“Kurt Boylston has wanted to own my grandfather’s land for a long time. It’s a small ranch, only nine hundred acres, nothing compared to the Boylston spread, but it has the best water. My grandfather worked it as a field hand when he came here from Japan in 1879 and gradually came to own it.
“Boylston has tried everything to get his hands on it. Then, with the internments and the anti-Japanese scare, he saw his chance. He announced that Kimura was a Japanese spy and that his land should be confiscated. Boylston said he would farm it as a service to the government. Of course, in times like these, frightened men will believe anything.”
Her husky voice was shaky with passion. I wanted a cigarette very badly but didn’t want to send us up in flames lighting it.
“My grandfather would not go. Why should he? He is no spy. And he knew it was only a ruse, a trick by Kurt Boylston to get his land. I’m sure you saw in the paper how he fought the army and then disappeared. I took the title and gave it to Dominick, but I had to tell Richard. And Richard was weak. Kurt must have bought him. I saw—I saw when I got to Dominick’s house this morning, how he had been shot, and knew it was Richard, shooting him six times out of fright, then tearing the house up to find the title. After he turned it over to Kurt, the Boylstons drowned him in my grandfather’s goldfish pond. I pretended all along to be in love with Kurt, to be supporting him against my grandfather, but after tonight even he will be able to understand.”
I wondered if even now she was telling the truth. She sure believed in it, but did I? “Why didn’t you tell me this this morning?”
The moonlight caught leopard sparks dancing from her eyes. “I didn’t think you’d believe me. A Japanese spy, written up in all the papers? I thought I would get here ahead of you and explain it all to you, but then I saw Richard’s body in the pond and knew that Kurt would figure out my true involvement before long. I had—had to go back to his ranch and—” Her voice broke off as she shuddered. “I used my special gifts, that’s all, and took the title from his pocket while he slept.”
I put one of my gasoline-soaked hands on her soft leopard paw. Why not? She’d told a good tale, she deserved a little applause.
“Bravo. You got your paper back. You don’t need me. You want a lift someplace on my way back to L.A.?”
She sucked her breath in again and pulled her hand back. “I do need you. To smuggle my grandfather into the city. The army knows my car, and they know my face. They would stop me, but they won’t stop you.”
I rubbed the bottle a few times, wondering if her grandfather would pop out of it, a wizened Japanese genie.
“He’s been hiding here in an old well, but it’s bad for him, bad for his rheumatism, and it’s hard for me to sneak him food. And now, he could climb down into the well, but not up, not by himself, but you—you are strong enough for two.”
She was the genie in the bottle, or maybe she just had a little witch blood mixed in with the leopard. I found myself walking across the jagged ground to where a well cover lay hidden beneath the sage. I pried it loose according to the enchantress’s whispered instructions. She knelt down on the rim and called softly, “It’s Akiko, Grandfather. Akiko and a friend who will bring you to Los Angeles.”
It wasn’t as simple as Miss Moloney thought it would be, driving around to pick up Route Five from the north, but then these things never are. In the first place Kimura wouldn’t travel without a little shrine to the Buddha that he’d been keeping in the well with him, and it was a job packing the two of them in the trunk under some old blankets. And in the second place we ran into Kurt and Jay because the only way to Route Five was along the trail that led past the Kimura Place. And in the confusion I put a bullet through Kurt Boylston’s head—purely by mistake, as I explained to the sheriff, but Miss Moloney had hired me to look for rustlers on her grandfather’s old place and when Kurt had started to shoot at us I didn’t know what else to do. The sheriff liked it about as well as a three-day hangover, but he bought it in the end.
What with one thing and another the sun was poking red fingers up over the San Gabriels by the time we coasted past Burbank and into the city.
I dropped Miss Moloney and her grandfather at a little place she owned in Beverly Hills, just ten rooms and a pool in the back. I figured Dominick had been a pretty good friend, all right. Or maybe the Irishman who married her mother—I was willing to keep an open mind.
She invited me in for a drink, but I didn’t think gasoline and rye went too well with the neighborhood or the decor, so I just left the two of them to the ministrations of a tearful Japanese maid and lowered myself by degrees through the canyons back to the city. The concrete looked good to me. Even the leftover drunks lying on the park benches looked pretty good. I’ve never been much of an outdoors man.
When I got to my office I tried the air to see if there was any perfume left, but I couldn’t detect it. I wondered what kind of detective I was, anyway. There wasn’t anything for me in the office. I didn’t know why I’d come here instead of finding my shower and bed—that was the kind of thing I could detect all right.
I put the office bottle back in the drawer and locked it. I put yesterday’s paper tidily in the trash can and looked around for a minute. There was a scrap of black on the floor underneath the visitor’s chair. I bent over to pick it up. It was a little square of lace, the kind of thing a lady with the poise of a dealer would have tucked in her black bag, the kind of thing even the most sophisticated lady might drop when she was peeling off twenties. It smelled faintly of Chanel. I put it in my breast pocket and locked the door.
* * *
* * *
It’s hard to describe the influence Chandler had on my own work. I think all modern PI writers create very much in his image, far more so than in Hammett’s. It was Chandler who really framed the relationship of the PI to justice, law, and society, and my detective, V. 1. Warshawski, certainly operates according to the values Chandler outlined in “The Simple Art of Murder.”
There is a way, too, in which my work developed as a reaction to Chandler. After reading Farewell, My Lovely almost twenty years ago I found myself wishing for a woman hero. Chandler’s women are complex, some venial, some drunk, some sex cats, some gallant, but in most of his books the seductress, whether Dolores Gonzalez, Velma, or Carmen, is at the root of the trouble. I spent many years working on different ways in which a woman could play a stronger, less sexual role in a mystery and finally, in 1979 came up with V. 1. Warshawski. So in a way Chandler is directly responsible for my decision to write a PI novel.
Sara Paretsky
RED ROCK
* * *
* * *
JULIE SMITH
1944
SHE HAD LONG auburn hair that looked chestnut in the sun. It fell over her right eye, and her left one was green, a deep, clear emerald that had seen more than Kansas cornfields, but not much more. She had on shorts and a white halter top, but her skin was still white, still waiting for California to put its mark on her.
She stood before one of two rosebushes in the tiny bed outside her tile-roofed bungalow, a basket on her left arm, gathering her rosebuds. She looked like every kid from the Midwest whose old man drinks too much and works out on her old lady and who needs to get out of the house and who comes to Hollywood after winning a high school talent contest.
On the third finger of her right hand—the one holding the scissors—was an emerald-cut ruby not quite as large as a business card. To the left of the rock were two small diamonds and to the right were two more.
“Evelyn Merrill?”
“Yes?”
“Philip Marlowe.” I gave her my business card. “I saw your picture in the paper.”
She tossed her hair aside, letting me see both eyes. They flashed green fire. “I am already employed, thank you. I do not pose for artists. I am not looking for work as an actress. I do not wish to be a star.” She turned and started up the two steps to her postage stamp of a porch.
“I thought you were a singer.”
She turned around, furious. “How do you know that?”
I indicated the card. “Knowing is my business.”
For the first time, she looked at it. “A private investigator? What business could you possibly have with me?”
“If you’ll invite me in, maybe we could talk about it.”
“How do I know you’re on the level?”
“Forget it. Let’s talk here.”
“Oh, never mind. You look okay.”
She went in and held the door for me to follow. There was a davenport on one wall, under a couple of windows, with a cocktail table and a couple of chairs opposite. On the wall were a few family photos. The rug was straw. I sat on the davenport, the girl in one of the chairs.
I pulled a couple of newspaper clippings out of my breast pocket. One was of Evelyn Merrill at the beach, one of those cheesecake pictures taken by passing photographers who get lucky. She was standing sideways, throwing a beach ball, the rock on her finger all but throwing sparks.
The other was a photo of a much older party, also a handsome woman, wearing a hat with a small veil, silk scarf and smart suit. The caption said she had just completed a successful charity drive—or it would have, if I hadn’t discreetly removed it. The picture showed her shaking hands with the mayor. On her right hand, either the same rock or its twin was all but throwing the same sparks.
I passed the pictures over to Evelyn. “We need to have a talk about the rock.”
“The rock?”
I pointed to her ring. “The red one. On your finger.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look at the pictures.”
She did and then she looked at me, confused. “It’s the same ring, isn’t it?”
“It is if yours is engraved ‘RR.’ ”
“It is. What’s this all about?”
“That’s my client in the picture. The ring was stolen from her shortly after the picture ran. When she saw your photo, she asked me to make discreet inquiries.”
“She thinks I stole it?”
“She wanted to know if you’d mind saying where you got it.”
“Of course not.” The green eyes were stricken. “My fiancé gave it to me.” She tossed the hair once again, even though it was already well out of her line of vision. It was a proud, defiant gesture. “You think my fiancé’s a taxi driver? Maybe a sailor who can’t find a ship to sail on? A pathetic clerk who deals with a cheap fence every now and then? He’s not. He’s Tony Bizzotto. Do you know him?”
“I know him.” Meaning I knew of him. Tony Bizzotto was one of the biggest developers in the business—not some gaudy little crook with nothing more to recommend him than good taste in women. Nothing like that. Tony was a little less ruthless than a pack of Cossacks.
“How’d a nice girl like you get tangled up with a heel like that?”
“Please don’t be fresh, Mr. Marlowe. I think I’ve helped you all I can.” She smiled sweetly. “Except for one small matter—shall I phone Tony and let him know you’re on your way?” I smelled fresh-cut flowers as I brushed past her.
I stopped somewhere for a sandwich and a martini and then I phoned Kenny Haste, a crime reporter on the Chronicle. After we had each showed the other how amusing we could be, he told me what I already knew from the phone book—Tony Bizzotto didn’t go into any office. “He works out of his home,” Kenny Haste said. “Probably out of his swimming pool.”
He gave me an address in the kind of neighborhood where you need a car to go next door to borrow a stamp. Too bad I wasn’t wearing my powder blue suit.
The driveway was slightly shorter than the Oregon Trail and I was on it when a black Packard demanded the right of way so forcefully I lightly smacked a tree trunk trying to comply. But I continued bravely on.
If Bizzotto didn’t live in the Taj Mahal, he didn’t occupy a railroad shack either. Maybe we could just say Scheherazade could have made the place up. I got out of my car, straightened my tie, walked to the door, fought off the urge to say “open sesame,” and rang the bell instead.
A young Filipino answered the door. He had a flat face, beetle brows, and a sullen expression. He also looked smart, like maybe Bizzotto was pretty careful about whom he hired and his employees pretty careful about whom they let in the house.
“Marlowe,” I said, handing him a card. “Mr. Bizzotto’s expecting me.
“Mr. Bizzotto’s not home.”
“Damn! He warned me not to be late. Was that him leaving in the Packard?”
For a second, uncertainty flickered under the beetle brows. The kid was smart, but he might as well have said, “What Packard?”
“Mr. Bizzotto’s not home,” he repeated.
“Thanks for your trouble,” I said, and headed back toward my car. A pair of smart, sullen brown eyes drilled a hole in my back and didn’t stop watching until I’d turned around and started chugging back down the Oregon Trail. At the first curve, I pulled off the road, parked, and meandered back to the sultan’s palace.
I slipped around the side, maybe taking to heart Kenny Haste’s remark about the pool, maybe just looking for an open door or for a servant who could use a bit of the folding. I wasn’t sure yet. I was sure Evelyn Merrill was in over her head, though.
Bizzotto was sitting by the pool, wearing swimming trunks. He was in his midfifties, maybe older, with hair that was gray like a frigate’s gray, and plenty of it, on both his head and chest. He had a dark, even tan, but he was going a little bit to seed around the middle. While you wouldn’t mistake his nose for a banana, it helped that it wasn’t yellow. His mouth was very wide and very nasty. His neck was a little too thick. His eyes would have been surprised if they hadn’t been glassy and empty. Someone had shot him in the chest, by the looks of things someone sitting in the chair next to his.
“I thought I told you to buzz off.” The houseman had slipped out a back door I hadn’t heard him open.
“Did you hear a shot a while ago?” I asked.
The Filipino came closer, took in the hole in the boss’s torso, and puked in a bed of begonias. I figured that made him innocent, but Hollywood’s full of actors. Finally he said, “I didn’t hear anything. He was with a woman. I stayed in a different wing of the house.”
“Why did you come out here now?”
“He had a phone call.”
“Did you see the woman he was with?”
He pulled aside the chair that had been recently occupied by a murderer and sat down gingerly. “Only from a distance. She drove up, swished out of the car, and went around back like she owned the place. He told me he was expecting a lady. I guess he phoned her and said to meet him in back.”
“You wouldn’t make a bad dick yourself.”
“Really?” The eyes that had recently changed from sullen to scared brightened up.
“Yeah. You’re smart and you’re observant. But stay out of the racket, kid. There’s no money in it.”
“Oh.” He looked down at the concrete patio. I slipped a five-spot into the pocket of his white jacket.
“There’s a little in talking to me, though. What did she look like?”
When he looked up, his face was sullen again. He looked as if he were trying to be tough, practicing for a new career as a shamus. “She was blonde and she was wearing a black hat and a blue print dress with a short jacket that was kind of mustard colored. That’s all I could see. I only got a glimpse of the back of her.”
I showed him the newspaper clipping of Evelyn Merrill wearing the rock. “Do you know anything about this?”
“Sure, that’s Miss Merrill. Swell, isn’t she?”
“What do you know about the ring?”
He shrugged. “Nothing, I guess. I never thought about it.” He looked at Bizzotto, mentally hooking two up with another two. “The boss gave it to her, huh?”
If my client could have seen Tony Bizzotto’s Turkish delight of a mansion, she’d probably have had to bi
te her lip to keep from laughing. She lived in a two-story Tudor house in Pasadena, furnished mostly in faded chintz. The garden ran to English lilac, the living room to family photos on top of the Steinway. Her name was Myra Heatley and she lived with her daughter, Nancy Daniels, who answered my knock.
Nancy showed me into the living room, left, and returned with her mother. Myra had eyes like sapphires, hair that had settled down to the gracious peachy color of cantaloupe flesh, and a little way about her that was as subtle as a California sunset. The peach hair, which had probably once been red as poppies, was parted on the left side and arranged in elegant waves. She wore a royal blue suit that did its best to look demure.
Nancy wore brown. She had brown hair, cut in a pageboy, straight and sober, while her mother’s curled merrily. She had her mother’s fine skin and blue eyes, but they were a darker blue and without the sapphire sparkle. She was thinner than her mother, not so lush, and she carried her shoulders hunched slightly forward. Something about her was wary and I wondered if it was Myra she was wary of.
Myra came close and shook hands. Her perfume was jasmine, I thought—something, at any rate, that could have wafted in the window on a spring day. “Mr. Marlowe,” she said. “A report so soon?”
“Yeah,” I said, and sat on the flowered davenport. She and Nancy sat as well, in overstuffed chairs facing me. “A report so soon. Evelyn Merrill received the ring as a gift from a man named Tony Bizzotto.”
Myra drew in her breath and lost her color all at once. Nancy went rigid. After a moment, Myra spoke to Nancy. “Darling, could you excuse us?”
Nancy nodded, got up, and walked out with the gait of an old woman, one foot in front of the other, as if she were in danger of falling. I thought she could have used a shot of brandy, but I wasn’t her mother.
Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe Page 17
