He turned around and walked out. I followed him a minute later and arrived at the Cypress Club ahead of him.
It looked shabbier in daylight, like clubs always do. The threadbare spots that indirect lighting concealed looked sadly real with the sun shining on them. The places where the paint had peeled in the steady Pacific wind stood out in clear relief in the daylight. Things seemed to look better in the shadows.
Mars was the exception. He looked just as good in daylight with a pearl-gray sport coat and a charcoal shirt with the collar points spilling out over the lapels. He was in the office with Vivian when I went in.
She didn’t look good. Her upper lip was puffy and one eye was nearly closed with the darkening rings of a classic shiner developing. What makeup she may have had was worn away and her hair was messy and she looked haggard and frightened and vulnerable. And beautiful.
“What happened?” I said.
She looked at Eddie and he answered for her.
“She got a call from Bonsentir’s clinic, told her Carmen was back and she should come up. She went instead of calling me. Up along Mulholland a couple of sluggers ran her off the road, tossed her around a little, and told her to put a leash on you.”
“Or else?”
Mars nodded. His face was perfectly calm but his eyes glittered.
“Leave it alone, Marlowe,” Vivian said in a choked voice. “Leave it alone, get the hell out of our lives and let us have some peace.”
“And what?” I said. “And let Carmen go wherever Bonsentir sends her and you do whatever two thugs tell you to do? That’s peace?”
Vivian looked at Eddie and back at me.
Mars said, “He’s right, sugar,” in a voice so flat and cold it didn’t sound human.
She stared at him for a moment and at me for a moment and began to cry. “Look at me,” she said, “look at me.” And she cried harder, but crying hurt her so she got it under control. Mars didn’t say anything to her, but walked across the room and put an arm around her. She stood rigid.
“I called you,” she said to me, fighting to keep her voice steady. “You weren’t there. So I went and when this happened I came to Eddie.”
“No explanations necessary,” I said.
Mars was looking at me. I don’t think he heard any of what was being said. The glitter in his eyes was like ice.
“What are we going to do about this, soldier?”
“Something,” I said. “We in this together now?”
Mars nodded. “For now,” he said. His mind seemed far away. “Doesn’t mean we’re pals, soldier. Just means we got a common interest.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“What are you going to do?” Vivian said.
“Something,” I said.
“Sugar, if you’re all right, I’ll send a couple of boys home with you,” Mars said. “Marlowe and I have to talk.”
“And I just sit by while you men decide my life,” Vivian said.
“You got a better idea?” I said.
She shook her head and her battered face darkened again as if she were going to cry. But she didn’t.
“No, dammit, it’s how women have always lived. Stay home, wait, hope, while the men do ‘something.’ Maybe I’ll get drunk.”
“I’ll have a couple of boys stay around you,” Mars said. “Nobody’s going to hurt you again.”
“The hell they won’t,” Vivian said and turned and went.
Blondie appeared at the door as soon as she went through it.
“Take somebody, drive her home. Stay with her.”
Blondie disappeared.
The club was silent, the way night places are in the day. Mars reached into a desk drawer and took out a short-barreled Colt .45 and put it on his desk. He put a box of shells beside it.
“You got a theory on all this?” he said.
I sat across the desk from him and crossed my legs and tossed my foot a minute.
“I figure Carmen’s an accident.” I said. “I figure the issue is some kind of trick that’s happening between Neville Valley and Rancho Springs. Somebody’s buying water rights up in Neville Valley where there’s a government irrigation project in the works. And they’re buying real estate in a place called Rancho Springs — which doesn’t have any springs — in the desert east of Pasadena.”
“You got a thought who that might be, soldier?”
“I’m getting to that,” I said. “I figure that the plan is to divert the water from Neville Valley to Rancho Springs and get rich selling fertile land which they bought for nothing when it was dust bowl.”
“Two hundred miles?” Mars said.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ve done a little reading. The Los Angeles aqueduct runs that long, down from Owens Valley.”
“So they buy cheap land, steal some water to fertilize it, and sell it expensive,” Mars said.
I nodded. “I figure Bonsentir’s in it, and Simpson’s in it. This kind of deal needs a lot of bankroll. And I figure they have bribed the government people doing the water development in Neville Valley, and I figure they own the law in Rancho Springs. Couple of desert cops chased me out of there the other day.”
“People been sort of unfriendly toward you,” Mars said.
“I’m used to it,” I said. “So they have this sweet deal all locked up and under control and then I come along, Marlowe the snoop, looking for Carmen Sternwood and everyone has a swivet for fear that I’ll stumble onto the Neville Valley scheme.”
“So why didn’t somebody just dump you?” Mars said. He took a silk show handkerchief out of his breast pocket, refolded it carefully, and put it back in his breast pocket.
“They thought they could scare me off. A murder attracts too much attention.”
“So why didn’t somebody give Carmen back? You say you think Simpson’s got her,” Mars said.
“Hard to figure that,” I said. “It may have something to do with Simpson being such a twisted gee. He’s so rich he may not think like you and me, Eddie.”
“And he’s wired,” Mars said.
“Very,” I said. “His protection has got protection. I think he thinks he can do anything he wants without consequences.”
“He can’t beat up my girl,” Mars said.
There wasn’t anything there for me to talk about. I let it slide.
“Thing that doesn’t fit is the murder. And maybe it doesn’t fit, maybe it’s just a random thing that’s not connected to the rest.”
“The hack murder?”
“Yeah. The Sternwood phone number was on a matchbook in her purse.”
“I read about it,” Mars said. “Didn’t mention any names in the paper.”
“Sternwoods got a little juice themselves,” I said.
“You figure it was Carmen gave her the number?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about the murder. I wish it weren’t in here at all, it muddies everything up.”
“A sweet deal like that,” Mars said. “They’re not going to let you push them off it.”
“True.”
“There’s maybe fifty, maybe a hundred million dollars you could make in that kind of a deal.”
“Yeah.”
“They’ll kill you if they have to,” Mars said. “I would.”
“It’s been tried,” I said. “One of yours tried.”
Mars nodded thoughtfully.
“I don’t care about you, soldier,” he said. “But to take them off Vivian’s back, we’re going to have to bust this deal for them, I think.”
“I think so,” I said. “And we’re going to have to find Carmen.”
“Little Miss Hotpants,” Mars said and shook his head. “You’d do her sister a favor if you buried her.”
“Wasn’t hired to do that,” I said.
“Maybe you could be hired to forget it,” Mars said.
“You know better, Eddie,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “You’re not smart, soldier. But I’ll give you that you’re stubborn. So we find Carmen too.”