Black Mask (Vol. 18, No. 11 — January 1936)
Guns at Cyrano’s
by Raymond Chandler
She called herself a tramp; Ted Malvern calls her angel and faces guns at Cyrano’s to find out which is right.
1
Ted Malvern liked the rain; liked the feel of it, the ^ sound of it, the smell of-it out of his LaSalle coupe and stood for a while by the side entrance to the Carondelet, the high collar of his blue suede ulster tickling his ears, his hands in his pockets and a limp cigarette sputtering between his lips. Then he went in past the barber shop and the drug-store and the perfume shop with its rows of delicately lighted bottles, ranged like the ensemble in the finale of a Broadway musical.
He rounded a gold-veined pillar and got into an elevator with a cushioned floor.
“ ’Lo, Albert. A swell rain. Nine.”
The slim tired looking kid in pale blue and silver held a white gloved hand against the closing doors, said:
“Jeeze, you think I don’t know your floor, Mister Malvern?”
He shot the car up to nine without looking at his signal light, whooshed the doors open, then leaned suddenly against the cage and closed his eyes.
Malvern stopped on his way out, flicked a sharp glance from bright brown eyes. “What’s the matter, Albert? Sick?”
The boy worked a pale smile on his face. “I’m workin’ double shift. Corky’s sick. He’s got boils. I guess maybe I didn’t eat enough.”
The tall, brown-eyed man fished a crumpled five-spot out of his pocket, snapped it under the boy’s nose. The boy’s eyes bulged. He heaved upright.
“Jeeze, Mister Malvern. I didn’t mean—”
“Skip it, Albert. What’s a fin between pals? Eat some extra meals on me.”
He got out of the car and started along the corridor. Softly, under his breath, he said:
“Sucker...”
The running man almost knocked him off his feet. He rounded the turn fast, lurched past Malvern’s shoulder, ran for the elevator.
“Down!” He slammed through the dosing doors.
Malvern saw a white set face under a pulled-down hat that was wet with rain; two empty black eyes set very close. Eyes in which there was a peculiar stare he had seen before. A load of dope.
The car dropped like lead. Malvern looked at the place where it had been for a long moment, then he went on down the corridor and around the turn.
He saw the girl lying half in and half out of the open door of 914.
She lay on her side, in a sheen of steel gray lounging pajamas, her cheek pressed into the nap of the hall carpet, her head a mass of thick corn-blond hair, waved with glassy precision. Not a hair looked out of place. She was young, very pretty, and she didn’t look dead.
Malvern slid down beside her, touched her cheek. It was warm. He lifted the hair softly away from her head and saw the bruise.
“Sapped.” His lips pressed back against his teeth.
He picked her up in his arms, carried her through a short hallway to the living-room of a suite, put her down on a big velour davenport in front of some gas logs.
She lay motionless, her eyes shut, her face bluish behind the makeup. He shut the outer door and looked through the apartment, then went back to the hallway and picked up something that gleamed white against the baseboard. It was a bone-handled .22 automatic, seven-shot. He sniffed it, dropped it into his pocket and went back to the girl.
He took a big hammered silver flask out of his inside breast pocket and unscrewed the top, opened her mouth with his fingers and poured whiskey against her small white teeth. She gagged and her head jerked out of his hand. Her eyes opened. They were deep blue, with a tint of purple. Light came into them and the light was brittle.
He lit a cigarette and stood looking down at her. She moved a little more. After a while she whispered:
“I like your whiskey. Could I have a little more?”
He got a glass from the bathroom, poured whiskey into it. She sat up very slowly, touched her head, groaned. Then she took the glass out of his hand and put the liquor down with a practised flip of the wrist.
“I still like it,” she said. “Who are you?”
She had a deep soft voice. He liked the sound of it. He said:
“Ted Malvern. I live down the hall in 937.”
“I... I got a dizzy spell, I guess.”
“Uh-huh. You got sapped, angel.” His bright eyes looked at her probingly. There was a smile tucked to the corners of his lips.
Her eyes got wider. A glaze came over them, the glaze of a protective enamel.
He said: “I saw the guy. He was snowed to the hairline. And here’s your gun.”
He took it out of his pocket, held it on the flat of his hand.
“I suppose that makes me think up a bedtime story,” the girl said slowly.
“Not for me. If you’re in a jam, I might help you. It all depends.”
“Depends on what?” Her voice was colder, sharper.
“On what the racket is,” he said softly. He broke the magazine from the small gun, glanced at the top cartridge. “Copper-nickel, eh? You know your ammunition, angel.”
“Do you have to call me angel?”
“I don’t know your name.”
He grinned at her, then walked over to a desk in front of the windows, put the gun down on it. There was a leather photo frame on the desk, with two photos side by side. He looked at them casually at first, then his gaze tightened. A handsome dark woman and a thin blondish cold-eyed man whose high stiff collar, large knotted tie and narrow lapels dated the photo back many years. He stared at the man.
The girl was talking behind him. “I’m Jean Adrian. I do a number at Cyrano’s, in the floor show.”
Malvern still stared at the photo. “I know Benny Cyrano pretty well,” he said absently. “These your parents?”
He turned and looked at her. She lifted her head slowly. Something that might have been fear showed in her deep blue eyes.
“Yes. They’ve been dead for years,” she said dully. “Next question?”
He went quickly back to the davenport and stood in front of her. “Okey,” he said thinly. “I’m nosey. So what? This is my town. My dad used to run it. Old Marcus Malvern, the People’s Friend. This is my hotel. I own a piece of it. That snowed-up hoodlum looked like a life-taker to me. Why wouldn’t I want to help out?”
The blond girl stared at him lazily. “I still like your whiskey,” she said. “Could I—”
“Take it from the neck, angel. You get it down faster,” he grunted.
She stood up suddenly and her face got a little white. “You talk to me as if I was a crook,” she snapped. “Here it is, if you have to know. A boy friend of mine has been getting threats. He’s a fighter, and they want him to drop a fight. Now they’re trying to get at him through me. Does that satisfy you a little?”
Malvern picked his hat off a chair, took the cigarette end out of his mouth and rubbed it out in a tray. He nodded quietly, said in a changed voice:
“I beg your pardon.” He started towards the door.
The giggle came when he was halfway there. The girl said behind him softly:
“You have a nasty temper. And you’ve forgotten your flask.”
He went back and picked the flask up. Then he bent suddenly, put a hand under the girl’s chin and kissed her on the lips.
“To hell with you, angel. I like you,” he said softly.
He went back to the hallway and out. The girl touched her lips with one finger, rubbed it slowly back and forth. There was a shy smile on her face.