I could still feel my hands on Angela Carter’s half-brother as I reluctantly pulled myself back from the brink of the red abyss that had almost caused me to empty my gun into his belly. Instead, I had obligingly handed him over to gimlet-eyed Lieutenant Oliver, and the case was over. Ashes in my mouth.
All of L.A. was glittering outside my window, and on this clear, star-spangled night it had never been more beautiful. Then why was it that all I could see was the image of her once-perfect body lying on the coroner’s slab?
Somewhere swells in tuxes were escorting tall blondes into neon-lit nightclubs, somewhere couples swayed to bossa nova beats, somewhere trails laughed at the jokes their men made. But not Angela Carter, and not me.
I threw the bottle in the garbage and grabbed my coat and hat. Like it or not, it was time to get out of there—if only because I was out of Scotch.
But I didn’t go home. I think I’d intended to, but I must have gone left on Cahuenga instead of right, because before I knew it, I’d taken the boulevard all the way to Bay City.
I ended up on the Pacific Coast Highway, five hundred feet above the ocean, at a joint I’d been to once or twice on this case or that. It was the kind of place that didn’t open until midnight, and who knew when it closed. It was called The Glass Slipper, which was apt in this city of disconnected souls, products of aborted ambitions and burnt-out dreams.
It smelled. It was as if the club was steeped in orchids and lavender. Maybe they wanted it to smell like a boudoir. Outside, stucco walls faced off what was left of the ocean view, and often, the calling of the seagulls still drowned out the sounds of traffic. Some things never changed.
Which was more than you could say for The Glass Slipper. The rose-colored banquettes were the same, as were the black formica tables, the translucent glass bar at which dusty figures sucked at their drinks as if they were memories. They’d had a wheezy, crepe-paper-faced bartender who knew all there was to know about baseball. But now a tall, slim Japanese woman with pouty, half-parted lips was dispensing drinks with appalling adroitness.
The place was half empty, but you would have zeroed in on her if the joint had been as crowded as Grauman’s Chinese. She was a spotlight in a roomful of candles. She had huge, glittery eyes and luxuriant blueblack hair held back from her oval face by a pair of decorative pins.
“What’ll it be?” she asked, as I slid onto a black vinyl-covered barstool. She was wearing a tight-busted number in snakeskin Lurex. Too much for most places, but not here.
“What’s your name?”
“What would you like it to be?” She gave me the smallest smile I’d ever seen. She was a little bit more than beautiful. She had that kilowatt look Lana Turner and Susan Hayward used so well, the kind of magic starlets who came to Hollywood by the truckload would kill for. So what was she doing tending bar in a cheap after-hours joint on the road to nowhere?
“Scotch,” I said, pointing to the good stuff. “And leave the bottle up.
Her lips pursed in a moue, and I was dazzled by an image of that face blown up ten times lifesize on the silver screen. She poured me a double. “Bad day at the races?”
“Bad day, period,” I said, downing the Scotch.
“’If it wasn’t for bad luck,’” she sang softly, “’I’d have no luck at all.’” She had a voice, too.
I watched her as she poured me another double, then went off to fill the order of a couple of narrow-eyed men at the other end of the bar. I wondered if she knew anything about baseball—or baseball players. The all-American sport.
The same tired Mexican orchestra that always worked this place started playing “Begin the Beguine” as if in its sleep. She swayed while she worked, giving life to an off-tempo beat that should have been put to sleep years ago.
“You ought to be in pictures,” I told her.
She laughed, pouring me another drink. She said: “I’m Japanese. No one wants me, let alone would put my image up on a screen.”
“I would.”
She put her elbows on the bar and, leaning over, pressed her palms against my eyes. They were as cool and hard as marble. “Go to sleep,” she said. “When you wake up, you’ll no longer be crazy.”
Three hours later, I was still drinking Scotch, staring into the mirror behind the bar. When I looked around, the staff was putting the chairs atop the tables, and the place had cleared out. I put a twenty on the bar, went out into the parking lot.
The sea breeze was stiff and, in the east, you could just see a sliver of shell pink creeping along the horizon like a woman’s arm carelessly thrown across the back of a sofa. The night was no longer black.
I started up the car and drove west along the rising, snaking road. Not more than a mile on, I spotted a car—a white ’58 Corvette—in the overlook fronting the sheer cliff down to the Pacific.
I would have passed it by, but inside, I saw the bartender. She was just sitting there in the front passenger’s seat, staring straight ahead.
I drew in behind her, wondering if she had a flat or engine trouble. I walked over and rapped my knuckles on the window. Her head jerked around so hard I swear I could hear the crack of vertebrae.
The fright on her face lasted so short a time I wasn’t even sure it had ever been there. Then she rolled down the window and said, “So you finally finished drinking.”
“I haven’t started yet.”
“Yeah. I can see that.” She put her head back against the seat. “You look like you just danced fifteen rounds with Patterson.”
“You’re quite a knockout yourself.”
She groaned, but she smiled, too. It seemed like the nicest thing that had happened to me in weeks.
“Will you tell me your name now?”
“Asia.”
“Mine’s Marlowe. Philip Marlowe.”
I was about to follow that up, when a black Fleetwood limousine running very fast came around the hairpin turn from up above and swung into the overlook.
Two men were out before the big car, rocking on its shocks, slid to a stop. Both were armed and had that Cro-Magnon look endemic to the underworld. The only difference was these two were Japanese.
One pointed his gun at me, while the other went quickly to Asia’s car and dragged her out. She seemed paralyzed, walking on stiffened legs.
“What is this?” I said, and the ape swung the barrel of the gun into my mouth. I spat onto the ground and took a step toward him.
“I would seriously advise against any aggressive action.”
A man had emerged from the Fleetwood limousine. He was a middle-aged Japanese dressed in a black sharkskin suit with a white shirt and a silver tie that matched the color of his close-cropped hair. He was a bantam of a man, powerful looking, with a bullet head dominated by coal-black eyes that seemed to see right through you.
He moved away from the door of the Fleetwood as the second ape shoved Asia inside and disappeared after her. “It would be discouraging for me if I was obliged to kill you now. My loss of face would be great.”
“Do I know you?”
“It doesn’t matter, Mr. Marlowe.” He beckoned me into the Fleetwood. “I know you.”
I started to walk away. “I don’t think I want to play this game.”
The bullet-headed man said something I couldn’t quite catch, and the ape who had hit me moved. I had been watching his gun hand, so when his other hand brushed against the side of my neck I didn’t think much of it.
A moment later, I didn’t think much of anything. I had fallen down a hole so deep I knew I was never going to climb out.
I awoke to the sound of waves lapping against a hull. A soft rocking cradled me. I was on a boat. I opened my eyes and groaned. I wondered whether I’d been K.O.’d in the fifth or the sixth and then remembered that it had been Asia who had said I looked like I’d gone fifteen with Patterson.
She was sitting across the stateroom, her legs crossed, smoking a cigarette.
“I could use a little of that,” I cr
oaked.
She came across and, kneeling by the side of the bunk, put the cigarette between my lips. I blew out a cloud of smoke.
“Don’t try to get up,” she said. “They’ve handcuffed you to the metal stanchion.”
“‘They’ also know who I am.”
“It doesn’t surprise me.” She took out another cigarette, lit up. “You’re a detective. You’re dangerous to them.”
I closed my eyes and wondered whether this was the way Alice had felt when she dropped down the rabbit hole. What did everyone else know that I didn’t? “Start at the beginning,” I said, “and don’t stop until you’ve come to the end.”
Asia went back and sat on the cane chair. She was showing a lot of leg, but I was in no position to take advantage of it. My head felt as if Santa and all his reindeer had landed on it. On the other hand, it was the first time in a long while I hadn’t been thinking of Angela Carter.
“The man who spoke to you is Tono Kuruma. He owns a conglomerate in Tokyo that makes steel, chemicals, and plastics. He’s enormously wealthy.” Smoke curled up around her like an adder, obscuring one side of her face. “He’s followed me here all the way from Japan.”
I asked the obvious question. “Why?”
“I made the fatal mistake of falling in love with his son.”
“Is that bad?”
She got up, walked back and forth in the small room, as if she was abruptly nervous. “It is worse than bad. It is forbidden.”
I looked at her. “I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t.” She turned to me, and I got another high-voltage dose of her. “It is a matter of face. As we Japanese know it, a point of honor. Honor is the most important element in our lives, Philip. Without it, we are nothing.
“Yoshi—he is Tono Kuruma’s only son—and I planned to marry secretly. Tono Kuruma caught us. Now he wants to kill me.”
“For wanting to marry his son?” I said skeptically. “I’d think he’d be delighted. What man wouldn’t give his left arm to have you?”
Now Asia seemed to collapse onto the cane chair. She was hunched over, and the smoke, the cascade of her hair, hid her face completely. “The Kurumas are of samurai blood. They are aristocrats. I, however, am something else. My mother is a geisha. I never knew who my father was, but it is clear I am not of noble parentage. Tono Kuruma feels only shame that Yoshi and I are in love. If we married it would be a great loss of face for him and his entire family.”
“But is this a reason to want to kill you?”
Her head came up, and I could see she had been crying. “It is, if you are carrying Yoshi’s child, the heir to the Kuruma fortune.”
For a while, I listened to the lapping of the waves against the side of the boat. I wondered how far we were from land. I tried to judge the depth of the swells by the movement of the boat. All I knew was that we weren’t moored at a dock.
“I need two things,” I told her. “A key and a gun.”
I could see the hope blossoming in her eyes. “Tono Kuruma thinks I have hired you to get me away from him.”
“I’m surprised either of you know me from Adam.”
“Tono Kuruma has many interests in Los Angeles, Philip. He has been here many times. As for me, I read the papers. You found Angela Carter’s murderer.”
“I must be the world’s most famous private eye.” I recognized the irony in my voice, and didn’t much care for it. It reeked of self-pity.
Asia crouched close to me. “I have very little money, but you are welcome to whatever I have.”
“Keep it,” I said. “When the kid is old enough, buy it a car, something in red and chromium.”
She smiled, and the room lit up like it was New Year’s Eve. “You’re very kind, Philip.” There it was again, the way she said my name. It would be easy to fall in love with how she spoke.
I watched her as she took one of the long pins from her hair. She inserted the tip of it in the handcuff lock, and did a bit of fiddling. The concentration turned her face into a little girl’s, the way kids are, totally unselfconscious, when they are sure no one’s looking. In a moment, I heard a tiny click, and the manacles fell away.
I sat up, rubbing the red skin of my wrists. I wondered how come she didn’t know how to get out of here. She knew everything else.
I went over to the stateroom door. It was locked. “Give me that pin,” I said. Then, as I heard the sound of approaching feet outside, “Wait.” The scrape of a key in the lock. “I’ve got a better idea.”
I took off one shoe, moved to a spot just behind the door. When it opened and one of Tono Kuruma’s apes walked through, I cold-cocked him behind the right ear with the steel-edged heel of my shoe.
As I took his .38 I saw he was the one who had put me out. It gave me a good feeling to see him lying there. I put on my shoe, dragged him over to the berth. I handcuffed him to the stanchion. Then we got out of there.
“What are you going to do?” Asia whispered as we took the companionway up.
I didn’t know. If I had known, I’d be smart, and at that moment I wasn’t feeling in the least bit smart. I’d had a few teeth shaken loose, been knocked unconscious, and been chained to a bed, and I wasn’t even getting paid for it. This wasn’t a case, it was a mission of mercy. Now I was sure it was past time for me to get out.
And yet, for the first time since I had seen Angela Carter on the slab, I knew that I didn’t want out. Not now, not ever. Maybe I was already half in love with Asia. I knew I was in love with the danger.
On deck, the moon was up. A whole day had passed. The smell of the ocean was everywhere. To the west, I could see the lights of Catalina Island. The City of Angels was far away, across the Pacific where the cormorants were dipping and wheeling. They were clowns, anyway. They didn’t know how serious life could get.
We were on a luxury yacht. Brass fittings gleamed in the moonlight and, ahead, I could see shadows moving past the lights inside the forward cabin. I heard a bumping, and leaning over the side, I saw a small motorboat tied up alongside.
I motioned Asia to stay in the shadows where she was, then moved forward. I didn’t speak until I had Tono Kuruma in my sights. “Come on out, Asia.”
He turned unhurriedly as she appeared from out of the darkness, and he said in a cool voice, “I see you have found your samurai.” If he was concerned by the .38 he didn’t show it.
“What has she told you?”
“Enough.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Indeed.”
I waved the gun as one of his goons came up from belowdecks. “I’m putting her on the launch. Don’t do anything stupid.”
A frown creased his face. “Mr. Marlowe—”
“Shut up,” I said. “Tell the animal to keep his hands out of his pockets.” Tono Kuruma said something in Japanese.
“All right, Asia.” I felt her close behind me. “Do you know how to start an outboard?”
“Yes.”
“Steer for the marina lights. It shouldn’t take you more than twenty minutes.”
“Thank you, Philip.” I could feel her arms around me and, for a moment, I was waist deep in orchids. “I’ll never forget you.” She kissed me, and I didn’t want to let go. So I watched Tono Kuruma and the ape as I heard the sounds of her heels diminish along the deck.
After a moment, an engine coughed to life. I could smell the rich diesel fumes, and then the pitch of the motor changed and I knew she was away.
Tono Kuruma’s face fell. He rubbed his forehead as if it had begun to hurt. “I forgive you, Mr. Marlowe,” he said, “because you have no idea what you have done. But now I must take this boat after her.”
“Make a move and you’re dead.”
Tono Kuruma sighed. “What did she tell you?”
“All of it.” I repeated what Asia had told me about her background and his, about her love for Yoshi, Tono Kuruma’s son, and about the baby she was carrying.
Tono Kuruma smiled ruefully. “She kno
ws well how to weave fact with fiction. It is true that my son loved her. It is true they planned to marry. But it was with my blessing.” His face had gotten as craggy as Mount Rushmore. “Asia comes from as noble a samurai family as exists in Japan. Her father and I were business rivals waging a war that nearly destroyed both of us. Until my son, Yoshio, came to me with this solution: that he and my rival’s daughter should marry, thus uniting our companies in an alliance that could never be broken.
“Asia had a duty to comply. It is a matter of honor—of face.”
“She ran away?”
“In a manner of speaking.” I could see he was holding himself together by a great force of will. “She killed my son. She put one of her abominable pins through his eye.”
I remembered how adroit she was at using the pin to open the handcuffs. I was starting to feel sick to my stomach, but I didn’t think it was seasickness. “Then it’s true,” I said softly. “You want to kill her.”
“I cannot.” I thought I had seen pain in a human being, but what was etched on Tono Kuruma’s face went beyond that. “She is carrying my son’s child. My heir. I am by honor enjoined from harming her.”
I needed to test him. I had to see who was telling the truth, the lady or the tiger. I put down the .38, looked east toward the pink glow of L.A. I thought I saw the pale phosphorescence of the launch’s wake.
No one drew a gun. No one moved against me. With a sigh, I holstered the gun in my shoulder harness. “She suckered me.”
“You aren’t the first,” Tono Kuruma said. “I daresay you won’t be the last.” He swung out of the cabin. “I’ll never find her now. It was only by the sheerest good fortune that I discovered her whereabouts this time.”
Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe Page 38
