The big man nodded. «That’s a thought. Maybe he did. Who?»
«The little brown guy who had the keys to it in his pocket, and had it parked around the corner from the Berglund Apartments.»
He thought that over, without any apparent embarrassment. «You’ve got something there,» he said. «Not much. But a little. I guess this must be the night of the Police Smoker. So you’re doing all their work for them.»
«Huh?»
«The card says private detective to me,» he said. «Have you got some cops outside that were too shy to come in?»
«No, I’m alone.»
He grinned. The grin showed white ridges in his tanned skin. «So you find somebody dead and take some keys and find a car and come riding out here — all alone. No cops. Am I right?»
«Correct.»
He sighed. «Let’s go inside,» he said. He yanked the bead curtain aside and made an opening for me to go through. «It might be you have an idea I ought to hear.»
I went past him and he turned, keeping his heavy pocket towards me. I hadn’t noticed until I got quite close that there were beads of sweat on his face. It might have been the hot wind but I didn’t think so.
We were in the living room of the house.
We sat down and looked at each other across a dark floor, on which a few Navajo rugs and a few dark Turkish rugs made a decorating combination with some well-used overstuffed furniture. There was a fireplace, a small baby grand, a Chinese screen, a tall Chinese lantern on a teakwood pedestal, and gold net curtains against lattice windows. The windows to the south were open. A fruit tree with a whitewashed trunk whipped about outside the screen, adding its bit to the noise from across the street.
The big man eased back into a brocaded chair and put his slippered feet on a footstool. He kept his right hand where it had been since I met him — on his gun.
The brunette hung around in the shadows and a bottle gurgled and her temple bells gonged in her ears.
«It’s all right, honeybunch,» the man said. «It’s all under control. Somebody bumped somebody off and this lad thinks we’re interested. Just sit down and relax.»
The girl tilted her head and poured half a tumbler of whiskey down her throat. She sighed, said, «Goddam,» in a casual voice, and curled up on a davenport. It took all of the davenport. She had plenty of legs. Her gilded toenails winked at me from the shadowy corner where she kept herself quiet from then on.
I got a cigarette out without being shot at, lit it and went into my story. It wasn’t all true, but some of it was. I told them about the Berglund Apartments and that I had lived there and that Waldo was living there in Apartment 31 on the floor below mine and that I had been keeping an eye on him for business reasons.
«Waldo what?» the blond man put in. «And what business reasons?»
«Mister,» I said, «have you no secrets?» He reddened slightly.
I told him about the cocktail lounge across the street from the Berglund and what had happened there. I didn’t tell him about the printed bolero jacket or the girl who had worn it. I left her out of the story altogether.
«It was an undercover job — from my angle,» I said. «If you know what I mean.» He reddened again, bit his teeth. I went on: «I got back from the city hall without telling anybody I knew Waldo. In due time, when I decided they couldn’t find out where he lived that night, I took the liberty of examining his apartment.»
«Looking for what?» the big man said thickly.
«For some letters. I might mention in passing there was nothing there at all — except a dead man. Strangled and hanging by a belt to the top of the wall bed — well out of sight. A small man, about forty-five, Mexican or South American, well-dressed in a fawn-colored — — -.-
«That’s enough,» the big man said. «I’ll bite, Marlowe. Was it a blackmail job you were on?»
«Yeah. The funny part was this little brown man had plenty of gun under his arm.»
«He wouldn’t have five hundred bucks in twenties in his pocket, of course? Or are you saying?»
«He wouldn’t. But Waldo had over seven hundred in currency when he was killed in the cocktail bar,»
«Looks like I underrated this Waldo,» the big man said calmly. «He took my guy and his pay-off money, gun and all. Waldo have a gun?»
«Not on him.»
«Get us a drink, honeybunch,» the big man said. «Yes, I certainly did sell this Waldo person shorter than a bargaincounter shirt.»
The brunette unwound her legs and made two drinks with soda and ice. She took herself another gill without trimmings, wound herself back on the davenport. Her big glittering black eyes watched me solemnly.
«Well, here’s how,» the big man said, lifting his glass in salute. «I haven’t murdered anybody, but I’ve got a divorce suit on my hands from now on. You haven’t murdered anybody, the way you tell it, but you laid an egg down at police Headquarters. What the hell! Life’s a lot of trouble, anyway you look at it. I’ve still got honeybunch here. She’s a white Russian I met in Shanghai. She’s safe as a vault and she looks as if she could cut your throat for a nickel. That’s what I like about her. You get the glamor without the risk.»
«You talk damn foolish,» the girl spat him.
«You look O.K. to me,» the big man went on ignoring her. «That is, for a keyhole peeper. Is there an out?»
«Yeah. But it will cost a little money.»
«I expected that. How much?»
«Say another five hundred.»
«Goddam, thees hot wind make me dry like the ashes of love,» the Russian girl said bitterly.
«Five hundred might do,» the blond man said. «What do I get for it?»
«If I swing it — you get left out of the story. If I don’t — you don’t pay.»
He thought it over. His face looked lined and tired now. The small beads of sweat twinkled in his short blond hair.
«This murder will make you talk,» he grumbled. «The second one, I mean. And I don’t have what I was going to buy. And if it’s a hush, I’d rather buy it direct.»
«Who was the little brown man?» I asked.
«Name’s Leon Valesanos, a Uruguayan. Another of my importations. I’m in a business that takes me a lot of places. He was working in the Spezzia Club in Chiseltown — you know, the strip of Sunset next to Beverly Hills. Working on roulette, I think. I gave him the five hundred to go down to this — this Waldo — and buy back some bills for stuff Miss Kolchenko had charged to my account and delivered here. That wasn’t bright, was it? I had them in my briefcase and this Waldo got a chance to steal them. What’s your hunch about what happened?»
I sipped my drink and looked at him down my nose. «Your Uruguayan pal probably talked curt and Waldo didn’t listen good. Then the little guy thought maybe that Mauser might help his argument — and Waldo was too quick for him. I wouldn’t say Waldo was a killer — not by intention. A blackmailer seldom is. Maybe he lost his temper and maybe he just held on to the little guy’s neck too long. Then he had to take it on the lam. But he had another date, with more money coming up. And he worked the neighborhood looking for the party. And accidentally he ran into a pal who was hostile enough and drunk enough to blow him down.»
«There’s a hell of a lot of coincidence in all this business,» the big man said.
«It’s the hot wind,» I grinned. «Everybody’s screwy tonight.»
«For the five hundred you guarantee nothing? If I don’t get my cover-up, you don’t get your dough. Is that it?»
«That’s it,» I said, smiling at him.
«Screwy is right,» he said, and drained his highball. «I’m taking you up on it.»
«There are just two things,» I said softly, leaning forward in my chair. «Waldo had a getaway car parked outside the cocktail bar where he was killed, unlocked with the motor running. The killer took it. There’s always the chance of a kickback from that direction. You see, all Waldo’s stuff must have been in that car.»