I turned my back on him and walked through the door into the other office. It was hard work but I made it. I sweated all the way. I went around behind the desk and stood there waiting. Mr. Toad followed me in placidly. The junky came twitching in behind him.
“You don’t have a comic book around, do you?” Toad asked. “Keeps him quiet.”
“Sit down,” I said. “I’ll look.”
He reached for the chair arms. I jerked a drawer open and got my hand around the butt of a Luger. I brought it up slowly, looking at Alfred. Alfred didn’t even look at me. He was studying the corner of the ceiling and trying to keep his mouth out of his eye.
“This is as comic as I get,” I said.
“You won’t need that,” the big man said, genially.
“That’s fine,” I said, like somebody else talking, far away behind a wall. I could just barely hear the words. “But if I do, here it is. And this one’s loaded. Want me to prove it to you?”
The big man looked as near worried as he would ever look. “I’m sorry you take it like that,” he said. “I’m so used to Alfred I hardly notice him. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I ought to do something about him.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Do it this afternoon before you come up here. It’s too late now.”
“Now wait a minute, Mr. Marlowe.” He put his hand out. I slashed at it with the Luger. He was fast, but not fast enough. I cut the back of his hand open with the sight on the gun. He grabbed at it and sucked at the cut. “Hey, please! Alfred’s my nephew. My sister’s kid. I kind of look after him. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, really.”
“Next time you come up I’ll have one for him not to hurt,” I said.
“Now don’t be like that, mister. Please don’t be like that. I’ve got quite a nice little proposition—”
“Shut up,” I said. I sat down very slowly. My face burned. I had difficulty speaking clearly at all. I felt a little drunk. I said, slowly and thickly: “A friend of mine told me about a fellow that had something like this pulled on him. He was at a desk the way I am. He had a gun, just the way I have. There were two men on the other side of the desk, like you and Alfred. The man on my side began to get mad. He couldn’t help himself. He began to shake. He couldn’t speak a word. He just had this gun in his hand. So without a word he shot twice under the desk, right where your belly is.”
The big man turned a sallow green color and started to get up. But he changed his mind. He got a violent-looking handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his face. “You seen that in a picture,” he said.
“That’s right,” I said. “But the man who made the picture told me where he got the idea. That wasn’t in any picture.” I put the Luger down on the desk in front of me and said in a more natural voice: “You’ve got to be careful about firearms, Mr. Toad. You never know but what it may upset a man to have an Army .45 snapped in his face—especially when he doesn’t know it’s not loaded. It made me kind of nervous for a minute. I haven’t had a shot of morphine since lunch time.”
Toad studied me carefully with narrow eyes. The junky got up and went to another chair and kicked it around and sat down and tilted his greasy head against the wail. But his nose and hands kept on twitching.
“I heard you were kind of hard-boiled,” Toad said slowly, his eyes cool and watchful.
“You heard wrong. I’m a very sensitive guy. I go all to pieces over nothing.”
“Yeah. I understand.” He stared at me a long time without speaking. “Maybe we played this wrong. Mind if I put my hand in my pocket? I don’t wear a gun.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “It would give me the greatest possible pleasure to see you try to pull a gun.”
He frowned, then very slowly got out a flat pigskin wallet and drew out a crisp new one-hundred-dollar bill. He laid it on the edge of the glass top, drew out another just like it, then one by one three more. He laid them carefully in a row along the desk, end to end. Alfred let his chair settle to the floor and stared at the money with his mouth quivering.
“Five C’s,” the big man said. He folded his wallet and put it away. I watched every movement he made. “For nothing at all but keeping the nose clean. Check?”
I just looked at him.
“You ain’t looking for nobody,” the big man said. “You couldn’t find nobody. You don’t have time to work for nobody. You didn’t hear a thing or see a thing. You’re clean. Five C’s clean. Okay?”
There was no sound in the office but Alfred’s sniffling. The big man half turned his head. “Quiet, Alfred. I’ll give you a shot when we leave,” the big man told him. “Try to act nice.” He sucked again at the cut on the back of his hand.
“With you for a model that ought to be easy,” I said.
“Screw you,” Alfred said.
“Limited vocabulary,” the big man told me. “Very limited. Get the idea, chum?” He indicated the money. I fingered the butt of the Luger. He leaned forward a little. “Relax, can’t you. It’s simple. This is a retainer. You don’t do a thing for it. Nothing is what you do. If you keep on doing nothing for a reasonable length of time you get the same amount later on. That’s simple, isn’t it?”
“And who am I doing this nothing for?” I asked.
“Me. Joseph P. Toad.”
“What’s your racket?”
“Business representative, you might call me.”
“What else could I call you? Besides what I could think up myself?”
“You could call me a guy that wants to help out a guy that don’t want to make trouble for a guy.”
“And what could I call that lovable character?” I asked.
Joseph P. Toad gathered the five hundred-dollar bills together, lined up the edges neatly and pushed the packet across the desk. “You can call him a guy that would rather spill money than blood,” he said. “But he don’t mind spilling blood if it looks like that’s what he’s got to do.”
“How is he with an ice pick?” I asked. “I can see how lousy he is with a .45.”
The big man chewed his lower lip, then pulled it out with a blunt forefinger and thumb and nibbled on the inside of it softly, like a milch cow chewing her cud. ‘We’re not talking about ice picks,” he said at length. “All we’re talking about is how you might get off on the wrong foot and do yourself a lot of harm. Whereas if you don’t get off on no foot at all, you’re sitting pretty and money coming in.”
“Who is the blonde?” I asked.
He thought about that and nodded. “Maybe you’re into this too far already,” he sighed. “Maybe it’s too late to do business.”
After a moment he leaned forward and said gently: “Okay. I’ll check back with my principal and see how far out he wants to come. Maybe we can still do business. Everything stands as it is until you hear from me. Check?”
I let him have that one. He put his hands on the desk and very slowly stood up, watching the gun I was pushing around on the blotter.
“You can keep the dough,” he said. “Come on, Alfred.” He turned and walked solidly out of the office.
Alfred’s eyes crawled sideways watching him, then jerked to the money on the desk. The big automatic appeared with the same magic in his thin right hand. Dartingly as an eel he moved over to the desk. He kept the gun on me and reached for the money with his left hand. It disappeared into his pocket. He gave me a smooth cool empty grin, nodded and moved away, apparently not realizing for a moment that I was holding a gun too.
“Come on, Alfred,” the big man called sharply from outside the door. Alfred slipped through the door and was gone.
The outer door opened and closed. Steps went along the hail. Then silence. I sat there thinking back over it, trying to make up my mind whether it was pure idiocy or just a new way to toss a scare.
Five minutes later the telephone rang.
A thick pleasant voice said: “Oh by the way, Mr. Marlowe, I guess you know Sherry Ballou, don’t you?”
“Nope.”
“Sheridan Ballou, Incorporated. The big agent? You ought to look him up sometime.”
I held the phone silently for a moment. Then I said: “Is he her agent?”
“He might be,” Joseph P. Toad said, and paused a moment. “I suppose you realize we’re just a couple of bit players, Mr. Marlowe. That’s all. Just a couple of bit players. Somebody wanted to find out a little something about you. It seemed the simplest way to do it. Now, I’m not so sure.”
I didn’t answer. He hung up. Almost at once the phone rang again.
A seductive voice said: “You do not like me so well, do you, amigo?”
“Sure I do. Just don’t keep biting me.”
“I am at home at the Chateau Bercy. I am lonely.”
“Call an escort bureau.”
“But please. That is no way to talk. This is business of a great importance.”
“I bet. But not the business I’m in.”
“That slut—What does she say about me?” she hissed.
“Nothing. Oh, she might have called you a Tijuana hooker in riding pants. Would you mind?”
That amused her. The silvery giggle went on for a little while. “Always the wisecrack with you. Is it not so? But you see I did not then know you were a detective. That makes a very big difference.”
I could have told her how wrong she was. I just said: “Miss Gonzales, you said something about business. What kind of business, if you’re not kidding me?”
“Would you like to make a great deal of money? A very great deal of money?”
“You mean without getting shot?” I asked.
Her incaught breath came over the wire. “Si,” she said thoughtfully. “There is also that to consider. But you are so brave, so big, so—”
“I’ll be at my office at nine in the morning, Miss Gonzales. I’ll be a lot braver then. Now if you’ll excuse me—”
“You have a date? Is she beautiful? More beautiful than I am?”
“For Christ’s sake,” I said. “Don’t you ever think of anything but one thing?”
“The hell with you, darling,” she said and hung up in my face.
I turned the lights out and left. Halfway down the hall I met a man looking at numbers. He had a special delivery in his hand. So I had to go back to the office and put it in the safe. And the phone rang again while I was doing this.
I let it ring. I had had enough for one day. I just didn’t care. It could have been the Queen of Sheba with her cellophane pajamas on—or off—I was too tired to bother. My brain felt like a bucket of wet sand.
It was still ringing as I reached the door. No use. I had to go back. Instinct was stronger than weariness. I lifted the receiver.
Orfamay Quest’s twittery little voice said: “Oh Mr. Marlowe I’ve been trying to get you for just the longest time. I’m so supset. I’m—”
“In the morning,” I said. “The office is closed.”
“Please, Mr. Marlowe—just because I lost my temper for a moment—”
“In the morning.”
“But I tell you I have to see you.” The voice didn’t quite rise to a yell. “It’s terribly important.”
“Unhuh.”
She sniffled. “You—you kissed me.”
“I’ve kissed better since,” I said. To hell with her. To hell with all women.
“I’ve heard from Orrin,” she said.
That stopped me for a moment, then I laughed. “You’re a nice little liar,” I said. “Goodbye.”
“But really I have. He called me. On the telephone. Right here where I’m staying.”
“Fine,” I said. “Then you don’t need a detective at all. And if you did, you’ve got a better one than I am right in the family. I couldn’t even find out where you were staying.”
There was a little pause. She still had me talking to her anyway. She’d kept me from hanging up. I had to give her that much.
“I wrote to him where I’d be staying,” she said at last.
“Unhuh. Only he didn’t get the letter because he had moved and he didn’t leave any forwarding address. Remember? Try again some time when I’m not so tired. Goodnight, Miss Quest. And you don’t have to tell me where you are staying now. I’m not working for you.”
“Very well, Mr. Marlowe. I’m ready to call the police now. But I don’t think you’ll like it. I don’t think you’ll like it at all.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s murder in it, Mr. Marlowe, and murder is a very nasty word—don’t you think?”
“Come on up,” I said. “I’ll wait.”
I hung up. I got the bottle of Old Forester out. There was nothing slow about the way I poured myself a drink and dropped it down my throat.
15
She came in briskly enough this time. Her motions were small and quick and determined. There was one of those thin little, bright little smiles on her face. She put her bag down firmly, settled herself in the customer’s chair and went on smiling.
“It’s nice of you to wait for me,” she said. “I bet you haven’t had your dinner yet, either.”
“Wrong,” I said. “I have had my dinner. I am now drinking whiskey. You don’t approve of whiskey-drinking do you?”
“I certainly do not.”
“That’s just dandy,” I said. “I hoped you hadn’t changed your mind.” I put the bottle up on the desk and poured myself another slug. I drank a little of it and gave her a leer above the glass.
“If you keep on with that you won’t be in any condition to listen to what I have to say,” she snapped.
“About this murder,” I said. “Anybody I know? I can see you’re not murdered—yet.”
“Please don’t be unnecessarily horrid. It’s not my fault. You doubted me over the telephone so I had to convince you. Orrin did call me up. But he wouldn’t tell me where he was or what he was doing. I don’t know why.”
“He wanted you to find out for yourself,” I said. “He’s building your character.”
“That’s not funny. It’s not even smart.”
“But you’ve got to admit it’s nasty,” I said. “Who was murdered? Or is that a secret too?”
She fiddled a little with her bag, not enough to overcome her embarrassment, because she wasn’t embarrassed. But enough to needle me into taking another drink.
“That horrid man in the rooming house was murdered. Mr.—Mr.—I forget his name.”
“Let’s both forget it,” I said. “Let’s do something together for once.” I dropped the whiskey bottle into the desk drawer and stood up. “Look, Orfamay, I’m not asking you how you know all this. Or rather how Orrin knows it all. Or if he does know it. You’ve found him. That’s what you wanted me to do. Or he’s found you, which comes to the same thing.”
“It’s not the same thing,” she cried. “I haven’t really found him. He wouldn’t tell me where he was living.”
“Well if it is anything like the last place, I don’t blame him.”
She set her lips in a firm line of distaste. “He wouldn’t tell me anything really.”
“Just about murders,” I said. “Trifles like that.”
She laughed bubblingly. “I just said that to scare you. I don’t really mean anybody was murdered, Mr. Marlowe. You sounded so cold and distant. I thought you wouldn’t help me any more. And—well, I just made it up.”
I took a couple of deep breaths and looked down at my hands. I straightened out the fingers slowly. Then I stood up. I didn’t say anything.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked timidly, making a little circle on the desk with the point of a finger.
“I ought to slap your face off,” I said. “And quit acting innocent. Or it mightn’t be your face I’d slap.”
Her breath caught with a jerk. “Why, how dare you!”