«My God!» he whispered. «My God!»
«You don’t have one — except money.»
A door squeaked behind me. I whirled, but I needn’t have bothered. A hard voice, about as English as Amos and Andy, said: «Put ’em up, bud.»
The butler, the very English butler, stood there in the doorway, a gun in his hand, tight-lipped. The girl turned her wrist and shot him just kind of casually, in the shoulder or something. He squealed like a stuck pig.
«Go away, you’re intruding,» she said coldly.
He ran. We heard his steps running.
«He’s going to fall,» she said.
I was wearing my Luger in my right hand now, a little late in the season, as usual. I came around with it. Old man Jeeter was holding on to the table, his face gray as a paving block. His knees were giving. George stood cynically, holding a handkerchief around his bleeding wrist, watching him.
«Let him fall,» I said. «Down is where he belongs.»
He fell. His head twisted. His mouth went slack. He hit the carpet on his side and rolled a little and his knees came up. His mouth drooled a little. His skin turned violet.
«Go call the law, angel,» I said. «I’ll watch them now.»
«All right,» she said standing up. «But you certainly need a lot of help in your private-detecting business, Mr. Marlowe.»
EIGHT
I had been in there for a solid hour, alone. There was the scarred desk in the middle, another against the wall, a brass spittoon on a mat, a police loudspeaker box on the wall, three squashed flies, a smell of cold cigars and old clothes. There were two hard armchairs with felt pads and two hard straight chairs without pads. The electric-light fixture had been dusted about Coolidge’s first term.
The door opened with a jerk and Finlayson and Sebold came in. Sebold looked as spruce and nasty as ever, but Finlayson looked older, more worn, mousier. He held a sheaf of papers in his hand. He sat down across the desk from me and gave me a hard bleak stare.
«Guys like you get in a lot of trouble,» Finlayson said sourly. Sebold sat down against the wall and tilted his hat over his eyes and yawned and looked at his new stainless-steel wrist watch.
«Trouble is my business,» I said. «How else would I make a nickel?»
«We oughta throw you in the can for all this cover-up stuff. How much you making on this one?»
«I was working for Anna Halsey who was working for old man Jeeter. I guess I made a bad debt.»
Sebold smiled his blackjack smile at me. Finlayson lit a cigar and licked at a tear on the side of it and pasted it down, but it leaked smoke just the same when he drew on it. He pushed papers across the desk at me.
«Sign three copies.»
I signed three copies.
He took them back, yawned and rumpled his old gray head. «The old man’s had a stroke,» he said. «No dice there. Probably won’t know what time it is when he comes out. This George Hasterman, this chauffeur guy, he just laughs at us. Too bad he got pinked. I’d like to wrastle him a bit.»
«He’s tough,» I said.
«Yeah. O.K., you can beat it for now.»
I got up and nodded to them and went to the door. «Well, good night, boys.»
Neither of them spoke to me.
I went out, along the corridor and down in the night elevator to the City Hall lobby. I went out the Spring Street side and down the long flight of empty steps and the wind blew cold. I lit a cigarette at the bottom. My car was still out at the Jeeter place. I lifted a foot to start walking to a taxi half a block down across the street. A voice spoke sharply from a parked car.
«Come here a minute.»
It was a man’s voice, tight, hard. It was Marty Estel’s voice. It came from a big sedan with two men in the front seat. I went over there. The rear window was down and Marty Estel leaned a gloved hand on it.
«Get in.» He pushed the door open. I got in. I was too tired to argue. «Take it away, Skin.»
The car drove west through dark, almost quiet streets, almost clean streets. The night air was not pure but it was cool. We went up over a hill and began to pick up speed.
«What they get?» Estel asked coolly.
«They didn’t tell me. They didn’t break the chauffeur yet.»
«You can’t convict a couple million bucks of murder in this man’s town.» The driver called Skin laughed without turning his head. «Maybe I don’t even touch my fifty grand now… she likes you.»
«Uh-huh. So what?»
«Lay off her.»
«What will it get me?»
«It’s what it’ll get you if you don’t.»
«Yeah, sure,» I said. «Go to hell, will you please. I’m tired.» I shut my eyes and leaned in the corner of the car and just like that went to sleep. I can do that sometimes, after a strain.
A hand shaking my shoulder woke me. The car had stopped. I looked out at the front of my apartment house.
«Home,» Marty Estel said. «And remember. Lay off her.»
«Why the ride home? Just to tell me that?»
«She asked me to look out for you. That’s why you’re loose. She likes you. I like her. See? You don’t want any more trouble.»
«Trouble —» I started to say, and stopped. I was tired of that gag for that night. «Thanks for the ride, and apart from that, nuts to you.» I turned away and went into the apartment house and up.
The door lock was still loose but nobody waited for me this time. They had taken Waxnose away long since. I left the door open and threw the windows up and I was still sniffing at policemen’s cigar butts when the phone rang. It was her voice, cool, a little hard, not touched by anything, almost amused. Well, she’d been through enough to make her that way, probably.
«Hello, brown-eyes. Make it home all right?»
«Your pal Marty brought me home. He told me to lay off you. Thanks with all my heart, if I have any, but don’t call me up any more.»
«A little scared, Mr. Marlowe?»
«No. Wait for me to call you,» I said. «Good night, angel.»
«Good night, brown-eyes.»
The phone clicked. I put it away and shut the door and pulled the bed down. I undressed and lay on it for a while in the cold air.
Then I got up and had a drink and a shower and went to sleep.
They broke George at last, but not enough. He said there had been a fight over the girl and young Jeeter had grabbed the gun off the mantel and George had fought with him and it had gone off. All of which, of course, looked possible — in the papers. They never pinned the Arbogast killing on him or on anybody. They never found the gun that did it, but it was not Waxnose’s gun. Waxnose disappeared — I never heard where. They didn’t touch old man Jeeter, because he never came out of his stroke, except to lie on his back and have nurses and tell people how he hadn’t lost a nickel in the depression.
Marty Estel called me up four times to tell me to lay off Harriet Huntress. I felt kind of sorry for the poor guy. He had it bad. I went out with her twice and sat with her twice more at home, drinking her Scotch. It was nice, but I didn’t have the money, the clothes, the time or the manners. Then she stopped being at the El Milano and I heard she had gone to New York.
I was glad when she left — even though she didn’t bother to tell me goodbye.