«What’s the matter?»
«Matter?» His smile became broad as the door to a two-car garage. «Nothing ain’t the matter. This way.»
He pushed me into the elevator and said «Eight» in a fat cheerful voice and up we sailed and out we got and slid along the corridor. Hawkins had a hard hand and knew where to hold an arm. I was interested enough to let him get away with it. He pushed the buzzer beside Miss Huntress’ door and Big Ben chimed inside and the door opened and I was looking at a deadpan in a derby hat and a dinner coat. He had his right hand in the side pocket of the coat, and under the derby a pair of scarred eyebrows and under the eyebrows a pair of eyes that had as much expression as the cap on a gas tank.
The mouth moved enough to say: «Yeah?»
«Company for the boss,» Hawkins said expansively.
«What company?»
«Let me play too,» I said. «Limited Liability Company. Gimme the apple.»
«Huh?» The eyebrows went this way and that and the jaw came out. «Nobody ain’t kiddin’ anybody, I hope.»
«Now, now, gents —» Hawkins began.
A voice behind the derby-hatted man interrupted him. «What’s the matter, Beef?»
«He’s in a stew,» I said.
«Listen, mugg —»
«Now, now, gents —» as before.
«Ain’t nothing the matter,» Beef said, throwing his voice over his shoulder as if it were a coil of rope. «The hotel dick got a guy up here and he says he’s company.»
«Show the company in, Beef.» I liked this voice. It was smooth quiet, and you could have cut your name in it with a thirty-pound sledge and a cold chisel.
«Lift the dogs,» Beef said, and stood to one side.
We went in. I went first, then Hawkins, then Beef wheeled neatly behind us like a door. We went in so close together that we must have looked like a three-decker sandwich.
Miss Huntress was not in the room. The log in the fireplace had almost stopped smoldering. There was still that smell of sandalwood on the air. With it cigarette smoke blended.
A man stood at the end of the davenport, both hands in the pockets of a blue camel’s hair coat with the collar high to a black snap-brim hat. A loose scarf hung outside his coat. He stood motionless, the cigarette in his mouth lisping smoke. He was tall, black-haired, suave, dangerous. He said nothing.
Hawkins ambled over to him. «This is the guy I was telling you about, Mr. Estel,» the fat man burbled. «Come in earlier today and said he was from you. Kinda fooled me.»
«Give him a ten, Beef.»
The derby hat took its left hand from somewhere and there was a bill in it. It pushed the bill at Hawkins. Hawkins took the bill, blushing.
«This ain’t necessary, Mr. Estel. Thanks a lot just the same.»
«Scram.»
«Huh?» Hawkins looked shocked.
«You heard him,» Beef said truculently. «Want your fanny out the door first, huh?»
Hawkins drew himself up. «I gotta protect the tenants. You gentlemen know how it is. A man in a job like this.»
«Yeah. Scram,» Estel said without moving his lips.
Hawkins turned and went out quickly, softly. The door clicked gently shut behind him. Beef looked back at it, then moved behind me.
«See if he’s rodded, Beef.»
The derby hat saw if I was rodded. He took the Luger and went away from me. Estel looked casually at the Luger, back at me. His eyes held an expression of indifferent dislike.
«Name’s Philip Marlowe, eh? A private dick.»
«So what?» I said.
«Somebody’s goin’ to get somebody’s face pushed into somebody’s floor,» Beef said coldly.
«Aw, keep that crap for the boiler room,» I told him. «I’m sick of hard guys for this evening. I said ‘so what,’ and ‘so what’ is what I said.»
Marty Estel looked mildly amused. «Hell, keep your shirt in. I’ve got to look after my friends, don’t I? You know who I am. O.K., I know what you talked to Miss Huntress about. And I know something about you that you don’t know I know.»
«All right,» I said. «This fat slob Hawkins collected ten from me for letting me up here this afternoon — knowing perfectly well who I was — and he has just collected ten from your iron man for slipping me the nasty. Give me back my gun and tell me what makes my business your business.»
«Plenty. First off, Harriet’s not home. We’re waiting for her on account of a thing that happened. I can’t wait any longer. Got to go to work at the club. So what did you come after this time?»
«Looking for the Jeeter boy. Somebody shot at his car tonight. From now on he needs somebody to walk behind him.»
«You think I play games like that?» Estel asked me coldly.
I walked over to a cabinet and opened it and found a bottle of Scotch. I twisted the cap off, lifted a glass from the tabouret and poured some out. I tasted it. It tasted all right.
I looked around for ice, but there wasn’t any. It had all melted long since in the bucket.
«I asked you a question,» Estel said gravely.
«I heard it. I’m making my mind up. The answer is, I wouldn’t have thought it — no. But it happened. I was there. I was in the car — instead of young Jeeter. His father had sent for me to come to the house to talk things over.»
«What things?»
I didn’t bother to look surprised. «You hold fifty grand of the boy’s paper. That looks bad for you, if anything happens to him.»
«I don’t figure it that way. Because that way I would lose my dough. The old man won’t pay — granted. But I wait a couple of years and I collect from the kid. He gets his estate out of trust when he’s twenty-eight. Right now he gets a grand a month and he can’t even will anything, because it’s still in trust. Savvy?»
«So you wouldn’t knock him off,» I said, using my Scotch. «But you might throw a scare into him.»
Estel frowned. He discarded his cigarette into a tray and watched it smoke a moment before he picked it up again and snubbed it out. He shook his head.
«If you’re going to bodyguard him, it would almost pay me to stand part of your salary, wouldn’t it? Almost. A man in my racket can’t take care of everything. He’s of age and it’s his business who he runs around with. For instance, women. Any reason why a nice girl shouldn’t cut herself a piece of five million bucks?»
I said: «I think it’s a swell idea. What was it you knew about me that I didn’t know you knew?»
He smiled, faintly. «What was it you were waiting to tell Miss Huntress — the thing that happened?»
He smiled faintly again.
«Listen, Marlowe, there are lots of ways to play any game. I play mine on the house percentage, because that’s all I need to win. What makes me get tough?»
I rolled a fresh cigarette around in my fingers and tried to roll it around my glass with two fingers. «Who said you were tough? I always heard the nicest things about you.»
Marty Estel nodded and looked faintly amused. «I have sources of information,» he said quietly. «When I have fifty grand invested in a guy, I’m apt to find out a little about him. Jeeter hired a man named Arbogast to do a little work. Arbogast was killed in his office today — with a twenty-two. That could have nothing to do with Jeeter’s business. But there was a tail on you when you went there and you didn’t give it to the law. Does that make you and me friends?»
I licked the edge of my glass, nodded. «It seems it does.»
«From now on just forget about bothering Harriet, see?»
«O.K.»
«So we understand each other real good, now.»
«Yeah.»
«Well, I’ll be going. Give the guy back his Luger, Beef.»
The derby hat came over and smacked my gun into my hand hard enough to break a bone.