The brown man laughed and took a rolled cylinder of nickles out of his pocket and tossed it up and down on the palm of his hand.
“Don’t crab so much,” he said dryly. “Fix those flats.”
“I’m fixin’ them, ain’t I?”
“Well, don’t make a song about it.”
“Yah!” Art peeled his rubber coat and sou’wester off and threw them away from him. He heaved one tire up on a spreader and tore the rim loose viciously. He had the tube out and cold-patched in nothing flat. Still scowling, he strode over to the wall beside me and grabbed an air hose, put enough air into the tube to give it body and let the nozzle of the air hose smack against the whitewashed wall.
I stood watching the roll of wrapped coins dance in Canino’s hand. The moment of crouched intensity had left me. I turned my head and watched the gaunt mechanic beside me toss the air-stiffened tube up and catch it with his hands wide, one on each side of the tube. He looked it over sourly, glanced at a big galvanized tub of dirty water in the corner and grunted.
The teamwork must have been very nice. I saw no signal, no glance of meaning, no gesture that might have a special import. The gaunt man had the stiffened tube high in the air, staring at it. He half turned his body, took one long quick step, and slammed it down over my head and shoulders, a perfect ringer.
He jumped behind me and leaned hard on the rubber. His weight dragged on my chest, pinned my upper arms tight to my sides. I could move my hands, but I couldn’t reach the gun in my pocket.
The brown man came almost dancing towards me across the floor. His hand tightened over the roll of nickels. He came up to me without sound, without expression. I bent forward and tried to heave Art off his feet.
The fist with the weighted tube inside it went through my spread hands like a stone through a cloud of dust. I had the stunned moment of shock when the lights danced and the visible world went out of focus but was still there. He hit me again. There was no sensation in my head. The bright glare got brighter. There was nothing but hard aching white light. Then there was darkness in which something red wriggled like a germ under a microscope. Then there was nothing bright or wriggling, just darkness and emptiness and a rushing wind and a falling as of great trees.
28
It seemed there was a woman and she was sitting near a lamp, which was where she belonged, in a good light. Another light shone hard on my face, so I closed my eyes again and tried to look at her through the lashes. She was so platinumed that her hair shone like a silver fruit bowl. She wore a green knitted dress with a broad white collar turned over it. There was a sharp-angled glossy bag at her feet. She was smoking and a glass of amber fluid was tall and pale at her elbow.
I moved my head a little, carefully. It hurt, but not more than I expected. I was trussed like a turkey ready for the oven. Handcuffs held my wrists behind me and a rope went from them to my ankles and then over the end of the brown davenport on which I was sprawled. The rope dropped out of sight over the davenport. I moved enough to make sure it was tied down.
I stopped these furtive movements and opened my eyes again and said: “Hello.”
The woman withdrew her gaze from some distant mountain peak. Her small firm chin turned slowly. Her eyes were the blue of mountain lakes. Overhead the rain still pounded, with a remote sound, as if it was somebody else’s rain.
“How do you feel?” It was a smooth silvery voice that matched her hair. It had a tiny tinkle in it, like bells in a doll’s house. I thought that was silly as soon as I thought of it.
“Great,” I said. “Somebody built a filling station on my jaw.”
“What did you expect, Mr. Marlowe—orchids?”
“Just a plain pine box,” I said. “Don’t bother with bronze or silver handles. And don’t scatter my ashes over the blue Pacific. I like the worms better. Did you know that worms are of both sexes and that any worm can love any other worm?”
“You’re a little light-headed,” she said, with a grave stare.
“Would you mind moving this light?”
She got up and went behind the davenport. The light went off. The dimness was a benison.
“I don’t think you’re so dangerous,” she said. She was tall rather than short, but no bean-pole. She was slim, but not a dried crust. She went back to her chair.
“So you know my name.”
“You slept well. They had plenty of time to go through your pockets. They did everything but embalm you. So you’re a detective.”
“Is that all they have on me?”
She was silent. Smoke floated dimly from the cigarette. She moved it in the air. Her hand was small and had shape, not the usual bony garden tool you see on women nowadays.
“What time is it?” I asked.
She looked sideways at her wrist, beyond the spiral of smoke, at the edge of the grave luster of the lamplight. “Ten-seventeen. You have a date?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. Is this the house next to Art Huck’s garage?”
“Yes.”
“What are the boys doing—digging a grave?”
“They had to go somewhere.”
“You mean they left you here alone?”
Her head turned slowly again. She smiled. “You don’t look dangerous.”
“I thought they were keeping you a prisoner.”
It didn’t seem to startle her. It even slightly amused her. “What made you think that?”
“I know who you are.”
Her very blue eyes flashed so sharply that I could almost see the sweep of their glance, like the sweep of a sword. Her mouth tightened. But her voice didn’t change.
“Then I’m afraid you’re in a bad spot. And I hate killing.”
“And you Eddie Mars’ wife? Shame on you.”
She didn’t like that. She glared at me. I grinned. “Unless you can unlock these bracelets, which I’d advise you not to do, you might spare me a little of that drink you’re neglecting.”
She brought the glass over. Bubbles rose in it like false hopes. She bent over me. Her breath was as delicate as the eyes of a fawn. I gulped from the glass. She took it away from my mouth and watched some of the liquid run down my neck.
She bent over me again. Blood began to move around in me, like a prospective tenant looking over a house.
“Your face looks like a collision mat,” she said.
“Make the most of it. It won’t last long even this good.”
She swung her head sharply and listened. For an instant her face was pale. The sounds were only the rain drifting against the walls. She went back across the room and stood with her side to me, bent forward a little, looking down at the floor.
“Why did you come here and stick your neck out?” she asked quietly. “Eddie wasn’t doing you any harm. You know perfectly well that if I hadn’t hid out here, the police would have been certain Eddie murdered Rusty Regan.”
“He did,” I said.
She didn’t move, didn’t change position an inch. Her breath made a harsh quick sound. I looked around the room. Two doors, both in the same wall, one half open. A carpet of red and tan squares, blue curtains at the windows, a wallpaper with bright green pine trees on it. The furniture looked as if it had come from one of those places that advertise on bus benches. Gay, but full of resistance.
She said softly: “Eddie didn’t do anything to him. I haven’t seen Rusty in months. Eddie’s not that sort of man.”
“You left his bed and board. You were living alone. People at the place where you lived identified Regan’s photo.”
“That’s a lie,” she said coldly.
I tried to remember whether Captain Gregory had said that or not. My head was too fuzzy. I couldn’t be sure.
“And it’s none of your business,” she added.
“The whole thing is my business. I’m hired to find out.”
“Eddie’s not that sort of man.”
“Oh, you like racketeers.”
“As long as people will gamble there will be places for them to gamble.”
“That’s just protective thinking. Once outside the law you’re all the way outside. You think he’s just a gambler. I think he’s a pornographer, a blackmailer, a hot car broker, a killer by remote control, and a suborner of crooked cops. He’s whatever looks good to him, whatever has the cabbage pinned to it. Don’t try to sell me on any high-souled racketeers. They don’t come in that pattern.”
“He’s not a killer.” Her nostrils flared.
“Not personally. He has Canino. Canino killed a man tonight, a harmless little guy who was trying to help somebody out. I almost saw him killed.”
She laughed wearily.