Dead-Bang (21 page)

“O.K., you know him better than I do.” Dave was scowling slightly so I asked, “Something the matter?”

“No, I was just—you got me thinking a little. I hope he hasn't been pouring pulverized elephant testicles into the vats.”

“Would that help?”

“I haven't any idea,” Dave said. “Sure wouldn't help the elephants.”

There was silence for several seconds. Cassiday finally started filling his pipe, then asked me, “Have my carefully considered remarks removed me from the number-one spot on your list of greedy suspects?”

“You never were number one. But I'll put you at the bottom.”

“Fine. So what else is new, Scott?”

“After we split up and I took Bruno home, I had to go down to the LAPD and tell the police what I knew. They've since talked to Bruno. I suppose they got around to you, too.”

He nodded. “Not much to it. I think they'd already talked to Doc by then, and also had your story, of course. So I suppose I was just another check. Two detectives were here for maybe half an hour. That was after Doc called me, you know—you were there then, weren't you?”

“Yeah, I was with the Doc and Dru at her place.”

“So he'd already told me about police going to the house, finding the place empty. Man, that shook me up—you realize, if we hadn't gotten out of there when we did,
we
might have been there when those guys came back?”

I nodded. “We cut it pretty close.”

“Funny thing, the officers didn't even mention that to me last night. You sure those bodies really
were
gone?”

“They were gone, all right. But the police usually don't say any more than they have to. So I guess you don't know they found the bodies this morning.”

He stared at me. “Found them? Well … why in hell doesn't anybody tell me anything?”

“I'm telling you now, Dave.”

His muscular face slowly relaxed, and he smiled. “I didn't mean you, Scott. But the cops sure
don't
say any more than they have to, do they? What happened, where'd they find them? Police have any luck identifying that heavyset bastard? Or figuring out what the hell was injected into Strang?”

“They don't know about Strang yet, but the guy I shot was a local hood named Monk Cody. Hadn't tied him to the two other men when I talked to Samson.”

Cassiday had tamped tobacco into the bowl of his pipe and put the lid back on the can. He pushed the can to the edge of his desk, saying, “Well, maybe that'll help. If the police already know who one of them was, they should be able to catch up with the other bastards. I hope they do it fast.” He licked his lips. “Last night was the first time … well, I never saw a dead man before—I mean, except laid out. Like for viewing, like at a funeral. Just dead … not dying.” He moistened his lips again. “You got any more surprises?”

I told him what I'd guessed about Regina Winsome, that the shots had been aimed at her.

“Crazy,” he said. He shook his head rapidly, poked his thumb into the pipe bowl, dug a lighter from his coat pocket. “Or maybe not so crazy. If those shots were meant for the girl, then they weren't really very close to Lemming after all, were they? And his close but restless associate, André.… Never mind. Maybe the shooters were just lousy shots.”

“They aren't perfect. Fortunately. They threw a bunch of slugs at me a little while ago.”

He'd flipped on his lighter and started to draw on his pipe, but when I said that he just let the lighter burn, then snapped it out. “At
you?
Why the hell? Why at
you?
You're not important—I mean, you've never had anything to do with Erovite. You know, you're just working for the Doc.”

“I know what you mean. But I have to assume they had their reasons.”

“Yeah. Man, if they shot at you.… I wonder if Doc and I should, well, sort of stay inside for a while.”

“Probably a good idea. At least till things simmer down. Incidentally, Dave, I didn't have much chance to talk with you last night. André Strang phoned you, too, right? And I suppose he called from the church?”

“Yes, from his office, next to Lemming's—there are several offices in the rear of the church. Told me to come down
to
the church. Didn't say why, just that it was important. Of course, we
know
why now.”

“What time did he call you?”

“I don't know for sure. Didn't think much about it then.” He paused. “It was a little before seven, though. Maybe five minutes to. Services hadn't started.”

“You get there very long before Bruno?”

“Five, ten minutes before Doc drove up. André met me outside the church, said Doc was coming and we'd have to wait for him. Then Doc showed, and you know the rest of it.”

That was about all I'd wanted to cover. Dave at long last got his pipe lit and said, “Come on into the front room. The gang's there now—the Citizens FOR gang, I mean. Like to meet them?”

“Sure. Bruno told me a little about the bunch. They ever figure out what they're going to do today?”

“Yes, most of it. This is the largest group in the country, you know, but it was decided instead of a big parade and all that confusion, only ten of the group—all gals, damn good-looking gals, by the way, best we could find—would march. Including an Italian girl, French, German, and so on—nice compact, cosmopolitan, and attractive selection we think. Should make a damned good impression. Some of the other members are going to picket the local FDA office, that sort of thing. Gals still haven't decided all the details, but they've got a few hours left.”

He stood up behind his desk, puffed a few times on his pipe, then wiggled a finger and led me out of his den and up the hall.

I saw the girls as soon as I stepped into the living room. I simply looked to my left, toward the sound of shrieks and giggles and babblings. Well, I could forgive them even that, I decided, with a few added squeals and squeaks thrown in because though it was a feminine sound possibly permanently damaging to male eardrums it was above all
feminine
, and considering that from which it came, it could not have been otherwise.

When Dave said they were “damn good-looking” he had committed an understatement of wonderful proportions, for in that group was just about everything luscious, delicious, and quintessentially female discovered or developed by women since Eve first primped and puckered up under the apple tree, and each of the ten appeared to possess more of it than the other nine.

My eyes bounced over a wild-honey blonde, two flaming redheads, three umber-to-mahogany brunettes, two girls whose black locks were bright as polished coal and a third gal with hair black and wild as a storm at midnight, plus one platinum-tressed lovely with long straight gleaming hair even whiter than mine.

All ten of the ladies were seated on a big couch that curved around a low table, with a big vase of red and pink carnations on it, to form three-fourths of a circle. All of them seemed to be talking at once, and I wondered who was listening. Which possibly explained why some details were not yet firmly pinned down.

There were about a dozen men in the room as well, in separate bunches of three or four, talking. I couldn't hear what they were saying. Dave took me around the room, introduced me, then ushered me toward the squealing and squeaking couch.

As we neared it a marvelously shapely gal with plump young breasts and huge brown eyes—one of the redheads—was saying loud enough to be heard above the other comments and just plain noise, “No, no, that wouldn't be any good, Ronnie, we probably wouldn't even get on television. And we've got to get
attention
, make sure they talk to us,
interview
us, so we can explain our position on—”

The platinum blonde interrupted, in what I suspected—mainly because of her Swedish-looking hair—was a pronounced Swedish-sounding accent. “Yes, Dina, we should tell it how we feel about Erovite, about how we all used it and it helped us
feel
bedder, and even
loog
bedder—”

“If the ridiculous old FDA wasn't all
men
, mostly
tired
old men, we wouldn't be having any of this trouble in the first place. I say there should be a
woman
commissioner.” That was a black-haired lovely, about thirty years old, with heavy-lashed eyes and a low sultry voice. “We've got to strike a blow for
woman's equality
at the same time we—”

“That's eet! They all are men. I 'ave eet!” The other redhead, bouncing, excited, highly animated, and waving her hands. “All the televeezyun men, and newspapermen, all of the men we 'ope to anfluence, attrack, get interview wiz, they all are
men
. Zo 'ow do we anfluence and attrack men? Hoo! Zimple, we take our cloze off!”

“We god do dake off our
glothes?”

“We take our cloze off an' put on bikinis. Put on loose.”

“Girls,” Dave said.

“You were right the first time, honey. We take 'em off—but we
leave
'em off.” The latest speaker, a tall and stupendously curvaceous black beauty—or, rather, chocolate-brown beauty, with skin the shade and smoothness of melting Hershey bars—went on in a voice soft as caterpillars curling up on peach leaves, “No bikinis. Nothing. Just what the good Lord gave us. Strip all the way and stay stripped. You want to attrack 'em, Thérèse, we'll
attrack
'em.”

“Ai, chihuahua!
Hey, boy! Hot doag, Lula, I'll do it, I'll do it weeth you!” A warm-eyed brunette this time, silently sizzling, with lips that looked as red and hot as those scarlet peppers that burn you from your gums all the way down to your bladder. “I'll do it,” she went on excitedly. “Chass, I will. Boy, will I?
Bueno!
We
all
do it, we all march
desnudo!”

“Girls,” Dave said, “I'd like to—”

“Desnu—naked?” Another new one, a little over five feet tall but with enough curves for a six-footer and eyes big and dark as ripe plums. “Margarita, do you mean we should
all
march
naked?”

“Chass, Ronnie—
Sí. Desnudo. Totalmente!”

“Nudo?”

“Naken?”

“Naket?”

“Naked?”

“Nackt?”

“Girls!”

The lass addressed as Ronnie didn't even look at Dave—of course, neither did anyone else—and continued, “That's easy for you to say, Margarita, you're a
nudist
. You run around naked almost every weekend. But what about the rest of us? My goodness—”

“Besides, we'd get busted,” said another. I smiled at that. This one was the wild-honey blonde, with eyes blue as the sea off Capri. “After the first block we'd all be on our way to jail. Who needs it?”

“Oh, Silvia!” the big-brown-eyed redhead—Dina, I gathered—said heatedly, “and you, too, Ronnie—”

“GIRLS!”

“We don't have to march along Filbert naked,” said the brown-skinned beauty, Lula, who seemed to have been the first to suggest total nudity. She went on, her voice like warm fog rubbing itself dry on a velvet towel, “Maybe just up that little street, Heavenly Lane. Or we could even wait till we got clear to the end of—”

“Girls! GIRLS, HEY! HEEEEEEYYYY!”

“Dave, do you
have
to chout?” Margarita asked him.

“I'd like for you all to meet a friend of mine—of ours, Shell Scott. He's on our side, and—”

“Good, we need all the help we can get.”

“So
you're
Shell Scott!”

“Hello.”

“Hiyee!”

“Loog at him, will you?”

All that, plus some other comments I couldn't decipher. I smiled and nodded and said hello and hi and hiyee, and, after a minute of fluttering confusion, had been introduced to all of the girls.

To red-haired plump-breasted Dina, sweet-chocolate Lula, short and shapely plum-eyed Ronnie, platinum-tressed Britt of the Swedish syllables. Then to a lovely little Japanese doll named Yumiko, with a face like a flower and lips like petals, who smiled at me and said sweetly, “Her
ro
, Sherr.” To brunette Emilie, a recent Miss Germany runner-up who, in my view, could have placed second only if all the judges were Lemmings. And to redheaded, animated, rosy-cheeked Thérèse; soft and smouldering and lovely Leonore; silently sizzling pepper-lipped Margarita; and the wild-honey blonde named Silvia, with Capri-blue eyes, perfect, brilliant white teeth, and a mouth made, among other things, for laughter and smiles.

It was a remarkable group, a little UN with lots of pulchritude, and every one of the gals looked as if she'd been long overparked in the erogenous zone. More, each of them was not only beautifully sensual and vice-versa, but looked vital and
healthy
, crammed with energy, enthusiasm, and—I soon learned—Erovite.

After a little while longer with them, and a couple more minutes with Dave, I headed for my Cad. As I left the living room these ten lovelies were still talking and arguing and squealing about marching at least part way to the Church of the Second Coming in their stupendously provocative shapes alone.

It amused me. It was probably girlish fun for them to yak about stripping, strolling nude over the up-slanting green lawn, even perhaps to the very doors of the church, naked as jaybirds.

But, of course, they wouldn't do it. Not really. Such things simply don't happen. I knew that; I just
knew
it.

Which put me in the same class as the wizards who just
knew
the market was going up-up-up in 1929.

17

The next four hours were the only dull ones since Dru had rung my chimes the evening before. But after that and from then on, it got more than a little exciting.

I spent those four hours in a concentrated effort to run down or at least get a lead to, the two men who'd grabbed Bruno and Cassiday. I checked again with my two informants, phoned half a dozen more, prowled through bars and boardinghouses, talked to bellmen and waitresses, bookies, other private detectives, bartenders, and half of the crooks and ex-cons I'd had anything to do with in the last year. All of it for nothing—until almost four o'clock on the nose.