Raymond Chandler: Poodle Springs

"Because he took a naked picture?"

"Because it's his wife," I said.

Angel smiled tentatively at me.

"I don't understand," she said.

"Larry also goes by the name Les Valentine," I said. "-Under that name he is married to this woman, Muriel Blackstone, now Muriel Valentine."

"Larry's married to me," Angel said.

"Yes," I said, "and Les is married to her and Les and Larry are the same guy."

"I don't believe that," Angel said.

"No reason you should," I said. "But it's the truth and I've kept it from you as long as I'm going to."

"I don't know why you come to me and lie to me like this," Angel said. "You must be very evil or very sick."

"Tired," I said. "Tired of wading around in this swamp. Maybe your husband did kill somebody, maybe he didn't; but he's bolted again and I don't know where he is and I don't care. No more secrets."

"You still don't know where Larry is?" Angel said. It was as if everything else I'd told her had washed off her without a mark.

"No," I said. "Do you?"

"No. Do you think something happened to him?"

"No, I think he did what he knows how to do. He ran away."

"He wouldn't leave me," Angel said.

I just shook my head. I didn't know what the hell Larry/Les would do or where he'd go, and I was beginning to doubt that I ever would.

"He wouldn't," Angel said again.

I fished a card out of my wallet and handed it to her.

"If you find out where he is," I said, "you can call me."

She took the card without looking at it. I doubted that she'd call. I doubted that anyone would call. Ever.

I went out of the restaurant and back along the beach. The Pacific lumbered in toward me. The swells looked tired as they crested and fell apart on the beach, and gathered themselves and withdrew slowly, and got upright and fell toward the beach again.

Time to go back to the Springs.

Linda was pacing in the living room past the Hammond organ built into the bar, past the glass wall with the butterflies and back, past the oversized fireplace. The nude picture of Muriel Blackstone was on the bar. Nobody was looking at it.

"I admit I am astonished," Linda said. "I had no idea that Muffy Blackstone…" She shook her head. – "Maybe most women lead lives of quiet desperation, too," I said.

"Maybe they do, but I must say I don't see why my husband has to be the one to dig that up. I mean, really, Philip," she nodded at the picture, "aren't you embarrassed?"

"It's been a long time," I said, "since I got embarrassed."

"Well, you should be. I am."

"I'm a detective, lady. You knew that when you married me."

"I guess I didn't think you'd always be a detective."

"Or you thought I'd grow a thin moustache and drink port and figure out who killed Mrs. Posselthwait's cousin Sue Sue in Count Boslewick's castle garden, without ever getting bark mulch on my shoes," I said. "And maybe we'd dine occasionally with an amusing inspector of police."

"Damn you, Marlowe, can't you see how it is for me? Can't you budge even a little bit?"

"Depends what you need me to budge on," I said. "I can budge on where we live, or who we entertain, or where we go for our honeymoon. But you want me to budge on who I am. On what I am. And I can't. This is what I am, a guy who ends up with dirty pictures in his possession."

"And two murders," Linda said, "and some story about bigamy?"

"And murder and bigamy, and probably a lot worse to come," I said. "It's the way I make my living. It's the way I got to be the guy you wanted to marry in the first place."

"And if I were poor?"

"You're not poor. I'm poor and you're not," I said. "There's no point talking about things that aren't so."

"What are you going to do with that picture of Muffy?" Linda said.

"I don't know," I said. "I didn't understand this case before and now I understand it a lot less."

Linda stepped to the bar and picked up the picture.

"I could tear it up right now," she said.

"Sure," I said, "but I've made copies."

"You think of everything, don't you," she said.

"Everything that doesn't matter," I said. "I haven't thought of who killed Lola Faithful or Lippy. I haven't thought of where Les Valentine is. I haven't thought of a way to keep the cops from tearing up my license, which I don't have copies made of."

Linda dropped the picture back on the bar.

"Perhaps she had Les take it, you know, just for them," she said.

"Maybe."

"Darling," Linda said, "let's go to Mexico again. Today, right now. I could be packed in an hour."

"You could be packed in two," I said. "And you'd pay for the trip and when we got back I'd still have to make a living."

"Damn you," Linda said. "Goddamn you." She walked to the picture window that looked out onto the -patio and pressed her forehead against it.

"I'm embarrassed with my friends about what you're doing. Can you imagine the talk at the club when I had to get you out of jail? I'm terrified when you're not home and I'm humiliated when there are social occasions and I have to go alone, and I don't even know where you are."

There was nothing to be said. So I said it.

"I know it seems so terribly snobbish and petty to you," Linda said. Her forehead was still against the glass. "But it is my life, the only one I've known. And my life matters to me too."

"I know," I said.

She turned from the window and stared at me.

"So what are we to do?" she said.

"You have to live your life," I said. "I have to live mine."

"And we can't seem to do that together," Linda said.

"No, we can't seem to," I said.

We were silent for a long time.

"I'll ask my attorney to draw up divorce papers," Linda said finally. "I want you to have something."

"No," I said. "I'll never touch it. It's not mine."

"I know," Linda said.

We were silent again. Through the plate glass two swallows darted into the bougainvillaea and disappeared in the leaves.

"I'll stay in the guest room tonight," I said. "Tomorrow I'll move back to L.A."

She nodded. There were tears on her face.

"Damn it, Marlowe," she said. "We love each other."

"I know," I said. "It's what makes it so hard."

I found a furnished apartment in front on Ivar north of the boulevard, in a stucco building built around a courtyard in the days when Hollywood had more screen stars and fewer hookers. My old office in the Cahuenga Building was still empty, so I moved back in. The desk, the two file cabinets, the old calendar remained, the outer office was still empty. Two dead flies lay on the floor just inside the door that still said Philip Marlowe, Investigation . I put a fresh bottle of bourbon in the bottom drawer and rinsed out the two glasses on the sink in the corner, and I was ready for business.

Except there wasn't any business. A cousin to the dead flies in the outer office was buzzing lethargically against the window pane behind my desk. I put my feet up on the desk. The fly paused in his buzzing and looked at the impenetrable transparent space before him. He rubbed his face with his front feet, then buzzed again, but there wasn't much pizzazz in the buzz. It was a losing battle. He rattled for a minute against the window pane, then settled back down to the sill again and stood with his legs spraddled. I got up and carefully opened the window. The fly stayed motionless for a time, then he buzzed once and soared lazily out through the window and into the traffic fumes, three stories above Hollywood Boulevard. And then he was gone. I closed the window and sat back down. No one came in, no one called. No one cared if I got rabies or went to Paris.

At noon I went out and got a ham sandwich and some coffee at a joint on the boulevard and went back to my office to try sitting with my feet on the other corner. I still had my naked pictures of Muffy in the middle drawer of my desk. I still didn't know what to do with them. The negative was locked in the old floor safe behind the inner office door. I still didn't know where Les/Larry was and I didn't have a client.