bartender appeared and lit it and moved away.
'I figure we're both working the same side of the street this time. I want to know what you know.'
Mars smiled.
'You and me, huh soldier? What a pair.'
'I don't like it, Eddie. And I don't like you. But if you got anything I can use, I'll take it.'
'Fair enough, soldier. Nice to know where we stand.'
'What do you know?' I said.
'What do I get from telling you?'
'I tell people you're nice,' I said.
'Yeah?'
'And I won't be stepping all over you and your boys while I'm looking for Carmen.'
'Stepping on anything of mine will get you a slow ride in a pine box, soldier.'
'One of the things I don't like about you, Eddie,' I said. 'Inside the hand-tailored suits and the fancy manners you're a goon, just like you were when you started.'
'Calling each other names isn't going to get this deal done, soldier. And it could get you a bad case of bruises.'
'I've had bruises before,' I said. 'I love bruises. Bruises are my friends. What do you know about Carmen? Remind yourself you're doing this for Vivian.'
'You don't believe it, do you, Marlowe? That a guy like me could go soft for a dame like Vivian Sternwood.'
'I believe you could go soft, Eddie. I don't believe you could go generous. An angle will turn up in here somewhere. Like it did before.'
Mars shook his head.
'You're hard to like, Marlowe. I'll say that for you.'
I waited.
'Carmen's with Simpson all right. He took her from the sanitarium. Bonsentir's a high-priced pimp. He runs this clinic for people with sex problems, and then he rents out the juicy ones to a list of very high-priced clients.'
'Like Simpson,' I said.
'Like Simpson,' Mars said.
'He's the one sent her there in the first place,' I said.
Mars shook his head again and took a long drag on his cigarette.
'Christ,' Mars said, 'it's not like Carmen was hard. Why go through all that rigmarole of sending her through his pimp?'
'So she'd be medically certified,' I said.
Mars looked startled.
'Medically?'
'Disease free,' I said. 'Simpson's phobic about venereal diseases.'
'Creep,' Mars said.
'So he gets her committed to a sanitarium where she'll be examined and found healthy and passed on to him.'
'How you know so much about Simpson?'
'Vivian told me,' I said.
'Funny she didn't tell me.'
'I don't think Vivian tells anybody everything,' I said. 'I think she's learned not to be too trusting.'
'She can trust me,' Mars said.
'Sure she can, Eddie. I can too, everybody can.'
Mars wasn't listening to me. He was thinking about other things. Things I wouldn't ever get to hear. Maybe he did love her. Maybe I did too.
'I don't know much about Simpson. But I know you can't take him.'
'I'll take him,' I said.
Mars stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray on the bar.
'Sure you will, soldier. You keep thinking that.'
'You know where Simpson's got her?' I said.
He shook his head.
