A dick named Fox took my statement. He was dark haired and tight skinned and wore his sunglasses pushed up on his head while he talked to me.
"Didn't I see your name on the wire last week?" Fox said. "Discovered a murder victim in Hollywood?"
"It's a gift," I said. "At the peak of the season I sometimes discover two, three corpses a day."
"Maybe you do more than discover them," Fox said.
"Sure," I said. "I blast them for no reason then call the buttons at once and wait around for you to come and suspect me. I love being questioned by cops."
Fox nodded, looking at the notes he'd taken on my statement.
"Cops love it too. We got nothing better to do than talk cute with some second-rate gumshoe from the desert."
"I used to be a second-rate gumshoe from L.A.," I said. "I moved out here when I got married."
"Lucky for us," Fox said. "You say Lippy hired you to look for a guy owed him money."
I nodded.
"Who was it?"
I was quiet.
Fox took a deep breath.
"Marlowe," he said, "if you know anything at all besides how to peep through keyholes, you know that this is a murder case and a guy who skipped owing Lippy money is a suspect and that withholding the name of a murder suspect is enough to get your license lifted and your keister in jail."
I nodded. He was right. I was out so far on the limb now for Larry Victor/Les Valentine that I felt like a coconut.
"Guy named Les Valentine," I said. "Lives in the Springs."
Fox turned to one of the Poodle Springs prowlies, an apple-cheeked kid with short blond hair.
"Monson," Fox said, "you know anybody lives in the Springs named Les Valentine?"
Monson nodded and said, "Lemme speak to you alone, Sarge."
Fox raised his eyebrows and followed Monson across the room. They stood near Lippy's door and talked for a few moments in low voices. I got my pipe out while I waited, and packed it, and got it burning. The coroner was through looking at Lippy. Two guys in coveralls came in with a body bag and a dolly. They worked Lippy's stiff body into the bag and wrestled it onto the dolly and went out the office door. Lippy bumped against the door frame on the way out.
Fox and Monson got through talking and Fox came back to me. He threw one leg over the edge of Lippy's desk and looked down at me.
"Monson says Valentine is married to Clayton Black-stone's daughter."
"He had to whisper that?" I said.
"Says you're married to Harlan Potter's daughter."
"That's what he had to whisper?" I said.
"He had to whisper both," Fox said. "He didn't want you to know that us stalwart minions of the law are impressed with stuff like that."
"Are you?" I said.
"Maybe not, but sometimes people up the line are," Fox said.
"Don't worry about Harlan Potter," I said.
"Sure," Fox said. "I won't worry about him, you won't worry about him, the Sheriff, who's up for reelection this fall, won't worry about him. While you're not worrying about him, take a seat out in the casino for a little bit while we clean up here. We might want to chat some more."
I sat in the casino for about an hour and smoked my pipe while technicians cruised around the premises and Fox spent a lot of time talking on the phone in Lippy's office.
At about 7:30 in the evening, Fox came out of Lippy's office.
"We'd like to talk with you a little longer, Marlowe," he said. "We'll go over to the Springs. It's closer."
"I've got my car," I said.
"Monson will ride in with you," Fox said.
26
We were in an interrogation room at the Poodle Springs cop house. I was the special guest. Others included a female stenographer with hair the color of pink grapefruit, Sgt. Whitestone from the Springs, Fox, Lt. Wilton Crump, who was the Riverside County Chief Investigator, and as a surprise treat, Bernie Ohls. Crump was round shouldered and long armed. His neck was short. He had piggy eyes separated by a wide flat nose. The backs of his hands were hairy. He had on a black suit and vest and a Borsalino hat. He wore the hat tilted back on his head.
"Let's understand each other, Marlowe," Crump said. He was chewing tobacco and holding a paper cup to spit into. "I know you're Harlan Potter's son-in-law and it don't impress me a goddamned bit."
"Oh darn," I said. "I was hoping you'd want to dance with me."
Crump had the tobacco juice cup in his left hand. He reached around under his coat flap with his right hand and came out with a woven leather sap. He showed it to me and smiled, a big mean tobacco-stained smile, and slapped the blackjack softly against his right thigh.
"I don't have much time, Marlowe. I don't have much time for funny, I don't have much time for cute. You found two stiffs in the same week, both shot with a small-caliber gun, in the head. You got something you want to say about that?"
"Just lucky, I guess."
Crump slapped the blackjack again against his thigh and bent toward me. His breath smelled like he might have drunk some Scotch and then eaten Sen-Sen. I could see the red streaking in the whites of his eyes.
"Careful, Marlowe," he said. His voice sounded clotted. "Be goddamned careful."
I gave him a polite smile.
"Now we're just dumb coppers," Crump said, still close to my face, "and so a smart rich private eye like you probably knows stuff that we don't see."
"I'm not rich," I said. "My wife's rich."
Crump talked on as if I hadn't spoken.
"But we were wondering if there might not be some sort of connection, maybe, between the two stiffs you found. And maybe even that you might be telling the L.A. coppers one thing, and us another thing. Lieutenant Ohls here was wondering that enough to drive all the way out here after we called him and said we'd been talking to you."
Ohls was leaning against the wall across the room, with his hat tilted forward over his eyes and his arms folded across his chest.
"We might be wondering, too, before Crump frightens us both to death, if you might care to talk a little about how come you were chasing around Western and Sunset at three-thirty in the a.m. with Angel Victor, who is, for the record, the wife of the chief suspect in the murder of Lola Faithful."
"If he don't give me an answer I like," Crump said, "I'll do a hell of a lot more than frighten him." He glanced over at Ohls and then glared in my face.
I said to Bernie, "If you can get Buzzard Breath, here, out of my face, maybe we can talk."
Still leaning in close to me, Crump hit me on the side of the left knee with the blackjack. The pain ran the length of my leg both ways and into my groin. The leg started to throb immediately. There was a hint of tobacco juice at the corner of Crump's mouth.
He snarled at me, "Buzzard Breath, Smart Boy?"
Still leaning on the wall with his arms folded, Ohls said, "Put the sap away, Crump."
Crump straightened and stared across at Ohls.
"The hell with you," he said. "He's my prisoner."
Ohls took out one of his little cigars and put it in his mouth and got it lit. Then he straightened from the wall and walked easily across the room and stood directly in front of Crump with his face maybe a half inch away from Crump's. He let a little smoke drift out as he spoke.
"You either put the sap away," Ohls said in a soft and pleasant voice, "or I will strain it through your teeth."
Crump jerked a little, as if someone had jabbed him. No one said anything for a moment. The two men stood close together.
Then Crump said, "Aw, the hell with this," and stuffed the sap in his back pocket and turned and left the room. Ohls smiled as if at some private joke and turned and went back and leaned on the wall.