The Little Sister (7 page)

“You could be a little wrong about that. If I have to go back up there and tell Christy French and Beifus I was up there before and searched the body, I’d get a tongue-lashing all right. But he’d understand that I haven’t been holding out just to be smart. He’d know that somewhere in the background I had a client I was trying to protect. I’d get tough talk and bluster. But that’s not what you’d get.” I stopped and watched the faint glisten of moisture forming on his forehead now. He swallowed hard. His eyes were sick.

“Cut out the wise talk and lay your deal on the deck,” he said. He grinned suddenly, rather wolfishly. “Got here a little late to protect her, didn’t you?” The fat sneer he lived with was coming home again, but slowly, but gladly.

I killed my cigarette and got another one out and went through all the slow futile face-saving motions of lighting it, getting rid of the match, blowing smoke off to one side, inhaling deeply as though that scrubby little office was a hilltop overlooking the bouncing ocean—all the tired clichéd mannerisms of my trade.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll admit it was a woman. I’ll admit she must have been up there while he was dead, if that makes you happy. I guess it was just shock that made her run away.”

“Oh sure,” Flack said nastily. The fat sneer was all the way home now. “Or maybe she hadn’t ice-picked a guy in a month. Kind of lost touch.”

“But why would she take his key?” I said, talking to myself. “And why leave it at the desk? Why not just walk away and leave the whole thing? What if she did think she had to lock the door? Why not drop the key in a sand jar and cover it up? Or take it away with her and lose it? Why do anything with that key that would connect her with that room?” I brought my eyes down and gave Flack a thick leaden stare. “Unless of course she was seen to leave the room—with the key in her hand—and followed out of the hotel.”

“What for would anybody do that?” Flack asked.

“Because whoever saw her could have got into that room at once. He had a passkey.”

Flack’s eyes flicked up at me and dropped all in one motion.

“So he must have followed her,” I said. “He must have seen her dump the key at the desk and stroll out of the hotel and he must have followed her a little further than that.”

Flack said derisively: “What makes you so wonderful?”

I leaned down and pulled the telephone towards me. “I’d better call Christy and get this over with,” I said. “The more I think about it the scareder I get. Maybe she did kill him. I can’t cover up for a murderer.”

I took the receiver off the hook. Flack slammed his moist paw down hard on top of my hand. The phone jumped on the desk. “Lay off.” His voice was almost a sob. “I followed her to a car parked down the street. Got the number. Christ sake, pal, give me some kind of a break.” He was fumbling wildly in his pockets. “Know what I make on this job? Cigarette and cigar money and hardly a dime more. Wait a minute now. I think—” He looked down and played solitaire with some dirty envelopes, finally selected one and tossed it over to me. “License number,” he said wearily, “and if it’s any satisfaction to you, I can’t even remember what it was.”

I looked down at the envelope. There was a scrawled license number on it all right. Ill-written and faint and oblique, the way it would be written hastily on a paper held in a man’s hand on the street. 6N 333. California 1947.

“Satisfied?” This was Flack’s voice. Or it came out of his mouth. I tore the number off and tossed the envelope back to him.

“4P 327,” I said, watching his eyes. Nothing flicked in them. No trace of derision or concealment. “But how do I know this isn’t just some license number you had already?”

“You just got to take my word for it.”

“Describe the car,” I said.

“Caddy convertible, not new, top up. About 1942 model. Sort of dusty blue color.”

“Describe the woman.”

“Want a lot for your dough, don’t you, peeper?”

“Dr. Hambleton’s dough.”

He winced. “All right. Blonde. White coat with some colored stitching on it. Wide blue straw hat. Dark glasses. Height about five two. Built like a Conover model.”

“Would you know her again—without the glasses?” I asked carefully.

He pretended to think. Then shook his head, no.

“What was that license number again, Flackie?” I caught him off guard.

“Which one?” he said.

I leaned across the desk and dropped some cigarette ash on his gun. I did some more staring into his eyes. But I knew he was licked now. He seemed to know too. He reached for his gun, blew off the ash and put it back in the drawer of his desk.

“Go on. Beat it,” he said between his teeth. “Tell the cops I frisked the stiff. So what? Maybe I lose a job. Maybe I get tossed in the fishbowl. So what? When I come out I’m solid. Little Flackie don’t have to worry about coffee and crullers. Don’t think for a minute those dark cheaters fool little Flackie. I’ve seen too many movies to miss that lovely puss. And if you ask me that babe’ll be around for a long time. She’s a comer—and who knows—” he leered at me triumphantly—”she’d need a bodyguard one of these days. A guy to have around, watch things, keep her out of jams. Somebody that knows the ropes and ain’t unreasonable about dough. . . What’s the matter?”

I had put my head on one side and was leaning forward. I was listening. “I thought I heard a church bell,” I said.

“There ain’t any church around here,” he said contemptuously. “It’s that platinum brain of yours getting cracks in it.”

“Just one bell,” I said. “Very slow. Tolling is the word, I believe.”

Flack listened with me. “I don’t hear anything,” he said sharply.

“Oh you wouldn’t hear it,” I said. “You’d be the one guy in the whole world who wouldn’t hear it.”

He just sat there and stared at me with his nasty little eyes half closed and his nasty little mustache shining. One of his hands twitched on the desk, an aimless movement.

I left him to his thoughts, which were probably as small, ugly and frightened as the man himself.

12

The apartment house was over on Doheny Drive, just down the hill from the Strip. It was really two buildings, one behind the other, loosely connected by a floored patio with a fountain, and a room built over the arch. There were mailboxes and bells in the imitation marble foyer. Three out of the sixteen had no names over them. The names that I read meant nothing to me. The job needed a little more work. I tried the front door, found it unlocked, and the job still needed more work.

Outside stood two Cadillacs, a Lincoln Continental and a Packard Clipper. Neither of the Cadillacs had the right color or license. Across the way a guy in riding breeches was sprawled with his legs over the door of a low-cut Lancia. He was smoking and looking up at the pale stars which know enough to keep their distance from Hollywood. I walked up the steep hill to the boulevard and a block east and smothered myself in an outdoor sweat-box phone booth. I dialed a man named Peoria Smith, who was so-called because he stuttered—another little mystery I hadn’t had time to work out.

“Mavis Weld,” I said. “Phone number. This is Marlowe.”

“S-s-s-ure,” he said. “M-M-Mavis Weld huh? You want h-h-her ph-ph-phone number?”

“How much?”

“Be-b-b-be ten b-b-b-bucks,” he said.

“Just forget I called,” I said.

“W-W-Wait a minute! I ain’t supposed to give out with them b-b-babes’ phone numbers. An assistant prop man is taking a hell of a chance.”

I waited and breathed back my own breath.

“The address goes with it naturally,” Peoria whined, forgetting to stutter.

“Five bucks,” I said. “I’ve got the address already. And don’t haggle. If you think you’re the only studio grifter in the business of selling unlisted telephone numbers—”

“Hold it,” he said wearily, and went to get his little red book. A left-handed stutterer. He only stuttered when he wasn’t excited. He came back and gave it to me. A Crestview number of course. If you don’t have a Crestview number in Hollywood you’re a bum.

I opened up the steel-and-glass cell to let in some air while I dialed again. After two rings a drawling sexy voice answered. I pulled the door shut.

“Ye-e-es,” the voice cooed.

“Miss Weld, please.”

“And who is calling Miss Weld if you please?”

“I have some stills Whitey wants me to deliver tonight.”

“Whitey? And who is Whitey, amigo?”

“The head still-photographer at the studio,” I said. “Don’t you know that much? I’ll come up if you’ll tell me which apartment. I’m only a couple of blocks away.”

“Miss Weld is taking a bath.” She laughed. I guess it was a silvery tinkle where she was. It sounded like somebody putting away saucepans where I was. “But of course bring up the photographs. I am sure she is dying to see them. The apartment number is fourteen.”

“Will you be there too?”

“But of course. But naturally. Why do you ask that?”

I hung up and staggered out into the fresh air. I went down the hill. The guy in the riding breeches was still hanging out of the Lancia but one of the Cadillacs was gone and two Buick convertibles had joined the cars in front. I pushed the bell to number fourteen, went on through the patio where scarlet Chinese honeysuckle was lit by a peanut spotlight. Another light glowed down on the big ornamental pool full of fat goldfish and silent lily pads, the lilies folded tight for the night. There were a couple of stone seats and a lawn swing. The place didn’t look very expensive except that every place was expensive that year. The apartment was on the second floor, one of two doors facing across a wide landing.

The bell chimed and a tall dark girl in jodhpurs opened the door. Sexy was very faint praise for her. The jodhpurs, like her hair, were coal black. She wore a white silk shirt with a scarlet scarf loose around her throat. It was not as vivid as her mouth. She held a long brown cigarette in a pair of tiny golden tweezers. The fingers holding it were more than adequately jeweled. Her black hair was parted in the middle and a line of scalp as white as snow went over the top of her head and dropped out of sight behind. Two thick braids of her shining black hair lay one on each side of her slim brown neck. Each was tied with a small scarlet bow. But it was a long time since she was a little girl.

She looked sharply down at my empty hands. Studio stills are usually a little too big to put in your pocket.

I said: “Miss Weld please.”

“You can give me the stills.” The voice was cool, drawling and insolent, but the eyes were something else. She looked almost as hard to get as a haircut.

“For Miss Weld personally. Sorry.”

“I told you she was taking a bath.”

“I’ll wait.”

“Are you quite sure you have the stills, amigo?”

“As sure as I’ll ever be. Why?”

“Your name?” Her voice froze on the second word, like a feather taking off in a sudden draft. Then it cooed and hovered and soared and eddied and the silent invitation of a smile picked delicately at the corners of her lips, very slowly, like a child trying to pick up a snowflake.

“Your last picture was wonderful, Miss Gonzales.”

The smile flashed like lightning and changed her whole face. The body came erect and vibrant with delight. “But it was stinking,” she glowed. “Positively God-damned stinking, you sweet lovely man. You know but positively God-damn well it was stinking.”

“Nothing with you in it stinks for me, Miss Gonzales.”

She stood away from the door and waved me in. “We will have a drink,” she said. “The God-damnest drink we will have. I adore flattery, however dishonest.”

I went in. A gun in the kidney wouldn’t have surprised me a bit. She stood so that I had to practically push her mammaries out of the way to get through the door. She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight. She closed the door and danced over to a small portable bar.

“Scotch? Or would you prefer a mixed drink? I mix a perfectly loathsome Martini,” she said.

“Scotch is fine, thanks.”

She made a couple of drinks in a couple of glasses you could almost have stood umbrellas in. I sat down in a chintz chair and looked around. The place was old-fashioned. It had a false fireplace with gas logs and a marble mantel, cracks in the plaster, a couple of vigorously colored daubs on the walls that looked lousy enough to have cost money, an old black chipped Steinway and for once no Spanish shawl on it. There were a lot of new-looking books in bright jackets scattered around and a double-barreled shotgun with a handsomely carved stock stood in the corner with a white satin bow tied around the barrels. Hollywood wit.

The dark lady in the jodhpurs handed me a glass and perched on the arm of my chair. “You may call me Dolores if you wish,” she said, taking a hearty swig out of her own tumbler.

“Thanks.”

“And what may I call you?”

I grinned.

“Of course,” she said, “I am most fully aware that you are a God-damn liar and that you have no stills in your pockets. Not that I wish to inquire into your no doubt very private business.”

“Yeah?” I inhaled a couple of inches of my liquor. “Just what kind of bath is Miss Weld taking? An old-fashioned soap or something with Arabian spices in it?”

She waved the remains of the brown cigarette in the small gold clasp. “Perhaps you would like to help her. The bathroom is over there—through the arch and to the right. Most probably the door is not locked.”

“Not if it’s that easy,” I said.

“Oh,” she gave me the brilliant smile again. “You like to do the difficult things in life. I must remember to be less approachable, must I not?” She removed herself elegantly from the arm of my chair and ditched her cigarette, bending over enough so that I could trace the outline of her hips.

“Don’t bother, Miss Gonzales. I’m just a guy who came here on business. I don’t have any idea of raping anybody.”

“No?” The smile became soft, lazy and, if you can’t think of a better word, provocative.

“But I’m sure as hell working up to it,” I said.

“You are an amusing son-of-a-bitch,” she said with a shrug and went off through the arch, carrying her half-quart of Scotch and water with her. I heard a gentle tapping on a door and her voice: “Darling, there’s a man here who says he has some stills from the studio. He says. Muy simpático. Muy guapo también. Con cojones.”

A voice I had heard before said sharply: “Shut up, you little bitch. I’ll be out in a second.”

The Gonzales came back through the archway humming. Her glass was empty. She went to the bar again. “But you are not drinking,” she cried, looking at my glass.

“I ate dinner. I only have a two-quart stomach anyway. I understand a little Spanish.”

She tossed her head. “You are shocked?” Her eyes rolled. Her shoulders did a fan dance.

“I’m pretty hard to shock.”

“But you heard what I said? Madre de Dios. I’m so terribly sorry.”

“I’ll bet,” I said.

She finished making herself another highball.

“Yes. I am so sorry,” she sighed. “That is, I think I am. Sometimes I am not sure. Sometimes I do not give a good goddamn. It is so confusing. All my friends tell me I am far too outspoken. I do shock you, don’t I?” She was on the arm of my chair again.

“No. But if I wanted to be shocked I’d know right where to come.” She reached her glass behind her indolently and leaned towards me.

“But I do not live here,” she said. “I live at the Chateau Bercy.”

“Alone?”

She slapped me delicately across the tip of my nose. The next thing I knew I had her in my lap and she was trying to bite a piece off my tongue. “You are a very sweet son-of-a-bitch,” she said. Her mouth was as hot as ever a mouth was. Her lips burned like dry ice. Her tongue was driving hard against my teeth. Her eyes looked enormous and black and the whites showed under them.

“I am so tired,” she whispered into my mouth. “I am so worn, so incredibly tired.”

I felt her hand in my breast pocket. I shoved her off hard, but she had my wallet. She danced away with it laughing, flicked it open and went through it with fingers that darted like little snakes.

“So glad you two got acquainted,” a voice off to one side said coolly. Mavis Weld stood in the archway.

Her hair was fluffed out carelessly and she hadn’t bothered with make-up. She wore a hostess gown and very little else. Her legs ended in little green and silver slippers. Her eyes were empty, her lips contemptuous. But she was the same girl all right, dark glasses on or off.

The Gonzales gave her a quick darting glance, closed my wallet and tossed it. I caught it and put it away. She strolled to a table and picked up a black bag with a long strap, hooked it over her shoulder and moved towards the door.

Mavis Weld didn’t move, didn’t look at her. She looked at me. But there was no emotion of any kind in her face. The Gonzales opened the door and glanced outside and almost closed it and turned.

“The name is Philip Marlowe,” she said to Mavis Weld. “Nice don’t you think?”

“I didn’t know you bothered to ask them their names,” Mavis Weld said. “You so seldom know them long enough.”

“I see,” the Gonzales answered gently. She turned and smiled at me faintly. “Such a charming way to call a girl a whore, don’t you think?”

Mavis Weld said nothing. Her face had no expression.

“At least,” the Gonzales said smoothly as she pulled the door open again, “I haven’t been sleeping with any gunmen lately.”

“Are you sure you can remember?” Mavis Weld asked her in exactly the same tone. “Open the door, honey. This is the day we put the garbage out.”

The Gonzales looked back at her slowly, levelly, and with a knife in her eyes. Then she made a faint sound with her lips and teeth and yanked the door wide. It closed behind her with a jarring smash. The noise didn’t even flicker the steady dark-blue glare in Mavis Weld’s eyes.

“Now suppose you do the same—but more quietly,” she said.

I got out a handkerchief and scrubbed the lipstick over my face. It looked exactly the color of blood, fresh blood. “That could happen to anybody,” I said. “I wasn’t petting her. She was petting me.”

She marched to the door and heaved it open. “On your way, dreamboat. Make with the feet.”

“I came here on business, Miss Weld.”

“Yes. I can imagine. Out. I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. And if I did, this wouldn’t be either the day or the hour.”

“Never the time and place and the loved one all together,” I said.

“What’s that?” She tried to throw me out with the point of her chin, but even she wasn’t that good.

“Browning. The poet, not the automatic. I feel sure you’d prefer the automatic.”

“Look little man, do I have to call the manager to bounce you downstairs like a basketball?”

I went over and pushed the door shut. She held on to the last moment. She didn’t quite kick me, but it cost her an effort not to. I tried to ease her away from the door without appearing to. She didn’t ease worth a darn. She stood her ground, one hand still reaching for the doorknob, her eyes full of dark-blue rage.