The Case of the Vanishing Beauty (22 page)

I did what I'd have done in the first place if I had a brain in my head. I pushed another dime in the box, riffled the pages of the phone book till I found the number of Cornell Martin, and dialed it. His calm, crisp voice answered.

"Mr. Martin?"

"Yes."

"This is Shell Scott. Is Tracy there?"

"Why, no, Mr. Scott, of course not. I appreciate—"

"Skip it. What do you mean, of course not?"

"I don't understand, Mr. Scott. Why are you calling again?"

"Again!"

"Mr. Scott." His voice got a little crisper, a little sharper. "Didn't you call a few minutes ago?"

"No. Quick, man. Who called? How long ago? What happened?"

He snapped the answers back fast. "About fifteen minutes ago. Tracy answered the phone. She left immediately. Said she was going to meet you. Something important assumed you had called. What is it?"

"Where did she say? Where was she meeting me?"

"She didn't say. Mr. Scott—"

"I'll fix it," I snapped. "Hang up."

I slammed the receiver down on the hook, jiggled it, used another dime, and called Samson at Homicide.

"Sam. Shell. Listen and listen good. I got time to say it once, and it's life or death. I mean it. Grab Press and get over with him to my office. Fast—no siren. Park around the corner and hightail it straight to my office unless I stop you. Fast, Sam!"

I tossed the receiver at the hook and didn't wait to see if it connected. I spun around and sprinted back to the Cad, jerked the door shut, and gunned the buggy out onto Main Street, headed back downtown. I leaned on the horn, pressed the accelerator to the floor boards, and let it rip. I went through a red light and a stop sign, horn blaring, but I made it in one piece down to Third Street.

Samson should have been just about getting started with Press. I hoped to Christ we were in time. I let up on the horn, skidded left into Third, gunned across Broadway. I yanked on the emergency and left the car double-parked in the street. Then, hugging close to the buildings, I sprinted back to the corner and up Broadway.

Down in the middle of the block I saw a girl that looked like Tracy, turning into the entrance of the Hamilton Building. I didn't know; the state I was in, almost anybody would have looked like her. I couldn't yell at her.

I sprinted with all my strength through the thin crowds and turned into the entrance of the Hamilton. The lobby was empty, but the door of the self-service elevator was just closing. I leaped for it, but it slipped shut before I could get my fingers on it. It was moving up.

I turned and leaped up the steps of the cement stairway three at a time. I got to the top just as the elevator doors started to open. I ran toward them as they opened wide and Tracy stepped out. I clapped a hand over her mouth, pushed her back inside, and shoved the button for the ground floor.

I took my hand from Tracy's mouth and said, "Sorry, I'll explain. Just a minute." I was all out of breath.

The elevator stopped at the bottom and I pulled Tracy out into the lobby. "Wait here, honey," I told her, then walked to the entrance of the building and looked out. In another ten seconds I saw the police car turn from Broadway into Third. Samson and Press. Sam would see my car there. Good enough. I saw the two of them coming up the street the way I'd come, leaned out of the entrance, and waved them on.

They came up puffing and I led them inside the lobby. When we were all in a bunch I turned to Tracy. "You must have been seen. Not much time. Here's the play. We'll all go up to my office. Tracy, you knock and say, 'Mr. Scott…Shell. It's me. Let me in.' Then you get the hell out of the way. Wait in the hall, then when I call you, come in, follow my lead, and when I ask you a question say, 'That's the one.' "

I turned around to Sam and Press. "After she knocks, we shove this snake up in front of the door. You got that, Press?" I kept my voice low and growled at him, "Be sure you get it, Press. You just stand there, see? And if there's even a peep out of you, I'll bust your dirty skull." I meant it. "Then we go in, Sam—with a gun. And the party's all over. Case finished. Everything's ended. Come on."

We didn't stop for any more chatter or explanations. Outside my office, we stood at the side of the door and Tracy stepped up in front of it and glanced at me. I nodded at her and she knocked. "Mr. Scott…Shell. It's me. Let me in."

I held my finger to my lips and jerked my head down the hall. Tracy walked quietly toward the elevator and Sam shoved Press in front of the door. Sam and I stood at the side, out of line with the door, and waited.
 

The door swung open suddenly and a deep voice exploded, "Walter! What the hell…"

I stepped up behind Press and shoved him hard into the room, then stepped right after him, Samson on my heels with his police revolver in his hand.

The shocked face of Maggie Remorse collapsed into a fat mass of surprise. She swung her big head from Press back to me with a look of complete bewilderment in her eyes. A shiny revolver hung forgotten in her big fist.

Chapter Twenty-one

MAGGIE GAWKED AT ME, then at Sam as I took one step up to her and took the gun out of her paw with my left hand. "Hello, sweetie-puss," I said. "Party's over."

She blinked at me as her mind started to function again. "You bastard!" she roared.

I grinned at her. "You're all washed up, Maggie. You're going away for a long, long time. Maybe up forever."

She said dirty words and added. "You got nothin' on me."

While Samson herded them both over against the wall I said, "We've got plenty, Maggie. For a start, how about Division Ten of the Health and Safety Code of the State of California?"

Samson swung his head around fast to stare at me, but Maggie's face just looked puzzled. I went on: "That, Mrs. Remorse, is more commonly known as the State Narcotics Act. We can start with a rap for narcotics possession. That's a felony for court procedure and should hold you a few years all by itself. There's a lot more—things like receiving stolen property, attempted murder—but we wind up with the clincher that's enough all by itself: accessory before the fact of murder. The murder of Georgia Martin, sweetheart. You didn't do it yourself, but your hired trigger men did—those Seipel hoods. And that's just as good as if you did it yourself."

She cleared her throat and spat on the floor. "Prove it," she rumbled.

I glared at her. "You're not at El Cuchillo now. I like my floor clean. I don't even like you standing on it. Maggie, you're about as low a creature as I can imagine—yeah, you and not-so-holy Narda over there, too. Only you probably knew him first, and best, as Walter Press."

She swiveled her head around to stare at Press, then back to blink at me. "What you talkin' 'bout, Mac? Never seen him before in my life."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Oh? Then who the hell besides Walter were you calling Walter when Walter was standing in front of the door just now?"

She didn't say anything.

Samson came over. "What's this narcotics rap, Shell? The murder fits."

"The narcotics fits too, Sam. Big-time stuff, this deal. The Inner World Society of Truth Believers, with Narda and hypnotic chants and sunrise services, was just a big, fancy front for shoving dope."

Maggie's fleshy face sagged a little more. She pulled the biggest chair in the office over to her and sank into it.

I went on: "You're finished, Maggie, and I hope to Christ you get what's coming to you. Sam, listen to this, then tell me just how it smells. You listen too, Maggie. Only you already know the answer—you and Narda."

I turned and told it to Samson, but Maggie and Press were listening. "Remember when I briefed you about the first time I went in to see Narda? I pretended I was a guy named Francis Joyne and, right after Narda's sunrise service, I got in to see him. Well, there I was sitting on the floor looking up at him, way up in the air. I feel a little dopey, but I don't think too much about it. He looks like a giant, but when I stand up he's only five-ten, maybe five-eleven. Anyway, while I'm on the floor the twins come in. They've got guns. One of them shoots the padding out of my coat—and I've got a healthy respect for guys with guns. Well, I'm not much scared. I'm braver than hell. Now, get this, Sam. I crack wise I'm so brave, and one of the twins lays a gun barrel across my jaw, here." I tapped the still swollen spot gently. "It's nothing; a trifle. It knocks me flat on my back, but it doesn't hurt at all! I still crack wise and get up off the floor. I'm so tough I eat guys like them.

"O.K. So then they take me out to that place out on Aloha Street where you found the one twin, and shove me in with Tracy. I can't think of a way out for hell. While I'm not thinking of a way out, we get some stew. I haven't eaten for maybe twelve hours, and I've been up all the time, but I'm not especially hungry. Well, I wander around the room, and twice I go over beside the door hoping the guy's going to come in so I can eat him alive or tear him apart with my bare hands. There's a big chair in the room I could use to bat the guy with, but I don't even notice it. My brain's spinning like a roulette wheel, but I'm getting double zeroes. I think I'm doing fine. I'm going to squash the guy with my fists. More—I sit down, yawn a while, then sleep like a baby for ten or eleven hours. And the dreams, Sam. Lord, the dreams I had! Sometime I'll tell you. But when I wake up, things are right and we get out of there." I stopped and swallowed a lungful of air. "Add it up, Sam. You can't miss."

Sam pulled a wooden match out of his pocket, struck it, and held the flame against the end of his cigar. He puffed at it a minute, looking at Maggie and Press, took the cigar out of his mouth.

"Dope."

"You're damn right it was dope, Sam. And if you do a little snooping around El Cuchillo and Narda's temple, you won't have any trouble proving it."

I watched Maggie when I said it. She'd been staring down at the floor, but she raised her eyes and peered at me. Press peered some, too.

"You sweating a little, Maggie?" I asked her. I laughed. "You're just starting to sweat, baby. It's all tied up tight." I turned back to Samson. "For a while I thought it was the drags I took on that damn cigarette I gave you. Then you told me it wasn't marijuana and that idea flopped. Dig this, Sam. Here's how I got it. Oh, it was fancy. Real fancy."

I looked at Press and chanted in a deep voice, "As Christ gave unto his disciples food and drink, so shall I, Narda, give unto you." I glared at him. "You low, crawling, stinking bastard. Sam, I drank the stuff, or chewed it up in a little wafer and swallowed it. Neat, huh? I did a little checking on narcotics at the library earlier. The stuff can be taken orally, by mouth, and it works just like sticking it in your veins with a needle, only a little slower. And a normal, healthy guy like me probably wouldn't get much euphoria, or kick, out of some drug like, say, morphine till after several little shots of the stuff." I stopped a minute and looked at Samson. "How you like it, Sam?"

He just had the fragments, pieces from the edge, but he got it in a rush; he was 'way ahead of me. He pulled another cigar from his pocket and started kneading it in his fingers as if he wanted to do something with his hands. He said slowly, "Of all the dirty, damned, twisted…" He stopped, but I could see the muscles rippling in his big jaw.

"Yeah, Sam. Mass production. They were turning out their own addicts as if they were coming off an assembly line. Using that Inner World build-up to get the 'disciples' in, then feeding them little doses of an addiction drug till the body had to have the stuff. Then the unveiling. I talked to a couple of graduates of the Inner World Society earlier this evening. They fit in real pretty." I walked over to Press. "What were you slipping the sucker Sunday when I was there? Morphine? Maybe a little heroin?"

I swung around and stuck my face in front of Maggie's. "It was your idea, sweet-puss. Maybe you'll answer some questions. Was it your idea to make the conversion to your 'philosophy' take just four weeks?"

Sam came up and tapped me on the shoulder. "Four weeks? That how long the suckers were supposed to play?"

"Yeah. I got that first from the guy that ghosted Narda's speeches. Lamebrain, here, couldn't even write his own stuff."

Sam growled, "And all this time the suckers were supposed to be getting a little poison each session? Every day?"

"Yeah. Or almost every day. Adds, doesn't it?"

"It adds, all right. Four weeks—wouldn't have to be that long for some of the stuff. That's plenty time to build up an addiction. And when the suckers get that monkey on their backs, they go through hell without their shots. Isn't a crime in the book they won't pull off so they can get dough for the stuff." His lips curled as he stared past me to the sagging face of Maggie and Press.

"Another thing, Sam," I said. "When dream-girl here had Georgia shot, the cause of death was obvious. Death by gunshot. The PM exam would show what organs the bullet hit, trajectory of the slug, and so on. Wasn't any reason to look for anything else. But I'll bet an autopsy now would show she was full of hop. And that explains what was happening to her bank account. It wasn't blackmail, but paying for the hop she needed."

I turned back to Mrs. Remorse. "How do you like that? Sweet-puss, you're clone in just like Press. I'll bet a buck you've got the dope right in El Cuchillo. And I'll also bet that Miguel was doing business after hours there, pushing the stuff to the hypes. I ran into him there after the club closed, and I'll bet he was pushing then." I grinned at her. "Did you know he was loaded to the gills himself? Might have been behind your back, Maggie. I mentioned something like that to him and he up and tossed a knife at me.