you screwed up in such a big way on this one,” I said. “That stuff about the lottery and the forty thousand dollars was
pure guff–they pay off in pesos south of the border.”
`Ì knew that,” he said mildly. `Ì’m not saying I don’t goof up from time to time–I may be a kind of God in this
world, or to this world, but in my own I’m perfectly human–but when I do goof up, you and your fellow characters
never know it, Clyde, because my mistakes and continuity lapses are part of your
truth. No, Peoria was lying. I knew it,
and I wanted you to know it.”
“Why?”
He shrugged, again looking uneasy and a little ashamed. “To prepare you for my coming a little, I suppose. That’s what
all of it was for, starting with the Demmicks. I didn’t want to scare you any more than I had to.”
Any private eye worth his salt has a pretty good idea when the person in the client’s
chair is lying and when he’s telling
the truth; knowing when the client is telling the truth but purposely leaving gaps is a rarer talent, and I doubt if even the
geniuses among us can tap it all the time. Maybe I was only tapping it now because my brainwaves and Landry’s were
marching in lock-step, but I was tapping it. There was stuff he wasn’t telling me. The question was whether or not I
should call him on it.
What stopped me was a sudden, horrible intuition that came waltzing out of nowhere, like a ghost oozing out of the
wall of a haunted house. It had to do with the Demmicks. The reason they’d been so quiet last night was because dead
people don’t engage in marital spats–it’s one of those rules, like the one that says crap rolls downhill, that you can
pretty much count on through thick and thin. >From almost the first moment I’d met him, I’d sensed there was a violent
temper under George’s urbane top layer, and that there might be a sharp-clawed bitch lurking in the shadows behind
Gloria Demmick’s pretty face and daffy demeanor. They were just a little too Cole Porter to be true, if you see what I
mean. And now I was somehow sure that George had finally snapped and killed his wife .
. . probably their yappy
Welsh Corgi, as well. Gloria might be sitting propped up in the bathroom corner
between the shower and the toilet
right now, her face black, her eyes bulging like old dull marbles, her tongue
protruding between her blue lips. The dog
was lying with its head in her lap and a wire coathanger twisted around its neck, its shrill bark stilled forever. And
George? Dead on the bed with Gloria’s bottle of Veronals–now empty–standing beside him on the night-table. No
more parties, no more jitterbugging at Al Arif, no more frothy upper-class murder cases in Palm Desert or Beverly
Glen. They were cooling off now, drawing flies, growing pale under their fashionable poolside tans.
George and Gloria Demmick, who had died inside this man’s machine. Who had died
inside
this man’s head.
“You did one lousy job of not scaring me,” I said, and immediately wondered if it would have been possible for him to
do a good one. Ask yourself this: how do you get a person ready to meet God? I’ll bet even Moses got a little hot under
the robe when he saw that bush start to glow, and I’m nothing but a shamus who works for forty a day plus expenses.
“How Like a Fallen Angel was the Mavis Weld story. The name, Mavis Weld, is from a novel called The Little Sister
By Raymond Chandler.” He looked at me with a kind of troubled uncertainty that had
some small whiff of guilt in it.
`Ìt’s an hommage.” He said the first syllable so it rhymed with Rome.
“Bully for you,” I said, “but the guy’s name rings no bells.”
`Òf course not. In your world–which is my version of L.A., of course –Chandler
never existed. Nevertheless, I’ve
used all sorts of names from his books in mine. The Fulwider Building is where