Raymond Chandler: Poodle Springs

"I didn't kill that bimbo," he said. "Hell, you believe me, you helped me get away."

"That was mostly Angel," I said.

"Angel?"

"I told you, you looked happy together. I'm a sucker for happy together."

"Yeah, I guess maybe things ain't working out so well for you either," he said. "You moving back to town and all."

I puffed on my pipe.

"You don't think I killed her, do you?"

"I don't know anymore," I said. "How about Lippy?"

"Lippy?"

"Yeah, you kill him?"

"Lippy? Lippy's dead?"

"You didn't know?" I said.

"How would I know?" he said. "I haven't been to the Springs in a week or so."

"How'd you know he was killed in the last week?" I said.

"Jesus, I don't. I just heard about it and I figure it woulda been news in Poodle Springs."

"Un huh," I said.

"I didn't kill anybody, Marlowe. You're the only guy I can talk to, the only one I can level with."

"Like you did when I dropped you off at Muriel's. That you'd stay there where I could find you."

"Yeah, sure, I know. I know I ran out on you. But I had to. I had to get away from there. You don't know what she's like. Her money, her father, what she needs, what she wants, what I have to do… I was suffocating there, Marlowe."

I reached in my drawer and brought out one of the 8x10 glossy prints of Muriel Valentine. I held it up so he could see it.

"Tell me about this," I said.

"Jesus," he said. "Where did you get that?"

"It's the picture Lola Faithful showed you in the bar before she was killed, isn't it?" I said.

"Where'd you get it? Come on, Marlowe, where did you?"

"The tooth fairy," I said, "left it instead of a quarter."

He drank some more bourbon, stubbed out the cigarette in the round glass ashtray on my desk and took another one from the pack without asking.

"That's how I met her," he said.

"She was posing for dirty pictures?" I said.

"She liked it," he said. "People in the business knew about her. Ask anybody. Kinky rich girl, come in and get photographed in the nude. The thing is, the funny thing, is that she had to know the pictures would be used. She wanted them sold, you know, distributed. She wanted to know some guy on the street would pick her picture up from someplace and see it."

"So you proposed at once," I said.

"No, Jesus, Marlowe, you're a sarcastic bastard."

"I try," I said. "Did you take her right home to Angel and introduce her?"

"Damn it, it was my chance. I'd been nickel and diming it for years. Man, I'm a damn artist, and all I got to do to make a living was take dirty pictures. Here was this broad had more dough than Howard Hughes, right there, in my lap, all the dough I wanted; for me, sure, but for Angel. Kid deserves everything."

"And look what she got," I said.

"Marlowe," he said. "I don't know what to do. If the cops find me it's all going to come out."

"If you took her picture," I said, "how come she doesn't know you're Larry Victor?"

"I was using Valentine, then. You know, like a stage name. Had a studio on Highland, near Melrose. I was trying to do serious photography under my own name. And like when I got the chance to marry her, well, then I opened up a new office, under my real name."

"To keep Angel in the dark," I said.

"Yeah. I didn't want any connection with Les Valentine for Angel. She never knew I was using the name anyway."

"Your mother know who you are?" I said.

"Marlowe, I didn't kill anybody, but if the cops get me the whole thing's going to come out. Angel will know, Muriel will know."

"And her old man will know and he will send a very tough guy named Eddie Garcia around to ask you about how come you have made a big mess out of your marriage to his daughter."

I took one of the hundred-dollar bills that his father-in-law by bigamy had given me and handed it across the desk to Victor.

'There's a flophouse on Wilcox," I said. "Just south of the boulevard. The Starwalk Motel. Check in there, get cleaned up, have something to eat, and stay there. I'll do what I can. If you're not there when I want you, I tell everybody everything and you're on your own."

Victor took the bill and stared at it.

"What's your real name," I said. "Victor or Valentine?"

"Victor… well, originally it was Schlenker, but I had it changed."

"To Victor," I said. "Larry Victor."

He nodded.

"Okay, Larry. Go down there and wait for me."

"How long?" he said. "I mean, I need action. I can't hang out forever in some flop."

"Blackstone finds out and you'll be hanging out in the big flop in the sky," I said. "I'll do what I can."

Victor nodded too often and too rapidly. He got up and put my cigarettes in his shirt pocket and folded the hundred over once in his pants pocket.

"Leave the bottle," I said.

He smiled automatically and rubbed his chin with his open hand.

"I'll hear from you?" he said.

I nodded. He turned toward the door.

"I told Angel about Muriel," I said.

He stopped with his back to me.

"What'd she say?" he said without turning around. "She didn't believe me," I said. Still with his back to me, he said, "You tell Muriel?"

"No."

He nodded and without looking back went to the door, opened it and left.

I called Eddie Garcia at the number Blackstone had given me, and he agreed to meet me at the Bay City Pier. He was there when I got there, at the far end leaning on the rail watching the sea birds swoop over the waves looking for fish, and circle over the pier looking for garbage. The clouds had moved out of the basin now and the ocean was grey and sleek looking, the swells moving sluggishly under the overcast. A wind had moved in with the thunderheads and was whipping the tips of the swells and tearing a little spray loose from them. Garcia was wearing a light trench coat against the wind, the collar turned up.

As I approached Garcia he rolled around with his back against the railing and his elbows resting on it and looked at me.

"Nice day you brought me out on, Sailor," he said.

"You picked the pier," I said.

"Good place to talk alone," he said.

I nodded. "Lot of open space so you can't be ambushed," I said.

In the daylight, up close, I could see the crows' feet around Garcia's eyes, the depth of the lines around his mouth. He didn't look tired, just older than I'd realized.

"So what'll it be, Sailor?"

"Tell me about Muriel Blackstone," I said.

Something seemed to move behind Garcia's eyes. His face remained blank.

"Why?" he said.

"I'm in a bind, Eddie," I said. "I can probably find Victor okay, and when I do I can see to it that he goes home to Muriel, but I don't know for sure that it's the best idea for anybody."

"Why not?" Garcia said.

"He's not a hell of a guy," I said.

Garcia barked his short laugh.

"We all know that," he said.

"There's other people involved," I said.

"I work for Blackstone," Garcia said. "So do you."

"Doesn't mean he owns me," I said. It didn't mean anything. I was just making noise, buying time, trying to figure out what I even wanted out of this.

"Doesn't mean he owns me either," Garcia said. "So what?"

"Does Blackstone know she's hinky?" I said.

Eddie straightened a little from his lounge on the railing. His eyes narrowed.

"Hinky," he said.

I had on a trench coat too; every well-dressed toughie had one. I reached inside it and brought out one of my pictures of Muriel. I felt like a man selling French postcards. Garcia took the picture and looked at it without expression. As he handed it back to me a raindrop splattered on it-one raindrop, a fat one, the size of a nickel. Around me on the pier I could hear other drops like that, spattering sporadically. I wiped the picture against my chest and slipped it back inside my coat.