Kill Me Tomorrow (2 page)

He was, instead, on the verge of filming his latest epic, which might possibly gross a million dollars merely in Yonkers.

“Ah,” I said aloud, when the salt-rimmed Margarita arrived, “Harry. Sure. You're going to star in his
Sins of Caesar's Orgies
. Right?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Not as Caesar, I'll bet.”

“Of course not … will you quit it?”

“OK. What did Harry tell you about me?”

“Oh, he told me
all
about you.”

“That was foul of him.”

“I don't think he was serious. I think he was just trying to frighten me.”

“Miss Brizante,” I said soberly. “Lucrezia? Well, no matter what little fibs Harry told you, I am now none of those things. I am alert, almost entirely sober, and prepared to be industrious. To prove I've been listening attentively, you said you need help—you think. Is there some doubt?”

“I'm not really sure.” She lifted her drink, let her lips sort of snuggle up to the salted rim of the glass. “It's my father. He and my mother live at Sunrise Villas. You know where that is, don't you?”

I nodded. It was one of those “retirement communities” for the fifty-and-over set, a regular little city with its own local government, fire department, hospitals and such, with a population of around twelve thousand citizens and more residents doddering in daily. It was out in the desert about twenty miles from Scottsdale.

I'd never been to the place, but similar “retirement cities” had mushroomed, almost exploded, throughout the land during the past three or four years, some of them thriving and some kind of doddering, so to speak; as a result the brains in Washington, D.C., had set up an agency which would make grants to those communities most in need of federal assistance. A Congressional delegation was at the moment studying the situation in Arizona. Consequently Sunrise Villas as well as the Del Webb—also builder of my Mountain Shadows vacation retreat—development, Sun City, a thriving community out in the Youngtown-Peoria area, and a couple of other similar developments near Tucson and Flagstaff in Arizona had been prominent in the local news of late.

“Haven't been there, but I've been reading about it,” I said.

“Well, I've been staying with Dad and Mom for the last week, resting up and getting in shape …” Lucrezia hesitated—as well she might, I thought—smiled very slightly, then continued, “… getting rested before starting
Caesar
. And Dad just isn't himself, he's terribly worried about something. I'm sorry I can't be more definite—he won't tell me what's wrong. But I know him, and I know he's
very
worried. Or frightened.”

“You've no idea what's bugging him?”

“Nothing specific. But night before last he got a phone call, and after Dad hung up he started swearing and growling about crooks and thieves and ruffians, things like that.”

“Crooks and thieves and ruffians, eh? I don't suppose he mentioned any helpful names?”

“No. I was standing in the doorway, and Dad must not have realized I was there, because when he saw me he stopped talking to himself. Just suddenly got quiet. I asked him what had got him so excited—he's quite volatile, anyway, easily excited, like many Italians.”

“Hmm.”

“But he wouldn't tell me anything at all.”

So far, it didn't sound dangerous to me. But, then, I had not at any time assumed Lucrezia Brizante was faced with a problem of very dangerous dimensions—except the one she always had. Even so, a mere bit of swearing and growling seemed hardly enough to send her looking for a private investigator.

“How did you happen to find me here?” I asked her.

“I saw a little piece in the Whatyoucallit? this morning, about your vacationing at Mountain Shadows.”

The Arizona Republic
isn't a whatyoucallit, it is one of the finest newspapers in the country; and it had been a
big
piece. In fact, it had been a whole “profile” of me by award-winning Maggie Wilson, gal columnist on the paper. Even including mention that I was in Arizona recuperating from a gunshot wound and several blows on and about the head which had resulted from my attacking several crooks and thieves in Los Angeles.

More accurately, they had attacked me, since I seldom assault bands of ruffians single-handed if I can help it.
The Republic
's reporter had been kind enough to mention that, of the five dangerous thugs, only two got away from me. Unfortunately she'd included the fact that I hadn't gotten away either, having come to in the Receiving Hospital. There was also one other passage which had not been wholly clear to me, concerning my committing mayhem upon the hoodlums, and “in typical Shell Scott fashion had everything well in hand, and was feigning unconsciousness very convincingly when two police cars arrived, barely in time to rescue the remaining criminals …”

Slightly miffed, I said, “Is that all? You want me to investigate your father's conversation? With himself?”

“Dad wouldn't tell me anything more. He refused even to discuss it with me. There is one other thing I should mention, though. A couple of nights ago, Dad called a friend of his—a Mr. Jenkins, Fred Jenkins—and he came right over. He and Dad spent hours talking together. Like … like some kind of conspirators.”

“Could you maybe make that a little clearer?”

“They were scowling and waving their hands in the air. You know?”

“Well, I … Go on.”

“They went into Dad's den and drank wine and talked and talked and talked until way after midnight. But whenever Mom or I went in they'd
stop
talking. Then shoo us out. But we caught them whispering, and scowling, and mumbling.”

“Sounds serious, all right. Who's this Jenkins?”

“I think he used to be an executive in a phone company, or an electronics company—some kind of engineer. Why?”

“Beats me. I'm probing—looking for clues.”

Actually, by listening attentively I had already come up with one. A very small clue, perhaps, but I decided to impress Lucrezia with my keenness, anyhow. I wanted her to be sure I was the right man for this job.

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Your father got a phone call Wednesday night. Shook him up. Crooks and thieves and ruffians! Then he phoned Jenkins
after
that—the same night! Significant, what? How about that?”

She blinked slowly, impossibly long lashes swooping down and up, down and up again. But she didn't seem very excited. Seemed to be going to sleep. “Of course,” she said.

“Yes … of course.” I paused, wondering where I'd gone wrong, then proceeded briskly, “Well, we're off to a fine start, what? Just in case I wrap this job up before, ah, eight
P.M.,
how about dinner tonight, Miss Brizante? Lucrezia?”

“No.”

“Ah. Hum, well. Anything else you can tell me? Besides ‘No,' I mean?”

“No.”

“That's swell. Well, ah, do you want me to take the case? Whatever it is?”

“Of course I do. Why do you think I came here to see you?”

“Makes sense. OK. I'm on the job. Rarin' to go.”

“Then, shall we go, Mr. Scott?”

“Shell?”

“I mean, Shell. I forgot.”

After a thick silence I said, “You—forgot.”

She leaned forward, smiling a wise smile, and dropped a cool, soft palm on the back of my hand, her body pressing against the table's edge. More accurately, what it appeared she did was rest her sensational bosom upon the tabletop, whereupon as though impelled by reverse gravity it began preparing to sit on my lap.

Mollified, I said, “Well, I suppose we'd better get at it.”

“Yes, you should talk to Dad as soon as possible.”

“Dad?”

“If we hurry, we can get there during the council meeting.”

“Dad—council—ah. He's in a council meeting? What council is this?”

“Dad is president this year of the Sunrise Villas Community Representation Council. They meet every Friday afternoon, and Kerwin Stephens will be there this time, so it's a
very
important meeting not only for Dad but for
all
the residents.”

“Kerwin? Kerwin … I—”

“Congressman Stephens. His brother's been at the Villas for the last week—he's the Congressman's representative, sort of advance man, you know—but the really important thing is to impress the Congressman himself, you understand.”

“Sure …”

“After all, what happens at the council meeting this afternoon may have a lot to do with whether Sunrise Villas gets an AGING grant or not. I'd like to be there myself, so we'd better hurry.”

“Congressman Stephens. That Kerwin. His brother has been … His brother—”

“David Stephens. Brother of
Kerwin
Stephens, head of the Committee on AGING.” She paused. “I thought you said you'd been reading about it.”

I nodded, gathering my thoughts. I nodded for a while.

I would like to put it on the record that I am not a dummy. Actually, my brain often hums along like a well-oiled machine. Obviously Lucrezia had assumed I knew what she was talking about. Her comment “reading about it” proved the key clue. Lucrezia was making it difficult for me to demonstrate my keenness—but she'd been throwing a lot of good stuff at me there. And she had lots of good stuff to throw.

Now, however, I had it straightened out. Kerwin. Congressman Stephens. David Stephens. Brother. AGING. Council. Friday afternoon. It was July, and I was at Mountain Shadows, and Mountain Shadows was in Arizona.

“Right,” I said decisively. “We sure better.”

“Better what?”

“Better hurry.”

Lucrezia waited in the lobby while I made a quick trip to my suite, strapped on my gun harness and shoved my Colt .38 Special into the clamshell holster. For a case which had begun in this happy fashion, and involved merely the kind of “crooks and thieves and ruffians” one might expect to find in a retirement community where people sort of dawdled about, I was ninety-nine-percent certain I wouldn't need the revolver. Still …

With Miss Brizante at my side, peering past my shoulder, I left a note at the desk for Dr. Paul Anson. Paul, who lives a couple doors down the hall from me in the Spartan, is a movie-colony medicine man and sometime healer, a jolly, vital and vigorous cat who is my very good friend and stimulating companion. He was at the moment en route from L.A. to attend one of several conventions currently being held in the Phoenix-Scottsdale area, this one a gathering of electronic and other scientific experts, including several top-notch medical men, here at Mountain Shadows. I had been looking forward to spending a couple of days in Paul's company, that being one of the reasons I had chosen this time and place for my own vacation.

Probably, I thought, as Lucrezia and I went out through the lobby's swinging glass doors and headed for my Cadillac, I'd have time to wrap up this job and—unless Miss Brizante at least let me start calling her Lucrezia—still have plenty of time left over for Paul.

And so it happened that, with Lucrezia Brizante at my side, in Arizona, in July, I headed gaily for Sunrise Villas—and the sunset.

CHAPTER TWO

The drive to Sunrise Villas was quite pleasant—it could hardly have been otherwise with Lucrezia Brizante in the car. But she
insisted
upon wearing her seat belt. When she also insisted I put on
my
seat belt, I concluded Lucrezia's mother had taught her that Yes was a No-No, and let my thoughts wander a bit.

At least it helped me unjumble what Lucrezia had been talking about back there in the bar. I
had
read a good deal about it, but concentration was easier with Lucrezia wearing a seat belt instead of leaning over a cocktail table. Probably she should wear a seat belt when leaning over cocktail tables.

AGING. It was an acronym, part of the alphabet sop so dear to the heads of legislators and bureaucrats in the Capitol. The Capitol letters stood for the “Agency for Gerontological Investigation and Need-Grants.” Congressman Kerwin Stephens was the chairman of the Commission on AGING. His brother David had for a week or so been surveying the situation at Sunrise Villas, but today Congressman Stephens, the boss-man himself, would be present in the flesh. And with her father president of the council of something-or-other, I could understand Lucrezia's feeling that the upcoming meeting was very important.

I supposed it was pretty important, at that. I did think the growth of retirement communities was in many ways a splendid development—men and women from the young-middle-aged on up, often with kindred interests, able to afford living in an environment specially designed for them. That part was fine.

It was those giant brains in Washington, D.C., which bothered me, that and the giant AGING grants which might eventuate from government intervention, because when the federal government started out to improve a situation it almost invariably managed to screw it up beyond the power of mortal minds to comprehend. Besides, these vast spending programs always cost a lot of money. It is undeniable that spending costs money. But … maybe this time it would be different.

About halfway to Sunrise Villas Lucrezia said, “What happened to you in Los Angeles, Shell?”

“Nothing happened to me. I'm perfectly marvelous. Just a little quiet, that's all—”

“I mean the trouble mentioned in the
Republic
article. The fight, and your getting shot.”

There wasn't much to tell, but I hit the high spots for her. The head of a construction company had hired me to check into the background of some unsavory characters he suspected of muscling his employees and sabotaging expensive machines. Behind the violence was a union boss—with reputed but never formally proved Mafia ties—who had demanded that my client sign a closed-shop contract with his union, despite the fact that eighty percent of my client's employees, by secret ballot, had turned thumbs down on the proposal.