The Shell Scott Sampler (15 page)

But every defense attorney takes on clients accused of, or even previously convicted of, crime; that's his job, his purpose and function. And rumors are spread about many of them, rumors very often completely groundless. I didn't know whether any of the rumors about Blaik were true or not; and until I did I meant to assume they were baloney.

So, instead of shop-talk, I said, “You have dinner here, Blaik? Or just those dinky drinks?”

“Hell of a dinner. Didn't have any idea the food was so good.”

“First time here?”

He nodded. “Yeah, Lynn suggested the place. I'm glad she did—we had the tournedos. Man, on artichoke bottoms and with that béarnaise sauce —” He smacked his lips.

“We had the Chateaubriand,” I said. “And the prime ribs.”

He blinked. “And? I thought a Chateaubriand was for two people.”

“Yeah. Prime ribs were mine. Jazz had the Chateaubriand.”

He was silent for a few seconds.

“No kidding!” someone said behind me.

I looked around. The gals were already on their way back from the powder room. After maybe two minutes. Remarkable. Must have run out of powder. Usually they're in there at least three quarters of an hour.

Blaik had paid his check after getting the last drinks, and as the girls arrived I stood up, saying we had to hit the road.

Blaik said, “Time for us to take off, too. Glad we got to chat, Scott.”

Lynn sat down. “I'd like another drink, Vince,” she said. “Let's stay a while longer.”

But Jazz, I was pleased to note, remained standing and grabbed my arm.

Blaik was arguing mildly with Lynn. She said she truly would prefer to stay a while longer, that she didn't feel well. She did look pale to me. Maybe she needed oxygen; couldn't afford to breathe very deeply wearing that black outfit. But finally Blaik grabbed Lynn's hand and hauled her to her feet.

We all walked out together, Jazz squeezing my arm.

“That didn't take long, did it?” she said brightly. “Now we can go out into the wildness, or whatever you called it. And I've already got part of my dinner digested.”

“I'll bet it's all digested. You have a unique metabolism —”

That was the last word for a while. From any of us.

We'd gone down the steps, Blaik and Lynn ahead of us, and he'd walked forward to give one of the attendants his parking check. As the gray-tuxedoed youngster turned and started to trot toward the darkened lot I heard a car engine start over there.

The sound stuck oddly in my brain. At first I thought the other attendant must be in the lot, but both were here, the one kid moving away now. Another thought was forming, too; but it had time only to wiggle.

I'd taken a step toward Blaik, who was still a few feet ahead of me. Jazz was behind me on my right, Lynn standing back and to my left, waiting. As I took another step, with the hand holding the square cardboard check I half-consciously tapped my coat over the Colt .38 Special always in the clamshell holster. It's always there because whenever I'm out in the city I know that more than one other guy who would like to see me dead is there, too.

Besides, that thought was just starting to wiggle.

Nobody had left the restaurant before us. And I was remembering that nobody had come into the Hideout since I'd seen that car come up the asphalt road. Why would anybody drive up and just sit out there? Those high-school kids, maybe? Or maybe —

That was it.

The sound, even out in the open without walls and ceiling to bounce from, was hellishly loud.

Gunshots—five, maybe six of them, fast—one isolated shot, followed by a second, then three or four more, one after the other and almost blending into one. Before the second shot sounded I'd started bending forward into a low crouch, left shoulder swinging in toward my right hand as the hand came up fast to slap the Colt's butt, my brain tagging the sound as the heavy, full-bodied boom of a .45.

As I rolled my shoulder back and slid the Colt from its holster I saw Blaik flop, heard screams from the girls behind me. A gray blur was the second attendant spinning around and starting to run. The car's engine was racing and over its ascending whine was the screech of tires spinning. I saw the car jerk forward, sliding, heading down the road. It was a shiny sedan, dark, its headlights still off.

With my feet planted wide apart, knees bent, I punched the revolver toward the already fast-moving sedan and squeezed off a shot, followed it with two more. I heard at least one slug hit something. But the car leaped forward and down the hill, picking up speed fast.

I straightened up. It seemed to take a long time; a long time in nearly complete silence. There were no more screams, almost no sound. I crammed the Colt back into its holster, turned toward the restaurant steps. The back of my left hand was stinging and there was a red streak across it. One of those flying slugs had nicked the skin.

Jazz was straightening up, rubbing one knee. Her eyes were almost closed, lids drooping. She'd been holding both arms before her but now let them fall to her sides, breathing through her open mouth. Her face was chalk-white.

Lynn lay on her back, one leg flopped awkwardly over the other. Light glistened from the small fat finger of blood near her head. There was a cough from behind me, a cough and a soft groan.

I turned around. BIaik was on his knees, weight on the backs of his heels, but bending forward, both arms pressed against his midsection.

I jumped to his side, squatted next to him. “Blaik,” I said, “are you all right? You get hit?”

He pulled his head up, looked at me. Blood was on his mouth. His lips stretched as he tried to smile.

“It's … nothing,” he said, and died.

A waiter had already phoned for the police and an ambulance by the time I got inside. As he hung up the phone I grabbed it, dialed the L.A. Police Department, got Phil Samson, captain of Central Homicide.

“Sam,” I said, “this is Shell. Shooting here at the Hideout just now, Vincent Blaik killed—somebody else already called in so cars should be on the way from Hollywood Division.”

“You see it?”

“I was in the middle of it.”

“You all right?”

“Yeah. Scratch on my hand, but Blaik's dead and a girl named Lynn Duncan got one along the side of her head. She's still breathing, but that's all I know.”

“Scratch on your hand? Stray bullet? Or was the guy aiming at you?”

“Beats me, but I'd sure like to find out—main reason I called, Sam. Dig up whatever you or the Intelligence Division have on Blaik, will you? If you've got anything that says some gun might have been after him, it would help my peace of mind.”

“Anything else we can use?”

“I saw the car, but I can't tell you the make. Dark sedan, new one—didn't get a glimpse at the guy. But I took three shots at the car and hit it at least once. Left side somewhere.”

“That might help. You coming downtown?”

“Soon as I can, Sam.”

I hung up and went out front again.

Immediately after the shooting, four or five people had come charging out to view the excitement, screaming and yelling and pointing—the usual gathering, brilliant as lemmings heading for the sea. So I'd left one of the attendants near Lynn's unconscious body, with instructions to keep people away from her; she lay just as she'd been before, still breathing.

Jazz was sitting on one of the steps, arms crossed and hands squeezing her shoulders. She was shivering a little. I draped my coat over her shoulders, asked if she'd seen anything that might help identify the killer. She hadn't. Neither had the gray-uniformed attendants.

The one who'd been waiting to take my car check had simply run about a block, then come back. When I talked to the young guy who'd been trotting toward the lot he said, “I heard the shooting and plain hit the deck.” He'd hit it pretty hard; his chin was skinned and a little blood had dripped onto his shirt and tie.

“What about the car?” I asked him. “The guy must have been parked in the lot for several minutes. In fact, I'm pretty sure I saw him drive up and turn in there.”

“So did I,” he said. “But the kids come here to neck sometimes. Usually after closing, but not always. It's a great view, what the hell?” He shrugged. “I figured that's all it was. Why would I worry about it? Some guys like to park their own cars. Who'd think some nut would start shooting the place up?”

He was right, of course. Who would? More important from my point of view, who'd really been the target? Blaik—or me?

Those slugs had covered a pretty wide area. The bullet that nicked my left hand had either been fired at me or else the gunman had missed Blaik by at least four or five feet. Another of those slugs had whistled past close to my head, too.

Judging by the spot from which the shots had been fired, it must have been one of those bullets going past me which had hit Lynn. She was lucky not to be dead right now. For that matter, so was I.

I could think of several reasons why guys with guns might want to knock me off; but if the creep had been trying for me he'd missed me by several feet with at least one slug—the one that killed Blaik. And, vice versa, if he'd been aiming for Blaik. It was, of course, possible that somebody had a motive for wanting Blaik dead; but I couldn't think of a single reason why any man would want to kill
both
of us.

I was sure of a couple things, though: Blaik was dead; and, if the gunman had killed him by mistake, he knew he'd missed me. Missed me, and still had to get me.

By the time I'd finished talking to officers at the scene and driven to the Police Building in downtown L.A., it was after nine p.m. and the story was on all the news broadcasts and telecasts. The bare facts were covered: Blaik killed; his companion Lynn Duncan shot and taken to the Emergency Receiving Hospital with a concussion and possible skull fracture; Shell Scott and Miss Jasmine Porter had escaped serious injury.

But there was a good deal of conjecture, too. In part because Blaik had been a well-known attorney, but mainly because I had been involved, not for the first time, in a shooting. At least one commentator wondered audibly why I had been with Blaik, and covered the same point in my mind by adding, “It is not yet known whether the fusillade of bullets was intended for Vincent Blaik or for Shell Scott, who was wounded in the hand. But the police are confident —” and so on.

I hadn't exactly been wounded in the hand, but in more like a thirty-second of an inch of skin. The commentator had also made it sound as if a whole army of hoodlums had been shooting up the county. Of course, for all I knew there could have been two, or more, people in the car at that. I hadn't really seen anything except muzzle blast and a glimpse of the car itself.

I took the elevator to the third floor and walked down the hall to the Homicide squadroom.

Samson was in his office, solid jaw wiggling as he chewed on one of his uniquely foul-smelling, but fortunately unlighted, black cigars. As I walked in he flicked the sharp brown eyes at me, continued growling into the phone.

When he hung up he took the well-chewed cigar from his wide mouth and gazed upon me with exaggerated distaste. “I think an invisible black bird follows you around, from time to time swooping down on the corpses which litter your path —”

“Sam, I'm wounded.”

“Wounded!”

“It said so on the broadcasts.”

He swore for several seconds remarkable for their richness, then said sincerely, “Undoubtedly some would-be benefactor of all mankind was trying to kill you, and unfortunately managed to shoot Blaik instead.” He stuck the cigar back into his mouth. “You took your time getting here.”

“Well, first I had to staunch the flow of my hot blood,” I said. “And then I was there at the scene of the crime, Sam, cooperating with the forces of law and order, decency and justice. Namely, the fuzz. Then I had to see that my girl got home —”

“Ahk,” he ejaculated. “You and your girls.”

“What's wrong with girls?”

He proceeded to tell me more of what was wrong with me. Finally he said, “All right, tell me what you think happened. And how you've managed to solve the crime already.”

“Well, I haven't solved it yet, Sam. I'm all at sea, would you believe it? But here are the facts.” I told him what had happened.

“Jazz hadn't met Blaik,” I finished, “and I didn't know the girl he was with. But Jazz did. Seems the Duncan gal works at a bar and restaurant called the Skylight Lounge. Part of a private country club and estates, homes on the golf course and such. She's a waitress out there.”

“Where'd she meet Blaik?”

“Beats me. I talked to Jazz after the shooting, but she didn't know much about her. Met Lynn when she was at the Lounge for dinner a couple of times.”

Samson ran a hand over his iron-gray hair. “That's all you got?”

I nodded. “You dig up anything on Blaik since I phoned?”

“Well, I'll give it to you the way I got it. About six thirty this evening a lady phoned the Hollywood Division to ask about her husband. She'd been expecting him all afternoon, but he hadn't shown up and she was worried about him. Far as we know, he still hasn't shown.”

“So tell Missing Persons. Why tell me, Sam?”

“The lady's name was Moulder. Mrs. Georgina Moulder.”

I kept on looking blank. “That's wonderful.”

“Wife of Leslie Moulder.”

“Leslie Moulder, huh? How about that? Good old—wait a minute.” I stopped. “He's the boy fell for theft, or embezzlement … went to Q a year or so back?”

“You got it. Grand theft, sentenced to San Quentin.”

It was the kind of case I don't pay special attention to ordinarily, and it had been in the newspapers last summer. But I remembered a little about it. Leslie Moulder had been accused of stealing twenty or thirty thousand bucks from a safe to which only he and one other man had the combination. The other man was out of town when the theft must have occurred, and was able to prove it. Other details were brought out at the trial, but Moulder's defense, I recalled, had been little better than no defense at all. Anyhow, he'd been convicted and jugged.