"Dandy," I said.
He got up and turned. Eddie Garcia moved ahead of him and went out the door first. Blackstone followed. Neither of them said good-bye.
35
I was working again. Except for the fact there was money in my wallet I didn't feel much different than not working. I still didn't have any idea what to do to earn my retainer and advance against expenses. For a change of pace I swiveled my chair around and stared out the window at Hollywood Boulevard for a while. The first idea I had was that it was time to change the grease in the fryolator in the coffee shop downstairs. In the L.A. basin to the south, hard-looking thunderheads were building. The towers of downtown L.A. were in a grey overcast that stopped short of Hollywood. Here the sun still shone. But that was temporary. In a while the thunderheads would roll north and bump into the hills and the rain would come hard. I'd seen it before.
I watched the thunderheads move up toward me for a while, and then I swiveled around and got out one of the pictures of Muriel and slid it in a manila envelope. I put one of my cards in with it, and on the card I wrote, "Do you wish to tell me about this picture?" I put the Hollywood Boulevard address on the card, slipped the card in with the picture, sealed and addressed the envelope. Then I got up, went down to the post office and mailed it, special delivery, and went back to the office.
To pass time I bought myself the first drink from the new office bottle. I was finishing the next to last swallow and debating whether to have a second when I heard my outer door open again. Maybe I'd have to hire an assistant. I put the last swallow of bourbon down and got a confident smile on my face and in walked Les Valentine/Larry Victor.
"That was easy," I said.
"Huh?"
"Someone just hired me to find you," I said.
"Who?"
I shook my head.
"I called your office in Poodle Springs, and they said it was disconnected and so I called your wife, I hope you don't mind, and she said you were back here working."
I nodded. Larry looked like he'd been sleeping in bus terminals and washing in the men's room.
"Mind if I sit down?" he said.
I nodded toward the client chair. He sat, brushing his trousers as he did, as if he could put a crease back in them with his hands. He got seated and patted his breast pockets.
"Damn," he said, "I forgot to get some. You got a smoke?"
I slid the pack across the deck, a book of matches slipped inside between the package and the cellophane. He got one out and lit it and took in the smoke as if it were oxygen. He was wearing fawn-colored gabardine slacks and a yellow checked shirt buttoned to the neck and a cream-colored silk tweed sport coat with a pocket display handkerchief the color of a tequila sunrise. Or that's what everything had started out as. Now the clothes were rumpled and there were stains on the shirtfront. The show hankie had been used as a towel and was crumpled in the pocket of the coat so that only a scraggly end hung out. He hadn't shaved in several days and the beard that had emerged was patchy with a spattering of grey. The balding head looked mottled and he needed a haircut.
He saw me looking at him.
"Been on the go," he said. "Haven't gotten a chance to clean up today."
I nodded. The office bottle was still there. He was gazing at it the way a cow looks at a meadow.
"Want a drink?" I said.
"Sure could use one," he said. "Sun's over the yard-arm somewhere, right?"
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.