«Been out anywhere tonight?» he asked tersely.
«Don’t tell me the plot,» I said. «I’m just a bit-player.»
«Smart guy,» Sebold said dispassionately. He dusted his hair again and opened a desk drawer. «Funny stuff. Good for a column. I like ’em that way — with my blackjack.»
Finlayson sighed. «Been out tonight, shamus?»
«Sure. In and out all the time. Why?»
He ignored the question. «Where you been?»
«Out to dinner. Business call or two.»
«Where at?»
«I’m sorry, boys. Every business has its private files.»
«Had company, too,» Sebold said, picking up George’s glass and sniffing it. «Recent — within the hour.»
«You’re not that good,» I told him sourly.
«Had a ride in a big Caddy?» Finlayson bored on, taking a deep breath. «Over West L. A. direction?»
«Had a ride in a Chrysler — over Vine Street direction.»
«Maybe we better just take him down,» Sebold said, looking at his fingernails.
«Maybe you better skip the gang-buster stuff and tell me what’s stuck in your nose. I get along with cops — except when they act as if the law is only for citizens.»
Finlayson studied me. Nothing I had said made an impression on him. Nothing Sebold said made any impression on him. He had an idea and he was holding it like a sick baby.
«You know a little rat named Frisky Lavon?» he sighed. «Used to be a dummy-chucker, then found out he could bug his way outa raps. Been doing that for say twelve years. Totes a gun and acts simple. But he quit acting tonight at seventhirty about. Quit cold — with a slug in his head.»
«Never heard of him,» I said.
«You bumped anybody off tonight?»
«I’d have to look at my notebook.»
Sebold leaned forward politely. «Would you care for a smack in the kisser?» he inquired.
Finlayson held his hand out sharply. «Cut it, Ben. Cut it. Listen, Marlowe. Maybe we’re going at this wrong. We’re not talking about murder. Could have been legitimate. This Frisky Lavon got froze off tonight on Calvello Drive in Bel-Air. Out in the middle of the street. Nobody seen or heard anything. So we kind of want to know.»
«All right,» I growled. «What makes it my business? And keep that piano tuner out of my hair. He has a nice suit and his nails are clean, but he bears down on his shield too hard.»
«Nuts to you,» Sebold said.
«We got a funny phone call,» Finlayson said. «Which is where you come in. We ain’t just throwing our weight around. And we want a forty-five. They ain’t sure what kind yet.»
«He’s smart. He threw it under the bar at Levy’s,» Sebold sneered.
«I never had a forty-five,» I said. «A guy who needs that much gun ought to use a pick.»
Finlayson scowled at me and counted his thumbs. Then he took a deep breath and suddenly went human on me. «Sure, I’m just a dumb flatheel,» he said. «Anybody could pull my ears off and I wouldn’t even notice it. Let’s all quit horsing around and talk sense.
«This Frisky was found dead after a no-name phone call to West L. A. police. Found dead outside a big house belonging to a man named Jeeter who owns a string of investment companies. He wouldn’t use a guy like Frisky for a penwiper, so there’s nothing in that. The servants didn’t hear nothing, nor the servants at any of the four houses on the block. Frisky is lying in the street and somebody run over his foot, but what killed him was a forty-five slug smack in his face. West L. A. ain’t hardly started the routine when some guy calls up Central and says to tell Homicide if they want to know who got Frisky Lavon, ask a private eye named Philip Marlowe, complete with address and everything, then a quick hang-up.
«O.K. The guy on the board gives me the dope and I don’t know Frisky from a hole in my sock, but I ask Identification and sure enough they have him and just about the time I’m looking it over the flash comes from West L. A. and the description seems to check pretty close. So we get together and it’s the same guy all right and the chief of detectives has us drop around here. So we drop around.»
«So here you are,» I said. «Will you have a drink?»
«Can we search the joint, if we do?»
«Sure. It’s a good lead — that phone call, I mean — if you put in about six months on it.»
«We already got that idea,» Finlayson growled. «A hundred guys could have chilled this little wart, and two-three of them maybe could have thought it was a smart rib to pin it on you. Them two-three is what interests us.»
I shook my head.
«No ideas at all, huh?»
«Just for wisecracks,» Sebold said.
Finlayson lumbered to his feet. «Well, we gotta look around.»
«Maybe we had ought to have brought a search warrant,» Sebold said, tickling his upper lip with the end of his tongue.
«I don’t «have» to fight this guy, do I?» I asked Finlayson. «I mean, is it all right if I leave him his gag lines and just keep my temper?»
Finlayson looked at the ceiling and said dryly: «His wife left him day before yesterday. He’s just trying to compensate, as the fellow says.»
Sebold turned white and twisted his knuckles savagely. Then he laughed shortly and got to his feet.
They went at it. Ten minutes of opening and shutting drawers and looking at the backs of shelves and under seat cushions and letting the bed down and peering into the electric refrigerator and the garbage pail fed them up.
They came back and sat down again. «Just a nut,» Finlayson said wearily. «Some guy that picked your name outa the directory maybe. Could be anything.»
«Now I’ll get that drink.»
«I don’t drink,» Sebold snarled.
Finlayson crossed his hands on his stomach. «That don’t mean any liquor gets poured in the flowerpot, son.»
I got three drinks and put two of them beside Finlayson. He drank half of one of them and looked at the ceiling. «I got another killing, too,» he said thoughtfully. «A guy in your racket, Marlowe. A fat guy on Sunset. Name of Arbogast. Ever hear of him?»
«I thought he was a handwriting expert,» I said.
«You’re talking about police business,» Sebold told his partner coldly.
«Sure. Police business that’s already in the morning paper. This Arbogast was shot three times with a twenty-two. Target gun. You know any crooks that pack that kind of heat?»
I held my glass tightly and took a long slow swallow. I hadn’t thought Waxnose looked dangerous enough, but you never knew.
«I did,» I said slowly. «A killer named Al Tessilore. But he’s in Folsom. He used a Colt Woodsman.»
Finlayson finished the first drink, used the second in about the same time, and stood up. Sebold stood up, still mad.
Finlayson opened the door. «Come on, Ben.» They went out.
I heard their steps along the hall, the clang of the elevator once more. A car started just below in the street and growled off into the night.
«Clowns like that don’t kill,» I said out loud. But it looked as if they did.
I waited fifteen minutes before I went out again. The phone rang while I was waiting, but I didn’t answer it.
I drove towards the El Milano and circled around enough to make sure I wasn’t followed.
SIX
The lobby hadn’t changed any. The blue carpet still tickled my ankles while I ambled over to the desk, the same pale clerk was handing a key to a couple of horse-faced females in tweeds, and when he saw me he put his weight on his left foot again and the door at the end of the desk popped open and out popped the fat and erotic Hawkins, with what looked like the same cigar stub in his face.
He hustled over and gave me a big warm smile this time, took hold of my arm. «Just the guy I was hoping to see,» he chuckled. «Let’s us go upstairs a minute.»