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"I think I can. But I can't tell you why or how."
"I like you," she said suddenly. "You believe in miracles. Would you have a drink in the office?"
I unlocked my deep drawer and got out my office bottle and two pony glasses. I filled them and we drank. She snapped her bag shut and pushed the chair back.
"I'll get the five grand," she said. "I've been a good customer of Eddie Mars. There's another reason why he should be nice to me, which you may not know." She gave me one of those smiles the lips have forgotten before they reach the eyes. "Eddie's blonde wife is the lady Rusty ran away with."
I didn't say anything. She stared tightly at me and added: "That doesn't interest you?"
"It ought to make it easier to find him — if I was looking for him. You don't think he's in this mess, do you?"
She pushed her empty glass at me. "Give me another drink. You're the hardest guy to get anything out of. You don't even move your ears."
I filled the little glass. "You've got all you wanted out of me — a pretty good idea I'm not looking for your husband."
She put the drink down very quickly. It made her gasp — or gave her an opportunity to gasp. She let a breath out slowly.
"Rusty was no crook. If he had been, it wouldn't have been for nickles. He carried fifteen thousand dollars, in bills. He called it his mad money. He had it when I married him and he had it when he left me. No — Rusty's not in on any cheap blackmail racket."
She reached for the envelope and stood up. "I'll keep in touch with you," I said. "If you want to leave me a message, the phone girl at my apartment house will take care of it."
We walked over to the door. Tapping the white envelope against her knuckles, she said: "You still feel you can't tell me what Dad — "
"I'd have to see him first."
She took the photo out and stood looking at it, just inside the door. "She has a beautiful little body, hasn't she?"
"Uh-huh."
She leaned a little towards me. "You ought to see mine," she said gravely.
"Can it be arranged?"
She laughed suddenly and sharply and went halfway through the door, then turned her head to say coolly: "You're as cold-blooded a beast as I ever met, Marlowe. Or can I call you Phil?"
"Sure."
"You can can me Vivian."
"Thanks, Mrs. Regan."
"Oh, go to hell, Marlowe." She went on out and didn't look back.
I let the door shut and stood with my hand on it, staring at the hand. My face felt a little hot. I went back to the desk and put the whiskey away and rinsed out the two pony glasses and put them away.
I took my hat off the phone and called the D.A.'s office and asked for Bernie Ohls.
He was back in his cubbyhole. "Well, I let the old man alone," he said. "The butler said he or one of the girls would tell him. This Owen Taylor lived over the garage and I went through his stuff. Parents at Dubuque, Iowa. I wired the Chief of Police there to find out what they want done. The Sternwood family will pay for it."
"Suicide?" I asked.
"No can tell. He didn't leave any notes. He had no leave to take the car. Everybody was home last night but Mrs. Regan. She was down at Las Olindas with a playboy named Larry Cobb. I checked on that. I know a lad on one of the tables."
"You ought to stop some of that flash gambling," I said.
"With the syndicate we got in this county? Be your age, Marlow. That sap mark on the boy's head bothers me. Sure you can't help me on this?"
I liked his putting it that way. It let me say no without actually lying. We said good-by and I left the office, bought all three afternoon papers and rode a taxi down to the Hall of Justice to get my car out of the lot. There was nothing in any of the papers about Geiger. I took another look at his blue notebook, but the code was just as stubborn as it had been the night before.
12
13
14
15
"I like you," she said suddenly. "You believe in miracles. Would you have a drink in the office?"
I unlocked my deep drawer and got out my office bottle and two pony glasses. I filled them and we drank. She snapped her bag shut and pushed the chair back.
"I'll get the five grand," she said. "I've been a good customer of Eddie Mars. There's another reason why he should be nice to me, which you may not know." She gave me one of those smiles the lips have forgotten before they reach the eyes. "Eddie's blonde wife is the lady Rusty ran away with."
I didn't say anything. She stared tightly at me and added: "That doesn't interest you?"
"It ought to make it easier to find him — if I was looking for him. You don't think he's in this mess, do you?"
She pushed her empty glass at me. "Give me another drink. You're the hardest guy to get anything out of. You don't even move your ears."
I filled the little glass. "You've got all you wanted out of me — a pretty good idea I'm not looking for your husband."
She put the drink down very quickly. It made her gasp — or gave her an opportunity to gasp. She let a breath out slowly.
"Rusty was no crook. If he had been, it wouldn't have been for nickles. He carried fifteen thousand dollars, in bills. He called it his mad money. He had it when I married him and he had it when he left me. No — Rusty's not in on any cheap blackmail racket."
She reached for the envelope and stood up. "I'll keep in touch with you," I said. "If you want to leave me a message, the phone girl at my apartment house will take care of it."
We walked over to the door. Tapping the white envelope against her knuckles, she said: "You still feel you can't tell me what Dad — "
"I'd have to see him first."
She took the photo out and stood looking at it, just inside the door. "She has a beautiful little body, hasn't she?"
"Uh-huh."
She leaned a little towards me. "You ought to see mine," she said gravely.
"Can it be arranged?"
She laughed suddenly and sharply and went halfway through the door, then turned her head to say coolly: "You're as cold-blooded a beast as I ever met, Marlowe. Or can I call you Phil?"
"Sure."
"You can can me Vivian."
"Thanks, Mrs. Regan."
"Oh, go to hell, Marlowe." She went on out and didn't look back.
I let the door shut and stood with my hand on it, staring at the hand. My face felt a little hot. I went back to the desk and put the whiskey away and rinsed out the two pony glasses and put them away.
I took my hat off the phone and called the D.A.'s office and asked for Bernie Ohls.
He was back in his cubbyhole. "Well, I let the old man alone," he said. "The butler said he or one of the girls would tell him. This Owen Taylor lived over the garage and I went through his stuff. Parents at Dubuque, Iowa. I wired the Chief of Police there to find out what they want done. The Sternwood family will pay for it."
"Suicide?" I asked.
"No can tell. He didn't leave any notes. He had no leave to take the car. Everybody was home last night but Mrs. Regan. She was down at Las Olindas with a playboy named Larry Cobb. I checked on that. I know a lad on one of the tables."
"You ought to stop some of that flash gambling," I said.
"With the syndicate we got in this county? Be your age, Marlow. That sap mark on the boy's head bothers me. Sure you can't help me on this?"
I liked his putting it that way. It let me say no without actually lying. We said good-by and I left the office, bought all three afternoon papers and rode a taxi down to the Hall of Justice to get my car out of the lot. There was nothing in any of the papers about Geiger. I took another look at his blue notebook, but the code was just as stubborn as it had been the night before.
12
The trees on the upper side of Laverne Terrace had fresh green leaves after the rain. In the cool afternoon sunlight I could see the steep drop of the hill and the flight of steps down which the killer had run after his three shots in the darkness. Two small houses fronted on the street below. They might or might not have heard the shots.
There was no activity in front of Geiger's house or anywhere along the block. The box hedge looked green and peaceful and the shingles on the roof were still damp. I drove past slowly, gnawing at an idea. I hadn't looked in the garage the night before. Once Geiger's body slipped away I hadn't really wanted to find it. It would force my hand. But dragging him to the garage, to his own car and driving that off into one of the hundred odd lonely canyons around Los Angeles would be a good way to dispose of him for days or even for weeks. That supposed two things: a key to his car and two in the party. It would narrow the sector of search quite a lot, especially as I had had his personal keys in my pocket when it happened.
I didn't get a chance to look at the garage. The doors were shut and padlocked and something moved behind the hedge as I drew level. A woman in a green and white check coat and a small button of a hat on soft blond hair stepped out of the maze and stood looking wild-eyed at my car, as if she hadn't heard it come up the hill. Then she turned swiftly and dodged back out of sight. It was Carmen Sternwood, of course.
I went on up the street and parked and walked back. In the daylight it seemed an exposed and dangerous thing to do. I went in through the hedge. She stood there straight and silent against the locked front door. One hand went slowly up to her teeth and her teeth bit at her funny thumb. There were purple smears under her eyes and her face was gnawed white by nerves.
She half smiled at me. She said: "Hello," in a thin, brittle voice. "Wha — what — ?" That tailed off and she went back to the thumb.
"Remember me?" I said. "Doghouse Reilly, the man that grew too tall. Remember?"
She nodded and a quick jerky smile played across her face.
"Let's go in," I said. "I've got a key. Swell, huh?"
"Wha — wha — ?"
I pushed her to one side and put the key in the door and opened it and pushed her in through it. I shut the door again and stood there sniffing. The place was horrible by daylight. The Chinese junk on the walls, the rug, the fussy lamps, the teakwood stuff, the sticky riot of colors, the totem pole, the flagon of ether and laudanum — all this in the daytime had a stealthy nastiness, like a fag party.
The girl and I stood looking at each other. She tried to keep a cute little smile on her face but her face was too tired to be bothered. It kept going blank on her. The smile would wash off like water off sand and her pale skin had a harsh granular texture under the stunned and stupid blankness of her eyes. A whitish tongue licked at the corners of her mouth. A pretty, spoiled and not very bright little girl who had gone very, very wrong, and nobody was doing anything about it. To hell with the rich. They made me sick. I rolled a cigarette in my fingers and pushed some books out of the way and sat on the end of the black desk. I lit my cigarette, puffed a plume of smoke and watched the thumb and tooth act for a while in silence. Carmen stood in front of me, like a bad girl in the principal's office.
"What are you doing here?" I asked her finally.
She picked at the cloth of her coat and didn't answer.
"How much do you remember of last night?"
She answered that — with a foxy glitter rising at the back of her eyes. "Remember what? I was sick last night. I was home." Her voice was a cautious throaty sound that just reached my ears.
"Like hell you were."
Her eyes flicked up and down very swiftly.
"Before you went home," I said. "Before I took you home. Here. In that chair — " I pointed to it — "on that orange shawl. You remember all right."
A slow flush crept up her throat. That was something. She could blush. A glint of white showed under the clogged gray irises. She chewed hard on her thumb.
"You — were the one?" she breathed.
"Me. How much of it stays with you?"
She said vaguely: "Are you the police?"
"No. I'm a friend of your father's."
"You're not the police?"
"No."
She let out a thin sigh. "Wha — what do you want?"
"Who killed him?"
Her shoulders jerked, but nothing more moved in her face. "Who else — knows?"
"About Geiger? I don't know. Not the police, or they'd be camping here. Maybe Joe Brody."
It was a stab in the dark but it got a yelp out of her. "Joe Brody! Him!"
Then we were both silent. I dragged at my cigarette and she ate her thumb.
"Don't get clever, for God's sake," I urged her. "This is a spot for a little old-fashioned simplicity. Did Brody kill him?"
"Kill who?"
"Oh, Christ," I said.
She looked hurt. Her chin came down an inch. "Yes," she said solemnly. "Joe did it."
"Why?"
"I don't know." She shook her head, persuading herself that she didn't know.
"Seen much of him lately?"
Her hands went down and made small white knots. "Just once or twice. I hate him."
"Then you know where he lives."
"Yes."
"And you don't like him any more?"
"I hate him!"
"Then you'd like him for the spot."
A little blank again. I was going too fast for her. It was hard not to. "Are you willing to tell the police it was Joe Brody?" I probed.
Sudden panic flamed all over her face. "If I can kill the nude-photo angle, of course," I added soothingly.
She giggled. That gave me a nasty feeling. If she had screeched or wept or even nosedived to the floor in a dead faint, that would have been all right. She just giggled. It was suddenly a lot of fun. She had had her photo taken as Isis and somebody had swiped it and somebody had bumped Geiger off in front of her and she was drunker than a Legion convention, and it was suddenly a lot of nice clean fun. So she giggled. Very cute. The giggles got louder and ran around the corners of the room like rats behind the wainscoting. She started to go hysterical. I slid off the desk and stepped up close to her and gave her a smack on the side of the face.
"Just like last night," I said. "We're a scream together. Reilly and Sternwood, two stooges in search of a comedian."
The giggles stopped dead, but she didn't mind the slap any more than last night. Probably all her boy friends got around to slapping her sooner or later. I could understand how they might. I sat down on the end of the black desk again.
"Your name isn't Reilly," she said seriously. "It's Philip Marlowe. You're a private detective. Viv told me. She showed me your card." She smoothed the cheek I had slapped. She smiled at me, as if I was nice to be with.
"Well, you do remember," I said. "And you came back to look for that photo and you couldn't get into the house. Didn't you?"
Her chin ducked down and up. She worked the smile. I was having the eye put on me. I was being brought into camp. I was going to yell "Yippee!" in a minute and ask her to go to Yuma.
"The photo's gone," I said. "I looked last night, before I took you home. Probably Brody took it with him. You're not kidding me about Brody?"
She shook her head earnestly.
"It's a pushover," I said. "You don't have to give it another thought. Don't tell a soul you were here, last night or today. Not even Vivian. Just forget you were here. Leave it to Reilly."
"Your name isn't — " she began, and then stopped and shook her head vigorously in agreement with what I had said or with what she had just thought of. Her eyes became narrow and almost black and as shallow as enamel on a cafeteria tray. She had had an idea. "I have to go home now," she said, as if we had been having a cup of tea.
"Sure."
I didn't move. She gave me another cute glance and went on towards the front door. She had her hand on the knob when we both heard a car coming. She looked at me with questions in her eyes. I shrugged. The car stopped, right in front of the house. Terror twisted her face. There were steps and the bell rang. Carmen stared back at me over her shoulder, her hand clutching the door knob, almost drooling with fear. The bell kept on ringing. Then the ringing stopped. A key tickled at the door and Carmen jumped away from it and stood frozen. The door swung open. A man stepped through it briskly and stopped dead, staring at us quietly, with complete composure.
There was no activity in front of Geiger's house or anywhere along the block. The box hedge looked green and peaceful and the shingles on the roof were still damp. I drove past slowly, gnawing at an idea. I hadn't looked in the garage the night before. Once Geiger's body slipped away I hadn't really wanted to find it. It would force my hand. But dragging him to the garage, to his own car and driving that off into one of the hundred odd lonely canyons around Los Angeles would be a good way to dispose of him for days or even for weeks. That supposed two things: a key to his car and two in the party. It would narrow the sector of search quite a lot, especially as I had had his personal keys in my pocket when it happened.
I didn't get a chance to look at the garage. The doors were shut and padlocked and something moved behind the hedge as I drew level. A woman in a green and white check coat and a small button of a hat on soft blond hair stepped out of the maze and stood looking wild-eyed at my car, as if she hadn't heard it come up the hill. Then she turned swiftly and dodged back out of sight. It was Carmen Sternwood, of course.
I went on up the street and parked and walked back. In the daylight it seemed an exposed and dangerous thing to do. I went in through the hedge. She stood there straight and silent against the locked front door. One hand went slowly up to her teeth and her teeth bit at her funny thumb. There were purple smears under her eyes and her face was gnawed white by nerves.
She half smiled at me. She said: "Hello," in a thin, brittle voice. "Wha — what — ?" That tailed off and she went back to the thumb.
"Remember me?" I said. "Doghouse Reilly, the man that grew too tall. Remember?"
She nodded and a quick jerky smile played across her face.
"Let's go in," I said. "I've got a key. Swell, huh?"
"Wha — wha — ?"
I pushed her to one side and put the key in the door and opened it and pushed her in through it. I shut the door again and stood there sniffing. The place was horrible by daylight. The Chinese junk on the walls, the rug, the fussy lamps, the teakwood stuff, the sticky riot of colors, the totem pole, the flagon of ether and laudanum — all this in the daytime had a stealthy nastiness, like a fag party.
The girl and I stood looking at each other. She tried to keep a cute little smile on her face but her face was too tired to be bothered. It kept going blank on her. The smile would wash off like water off sand and her pale skin had a harsh granular texture under the stunned and stupid blankness of her eyes. A whitish tongue licked at the corners of her mouth. A pretty, spoiled and not very bright little girl who had gone very, very wrong, and nobody was doing anything about it. To hell with the rich. They made me sick. I rolled a cigarette in my fingers and pushed some books out of the way and sat on the end of the black desk. I lit my cigarette, puffed a plume of smoke and watched the thumb and tooth act for a while in silence. Carmen stood in front of me, like a bad girl in the principal's office.
"What are you doing here?" I asked her finally.
She picked at the cloth of her coat and didn't answer.
"How much do you remember of last night?"
She answered that — with a foxy glitter rising at the back of her eyes. "Remember what? I was sick last night. I was home." Her voice was a cautious throaty sound that just reached my ears.
"Like hell you were."
Her eyes flicked up and down very swiftly.
"Before you went home," I said. "Before I took you home. Here. In that chair — " I pointed to it — "on that orange shawl. You remember all right."
A slow flush crept up her throat. That was something. She could blush. A glint of white showed under the clogged gray irises. She chewed hard on her thumb.
"You — were the one?" she breathed.
"Me. How much of it stays with you?"
She said vaguely: "Are you the police?"
"No. I'm a friend of your father's."
"You're not the police?"
"No."
She let out a thin sigh. "Wha — what do you want?"
"Who killed him?"
Her shoulders jerked, but nothing more moved in her face. "Who else — knows?"
"About Geiger? I don't know. Not the police, or they'd be camping here. Maybe Joe Brody."
It was a stab in the dark but it got a yelp out of her. "Joe Brody! Him!"
Then we were both silent. I dragged at my cigarette and she ate her thumb.
"Don't get clever, for God's sake," I urged her. "This is a spot for a little old-fashioned simplicity. Did Brody kill him?"
"Kill who?"
"Oh, Christ," I said.
She looked hurt. Her chin came down an inch. "Yes," she said solemnly. "Joe did it."
"Why?"
"I don't know." She shook her head, persuading herself that she didn't know.
"Seen much of him lately?"
Her hands went down and made small white knots. "Just once or twice. I hate him."
"Then you know where he lives."
"Yes."
"And you don't like him any more?"
"I hate him!"
"Then you'd like him for the spot."
A little blank again. I was going too fast for her. It was hard not to. "Are you willing to tell the police it was Joe Brody?" I probed.
Sudden panic flamed all over her face. "If I can kill the nude-photo angle, of course," I added soothingly.
She giggled. That gave me a nasty feeling. If she had screeched or wept or even nosedived to the floor in a dead faint, that would have been all right. She just giggled. It was suddenly a lot of fun. She had had her photo taken as Isis and somebody had swiped it and somebody had bumped Geiger off in front of her and she was drunker than a Legion convention, and it was suddenly a lot of nice clean fun. So she giggled. Very cute. The giggles got louder and ran around the corners of the room like rats behind the wainscoting. She started to go hysterical. I slid off the desk and stepped up close to her and gave her a smack on the side of the face.
"Just like last night," I said. "We're a scream together. Reilly and Sternwood, two stooges in search of a comedian."
The giggles stopped dead, but she didn't mind the slap any more than last night. Probably all her boy friends got around to slapping her sooner or later. I could understand how they might. I sat down on the end of the black desk again.
"Your name isn't Reilly," she said seriously. "It's Philip Marlowe. You're a private detective. Viv told me. She showed me your card." She smoothed the cheek I had slapped. She smiled at me, as if I was nice to be with.
"Well, you do remember," I said. "And you came back to look for that photo and you couldn't get into the house. Didn't you?"
Her chin ducked down and up. She worked the smile. I was having the eye put on me. I was being brought into camp. I was going to yell "Yippee!" in a minute and ask her to go to Yuma.
"The photo's gone," I said. "I looked last night, before I took you home. Probably Brody took it with him. You're not kidding me about Brody?"
She shook her head earnestly.
"It's a pushover," I said. "You don't have to give it another thought. Don't tell a soul you were here, last night or today. Not even Vivian. Just forget you were here. Leave it to Reilly."
"Your name isn't — " she began, and then stopped and shook her head vigorously in agreement with what I had said or with what she had just thought of. Her eyes became narrow and almost black and as shallow as enamel on a cafeteria tray. She had had an idea. "I have to go home now," she said, as if we had been having a cup of tea.
"Sure."
I didn't move. She gave me another cute glance and went on towards the front door. She had her hand on the knob when we both heard a car coming. She looked at me with questions in her eyes. I shrugged. The car stopped, right in front of the house. Terror twisted her face. There were steps and the bell rang. Carmen stared back at me over her shoulder, her hand clutching the door knob, almost drooling with fear. The bell kept on ringing. Then the ringing stopped. A key tickled at the door and Carmen jumped away from it and stood frozen. The door swung open. A man stepped through it briskly and stopped dead, staring at us quietly, with complete composure.
13
He was a gray man, an gray, except for his polished black shoes and two scarlet diamonds in his gray satin tie that looked like the diamonds on roulette layouts. His shirt was gray and his double-breasted suit of soft, beautifully cut flannel. Seeing Carmen he took a gray hat off and his hair underneath it was gray and as fine as if it had been sifted through gauze. His thick gray eyebrows had that indefinably sporty look. He had a long chin, a nose with a hook to it, thoughtful gray eyes that had a slanted look because the fold of skin over his upper lid came down over the corner of the lid itself.
He stood there politely, one hand touching the door at his back, the other holding the gray hat and flapping it gently against his thigh. He looked hard, not the hardness of the tough guy. More like the hardness of a well-weathered horseman. But he was no horseman. He was Eddie Mars.
He pushed the door shut behind him and put that hand in the lap-seamed pocket of his coat and left the thumb outside to glisten in the rather dim light of the room. He smiled at Carmen. He had a nice easy smile. She licked her lips and stared at him. The fear went out of her face. She smiled back.
"Excuse the casual entrance," he said. "The bell didn't seem to rouse anybody. Is Mr. Geiger around?"
I said: "No. We don't know just where he is. We found the door a little open. We stepped inside."
He nodded and touched his long chin with the brim of his hat. "You're friends of his, of course?"
"Just business acquaintances. We dropped by for a book."
"A book, eh?" He said that quickly and brightly and, I thought, a little slyly, as if he knew all about Geiger's books. Then he looked at Carmen again and shrugged.
I moved towards the door. "We'll trot along now," I said. I took hold of her arm. She was staring at Eddie Mars. She liked him.
"Any message — if Geiger comes back?" Eddie Mars asked gently.
"We won't bother you."
"That's too bad," he said, with too much meaning. His gray eyes twinkled and then hardened as I went past him to open the door. He added in a casual tone: "The girl can dust. I'd like to talk to you a little, soldier."
I let go of her arm. I gave him a blank stare. "Kidder, eh?" he said nicely. "Don't waste it. I've got two boys outside in a car that always do just what I want them to."
Carmen made a sound at my side and bolted through the door. Her steps faded rapidly down hill. I hadn't seen her car, so she must have left it down below. I started to say: "What the hell — !"
"Oh, skip it," Eddie Mars sighed. "There's something wrong around here. I'm going to find out what it is. If you want to pick lead out of your belly, get in my way."
"Well, well," I said, "a tough guy."
"Only when necessary, soldier." He wasn't looking at me any more. He was walking around the room, frowning, not paying any attention to me. I looked out above the broken pane of the front window. The top of a car showed over the hedge. Its motor idled.
Eddie Mars found the purple flagon and the two gold-veined glasses on the desk. He sniffed at one of the glasses, then at the flagon. A disgusted smile wrinkled his lips. "The lousy pimp," he said tonelessly.
He looked at a couple of books, grunted, went on around the desk and stood in front of the little totem pole with the camera eye. He studied it, dropped his glance to the floor in front of it. He moved the small rug with his foot, then bent swiftly, his body tense. He went down on the floor with one gray knee. The desk hid him from me partly. There was a sharp exclamation and he came up again. His arm flashed under his coat and a black Luger appeared in his hand. He held it in long brown fingers, not pointing it at me me, not pointing it at anything.
"Blood," he said. "Blood on the floor there, under the rug. Quite a lot of blood."
"Is that so?" I said, looking interested.
He slid into the chair behind the desk and hooked the mulberry-colored phone towards him and shifted the Luger to his left hand. He frowned sharply at the telephone, bringing his thick gray eyebrows close together and making a hard crease in the weathered skin at the top of his hooked nose. "I think we'll have some law," he said.
I went over and kicked at the rug that lay where Geiger had lain. "It's old blood," I said. "Dried blood."
"Just the same we'll have some law."
"Why not?" I said.
His eyes went narrow. The veneer had flaked off him, leaving a well-dressed hard boy with a Luger. He didn't like my agreeing with him.
"Just who the hell are you, soldier?"
"Marlowe is the name. I'm a sleuth."
"Never heard of you. Who's the girl?"
"Client. Geiger was trying to throw a loop on her with some blackmail. We came to talk it over. He wasn't here. The door being open we walked in to wait. Or did I tell you that?"
"Convenient," he said. "The door being open. When you didn't have a key."
"Yes. How come you had a key?"
"Is that any of your business, soldier?"
"I could make it my business."
He smiled tightly and pushed his hat back on his gray hair. "And I could make your business my business."
"You wouldn't like it. The pay's too small."
"All right, bright eyes. I own this house. Geiger is my tenant. Now what do you think of that?"
"You know such lovely people."
"I take them as they come. They come all kinds."
He glanced down at the Luger, shrugged and tucked it back under his arm. "Got any good ideas, soldier?"
"Lots of them. Somebody gunned Geiger. Somebody got gunned by Geiger, who ran away. Or it was two other fellows. Or Geiger was running a cult and made blood sacrifices in front of that totem pole. Or he had chicken for dinner and liked to kill his chickens in the front parlor."
The gray man scowled at me.
"I give up," I said. "Better call your friends downtown."
"I don't get it," he snapped. "I don't get your game here."
"Go ahead, call the buttons. You'll get a big reaction from it."
He thought that over without moving. His lips went back against his teeth. "I don't get that, either," he said tightly.
"Maybe it just isn't your day. I know you, Mr. Mars. The Cypress Club at Las Olindas. Flash gambling for flash people. The local law in your pocket and a well-greased line into L.A. In other words, protection. Geiger was in a racket that needed that too. Perhaps you spared him a little now and then, seeing he's your tenant."
His mouth became a hard white grimace. "Geiger was in what racket?"
"The smut book racket."
He stared at me for a long level minute. "Somebody got to him," he said softly. "You know something about it. He didn't show at the store today. They don't know where he is. He didn't answer the phone here. I came up to see about it. I find blood on the floor, under a rug. And you and a girl here."
"A little weak," I said. "But maybe you can sell the story to a willing buyer. You missed a little something, though. Somebody moved his books out of the store today — the nice books he rented out."
He snapped his fingers sharply and said: "I should have thought of that, soldier. You seem to get around. How do you figure it?"
"I think Geiger was rubbed. I think that is his blood. And the books being moved out gives a motive for hiding the body for a while. Somebody is taking over the racket and wants a little time to organize."
"They can't get away with it," Eddie Mars said grimly.
"Who says so? You and a couple of gunmen in your car outside? This is a big town now, Eddie. Some very tough people have checked in here lately. The penalty of growth."
"You talk too damned much," Eddie Mars said. He bared his teeth and whistled twice, sharply. A car slammed outside and running steps came through the hedge. Mars flicked the Luger out again and pointed it at my chest. "Open the door."
The knob rattled and a voice called out. I didn't move. The muzzle of the Luger looked like the mouth of the Second Street tunnel, but I didn't move. Not being bullet proof is an idea I had had to get used to.
"Open it yourself, Eddie. Who the hell are you to give me orders? Be nice and I might help you out."
He came to his feet rigidly and moved around the end of the desk and over to the door. He opened it without taking his eyes off me. Two men tumbled into the room, reaching busily under their arms. One was an obvious pug, a good-looking pale-faced boy with a bad nose and one ear like a club steak. The other man was slim, blond, deadpan, with close-set eyes and no color in them.
Eddie Mars said: "See if this bird is wearing any iron."
The blond flicked a short-barreled gun out and stood pointing it at me. The pug sidled over flatfooted and felt my pockets with care. I turned around for like a bored beauty modeling an evening gown.
"No gun," he said in a burry voice.
"Find out who he is."
The pug slipped a hand into my breast pocket and drew out my wallet. He flipped it open and studied the contents. "Name's Philip Marlowe, Eddie. Lives at the Hobart Arms on Franklin. Private license, deputy's badge and all. A shamus." He slipped the wallet back in my pocket, slapped my face lightly and turned away.
"Beat it," Eddie Mars said.
The two gunmen went out again and closed the door. There was the sound of them getting back into the car. They started its motor and kept it idling once more.
"All right. Talk," Eddie Mars snapped. The peaks of his eyebrows made sharp angles against his forehead.
"I'm not ready to give out. Killing Geiger to grab his racket would be a dumb trick and I'm not sure it happened that way, assuming he has been killed. But I'm sure that whoever got the books knows what's what, and I'm sure that the blonde lady down at his store is scared batty about something or other. And I have a guess who got the books."
"Who?"
"That's the part I'm not ready to give out. I've got a client, you know."
He wrinkled his nose. "That — " he chopped it off quickly.
"I expected you would know the girl," I said.
"Who got the books, soldier?"
"Not ready to talk, Eddie. Why should I?"
He put the Luger down on the desk and slapped it with his open palm. "This," he said. "And I might make it worth your while."
"That's the spirit. Leave the gun out of it. I can always hear the sound of money. How much are you clinking at me?"
"For doing what?"
"What did you want done?"
He slammed the desk hard. "Listen, soldier. I ask you a question and you ask me another. We're not getting anywhere. I want to know where Geiger is, for my own personal reasons. I didn't like his racket and I didn't protect him. I happen to own this house. I'm not so crazy about that right now. I can believe that whatever you know about all this is under glass, or there would be a flock of johns squeaking sole leather around this dump. You haven't got anything to sell. My guess is you need a little protection yourself. So cough up."
It was a good guess, but I wasn't going to let him know it. I lit a cigarette and blew the match out and flicked it at the glass eye of the totem pole. "You're right," I said. "If anything has happened to Geiger, I'll have to give what I have to the law. Which puts it in the public domain and doesn't leave me anything to sell. So with your permission I'll just drift."
His face whitened under the tan. He looked mean, fast and tough for a moment. He made a movement to lift the gun. I added casually: "By the way, how is Mrs. Mars these days?"
I thought for a moment I had kidded him a little too far. His hand jerked at the gun, shaking. His face was stretched out by hard muscles. "Beat it," he said quite softly. "I don't give a damn where you go or what you do when you get there. Only take a word of advice, soldier. Leave me out of your plans or you'll wish your name was Murphy and you lived in Limerick."
"Well, that's not so far from Clonmel," I said. "I hear you had a pal came from there."
He leaned down on the desk, frozen-eyed, unmoving. I went over to the door and opened it and looked back at him. His eyes had followed me, but his lean gray body had not moved. There was hate in his eyes. I went out and through the hedge and up the hill to my car and got into it. I turned it around and drove up over the crest. Nobody shot at me. After a few blocks I turned off, cut the motor and sat for a few moments. Nobody followed me either. I drove back into Hollywood.
He stood there politely, one hand touching the door at his back, the other holding the gray hat and flapping it gently against his thigh. He looked hard, not the hardness of the tough guy. More like the hardness of a well-weathered horseman. But he was no horseman. He was Eddie Mars.
He pushed the door shut behind him and put that hand in the lap-seamed pocket of his coat and left the thumb outside to glisten in the rather dim light of the room. He smiled at Carmen. He had a nice easy smile. She licked her lips and stared at him. The fear went out of her face. She smiled back.
"Excuse the casual entrance," he said. "The bell didn't seem to rouse anybody. Is Mr. Geiger around?"
I said: "No. We don't know just where he is. We found the door a little open. We stepped inside."
He nodded and touched his long chin with the brim of his hat. "You're friends of his, of course?"
"Just business acquaintances. We dropped by for a book."
"A book, eh?" He said that quickly and brightly and, I thought, a little slyly, as if he knew all about Geiger's books. Then he looked at Carmen again and shrugged.
I moved towards the door. "We'll trot along now," I said. I took hold of her arm. She was staring at Eddie Mars. She liked him.
"Any message — if Geiger comes back?" Eddie Mars asked gently.
"We won't bother you."
"That's too bad," he said, with too much meaning. His gray eyes twinkled and then hardened as I went past him to open the door. He added in a casual tone: "The girl can dust. I'd like to talk to you a little, soldier."
I let go of her arm. I gave him a blank stare. "Kidder, eh?" he said nicely. "Don't waste it. I've got two boys outside in a car that always do just what I want them to."
Carmen made a sound at my side and bolted through the door. Her steps faded rapidly down hill. I hadn't seen her car, so she must have left it down below. I started to say: "What the hell — !"
"Oh, skip it," Eddie Mars sighed. "There's something wrong around here. I'm going to find out what it is. If you want to pick lead out of your belly, get in my way."
"Well, well," I said, "a tough guy."
"Only when necessary, soldier." He wasn't looking at me any more. He was walking around the room, frowning, not paying any attention to me. I looked out above the broken pane of the front window. The top of a car showed over the hedge. Its motor idled.
Eddie Mars found the purple flagon and the two gold-veined glasses on the desk. He sniffed at one of the glasses, then at the flagon. A disgusted smile wrinkled his lips. "The lousy pimp," he said tonelessly.
He looked at a couple of books, grunted, went on around the desk and stood in front of the little totem pole with the camera eye. He studied it, dropped his glance to the floor in front of it. He moved the small rug with his foot, then bent swiftly, his body tense. He went down on the floor with one gray knee. The desk hid him from me partly. There was a sharp exclamation and he came up again. His arm flashed under his coat and a black Luger appeared in his hand. He held it in long brown fingers, not pointing it at me me, not pointing it at anything.
"Blood," he said. "Blood on the floor there, under the rug. Quite a lot of blood."
"Is that so?" I said, looking interested.
He slid into the chair behind the desk and hooked the mulberry-colored phone towards him and shifted the Luger to his left hand. He frowned sharply at the telephone, bringing his thick gray eyebrows close together and making a hard crease in the weathered skin at the top of his hooked nose. "I think we'll have some law," he said.
I went over and kicked at the rug that lay where Geiger had lain. "It's old blood," I said. "Dried blood."
"Just the same we'll have some law."
"Why not?" I said.
His eyes went narrow. The veneer had flaked off him, leaving a well-dressed hard boy with a Luger. He didn't like my agreeing with him.
"Just who the hell are you, soldier?"
"Marlowe is the name. I'm a sleuth."
"Never heard of you. Who's the girl?"
"Client. Geiger was trying to throw a loop on her with some blackmail. We came to talk it over. He wasn't here. The door being open we walked in to wait. Or did I tell you that?"
"Convenient," he said. "The door being open. When you didn't have a key."
"Yes. How come you had a key?"
"Is that any of your business, soldier?"
"I could make it my business."
He smiled tightly and pushed his hat back on his gray hair. "And I could make your business my business."
"You wouldn't like it. The pay's too small."
"All right, bright eyes. I own this house. Geiger is my tenant. Now what do you think of that?"
"You know such lovely people."
"I take them as they come. They come all kinds."
He glanced down at the Luger, shrugged and tucked it back under his arm. "Got any good ideas, soldier?"
"Lots of them. Somebody gunned Geiger. Somebody got gunned by Geiger, who ran away. Or it was two other fellows. Or Geiger was running a cult and made blood sacrifices in front of that totem pole. Or he had chicken for dinner and liked to kill his chickens in the front parlor."
The gray man scowled at me.
"I give up," I said. "Better call your friends downtown."
"I don't get it," he snapped. "I don't get your game here."
"Go ahead, call the buttons. You'll get a big reaction from it."
He thought that over without moving. His lips went back against his teeth. "I don't get that, either," he said tightly.
"Maybe it just isn't your day. I know you, Mr. Mars. The Cypress Club at Las Olindas. Flash gambling for flash people. The local law in your pocket and a well-greased line into L.A. In other words, protection. Geiger was in a racket that needed that too. Perhaps you spared him a little now and then, seeing he's your tenant."
His mouth became a hard white grimace. "Geiger was in what racket?"
"The smut book racket."
He stared at me for a long level minute. "Somebody got to him," he said softly. "You know something about it. He didn't show at the store today. They don't know where he is. He didn't answer the phone here. I came up to see about it. I find blood on the floor, under a rug. And you and a girl here."
"A little weak," I said. "But maybe you can sell the story to a willing buyer. You missed a little something, though. Somebody moved his books out of the store today — the nice books he rented out."
He snapped his fingers sharply and said: "I should have thought of that, soldier. You seem to get around. How do you figure it?"
"I think Geiger was rubbed. I think that is his blood. And the books being moved out gives a motive for hiding the body for a while. Somebody is taking over the racket and wants a little time to organize."
"They can't get away with it," Eddie Mars said grimly.
"Who says so? You and a couple of gunmen in your car outside? This is a big town now, Eddie. Some very tough people have checked in here lately. The penalty of growth."
"You talk too damned much," Eddie Mars said. He bared his teeth and whistled twice, sharply. A car slammed outside and running steps came through the hedge. Mars flicked the Luger out again and pointed it at my chest. "Open the door."
The knob rattled and a voice called out. I didn't move. The muzzle of the Luger looked like the mouth of the Second Street tunnel, but I didn't move. Not being bullet proof is an idea I had had to get used to.
"Open it yourself, Eddie. Who the hell are you to give me orders? Be nice and I might help you out."
He came to his feet rigidly and moved around the end of the desk and over to the door. He opened it without taking his eyes off me. Two men tumbled into the room, reaching busily under their arms. One was an obvious pug, a good-looking pale-faced boy with a bad nose and one ear like a club steak. The other man was slim, blond, deadpan, with close-set eyes and no color in them.
Eddie Mars said: "See if this bird is wearing any iron."
The blond flicked a short-barreled gun out and stood pointing it at me. The pug sidled over flatfooted and felt my pockets with care. I turned around for like a bored beauty modeling an evening gown.
"No gun," he said in a burry voice.
"Find out who he is."
The pug slipped a hand into my breast pocket and drew out my wallet. He flipped it open and studied the contents. "Name's Philip Marlowe, Eddie. Lives at the Hobart Arms on Franklin. Private license, deputy's badge and all. A shamus." He slipped the wallet back in my pocket, slapped my face lightly and turned away.
"Beat it," Eddie Mars said.
The two gunmen went out again and closed the door. There was the sound of them getting back into the car. They started its motor and kept it idling once more.
"All right. Talk," Eddie Mars snapped. The peaks of his eyebrows made sharp angles against his forehead.
"I'm not ready to give out. Killing Geiger to grab his racket would be a dumb trick and I'm not sure it happened that way, assuming he has been killed. But I'm sure that whoever got the books knows what's what, and I'm sure that the blonde lady down at his store is scared batty about something or other. And I have a guess who got the books."
"Who?"
"That's the part I'm not ready to give out. I've got a client, you know."
He wrinkled his nose. "That — " he chopped it off quickly.
"I expected you would know the girl," I said.
"Who got the books, soldier?"
"Not ready to talk, Eddie. Why should I?"
He put the Luger down on the desk and slapped it with his open palm. "This," he said. "And I might make it worth your while."
"That's the spirit. Leave the gun out of it. I can always hear the sound of money. How much are you clinking at me?"
"For doing what?"
"What did you want done?"
He slammed the desk hard. "Listen, soldier. I ask you a question and you ask me another. We're not getting anywhere. I want to know where Geiger is, for my own personal reasons. I didn't like his racket and I didn't protect him. I happen to own this house. I'm not so crazy about that right now. I can believe that whatever you know about all this is under glass, or there would be a flock of johns squeaking sole leather around this dump. You haven't got anything to sell. My guess is you need a little protection yourself. So cough up."
It was a good guess, but I wasn't going to let him know it. I lit a cigarette and blew the match out and flicked it at the glass eye of the totem pole. "You're right," I said. "If anything has happened to Geiger, I'll have to give what I have to the law. Which puts it in the public domain and doesn't leave me anything to sell. So with your permission I'll just drift."
His face whitened under the tan. He looked mean, fast and tough for a moment. He made a movement to lift the gun. I added casually: "By the way, how is Mrs. Mars these days?"
I thought for a moment I had kidded him a little too far. His hand jerked at the gun, shaking. His face was stretched out by hard muscles. "Beat it," he said quite softly. "I don't give a damn where you go or what you do when you get there. Only take a word of advice, soldier. Leave me out of your plans or you'll wish your name was Murphy and you lived in Limerick."
"Well, that's not so far from Clonmel," I said. "I hear you had a pal came from there."
He leaned down on the desk, frozen-eyed, unmoving. I went over to the door and opened it and looked back at him. His eyes had followed me, but his lean gray body had not moved. There was hate in his eyes. I went out and through the hedge and up the hill to my car and got into it. I turned it around and drove up over the crest. Nobody shot at me. After a few blocks I turned off, cut the motor and sat for a few moments. Nobody followed me either. I drove back into Hollywood.
14
It was ten minutes to five when I parked near the lobby entrance of the apartment house on Randall Place. A few windows were lit and radios were bleating at the dusk. I rode the automatic elevator up to the fourth floor and went along a wide hail carpeted in green and paneled in ivory. A cool breeze blew down the hail from the open screened door to the fire escape.
There was a small ivory pushbutton beside the door marked "405." I pushed it and waited what seemed a long time. Then the door opened noiselessly about a foot. There was a steady, furtive air in the way it opened. The man was long-legged, long-waisted, high-shouldered and he had dark brown eyes in a brown expressionless face that had learned to control its expressions long ago. Hair like steel wool grew far back on his head and gave him a great deal of domed brown forehead that might at a careless glance have seemed a dwelling place for brains. His somber eyes probed at me impersonally. His long thin brown fingers held the edge of the door. He said nothing.
I said: "Geiger?"
Nothing in the man's face changed that I could see. He brought a cigarette from behind the door and tucked it between his lips and drew a little smoke from it. The smoke came towards me in a lazy, contemptuous puff and behind it words in a cool, unhurried voice that had no more inflection than the voice of a faro dealer.
"You said what?"
"Geiger. Arthur Gwynn Geiger. The guy that has the books."
The man considered that without any haste. He glanced down at the tip of his cigarette. His other hand, the one that had been holding the door, dropped out of sight. His shoulder had a look as though his hidden hand might be making motions.
"Don't know anybody by that name," he said. "Does he live around here?"
I smiled. He didn't like the smile. His eyes got nasty. I said: "You're Joe Brody?"
The brown face hardened. "So what? Got a grift, brother — or just amusing yourself?"
"So you're Joe Brody," I said. "And you don't know anybody named Geiger. That's very funny."
"Yeah? You got a funny sense of humor maybe. Take it away and play on it somewhere else."
I leaned against the door and gave him a dreamy smile. "You got the books, Joe. I got the sucker list. We ought to talk things over."
He didn't shift his eyes from my face. There was a faint sound in the room behind him, as though a metal curtain ring clicked lightly on a metal rod. He glanced sideways into the room. He opened the door wider.
"Why not — if you think you've got something?" he said coolly. He stood aside from the door. I went past him into the room.
It was a cheerful room with good furniture and not too much of it. French windows in the end wall opened on a stone porch and looked across the dusk at the foothills. Near the windows a closed door in the west wall and near the entrance door another door in the same wall. This last had a plush curtain drawn across it on a thin brass rod below the lintel.
That left the east wail, in which there were no doors. There was a davenport backed against the middle of it, so I sat down on the davenport. Brody shut the door and walked crab-fashion to a tall oak desk studded with square nails. A cedarwood box with gilt hinges lay on the lowered leaf of the desk. He carried the box to an easy chair midway between the other two doors and sat down. I dropped my hat on the davenport and waited.
"Well, I'm listening," Brody said. He opened the cigar box and dropped his cigarette stub into a dish at his side. He put a long thin cigar in his mouth. "Cigar?" He tossed one at me through the air.
I reached for it. Brody took a gun out of the cigar box and pointed it at my nose. I looked at the gun. It was a black Police .39. I had no argument against it at the moment.
"Neat, huh?" Brody said. "Just kind of stand up a minute. Come forward just about two yards. You might grab a little air while you're doing that." His voice was the elaborately casual voice of the tough guy in pictures. Pictures have made them all like that.
"Tsk, tsk," I said, not moving at all. "Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains. You're the second guy I've met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail. Put it down and don't be silly, Joe."
His eyebrows came together and he pushed his chin at me. His eyes were mean.
"The other guy's name is Eddie Mars," I said. "Ever hear of him?"
"No." Brody kept the gun pointed at me.
"If he ever gets wise to where you were last night in the rain, he'll wipe you off the way a check raiser wipes a check."
"What would I be to Eddie Mars?" Brody asked coldly. But he lowered the gun to his knee.
"Not even a memory," I said.
We stared at each other. I didn't look at the pointed black slipper that showed under the plush curtain on the doorway to my left.
Brody said quietly: "Don't get me wrong. I'm not a tough guy — just careful. I don't know hell's first whisper about you. You might be a lifetaker for all I know."
"You're not careful enough," I said. "That play with Geiger's books was terrible."
He drew a long slow breath and let it out silently. Then he leaned back and crossed his long legs and held the Colt on his knee.
"Don't kid yourself I won't use this heat, if I have to," he said. "What's your story?"
"Have your friend with the pointed slippers come on in. She gets tired holding her breath."
Brody called out without moving his eyes off my stomach. "Come on in, Agnes."
The curtain swung aside and the green-eyed, thigh-swinging ash blonde from Geiger's store joined us in the room. She looked at me with a kind of mangled hatred. Her nostrils were pinched and her eyes had darkened a couple of shades. She looked very unhappy.
"I knew damn well you were trouble," she snapped at me. "I told Joe to watch his step."
"It's not his step, it's the back of his lap he ought to watch," I said.
"I suppose that's funny," the blonde squealed.
"It has been," I said. "But it probably isn't any more."
"Save the gags," Brody advised me. "Joe's watchin' his step plenty. Put some light on so I can see to pop this guy, if it works out that way."
The blonde snicked on a light in a big square standing lamp. She sank down into a chair beside the lamp and sat stiffly, as if her girdle was too tight. I put my cigar in my mouth and bit the end off. Brody's Colt took a close interest in me while I got matches out and lit the cigar. I tasted the smoke and said:
"The sucker list I spoke of is in code. I haven't cracked it yet, but there are about five hundred names. You got twelve boxes of books that I know of. You should have at least five hundred books. There'll be a bunch more out on loan, but say five hundred is the full crop, just to be cautious. If it's a good active list and you could run it even fifty per cent down the line, that would be one hundred and twenty-five thousand rentals. Your girl friend knows an about that. I'm only guessing. Put the average rental as low as you like, but it won't be less than a dollar. That merchandise costs money. At a dollar a rental you take one hundred and twenty-five grand and you still have your capital. I mean, you still have Geiger's capital. That's enough to spot a guy for."
The blonde yelped: "You're crazy, you goddam eggheaded — !"
Brody put his teeth sideways at her and snarled: "Pipe down, for Chrissake. Pipe down!"
She subsided into an outraged mixture of slow anguish and bottled fury. Her silvery nails scraped on her knees.
"It's no racket for bums," I told Brody almost affectionately. "It takes a smooth worker like you, Joe. You've got to get confidence and keep it. People who spend their money for second-hand sex jags are as nervous as dowagers who can't find the rest room. Personally I think the blackmail angles are a big mistake. I'm for shedding all that and sticking to legitimate sales and rentals."
Brody's dark brown stare moved up and down my face. His Colt went on hungering for my vital organs. "You're a funny guy," he said tonelessly. "Who has this lovely racket?"
"You have," I said. "Almost."
The blonde choked and clawed her ear. Brody didn't say anything. He just looked at me.
"What?" the blonde yelped. "You sit there and try to tell us Mr. Geiger ran the kind of business right down on the main drag? You're nuts!"
I leered at her politely. "Sure I do. Everybody knows the racket exists. Hollywood's made to order for it. If a thing like that has to exist, then right out on the street is where all practical coppers want it to exist. For the same reason they favor red light districts. They know where to flush the game when they want to."
"My God," the blonde wailed. "You let this cheesehead sit there and insult me, Joe? You with a gun in your hand and him holding nothing but a cigar and his thumb?"
"I like it," Brody said. "The guy's got good ideas. Shut your trap and keep it shut, or I'll slap it shut for you with this." He flicked the gun around in an increasingly negligent manner.
The blonde gasped and turned her face to the wall. Brody looked at me and said cunningly: "How have I got that lovely racket?"
"You shot Geiger to get it. Last night in the rain. It was dandy shooting weather. The trouble is he wasn't alone when you whiffed him. Either you didn't notice that, which seems unlikely, or you got the wind up and lammed. But you had nerve enough to take the plate out of his camera and you had nerve enough to come back later on and hide his corpse, so you could tidy up on the books before the law knew it had a murder to investigate."
"Yah," Brody said contemptuously. The Colt wobbled on his knee. His brown face was as hard as a piece of carved wood. "You take chances, mister. It's kind of goddamned lucky for you I didn't bop Geiger."
"You can step off for it just the same," I told him cheerfully. "You're made to order for the rap."
Brody's voice rustled. "Think you got me framed for it?"
"Positive."
"How come?"
"There's somebody who'll tell it that way. I told you there was a witness. Don't go simple on me, Joe."
He exploded then. "That goddamned little hot pants!" he yelled. "She would, god damn her! She would — just that!"
I leaned back and grinned at him. "Swell. I thought you had those nude photos of her."
He didn't say anything. The blonde didn't say anything. I let them chew on it. Brody's face cleared slowly, with a sort of grayish relief. He put his Colt down on the end table beside his chair but kept his right hand close to it. He knocked ash from his cigar on the carpet and stared at me with eyes that were a tight shine between narrowed lids.
"I guess you think I'm dumb," Brody said.
"Just average, for a grifter. Get the pictures."
"What pictures?"
I shook my head. "Wrong play, Joe. Innocence gets you nowhere. You were either there last night, or you got the nude photo from somebody that was there. You knew she was there, because you had your girl friend threaten Mrs. Regan with a police rap. The only ways you could know enough to do that would be by seeing what happened or by holding the photo and knowing where and when it was taken. Cough up and be sensible."
"I'd have to have a little dough," Brody said. He turned his head a little to look at the green-eyed blonde. Not now green-eyed and only superficially a blonde. She was as limp as a fresh-killed rabbit.
"No dough," I said.
He scowled bitterly. "How'd you get to me?"
I flicked my wallet out and let him look at my buzzer. "I was working on Geiger — for a client. I was outside last night, in the rain. I heard the shots. I crashed in. I didn't see the killer. I saw everything else."
"And kept your lip buttoned," Brody sneered.
I put my wallet away. "Yes," I admitted. "Up till now. Do I get the photos or not?"
"About these books," Brody said. "I don't get that."
"I tailed them here from Geiger's store. I have a witness."
"That punk kid?"
"What punk kid?"
He scowled again. "The kid that works at the store. He skipped out after the truck left. Agnes don't even know where he flops."
"That helps," I said, grinning at him. "That angle worried me a little. Either of you ever been in Geiger's house — before last night?"
"Not even last night," Brody said sharply. "So she says I gunned him, eh?"
"With the photos in hand I might be able to convince her she was wrong. There was a little drinking being done."
Brody sighed. "She hates my guts. I bounced her out. I got paid, sure, but I'd of had to do it anyway. She's too screwy for a simple guy like me." He cleared his throat. "How about a little dough? I'm down to nickels. Agnes and me gotta move on."
"Not from my client."
"Listen — "
"Get the pictures, Brody."
"Oh, hell," he said. "You win." He stood up and slipped the Colt into his side pocket. His left hand went up inside his coat. He was holding it there, his face twisted with disgust, when the door buzzer rang and kept on ringing.
There was a small ivory pushbutton beside the door marked "405." I pushed it and waited what seemed a long time. Then the door opened noiselessly about a foot. There was a steady, furtive air in the way it opened. The man was long-legged, long-waisted, high-shouldered and he had dark brown eyes in a brown expressionless face that had learned to control its expressions long ago. Hair like steel wool grew far back on his head and gave him a great deal of domed brown forehead that might at a careless glance have seemed a dwelling place for brains. His somber eyes probed at me impersonally. His long thin brown fingers held the edge of the door. He said nothing.
I said: "Geiger?"
Nothing in the man's face changed that I could see. He brought a cigarette from behind the door and tucked it between his lips and drew a little smoke from it. The smoke came towards me in a lazy, contemptuous puff and behind it words in a cool, unhurried voice that had no more inflection than the voice of a faro dealer.
"You said what?"
"Geiger. Arthur Gwynn Geiger. The guy that has the books."
The man considered that without any haste. He glanced down at the tip of his cigarette. His other hand, the one that had been holding the door, dropped out of sight. His shoulder had a look as though his hidden hand might be making motions.
"Don't know anybody by that name," he said. "Does he live around here?"
I smiled. He didn't like the smile. His eyes got nasty. I said: "You're Joe Brody?"
The brown face hardened. "So what? Got a grift, brother — or just amusing yourself?"
"So you're Joe Brody," I said. "And you don't know anybody named Geiger. That's very funny."
"Yeah? You got a funny sense of humor maybe. Take it away and play on it somewhere else."
I leaned against the door and gave him a dreamy smile. "You got the books, Joe. I got the sucker list. We ought to talk things over."
He didn't shift his eyes from my face. There was a faint sound in the room behind him, as though a metal curtain ring clicked lightly on a metal rod. He glanced sideways into the room. He opened the door wider.
"Why not — if you think you've got something?" he said coolly. He stood aside from the door. I went past him into the room.
It was a cheerful room with good furniture and not too much of it. French windows in the end wall opened on a stone porch and looked across the dusk at the foothills. Near the windows a closed door in the west wall and near the entrance door another door in the same wall. This last had a plush curtain drawn across it on a thin brass rod below the lintel.
That left the east wail, in which there were no doors. There was a davenport backed against the middle of it, so I sat down on the davenport. Brody shut the door and walked crab-fashion to a tall oak desk studded with square nails. A cedarwood box with gilt hinges lay on the lowered leaf of the desk. He carried the box to an easy chair midway between the other two doors and sat down. I dropped my hat on the davenport and waited.
"Well, I'm listening," Brody said. He opened the cigar box and dropped his cigarette stub into a dish at his side. He put a long thin cigar in his mouth. "Cigar?" He tossed one at me through the air.
I reached for it. Brody took a gun out of the cigar box and pointed it at my nose. I looked at the gun. It was a black Police .39. I had no argument against it at the moment.
"Neat, huh?" Brody said. "Just kind of stand up a minute. Come forward just about two yards. You might grab a little air while you're doing that." His voice was the elaborately casual voice of the tough guy in pictures. Pictures have made them all like that.
"Tsk, tsk," I said, not moving at all. "Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains. You're the second guy I've met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail. Put it down and don't be silly, Joe."
His eyebrows came together and he pushed his chin at me. His eyes were mean.
"The other guy's name is Eddie Mars," I said. "Ever hear of him?"
"No." Brody kept the gun pointed at me.
"If he ever gets wise to where you were last night in the rain, he'll wipe you off the way a check raiser wipes a check."
"What would I be to Eddie Mars?" Brody asked coldly. But he lowered the gun to his knee.
"Not even a memory," I said.
We stared at each other. I didn't look at the pointed black slipper that showed under the plush curtain on the doorway to my left.
Brody said quietly: "Don't get me wrong. I'm not a tough guy — just careful. I don't know hell's first whisper about you. You might be a lifetaker for all I know."
"You're not careful enough," I said. "That play with Geiger's books was terrible."
He drew a long slow breath and let it out silently. Then he leaned back and crossed his long legs and held the Colt on his knee.
"Don't kid yourself I won't use this heat, if I have to," he said. "What's your story?"
"Have your friend with the pointed slippers come on in. She gets tired holding her breath."
Brody called out without moving his eyes off my stomach. "Come on in, Agnes."
The curtain swung aside and the green-eyed, thigh-swinging ash blonde from Geiger's store joined us in the room. She looked at me with a kind of mangled hatred. Her nostrils were pinched and her eyes had darkened a couple of shades. She looked very unhappy.
"I knew damn well you were trouble," she snapped at me. "I told Joe to watch his step."
"It's not his step, it's the back of his lap he ought to watch," I said.
"I suppose that's funny," the blonde squealed.
"It has been," I said. "But it probably isn't any more."
"Save the gags," Brody advised me. "Joe's watchin' his step plenty. Put some light on so I can see to pop this guy, if it works out that way."
The blonde snicked on a light in a big square standing lamp. She sank down into a chair beside the lamp and sat stiffly, as if her girdle was too tight. I put my cigar in my mouth and bit the end off. Brody's Colt took a close interest in me while I got matches out and lit the cigar. I tasted the smoke and said:
"The sucker list I spoke of is in code. I haven't cracked it yet, but there are about five hundred names. You got twelve boxes of books that I know of. You should have at least five hundred books. There'll be a bunch more out on loan, but say five hundred is the full crop, just to be cautious. If it's a good active list and you could run it even fifty per cent down the line, that would be one hundred and twenty-five thousand rentals. Your girl friend knows an about that. I'm only guessing. Put the average rental as low as you like, but it won't be less than a dollar. That merchandise costs money. At a dollar a rental you take one hundred and twenty-five grand and you still have your capital. I mean, you still have Geiger's capital. That's enough to spot a guy for."
The blonde yelped: "You're crazy, you goddam eggheaded — !"
Brody put his teeth sideways at her and snarled: "Pipe down, for Chrissake. Pipe down!"
She subsided into an outraged mixture of slow anguish and bottled fury. Her silvery nails scraped on her knees.
"It's no racket for bums," I told Brody almost affectionately. "It takes a smooth worker like you, Joe. You've got to get confidence and keep it. People who spend their money for second-hand sex jags are as nervous as dowagers who can't find the rest room. Personally I think the blackmail angles are a big mistake. I'm for shedding all that and sticking to legitimate sales and rentals."
Brody's dark brown stare moved up and down my face. His Colt went on hungering for my vital organs. "You're a funny guy," he said tonelessly. "Who has this lovely racket?"
"You have," I said. "Almost."
The blonde choked and clawed her ear. Brody didn't say anything. He just looked at me.
"What?" the blonde yelped. "You sit there and try to tell us Mr. Geiger ran the kind of business right down on the main drag? You're nuts!"
I leered at her politely. "Sure I do. Everybody knows the racket exists. Hollywood's made to order for it. If a thing like that has to exist, then right out on the street is where all practical coppers want it to exist. For the same reason they favor red light districts. They know where to flush the game when they want to."
"My God," the blonde wailed. "You let this cheesehead sit there and insult me, Joe? You with a gun in your hand and him holding nothing but a cigar and his thumb?"
"I like it," Brody said. "The guy's got good ideas. Shut your trap and keep it shut, or I'll slap it shut for you with this." He flicked the gun around in an increasingly negligent manner.
The blonde gasped and turned her face to the wall. Brody looked at me and said cunningly: "How have I got that lovely racket?"
"You shot Geiger to get it. Last night in the rain. It was dandy shooting weather. The trouble is he wasn't alone when you whiffed him. Either you didn't notice that, which seems unlikely, or you got the wind up and lammed. But you had nerve enough to take the plate out of his camera and you had nerve enough to come back later on and hide his corpse, so you could tidy up on the books before the law knew it had a murder to investigate."
"Yah," Brody said contemptuously. The Colt wobbled on his knee. His brown face was as hard as a piece of carved wood. "You take chances, mister. It's kind of goddamned lucky for you I didn't bop Geiger."
"You can step off for it just the same," I told him cheerfully. "You're made to order for the rap."
Brody's voice rustled. "Think you got me framed for it?"
"Positive."
"How come?"
"There's somebody who'll tell it that way. I told you there was a witness. Don't go simple on me, Joe."
He exploded then. "That goddamned little hot pants!" he yelled. "She would, god damn her! She would — just that!"
I leaned back and grinned at him. "Swell. I thought you had those nude photos of her."
He didn't say anything. The blonde didn't say anything. I let them chew on it. Brody's face cleared slowly, with a sort of grayish relief. He put his Colt down on the end table beside his chair but kept his right hand close to it. He knocked ash from his cigar on the carpet and stared at me with eyes that were a tight shine between narrowed lids.
"I guess you think I'm dumb," Brody said.
"Just average, for a grifter. Get the pictures."
"What pictures?"
I shook my head. "Wrong play, Joe. Innocence gets you nowhere. You were either there last night, or you got the nude photo from somebody that was there. You knew she was there, because you had your girl friend threaten Mrs. Regan with a police rap. The only ways you could know enough to do that would be by seeing what happened or by holding the photo and knowing where and when it was taken. Cough up and be sensible."
"I'd have to have a little dough," Brody said. He turned his head a little to look at the green-eyed blonde. Not now green-eyed and only superficially a blonde. She was as limp as a fresh-killed rabbit.
"No dough," I said.
He scowled bitterly. "How'd you get to me?"
I flicked my wallet out and let him look at my buzzer. "I was working on Geiger — for a client. I was outside last night, in the rain. I heard the shots. I crashed in. I didn't see the killer. I saw everything else."
"And kept your lip buttoned," Brody sneered.
I put my wallet away. "Yes," I admitted. "Up till now. Do I get the photos or not?"
"About these books," Brody said. "I don't get that."
"I tailed them here from Geiger's store. I have a witness."
"That punk kid?"
"What punk kid?"
He scowled again. "The kid that works at the store. He skipped out after the truck left. Agnes don't even know where he flops."
"That helps," I said, grinning at him. "That angle worried me a little. Either of you ever been in Geiger's house — before last night?"
"Not even last night," Brody said sharply. "So she says I gunned him, eh?"
"With the photos in hand I might be able to convince her she was wrong. There was a little drinking being done."
Brody sighed. "She hates my guts. I bounced her out. I got paid, sure, but I'd of had to do it anyway. She's too screwy for a simple guy like me." He cleared his throat. "How about a little dough? I'm down to nickels. Agnes and me gotta move on."
"Not from my client."
"Listen — "
"Get the pictures, Brody."
"Oh, hell," he said. "You win." He stood up and slipped the Colt into his side pocket. His left hand went up inside his coat. He was holding it there, his face twisted with disgust, when the door buzzer rang and kept on ringing.
15
He didn't like that. His lower lip went in under his teeth, and his eyebrows drew down sharply at the corners. His whole face became sharp and foxy and mean.
The buzzer kept up its song. I didn't like it either. If the visitors should happen to be Eddie Mars and his boys, I might get chilled off just for being there. If it was the police, I was caught with nothing to give them but a smile and a promise. And if it was some of Brody's friends — supposing he had any — they might turn out to be tougher than he was.
The blonde didn't like it. She stood up in a surge and chipped at the air with one hand. Nerve tension made her face old and ugly.
Watching me, Brody jerked a small drawer in the desk and picked a bone-handled automatic out of it. He held it at the blonde. She slid over to him and took it, shaking.
"Sit down next to him," Brady snapped. "Hold it on him low down, away from the door. If he gets funny use your own judgment. We ain't licked yet, baby."
"Oh, Joe," the blonde wailed. She came over and sat next to me on the davenport and pointed the gun at my leg artery. I didn't like the jerky look in her eyes.
The door buzzer stopped humming and a quick impatient rapping on the wood followed it. Brody put his hand in his pocket, on his gun, and walked over to the door and opened it with his left hand. Carmen Sternwood pushed him back into the room by putting a little revolver against his lean brown lips.
Brady backed away from her with his mouth working and an expression of panic on his face. Carmen shut the door behind her and looked neither at me nor at Agnes. She stalked Brady carefully, her tongue sticking out a little between her teeth. Brody took both hands out of his pockets and gestured placatingly at her. His eyebrows designed themselves into an odd assortment of curves and angles. Agnes turned the gun away from me and swung it at Carmen. I shot my hand out and closed my fingers down hard over her hand and jammed my thumb on the safety catch. It was already on. I kept it on. There was a short silent tussle, to which neither Brody nor Carmen paid any attention whatever. I had the gun. Agnes breathed deeply and shivered the whole length of her body. Carmen's face had a bony scraped look and her breath hissed. Her voice said without tone:
"I want my pictures, Joe."
Brody swallowed and tried to grin. "Sure, kid, sure." He said it in a small flat voice that was as much like the voice he had used to me as a scooter is like a ten-ton truck.
Carmen said: "You shot Arthur Geiger. I saw you. I want my pictures." Brody turned green.
"Hey, wait a minute, Carmen," I yelped.
Blonde Agnes came to life with a rush. She ducked her head and sank her teeth in my right hand. I made more noises and shook her off.
"Listen, kid," Brody whined. "Listen a minute — "
The blonde spat at me and threw herself on my leg and tried to bite that. I cracked her on the head with the gun, not very hard, and tried to stand up. She rolled down my legs and wrapped her arms around them. I fell back on the davenport. The blonde was strong with the madness of love or fear, or a mixture of both, or maybe she was just strong.
Brody grabbed for the little revolver that was so close to his face. He missed. The gun made a sharp rapping noise that was not very loud. The bullet broke glass in a folded-back French window. Brody groaned horribly and fell down on the floor and jerked Carmen's feet from under her. She landed in a heap and the little revolver went skidding off into a corner. Brody jumped up on his knees and reached for his pocket.
I bit Agnes on the head with less delicacy than before, kicked her off my feet, and stood up. Brody flicked his eyes at me. I showed him the automatic. He stopped trying to get his hand into his pocket.
"Christ!" he whined. "Don't let her kill me!"
I began to laugh. I laughed like an idiot, without control. Blonde Agnes was sitting up on the floor with her hands flat on the carpet and her mouth wide open and a wick of metallic blond hair down over her right eye. Carmen was crawling on her hands and knees, still hissing. The metal of her little revolver glistened against the baseboard over in the corner. She crawled towards it rentlessly.
I waved my share of the guns at Brody and said: "Stay put. You're all right."
I stepped past the crawling girl and picked the gun up. She looked up at me and began to giggle. I put her gun in my pocket and patted her on the back. "Get up, angel. You look like a Pekinese."
I went over to Brody and put the automatic against his midriff and reached his Colt out of his side pocket. I now had all the guns that had been exposed to view. I stuffed them into my pockets and held my hand out to him.
"Give."
He nodded, licking his lips, his eyes still scared. He took a fat envelope out of his breast pocket and gave it to me. There was a developed plate in the envelope and five glossy prints.
"Sure these are all?"
He nodded again. I put the envelope in my own breast pocket and turned away. Agnes was back on the davenport, straightening her hair. Her eyes ate Carmen with a green distillation of hate. Carmen was up on her feet too, coming towards me with her hand out, still giggling and hissing. There was a little froth at the corners of her mouth. Her small white teeth glinted close to her lips.
"Can I have them now?" she asked me with a coy smile.
"I'll take care of them for you. Go on home."
"Home?"
I went to the door and looked out. The cool night breeze was blowing peacefully down the hall. No excited neighbors hung out of doorways. A small gun had gone off and broken a pane of glass, but noises like that don't mean much any more. I held the door open and jerked my head at Carmen. She came towards me, smiling uncertainly.
"Go on home and wait for me," I said soothingly.
She put her thumb up. Then she nodded and slipped past me into the hail. She touched my cheek with her fingers as she went by. "You'll take care of Carmen, won't you?" she cooed.
The buzzer kept up its song. I didn't like it either. If the visitors should happen to be Eddie Mars and his boys, I might get chilled off just for being there. If it was the police, I was caught with nothing to give them but a smile and a promise. And if it was some of Brody's friends — supposing he had any — they might turn out to be tougher than he was.
The blonde didn't like it. She stood up in a surge and chipped at the air with one hand. Nerve tension made her face old and ugly.
Watching me, Brody jerked a small drawer in the desk and picked a bone-handled automatic out of it. He held it at the blonde. She slid over to him and took it, shaking.
"Sit down next to him," Brady snapped. "Hold it on him low down, away from the door. If he gets funny use your own judgment. We ain't licked yet, baby."
"Oh, Joe," the blonde wailed. She came over and sat next to me on the davenport and pointed the gun at my leg artery. I didn't like the jerky look in her eyes.
The door buzzer stopped humming and a quick impatient rapping on the wood followed it. Brody put his hand in his pocket, on his gun, and walked over to the door and opened it with his left hand. Carmen Sternwood pushed him back into the room by putting a little revolver against his lean brown lips.
Brady backed away from her with his mouth working and an expression of panic on his face. Carmen shut the door behind her and looked neither at me nor at Agnes. She stalked Brady carefully, her tongue sticking out a little between her teeth. Brody took both hands out of his pockets and gestured placatingly at her. His eyebrows designed themselves into an odd assortment of curves and angles. Agnes turned the gun away from me and swung it at Carmen. I shot my hand out and closed my fingers down hard over her hand and jammed my thumb on the safety catch. It was already on. I kept it on. There was a short silent tussle, to which neither Brody nor Carmen paid any attention whatever. I had the gun. Agnes breathed deeply and shivered the whole length of her body. Carmen's face had a bony scraped look and her breath hissed. Her voice said without tone:
"I want my pictures, Joe."
Brody swallowed and tried to grin. "Sure, kid, sure." He said it in a small flat voice that was as much like the voice he had used to me as a scooter is like a ten-ton truck.
Carmen said: "You shot Arthur Geiger. I saw you. I want my pictures." Brody turned green.
"Hey, wait a minute, Carmen," I yelped.
Blonde Agnes came to life with a rush. She ducked her head and sank her teeth in my right hand. I made more noises and shook her off.
"Listen, kid," Brody whined. "Listen a minute — "
The blonde spat at me and threw herself on my leg and tried to bite that. I cracked her on the head with the gun, not very hard, and tried to stand up. She rolled down my legs and wrapped her arms around them. I fell back on the davenport. The blonde was strong with the madness of love or fear, or a mixture of both, or maybe she was just strong.
Brody grabbed for the little revolver that was so close to his face. He missed. The gun made a sharp rapping noise that was not very loud. The bullet broke glass in a folded-back French window. Brody groaned horribly and fell down on the floor and jerked Carmen's feet from under her. She landed in a heap and the little revolver went skidding off into a corner. Brody jumped up on his knees and reached for his pocket.
I bit Agnes on the head with less delicacy than before, kicked her off my feet, and stood up. Brody flicked his eyes at me. I showed him the automatic. He stopped trying to get his hand into his pocket.
"Christ!" he whined. "Don't let her kill me!"
I began to laugh. I laughed like an idiot, without control. Blonde Agnes was sitting up on the floor with her hands flat on the carpet and her mouth wide open and a wick of metallic blond hair down over her right eye. Carmen was crawling on her hands and knees, still hissing. The metal of her little revolver glistened against the baseboard over in the corner. She crawled towards it rentlessly.
I waved my share of the guns at Brody and said: "Stay put. You're all right."
I stepped past the crawling girl and picked the gun up. She looked up at me and began to giggle. I put her gun in my pocket and patted her on the back. "Get up, angel. You look like a Pekinese."
I went over to Brody and put the automatic against his midriff and reached his Colt out of his side pocket. I now had all the guns that had been exposed to view. I stuffed them into my pockets and held my hand out to him.
"Give."
He nodded, licking his lips, his eyes still scared. He took a fat envelope out of his breast pocket and gave it to me. There was a developed plate in the envelope and five glossy prints.
"Sure these are all?"
He nodded again. I put the envelope in my own breast pocket and turned away. Agnes was back on the davenport, straightening her hair. Her eyes ate Carmen with a green distillation of hate. Carmen was up on her feet too, coming towards me with her hand out, still giggling and hissing. There was a little froth at the corners of her mouth. Her small white teeth glinted close to her lips.
"Can I have them now?" she asked me with a coy smile.
"I'll take care of them for you. Go on home."
"Home?"
I went to the door and looked out. The cool night breeze was blowing peacefully down the hall. No excited neighbors hung out of doorways. A small gun had gone off and broken a pane of glass, but noises like that don't mean much any more. I held the door open and jerked my head at Carmen. She came towards me, smiling uncertainly.
"Go on home and wait for me," I said soothingly.
She put her thumb up. Then she nodded and slipped past me into the hail. She touched my cheek with her fingers as she went by. "You'll take care of Carmen, won't you?" she cooed.