"If I tell him."
"Why wouldn't you?" Linda said.
I was looking at her profile, the way the fine vein pulsed in her lowered eyelids.
"There appears to be a Mrs. Victor."
Linda rolled her head over on the pillow so she was full face to me and slowly opened both eyes.
"Is there really," she said. "That little, timid, water bug of a man?"
"In L.A. he wears a rug and no glasses. A regular stallion."
"A rug?"
"A toupee, long blond, smoothed back," I said.
"Dresses like the agent for a B-picture starlet." I reached over to my bed table and got the rolled-up picture of Sondra Lee. I handed it to Linda.
"He specializes in this type of picture," I said.
Linda looked at the photograph and turned it quickly over in her lap.
"Oh," Linda said. Then she turned the picture back over carefully and peeked at it again. Her eyebrows came together in the loveliest frown I'd ever seen. She studied the photograph again.
"Her breasts are awfully small," Linda said, "and she has a little pot belly."
"That's hardly a pot belly," I said.
"Men like pictures like this?"
"Some men," I said.
She looked at me, and silently pulled the covers back.
"I like the real thing," I said.
She nodded her head slowly, as if satisfied with the answer, and put the covers over her again.
"Muffy's husband takes pictures like this?"
"Hundreds," I said.
"How did you find them?" Linda said.
"I burgled his office," I said. "Don't tell."
She wrinkled her nose.
"Must you do this work?" she said.
I didn't answer. She put her hand on my arm.
"Yes," she said, "of course you must. It's just so…"
"Yeah," I said. "Isn't it."
We were quiet for a moment. Linda studied the picture some more.
"So why don't you tell Mr. Lipshultz?"
"I don't know. It's just that, he and the other wife… I followed him home. She was glad to see him…" I shrugged.
"Well, what about Muffy?" Linda said.
"Yeah," I said.
"Oh," Linda said.
She looked once more at the picture. Then she put it down on her night table and turned toward me and paused. She rolled back onto her back, reached over and turned the picture facedown, then turned back to me.
"I'm feeling ever so much better," she said.
15
I was beginning to feel like a pinball, bouncing back and forth between Poodle Springs and L.A. I came in through the Valley this time and drove in on Cahuenga. Hollywood Boulevard looked like it always did in the morning, like a hooker with her make-up off.
I parked on Hollywood near Wilton and walked back to Western. I had Sondra Lee's picture in my pocket. It was time to talk with Larry/Les.
The old fat geezer was still at his desk in the real estate office when I went in. The stairs still smelled of old dampness and sour lives as I went up. Victor's office door was unlocked and I went in. He wasn't there, but something was.
She was in his swivel chair, tilted back, her head back, her arms hanging stiffly down. There was a small hole in the middle of her forehead with the flesh around it puffy a little and discolored. I couldn't see the blood, but I could smell it. Dried, probably, in a black stain on the floor behind her. Her mouth was open and her stiffened lips were curved with the harsh rictus smile I'd seen too often.
I could feel my stomach clench. Under the dried blood smell I could still detect the lingering odor of cordite. I closed the office door behind me and walked closer and looked down at the dead woman's face. I'd seen it before but it took me a minute to place where. She was the blonde who had argued with Larry Victor in Reno's cafe. I touched her cheek. The skin was cold. I moved one of her arms. It was stiff. There was a puddle of dried blood on the floor behind her chair.
I knew what I would have to do eventually, but first I went to the file cabinet and opened it. The pictures were gone. I looked over the rest of the office. Nothing else seemed to be missing. I looked again at the blonde's dead face. Took in a deep breath, and dialed the cops.
The first to arrive were a couple of deputies from the West Hollywood sheriff's station on San Vicente. They came in wearing the usual wary expressions behind the usual sunglasses. One of them knelt to check the body, the other one talked to me.
"You touch anything?" he said. His voice was hard.
"The phone," I said.
"How come?" in a voice that sounded like I'd better have a good reason.
"To call you," I said.
He nodded. The other one stood up. "Been dead awhile," he said.
The first one grunted. "What's your story?" he said to me.
"I'm a private cop," I said. "I came here to see Larry Victor."
"A PI? How 'bout that, Harry. Are we lucky? We get a squeal and there's a PI at the other end."
"Lucky," Harry said.
"What did you come to see Victor about?" the first cop said.
"Case I'm working on," I said.
"You got some ID?"
"Sure," I said. I got out my wallet and showed him. The address on my license was still my old one in L.A.
"What's the case?" Harry said.
I shook my head. "No point to that," I said. "I'll have to go through it for the detectives. Why make me go through it twice?"
"You'll go through it as many times as we think you should, shoo-fly," the first cop said. "What's the case you're on?"
"Right now there's nothing here that tells me my case has anything to do with your case. If it does, then I'll have to tell you. But right now, I don't."
"Listen, Smart Guy," the first cop said. "You don't decide what's related to our case. We do."
"We?" I said. "You guys are baby-sitters. As soon as homicide shows up you'll be out in the black and white logging meter violations."
"Okay, Big Mouth," Harry said, "hands behind the back."
At which point Bernie Ohls came in smoking one of his toy cigars and looking like a man who had breakfasted well, and got plenty of exercise. He was the D.A.'s chief investigator.
"Annoying the prowl car boys again, Marlowe?" he said.
The two Sheriff's Deputies didn't exactly stand to attention, but they straightened up visibly. Harry stopped with the handcuffs half off his belt.
"Ohls," Bernie said. "D.A.'s office."
"Yes, sir, Lieutenant, we know," the first cop said.
Bernie smiled without any meaning and nodded toward the door. "We've got it now," he said, and the two deputies went out of the office. Ohls walked over and looked down at the dead woman. He was a medium-sized guy with blond hair and stiff white eyebrows. His teeth were even and white and his pale blue eyes were very calm. He spoke in a pleasant, cop-smart voice that was always a hair too casual to trust. There were two other county employees with him, both in plain clothes. They didn't pay any attention to me at all.
"Close up," Ohls said as he looked down at the body, "small-caliber gun, probably hot-loaded, made a much bigger hole going out, I'd say, than going in."
One of the county employees said, "M.E. will be here in a minute, Lieutenant."
Ohls nodded absently. "Know her?" he said to me.
"No," I said.
Ohls looked up and hard at me. "You being cute?" he said.
"Not yet," I said.
He nodded again. The M.E. appeared, a short fat guy wearing a suit and a vest, with a large cigar tucked into the right corner of his mouth. Two lab guys came in behind him and began to dust for fingerprints.
"Come on," Ohls said to me and we went out into the tight hallway.
"Tell me your story," Ohls said. He took in a little cigar smoke and let it out softly in the dim hallway.
"Missing person job out of the Springs," I said. "Trail led here. I talked to the guy in the office, he said
he couldn't help me. Said he knew my guy, but my guy was off somewhere and wasn't coming back. I went away, looked around some more, found some things that didn't make sense and came back to talk to this guy again. The door was open. I walked in and found her."
"Guy's name Larry Victor?" Ohls said.
"That's the name on the door," I said.
"You know where he is now?"
"No," I said.
"Anything else you can tell me, might help?" Ohls said.
"No."
"I suppose if I asked you the name of your client you wouldn't tell me," Ohls said.
"Guy in my line, Bernie, doesn't get ahead telling the cops who he's working for if he doesn't have to," I said.
"And who decides if he has to?" Ohls said.
I shrugged. "We work it out," I said.
"Sure we do," Ohls said. He took the toy cigar out of his mouth and looked at it quietly for a moment, then dropped it on the floor and ground it out with his foot.
"Stay in touch," Ohls said and turned and went back into the office. I looked after him for a minute and couldn't see any space in there for me. So I left.
16
I went down Western and west on Santa Monica Boulevard with my foot heavy on the gas pedal. It wouldn't take the buttons very long to find out where Larry Victor lived, and then somebody would cruise down there and pick him up. I wanted to get there first, and I wasn't sure exactly why. I made it to Venice Beach in 25 minutes and my right leg was a little shaky when I finally took it off the gas pedal and climbed out of the Olds behind Victor's beachfront house. There was no squad car in sight. I went around in front of the beach house and in through the patio and knocked on the sliding glass door. The dark-haired young woman I'd seen with Victor before came to the door and slid it a short way open.
"Yes?"
"Marlowe," I said. "I need to see Larry Victor quick."
She smiled and slid the door wider.
"Come in, Mr. Marlowe," she said. "Larry's fixing us drinks in the kitchen. Would you like one?"
"In a minute we'll all need one," I said. "Tell Larry it's urgent."
As I spoke Victor came out of the kitchen with a pitcher and two glasses. He looked at me.
"What the hell do you want?" he said.
"I can't take time to explain," I said. "You'll have to take my word. There's a dead woman in your office, Victor, and the cops are on the way."
Angel's eyes widened. Victor said, "A dead woman?"
I said, "Come on, get in my car. Angel, tell the cops you don't know where he is." Everyone stood stock still. I took Victor's arm.
"It's me or a long night downtown," I said. "Angel, dump the glass and drinks. We'll be back."
I pulled Victor with me and went out the front door.
"Larry," Angel yelled after us, "call me."
"Get rid of the two glasses," I said. Then I had Victor in my car and we were rolling out onto Lincoln Ave and onto Venice Boulevard, heading east.
"What the hell is this, Marlowe?" Victor said. I offered him a cigarette. He took it and lit it from the lighter in my dashboard. The car filled with the srnell that cigarettes only smell when you light them with a car lighter.
He took in a deep inhale and let it out in two streams through his nostrils.
"Okay," he said, "what's going on?"
I told him, all of it.
"I didn't kill her," Victor said. "I don't even know what she was doing in my office."
"But you knew her," I said.
"The hell you say."
"She was the blonde you had a fight with the other day in Reno's Bar," I said.
Victor stared at me for a moment. His mouth opened and closed like a tropical fish.
"How'd you…" he said and let it hang.
"I followed you," I said.
"Followed me?"
"Try not to say everything I say. I followed you to Reno's, and then I followed you home. Is Angel your wife?"
"Yes," he said.
"And is Muriel Valentine your wife?"
"Muriel Valentine?"
"I told you not to do that," I said.
"Who's Muriel Valentine?"
"Les Valentine's wife," I said. "I saw a picture of him in her house. If you put on your glasses and took off your rug you'd look just like him."
He was silent for a moment, while he sucked on his cigarette. A long red coal began to form on the end, the way it does when several people pass one around. He shook his head and opened the window of my car and threw the glowing snipe out onto the pavement. A few sparks shook loose as we drove away from it. I could feel his stare.
"So what's the deal?" he said. His voice was heavy.
"Do I call you Larry or Les?" I said.
He didn't answer.
"You legally married to Angel?"
He still didn't answer.
"This is certainly pleasant," I said, "talking to myself. No smart guy remarks, no lies, just the soothing sound of my own questions." I got the picture of Sondra Lee out of my inside pocket and slipped the band off and unrolled it with one hand while I drove. It was nothing compared to brain surgery.
"I assume when you took this she was just starting out," I said. I handed the picture to him. He took it, still silent. Then he said, "Jesus Christ, Marlowe."
"So tell me about things," I said.
Again he said, "Jesus Christ."
"Things fall apart," I said. "Murder does that. You have it all rolled up and folded away neat and then there's a murder and everything unravels."
"What am I going to do?" Larry said.
"You're going to tell me what's going on," I said. "Maybe I can work something out."
"The cops know about me?" he said.
"Not from me," I said. "When I left them they just had the corpse in your office."
"I discovered the body."
We were heading north now, on Sepulveda.
"You?"
"Stiff-a-minute Marlowe," I said. "I went there to talk with you about being Larry Victor and Les Valentine. I'll call you Larry around here. Door was open, she was there. In your chair. Somebody had shot her from close up with a small-caliber gun."
"And you took that picture from my files?"
"No, I took it last time I was there. This time your files were empty."
"No pictures?"
"No pictures," I said.
"Got another cigarette?" he said.
I handed him the pack. On the right was a Von's Supermarket. The lot was full of station wagons and women and market carriages. I pulled off Sepulveda and parked in among them.
Victor had a cigarette going. He handed me back the pack and I put it on the dashboard.
"What's your racket, Marlowe? You a grifter?"
I shook my head.
"Private License," I said. "I was hired to find you."
"Who? Muriel?"
"Lipshultz," I said.
His eyes widened. "Lippy?"
I nodded.
"For the markers?"
"Un huh."
"I was trying to build a stake," he said.
I didn't comment.
"You found out an awful lot awful fast."
"I'm a curious guy," I said. "You trying to build a stake to get out of the Springs?"
"Yeah. The Springs, Muriel, her old man, all of it."
"You married to Angel?"
"Yeah."
"Before or after Muriel?"
"Before."
"Cute," I said. "Let me guess, You met Muriel someplace, maybe shooting some pictures."
"Yeah."
"Sure," I said. "And she liked you and you saw the big burrito all of a sudden, after dancing all your life for dimes. Angel know you married her?"
"No, she thinks I go away on photography assignments."
"So you were going to get your hand in Muriel's trust fund," I said, "and when you had enough you were going to scoot back to L.A. and disappear, with Angel."
"Something like that," he said.
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"Except you couldn't get the dough."
He shook his head. "Not a score," he said. "Not a bundle."
"So you tried to parlay it at the Agony Club, and found out that it's hard to beat the house."
"I gamble a lot. I'm good. I think the game was rigged."
"Sure," I said. "Otherwise you'd beat the house. I know you would. They don't play against suckers like you more than fifty, hundred times a day."
"I win a lot."
"As much as you lose?"
He didn't answer. He looked away from me at the food shoppers in the lot, busy, thinking about whether to get pot roast or lamb chops for dinner. Not thinking about a corpse in their office. Finally he spoke without looking back at me.
"So how come you didn't tell the cops?"
"What's in it for me?" I said.
"Ain't you a law-abiding citizen?"
"Within reason," I said.
"So how come you didn't tell them? How come you came tearing out here from Hollywood ahead of the cops?"
"I'm a romantic," I said.
"A what?"
"I saw you and Angel together the other night. You looked happy."
He stared at me.
"You are a piece of work, Marlowe," he said.
"Reasonably priced, too," I said.
17
The sun had moved west toward the beach and slanted in lower so that the shadows in the parking lot were long and rakish. The shopping crowd had thinned as housewives went home to start dinner and get it on the table before hubby got his third Manhattan in. The first trickle of the commuter flood was beginning to slow down on Sepulveda, heading north toward West L.A. and the Valley. Victor was browsing through my cigarettes like a goat through clover. I took the pipe out of my coat pocket and packed it and got it going right and leaned back in my seat against the door.
"I didn't kill her," Victor said.
"Say you didn't, for the moment. Say you're a shifty bastard and a bigamist and a compulsive gambler and a pornographer and a gigolo, but say I don't see you for murder. Tell me how she ends up in your office sitting at your desk with a bullet hole in her forehead?"
"That's pretty rough, Marlowe."
"Sure it is, but it's nowhere as rough as it's going to be when you're down in the hall of justice in the back room where the cops sit around with their feet on the railing."
Poodle Springs (philip marlowe) Page 7
