A Colt Army .45 looked like a toy pistol in his hand.
“Don’t nobody try to fancy pants,” he said cozily. “Freeze the mitts on the bar.”
The barman and I put our hands on the bar.
Moose Malloy looked the room over with a raking glance. His grin was taut, nailed on. He shifted his feet and moved silently across the room. He looked like a man who could take a bank single-handed—even in those clothes.
He came to the bar. “Rise up, nigger,” he said softly. The barman put his hands high in the air. The big man stepped to my back and prowled me over carefully with his left hand. His breath was hot on my neck. It went away.
“Mister Montgomery didn’t know where Velma was neither,” he said. “He tried to tell me—with this.” His hard hand patted the gun. I turned slowly and looked at him. “Yeah,” he said. “You’ll know me. You ain’t forgetting me, pal. Just tell them johns not to get careless is all.” He waggled the gun. “Well so long, punks. I gotta catch a street car.”
He started towards the head of the stairs.
“You didn’t pay for the drinks,” I said.
He stopped and looked at me carefully.
“Maybe you got something there,” he said, “but I wouldn’t squeeze it too hard.”
He moved on, slipped through the double doors, and his steps sounded remotely going down the stairs.
The barman stooped. I jumped around behind the counter and jostled him out of the way. A sawed-off shotgun lay under a towel on a shelf under the bar. Beside it was a cigar box. In the cigar box was a .38 automatic. I took both of them. The barman pressed back against the tier of glasses behind the bar.
I went back around the end of the bar and across the room to the gaping door behind the crap table. There was a hallway behind it, L-shaped, almost lightless. The bouncer lay sprawled on its floor unconscious, with a knife in his hand. I leaned down and pulled the knife loose and threw it down a back stairway. The bouncer breathed stertorously and his hand was limp.
I stepped over him and opened a door marked “Office” in flaked black paint.
There was a small scarred desk close to a partly boarded-up window. The torso of a man was bolt upright in the chair. The chair had a high back which just reached to the nape of the man’s neck. His head was folded back over the high back of the chair so that his nose pointed at the boarded-up window. Just folded, like a handkerchief or a hinge.
A drawer of the desk was open at the man’s right. Inside it was a newspaper with a smear of oil in the middle. The gun would have come from there. It had probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but the position of Mr. Montgomery’s head proved that the idea had been wrong.
There was a telephone on the desk. I laid the sawed-off shotgun down and went over to lock the door before I called the police. I felt safer that way and Mr. Montgomery didn’t seem to mind.
When the prowl car boys stamped up the stairs, the bouncer and the barman had disappeared and I had the place to myself.
THREE
A man named Nulty got the case, a lean-jawed sourpuss with long yellow hands which he kept folded over his kneecaps most of the time he talked to me. He was a detective-lieutenant attached to the 77th Street Division and we talked in a bare room with two small desks against opposite walls and room to move between them, if two people didn’t try it at once. Dirty brown linoleum covered the floor and the smell of old cigar butts hung in the air. Nulty’s shirt was frayed and his coat sleeves had been turned in at the cuffs. He looked poor enough to be honest, but he didn’t look like a man who could deal with Moose Malloy.
He lit half of a cigar and threw the match on the floor, where a lot of company was waiting for it. His voice said bitterly:
“Shines. Another shine killing. That’s what I rate after eighteen years in this man’s police department. No pix, no space, not even four lines in the want-ad section.”
I didn’t say anything. He picked my card up and read it again and threw it down.
“Philip Marlowe, Private Investigator. One of those guys, huh? Jesus, you look tough enough. What was you doing all that time?”
“All what time?”
“All the time this Malloy was twisting the neck of this smoke.”
“Oh, that happened in another room,” I said. “Malloy hadn’t promised me he was going to break anybody’s neck .”
“Ride me,” Nulty said bitterly. “Okey, go ahead and ride me. Everybody else does. What’s another one matter? Poor old Nulty. Let’s go on up and throw a couple of nifties at him. Always good for a laugh, Nulty is.”
“I’m not trying to ride anybody,” I said. “That’s the way it happened—in another room.”
“Oh, sure,” Nulty said through a fan of rank cigar smoke. “I was down there and saw, didn’t I? Don’t you pack no rod?”
“Not on that kind of a job.”
“What kind of a job?”
“I was looking for a barber who had run away from his wife. She thought he could be persuaded to come home.”
“You mean a dinge?”
“No, a Greek.”
“Okey,” Nulty said and spit into his wastebasket. “Okey. You met the big guy how?”
“I told you already. I just happened to be there. He threw a Negro out of the doors of Florian’s and I unwisely poked my head in to see what was happening. So he took me upstairs.”
“You mean he stuck you up?”
“No, he didn’t have the gun then. At least, he didn’t show one. He took the gun away from Montgomery, probably. He just picked me up. I’m kind of cute sometimes.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Nulty said. “You seem to pick up awful easy.”
“All right,” I said. “Why argue? I’ve seen the guy and you haven’t. He could wear you or me for a watch charm. I didn’t know he had killed anybody until after he left. I heard a shot, but I got the idea somebody had got scared and shot at Malloy and then Malloy took the gun away from whoever did it.”
“And why would you get an idea like that?” Nulty asked almost suavely. “He used a gun to take that bank, didn’t he?”
“Consider the kind of clothes he was wearing. He didn’t go there to kill anybody; not dressed like that. He went there to look for this girl named Velma that had been his girl before he was pinched for the bank job. She worked there at Florian’s or whatever place was there when it was still a white joint. He was pinched there. You’ll get him all right.”
“Sure,” Nulty said. “With that size and them clothes. Easy.”
“He might have another suit,” I said. “And a car and a hideout and money and friends. But you’ll get him.”
Nulty spit in the wastebasket again. “I’ll get him,” he said, “about the time I get my third set of teeth. How many guys is put on it? One. Listen, you know why? No space. One time there was five smokes carved Harlem sunsets on each other down on East Eighty-four. One of them was cold already. There was blood on the furniture, blood on the walls, blood even on the ceiling. I go down and outside the house a guy that works on the Chronicle, a newshawk, is coming off the porch and getting into his car. He makes a face at us and says, ‘Aw, hell, shines,’ and gets in his heap and goes away. Don’t even go in the house.”
“Maybe he’s a parole breaker,” I said. “You’d get some co-operation on that. But pick him up nice or he’ll knock off a brace of prowlies for you. Then you’ll get space.”
“And I wouldn’t have the case no more neither,” Nulty sneered.
The phone rang on his desk. He listened to it and smiled sorrowfully. He hung up and scribbled on a pad and there was a faint gleam in his eyes, a light far back in a dusty corridor.
“Hell, they got him. That was Records. Got his prints, mug and everything. Jesus, that’s a little something anyway.” He read from his pad. “Jesus, this is a man. Six five and one-half, two hundred sixty-four pounds, without his necktie. Jesus, that’s a boy. Well, the hell with him. They got him on the air now. Probably at the end o
f the hot car list. Ain’t nothing to do but just wait.” He threw his cigar into a spittoon.
“Try looking for the girl,” I said. “Velma. Malloy will be looking for her. That’s what started it all. Try Velma.”
“You try her,” Nulty said. “I ain’t been in a joy house in twenty years.”
I stood up. “Okey,” I said, and started for the door.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Nulty said. “I was only kidding. You ain’t awful busy, are you?”
I rolled a cigarette around in my fingers and looked at him and waited by the door.
“I mean you got time to sort of take a gander around for this dame. That’s a good idea you had there. You might pick something up. You can work under glass.”
“What’s in it for me?”
He spread his yellow hands sadly. His smile was as cunning as a broken mousetrap. “You been in jams with us boys before. Don’t tell me no. I heard different. Next time it ain’t doing you any harm to have a pal.”
“What good is it going to do me?”
“Listen,” Nulty urged. “I’m just a quiet guy. But any guy in the department can do you a lot of good.”
“Is this for love—or are you paying anything in money?”
“No money,” Nulty said, and wrinkled his sad yellow nose. “But I’m needing a little credit bad. Since the last shake-up, things is really tough. I wouldn’t forget it, pal. Not ever.”
I looked at my watch. “Okey, if I think of anything, it’s yours. And when you get the mug, I’ll identify it for you. After lunch.” We shook hands and I went down the mud-colored hall and stairway to the front of the building and my car.
It was two hours since Moose Malloy had left Florian’s with the Army Colt in his hand. I ate lunch at a drugstore, bought a pint of bourbon, and drove eastward to Central Avenue and north on Central again. The hunch I had was as vague as the heat waves that danced above the sidewalk.
Nothing made it my business except curiosity. But strictly speaking, I hadn’t had any business in a month. Even a no-charge job was a change.
FOUR
Florian’s was closed up, of course. An obvious plainclothesman sat in front of it in a car, reading a paper with one eye. I didn’t know why they bothered. Nobody there knew anything about Moose Malloy. The bouncer and the barman had not been found. Nobody on the block knew anything about them, for talking purposes.
I drove past slowly and parked around the corner and sat looking at a Negro hotel which was diagonally across the block from Florian’s and beyond the nearest intersection. It was called the Hotel Sans Souci. I got out and walked back across the intersection and went into it. Two rows of hard empty chairs stared at each other across a strip of tan fiber carpet. A desk was back in the dimness and behind the desk a baldheaded man had his eyes shut and his soft brown hands clasped peacefully on the desk in front of him. He dozed, or appeared to. He wore an Ascot tie that looked as if it had been tied about the year 1880. The green stone in his stickpin was not quite as large as an apple. His large loose chin was folded down gently on the tie, and his folded hands were peaceful and clean, with manicured nails, and gray halfmoons in the purple of the nails.
A metal embossed sign at his elbow said: “This Hotel is Under the Protection of The International Consolidated Agencies, Ltd. Inc.”
When the peaceful brown man opened one eye at me thoughtfully I pointed at the sign.
“H. P. D. man checking up. Any trouble here?”
H.P.D. means Hotel Protective Department, which is the department of a large agency that looks after check bouncers and people who move out by the back stairs leaving unpaid bills and second-hand suitcases full of bricks.
“Trouble, brother,” the clerk said in a high sonorous voice, “is something we is fresh out of.” He lowered his voice four or five notches and added: “What was the name again?”
“Marlowe. Philip Marlowe—”
“A nice name, brother. Clean and cheerful. You’re looking right well today.” He lowered his voice again. “But you ain’t no H.P.D. man. Ain’t seen one in years.” He unfolded his hands and pointed languidly at the sign. “I acquired that second-hand, brother, just for the effect.”
“Okey,” I said. I leaned on the counter and started to spin a half dollar on the bare, scarred wood of the counter.
“Heard what happened over at Florian’s this morning?”
“Brother, I forgit.” Both his eyes were open now and he was watching the blur of light made by the spinning coin.
“The boss got bumped off,” I said. “Man named Montgomery. Somebody broke his neck.”
“May the Lawd receive his soul, brother.” Down went the voice again. “Cop?”
“Private—on a confidential lay. And I know a man who can keep things confidential when I see one.”
He studied me, then closed his eyes and thought. He reopened them cautiously and stared at the spinning coin. He couldn’t resist looking at it.
“Who done it?” he asked softly. “Who fixed Sam?”
“A tough guy out of the jailhouse got sore because it wasn’t a white joint. It used to be, it seems. Maybe you remember?”
He said nothing. The coin fell over with a light ringing whirr and lay still.
“Call your play,” I said. “I’ll read you a chapter of the Bible or buy you a drink. Say which.”
“Brother, I kind of like to read my Bible in the seclusion of my family.” His eyes were bright, toadlike, steady.
“Maybe you’ve just had lunch,” I said.
“Lunch,” he said, “is something a man of my shape and disposition aims to do without.” Down went the voice. “Come ’round this here side of the desk.”
I went around and drew the flat pint of bonded bourbon out of my pocket and put it on the shelf. I went back to the front of the desk. He bent over and examined it. He looked satisfied.
“Brother, this don’t buy you nothing at all,” he said. “But I is pleased to take a light snifter in your company.”
He opened the bottle, put two small glasses on the desk and quietly poured each full to the brim. He lifted one, sniffed it carefully, and poured it down his throat with his little finger lifted.
He tasted it, thought about it, nodded and said: “This come out of the correct bottle, brother. In what manner can I be of service to you? There ain’t a crack in the sidewalk ’round here I don’t know by its first name. Yes suh, this liquor has been keepin’ the right company.” He refilled his glass.
I told him what had happened at Florian’s and why. He stared at me solemnly and shook his bald head.
“A nice quiet place Sam run too,” he said. “Ain’t nobody been knifed there in a month.”
“When Florian’s was a white joint some six or eight years ago or less, what was the name of it?”
“Electric signs come kind of high, brother.”
I nodded. “I thought it might have had the same name. Malloy would probably have said something if the name had been changed. But who ran it?”
“I’m a mite surprised at you, brother. The name of that pore sinner was Florian. Mike Florian—”
“And what happened to Mike Florian?”
The Negro spread his gentle brown hands. His voice was sonorous and sad. “Daid, brother. Gathered to the Lawd. Nineteen hundred and thirty-four, maybe thirty-five. I ain’t precise on that. A wasted life, brother, and a case of pickled kidneys, I heard say. The ungodly man drops like a polled steer, brother, but mercy waits for him up yonder.” His voice went down to the business level. “Damn if I know why.”
“Who did he leave behind him? Pour another drink.”
He corked the bottle firmly and pushed it across the counter. “Two is all, brother—before sundown. I thank you. Your method of approach is soothin’ to a man’s dignity… Left a widow. Name of Jessie.”
“What happened to her?”
“The pursuit of knowledge, brother, is the askin’ of many questions. I ain’t heard. Try the phone book.�
�
There was a booth in the dark corner of the lobby. I went over and shut the door far enough to put the light on. I looked up the name in the chained and battered book. No Florian in it at all. I went back to the desk.
“No soap,” I said.
The Negro bent regretfully and heaved a city directory up on top of the desk and pushed it towards me. He closed his eyes. He was getting bored. There was a Jessie Florian, Widow, in the book. She lived at 1644 West 54th Place. I wondered what I had been using for brains all my life.
I wrote the address down on a piece of paper and pushed the directory back across the desk. The Negro put it back where he had found it, shook hands with me, then folded his hands on the desk exactly where they had been when I came in. His eyes drooped slowly and he appeared to fall asleep.
The incident for him was over. Halfway to the door I shot a glance back at him. His eyes were closed and he breathed softly and regularly, blowing a little with his lips at the end of each breath. His bald head shone.
I went out of the Hotel Sans Souci and crossed the street to my car. It looked too easy. It looked much too easy.
FIVE
1644 West 54th Place was a dried-out brown house with a dried-out brown lawn in front of it. There was a large bare patch around a tough-looking palm tree. On the porch stood one lonely wooden rocker, and the afternoon breeze made the unpruned shoots of last year’s poinsettias tap-tap against the cracked stucco wall. A line of stiff yellowish half-washed clothes jittered on a rusty wire in the side yard.
I drove on a quarter block, parked my car across the street and walked back.
The bell didn’t work so I rapped on the wooden margin of the screen door. Slow steps shuffled and the door opened and I was looking into dimness at a blowsy woman who was blowing her nose as she opened the door. Her face was gray and puffy. She had weedy hair of that vague color which is neither brown nor blond, that hasn’t enough life in it to be ginger, and isn’t clean enough to be gray. Her body was thick in a shapeless outing flannel bathrobe many moons past color and design. It was just something around her body. Her toes were large and obvious in a pair of man’s slippers of scuffed brown leather.
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