Kill All the Young Girls

Chapter 7

Oscar’s private quarters were reached by going outside to the parking lot and back inside by a separate, unmarked entrance. Whenever Oscar was in residence, the Pussycat flag flew; and all his Miami friends, the friends of his Miami friends, and his friends elsewhere who happened to be in Miami were called to Pelican Island to a party. That didn’t mean that when they arrived they would invariably find Oscar himself. He made his own social rules.

He provided live music, Pussycat service, plenty to drink and smoke, numerous unattached women. The main party room, on three levels, was large enough to hold a sizable bar mitzvah. The furniture was soft and close to the floor. There was statuary, most of it erotic, and plaster replicas of dirty bas-reliefs from certain Indian temples. As for the food, it was plain but abundant: a ham, a turkey, Polish sausages, black bread. It was always possible that something interesting might happen; and once there, the guests had a tendency to stay.

When Shayne came in with Oscar’s secretary, heads turned toward them to see if they were famous.

He knew a few people. Somehow the Omaha plumbing supply salesman he had met in the parking lot earlier had made it. He was delighted to see a familiar face, having been persuaded by Shayne himself that Shayne was an old friend. He was enjoying himself immensely, he told Shayne, looking not at Shayne but down into Mandy’s shirt. Shayne made the introductions, and they moved on.

Two well-dressed young men, clearly not guests, lounged in a doorway. They moved aside and let Shayne and the girl pass into another series of rooms. She took him along a carpeted corridor and into a narrow, windowless cell, where Oscar’s inert body was being handled by two pretty girls. In pajama bottoms, he lay face down on a narrow rubbing table, apparently asleep.

Mandy motioned the girls aside. She stooped beside him, laying one hand familiarly at the base of his spine, and whispered to him. Shayne heard his own name; and as she continued to whisper, he saw her hand tighten slowly until she had him in a fierce grip, her fingers digging into the relaxed flesh through the pajama fabric. She was telling him in this way that what she was saying was serious, and he should tighten up and come back.

“Get me a drink,” Shayne said to one of the young girls. “Four fingers of cognac in a snifter, and bring me some ice water.”

She was used to orders from men. She bobbed slightly and left the room. When Shayne started a cigarette, the other girl said in a shocked voice, “Nobody’s permitted to smoke in here.”

“Nobody?” Shayne said.

He blew smoke over the rubbing table. The smell of burning tobacco had an immediate effect on Oscar. His nostrils wrinkled. He pulled out of Mandy’s grip, rolled over, and sat up.

“Put that out.”

“In a minute.”

People around the publisher usually jumped when he spoke. He looked more puzzled than angry. His hair, which lay flat on his scalp, was possibly dyed. Several days had passed since he last shaved. His skin had a spurious look — like the blush on artificial fruit — the result of massage as a substitute for willed movement. He had a narrow, imperious nose, a compressed mouth.

He looked at Mandy for an explanation.

“This is Mike Shayne, dear,” she said. “The private detective. He’s working for the Zions. The first thing he said to me was that he’ll listen to any reasonable offer.”

The words didn’t seem to penetrate. “What time is it?”

She told him. “He has some news for you, and he finally persuaded me that you’d want to hear it. He seems to think that if he’s not going to get any sleep tonight, nobody else should either. He has a photograph to show you. Kate Thackera has been killed.” She repeated gently, laying her hand on his shoulder, “Oscar… Kate Thackera has been killed.”

Her employer did nothing but breathe in and out.

“Wake up now,” she said. “He promises to make trouble if you don’t talk to him tonight. I believe he can do it. Oscar…”

She put her mouth against his, her tongue in his mouth. She worked on him silently for a moment.

“Oscar, he’s trouble. You have to talk to him. Listen to what he says. Don’t answer right away.”

“This guy is a zombie,” Shayne observed.

“No, he’s coming.”

“Tell him a bottle of bourbon blew up in the girl’s face. That got a good response out of you. Blood, brains, flesh, hair. Kate Thackera,” he said, leaning forward and speaking distinctly, as though to someone barely able to understand English. “Old Granddad. She wanted a nightcap, and the damn thing went off and spattered that nice face all over the room.”

Oscar’s eyes worked. He pushed feebly at Mandy’s hand on his back.

“Stop it. Who are you talking about?”

Shayne repeated Kate’s name, and it finally woke him.

“Who the hell are you?”

They went through that again while Oscar breathed more quickly and flexed himself back into daytime shape.

“Do you want something to drink, Shayne?”

“I’ve already ordered.”

“I’d better have the inhaler,” he told Mandy.

She nodded and left the room. Oscar swung down from the rubbing table. He was short, lean, and compact. He passed both hands over his hair. The remaining girl held up a rough bathrobe, and he put his arms in it.

“What’s happening to that drink?” Shayne said; and turning abruptly, he walked out.

The carpeted hall was silent and empty. Mandy had gone to the right. He tried the first door and found it locked. From the other side of the door, he heard the faint stutter of a telephone dial. He wasn’t ready for this to happen.

He knocked sharply and called, “Mandy, are you in there? I’ve got to talk to you.”

The dialing stopped, and there was a rush of water. The door opened, and Shayne saw a glowing Princess phone in a recess in the wall, on a long cord so it could be moved within reach of anyone in the tub or on the toilet.

Mandy was holding a plastic hood and a large benzedrine inhaler. “Mike, you shouldn’t be out here. He doesn’t like it when people whisper behind his back.”

“He still doesn’t know if he’s coming or going. Now that I’ve seen him, I want to know how far I can push him. In this take-over thing, is he going to insist on a clear-cut win? If it begins to look shaky, will he take a deal?”

She shook her head. “Mike, will you please remember who I am? I’m a minor female employee. I don’t get let in on the strategy. But I’ll tell you one thing. He was tough once. Don’t be fooled by the manner.”

“Baby, you’re kidding.”

“No,” she insisted. “When he started out, he had to battle for space on the newsstands; and I mean that literally. Trucks were tipped over. People were slugged and shot. I can’t advise you where to draw the line. My policy with Oscar has always been to tread carefully. Now for God’s sake, let’s get back.”

Oscar and his little party had moved on into his bedroom. He was lying in state in a huge, round bed The hangings were white. All the surfaces were either very hard or very soft: terrazzo floor and a thick white goatskin rug, a glass-topped table, low upholstered chairs. There was one conspicuous piece of sculpture on a tall stand lit by a beam from a concealed spotlight. Shayne recognized it only after a second look. It was a phallus carved out of an elephant’s tusk.

One of the girls handed Shayne his drink. He sat down and lit a fresh cigarette. Oscar threw his inhaler aside after taking a dozen deep shuddering breaths. He looked much better.

“Do you absolutely have to smoke? The smell is offensive to me.”

“The air conditioning’ll take care of it.”

At a sign from Oscar, the two lesser girls drifted out.

“Now,” Oscar said to Mandy. “Condense it for me. What’s he want?”

“I don’t believe he could tell you himself exactly what he wants,” she said crisply. “It seems to me that he’s improvising. He wants to stir things up and see what comes to the surface.”

“Now, about Kate.”

“She’s dead, Oscar. Shayne was there when it happened, and it’s possible that he’s going to be suspected of having something to do with it. I imagine the police are anxious to get hold of him. He says his client is Marcus Zion. He came to you because he has a gatefold from an old issue of the magazine. I think he’ll show it to you in a minute. He made it clear to me that he considers this a bidding situation, but I think that was partly to get me to wake you up.”

“I also told you,” Shayne said, “that I’m not sure I have anything to sell.”

He handed Oscar the photograph, and Oscar’s eyebrows came together over the fierce nose.

“Keko.”

“I told Mandy you’d recognize her.”

“What does it have to do with me?”

“I’m hoping to find out.” Once again he repeated what Kate Thackera had told him. “I had to leave the magazine. Everything in that room is going to get close attention, and somebody’s going to notice the date and wonder about it. But not tonight, probably.”

Oscar retired under the hood for more help from the inhaler. Coming out, he told Mandy, “No need for you to stay up. Go to bed now.”

She rose obediently. Shayne said, “No, I want her here.”

Oscar swung around. Shayne explained, “Nobody likes to be sent out of the room just when things start getting interesting. Look at it from her point of view. Either she made a mistake waking you up, or she didn’t. If she guessed wrong, it’ll cost her her job. She doesn’t want to wait till morning to find out.”

“God knows I wouldn’t get much sleep,” she said.

“And if she’s as important as she’s been trying to tell me, there may be some questions I’ll need to ask her.”

“If you want me to leave, Oscar,” she said, “you know I don’t mind a bit.”

Shayne laughed. “She’ll burn.”

“Then stay, for Christ’s sake,” Oscar said irritably. “I have a feeling that we won’t be going very far beneath the surface.”

She sat down again, her knees together and her hands in her lap. “Give me a cigarette, Mike.”

He brought her one and let her light it from his. She was careful not to look at her nonsmoking employer, who was smoothing his eyebrows in a gesture he clearly believed to be urbane.

“How did a winner like you get suckered into this Consolidated-Famous mess?” Shayne said.

Oscar let the urbane expression stay on his face. “Have you read our proxy material? That says it all.”

“I’m told by somebody who knows that the odds against you are four to one. I’m also told that you don’t generally buck the odds.”

Oscar looked at the girl for a translation. She said doubtfully, “I think he’s trying to find out how serious you are, how far you’ll go to protect your investment.”

“Not as far as murder, Shayne,” Oscar said. “You’ve been misinformed. The odds are about even. I won’t give up girls if I lose. I just think it might be amusing to run a motion picture company.”

“Did you promise Kate the lead in this pirate picture?”

“After satisfying myself that she wouldn’t do the picture any harm. The director seems anxious to get her. She’s a bit of an alcoholic, supposedly; or should I say, she was; but I think Larry was responsible for most of those rumors. I thought she seemed reasonably okay, didn’t you, Mandy?”

“Within limits.”

“Have any of your proxy solicitors been working on her?” Shayne said.

“You’ll have to ask them. She was in a situation to swing a sizable block of shares. I imagine they knew that. Ferreting out this kind of information is the reason we’ll pay them a hundred percent bonus if we win. They sail pretty close to the wind at times; they do things they don’t tell the client. But does that include killing people? You know it doesn’t, Shayne.”

“Did you sleep with Kate?”

He gave his secretary an amused glance. “I don’t know — did I?”

“If so, it was before my time.”

“I may have,” he said, “but does it matter? I’ve gotten rid of my hang-ups in that area. I don’t let sex interfere with a relationship. I remember we suggested a pictorial feature to her once. She tried, but it didn’t come off. That ticky personality just didn’t register nude. Too bad, because we could have helped her.”

Still another blonde, one Shayne hadn’t seen before, entered quietly.

“Mandy, phone. Do you want to take it?”

Her eyes slid from Shayne to Oscar.

“Better find out,” Oscar said with a sigh. “We don’t want to get all our information from Shayne. I’m not sure we can trust him.”

As soon as she was out the door, Shayne made a flat gesture, cutting off the publisher before he could speak.

“Never mind if you can trust me. Can you trust her?”

“Shayne, you’re wonderful. Trust her not to do what?”

“She’s a smart girl, a little old to be hanging around here. She must know she hasn’t much time.”

“I don’t keep them a quarter of a century and give them a gold watch. It’s a fluid arrangement. They flow in and out.”

“And before she flows, I have a feeling she’s going to take you for as much as she can carry. This is a liberated female, not one of your slaves.”

“A ‘liberated female.’ She chose this. I didn’t drug her to do it.”

“I nearly had to scrape her off the ceiling when I told her what happened to Kate. Did they know each other that well?”

Oscar shrugged. “For all I know, they were lovers. But when would she have the time?”

“What kind of financial deal do you have here? How much do you give her every month for spending money? She’s taking too much interest in this, Oscar. I’ve been picking up signals for the last half hour.”

The publisher said softly, “You’re trying to disturb me, Shayne. I think it’s time for me to tell you to lay off.”

“Lots of people have told me to lay off. Most of them are dead, broke, or in jail.”

“Don’t be childish. I’m giving you some advice so you won’t waste valuable time. She had nothing to do with this killing, and I’m ready to back my judgment with the full resources of my organization. She has no stake in this. No financial stake, no emotional stake. Do you think I don’t know she dislikes me? All the girls do. I couldn’t care less. But she’s been around me long enough to know what would happen if she tried to pull anything.”

Shayne had been timing this carefully. He finished his cognac, stood up, and tossed the empty glass on the bed.

“Don’t go to sleep. I’ll call you.”

Oscar threw back the silk sheet and sprang between Shayne and the door.

“You had questions to ask me. I was just beginning to feel like cooperating.”

“That’s a good feeling. Hang onto it. She’s finished with the phone call, and I don’t want her to disappear.”

“What are you talking about—‘disappear’? She’s with me. She’s on call.” His voice climbed; the façade was rapidly chipping away. “Damn it, I’ve finally got my metabolism back into some kind of balance. You come busting in here like a runaway freight train and drag me out of a sound sleep; and now that I’m riding the benzedrine, you think you can walk out and leave me jangling…”

“This is a small thing, Oscar.”

“I’m the one who’ll decide what’s small and what’s big.”

When Shayne took a step forward, Oscar made a sudden dart and pulled the ivory phallus off its pedestal. He drew it back; but before he could start the swing, Shayne crouched and gave the goatskin rug a quick pull.

Oscar flung out both arms, his mouth wide. He went down hard. The phallus flew out of his hands and broke in two on the terrazzo floor.

“You can glue it back together,” Shayne said. “I agree; we were just getting started. I’ll be back.”