The Kubla Khan Caper (Shell Scott )

1

From where I lay in lazy ease on a poolside chaise longue, I could see a gaggle of Bikini-clad Hollywood houris squealing and splashing in the water. On the blue-tiled deck across the pool from me half a dozen bare-midriffed nautch girls wiggled, doing what comes nautchurally.

Flame from burning torches wavered in the soft, warm wind; thin, oddly melodic music swelled from strings and reeds and pipes, filling the desert air with an almost scented sound. It was music to my ears, balm in my eyes, perfume for my nose--something fun for practically all of me.

This, I thought, was how I hoped to live when I died. With luck, however, I wouldn't get killed tonight. Tomorrow, maybe.

I had been shot at already, earlier this evening, and I had seen sudden, brutally ugly death. But it was difficult to dwell on death in the midst of so much life; and there was really no reason, I told myself, why a man shouldn't enjoy his work.

This was the pre-opening party, the night before the grand opening of Palm Desert's newest and most luxurious hotel, the Kubla Khan: staggering millions of bucks' worth of cabanas, rooms, suites, a grand ballroom and dining rooms and a convention hall, swimming pools, cocktail lounges, domes and minarets and spires. It looked like something from the Arabian Nights, plucked from the East and plunked down in the Southern California desert.

At the moment it had more of a carnival air than it would after this upcoming weekend. Colorful silken streamers were laced overhead, hanging from poles, fluttering in the sage-and-jasmine-scented breeze; and scattered about the lushly landscaped grounds were several booths, in most of which lovely ladies sold souvenirs and goodies, passed out promotional literature, or just looked gorgeous.

Nearly all of the two hundred guests were in costume, most with at least some flavor of the East--saris from India, fezzes from Turkey, robes from Morocco, even one gal wearing a Balinese dancer's headdress. I looked rather resplendent myself, I thought, with my six feet, two inches and two hundred and six pounds clad in a long scarlet jacket and keen white pants with little red stripes down their sides, on my chest lots of crackerjack medals and hero awards--also rented, of course--and, concealing my short-cropped and springy white hair, a wildly impressive white turban.

The effect of sheer beauty was perhaps marred only by the bent-down-at-the-ends inverted-V eyebrows over my gray eyes, since those brows were also obtrusively white and thus, in a bad light, might give rise to suspicion that part of the turban had fallen off and stuck on my forehead. And naturally, nothing could be done about my twice-broken and still bent nose, the bullet-clipped ear top, the fine scar over my right eye, and the general impression of recent catastrophe I've been told I sometimes present. But I felt, nonetheless, that I had done the best I could with myself; and I was enjoying the evening. So far.

Tonight's festivities were not open to the general public--which, ordinarily, would have left me out--but were exclusively for invited guests. Tomorrow the hoi polloi could get in but only after the official ceremonies and ribbon-cutting at noon--which ceremonies would be attended by Hollywood stars and TV celebrities, political personalities who would probably make speeches, numerous VIP's and potent people. There would be all kinds of reporters and columnists and such; the Mayor of Palm Springs would be present, and would make a speech; even the Governor of California would be in attendance if he could get here, and would make a speech.

All of that would be followed by booze in the six bars, buffets by the two swimming pools, dancing to three bands, and what might turn out to be the most stupendous beauty contest in the history of voluptuous statistics.

That was where I came in.

I was going to be one of the judges of that stupendous beauty contest.

At least that was my "cover."

It is known throughout most of Southern California that I am a private detective--the Shell Scott of Sheldon Scott, Investigations--but it is also known that Shell Scott would practically dislocate his jaw saying "Yes!" if asked to judge a stupendous beauty contest. It was thus the sly hope of my client--who was already in jail; I wasn't doing too well for him yet--that celebrants hereabouts would assume I was merely here for eyeing and not private-eyeing.

Naturally, then, I had to do a lot of eyeing. It was easy.

Most of the lovelies who would display their epidermis, charms and doodads in the contest tomorrow were already displaying not merely the hot hors d'oeuvres but practically the full course, and I'd been having lots of fun. For example, at two adjacent booths were a gal selling kisses and a gal selling cookies, and I wasn't going to buy any cookies.

If my client could just get sprung from the can before he had the cerebral hemorrhage which had presumably been creeping up on him earlier, and I could keep getting missed when guys shot at me, and solve two murders by noon tomorrow--yeah, I had nearly sixteen hours in which to do all that--I figured I could really enjoy this affair.

For a moment I thought of my client, and wondered if the local law really believed he'd been murdering people. I kind of wondered if he had, myself. It occurred to me that if he had killed two people, or even only one, maybe I shouldn't have taken the case.

I had taken it, however, so it was up to me to earn my hundred dollars. Or ten thousand dollars. It depended. Part of it depended on my getting up off my behind, leaving this dandy chaise longue, and doing something extremely clever--as soon as I thought of something. Part of it depended on Ormand Monaco.

Ormand Monaco was the owner of the Kubla Khan, the guy responsible for this Oriental saturnalia. He was the guy who very much wanted to be here greeting his guests, beaming upon assorted beauties, drinking his prize brandy and taking well-deserved bows. He was also the guy now languishing in the bastille, my apoplectic client.

He had not been apoplectic when he phoned me this afternoon. Not at all. He had been almost calm. Worried, yes; concerned; but not really in a sweat. Not then. Not when he'd hired me to bring peace and gladness into his life.

He'd called me from Palm Desert at 2 p.m. This afternoon, Friday, a zesty Friday in September. I'd finished reading a book and was intently watching, as is my custom when affairs are not pressing, the fish atop my office bookcase; Fish--guppies. I'm nuts about guppies.

The phone rang. I walked to the big beat-up mahogany desk and grabbed the receiver. "Hello," I said. "Shell Scott."

The voice was mellow, pleasant, almost drawling. "Mr. Scott. My name is Ormand Monaco...."