I got up and got the other glass from the sink and brought it over and poured both of us a substantial drink. He grabbed his and guzzled nearly a third of it before he put the glass down on the edge of my desk. He didn't let go of it, just sat with the glass in his hand resting on the desktop. I got my pipe out and began to fill it. He drank another third of his drink, and when he put it down I picked up the bottle and refilled the glass. He looked like he was going to cry in gratitude. I got my pipe packed and fired, and took a small sip of the second drink.
"Nice set-up you got here," he said.
"For rats, maybe," I said. "Is there anything you came to see me about?"
"You're too hard on yourself. It's a nice office," he said. "Not showy, maybe, but that's all front anyway. You've seen my place. Serves fine. Desk, file cabinet, what the hell else do you need?"
He drank some more of the bourbon and leaned back as the booze relaxed him.
"Man, I'll tell you what, that came from the right barrel."
I waited. I knew he'd vamp around for a while, but I also knew he was desperate. He'd wanted me bad enough to call Linda. He leaned over and picked up my pack of cigarettes.
"Mind?" he said.
I shook my head. He lit up, dragged in some smoke, took a swig of bourbon, swallowed, let the smoke trail out.
"Cops still looking for me, I suppose," he said.
"Yes," I said. "Me too."
"I didn't kill that bimbo," he said. "Hell, you believe me, you helped me get away."
"That was mostly Angel," I said.
"Angel?"
"I told you, you looked happy together. I'm a sucker for happy together."
"Yeah, I guess maybe things ain't working out so well for you either," he said. "You moving back to town and all."
I puffed on my pipe.
"You don't think I killed her, do you?"
"I don't know anymore," I said. "How about Lippy?"
"Lippy?"
"Yeah, you kill him?"
"Lippy? Lippy's dead?"
"You didn't know?" I said.
"How would I know?" he said. "I haven't been to the Springs in a week or so."
"How'd you know he was killed in the last week?" I said.
"Jesus, I don't. I just heard about it and I figure it woulda been news in Poodle Springs."
"Un huh," I said.
"I didn't kill anybody, Marlowe. You're the only guy I can talk to, the only one I can level with."
"Like you did when I dropped you off at Muriel's. That you'd stay there where I could find you."
"Yeah, sure, I know. I know I ran out on you. But I had to. I had to get away from there. You don't know what she's like. Her money, her father, what she needs, what she wants, what I have to do… I was suffocating there, Marlowe."
I reached in my drawer and brought out one of the 8x10 glossy prints of Muriel Valentine. I held it up so he could see it.
"Tell me about this," I said.
"Jesus," he said. "Where did you get that?"
"It's the picture Lola Faithful showed you in the bar before she was killed, isn't it?" I said.
"Where'd you get it? Come on, Marlowe, where did you?"
"The tooth fairy," I said, "left it instead of a quarter."
He drank some more bourbon, stubbed out the cigarette in the round glass ashtray on my desk and took another one from the pack without asking.
"That's how I met her," he said.
"She was posing for dirty pictures?" I said.
"She liked it," he said. "People in the business knew about her. Ask anybody. Kinky rich girl, come in and get photographed in the nude. The thing is, the funny thing, is that she had to know the pictures would be used. She wanted them sold, you know, distributed. She wanted to know some guy on the street would pick her picture up from someplace and see it."
"So you proposed at once," I said.
"No, Jesus, Marlowe, you're a sarcastic bastard."
"I try," I said. "Did you take her right home to Angel and introduce her?"
"Damn it, it was my chance. I'd been nickel and diming it for years. Man, I'm a damn artist, and all I got to do to make a living was take dirty pictures. Here was this broad had more dough than Howard Hughes, right there, in my lap, all the dough I wanted; for me, sure, but for Angel. Kid deserves everything."
"And look what she got," I said.
"Marlowe," he said. "I don't know what to do. If the cops find me it's all going to come out."
"If you took her picture," I said, "how come she doesn't know you're Larry Victor?"
"I was using Valentine, then. You know, like a stage name. Had a studio on Highland, near Melrose. I was trying to do serious photography under my own name. And like when I got the chance to marry her, well, then I opened up a new office, under my real name."
"To keep Angel in the dark," I said.
"Yeah. I didn't want any connection with Les Valentine for Angel. She never knew I was using the name anyway."
"Your mother know who you are?" I said.
"Marlowe, I didn't kill anybody, but if the cops get me the whole thing's going to come out. Angel will know, Muriel will know."
"And her old man will know and he will send a very tough guy named Eddie Garcia around to ask you about how come you have made a big mess out of your marriage to his daughter."
I took one of the hundred-dollar bills that his father-in-law by bigamy had given me and handed it across the desk to Victor.
'There's a flophouse on Wilcox," I said. "Just south of the boulevard. The Starwalk Motel. Check in there, get cleaned up, have something to eat, and stay there. I'll do what I can. If you're not there when I want you, I tell everybody everything and you're on your own."
Victor took the bill and stared at it.
"What's your real name," I said. "Victor or Valentine?"
"Victor… well, originally it was Schlenker, but I had it changed."
"To Victor," I said. "Larry Victor."
He nodded.
"Okay, Larry. Go down there and wait for me."
"How long?" he said. "I mean, I need action. I can't hang out forever in some flop."
"Blackstone finds out and you'll be hanging out in the big flop in the sky," I said. "I'll do what I can."
Victor nodded too often and too rapidly. He got up and put my cigarettes in his shirt pocket and folded the hundred over once in his pants pocket.
"Leave the bottle," I said.
He smiled automatically and rubbed his chin with his open hand.
"I'll hear from you?" he said.
I nodded. He turned toward the door.
"I told Angel about Muriel," I said.
He stopped with his back to me.
"What'd she say?" he said without turning around. "She didn't believe me," I said. Still with his back to me, he said, "You tell Muriel?"
"No."
He nodded and without looking back went to the door, opened it and left.
36
I called Eddie Garcia at the number Blackstone had given me, and he agreed to meet me at the Bay City Pier. He was there when I got there, at the far end leaning on the rail watching the sea birds swoop over the waves looking for fish, and circle over the pier looking for garbage. The clouds had moved out of the basin now and the ocean was grey and sleek looking, the swells moving sluggishly under the overcast. A wind had moved in with the thunderheads and was whipping the tips of the swells and tearing a little spray loose from them. Garcia was wearing a light trench coat against the wind, the collar turned up.
As I approached Garcia he rolled around with his back against the railing and his elbows resting on it and looked at me.
"Nice day you brought me out on, Sailor," he said.
"You picked the pier," I said.
"Good place to talk alone," he said.
I nodded. "Lot of open space so you can't be ambushed," I said.
In the daylight, up close, I could see the crows' feet around Garcia's eyes, the depth of the li
nes around his mouth. He didn't look tired, just older than I'd realized.
"So what'll it be, Sailor?"
"Tell me about Muriel Blackstone," I said.
Something seemed to move behind Garcia's eyes. His face remained blank.
"Why?" he said.
"I'm in a bind, Eddie," I said. "I can probably find Victor okay, and when I do I can see to it that he goes home to Muriel, but I don't know for sure that it's the best idea for anybody."
"Why not?" Garcia said.
"He's not a hell of a guy," I said.
Garcia barked his short laugh.
"We all know that," he said.
"There's other people involved," I said.
"I work for Blackstone," Garcia said. "So do you."
"Doesn't mean he owns me," I said. It didn't mean anything. I was just making noise, buying time, trying to figure out what I even wanted out of this.
"Doesn't mean he owns me either," Garcia said. "So what?"
"Does Blackstone know she's hinky?" I said.
Eddie straightened a little from his lounge on the railing. His eyes narrowed.
"Hinky," he said.
I had on a trench coat too; every well-dressed toughie had one. I reached inside it and brought out one of my pictures of Muriel. I felt like a man selling French postcards. Garcia took the picture and looked at it without expression. As he handed it back to me a raindrop splattered on it-one raindrop, a fat one, the size of a nickel. Around me on the pier I could hear other drops like that, spattering sporadically. I wiped the picture against my chest and slipped it back inside my coat.
Garcia looked at me with a faint smile. "Mr. Black-stone was here now you'd be dead," he said.
"He'd kill me?"
"He'd have me kill you," Eddie said.
"Yeah," I said. "I can feel my lips quivering."
"Where'd you get that photo?"
"Doesn't matter," I said. The rain was starting to come harder, the nickel-sized drops coming more and more closely together. "Does Blackstone know about her?"
Garcia was silent, thinking. I stood and waited while he thought.
Finally he said, "Yeah. He knows. Kid's been wrong since she was little. Booze, creeps, dope. When she was younger I spent a lot of my time straightening out her life."
"Like what?" I said.
"Like she's shacking up with some Hollywood heartthrob up at Zuma Beach and I go up and have a talk with him and he leaves her alone. Lake there was a magazine, nothing you ever heard of, the kind that puts out two issues and folds and opens up under another name. Anyway, they had a photo spread on her." Garcia grinned savagely. "Blueblood Nymphet it was going to be called. I went around and talked with the publisher. Like that."
"She met Victor when he took this photo," I said.
Garcia nodded. "Yeah. Blackstone took her to doctors, hell, we went over to Switzerland with her. Exhibitionism, they said. And a lot of other crap that don't mean anything to me. Didn't cure her, though, just talked a lot."
"You been with Blackstone a long time?" I said.
"Thirty-one years," Garcia said.
"That's more than just working for a man," I said.
"So where'd you get the picture, Sailor?" Garcia said. The rain was steady now, stippling the slick surface of the Waves.
"Lola Faithful had it and stashed it in Union Station. I found the receipt in her house."
"How come the cops didn't find it?" Garcia said.
"They weren't looking for it," I said. "I saw the argument in the bar. I knew there was a picture."
"Where'd she get it?"
"I don't know," I said. "She was dead when I met her."
"And she tried to blackmail Larry with it," Garcia said.
I nodded. The rain had soaked Garcia's dark hair and water ran down his face. Garcia didn't seem to notice.
"And he capped her," he said.
I shrugged. "Maybe," I said. "Or maybe she went to others."
"Muffy?" Garcia said.
"Or maybe she went all the way, to the source," I said.
"Mr. Blackstone," Garcia said.
"Which probably means you. You use a small-caliber gun, hot-loaded?"
The top two buttons of Garcia's raincoat were unbuttoned. He made a movement and a gun appeared. He turned and fired, and a seagull spun out of mid-swoop and plummeted into the ocean. Garcia turned back and the gun was laying in his open palm. It was a squat .44 Magnum, nickel-plated with a two-inch barrel. It would have made a hole the size of a baseball in Lola Faithful's head. Garcia moved again and the gun was back inside his coat.
"Not bad," I said, "with that short a barrel."
"Keep it in mind," Garcia said. "I was you, I'd find myself Les Valentine, bring him back to Muffy, take Mr. Blackstone's dough and move on."
The heavy warm rain was hammering down on us like a bad headache. I could feel the wetness where it had seeped in around my collar. The wind had come with it now, hard, and pushed at both of us.
"Mr. Blackstone finally got her married, you understand? The guy's a creep, okay. You know it, I know it, Mr. Blackstone, he knows it. But Muffy don't know it, or if she does, she don't care. And Mr. Blackstone don't care either. He's got her under cover, out in the Springs, off the streets, safe. Comprendez, Sailor? You screw that up and Mr. Blackstone going to be sending me looking for you."
"If he does, Chico, you know where I am," I said.
And we stared at each other for a time in the rain, with the wind shoving at us and no one else in sight, out at the far end of the city pier above the fat grey ocean, a very long way from Poodle Springs.
37
It was suppertime when I got back from terrifying Eddie Garcia. I took a long shower and put on dry clothes and made myself a stiff Scotch and soda and sat down and called Linda. Tino answered.
"Mr. Marlowe," he said. "I am sorry you are away. I hope you will be back soon."
I murmured something encouraging, and waited while he got Linda. When she came on her voice was as clear as moonlight.
"Darling," she said. "Are you sheltered and warm?"
"I wanted you to have this phone number," I said, and gave it to her. "It's a furnished apartment on Ivar. No houseboy, no pool, no piano bar. I don't know if I can survive."
"It is frightful, isn't it, how people choose to live,"
Linda said. "I hope at least you can get a civilized gimlet there."
"Sure," I said. "Anything you want, you can get in Hollywood, you know that."
"Are you lonely, darling?"
"Lonely, me? As soon as word got out that I was back in town there was a stampede of Paramount contract starlets up Western Ave."
We were both quiet for a moment on the telephone. The wires between us hummed faintly with tension.
"Darling, now don't be angry, but Daddy is opening a plant, something to do with ball bearings, in Long Beach and he suggested you might wish to consider a position there as, ah, director.of security."
"No," I said.
"We could live in La Jolla, we own some property there, and you could drive to work in the morning and be home every evening by six-thirty."
"Can't be that way, Linda."
"I know," she said. "I knew it when I said it, but darling, I miss you so much. I miss you all the time and especially at night. I hate to sleep alone, darling."
"I miss you too," I said, "except when the starlets are here."
"You bastard," she said. "Why are you a bastard, why must you be so hard, why can't you bend a little?"
"It's all I have," I said. "I don't have money. I don't have prospects. All I have is who I am. All I have is a few private rules I've laid down for myself."
"I hear that, but damn it, I don't know what it means.
All I know is that I love you, and I want you with me. Why is that so bad?"
"It isn't, it's good. But you want me to be different than I am. And if I change, I disappear. Because there isn't anything but what I am."
There
was a long silence on the line and then Linda said softly, "Damn you, Marlowe, Goddamn you." She hung up softly and I held the receiver at my end for a moment and then put it gently back in the cradle.
I took a long pull at the Scotch and looked around the rented room at the rented furniture. It was as charming as Sears and Roebuck. I got up and walked to the window and looked out. It was dark. There was nothing to see but my own reflection in the black glass, streaked with rain: a 42-year-old man, drinking alone in a rented apartment in Hollywood while above the clouds the universe rolled slowly eastward over the dark plains of the republic.
I turned away from the window and headed for the kitchen to refill my glass.
38
It was still raining the next morning, the kind of steady rain under solid clouds that makes you think it will never stop. I shook the water off my trench coat and hung it in the corner of my office. I had coffee in a paper cup that I had bought downstairs and, after my coat was put away, I sat down at my desk to sip it. I was wearing my .38 in a shoulder holster. Eddie Garcia had been talking pretty tough and, besides, if it kept raining I might have to shoot my way on board an ark.
The coffee was too hot for more than a shallow sip, and after one I put it on the corner of my desk where I could reach it when it cooled. My outer door opened and closed. There was a brief clack of heels and then Muffy Blackstone came in out of the rain. She was wearing a scarlet raincoat and matching rain hat. Over her shoulder was a large black purse and her feet were protected by shiny black high-heeled boots. Her hands were plunged into the pockets of the coat. She took one of them out to close my inner door behind her, then she marched around in front of my desk and stared down at me.
"Good weather for ducks," I said pleasantly.
She kept staring. I nodded at the coffee on the corner of my desk. A small tassel of stream drifted up from it.
"Care for a sip?" I said. "I don't have another cup, but I brushed my teeth good this morning."
She took her hands out of her pockets and opened her big shoulder purse and took out the manila envelope I'd mailed her.
She tossed it on my desk without a word. I reached out, took it, took the picture out. I looked at the picture and then carefully at her, turning my head sideways at one point to compare her face with that in the picture.
Poodle Springs (philip marlowe) Page 15
