Perchance to Dream

the nail of her second finger. She had eight to go.

    'You don't have to look up,' I said. 'And you don't have to speak. Just nod or shake your head. Is Gardenia or Tartabull in?'

    She nodded. Her little nailbrush was poised over the second nail. It was clear that she could nod or she could paint her nails, but she couldn't do both.

    'Tartabull?'

    She shook her head.

    'Gardenia?'

    She nodded. I glanced around the room. There were four or five green metal file cabinets along the walls, and in the wall behind her desk were two doors, each with a pebbled glass window. One said charles gardenia and the other said vincent tartabull. I stood up.

    'Thank you for your help,' I said, and went past her desk toward Gardenia's office. She almost spoke then, but I had opened the door to Gardenia's office before she could and then it was too late. As I closed the door behind me I saw her lower her head again and stare at her nails.

    Behind his desk with a copy of the Los Angeles Times spread out in front of him, munching a cruller, was the fat guy in the seersucker suit I'd seen getting out of the black Buick in the Neville Valley Trust parking lot up north. He had on the same suit. There was a cup of coffee on the desk beside the paper. A little spiral of steam drifted up from it. On the hand that held the cruller was a diamond pinkie ring. Gardenia gazed at me without expression while he finished chewing the bite he'd taken from his cruller. Then he took a sip of his coffee.

    When he had swallowed the coffee he said, 'Whaddya want?'

    'My name's Marlowe,' I said. It didn't seem to impress him. 'I'm a private detective working on a case and I keep bumping into a couple of businesses, yours being one of them.'

    'And what do you think my business is?' Gardenia said.

    'I know you do business as Rancho Springs Development Corporation.'

    'That right?' Gardenia said. He seemed a lot more interested in his cruller than in anything I had to say.

    'And I know you are connected with the Neville Valley Realty Trust.'

    'Yeah?'

    'Yeah.'

    I felt like I was in a second-feature movie. Gardenia finished his cruller, drank some more coffee.

    'So what's this case you're working on?' he said.

    'I'm looking for a girl.'

    'Is that all?' Gardenia said. 'Hell, you can have the one out front, you want. She doesn't do me any damn good.'

    'Paints a nice nail though.'

    'Yeah.' Gardenia rummaged in a paper sack and came out with another cruller. He took a bite and chewed it happily.

    'So who's this girl you're looking for?' 'Carmen Sternwood, her father was General Guy Sternwood. Maybe you Ve heard of him. He was in the oil business.'

    Gardenia shook his head. 'Nope. Can't say I have. How come you're looking around me? I don't know any broads that are missing.'

    'I think she's with Randolph Simpson.'

    'So?' Gardenia shrugged. 'I don't know Randolph Simpson.'

    'He connected to Rancho Springs? He lives out there.'

    'What I hear, he lives a lot of places,' Gardenia said. The conversation didn't interest him. He examined his hand where he'd held the cruller and licked a crumb off the index finger.

    'A couple of hard boys in a car registered to Neville Valley Realty Trust stopped me on the street one night and told me to stay away from Randolph Simpson.'

    Gardenia shrugged.

    'They told me to stay away from Dr. Bonsentir too. And not to look for Carmen Sternwood.'

    Gardenia dusted his hands off to get rid of any crumbs his tongue had missed. Then he leaned a little forward over his desk, and got a cigar out of a leather humidor and stuck it in his mouth and got a desk-top lighter going and lit the cigar.

    'Look, what did you say your name was?'

    'Marlowe.'

    'Well, Marlowe, I appreciate you got a problem. But to tell you the truth, it's not my problem, if you see what I mean, and I figure that I give it about all the time I owe it.'

    'You wouldn't just happen to know where Carmen Sternwood is?'

    'Marlowe, I give you an A for trying hard, but I don't know where she is, or who she is, or, for that matter, how she is. You think she's with this guy Randolph Simpson, then whyn't you chase over to his house and ask him about it.'