left his wife to find him. Okay, he was drunk. I still don’t like it. The next thing I don’t like Is he pulled the trigger just when the noise of that speedboat could drown out the shot. What difference would it make to him? More coincidence, huh? More coincidence still that the wife forgot her door keys on the help’s day off and had to ring the bell to get into the house.”
“She could have walked around to the back,” I said.
“Yeah, I know. What I’m talking about is a situation. Nobody to answer the door but you, and she said on the stand she didn’t know you were there. Wade wouldn’t have heard the bell if he bad been alive and working in his study. His door is soundproofed. The help was away. That was Thursday. That they forgot. Like she forgot her keys.”
“You’re forgetting something yourself. Bernie. My car was in the driveway. So she knew I was there—or that somebody was there—before the rang the bell. ”
He grinned. “I forgot that, didn’t I? All right, here’s the picture. You were down at the lake, the speedboat was making all that racket—incidentally it was a couple of guys from Lake Arrowhead just visiting, had their boat on a trailer—Wade was asleep In his study or passed out, somebody took the gun out of his desk already, and she knew you had put it there because you told her that other time. Now suppose she didn’t forget her keys, that she goes into the house, looks across and sees you down at the water, looks into the study and sees Wade asleep, knows where the gun is, gets it, waits for the right moment, plugs him, drops the gun where it was found, goes back outside the house, waits a little while for the speedboat to go away, and then rings the doorbell and waits for you to open it. Any objections?”
“With what motive?”
“Yeah,” he said sourly. “That knocks it. If she wanted to slough the guy, it was easy. She had him over a barrel, habitual drunk, record of violence to her. Plenty alimony, nice fat property settlement. No motive at all. Anyhow the timing was too neat. Five minutes earlier and she couldn’t have done it unless you were in on it.”
I started to say something but he put his hand up. “Take it easy. I’m not accusing anybody, just speculating. Five minutes later and you get the same answer. She had ten minutes to pull it off.”
“Ten minutes,” I said irritably, “that couldn’t possibly have been foreseen, much less planned.”
He leaned back in the chair and sighed. “I know. You’ve got all the answers, I’ve got all the answers. And I still don’t like it. What the hell were you doing with these people anyway? The guy writes you a check for a grand, then tears it up. Got mad at you, you say. You didn’t want it anyway, wouldn’t have taken it, you say. Maybe. Did he think you were sleeping with his wife?”
“Lay off. Bernie.”
“I didn’t ask were you, I asked did he think you were.”
“Same answer.”
“Okay, try this. What did the Mex have on him?”
“Nothing that I know of.”
“The Mex has too much money. Over fifteen hundred in the bank, all kinds of clothes, a brand new Chevy.”
“Maybe he peddles dope,” I said.
Ohls pushed himself up out of the chair and scowled down at me.
“You’re an awful lucky boy, Marlowe. Twice you’ve slid out from under a heavy one. You could get overconfident. You were pretty helpful to those people and you didn’t make a dime. You were pretty helpful to a guy named Lennox too, the way I hear it. And you didn’t make a dime out of that one either. What do you do for eating money, pal? You gut a lot saved so you don’t have to work anymore?”
I stood up and walked around the desk and faced him a romantic. Bernie, I hear voices crying in the night and I go see what’s the matter. You don’t make a dime that way. You got sense, you shut your windows and turn up more sound on the TV set. Or you shove down on the gas and get far away from there. Stay out of other people’s troubles. All it can get you is the smear. The last time I saw Terry Lennox we had a cup of coffee together that I made myself in my house, and we smoked a cigarette. So when I heard be was dead I went out to the kitchen and made some coffee and poured a cup for him and lit a cigarette for him and when the coffee was cold and the cigarette was burned down I said goodnight to him. You don’t make a dime that way. You wouldn’t do it. That’s why you’re a good cop and I’m private eye. Eileen Wade is worried about her husband, so I go out and find him and bring him home. Another time he’s in trouble and calls me up and I go out and carry him in off the lawn and put him to bed and I don’t make a dime out of it. No percentage at all. No nothing, except sometimes I get my face pushed in or get tossed in the can or get threatened by some fast money boy like Mendy Menendez. But no money, not a dime. I’ve got a five-thousand-dollar bill in my safe but I’ll never spend a nickel of it. Because there was something wrong with the way I got it. I played with it a little at first and I still get it out once in a while and look at it. But that’s all—not a dime of spending money.”
“Must be a phony,” Ohls said dryly, “except they don’t make them that big. So what’s your point with all this yap?”
“No point. I told you I was a romantic.”
“I heard you. And you don’t make a dime at it. I heard that too.”
“But I can always tell a cop to go to hell. Go to hell. Bernie.”
“You wouldn’t tell me to go to hell if I had you in the back room under the light, chum.”
“Maybe we’ll find out about that some day.”
He walked to the door and yanked it open. “You know something, kid? You think you’re cute but you’re just stupid. You’re a shadow on the wall. I’ve got twenty years on the cops without a mark against me. I know when I’m being kidded and I know when a guy is holding out on me. The wise guy never fools anybody but himself. Take it from me, chum. I know.”
He pulled his head back out of the doorway and let the door close. His heels hammered down the corridor. I could still hear them when the phone on my desk started to sound. The voice said in that clear professional tone: “New York is calling Mr. Philip Marlowe.”
“I’m Philip Marlowe.”
