"Miss Lee," I said, "I'm Philip Marlowe."
"Of course, Mr. Marlowe. I've been expecting you. Will you have a drink?"
I said I would.
She smiled slowly and nodded toward the bar.
"Please help yourself, I really need to get another fifteen minutes of sun," she said. She had a way of dragging out every word so that she spoke very slowly, and you were obliged to hang on her words. I made a tall Scotch at the bar, adding ice from the silver bucket and watching the moisture bead up on the glass in the warm room.
I took my drink and sat in one of the canvas chairs where she could see me. I tried not to stare at her.
"I saw your photograph yesterday, hanging in the hallway of a man's home," I said. "He is a photographer and you had posed for him."
"Oh? What is his name?" she said.
"Valentine," I said. "Les Valentine."
She reached to the table beside her and took a long pull on a glass half full of what looked like water but probably wasn't.
"Valentine," she said. "What was his first name?"
"Les, that's how he signed the photograph, in gold, down in the right-hand corner."
"Les," she said. She shook her head slowly and nibbled a little more from her glass.
"I don't know any Les," she said.
"You get photographed so much," I said. "It must be hard to remember."
She shook her head and buried her muzzle in the glass again. When she came up for air she said, "No. I only let a few people photograph me. I would know if anyone took my picture."
She shifted slightly as if in keeping with the slow slide of the sun in the western sky, her nearly still body absorbing all it could get like some kind of gorgeous lizard. She emptied her glass and held it out toward me.
"Be a darling," she said, "and freshen my glass."
I took it and went to the bar.
"The cut glass decanter, at the far right," she said.
I took it, took out the stopper and poured her glass nearly full. I took a discreet sniff as I poured. Vodka. No wonder she talked slowly. I put the stopper back and brought her the drink.
"So why would a guy named Les Valentine have a photograph of you to which he'd signed his name?" I said.
"Because he wishes people to think he has photographed me, but he has not."
"Because you are famous," I said.
She was making good progress on her refilled glass.
"Of course. It makes people think he is important. But he is not. If he were important I would know him."
"And he you," I said.
She smiled at me as if we knew the secret to eternal health.
"I'll bet you have big muscles," she said.
"No bigger than Bronco Nagurski," I said.
"Do you think I'm beautiful?" she said.
I nodded. She drank a little more of her drink and put the glass down and smiled at me.
"I think you're beautiful too," she said. "But you have not seen everything." She twisted suddenly and put her hands behind her back and unhitched her bra strap, then she rolled over and arched and with the same quick grace she slid out of the bikini bottoms. Then she lay back against the chaise again and smiled at me, her pale tan body naked as a salamander.
"Dandy," I said.
She continued to smile and stretched her arms out toward me.
"Have I told you about Mrs. Marlowe?" I said.
She smiled even more brightly.
"You are married." She shrugged. "I am married." She beckoned again with her arms.
I took a cigarette out and put it in my mouth and let it hang there unlit.
"Look, Mrs. Lee…" I started.
"Mrs. Ricardo," she said. "Lee is my maiden name. So you may call me Miss Lee, or Mrs. Ricardo, you see. But you can't call me Mrs. Lee."
"Fine," I said. "You are very attractive, and I am very male, and seeing you there rolling around in the nude has the usual effect. But I usually like to spend a little more time getting to know the women I sleep with, and being as I'm married and all, I only sleep with my wife."
I took the unlit cigarette out of my mouth and rolled it between my fingers. We both looked at it.
"Which I do often," I said.
There was a fat round silver and pigskin table lighter on the end table near her chaise. I reached over and picked it up. I put the cigarette back in my mouth and lit it. When I looked up from doing that, I saw a tall man with a very strong nose standing in the doorway. I exhaled smoke slowly.
"What the hell?" the tall guy said. He had high shoulders and black hair slicked back smoothly from a widow's peak and hard dark eyes that glimmered on either side of the hatchet nose.
"Tommy," Sondra Lee said, not even looking. She took a delicate taste of her vodka. "Mr. Marlowe was admiring how beautiful I am."
"I can see that," Tommy said.
"Mr. Marlowe, this is my husband, Tommy Ricardo."
I nodded politely.
"Okay, pal," Ricardo said. "On your way, and quick."
On the chaise Sondra Lee giggled and wiggled herself a little.
"For chrissake, Sonny, cover yourself," Ricardo said, then his glance came back to me. I was still sitting, considering my cigarette.
"On your way, I told you once, pally. I'm not going to tell you again."
"Sure," I said. "You're tougher than a sackful of carpet tacks. She do this often?"
"She's a lush," he said. "She does it a lot. On your feet."
He took two steps toward me and his right hand came out of the pocket of his plaid madras sport coat. He had brass knuckles on it.
"Does this mean we're engaged?" I said.
He took another step and I was on my feet just in time to pull my chin out of the way of the knucks as they glittered past it. I stepped in under the right arm that was extended past me, slipped my left arm under his left arm and got a full nelson on him and held it.
"My name's Marlowe," I said. "I'm a private detective, and I came here to ask your wife about an entirely unrelated matter."
Ricardo was breathing hard. But he wasn't struggling. He knew I had him and he was waiting.
"Unrelated to what," he said in a half-strangled voice.
"Unrelated to her getting soused and taking off her clothes."
"You son of a bitch," he gasped.
"Taking them off wasn't my idea. She looks good, but I've got a wife who looks better, and when you showed up I was telling her that."
From the chaise, Lee was still giggling. There was real excitement in the giggle now. I looked over. She was still buck naked.
"Mrs. Ricardo, do you know anything at all about a guy named Les Valentine?" I said.
She shook her head slowly. Her eyes were wide and the pupils were very dilated. Maybe there was more than vodka in the decanter.
"Okay," I said. I bent Ricardo farther forward with the nelson. Then I put my knee against his backside, let go the nelson and shoved with my knee. He went forward stumbling three or four steps, and by the time he was able to get his balance I was out of the solarium and heading through the living room. I wasn't carrying a gun. I hadn't figured to need one at the top of Beverly Glen. He didn't come after me and I was out the door and in my Olds and heading downhill, with the sound of her giggle still ringing in my ear.
It was five o'clock and the traffic back into the Valley from L.A. streamed past me. The lights in the houses began to flick on, making sort of a Christmas tree effect in the dark hills. Sondra Lee's home probably looked just as pretty as the others now, in the early evening, with the darkness gathering. They knew something out here. You could make anything look good with the right lighting.
9
The three-hour drive back to Poodle Springs was more than I could face, so I had a steak in a joint on La Cienega and bedded down in a roach trap on Hollywood Boulevard, where the bed would vibrate for a minute if you put a quarter in the slot. There was no room service, but the clerk said he could sell me a half pint of bonded ry
e for a buck.
I sipped a little of the rye while I talked on the phone to Linda. Then I fell asleep and dreamed of a cave with a cross-beamed door that stood half open and from the darkness came a giggle endlessly repeating.
In the morning I showered and shaved, ate eggs and toast at Schwab's counter and drank three cups of coffee. I loaded my pipe, got it fired, climbed into the Olds and drove through Laurel Canyon. I picked up 101 in Ventura and headed west through the Santa Monica Mountains and then north along the coast.
San Benedict looks like tourists think California looks. It is full of white stuccoed houses and red tile roofs. The Pacific rolls in flatly along its ocean front where palm trees grow sedately in a long, orderly park.
The Chamber of Commerce was in a cluster of Spanish-type buildings that looked like somebody's idea of a hacienda, about two blocks uphill from the ocean front. The bald guy manning the office had on arm garters and suspenders and smoked a noxious cigar that was obviously not worth the nickel he'd spent on it.
"My name's Marlowe," I said. "I called yesterday asking if there was a movie company shooting here."
Baldy took the cigar out of his mouth and said, "Yep, logged that call in myself. Right here." He looked down proudly at an open ledger. "NDN Pictures shooting something called Dark Adventure. I told you."
"Yes, sir," I said. "Could you tell me where they are today?"
"Absolutely, Bub. We make 'em tell us every day, so we can steer people away from the traffic, or toward the set, depending on what they want."
"Smart," I said.
"Which do you want?" he said.
"Toward the set."
"Shooting today." He consulted a batch of papers on his desk. All the papers were clipped together with a big metal spring clip. He licked his thumb. "They're shooting today…" He thumbed several papers, licked his thumb again, came to a mimeographed sheet, studied it a moment. "Shooting at the corner of Sequoia and Esmeralda. It's a playground."
He looked up at me with a big friendly smile, shifted the cigar to the other corner of his mouth. His teeth when he smiled around the cigar were yellow.
"Down the hill, left along the water, 'bout six blocks, can't miss 'em. Damn trucks and trailers and things all over the place."
I said thank you and went out and drove back down the hill and turned left and drove along the water. He was right. I couldn't miss them.
I parked behind a truck full of electrical gear and walked into the location. Every time I went to where they were shooting film I was struck by how easy the access is. Nobody asked who I was. Nobody told me to get out of the way. Nobody offered me a screen test. I stopped a guy at the commissary truck. He wore no shirt and his sunburned belly sagged out over his chino shorts.
"Who's in charge around here?" I said.
"Hell of a question," he said. "You from the studio?"
"No, I'm just looking for a guy. Who do I talk to about staff?"
The fat man shrugged. "Producer's Joe King," he said.
"Where do I find him?" I said.
"Last I seen him he's down by the cameras talking to the UPM." The fat guy had a paper cup of coffee in each hand and gestured with his belly in the direction of the cameras.
"Where you see all the lights," he said.
I walked where he told me to, picking my way over the tangle of cables and around light stands and generators. The crew had probably arrived with the morning dew because the ground was muddied and the grass had been churned into the mud by the equipment and the men setting it up. Movies made a mess even before they were shot.
There were several men grouped behind the cameras while the Director of Photography fiddled with the lighting.
"Which one of you is Joe King?" I said.
A tall young guy turned toward me. He was loose jointed and moved easily and there seemed to be a great natural calmness in him. He wore horn-rimmed glasses, and the sleeves of his white dress shirt were rolled above the elbows.
"I'm Joe," he said.
I showed him the photostat of my California license, inside the celluloid holder in my wallet.
"Name's Marlowe," I said. "Looking for a photographer named Les Valentine."
King looked carefully at my license, then looked up at me, friendly as an alderman at a picnic.
"Can't say I know him," King said.
"I was led to believe he was here, on assignment, shooting the stills."
King shook his head. "No, we have a regular studio photographer that does that for us. Name's Gus Johnson. I don't know any Les Val… whatever."
"If he were here would you know it?"
"Certainly."
"Thank you," I said.
"Care to stay, watch a little of the shooting. The star is Elayna St. Cyr."
"I have a picture of Theda Bara in my car. I'll look at it on the ride back."
King shrugged and turned back to the camera and I headed back to my car.
There were several things I thought as I drove back down the coast. The most important one was that Les Valentine was not who his wife said he was. Or who he said he was. He didn't have an office in L.A. He hadn't photographed Sondra Lee. He wasn't shooting stills on a movie being shot in San Benedict. After two days hot on his trail I knew less than I had when I started.
10
I'd been watching Muffy Valentine's house for a week, sitting in my car with the air conditioning on and the motor idling, building up carbon deposits in my cylinders. Every morning Muffy came out wearing a light raincoat over lavender tights and headed off to her exercise class. Two minutes later the Japanese houseboy came out of the house with two toy poodles straining on the leash and yapping, turned down the drive and walked off around the bend. Each day he returned with them about five minutes after his employer returned from exercising.
After- three days of this I followed him around the bend and watched him go in the front door of another house, poodles and all. He stayed in there for 45 minutes and when he came out I got a quick glimpse of a Japanese housemaid closing the door behind him. About twenty minutes later a woman with platinum hair and pink tights pulled up in a silver Mercedes and strolled into the house. Even from a distance I could see the light glinting on her diamonds.
I thought carefully on these matters and the following Monday, while Muffy and her neighbor were at exercise class and the houseboy was playing Japanese Sandman with his countrywoman, I set out to BE Muffy's house.
I had a clipboard I'd picked up downtown in the Springs, and a yellow pad on it, and a pencil behind my ear. That normally is enough to get you into the President's bedroom, unquestioned, but to make doubly sure I carried a tape measure on my belt. A tape measure combined with a clipboard will get you in while the President and First Lady are locked in carnal embrace. I parked out front of the Valentine house, walked up the front walk like a man with money in his pocket and measured the front door while I checked what kind of lock there was. It was a Bulger. I put the tape measure back on my belt, took out a collection of master keys I'd collected over the years and, on the second try, opened the front door. I put the keys back, checked along the hinges and the lock, took one more measurement, which was mostly showing off, and went in. There was no sound. If there was an alarm it was silent. If the cops showed up I'd deal with that when it happened. I was a hot shot from L.A., what had I to fear from the law in Poodle Springs? I checked my watch. I had about fifty minutes.
The front parlor yielded nothing I hadn't seen already, the dining room was just a dining room, neither had anyplace where clues might be stored. Neither did the kitchen. I went down the long hallway that ran across the back wing of the house and found their bedroom. I knew it was theirs because there were some men's suits in the closet, but the rest was hers. A huge pink canopied bed with a thick pink down comforter, maybe twenty-five pillows in white and pink. A long dressing table stood along the wall parallel to the bed. It was made out of some kind of pale wood, unpainted, but sealed with something that made it
shine. There were bottles of perfume, containers of lipstick and rouge, mascara, eye shadow, wrinkle cream, hand cream and maybe thirty other items that I didn't recognize, though I'd seen some like them in Linda's bathroom. The drapes were pink and billowed out over the floor as if the decorator had made them five feet too long. The walls were white and there were two closets, one on either side of a very large dresser. The closet doors were pink, glazed with a whitewash which gave them a streaky antique look. There was a night table on either side of the bed with very large lamps of hammered copper on them. The shades were pink. Neither night table had a drawer in it.
The only drawers in the room were in the bureau. The top drawer contained women's lingerie in a tangle of pastel silk. In the far back corner under the tangle was an electric vibrator and a tube of KY jelly. I almost blushed, except that I was a hardened big-city gumshoe. In the second drawer were blouses, in the third were stockings and gloves. In the fourth were sweaters. In the bottom drawer were some men's shirts, socks, underwear. Nothing fancy. On the top of the bureau was a pink and white striped box about the size of a cigar box, and another, matching, nearly the size of a case of beer. The small one contained a pair of gold and turquoise cuff links, a tie clasp that matched, a gold collar pin. There was also a checkbook, a nail clipper, and a small bottle of eye drops. I pocketed the checkbook. The bigger box was full of jewelry. The two coat closets were full of women's dresses, plus about six men's suits, or suit coats and slacks, neatly hung together in coordination. There was a tie rack inside the closet door holding a dozen or so silk ties in most of the primary colors. Way in the back of the left-hand closet, behind the dresses, were several frothy and slightly comic see-through kinds of nightwear, black lace, white gossamer, like a young girl's idea of sexy.
Down the hall farther were two guest rooms, and two baths. The guest rooms and one of the bathrooms looked sterilely unused. I looked at my watch. Time was up. I went down the stairs, closed the front door behind me, made sure it had locked, strolled down the walk, got into my Olds and was driving away well within the speed limit when I passed Muffy barely peeping over the dashboard of her enormous black Chrysler coming around the curve in the opposite direction. She paid me no attention, having all she could do to pilot the Chrysler.
Poodle Springs (philip marlowe) Page 4
