'You got any problems, Commander?' Ohls said.
'Let them walk,' Fenton said.
'The way I figure there won't be a trial anyway,' I said. 'Simpson's mushier than an old apple, and his lawyers will plead him insane and it will stick.'
We were on our feet now. I shook hands with Fenton.
***
'Where we going?' Carmen said. 'I'm very sleepy.'
'Home,' I said. 'Your maid will put you to bed.'
'Not you?' she said and her tongue showed between her lips and she gave me the slow vamp, looking at me with her head turned, from the corners of her eyes.
'I'm sleepy too,' I said. 'I'll let the maid do it.'
My car was in the parking lot, next to the black one that belonged to the county, that Ohls drove.
'Thanks, Bernie,' I said.
Ohls nodded and opened his car door and paused with one foot in, leaning on the top.
'She's got to go away someplace too,' he said.
'I know.'
'One of us will see to it,' he said. 'I'd just as soon it be you. But one of us will have to.'
'I'll do it,' I said.
I opened my door and Carmen got in. I closed it after her and went around to the driver's side. Ohls was still halfway in his car, still leaning on the roof.
'Bonsentir's going to come for you,' Ohls said.
'Yeah,' I said.
'Sooner or later,' Ohls said.
'Good,' I said. 'He'll think he went headfirst into a Mixmaster.'
Ohls nodded slowly and got in his car and started up and drove away. I watched him go. Then I got in beside Carmen, and cranked the engine, and started out toward Hollywood, with my eyes heavier than sorrow. And the rest of me no better.
CHAPTER 36
'So you did it,' Vivian Regan said.
I was sitting in her enormous living room in the middle of the morning with my feet up on a hassock. I put my head back against the big leather wing chair I was sitting in and let my eyes close. My clothes had dried on me and I looked like something that had washed up in a storm drain. I felt worse.
'I was sure they'd kill you,' Vivian said.
'Wrong,' I said.
'Yes, I was. And I'm awfully glad I was.'
'Yeah.'
The stillness in the house seemed essential, part of the substance of the house, integrated with the floor joists and ceiling rafters, impregnating the plaster. Vivian sat with her legs tucked up under her on the vast overstuffed lavender silk couch across from me. She had on some sort of black silk lounging pajamas and a string of pearls, the kind you keep in the vault, and wear paste.
'Will you help me with Carmen?' she said.
'I'll find her a place and see that she is admitted and that she stays,' I said.
'Will she have to go to trial?'
'I don't think so. I doubt there'll be a trial. I think this will all be discreetly arranged and she and Simpson will both be judged insane and put into custodial care.'
Vivian shivered and hugged herself.
'Insane,' she said. 'It's such an awful word.'
I didn't say anything. Vivian stood and walked over and stood behind me and massaged my neck and shoulders.
'What about us, Marlowe? We had something the other night.'
I nodded.
'There'd be room here for you, you know.'
'For a while,' I said.
'You don't think it would last?'
'You're scared now. You're alone. You've got Carmen to worry over again. You don't know where Bonsentir is. Someone like me looks pretty good now. But how would I look next year? How would I look at the polo matches? Do I get my own monogrammed blazer? Do I take elocution lessons so I can sound like a phony Englishman and fit in with the clubhouse crowd at Del Mar?'
