The Case of the Vanishing Beauty (21 page)

His mouth grew lax and moved stupidly, nothing coming out. Then he realized it wasn't Loren; it was someone else. His face screwed up and he started to cry.

I was sick and disgusted. Disgusted with Press and with myself, with everything. I raised my voice for the first time and yelled, "Go get her, Lina. Get Loren and bring her down here. Let her see what kind of man Narda is."

Press held up a hand, not looking at us. "Wait," he sobbed. "Wait, please. I'll tell you anything. Let me be. I'll tell you anything you want to know."

I went over by him and waited for him to pull himself together a little. I motioned Lina outside and she stepped out the door. Press finally calmed down a little and started talking. For a moment I didn't have to ask him anything; he just started spilling over and kept it going.

"I killed him," he said. His voice was a little less wretched now, a little stronger. He knew he was finished; he'd probably known it ever since Sam and I pushed our way inside. But he'd been pretty tough for a while. It had taken a kind of beating to get it out of him. That and the fact that with everything else crumbling around him, he'd been afraid to face the laughter of Loren, a woman I'd guessed he thought a lot of, and who looked up to Narda as something he wasn't at all. Press had seen his fiction crumbling around him, but he could salvage out of the ruins a Loren to cling to. One person who thought he was something special. Well, he could have that much. It was funny, but I didn't get any kick out of it. He'd been afraid of Loren's laughter, but she couldn't laugh at him. Loren was dead.

"I killed him. I hardly know now why I killed him. I'd run off from some friends…taken money that belonged to them. I was afraid they'd catch up with me, do something to me. I got to where I was sure they'd find me and kill me, make a lesson of me…and then I wanted to go on with the Inner World the way it was planned. I had to work it all out some way. It seemed, then, like the best way to drop out of sight was to die, make it look like I was dead. I knew this wino, a skid-row wino, name was Robert Fisch. I got him in the car—my car—and took him up north. Clear up to Oregon."

Press paused a moment, breathing deeply. Then, still sitting on the floor in the corner, resting his arms on his upthrust knees, he put his head down on his arms, and without looking at Samson or me continued to talk all in a rush. "I knocked him out with a wrench, then put my watch and rings and everything on him. He was just my height and build. That was why I used him. I poured gasoline in the car and on him, set it afire, and ran the car over a cliff. Coroner didn't even think twice about it. Fisch was all burned. I came back down here on the train. I became Narda. Everything was fine…fine."

"O.K. so far, Press. Something else, though. You seemed awful surprised to see me a little while ago. Didn't you know I was running around? Haven't you seen the Seipel boys since they hauled me off?"

He shook his head wearily. "No. Thought you were still out…there."

"Then you haven't seen either of the Seipel boys?"

"No."

"You didn't know they were dead, then?"

It didn't even surprise him. He just shook his head.

"All right, Press. What I'm really interested in is lately. What about the racket? The Inner World gimmick? You know what I mean, friend."

"All right. All right," he said wearily. "It can't make any difference. But don't—"

We all heard it at the same time. Someone running headlong down the stairs. Press jerked his head up, the tenseness starting to return to his face.

Then we could hear Phyllis screaming as she reached the bottom of the stairs, "She's dead! Oh, God! She's dead!"

Phyllis threw open the door and ran into the middle of the room, her face white and her voice shrill. She screamed, "She's dead! Loren's dead!" and fainted and fell in a crumpled heap to the floor.

Chapter Nineteen

THAT FINISHED PRESS. He stared in amazement at Phyllis where she'd fallen. His face went blank, then he pulled his lips back from his teeth, scrambled up from the floor, and came at me as if I were two feet tall. Samson grabbed him before he got to me and Press collapsed like a punctured balloon. He let himself be led to the bed and he sat there quietly. His eyes were open, staring, but he wasn't seeing anything. Unless, maybe, it was the round, pixie face of Loren.

Samson bent over the girl on the floor and felt her pulse. She started to stir and her eyelids quivered slightly.

Samson looked up at me. "She's O.K. Now what the hell's this about another corpse?"

"Loren," I told him. I jerked a thumb toward Press. "One of his helpers. Poison, Sam. Cyanide. She shoved it into her own veins with a hypodermic."

Lina appeared in the doorway. "What is it, Shell? Can I help?"

Samson said, "Rustle up some cold water and see if you can find some smelling salts or ammonia. You might put on a little coffee, if you can find a kitchen. I'll take this one to bed. She'll be O.K. A little shock, but rest'll fix her up." He lifted her in his arms as if she weighed a good ten pounds and asked me, "Where's her room?"

"Head of the stairs. First one on the left across the hall."

"And where's this Loren?"

I told him and he went out carrying Phyllis. Lina scurried off in search of the stuff Sam had mentioned. I turned to Press. I didn't expect to get anything now, but it wouldn't hurt to try.

"Press, you started to tell me something. What was it?"

He didn't even move, didn't look at me.

"Might as well get it off your chest, Press."

If he heard me he gave no indication that he had. I tried a couple more questions with no better results, then gave up and waited for Samson. I heard him dialing on the phone, Homicide probably, then after a brief conversation he came to the door of the room and signaled me outside, away from Press but where we could see him in case he made a break.

"Lousy mess, Shell. You, uh, you have any idea that upstairs was going to happen?"

"You know better, Sam. Not the faintest. It knocked me spinning. If I had, I'd have told you about it. I think you know that."

"Yeah, Shell. Forget it. But you keep too much to yourself."

"Maybe. But I didn't have anything. Except an idea. Not much more than that."

"There was a good chance Narda and Press were the same guy, Shell. But what made you sure enough to bust in here and raise all this hell?"

"I wasn't sure. But that's one advantage a private eye has over a cop—especially a damn good cop like you, Sam. I don't have a big organization behind me, but that means I can make a stupid ass of myself and it doesn't reflect on anybody but me. I can mess around with thugs, and women of questionable character, and even get drunk and fall in the gutter working on a case—as long as nobody jerks my license—and I'm just sticking my own neck out. Nobody's going to point at me and say, 'Look at the cop. Just like all the damn cops.' Follow me?"

"Sure I follow you. Only, part way, though. But what made you so sure of yourself?"

"I wasn't sure. But nothing else made enough sense to play with. Narda was always in that big robe that covered him all over his body. He always wore a turban—that could be covering a bald head. The first time I saw him out here he walked funny—could mean fancy shoes. Narda popped into the picture right after Press was supposed to have been killed. A dead man's prints in Narda's room didn't make good sense. Another little thing—the night I swiped that glass from Narda's room he was walking around inside. I could hear him. When Loren came to the door he wouldn't let her in. Claimed he was taking a nap when I knew damn well he wasn't. Then he moved around inside for a couple of minutes. He could have been putting on his pretty duds so he wouldn't be caught with his pants down, so to speak. Another idea along that line—I talked with a guy that writes little speeches for Narda's spiels. He always delivered the things here at a definite, prearranged time. Could be for the same reason Press wouldn't let Loren barge in: so nobody'd catch him without his padding. Little things; it's always a bunch of little things, but there was enough to make a guy wonder a lot. There's more, too, Sam, more little things that tied it up tighter." I thought of something. "Sam, where's Lina?"

"Upstairs. With that Phyllis woman. She's O.K. I…Here come the boys."

I could hear the siren now. It shrilled, then slid down the scale in a diminishing moan as the car pulled up.

"Radio car," Sam said. "Lab boys oughta be right behind."

The print men, photographers, chemist, all the crew from Homicide and Scientific Investigation were finished. The coroner's two uniformed deputies had come and gone, taking with them the body of Loren. Press and Phyllis were on their way to Headquarters. Part of it ended.

Lina and I rode in with Samson in his official car as far as my apartment. Sam waited while I took Lina up, then said to me when I came back down and climbed in, "You got everything settled in your pointed head now?"

I shook my head, which, incidentally, is not pointed. "Almost, Sam, but not quite. I'm fouled up somewhere."

"You hadn't finished what you were saying when the boys came up outside. That's the impression I got. What's the rest of it?"

"Like I said, Sam, I'm fouled up. I've got to think about it. There are a couple of things out of line. Besides, I don't feel so good. It wasn't fun watching Press go through the deal he got. Not even him."

"It was pretty rough on the guy, Shell. What got you so tough all of a sudden?"

"I had good reason, Sam. Or I thought I did. Let me shove it around a little. O.K.?"

He let it ride. Sam didn't get to be Detective Captain Phil Samson making dumb plays or missing any bets. And I'd never crossed him yet. But he also knew one Shell Scott could be just as fouled up and stupid as the next guy on occasion. He wasn't happy, but he let it ride.

He dropped me off at my car, which was parked near the City Hall, and I drove on up to the office on Broadway. Driving there, parking, riding up in the elevator, and letting myself into the office, I shoved it around, played with ideas and theories and guesses. It seemed like I had everything filed away in my brain; I was sure of it, but it wouldn't fit down to the last piece. I was forgetting something, skipping something. I should have been remembering. A word, or a warming, or an idea—something—was scuttling around in my subconscious, trying to burst out, and I didn't like it. It gave me a creepy shiver of apprehension along my backbone.

I went inside the office, settled into the swivel chair, and stretched my legs out over the edge of my desk, and the phone rang.

I let it ring a few more times, then grabbed it and growled, "Sheldon Scott Agency."

I almost didn't catch it. The voice was a whisper and it said it just once. "If you want the answers, Junior, go to Century and Main. Pick up the guy in the black suit." Just once, in a whisper, then there was the soft click of the phone being replaced on the hook.

Chapter Twenty

I YANKED MY FEET off the desk and slammed them down on the floor.

"Hello. Hello. What's that? Who is this?" I was yelling into a dead wire. I got the operator. No, she couldn't trace the call. It would take about forty-five minutes and I'd have to keep my party on the line. Sorry, sir, is there anything else?

There wasn't anything else. I let it rattle in my head for ten seconds, then I got up and raced down to the Cadillac. Main at 100th. I swung left from Broadway down two blocks to Main, took a right, and stepped on the gas. About Twelfth Street I eased my foot off the accelerator and said to myself, Whoa, Scott. Slow down Where the hell you going, cluck? Here I was whizzing down Main Street as if I were on the last lap at Indianapolis. Size this up, Chum. What gives? Who's out at Century and Main? What's he got for you? What's the caper. Maybe a little friend wants to scramble your brains. Brains? I tried to remember whether Main at 100th was a busy corner or mainly nothing.

My bandaged right hand went automatically under my coat up to my armpit. No gun. Naturally, Scott, you soft-headed soft heel.

Wham! A ton of ideas reared up and smacked me in the back of my skull like a twenty-pound sledge. The last piece, the little thing that had been nagging me, stumbled out of my subconscious—and it scared me. It really scared me.

My eye caught the lights of an all-night service station on the corner, and I pulled over and skidded to a stop.

I left the motor running and the headlights on, scrambled out of the car, and ran inside the station office, my eye finding the pay phone on the wall, my left hand pulling a dime from my pants pocket.

I dialed the number of my apartment and the phone clicked at the other end of the line.

"Lina, this is Shell. You O.K.?"

No answer. I swore a blue streak, remembering. I said, "Pepper pot. Querida." In desperation, knowing seconds were important, I repeated the tidbit I'd used to identify myself to her before. I heard her gurgling laughter.

"Lina," I snapped, "you all right?"

"Yes, Shell."

"Good. Stay put. Don't let anyone in. Anybody call you?"

"No."

"Good. Don't answer the phone. See you later." I hung up.