I hung up and reached for the phone book again and looked up the Wentworth Apartments. I dialed the manager's number. I had a blurred vision of Mr. Canino driving fast through rain to another appointment with death.
'Glendower Apartments. Mr. Schiff speaking.'
'This is Wallis, Police Identification Bureau. Is there a girl named Agnes Lozelle registered in your place?'
'Who did you say you were?'
I told him again.
'If you give me your number, Ill — '
'Cut the comedy,' I said sharply, 'I'm in a hurry. Is there or isn't there?'
'No. There isn't.' The voice was as stiff as a breadstick.
'Is there a tall blonde with green eyes registered in the flop?'
'Say, this isn't any flop — '
'Oh, can it, can it!' I rapped at him in a police voice. 'You want me to send the vice squad over there and shake the joint down? I know all about Bunker Hill apartment houses, mister. Especially the ones that have phone numbers listed for each apartment.'
'Hey, take it easy, officer. I'll co-operate. There's a couple of blondes here, sure. Where isn't there? I hadn't noticed their eyes much. Would yours be alone?'
'Alone, or with a little chap about five feet three, a hundred and ten, sharp black eyes, wears a doublebreasted dark gray suit and Irish tweed overcoat, gray hat. My information is Apartment 301, but all I get there is the big razzoo.'
'Oh, she ain't there. There's a couple of car salesmen living in three-o-one.'
'Thanks, I'll drop around.'
'Make it quiet, won't you? Come to my place, direct?'
'Much obliged, Mr. Schiff.' I hung up.
I wiped sweat off my face. I walked to the far corner of the office and stood with my face to the wall, patted it with a hand. I turned around slowly and looked across at little Harry Jones grimacing in his chair.
'Well, you fooled him, Harry,' I said out loud, in a voice that sounded queer to me. 'You lied to him and you drank your cyanide like a little gentleman. You died like a poisoned rat, Harry, but you're no rat to me.'
I had to search him. It was a nasty job. His pockets yielded nothing about Agnes, nothing that I wanted at all. I didn't think they would, but I had to be sure. Mr. Canino might be back. Mr. Canino would be the kind of self- confident gentleman who would not mind returning to the scene of his crime.
I put the light out and started to open the door. The phone bell rang jarringly down on the baseboard. I listened to it, my jaw muscles drawn into a knot, aching. Then I shut the door and put the light on again and went across to it.
'Yeah?'
A woman's voice. Her voice. 'Is Harry around?'
'Not for a minute, Agnes.'
She waited a while on that. Then she said slowly: 'Who's talking?'
'Marlowe, the guy that's trouble to you.'
'Where is he?' sharply.
'I came over to give him two hundred bucks in return for certain information. The offer holds. I have the money. Where are you?'
'Didn't he tell you?'
'No.'
'Perhaps you'd better ask him. Where is he?'
'I can't ask him. Do you know a man named Canino?'
Her gasp came as clearly as though she had been beside me.
'Do you want the two C's or not?' I asked.
'I — I want it pretty bad, mister.'
'All right then. Tell me where to bring it.'
'I — I' Her voice trailed off and came back with a panic rush. 'Where's Harry?'
'Got scared and blew. Meet me somewhere — anywhere at all — I have the money.'
'I don't believe you — about Harry. It's a trap.'
'Oh stuff. I could have had Harry hauled in long ago. There isn't anything to make a trap for. Canino got a line on Harry somehow and he blew. I want quiet, you want quiet, Harry wants quiet.' Harry already had it. Nobody could take it away from him. 'You don't think I'd stooge for Eddie Mars, do you, angel?'
'No-o, I guess not. Not that. I'll meet you in half an hour. Beside Bullocks Wilshire, the east entrance to the parking lot.'
'Right,' I said.
I dropped the phone in its cradle. The wave of almond odor flooded me again, and the sour smell of vomit. The little dead man sat silent in his chair, beyond fear, beyond change.
I left the office. Nothing moved in the dingy corridor. No pebbled glass door had light behind it. I went down the fire stairs to the second floor and from there looked down at the lighted roof of the elevator cage. I pressed the button. Slowly the car lurched into motion. I ran down the stairs again. The car was above me when I walked out of the building.
It was raining hard again. I walked into it with the heavy drops slapping my face. When one of them touched my tongue I knew that my mouth was open and the ache at the side of my jaws told me it was open wide and strained back, mimicking the rictus of death carved upon the face of Harry Jones.
27
'Give me the money.'
The motor of the gray Plymouth throbbed under her voice and the rain pounded above it. The violet light at the top of Bullock's green-tinged tower was far above us, serene and withdrawn from the dark, dripping city. Her black-gloved hand reached out and I put the bills in it. She bent over to count them under the dim light of the dash. A bag clicked open, clicked shut. She let a spent breath die on her lips. She leaned towards me.
'I'm leaving, copper. I'm on my way. This is a getaway stake and God how I need it. What happened to Harry?'
'I told you he ran away. Canino got wise to him somehow. Forget Harry. I've paid and I want my information.'
'You'll get it. Joe and I were out riding Foothill Boulevard Sunday before last. It was late and the lights coming up and the usual mess of cars. We passed a brown coupe and I saw the girl who was driving it. There was a man beside her, a dark short man. The girl was a blonde. I'd seen her before. She was Eddie Mars' wife. The guy was Canino. You wouldn't forget either of them, if you ever saw them. Joe tailed the coupe from in front. He was good at that. Canino, the watchdog, was taking her out for air. A mile or so east of Realito a road turns towards the foothills. That's orange country to the south but to the north it's as bare as hell's back yard and smack up against the hills there's a cyanide plant where they make the stuff for fumigation. Just off the highway there's a small garage and paintshop run by a gee named Art Huck. Hot car drop, likely. There's a frame house beyond this, and beyond the house nothing but the foothills and the bare stone outcrop and the cyanide plant a couple of miles on. That's the place where she's holed up. They turned off on this road and Joe swung around and went back and we saw the car turn off the road where the frame house was. We sat there half an hour looking through the cars going by. Nobody came back out. When it was quite dark Joe sneaked up there and took a look. He said there were lights in the house and a radio was going and just the one car out in front, the coupe. So we beat it.'
She stopped talking and I listened to the swish of tires on Wilshire. I said: 'They might have shifted quarters since then but that's what you have to sell — that's what you have to sell. Sure you knew her?'
'If you ever see her, you won't make a mistake the second time. Good-by, copper, and wish me luck. I got
