“What would I do for an encore?”
I laughed. He laughed. “Been keeping your nose clean?” he asked.
“Haven’t you heard? I got to be friends with another guy who suicided. They’re going to call me the ‘Kiss-of- Death Kid’ from now on.”
“That’s funny, huh?”
“No, it isn’t funny. Also the other afternoon I had tea with Harlan Potter.”
“Nice going. I never drink the stuff myself.”
“He said for you to be nice to me.”
“I never met the guy and I don’t figure to.”
“He casts a long shadow. All I want is a little information, Mendy. Like about Paul Marston.”
“Never heard of him.”
“You said that too quick. Paul Marston was the name Terry Lennox used one time in New York before he came west.”
“So?”
“His prints were checked through the F.B.I. files. No record. That means he never served in the Armed Forces.”
“So?”
“Do I have to draw you a picture? Either that foxhole yarn of yours was all spaghetti or it happened somewhere else.”
“I didn’t say where it happened, cheapie. Take a kind word and forget the whole thing. You got told, you better stay told.”
“Oh sure. I do something you don’t like and I’m swimming to Catalina with a streetcar on my back. Don’t try to scare me, Mendy. I’ve been up against the pros. You ever been in England?”
“Be smart, cheapie. Things can happen to a guy in this town. Things can happen to big strong boys like Big Willie Magoon. Take a look at the evening paper.”
“I’ll get one if you say so. It might even have my picture in it. What about Magoon?”
“Like I said—things can happen. I wouldn’t know how except what I read. Seems Magoon tried to shake down four boys in a car with Nevada plates. Was parked right by his house. Nevada plates with big numbers like they don’t have. Must have been some kind of a rib. Only Magoon ain’t feeling funny, what with both arms in casts, and his jaw wired in three places, and one leg in high traction. Magoon ain’t tough any more. It could happen to you,”
“He bothered you, huh? I saw him bounce your boy Chick off the wall in front of Victor’s. Should I ring up a friend in the Sheriff’s office and tell him?”
“You do that, cheapie,” he said very slowly. “You do that.”
“And I’ll mention that at the time I was just through having a drink with Harlan Potter’s daughter. Corroborative evidence, in a sense, don’t you think? You figure to smash her up too?”
“Listen to me careful, cheapie—”
“Were you ever in England, Mendy? You and Randy Starr and Paul Marston or Terry Lennox or whatever his name was? In the British Army perhaps? Had a little racket in Soho and got hot and figured the Army was a cooling-off spot?”
“Hold the line.”
I held it. Nothing happened except that I waited and my arm got tired. I switched the receiver to the other side. Finally he came back.
“Now listen careful, Marlowe. You stir up that Lennox case and you’re dead. Terry was a pal and I got feelings too. So you got feelings. I’ll go along with you just this far. It was a Commando outfit. It was British. It happened in Norway, one of those islands off the coast. They got a million of them. November 1942. Now will you lie down and rest that tired brain of yours?”
Thank you, Mendy. I will do that. Your secret is safe with me. I’m not telling it to anybody but the people I know.”
“Buy yourself a paper, cheapie. Read and remember. Big tough Willie Magoon. Beat up in front of his own house. Boy, was he surprised when he come out of the ether!”
He hung up. I went downstairs and bought a paper and it was just as Menendez had said. There was a picture of Big Willie Magoon in his hospital bed. You could see half his face and one eye. The rest of him was bandages. Seriously but not critically injured. The boys had been very careful about that. They wanted him to live. After all he was a cop. In our town the mobs don’t kill a cop. They leave that to the juveniles. And a live cop who has been put through the meat grinder is a much better advertisement. He gets well eventually and goes back to work. But from that time on something is missing—the last inch of steel that makes all the difference. He’s a walking lesson that it is a mistake to push the racket boys too hard—especially if you are on the vice squad and eating at the best places and driving a Cadillac.
I sat there and brooded about it for a while and then I dialed the number of The Carne Organization and asked for George Peters. He was out. I left my name and said it was urgent. He was expected in about five-thirty.
I went over to the Hollywood Public Library and asked questions in the reference room, but couldn’t find what I wanted. So I had to go back for my Olds and drive downtown to the Main Library. I found it there, in a smallish red-bound book published in England. I copied what I wanted from it and drove home. I called The Carne Organization again. Peters was still out, so I asked the girl to reroute the call to me at home.
I put the chessboard on the coffee table and set out a problem called The Sphynx. It is printed on the end
