“Thank you. One moment, please, Mr. Marlowe. Here is your party.”
The next voice I knew. “Howard Spencer, Mr. Marlowe. We’ve heard about Roger Wade. It was a pretty hard blow. We haven’t the full details, but your name seems to be involved.”
“I was there when it happened. He just got drunk and shot himself. Mrs. Wade came home a little later. The servants were away—Thursday’s the day off.”
“You were alone with him?”
“I wasn’t with him. I was outside the house, just hanging around waiting for his wife to come home.”
“I see. Well, I suppose there will be an inquest.”
“It’s all over, Mr. Spencer. Suicide. And remarkably little publicity.”
“Really? That’s curious.” He didn’t exactly sound disappointed—more like puzzled and surprised. “He was so well known. I should have thought—well, never mind what I thought. I guess I’d better fly out there, but I can’t make it before the end of next week. I’ll send a wire to Mrs. Wade. There may be something I could do for her—and also about the book. I mean there may be enough of it so that we could get someone to finish it. I assume you did take the job after all. ”
“No. Although he asked me to himself. I told him right out I couldn’t stop him from drinking.”
“Apparently you didn’t even try.”
“Look, Mr. Spencer, you don’t know the first damn thing about this situation. Why not wait until you do before jumping to conclusions? Not that I don’t blame myself a little. I guess that’s inevitable when something like this happens, and you’re the guy on the spot.”
“Of course,” he said. “I’m sorry I made that remark. Most uncalled for. Will Eileen Wade be at her home now— or wouldn’t you know?”
“I wouldn’t know, Mr. Spencer. Why don’t you just call her up?”
“I hardly think she would want to speak to anyone yet,” he said slowly.
“Why not? She talked to the Coroner and never batted an eye.”
He cleared his throat. “You don’t sound exactly sympathetic.”
“Roger Wade is dead, Spencer. He was a bit of a bastard and maybe a bit of a genius too. That’s over my head. He was an egotistical drunk and he hated his own guts. He made me a lot of trouble and in the end a lot of grief. Why the hell should I be sympathetic?”
“I was talking about Mrs. Wade,” he said shortly.
“So was I.”
“I’ll call you when I get in,” he said abruptly. “Goodbye.”
He hung up. I hung up. I stared at the telephone for a couple-of minutes without moving. Then I got the phone book up on the desk and looked for a number.
40
I called Sewell Endicott’s office. Somebody said he was in court and would not be available until late in the afternoon. Would I care to leave my name? No.
I dialed the number of Mendy Menendez’s joint on the Strip. It was called El Tapado this year, not a bad name either. In American Spanish that means buried treasure among other things. It had been called other names in the past, quite a few other names. One year it was just a blue neon number on a blank high wall facing south on the Strip, with its back against the hill and a driveway curving around one side out of sight of the street. Very exclusive. Nobody knew much about it except vice cops and mobsters and people who could afford thirty bucks for a good dinner and any amount up to fifty grand in the big quiet room upstairs. I got a woman who didn’t know from nothing. Then I got a captain with a Mex accent.
“You wish to speak with Mr. Menendez? Who is calling?”
“No names, amigo. Private matter.”
“Un momento, por favor.”
There was a longish wait. I got a hard boy this time. He sounded as if he was talking through the slit in an armored car. It was probably just the slit in his face.
“Talk it up. Who wants him?”
“The name’s Marlowe.”
“Who’s Marlowe?”
“This Chick Agostino?”
“No, this ain’t Chick. Come on, let’s have the password.”
“Go fry your face.”
There was a chuckle. “Hold the line.”
Finally another voice said: “Hello, cheapie. What’s the time by you?”
“You alone?”
“You can talk, cheapie. I been looking over some acts for the floor show.”
“You could cut your throat for one.”
