I turned. Yes. Brown ones. South American, in a French enamel case.
He leaned forward and pushed the embroidered silk case out of the pile of junk on the table and then pulled it towards him.
Ever see this one before?
Sure. I was just looking at it.
I mean, earlier this evening.
I believe I did, I said. Lying around somewhere. Why?
You didnt search the body?
Okey, I said. Yes, I looked through his pockets. That was in one of them. Im sorry. Just professional curiosity. I didnt disturb anything. After all he was my client.
Randall took hold of the embroidered case with both hands and opened it. He sat looking into it. It was empty. The three cigarettes were gone.
I bit hard on my teeth and kept the tired look on my face. It was not easy.
Did you see him smoke a cigarette out of this?
No.
Randall nodded coolly. Its empty as you see. But it was in his pocket just the same. Theres a little dust in it. Im going to have it examined under a microscope. Im not sure, but I have an idea its marihuana.
I said: If he had any of those, I should think he would have smoked a couple tonight. He needed something to cheer him up.
Randall closed the case carefully and pushed it away.
Thats all, he said. And keep your nose clean.
I went out.
The fog had cleared off outside and the stars were as bright as artificial stars of chromium on a sky of black velvet. I drove fast. I needed a drink badly and the bars were closed.
13
I got up at nine, drank three cups of black coffee, bathed the back of my head with ice-water and read the two morning papers that had been thrown against the apartment door. There was a paragraph and a bit about Moose Malloy, in Part II, but Nulty didnt get his name mentioned. There was nothing about Lindsay Marriott, unless it was on the society page.
I dressed and ate two soft boiled eggs and drank a fourth cup of coffee and looked myself over in the mirror. I still looked a little shadowy under the eyes. I had the door open to leave when the phone rang.
It was Nulty. He sounded mean.
Marlowe?
Yeah. Did you get him?
Oh sure. We got him. He stopped to snarl. On the Ventura line, like I said. Boy, did we have fun! Six foot six, built like a coffer dam, on his way to Frisco to see the Fair. He had five quarts of hooch in the front seat of the rent car, and he was drinking out of another one as he rode along, doing a quiet seventy. All we had to go up against him with was two county cops with guns and blackjacks.
He paused and I turned over a few witty sayings in my mind, but none of them seemed amusing at the moment. Nulty went on:
So he done exercises with the cops and when they was tired enough to go to sleep, he pulled one side off their car, threw the radio into the ditch, opened a fresh bottle of hooch, and went to sleep hisself. After a while the boys snapped out of it and bounced blackjacks off his head for about ten minutes before he noticed it. When he began to get sore they got handcuffs on him. It was easy. We got him in the icebox now, drunk driving, drunk in auto, assaulting police officer in performance of duty, two counts, malicious damage to official property, attempted escape from custody, assault less than mayhem, disturbing the peace, and parking on a state highway. Fun, aint it?
Whats the gag? I asked. You didnt tell me all that just to gloat.
It was the wrong guy, Nulty said savagely. This bird is named Stoyanoffsky and he lives in Hemet and he just got through working as a sandhog on the San Jack tunnel. Got a wife and four kids. Boy, is she sore. What you doing on Malloy?
Nothing. I have a headache.
Any time you get a little free time
I dont think so, I said. Thanks just the same. When is the inquest on the nigger coming up?
Why bother? Nulty sneered, and hung up.
I drove down to Hollywood Boulevard and put my car in the parking space beside the building and rode up to my floor. I opened the door of the little reception room which I always left unlocked, in case I had a client and the client wanted to wait.
Miss Anne Riordan looked up from a magazine and smiled at me.
She was wearing a tobacco brown suit with a high-necked white sweater inside it. Her hair by daylight was pure auburn and on it she wore a hat with a crown the size of a whiskey glass and a brim you could have wrapped the weeks laundry in. She wore it at an angle of approximately forty-five degrees, so that the edge of the brim just missed her shoulder. In spite of that it looked smart. Perhaps because of that.
She was about twenty-eight years old. She had a rather narrow forehead of more height than is considered elegant. Her nose was small and inquisitive, her upper lip a shade too long and her mouth more than a shade too wide. Her eyes were gray-blue with flecks of gold in them. She had a nice smile. She looked as if she had slept well. It was a nice face, a face you get to like. Pretty, but not so pretty that you would have to wear brass knuckles every time you took it out.
I didnt know just what your office hours were, she said. So I waited. I gather that your secretary is not here today.
I dont have a secretary.
I went across and unlocked the inner door, then switched on the buzzer that rang on the outer door. Lets go into my private thinking parlor.
She passed in front of me with a vague scent of very dry sandalwood and stood looking at the five green filing cases, the shabby rust-red rug, the half-dusted furniture, and the not too clean net curtains.
I should think you would want somebody to answer the phone, she said. And once in a while to send your curtains to the cleaners.
Ill send them out come St. Swithins Day. Have a chair. I might miss a few unimportant jobs. And a lot of leg art. I save money.
I see, she said demurely, and placed a large suede bag carefully on the corner of the glass-topped desk. She leaned back and took one of my cigarettes. I burned my finger with a paper match lighting it for her.
She blew a fan of smoke and smiled though it. Nice teeth, rather large.
You probably didnt expect to see me again so soon. How is your head?
Poorly. No, I didnt.
Were the police nice to you?
About the way they always are.
Im not keeping you from anything important, am I?
No.
All the same I dont think youre very pleased to see me.
I filled a pipe and reached for the packet of paper matches. I lit the pipe carefully. She watched that with approval. Pipe smokers were solid men. She was going to be disappointed in me.
I tried to leave you out of it, I said. I dont know why exactly. Its no business of mine any more anyhow. I ate my dirt last night and banged myself to sleep with a bottle and now its a police case: Ive been warned to leave it alone.
The reason you left me out of it, she said calmly, was that you didnt think the police would believe just mere idle curiosity took me down into that hollow last night. They would suspect some guilty reason and hammer at me until I was a wreck.
How do you know I didnt think the same thing?
Cops are just people, she said irrelevantly.
They start out that way, Ive heard.
Oh cynical this morning. She looked around the office with an idle but raking glance. Do you do pretty well in here? I mean financially? I mean, do you make a lot of money with this kind of furniture?
I grunted.
Or should I try minding my own business and not asking impertinent questions?
Would it work, if you tried it?
Now were both doing it. Tell me, why did you cover up for me last night? Was it on account of I have reddish hair and a beautiful figure?
I didnt say anything.
Lets try this one, she said cheerfully. Would you like to know who that jade necklace belonged to?