“Why, from him. He gave it to me.”
“When?”
“Early this evening. Why?”
“How early?”
“About six o’clock, I think.”
“Why did he give it to you?”
“He asked me to keep it. He always carried one.”
“Asked you to keep it why?”
“He did not say, amigo. He was a man that did things like that. He did not often explain himself.”
“Notice anything unusual about it? About what he gave you?”
“Why—no, I did not.”
“Yes, you did. You noticed that it had been fired and that it smelled of burned powder.”
“But I did not—”
“Yes, you did. Just like that. You wondered about it. You didn’t like to keep it. You didn’t keep it. You gave it back to him. You don’t like them around anyhow.”
There was a long silence. She said at last, “But of course. But why did he want me to have it? I mean, if that was what happened.”
“He didn’t tell you why. He just tried to ditch a gun on you and you weren’t having any. Remember?”
“That is something I have to tell?”
“Si.”
“Will it be safe for me to do that?”
“When did you ever try to be safe?”
She laughed softly. “Amigo, you understand me very well.”
“Goodnight,” I said.
“One moment, you have not told me what happened.”
“I haven’t even telephoned you.”
I hung up and turned.
Mavis Weld was standing in the middle of the floor watching me.
“You have your car here?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Get going.”
“And do what?”
“Just go home. That’s all.”
“You can’t get away with it,” she said softly.
“You’re my client.”
“I can’t let you. I killed him. Why should you be dragged into it?”
“Don’t stall. And when you leave go the back way. Not the way Dolores brought me.”
She stared me straight in the eyes and repeated in a tense voice, “But I killed him.”
“I can’t hear a word you say.”
Her teeth took hold of her lower lip and held it cruelly. She seemed hardly to breathe. She stood rigid. I went over close to her and touched her cheek with a fingertip. I pressed it hard and watched the white spot turn red.
“If you want to know my motive,” I said, “it has nothing to do with you. I owe it to the johns. I haven’t played clean cards in this game. They know. I know. I’m just giving them a chance to use the loud pedal.”
“As if anyone ever had to give them that,” she said, and turned abruptly and walked away. I watched her to the arch and waited for her to look back. She went on through without turning. After a long time I heard a whirring noise. Then the bump of something heavy—the garage door going up. A car started a long way off. It idled down and after another pause the whirring noise again.
When that stopped the motor faded off into the distance. I heard nothing now. The silence of the house hung around me in thick loose folds like that fur coat around the shoulders of Mavis Weld.
I carried the glass and bottle of brandy over to the bar and climbed over it. I rinsed the glass in a little sink and set the bottle back on the shelf. I found the trick catch this time and swung the door open at the end opposite the telephone. I went back to Steelgrave.
I took out the gun Dolores had given me and wiped it off and put his small limp hand around the butt, held it there and let go. The gun thudded to the carpet. The position looked natural. I wasn’t thinking about fingerprints. He would have learned long ago not to leave them on any gun.
That left me with three guns. The weapon in his holster I took out and went and put it on the bar shelf under the counter, wrapped in a towel. The Luger I didn’t touch. The other white-handled automatic was left. I tried to decide about how far away from him it had been fired. Beyond scorching distance, but probably very close beyond. I stood about three feet from him and fired two shots past him. They nicked peacefully into the wall. I dragged the chair around until it faced into the room. I laid the small automatic down on the dust cover of one of the roulette tables. I touched the big muscle in the side of his neck, usually the first to harden. I couldn’t tell whether it had begun to set or not. But his skin was colder than it had been.
There was not a hell of a lot of time to play around with.
I went to the telephone and dialed the number of the Los Angeles Police Department. I asked the police operator for Christy French. A voice from homicide came on, said he had gone home and what was it. I said it was a personal call he was expecting. They gave me his phone number at home, reluctantly, not because they cared, but because they hate to give anybody anything any time.
I dialed and a woman answered and screamed his name. He sounded rested and calm.
“This is Marlowe. What were you doing?”
“Reading the funnies to my kid. He ought to be in bed. What’s doing?”
“Remember over at the Van Nuys yesterday you said a man could make a friend if he got you something on Weepy Moyer?”
“Yeah.”
“I need a friend.”
He didn’t sound very interested. “What you got on him?”
“I’m assuming it’s the same guy. Steelgrave.”
“Too much assuming, kid. We had him in the fishbowl because we thought the same. It didn’t pan any gold.”
“You got a tip. He set that tip up himself. So the night Stein was squibbed off he would be where you knew.”
“You just making this up—or got evidence?” He sounded a little less relaxed.
“If a man got out of jail on a pass from the jail doctor, could you prove that?”
There was a silence. I heard a child’s voice complaining and a woman’s voice speaking to the child.
“It’s happened,” French said heavily. “I dunno. That a tough order to fill. They’d send him under guard. Did he get to the guard?”
“That’s my theory.”
“Better sleep on it. Anything else?”
“I’m out at Stillwood Heights. In a big house where they were setting up for gambling and the local residents didn’t like it.”
“Read about it. Steelgrave there?”
“He’s here. I’m here alone with him.”
Another silence. The kid yelled and I thought I heard a slap. The kid yelled louder. French yelled at some body.
“Put him on the phone,” French said at last.
“You’re not bright tonight, Christy. Why would I call you?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Stupid of me. What’s the address there?”
“I don’t know. But it’s up at the end of Tower Road in Stillwood Heights and the phone number is Halldale 9-5033. I’ll be waiting for you.”
He repeated the number and said slowly: “This time you wait, huh?”
“It had to come sometime.”
The phone clicked and I hung up.
I went back through the house putting on lights as I found them and came out at the back door at the top of the stairs. There was a floodlight for the motor yard. I put that on. I went down the steps and walked along to the oleander bush. The private gate stood open as before. I swung it shut, hooked up the chain and clicked the padlock. I went back, walking slowly, looking up at the moon, sniffing the night air, listening to the tree frogs and the crickets. I went into the house and found the front door and put the light on over that. There was a big parking space in front and a circular lawn with roses. But you had to slide back around the house to the rear to get away.
The place was a dead end except for the driveway through the neighboring grounds. I wondered who lived there. A long way off through trees I could see the lights of a big house. Some Hollywood big shot, probably, some wizard of the slobbery kiss, and the pornographic dissolve.
I went back in and felt the gun I had just fired. It was cold enough. And Mr. Steelgrave was beginning to look as if he meant to stay dead.