blue check. On his crossed feet were black moccasin-type ties, the kind with two eyelets that are almost as comfortable as strollers and don’t wear your socks out every time you walk a block. His white handkerchief was folded square and the end of a pair of sunglasses showed behind it. He had thick dark wavy hair. He was tanned very dark. He looked up with bird-bright eyes and smiled under a hairline mustache. His tie was a dark maroon tied in a pointed bow over a sparkling white shirt.
He threw the magazine aside. “The crap these rags go for,” he said. “I been reading a piece about Costello. Yeah, they know all about Costello. Like I know all about Helen of Troy.”
“What can I do for you?”
He looked me over unhurriedly. “Tarzan on a big red scooter,” he said.
“What?”
“You. Marlowe. Tarzan on a big red scooter. They rough you up much?”
“Here and there. What makes it your business?”
“After Allbright talked to Gregorius?”
“No. Not after that.”
He nodded shortly. “You got a crust asking Allbright to use ammunition on that slob.”
“I asked you what made it your business. Incidentally I don’t know Commissioner Allbright and I didn’t ask him to do anything. Why would he do anything for me?”
He stared at me morosely. He stood up slowly, graceful as a panther. He walked across the room and looked into my office. He jerked his head at me and went in. He was a guy who owned the place where he happened to be. I went in after him and shut the door. He stood by the desk looking around, amused.
“You’re small time,” he said. “Very small time.”
I went behind my desk and waited.
“How much you make in a month, Marlowe?”
I let it ride, and lit my pipe.
“Seven-fifty would be-tops,” he said.
I dropped a burnt match into a tray and puffed tobacco smoke.
“You’re a piker, Marlowe. You’re a peanut grifter. You’re so little it takes a magnifying glass to see you.”
I didn’t say anything at all.
“You got cheap emotions. You’re cheap all over. You pal around with a guy, eat a few drinks, talk a few gags, slip him a little dough when he’s strapped, and you’re sold out to him. Just like some school kid that read Frank Merriwell. You got no guts, no brains, no connections, no savvy, so you throw out a phony attitude and expect people to cry over you. Tarzan on a big red scooter.” He smiled a small weary smile. “In my book you’re a nickel’s worth of nothing.”
He leaned across the desk and flicked me across the face back-handed, casually and contemptuously, not meaning to hurt me, and the small smile stayed on his face. Then when I didn’t even move for that he sat down slowly and leaned an elbow on the desk and cupped his brown chin in his brown hand. The bird-bright eyes stared at me without anything in them but brightness.
“Know who I am, cheapie?”
“Your name’s Menendez. The boys call you Mendy. You operate on the Strip.”
“Yeah? How did I get so big?”
“I wouldn’t know. You probably started out as a pimp in a Mexican whorehouse.”
He took a gold cigarette case out of his pocket and lit a brown cigarette with a gold lighter. He blew acrid smoke and nodded. He put the gold cigarette case on the desk and caressed it with his fingertips.
“I’m a big bad man, Marlowe. I make lots of dough. I got to make lots of dough to juice the guys I got to juice in order to make lots of dough to juice the guys I got to juice. I got a place in Bel-Air that cost ninety grand and I already spent more than that to fix it up. I got a lovely platinum-blond wife and two kids in private schools back east. My wife’s got a hundred and fifty grand in rocks and another seventy-five in furs and clothes. I got a butler, two maids, a cook, a chauffeur, not counting the monkey that walks behind me. Everywhere I go I’m a darling. The best of everything, the best food, the best drinks, the best hotel suites. I got a place in Florida and a seagoing yacht with a crew of five men. I got a Bentley, two Cadillacs, a Chrysler station wagon, and an MG for my boy. Couple of years my girl gets one too. What you got?”
“Not much,” I said. “This year I have a house to live in—all to myself.”
“No woman?”
“Just me. In addition to that I have what you see here and twelve hundred dollars in the bank and a few thousand in bonds. That answer your question?”
“What’s the most you ever made on a single job?”
“Eight-fifty.”
“Jesus, how cheap can a guy get?”
“Stop hamming and tell me what you want.”
He killed his cigarette half smoked and immediately lit another. He leaned back in his chair. His lip curled at me.
“We were three guys in a foxhole eating,” he said. “It was cold as hell, snow all around. We eat out of cans. Cold food. A little shelling, more mortar fire. We are blue with the cold, and I mean blue, Randy Starr and me and
