17
Nobody answered my ring or knock next door. I tried again. The screen door wasn’t hooked. I tried the house door. It was unlocked. I stepped inside.
Nothing was changed, not even the smell of gin. There were still no bodies on the floor. A dirty glass stood on the table beside the chair where Mrs. Florian had sat yesterday. The radio was turned off. I went over to the davenport and felt down behind the cushions. The same dead soldier and another one with him now.
I called out. No answer. Then I thought I heard a long slow unhappy breathing that was half groaning. I went through the arch and sneaked into the little hallway. The bedroom door was partly open and the groaning sound came from behind it. I stuck my head in and looked.
Mrs. Florian was in bed. She was lying flat on her back with a cotton comforter pulled up to her chin. One of the little fluffballs on the comforter was almost in her mouth. Her long yellow face was slack, half dead. Her dirty hair straggled on the pillow. Her eyes opened slowly and looked at me with no expression. The room had a sickening smell of sleep, liquor and dirty clothes. A sixty-nine cent alarm clock ticked on the peeling gray-white paint of the bureau. It ticked loud enough to shake the walls. Above it a mirror showed a distorted view of the woman’s face. The trunk from which she had taken the photos was still open.
I said: “Good afternoon, Mrs. Florian. Are you sick?”
She worked her lips slowly, rubbed one over the other, then slid a tongue out and moistened them and worked her jaws. Her voice came from her mouth sounding like a worn-out phonograph record. Her eyes showed recognition now, but not pleasure.
“You get him?”
“The Moose?”
“Sure.”
“Not yet. Soon, I hope.”
She screwed her eyes up and then snapped them open as if trying to get rid of a film over them.
“You ought to keep your house locked up,” I said. “He might come back.”
“You think I’m scared of the Moose, huh?”
“You acted like it when I was talking to you yesterday.”
She thought about that. Thinking was weary work. “Got any liquor?”
“No, I didn’t bring any today, Mrs. Florian. I was a little low on cash.”
“Gin’s cheap. It hits.”
“I might go out for some in a little while. So you’re not afraid of Malloy?”
“Why would I be?”
“Okey, you’re not. What are you afraid of?”
Light snapped into her eyes, held for a moment, and faded out again. “Aw beat it. You coppers give me an ache in the fanny.”
I said nothing. I leaned against the door frame and put a cigarette in my mouth and tried to jerk it up far enough to hit my nose with it. This is harder than it looks.
“Coppers,” she said slowly, as if talking to herself, “will never catch that boy. He’s good and he’s got dough and he’s got friends. You’re wasting your time, copper.”
“Just the routine,” I said. “It was practically a self-defense anyway. Where would he be?”
She snickered and wiped her mouth on the cotton comforter.
“Soap now,” she said. “Soft stuff. Copper smart. You guys still think it gets you something.”
“I liked the Moose,” I said.
Interest flickered in her eyes. “You know him?”
“I was with him yesterday—when he killed the nigger over on Central.”
She opened her mouth wide and laughed her head off without making any more sound than you would make cracking a breadstick. Tears ran out of her eyes and down her face.
“A big strong guy,” I said. “Soft-hearted in spots too. Wanted his Velma pretty bad.”
The eyes veiled. “Thought it was her folks was looking for her,” she said softly.
“They are. But she’s dead, you said. Nothing there. Where did she die?”
“Dalhart, Texas. Got a cold and went to the chest and off she went.”
“You were there?”
“Hell, now. I just heard.”
“Oh. Who told you, Mrs. Florian?”
“Some hoofer. I forget the name right now. Maybe a good stiff drink might help some. I feel like Death Valley.”
“And you look like a dead mule,” I thought, but didn’t say it out loud. “There’s just one more thing,” I said, “then I’ll maybe run out for some gin. I looked up the title to your house, I don’t know just why.”
She was rigid under the bedclothes, like a wooden woman. Even her eyelids were frozen half down over the clogged iris of her eyes. Her breath stilled.
“There’s a rather large trust deed on it,” I said. “Considering the low value of property around here. It’s held by a man named Lindsay Marriott.”
Her eyes blinked rapidly, but nothing else moved. She stared.
“I used to work for him,” she said at last. “I used to be a servant in his family. He kind of takes care of me a little.”
I took the unlighted cigarette out of my mouth and looked at it aimlessly and stuck it back in.
“Yesterday afternoon, a few hours after I saw you, Mr. Marriott called me up at my office. He offered me a job.”
“What kind of job?” Her voice croaked now, badly.
I shrugged. “I can’t tell you that. Confidential. I went to see him last night.”
“You’re a clever son of a bitch,” she said thickly and moved a hand under the bedclothes.
I stared at her and said nothing.
“Copper-smart,” she sneered.
I ran a hand up and down the door frame. It felt slimy. Just touching it made me want to take a bath.
“Well, that’s all,” I said smoothly. “I was just wondering how come. Might be nothing at all. Just a coincidence. It just looked as if it might mean something.”
“Copper-smart,” she said emptily. “Not a real copper at that. Just a cheap shamus.”
“I suppose so,” I said. “Well, good-by, Mrs. Florian. By the way, I don’t think you’ll get a registered letter tomorrow morning.”
She threw the bedclothes aside and jerked upright with her eyes blazing. Something glittered in her right hand. A small revolver, a Banker’s Special. It was old and worn, but looked business-like.
“Tell it,” she snarled. “Tell it fast.”
I looked at the gun and the gun looked at me. Not too steadily. The hand behind it began to shake, but the eyes still blazed. Saliva bubbled at the corners of her mouth.
“You and I could work together,” I said.
The gun and her jaw dropped at the same time. I was inches from the door. While the gun was still dropping, I slid through it and beyond the opening.
“Think it over,” I called back.
There was no sound, no sound of any kind.
I went fast back through the hall and dining room and out of the house. My back felt queer as I went down the walk. The muscles crawled.
Nothing happened. I went along the street and got into my car and drove away from there.
The last day of March and hot enough for summer. I felt like taking my coat off as I drove. In front of the 77th Street Station, two prowl car men were scowling at a bent front fender. I went in through the swing doors and found a uniformed lieutenant behind the railing looking over the charge sheet. I asked him if Nulty was upstairs. He said he thought he was, was I a friend of his. I said yes. He said okey, go on up, so I went up the worn stairs and along the corridor and knocked at the door. The voice yelled and I went in.
He was picking his teeth, sitting in one chair with his feet on the other. He was looking at his left thumb, holding it up in front of his eyes and at arm’s length. The thumb looked all right to me, but Nulty’s stare was gloomy, as if he thought it wouldn’t get well.
He lowered it to his thigh and swung his feet to the floor and looked at me instead of at his thumb. He wore a dark gray suit and a mangled cigar end was waiting on the desk for him to get through with the toothpick.
I turned the felt seat cover that lay on the other chair with its straps not fastened to anything, sat down, and put a cigarette in my face.
“You,” Nulty said, and looked at his toothpick, to see if it was chewed enough.
“Any luck?”
“Malloy? I ain’t on it any more.”
“Who is?”
“Nobody ain’t. Why? The guy’s lammed. We got him on the teletype and they got readers out. Hell, he’ll be in Mexico long gone.”
“Well, all he did was kill a Negro,” I said. “I guess that’s only a misdemeanor.”
“You still interested? I thought you was workin’?” His pale eyes moved damply over my face.
“I had a job last night, but it didn’t last. Have you still got that Pierrot photo?”
He reached around and pawed under his blotter. He held it out. It still looked pretty. I stared at the face.
“This is really mine,” I said. “If you don’t need it for the file, I’d like to keep it.”
“Should be in the file, I guess,” Nulty said. “I forgot about it. Okey, keep it under your hat. I passed the file in.”
I put the photo in my breast pocket and stood up. “Well, I guess that’s all,” I said, a little too airily.
“I smell something,” Nulty said coldly.
I looked at the piece of rope on the edge of his desk. His eyes followed my look. He threw the toothpick on the floor and stuck the chewed cigar in his mouth.
“Not this either,” he said.
“It’s a vague hunch. If it grows more solid, I won’t forget you.”
“Things is tough. I need a break, pal.”
“A man who works as hard as you deserves one,” I said.
He struck a match on his thumbnail, looked pleased because it caught the first time, and started inhaling smoke from the cigar.
“I’m laughing,” Nulty said sadly, as I went out.
The hall was quiet, the whole building was quiet. Down in front the prowl car men were still looking at their bent fender. I drove back to Hollywood.
The phone was ringing as I stepped into the office. I leaned down over the desk and said, “Yes?”
“Am I addressing Mr. Philip Marlowe?”
“Yes, this is Marlowe.”
“This is Mrs. Grayle’s residence. Mrs. Lewin Lockridge Grayle. Mrs. Grayle would like to see you here as soon as convenient.”
“Where?”
“The address is Number 862 Aster Drive, in Bay City. May I say you will arrive within the hour?”
“Are you Mr. Grayle?”
“Certainly not, sir. I am the butler.”
“That’s me you hear ringing the door bell,” I said.