I took another swig first and then put the top back on the bottle. She helped me to my feet and I felt better. I bent over Cusoltz to make sure he was still breathing, then went quickly through his pockets. In the inner pocket of his jacket I found a slim jewelry case. I opened it and took out a small strand of pearls. After my visit to Lightner’s shop I was adding to my rudimentary skill on the subject, and although these pearls had the right coloring they lacked the nacreous, incandescent quality of the real thing. They were grade-A essence d’orient, and I wondered what Cusoltz was doing with them in his pocket. I decided to keep them and ask Lightner about it.
What are those?” Jade asked as I slipped the box into my pocket.
“Imitation pearls, from the place where your brother works. It’s a connection between Cusoltz and Galaxy Jewelry.”
The big man began to stir on the gravel and I decided I’d better get out of there if I didn’t want to kill him. “I’ll see you later,” I told Jade. “Thanks again.”
“It was my pleasure, Mr. Marlowe.”
By morning I’d decided what to do. After a phone call to Sergeant Green I drove over to Galaxy Jewelry once more. The neighborhood hadn’t improved any since my previous visit. A group of teenage kids loitered down the block, setting me to worrying about my hubcaps.
As I was led down the corridor to Brian Lightner’s office I glanced into the shop area, but Jade’s brother wasn’t in sight. Lightner himself seemed to be in a good mood. He rose when I came in and offered me a cigar. I took out one of my cigarettes instead and lit it with a wooden match. “What can I do for you today, Mr. Marlowe?” he asked.
“I have a couple more questions for you. Your man Cusoltz came to see me last night. He made quite an impression on me, outside of Reggy’s Place.”
“Cusoltz? I don’t know the man.”
“He seems to specialize in parking lot encounters. Lien Kashi says the man threatened him in your parking lot outside.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Lien would have no reason to lie about it.” I slipped the jewel case out of my pocket and tossed it on the desk between us. “I found this in Cusoltz’s pocket.”
Lightner’s eyebrows went up, but he didn’t touch the case. “What is it?” he asked quietly.
“A string of pearls.” I reached over and opened the lid for him.
“They’re some of ours,” he said at once. “But what are they doing in the fancy case?”
“That’s what I wondered too. You’re the first to admit your imitation pearls couldn’t fool anyone. They’re costume jewelry, lacking the luster of the real thing. So why would Cusoltz carry them around in a fancy box?”
Lightner carefully placed his cigar in the ash tray. “You tell me, Marlowe.”
“I think they’re real pearls, stolen from Roger West’s wife on Sunday night. You gave them a bath in your solution, coating the real pearls with essence d’orient so they’d look like imitations. That way they’d be safe to cary around and sell to a fence. Once the heat was off, they’d get a chemical bath to remove the coating and they’d be good as new.”
Lightner studied my face for a moment. “What do you want, Marlowe?”
“The pearls are between you and the police. I’m after Mickey O’Brian’s killer. Answer me one question—why does Cusoltz hang out at a bar called the Golden Parrot?”
Lightner shrugged. “It’s a homosexual joint.”
“I know that. Is Cusoltz one?”
“Look, he likes to beat them up. He gets his kicks that way. Satisfied?”
“That’s what I wanted to know.”
“You gonna tell the cops about the pearls?”
“I already told them. They’re waiting outside with a search warrant.”
“You bastard!” His hand went into the desk drawer, but my fist was faster. I caught him on the tip of the jaw.
I sat in Sergeant Green’s little cubicle while Brian Lightner was being questioned by the robbery squad. “We found more of the doctored pearls in his office safe,” the detective told me. “I guess we owe you our thanks, Marlowe.”
“I never thought the L.A.P.D. would be thanking me for anything. What about Cusoltz?”
“Mrs. West just identified his mug shot. He’s the one who robbed her at gunpoint in her home Sunday night. We have an arrest order out on him.”
“Now I’ll help the homicide squad. Cusoltz killed Mickey O’Brian too. O’Brian was a homosexual and Cusoltz likes to beat up on them. Lightner told me so. Cusoltz punched O’Brian in the Galaxy parking lot, and the other night he went a little too far with that lead pipe.”
But Green shook his head. “A good theory but it won’t wash, Marlowe. Cusoltz couldn’t have killed O’Brian.”
“Why not?”
“The murder took place shortly after ten on Sunday night, certainly before eleven, when the body was found. Cusoltz was twenty-five miles away in Malibu, robbing Mrs. West, at exactly ten-thirty. There’s no way he could have been in both places at once.”
I felt like I’d been hit with Cusoltz’s sap. “You’re sure?”
“I told you she just I.D.’d his mug shot.”
I left the police building and drove around for a while. Finally I looked up Jade’s address in the phone book and drove over there. She had an apartment on Kenmore Avenue, not far from Hollywood Boulevard. I’d once found a body near there, but Jade Kashi was very much alive as she let me in.
“Thank heavens it’s you! Early this morning I saw a car parked outside and I think Cusoltz was in it.” She was wearing a red lounging gown with an embroidered dragon on the back.
“He’s finished if he shows his face,” I told her. “The cops want him for a jewel robbery.”
“That doesn’t sound like his sort of crime.”
“Lien’s boss, Brian Lightner, put him up to it.” I told her what I knew.
“Does this clear Lien, then?”
“Of the robbery but not of the murder. Cusoltz couldn’t have done that.”
“Then who did?”
I felt like a drink just then. I felt like I wanted to be somewhere a hundred miles away from there. “I think you did, Jade.”
“I—”
“O’Brian was homosexual, and you didn’t like what he was doing to your brother. Those nights when Lien was supposed to be working he was at the Golden Parrot or some other place, wasn’t he? You followed them Sunday evening and when they parted you lured Mickey into that alley and hit him with a lead pipe, just as you hit Cusoltz with that sap. You kept hitting him, and left him for dead.”
“I told you I was working at the time of the killing.”
“Yes, you made an unnecessary point of mentioning that, but the sign outside Reggy’s Place says you sing at eight and eleven. O’Brian was slugged between ten and eleven. You had plenty of time to do it and get back to the club. You could even have walked the mile’s distance.”
I hadn’t known just how she’d react. Surprisingly, she merely nodded and asked, “Ever had a kid brother?”
“No.”
“He’s my responsibility, with our parents back in Hawaii. I saw him slipping away from me, from the kind of life we’d always planned for him. He was slipping into something bad. I spoke to Mickey, warned him away, but it did no good. Mickey didn’t want to go away. He wanted Lien. Finally I did the only thing I could. Then the police started questioning Lien about the killing, and I went into a panic. I asked for your help, hoping you’d uncover another possible suspect.”
I sat there watching the afternoon shadows on the carpet. Finally I asked, “Can I take you downtown to see Sergeant Green?”
She nodded. “Let me get a coat.”
We went downstairs and crossed the sidewalk toward my car. That was when I saw Cusoltz come suddenly around the corner of the building. The gun in his hand was pointed at me. “I figured you’d turn up here, Marlowe!” he growled. “This is for last night!”
I tried to grab Jade as I pulle
d my own gun free, but she seemed to step deliberately between Cusoltz and me. His first shot caught her in the chest. I went down on my knees trying to grab her and then fired twice, knocking him backward with the force of the bullets.
When I was sure he wouldn’t be moving I crawled over to her. The blood was running across the sidewalk to the curb and I could see she was dead.
Essence d’orient, I thought.
I knelt there beside her until I heard the sirens coming.
* * *
* * *
I cannot honestly claim that Raymond Chandler has been a greater influence on my work than, say, Ellery Queen or Graham Greene or John Dickson Carr. But I have long admired his writing and have read every word he ever published, including novels, shorter works, letters, screenplays, notebooks, and even his early poems. I’ve read most of the novels and stories two or three times by now, and I return to my favorites regularly.
Virtually all of them have their memorable scenes, and especially their memorable closing lines, but I think my favorite remains The Lady in the Lake. I believe it to be the best plotted of all the books, showing Chandler’s craftsmanship at its peak. It’s a complex story that’s still easy to follow, and even now it reads as if it had been written just last year.
There’s an urgency about much of Chandler’s writing that’s lacking in most of today’s private eye novels. I don’t pretend to have captured that mood in my own story about Philip Marlowe, but I’m pleased to have been a part of this project to honor a writer who will probably never be equaled.
Edward D. Hoch
IN THE LINE OF DUTY
* * *
* * *
JEREMIAH HEALY
1955
THE HORIZONTAL PLAQUE centered at the front of his desk read, Arthur Mims, Manager. Mims stood to greet me. He was maybe five-five, gravity taking whatever shoulders he once had down to his waist, suspenders the color of his tie holding up his pants. He parted his hair in the center and apparently felt enough in charge of things at Golden State Insurance not to wear his suit jacket.
Mims held up a copy of the L.A. Times with Monday, March 28, 1955, at the top. “So, who do you like for Wednesday, Garland or Kelly?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The Oscars for last year’s films. This is Hollywood, Mr. Marlowe. Movieland. The Academy’s giving them out on Wednesday. Who do you think’s going to win Best Actress?”
I didn’t like people who called Hollywood “Movieland.” I did, however, like to work to earn money to buy food and shelter. “Who do you like, Mr. Mims?”
“I say Garland’s got it wrapped up for A Star Is Born. Kelly was good in The Country Girl, but with Judy having the baby on the way and all, you’ve got to lean toward her.”
I hadn’t seen either film. “The only thing I remember Grace Kelly being in was High Noon.”
“Boy, there was a picture, huh? But that really wasn’t hers. It was Gary Cooper, standing alone against four bad guys. What more can you want?”
I wanted Mims to get to the point. Finally he folded the paper over, substituting for it a file he pulled from a side drawer.
“You know about the armored car job last week, on Vine?”
It had been tough to miss. “Just a few blocks from my office.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Well, we carried the insurance for the company, Stanley Security.”
“I didn’t think the robbers got away with anything.”
“They didn’t. One of the guards gunned both of them, the bad guys, I mean. Brothers, they were, the robbers were brothers named Hauer. Jailbirds, out of stir maybe a month. Abel was the older, Randy the younger.”
“The guard died, too, right?”
“Right. Ex-cop named Behagen, Dan Behagen. That’s why you’re here. We carried life policies on the guards. Old man Stanley was always a nut on insuring his people. ‘It’s a dangerous job for damn low pay. Insurance doesn’t cost much and they deserve it.’ So, they go down in the line of duty, the family gets twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“And?”
“And if the guard was in on the heist instead, we’re off the hook on the policy.” Mims had good eyes, the kind that can see a scam through a foot-thick wall. “We think there might be something fishy about this one.”
“Anything specific?”
“This guard, Behagen, he worked at a shipyard since he was fourteen, then joined the Marines, even though the defense job would have kept him out altogether. Served in the South Pacific, killed about a hundred Japs, then went onto the force. He gets married, has a kid, model cop for like ten years. Then he quits, joins Stanley. Two months later he’s involved in a robbery.”
“And you think the timing stinks.”
“Yes and no. You see, this car gets hit kind of early in the morning on a Tuesday, when the other two guards are chowing down in some coffee shop half a block away and there’s only fifteen, sixteen thou in the bags. The brothers wait till two o’clock, they’re looking at a hundred grand, easy.”
“And three guards instead of one.”
“Yeah, but if Behagen goes in for a penny, why not a pound? On the other hand, we always put an ad in when we get notice of a claim. You know, ‘Anyone having any information about an accident at the corner of Fifth and Main, etc., please contact us at the following post office box.’ Doesn’t usually lead to anything, but this time a soda jerk was working early on the Sunday morning before the attempt, and he says he thought he saw this Behagen walking around where the truck got hit.”
“Walking?”
Mims slid a photostat of a handwritten letter over to me. “We want you to look into it.”
I skimmed the letter, noticed it had name and address on it. Creasing the photostat so the text didn’t get too cracked, I tamped it into my jacket pocket.
“That’s it?”
“No. This Hauer, the older one, Abel. He had a girlfriend. Cops said she didn’t know anything, but here’s her name and address, too.”
I tucked the paper next to the photostat.
“The other two guards you can see at Stanley’s headquarters.”
I waited.
Mims said, “We pay market rates here, Marlowe.” He said it like he thought that was what I was waiting to hear.
“Why me?” I said.
“Why you?”
“Yeah. I’m not one of your own, not even one of your referral freelancers. Why me?”
“Somebody said you were good.”
“Lots of people are good.”
“Good with cops, I mean.”
“No, Mr. Mims. What you mean is you don’t want any of your regulars poking into a cop, even an ex-cop. Might tick off the other cops your regulars need favors from.”
“I don’t think my motives are the question here.”
“You don’t?”
“No. I think the question here is whether you need our money bad enough to risk getting the cops ticked at you.”
Mims reached back into the drawer for his newspaper. I decided he was good enough not to worry about wearing his suit jacket.
Stanley Security operated from a postwar building on Broadway near Sixth, just past spitting distance from the district attorney’s offices on West Temple. The other two guards assigned to the truck that morning were Wylie and Green. Wylie’s nose had the exploded vein look you get from drinking Four Roses for breakfast. Green was more the boy next door that your daughter won’t date because he plays the accordion and the other girls would laugh.
I decided to start with Green. Some junior executive whose name I didn’t catch shunted us into a small office that was enough like an interrogation room to be to my liking.
“My name’s Philip Marlowe. Your company’s insurer hired me to look into the robbery the other day.”
“Attempted robbery.”
“Attempted robbery. Why don’t you tell me what happened.”
“Sure. Dan, Wylie, and me were assigned to car seven. It’s kind of a m
ilk run till the early afternoon, so we generally take turns eating breakfast. One man stays on the truck. We parked the truck by this coffee shop on Vine shy of Franklin, down by the bus station, and Wylie and me go in to eat. We’re just about finished when I hear the shots.”
“How many?”
“Two or three at first. That’s when we jumped up. From the door of the restaurant I could see at least one back door of the truck was open, and a guy’s flat on his back on the pavement.”
“Behagen?”
“No, no. This guy wasn’t in uniform.” Green flicked a hand at his gray blouse and trousers. “He was just stretched out. I barely saw him when this car screeches up, fifty-three or fifty-four Ford, hard to tell because I couldn’t see the taillights, and this other guy jumps out, firing into the truck, like through the open door, get me?”
“I can picture it.”
“I draw my gun as I’m coming out of the restaurant, but it was too late. Dan returned fire at the second guy from inside the truck, and the guy gets lifted up off his feet and back against his car. He started sliding down it like he was a kid, playing at getting shot. I never saw anybody actually take a bullet before, but it wasn’t like the movies, you know? I mean, this guy really bled. Buckets of blood.”
“Then what?”
“Then I go to the truck. Dan’s all folded over, holding his stomach like he was cradling eggs or something. He looked . . . ”
“Go on.”
Green pursed his lips. “He looked like he knew, like he knew the guy had killed him, but he just wasn’t dead yet.”
“Behagen say anything to you?”
“No.”
“Didn’t say, ‘Get an ambulance,’ or anything?”
“No. I’m not sure he could. Talk, I mean.”
“You said he was shot in the stomach.”
“Right.”
“Not the throat or face.”
“No. Dan just looked, I don’t know, like a man who knew it wouldn’t do any good.”
Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe Page 32
