the man with the twisted sexual appetites. Carmen was supposed to be with him and I was supposed to get her back. After that it got tricky.
Simpson had to be involved in the water rights swindle. It was a swindle that took big money. It was a swindle that required a lot of people to be bought off, or scared off, or both. And it required a guy to run it that didn't worry about eight or ten thousand people up in the Neville Valley whose lives would dry up and blow away as a result of the swindle.
The smell of gasoline exhaust drifted up through my open window, and of food being fried. More faintly came the hint of hibiscus, and bougainvillea, and the acrid perfume of eucalyptus. And barely discernible, almost obliterated by the gasoline fumes and cooking smells, was the scent of the ocean to the west as it came lumbering in from Asia. I felt old and tired and gritty, as if I'd been wrestling in a gravel pit.
I thought about dinner. It had no appeal. I thought about Vivian with her face bruised and her soul tangled in the dark tragedy of her family, and about the way her lips had felt, and the way her body had arched so strongly toward me that night in her bedroom. And I thought about Rusty Regan, whom I'd never met and who had gone a long ways quite a while ago to the place where Lola Monforte had gone, and Mrs. Swayze. Was it a peaceful sleep, I wondered, or did they dream? And if they did, what dreams? Nightmares? And when I went to sleep the Big Sleep would I have nightmares too? If I did, one of them would be the day Carmen asked me to teach her to shoot the little gun I'd taken from her when she tried to send Joe Brody over.
I went back around the sump and set the can up in the middle of the bull wheel It made a swell target If she missed the can, which she was certain to do, she would probably hit the wheel That would stop a small slug completely. However, she wasn't even going to hit that I went back toward her around the sump. When I was about ten feet from her, at the edge of the sump, she showed me all her sharp little teeth and brought the gun up and started to hiss.
I stopped dead, the sump water stagnant and stinking at my back.
'Stand there, you son of a bitch,' she said.
The gun pointed at my chest. Her hand seemed to be quite steady. The hissing sound grew louder and her face had the scraped bone look. Aged, deteriorated, become animal, and not a nice animal I laughed at her. I started to walk toward her. I saw her small finger tighten on the trigger and grow white at the tip. I was about six feet away from her when she started to shoot.
The sound of the gun made a sharp slap, without body, a brittle crack in the sunlight. I didn't see any smoke. I stopped again and grinned at her.
She fired twice more, very quickly. I don't think any of the shots would have missed.
There were five in the little gun. She had fired four. I rushed her.
I didn't want the last one in my face, so I swerved to one side. She gave it to me quite carefully, not worried at all. I think I felt the hot breath of the powder blast a little.
I straightened up. 'My, but you're cute,' I said.
Her hand holding the empty gun began to shake violently. The gun fell out of it. Her mouth began to shake violently. Her whole face went to pieces. Then her head screwed up toward her left ear and froth showed on her lips. Her breath made a whining sound. She swayed.
I caught her as she fell. She was already unconscious. I pried her teeth open with both hands and stuffed a wadded handkerchief in between them. It took all my strength to do it. I lifted her and got her into the car, then went back for the gun and dropped it in my pocket. I climbed in under the wheel, backed the car, and drove back the way we had come along the rutted road, out of the gateway, back up the hill and so home.
Carmen lay crumpled in the corner of the car, without motion. I was halfway up the drive to the house before she stirred. Then her eyes suddenly opened wide and wild. She sat up.
'What happened?' she gasped.
'Nothing. Why?'
'Oh, yes it did,' she giggled. 'I wet myself.'
'They always do,' I said.
I got up and poured the rest of my drink down the sink and rinsed the glass. I turned back my cuffs and splashed cold water on my face and toweled dry. I went to the window and shut it and turned and left the office and went home to the Hobart Arms to try and sleep.
If I dreamed I don't remember.
CHAPTER 27
When I got to my office in the morning, my phone was ringing. When I answered, it was Pauline Snow.
'Marlowe,' she said. 'I don't know if it means anything but there's a desert rat out here, says he's found a murder site near Randolph Simpson's place. The old fool's drunk most of the time, and I'm not sure but what he sees things.'
'What makes him think it's a murder site?' I said.
'He says there's blood all over the place.'
'Hang up and look out the window,' I said. 'You'll see me parking my car.'
***
When I got there, Pauline Snow had made a pitcher of iced tea and we sat in the newspaper office and had some while she talked.
'I started looking into the Rancho Springs Development Corporation, and into Randolph Simpson, since you seemed to think he was involved somehow.'
The tea had a wedge of lemon in it, and a lot of ice. I added some sugar and waited for it to dissolve and for the tea to become clear again. The desert heat was like a substance that pervaded everything.
'So I asked around, just casual, you know. Anybody know anything about the Rancho Springs company? Anybody know anything unusual about Randolph Simpson? I have a lot of contacts in this town, ought to, been here
