Richard S. Prather – författare

A classic entry in the Shell Scott series!

This was a warm Sunday afternoon; Sheldon Scott, Investigations—my downtown L.A. office—was closed, and I was invited to a party. A Hawaiian party at that: luau, roast pig, the works. From behind the house somewhere I heard a happy squeal. A happy feminine squeal. Sounded like a good wild party. There was a lot of hellish yelling and whooping. At the top of six cement steps I found a buzzer on the right of the massive door, poked it as chimes went off to the tune of How Dry I Am.

"e;There was a fire in her eyes that was scorching me - me, who couldn't tell whether a dame wanted to kiss me or kill me! No matter how you look at it, 36-22-35 are magic numbers. They have a real message for me. I'm Shell Scott, the private eye, and I'm very good at figures. You might say I follow them very carefully. I've been following this one for several days and learned her name is Sherry. I hated to think she was mixed in murder. But somebody was planning to send me to my friendly neighborhood mortician and I had to find out who - or die trying."e;

They say that even the strongest man secretly wants to feel wanted. He even hopes to have some woman take care of him. Well, my cup was running over. Me? I'm Shell Scott, the human target for every gun in the State of California. And that's no private eyewash...I was made to feel wanted all right...by the city, county and state police. And there was a woman with a nasty little .32 in her tiny hand, well she was just dying to take care of me, permanently. Every where I turned, somebody was trying to help me plan what to do with the rest of my life...most of them were volunteering to end it for me!

"e;I'm trying to get back in shape,"e; she said. Man, if her shape got any better she'd be banned for just walking down the street. I'm Shell Scott, private eye, and my job was to guard her day - yeah, and night. I didn't have a chance to discuss these points with her because I saw the man walking toward us. There was only one of him but he seemed to outnumber me. He was so big I was surprised his feet didn't leave holes behind him in the concrete. "e;Shell Scott,"e; he rumbled. "e;Shake."e; I hardly dared. "e;The boss says for you to get out of town. If you don't, he says for me to kill you..."e;

Shell Scott is hired to help State Senator Paul Hershey gather information against Joe Blake, one of the biggest crooks Los Angeles has ever produced. Joe Blake is the kingpin behind the opposition party to Paul Hershey's re-election. Blake is backing the candidate against Hershey, a Blake pawn, and using smear and innuendo in an increasingly vicious campaign. Hershey's only defense against this onslaught is to get the information that will put Blake behind bars. That's where Shell Scott comes in. But crossing Joe Blake was usually Russian roulette with no empty chambers and you first. So Shell was particularly careful about preventing his investigation from leaking out. Unfortunately it already has...

The scarlet bikini which had covered a minimum of the eye-popping curves on the dead woman, lay at her feet, and my eyes focussed on her as glassily as did the dead man's next to her. He was dead, all right. He had been shot, poisoned, stabbed, and strangled. Either somebody really had it in for him or four people had killed him. Or else it was the cleverest suicide I'd ever heard of. Me? I'm Shell Scott, private detective and I'm wondering why anybody in his right mind would commit such a complicated murder, but I'm certainly going to find out...