The Guilty Party
There are days when you feel euphoric for no particular reason; and there are babes who make you feel euphoric for particular reasons. Put them both together and anything can happen.
Maybe that’s why it happened. Who cares why it happened?
She came into my office like a gal out in the woods in one of those sexy movies, smiled at me, flowed across the room with the fluidity of hot molasses, sank into the big leather chair opposite my desk, and crossed her legs slowly, gracefully, gently, as though taking care not to bruise any smooth, tender flesh.
I rose to my feet, walked clear around the desk and sat down again.
“Lady,” I said, “whatever it is, it’s eight to five I’ll do it.”
She smiled, but still didn’t say anything. Maybe she couldn’t talk. Maybe she was an idiot. I didn’t care. But if curves were convolutions, she had an IQ of at least 37-23-36, or somewhere in that neighborhood, and that’s the high-rent district.
Moreover, if some faces can stop a clock, hers would have made Big Ben gain at least forty minutes an hour. A lot of black hair, somewhat tangled, as if a horny Apache dancer had just wound his hands in it, preparatory to flinging her across the room. Narrow dark brows curving hotly—yeah, whether you think so or not, they curved hotly—over tawny brown eyes the indefinable shade of autumn. Lips that would burn holes in asbestos. And then that genius body. Man, whatever she had, it should be contagious.
She was looking me over, still silently. I leaned forward, waiting. And I started hoping she wasn’t really, truly an idiot.
Finally she said, “So you’re Shell Scott?”
“That’s me. And you? You?”
She didn’t tell me, darn her hide. Instead she cocked her head on one side and said, “I almost hate to take up your time with this little difficulty of mine. I mean it’s nothing big and exciting like murders or gangsters —”
“Now, don’t you worry, it’s big and exciting enough already, and I don’t care how little —”
“I mean, I’ve heard stories about the big cases you’ve handled and all. I hardly believed them. But I do now. You certainly look capable.”
“Yeah? Of … what?”
“Anything. You really do.” She smiled. “You look as if you just got back from an African safari. After shooting lions and tigers and things.”
Well, it was a new approach. So to hell with the old approaches. Maybe she was serious. Or maybe she was pulling my leg. But I’ll go along with a gag. Besides, I was feeling pretty wild.
“That’s me,” I said. “Just got back from darkest Zuluongo, where the pygmies are nine feet tall. Braved the poison swamps, the burning heat, the creeping goo —”
“Goodness! It sounds dangerous.”
“Dangerous? Why, it’s not even in the UN. But nothing daunts me when I’m on a trek.” I shrugged. “Killed a couple elephants this trek.”
She chuckled. “With your bare hands, of course.”
“Of course not. I … used a rock. But enough about me. You said something about a—a little difficulty?”
“Yes. It’s a bit embarrassing. And I wanted to get to know you a little first.”
“OK by me. In fact, you can get to know —”
“You see, there’s a thing under my bed, Mr. Scott.”
“Shell. A what?”
“A thing under my bed.”
“A thing? I don’t—is it alive? Hell, I’ll kill it. You came to the right place —”
“No, nothing like that, Mr. Scott.”
“Shell.”
“It’s a little funny metal thing. I thought it was a bomb at first. But probably it isn’t. When I got out of bed this morning I heard it fall from the springs or somewhere—that’s how I found it—and it didn’t go off. It’s sort of square, about three or four inches long, and has a small doodad on it. Can you guess what it is?”
“I couldn’t guess. What is it?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I came here. I told you it wasn’t anything important.” She sighed. “I knew you wouldn’t be interested.”
“But I am! It’s just that your description … Could you sort of narrow it down a little more? I mean, I can think of a million things it isn’t. But if we’re going to pin this thing down, we’ve—we’ve got to pin it down.”
I stopped. This wasn’t me. Or wasn’t I. It wasn’t either of us. This gal had me thinking with a stutter. I shook my head, remained silent, waiting.
She described the thing again, in more detail this time. Finally her description rang a bell.
“Ah-ha,” I said. “I think I’ve got it. I think your bed has been bugged.”
“It’s a bedbug?”
“No—look, a ‘bug’ is a term for a microphone, or listening device. The item in question sounds like a small radio transmitter. Though why in the world anybody would put a portable transmitter under your…”
I let it trickle off, as suspicion trickled in. The same trickle got to her at about the same moment.
“No!” she cried.
“You’re wrong, I’m afraid,” I said. “I’m afraid the answer is Yes!”
“But why?”
“Well, possibly somebody—” I started over. It was kind of delicate. “Do you talk in your sleep?”
“How would I know?”
“How indeed? Well, that’s out.” I paused. “OK, let’s be logical, what? Usually people plant them to hear or record conversations—for blackmail purposes, to catch crooks, get inside information, business secrets and so on. Now, who might benefit in some way by hearing your conversations?”
“In the bedroom?”
“Well…” She had a point. And it stimulated my thinking.
I said, “We’ve been going at this all wrong. We have assumed the bedroom bug is the only one. The place may be lousy with them. They may be all over the joint—living room, dining room, attic, everywhere. Where do you live, anyway?”
“I’ve a suite in the Montclair.” The Montclair was a swank hotel only three or four blocks away.
We attacked the problem from all angles for a few minutes. She was a lingerie model—it figured—and thus didn’t have any big business secrets to discuss in her suite. She didn’t dictate important letters or help plan union strikes, didn’t know any criminals, and so on. She didn’t even entertain anybody in her suite, although she did mention one name, which obviously I heard incorrectly.
All in all, there seemed no reason whatsoever for anybody to bug her rooms. It was a puzzler.
Finally I said, “OK, you live in the Montclair. And your phone number?”
“Will that help?”
“It’ll help me.”
She smiled. “Oxford 4-8096, that’s the Montclair’s number. And I’m in number Twenty.”
“And your name?” I said, all business.
“Lydia Brindley. At least until next week.”
“It won’t be Lydia next week?”
“It won’t be Brindley. It will be Fish.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Oh, you do too. Stop joshing me. That’s the name of my fiancé.”
“Your—oh.”
I got a sharp shooting pain, in an area which it is impolite to mention. An area, in fact, which it is ghastly to mention.
I went on, “Say what you said again. About—about you won’t be Brindley.”
“It’s nothing, really. My fiancé is Rothwell Hamilton Fish, and we’ll be married next Friday.”
“Nothing, huh? Maybe to you it’s nothing. Rothwell Hamilton Fish, huh? I never heard of him.”
“I mean it’s nothing to do with my difficulty. And Rotty hasn’t lived in Los Angeles until just lately. He’s from Las Vegas. That’s where we’ll be married.”
“Uh-huh. So he’s from … wait. He’s not—he’s not Rotty Fish!”
“Yes. You do know him, then?”
“My God, no.” I paused, closed my eyes. “That’s what you said before. Rotty Fish. I thought it was a cat food or something. You remember. When we were wondering who might benefit from recording anything you might say, you mentioned that there was hardly ever anybody in your suite except you and Rot—Rothwell. Right?”
“Right.”
“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Where does Rot—Rothwell live?”
“At the St. Charles in Hollywood.”
“Way out there? That makes it tougher. He doesn’t live at the Montclair, then.”
“No, but he was visiting a friend there one day, and that’s how we met. In the elevator. It was so romantic—he kissed my hand and everything.”
“No!”
“He’s very polite and polished, a real gentleman.”
“Uh-huh. He’s at the St. Charles now?”
“No, he’s out of town for a few days. Wrapping up business affairs and things before we get married.”
“Uh-huh. I see. Yeah. I’ve solved it. He did it. He bugged you.”
“What? That’s preposterous. And why?”
“Why not? He’s bugging me—and I don’t even know him. Besides, we eliminated everybody else.”
“Oh, we did not.”
“Maybe you didn’t. Well, he won’t get away with it! I’ll catch him.” I stood up. Then I sat down again. “Tell me,” I said, “about Rothwell. All about Rothwell.”
They had met two months ago in that romantic spot, the elevator. Love or something blossomed, a marriage date was set. Rotty, Lydia said, was tall and slim and dark and divine, and had a little thin black moustache. He danced like a dream, and when they’d met in the elevator, as she’d said, he had kissed her hand, like those fruity Continental bounders.
“He sounds like a con-man to me,” I said.
I was all steamed up. In this life, a man has to fight for what he wants. The Government can’t give you everything. Some things a man has to do for himself, no matter what you’ve heard. Fight fair, yes; but fight.
“Why, Mr. Scott,” Lydia said, blinking the big brownish eyes hotly at me. “How can you say that?”
“Easy. Call me Shell, huh?”
“Shell. But how can you say such a thing? He’s priceless. And he’s horribly jealous, isn’t that wonderful?”
“No, that’s horrible. Either he trusts you or he doesn’t. It’s as simple as that.”
“Well…”
“You see? He’s horribly jealous. That means he doesn’t trust you. Besides, he has a little thin black moustache—you said so yourself.”
“But you don’t even know him.”
“Lydia, give him up. We’ll all be happier —”
“Why are you talking like this? What do you care —”
“Well, I’m jealous.”
“But you just said —”
“Never mind what I said. Tell me more about Rotty.”
There wasn’t a great deal more. They had dined and danced and had wine and crepes suzette—he could even order in French.
“He sounds like a con-man to me,” I said.
“He’s not, either. Oh, at first I thought maybe he was only after my money, but now I’m sure it isn’t that.”
“That’s clear thinking…. You’ve got money, too?”
“Yes, my father was the Brindley of Brindley Nuts—canned pecans, almonds, cashews and so on. He left me several million.”
“Nuts?”
“No, dollars, silly. I’m—well, I guess you’d say loaded.”
“That’s what I’d say.” I paused, thinking, considering all angles. Then I stood up.
“Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the Montclair.”
* * *
Lydia’s suite was composed of living room, sitting room, kitchenette, bedroom and bath. I cautioned Lydia to be very quiet and we went in silently. I then spent half an hour going over the place, but all was in order except for the “thing” she’d mentioned finding under the bed. It was a compact portable transmitter, all right. I left it under the bed, undisturbed, then joined Lydia in the front room.
As far as I could figure it, there were only two probabilities, especially since there were no other transmitters to be found. First, the culprit was a hi-fi bug, one of those cats who sit around listening to trains hooting and crickets cricketing and wild birdcalls and such. Second … that was the one I liked.
But how to prove it? I could call all the people in town who sold electronic eavesdropping equipment, trace the men who’d recently bought such items. That could take days, though. Or, if the receiver were here in the Montclair I could start knocking on doors—a method that also failed to strike me as speedy or efficient. And nothing would really be proved even if I found a receiver. Besides, the little transmitter had power enough to broadcast on its special frequency for several blocks.
Or I could … I had it.
I whispered, “When did Rot—Rothwell leave on his trip?”
“Let’s see. This is Friday, so it was Tuesday. Three days ago. He’ll be back Monday.”
“He may be back today.”
I started to tell Lydia about it, but decided not to. It was eight to five she’d think I was nuts, and ten to one she wouldn’t cooperate anyway. I would simply let it happen, and trust in my fairy godmother or whatever it is that watches over me. It might even work better this way. Moreover, the other way Lydia might get confused. There was a pretty good chance she’d get confused anyhow, but in this case to think was to act.
I jumped up, walked to the front door, opened it and slammed it shut again, careful that it didn’t lock. Then I thumped over the living room carpet.
“Well, here we are!” I bellowed. And I thumped across the living room to the bedroom and whacked the door open.
Lydia, a puzzled expression on her face, walked up behind me.
“Here we are,” I said loudly, “alone at last.”
“Shell,” she said, “we have been alone for —”
I interrupted. “Let’s have some more of those hot martinis!”
Lydia was starting to look a bit unnerved. “Hot martinis!” she said.
“That’s the ticket,” I shouted.
“What’s this?” she said, peering at me dubiously. “Why hot?”
“Yes, why not? Let’s try something new. Let’s not be hidebound by static old conventions. I’m tired of that static. Let’s be different, let’s be gay. Oh, Lydia, Lydia!”
“Huh?” she said.
I trotted back and forth over the bedroom carpet, stamping my feet. “No, you don’t!” I roared. “You won’t get away from me now. Ha! Got you!”
Lydia stood motionless in the bedroom doorway, staring at me. A slow paralysis seemed to be creeping over her. Except for her head, which was wagging back and forth.
“Here we go!” I yelled, and sprang through the air and landed with a thump in the middle of the bed. Then I got my feet under me and started springing about. I was beginning to have a few misgivings about this; if it didn’t work, Lydia and I would be all washed up. But it was too late to stop now, I had burned my bridges, cast the die, flung the gauntlet. Too late. So I kept bouncing.
“Shell!” she cried.
“Lydia!” I cried.
“What are you doing?” she yelled frantically. “What are you doing?”
Lydia was doing marvelously, I thought, even without coaching. I bounced up and down on the bed as if it were a thick trampoline, the springs wailing and shrieking, letting out noises actually un-bedlike. I was going higher and higher now, getting the hang of it.
“Shell!” Lydia wailed, “have you lost your mind, are you mad?”
“Yes! This is madness —”
“What happened? This is crazy.”
“— madness!”
I bounced almost to the ceiling, and when I came down, some springs let go with the twanging sound of coiled ricochets.
Lydia almost screamed. “Stop it, Shell, stop it, STOP IT!”
“DARLING!” I yelled.
“STOP!”
“DARLING!”
“Cops—murder—help!” she yelled, all unstrung.
I lit on the edge of the mattress and the bed broke, the frame splintering with a crashing sound that blended with the grating and twanging of springs giving up and letting go. I figured this had gone far enough, and stopped bouncing.
Lydia had just spun about as if preparing to sprint for miles. “Wait,” I called to her. “Don’t leave. Listen.”
She stopped, looked back over her shoulder at me. “But —”
“Shh. Listen.”
There had been, I thought, the sound of a distant crash. Like a door slamming maybe. Fifty feet or so away? Then came faint thumpings. Was it … ? Yes, more thumpings, feet pounding, pounding nearer, getting louder. And a high, keening sound out there: “Lyyyydia! Lyyyyydiaaaa!”
I climbed down off the slanting bed.
“What’s—what happened to you? What’s going on?” Lydia asked me.
“We’ll soon know. We stirred something up. I’ll explain later —”
That was all there was time for.
The thumping and keening sounds were almost upon us now.
The front door crashed open.
Feet thumped across the living room, reached the bedroom.
He was tall, slim, dark, moustached, and very speedy. He took one step into the room, left his feet and flew four yards through the air straight toward the bed, without even looking. He landed atilt and bounced and wound up in a heap over at the intersection of the walls.
But he was up in an instant, head snapping about, teeth gnashing, eyes rolling.
“Hoo!” he snorted. “Hah!” He lamped Lydia, then focused on me and sprang again. At me this time. He came at me like a windmill, arms flailing.
I grabbed his arms, got my fingers around his biceps as Lydia yelled, “Rotty! Stop it!”
“Yeah, Rotty,” I said. “Stop it.”
But he was swinging and snorting, completely out of control. I’d managed to ward off all the blows so far, but there were so many it was quite an operation. I was sort of winded from all that bouncing anyway.
“Look,” I said. “It’s all right, pal. Relax. Just a little trick.”
“A trick!” he roared. “I’ll trick you!”
“Dammit,” I said. “If you don’t watch out, you’re going to hit me, and then there’ll be hell —”
I knew it. Right then he sneaked a hand loose and got me a good one on the eye.
There was no help for it then. I stopped trying to hold him, ducked a roundhouse right and tapped him one. It wasn’t an especially hard blow, but it landed on his kisser, which for at least a week was going to be of no use to him for kissing.
He sailed back and landed on his rear pants pockets and sat there with a pained look on his face.
Lydia raced over to him, knelt by him and said, “Rotty, darling, are you all right? Where did you come from? Oh, I’m a nervous wreck!”
He blinked at her. “You’re a nervous wreck!”
“What happened?” she said. “What happened?”
He said, “I’ll ask the questions. What happened?”
Then, as he stared at her, his brows pulled down and down and down, until he appeared to have very hairy eyes, and he looked her over carefully, and he looked me over carefully. Then he said in a dull voice, “Something is cuckoo here.”
“Lydia.” I cleared my throat. It was time for the explanation, and I wasn’t exactly sure how Lydia would take it. “This will require your undivided attention for half a minute,” I said. “A sort of generous, what-the-hell attitude would help, too.”
She straightened up and stood looking at me, a puzzled expression on her face. Not that her expression had changed much during these last few minutes.
“You see,” I went on, “the problem was to find out who planted that item under your bed, who was the guilty party. There were several long-drawn-out ways to check the thing, but I had a feeling the villain was Rotty dear, here. I had a hunch he didn’t trust you to the ends of the earth, and his ‘business trip’ might merely be an excuse to check into the Montclair where he could keep a beady eye—or ear, if you’ll accept the phrase beady ear—on you. So I cooked up this little episode on the fifty-fifty chance it would pop him out of hiding.” I paused. “I had no idea it would shoot him out of a cannon.”
“I don’t…” She frowned. “I don’t quite understand.”
“You will. Just take your time. And remember I did only what you employed me to do. If I’d told you what I was up to, you wouldn’t have believed me in the first place; and in the second place, you sure as fate wouldn’t have cooperated with me in the gambit. So I just played it by—by ear. Incidentally, Lydia, you did splendidly. In fact, I hope he really has it recorded.”
“Recorded?” It sank in part of the way then. She glared at me. “Why, you beast. The very idea! You beast —”
But then it sank the rest of the way in. The first part had been merely my deviltry—or whatever Lydia might have preferred to call it. But the second part was the Rotty part.
Slowly she swung her gaze from me to him, then finished what she’d started to say. Only this time she was speaking to Rothwell Hamilton Fish. “You beast!” she cried. “The very idea!”
Rotty was just struggling to his feet, poor chap, when she hauled off and socked him right in the chops. Not just once, but several times, moving with much agility.
Rotty went down again, clear onto his back this trip.
Slowly, very slowly, he clambered to his feet. He knew the jig was up, but at the last there he said something that almost got him onto my good side.
He glanced at Lydia and shrugged, then looked at me.
“Hell,” he said. “I can lick her. She just hit me with eight or ten lucky punches.”
Then, without another word, he turned and walked out of the bedroom and through the living room and out the front door, never, I felt sure, to be seen in these parts again.
For maybe a minute Lydia and I stood there in the bedroom, not saying a word. We gazed around the room, at chairs, the dresser, at the broken bed, at each other.
I waited.
But finally the suspense was too much. I was, after all, greatly interested in what her reaction would be. So at last I said, “Remember, I did only what you employed me to do. So, baby, you’d better not try socking me.”
And at last she smiled. Gently at first. But then a little more warmly. And with this tomato, a little more warmly was like the house burning down.
“Shell,” she said, “I’ll bet you did kill those elephants with rocks.”
I sighed, and relaxed, and grinned. “Not really,” I said. “In fact, elephants scare the devil out of me.”
“They certainly didn’t scare it all out.” She kept smiling.
“Well, they were small elephants. Hardly more than babies. The worst part was the burning swamps and creeping —”
“Shell,” she interrupted me, “I suppose you did me a favor.”
“Time will tell.” I grinned. Not for any special reason. I just felt like grinning.
“But what made you think it was Rotty?”
“Oh, a lot of things—mainly you.” I grinned some more. “But just his name alone should have warned you, Lydia. Imagine going through life with a name like Rotty Fish. Bound to mix a man up. He was irrevocably doomed on the day when he failed to insist that you call him Rothwell.”
Lydia walked over to the dresser and peered into the mirror, patted the tangled black hair, smoothed a hotly curving eyebrow. “This must seem like an odd case for you, Shell. Different, anyway. No murder, no kidnaping—nothing even criminal.”
“I wouldn’t say that. Bugging bedrooms must be at least a misdemeanor. Besides, what I did to Rotty—that was criminal.”
She smoothed the other brow.
I said, “Well, I suppose I’d better get back to the office. I suppose. Feed the fish or something. I have guppies, you know. Uh…”
She turned, leaned back against the edge of the dresser, fixed the tawny brown eyes on me. “You’ve done enough work for today, haven’t you?”
“Why, if you want the truth, I’ve done enough work for a week.” I cleared my throat. “Besides, my office guppies are very well fed. Almost obese.”
“Stay a while, then,” she said. “We’ll talk a little.”
“OK.”
Her brows creased slightly. “That reminds me,” she said.
She walked to the bed, bent down and reached under it, stood up holding the little transmitter. Without a word she went to an open bedroom window, peered out and looked down, apparently to make sure nobody was below, then tossed the transmitter vigorously out the window. I heard it crack on the cement.
Then Lydia turned around, smiling, and walked toward me.
“There,” she said. “Now we can talk. Or—Shell, what would you like to do?”
She stopped in front of me, looking up at me, close enough to scorch, those incandescent lips slightly parted.
I grinned down at her. “Well,” I said, “for a start—how about a hot martini?”
The Live Ones
I had left Sheldon Scott, Investigations—My Downtown Los Angeles office—about three p.m., so I reached my Hollywood apartment earlier than usual; I went in, closed the door, and stared at the naked blonde on my divan.
I blinked and shook my head like a maraca. There are good days and dandy days, but this was unbelievable.
“Woops,” I said, “pardon me, ma’am,” and went out again and looked carefully at the number on the door. It was my apartment, all right. I went back in.
She was still there, still sprawled on the chocolate-brown divan as if she lived on it—and I kind of wished she did live on it, since she was a busty beauty with the longest white-blonde hair and most golden sun-bronzed skin since Lilly Christine—but I’d never met this one before.
There was something familiar about her, and I was so delightfully dazed that for a moment I thought maybe it was that her hair was the same color as mine, and her skin was about the same tanned shade as mine—but there I stopped. She didn’t look anything like me.
Right then there was a big flash. I thought: My brain has burned out! But then there was another flash, so I knew it wasn’t my brain. Not even my brain could do that twice—and besides, the pulse of light had come from the bedroom. The blonde hadn’t moved, except to let her mouth sort of hang open loosely. I jumped past her and into the bedroom. There was another blonde on my bed. Dressed exactly like the first one.
But she wasn’t alone. Close on her left was a short, husky guy with a camera looped around his neck, and on my right was a big ugly ape named Agony, swinging a sap down at my head. I bent my knees and threw my left arm up, my forearm blocking Agony’s descending wrist, then I was straightening up with my right fist slamming toward his stomach. The blow landed and bored in, and then I led with my right a couple more times, but the last one Agony knew nothing about. Before he hit the floor I spun around toward the other man.
The guy hanging onto the camera with its strobe-light flash attachment was a local photographer named Lomey Fain. He jumped away from me, letting out a surprised yell. Ordinarily, I don’t slap medium-sized guys like Lomey around, since I am six-two and 206 pounds, but Lomey was a punk who did work for the syndicate and the private eyes who peer through keyholes, and also he was in my bedroom and I’d about figured out why, so I hit him on the mouth and it suddenly looked the way a mouth must look to teeth, all red and ugly. Lomey sailed back through the air, out cold for a while.
The pale white gal on the bed let out a little scream and jumped off it, and the sun-bronzed blonde from the front room came racing into the bedroom. Why? How would I know? Maybe to talk with the other blonde. Maybe anything. Why do gals run to bedrooms?
Both of them were running about stark staring naked—they were stark, and I was staring—and they looked at the two unconscious men, and sort of jumped up and down making wailing sounds, and I stood pretty still making a sort of low wailing sound myself, and then I heard the shower running.
I groaned, then ran to the bathroom, threw open the door, stepped in and pulled the shower curtain away from my combination tub and shower. Sure enough, there was the third gal. A real dish, this one. A redhead with saucy white breasts and flaring hips, water streaming over her in glistening rivulets, and a wide-eyed startled expression on her striking face.
She squealed, “Who are you!”
“I’m Shell Scott, and —”
“Oh, you’re Shell Scott!” She beamed at me, happily.
“Arrgh,” I growled in frustration and wheeled around and ran out. Be calm, I told myself. Think. Think! That was the hell of it. I was thinking.
One thing was sure: I had to get rid of these women fast. I groaned again. Here I was in my own apartment with three beautiful nude tomatoes and all I could think of was getting rid of them. Life can really be cruel sometimes.
From where I was standing I could see out the living room window down to North Rossmore. A flash of white caught my eye.
A Los Angeles police car had just pulled up to the curb below. Another car was behind it. Across the street was the rest of that flash of white I’d seen—an all-white Lincoln Continental that belonged to one Victor Grieg. It was ten thousand dollars’ worth of car driven by a two-bit slob. Maybe four-bit, since Grieg was one of the top racket boys in L.A., but still slob.
There wasn’t going to be time for me to get rid of these gals. I was trapped here with them. I thought: I’m dead. This may be living, but I’m dead. If I knew Grieg, in addition to the policemen he’d have some reporters along and maybe even a judge and jury, and when they all swarmed in here it would be the end of Happy-Go-Looky Shell Scott.
In my mushy mind my license took wings, my mind took wings, everything got dizzy. I jumped to the door and locked it, then turned around with my back against the door, feeling breathless. And at the sight which met my eyes I got even more breathless.
All three babes were greatly excited, and running about every which way, and all sorts of things were flying about helter-skelter, through the air, up, down, even sideways. Man, it was wonderful. But then they seemed to become aware of me standing scrunched against the door, and I guess they decided to get out.
They all turned, as if with one mind, and ran at me.
Well, you know how it is with just one nude woman running at you. My brain sort of wobbled, and I thought: How’d this happen?
It had started happening with a phone call from the wife of the late Judge Phineas Latham. The judge had died recently in an apparently accidental fire, but Mrs. Latham thought he’d been murdered. She’d hired me to check it. Nearly a month of investigation had convinced me she was right. And every lead I followed up pointed to a shadowy racket boy named Victor Grieg.
Grieg’s motto must have been, “To Victor belong the spoils,” because he was so rich he had TV in the john, and it seemed he was involved in practically every crime except suicide. But I couldn’t yet prove it. I was getting close to him, though, and he knew it. The fact that many of my friends in the L.A. Police Department knew I was trying to get Grieg made it almost impossible for him to have me shot in the head without virtually naming himself as responsible. So one day Grieg phoned and asked me, politely, to call at his office. I went.
I got there sooner than I’d expected to and glimpsed a long-limbed bleached blonde leaving Grieg’s office. She walked with a loose-limbed sway that, combined with her yellowish hair and a kind of meat-hungry look on her face, made me think of a tired tiger.