish to hell,” I said, “it
had
been the butler.”

He smiled a little. “Thank you, Mr. Scott.”

“Thank you, Mr. Madison. And good night.”

I left him standing in the den, the Da Vinci on the wall behind him. He wasn't looking at it. He was looking across the room, as if at something very distant, distant in space and time. I suppose he was.

It was only half an hour after midnight, a time when life is still pretty zippy, here and there.

Hell, even the bars were still open. I'd had lots of sack time. Even if I went to bed I wouldn't be able to sleep.

Besides, there were too many thoughts twirling in my mind. Thoughts about George and Lupo and Finster and Madison, among others. Others, like Alston Spaniel. And Ardith, and Mrs. Otterman. Every once in a while I imagined I could see bodies, glowing in the dark….

Why not?

I called Antonia.

Her voice was sleepy.

“Wake up, wake up,” I said. “Darling, this is Shell.”

She woke up. “The hell with you!” she said.

“Antonia, you don't really mean that.” She started to tell me she did, too, mean it, but I kept on going. “Darling, I really
was
on a case. And I've just wrapped it up, all over, I'm free.”

“The hell —”

“I can't tell you what the job was, but it was for G. Raney Madison. Do you know who he is?”

“The billionaire?”

“Well, not actually a billionaire. But well-to-do. I recovered something for him, and he gave me, as my fee, a check for ten percent of the item's value to him. It's burning a hole in my pants—there's that word again. I don't know why whenever I talk to you —”

“Ten percent of what?”

“Of two hundred and eighty thousand bucks.”

“Two hundred and eighty—Shell, darling!”

“Antonia!”

“Shell! Really?”

“Really!”

“And it's burning a hole in your pants?”

“Well, my pocket's starting to smoke a little. I'll hurry over before I catch fire entirely, hey?”

“Give me time to get dressed. I don't have anything on.”

“Hot dog.”

“I'll wear that outfit you like.”

“You're wearing the outfit I like. I'm on my way!”

“Shell,
wait. I
mean it, give me time to get dressed. We have to go out and spend money, lots of money, spend and spend —”

“Yeah,” I said dully.

“Shell?”

“Yeah?”

“But afterward … Well, don't worry. Shell, darling.”

“Who's worried?”

I hung up. I should never have let her know the check was for twenty-eight thousand dollars. It might take
days
to spend twenty-eight thousand dollars. Ah, but surely, we wouldn't have to spend it all. I grabbed my coat, put it on, headed for the door.

The phone rang.

At this hour, it might be a potential client. Somebody in trouble. An interesting case, another fat fee maybe.

Well, maybe it was and maybe it wasn't. Duty, perseverance, dedication, all that jazz—it is very good jazz indeed. It's drink for the parched spirit and meat for the hungry heart. But there is more to life than meat and drink, friends. There is the lean of life, and the fat of the land, all sorts of fun things.

As I went out the door, the phone was still ringing.

I let it ring.

The Bawdy Beautiful

Zing!, you'll recall, was the most exciting thing in bathtubs since plumbing for a while.

If you could believe the advertising, the lavender soap didn't just clean the dirt off you, but “gently coaxed” it away, leaving your skin sinfully soft and maddeningly scented with a seductive fragrance which, presumably, no man with a nose could resist.

But no more. Nobody hears about Zing! any more.

Overnight the zip went out of Zing!

I know, I was there, I saw it happen.

In fact, I did it.

* * *

It had been a slow day at Sheldon Scott, Investigations, and I was at home, my three rooms and bath in Hollywood's Spartan Apartment Hotel, watching TV for a change. On the screen was a movie which had been cut only enough to remove the plot, allowing equal time for commercials, one of which was starting.

I watched it too. Because this was a new Zing! commercial. In color.