I knew a good deal about Idle Valley, and I knew it had changed a great deal from the days when they had the gatehouse at the entrance and the private police force, and the gambling casino on the lake, and the fifty-dollar joy girls. Quiet money had taken over the tract after the casino was closed out. Quiet money had made it a subdivider’s dream. A club owned the lake and the lake frontage and if they didn’t want you in the club, you didn’t get to play in the water. It was exclusive in the only remaining sense of the word that doesn’t mean merely expensive.
I belonged in Idle Valley like a pearl onion on a banana split.
Howard Spencer called me up late in the afternoon. He had got over his mad and wanted to say he was sorry and he hadn’t handled the situation very well, and had I perhaps any second thoughts.
“I’ll go see him if he asks me to. Not otherwise.”
“I see. There would be a substantial bonus—”
“Look, Mr. Spencer,” I said impatiently, “you can’t hire destiny. If Mrs. Wade is afraid of the guy, she can move out. That’s her problem. Nobody could protect her twenty-four hours a day from her own husband. There isn’t that much protection in the world. But that’s not all you want. You want to know why and how and when the guy jumped the rails, and then fix it so that he doesn’t do it again—at least until he finishes the book. And that’s up to him. If he wants to write the damn book bad enough, he’ll lay off the hooch until he does it. You want too damn much.”
“They all go together,” he said. “It’s all one problem. But I guess I understand. It’s a little over-subtle for your kind of operation. Well, goodbye. I’m flying back to New York tonight.”
“Have a smooth trip.”
He thanked me and hung up. I forgot to tell him I had given his twenty to the waiter. I thought of calling back to tell him, then I thought he was miserable enough already.
I closed the office and started off in the direction of Victor’s to drink a gimlet, as Terry had asked me to in his letter. I changed my mind. I wasn’t feeling sentimental enough. I went to Lowry’s and had a martini and some prime ribs and Yorkshire pudding instead.
When I got home I turned on the TV set and looked at the fights. They were no good, just a bunch of dancing masters who ought to have been working for Arthur Murray. All they did was jab and bob up and down and feint one another off balance. Not one of them could hit hard enough to wake his grandmother out of a light doze. The crowd was booing and the referee kept clapping his hands for action, but they went right on swaying and jittering and jabbing long lefts. I turned to another channel and looked at a crime show. The action took place in a clothes closet and the faces were tired and over familiar and not beautiful. The dialogue was stuff even Monogram wouldn’t have used. The dick had a colored houseboy for comic relief. He didn’t need it, he was plenty comical all by himself. And the commercials would have sickened a goat raised on barbed wire and broken beer bottles.
I cut it off and smoked a long cool tightly packed cigarette. It was kind to my throat. It was made of fine tobacco, I forgot to notice what brand it was. I was about ready to hit the hay when Detective-Sergeant Green of homicide called me up.
“Thought you might like to know they buried your friend Lennox a couple of days ago right in that Mexican town where he died. A lawyer representing the family went down there and attended to it. You were pretty lucky this time, Marlowe. Next time you think of helping a pal skip the country, don’t.”
“How many bullet holes did he have in him?”
“What’s that?” he barked. Then he was silent for a space. Then he said rather too carefully: “One, I should say. It’s usually enough when it blows a guy’s head off. The lawyer is bringing back a set of prints and whatever was in his pockets. Anything more you’d like to know?”
“Yeah, but you can’t tell me. I’d like to know who killed Lennox’s wife.”
“Cripes, didn’t Grenz tell you he left a full confession? It was in the papers, anyway. Don’t you read the papers any more?”
“Thanks for calling me, Sergeant. It was real kind of you.”
“Look, Marlowe,” he said raspingly. “You got any funny ideas about this case, you could buy yourself a lot of grief talking about them. The case is closed, finalized, and laid away in mothballs. Damn lucky for you it is. Accessory after the fact is good for five years in this state. And let me tell you something else. I’ve been a cop a long time and one thing I’ve learned for sure is it ain’t always what you do that gets you sent up. It’s what it can be made to look like when it comes in to court. Goodnight.”
He hung up in my ear. I replaced the phone thinking that an honest cop with a bad conscience always acts tough. So does a dishonest cop. So does almost anyone, including me.
14
Next morning the bell rang as I was wiping the talcum off an earlobe. When I got to the door and opened up I looked into a pair of violet-blue eyes. She was in brown linen this time, with a pimento-colored scarf, and no earrings or hat. She looked a little pale, but not as though anyone had been throwing her downstairs. She gave me a hesitant little smile.
“I know I shouldn’t have come here to bother you, Mr. Marlowe. You probably haven’t even had breakfast. But I had a reluctance to go to your office and I hate telephoning about personal matters.”
“Sure. Come in, Mrs. Wade. Would you go for a cup of coffee?”
She came into the living room and sat on the davenport without looking at anything. She balanced her bag on her lap and sat with her feet close together. She looked rather prim. I opened windows and pulled up venetian blinds and lifted a dirty ashtray off the cocktail table in front of her.
“Thank you. Black coffee, please. No sugar.”
I went out to the kitchen and spread a paper napkin on a green metal tray. It looked as cheesy as a celluloid collar. I crumpled it up and got out one of those fringed things that come in sets with little triangular napkins. They came with the house, like most of the furniture. I set out two Desert Rose coffee cups and filled them and carried the tray in.
She sipped. “This is very nice,” she said. “You make good coffee.”
