The Shell Scott Sampler (23 page)

We picked up a few interesting items. Like Rafe's having been smart enough not to leave the murder gun in the car, reasoning that even a drunken Moulder would probably have thrown it away right after the crime. The cartridge case had been a more effective touch, since Ballistics could match it to the other cases—or to the gun—for positive identification.

Only Rafe hadn't been smart enough to get rid of the gun itself. It was the same .45 he'd been aiming at my head. As I'd told the man, he was a dumb sonofabitch.

Another somewhat intriguing item was the fact that the twenty-five thousand clams Falcon had personally paid to Vincent Blaik, to make sure he blew Moulder's defense, was the bulk of the twenty-eight thousand which Rafe and Georgina themselves extracted from the Hollywood Hills Estates safe, back in the beginning. It had not been difficult for Georgina to loiter near hubby enough times to memorize the combination.

Twice in the year since Falcon had paid Blaik off with the twenty-five G's, Blaik, thinking—erroneously as it turned out—that Falcon couldn't do anything about it, had hit Falcon up for a “loan.” Another five thousand each time. So in addition to the fact that Blaik was the natural victim in the plan to frame Moulder for murder, and the further uncomfortable fact that Blaik knew all about the original frame, Falcon thus had one more reason for killing him.

As for Lynn, handling her had almost literally been child's play for Falcon. He'd sold her a bill of shoddy goods, made her believe he intended to marry her, though he actually planned, of course, to marry the well-to-do widow, Georgina. Maybe Lynn had suspected the real reason why Falcon wanted her to lead Blaik to the Hideout, not the lie Falcon told her, but she'd believed what she wanted to believe, and she had wanted to believe Falcon.

Even before framing Leslie the first time, Rafael and Georgina had been lovers, even in that beginning thinking ahead to the day of Moulder's release—especially after Leslie blew up in court. I never did know if the real core of it all was lust, or love, or mainly Falcon's greed for money, for a slice of the Hollywood Hills pie with Georgina on the side.

I don't know what it was in the beginning, but at the end it was murder—and they wound up hating each other, which to me somehow seemed rather nice. The whole thing couldn't be put in a nutshell, but I suppose there's a word for it. And at the end, Georgina had a last word for me.

With everything wrapped up, just before she turned and walked out through the door of her house for the last time, the very last time, I spoke to her briefly.

She didn't say anything while I talked, finishing with, “As for Blaik, I don't know, these things happen. And they're paid for one way or another, one time or another. He was in on it; maybe Blaik got what was coming to him. But I've at least a little idea what Leslie was like before he went, an innocent man, to prison. And I know damn well what came out of that college. I've a hunch you'll pay more for that than for Blaik.”

She stood before me, looking coldly at me, ice in her eyes.

“Well, that's it,” I said. “Believe it or not, I wish it hadn't turned out like this, Georgina.”

She turned on her heel and started out the door, flinging back over one shoulder her exit line.

“Call me,” she said, “Mrs. Moulder.”

I guess you could call me an optimist. Especially at the moment.

Because at the moment I was in a phone booth, dialing the number of Miss Jasmine Porter.

And it was three o'clock in the morning.

The phone rang once, twice. Ah, she's there, I thought optimistically. She'll be glad to hear from me. She'll be hungry again by now.

I suppose I should have been conked out by this time, but I felt surprisingly good. Part of the reason is that laughter is plasma for the blood, and I'd had a pretty good laugh. I had learned what delayed Samson so long in the bedroom.

Not from Sam—never would he have told me. I got the story from Sergeant Kidd. Samson had no sooner managed to open a window, climb into the bedroom, and close the window again, than recently arrived Rafe had, boomingly, told Georgina, “OK, I'll wait in the bedroom, baby.”

Sam had sped into the closet so hastily that he'd put a foot into a hatbox and knocked a pile of clothing, some on metal hangers, down upon him. Then Rafe was only feet away and Sam couldn't move. When the action started, Sam had to get his foot out of the box and untangle himself from hangers without clanging them together, none of this made easier by his working in darkness. When he finally got untangled, after an episode with a girdle which I found very funny—I find girdles all by themselves very funny—he'd still had to move slowly and with care.

With care, as I well knew, not because he feared that Falcon might hear a soft sound and shoot him, but because Falcon might instead shoot me. Even so, I was not going to spare Sam when next he began ribbing me.

Four rings so far. Just getting warmed up. Boy, she was going to be crazy to hear from me. She might be starving at this hour. And I was prepared, even for starvation.

In a large box outside the phone booth—it was too big to get into the booth—was a great quantity of edibles, some of them even nutritious, which I had just selected in haste and at great expense in an all-night delicatessen.

Six rings? I must have miscounted.

Then—sound in my ear. Followed by sweetness in my ear.

“Hello? Hello?”

“Jazz?”

“Yes. You sound like—Shell?”

“Of course I sound like him. Hey, did I wake you up?”

“No. I was reading. I read a lot.”

“No kidding. Well. That's good. Reading a lot, I mean.”

“I'm like that, Shell. Whenever I do anything, I do it a lot.”

“Fascinating. I should have guessed, having seen you eat. And I'll bet you're famished, what? Ravenous? Well, never fear. You can count on old Shell. I have a whole packing box full of goodies right here beside me. Gobs and gobs of food, cheeses and pickles and hamb —”

“I'm not hungry.”

“— urgers and stea … What?”

“I already had a snack.”

“Uh. Oh?”

“Yes, about an hour ago.”

“You mean … you don't want my goodies?”

“No.”

“You mean we're through?”

“I mean, I'm not hungry. Don't worry about the food, Shell. Just come on up. And hurry.”

I hurried. You can bet I hurried.

She wasn't hungry, she'd said. Don't worry about the food, she'd said. But that was then. What about an hour from now? Two hours? Tomorrow morning, noon, night? Next week?

Yes, I guess you could call me an optimist.

Anyway, I took all that food along.

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