He was low down, crouched against the gloom, his face a grayness without form that seemed to come back slowly after the glare of the shots If it was a revolver he had, it might be empty. It might not. He had fired six times, but he might have reloaded inside the house. I hoped he had. I didn't want him with an empty gun. But it might be an automatic.
I said: 'Finished?'
He whirled at me. Perhaps it would have been nice to allow him another shot or two, just like a gentleman of the old school. But his gun was still up and I couldn't wait any longer. Not long enough to be a gentleman of the old school. I shot him four times, the Colt straining against my ribs. The gun jumped out of his hand as if it had been kicked. He reached both his hands for his stomach. I could hear them smack hard against his body. He fell like that, straight forward, holding himself together with his broad hands. He fell face down in the wet gravel. And after that there wasn't a sound from him.
Silver-Wig didn't make a sound either. She stood rigid, with the rain swirling at her. I walked around Canino and kicked his gun, without any purpose. Then I walked after it and bent over sideways and picked it up. That put me close beside her. She spoke moodily, as if she was talking to herself.
'I — I was afraid you'd come back.'
I said: 'We had a date. I told you it was all arranged.' I began to laugh like a loon.
Then she was bending down over him, touching him. And after a little while she stood up with a small key on a thin chain.
She said bitterly: 'Did you have to kill him?'
I stopped laughing as suddenly as I had started. She went behind me and unlocked the handcuffs.
'Yes,' she said softly. 'I suppose you did.'
30
This was another day and the sun was shining again.
Captain Gregory of the Missing Persons Bureau looked heavily out of his office window at the barred upper floor of the Hall of Justice, white and clean after the rain. Then he turned ponderously in his swivel chair and tamped his pipe with a heat-scarred thumb and stared at me bleakly.
'So you got yourself in another jam.'
'Oh, you heard about it.'
'Brother, I sit here all day on my fanny and I don't look as if I had a brain in my head. But you'd be surprised what I hear. Shooting this Canino was all right I guess, but I don't figure the homicide boys pinned any medals on you.'
'There's been a lot of killing going on around me,' I said. 'I haven't been getting my share of it.'
He smiled patiently. 'Who told you this girl out there was Eddie Mars' wife?'
I told him. He listened carefully and yawned. He tapped his gold-studded mouth with a palm like a tray. 'I guess you figure I ought to of found her.'
'That's a fair deduction.'
'Maybe I knew,' he said. 'Maybe I thought if Eddie and his woman wanted to play a little game like that, it would be smart — or as smart as I ever get — to let them think they were getting away with it. And then again maybe you think I was letting Eddie get away with it for more personal reasons.' He held his big hand out and revolved the thumb against the index and second fingers.
'No,' I said. 'I didn't really think that. Not even when Eddie seemed to know all about our talk here the other day.'
He raised his eyebrows as if raising them was an effort, a trick he was out of practice on. It furrowed his whole forehead and when it smoothed out it was full of white lines that turned reddish as I watched them.
'I'm a copper,' he said. 'Just a plain ordinary copper. Reasonably honest. As honest as you could expect a man to be in a world where it's out of style. That's mainly why I asked you to come in this morning. I'd like you to believe that. Being a copper I like to see the law win. I'd like to see the flashy well-dressed mugs like Eddie Mars spoiling their manicures in the rock quarry at Folsom, alongside of the poor little slum-bred hard guys that got knocked over on their first caper and never had a break since. That's what I'd like. You and me both lived too long to think I'm likely to see it happen. Not in this town, not in any town half this size, in any part of this wide, green and beautiful U.S.A. We just don't run our country that way.'
I didn't say anything. He blew smoke with a backward jerk of his head, looked at the mouthpiece of his pipe and went on:
'But that don't mean I think Eddie Mars bumped off Regan or had any reason to or would have done it if he had. I just figured maybe he knows something about it, and maybe sooner or later something will sneak out into the open. Hiding his wife out at Realito was childish, but it's the kind of childishness a smart monkey thinks is smart. I had him in here last night, after the D.A. got through with him. He admitted the whole thing. He said he knew Canino as a reliable protection guy and that's what he had him for. He didn't know anything about his hobbies or want to. He didn't know Harry Jones. He didn't know Joe Brody. He did know Geiger, of course, but claims he didn't know about his racket. I guess you heard all that.'
'Yes.'
'You played it smart down there at Realito, brother. Not trying to cover up. We keep a file on unidentified bullets nowadays. Someday you might use that gun again. Then you'd be over a barrel.'
'I played it smart,' I said, and leered at him.
He knocked his pipe out and stared down at it broodingly. 'What happened to the girl?' he asked, not looking up.
'I don't know. They didn't hold her. We made statements, three sets of them, for Wilde, for the Sheriff's office, for the Homicide Bureau. They turned her loose. I haven't seen her since. I don't expect to.'
'Kind of a nice girl, they say. Wouldn't be one to play dirty games.'
'Kind of a nice girl,' I said.
Captain Gregory sighed and rumpled his mousy hair. 'There's just one more thing,' he said almost gently. 'You look like a nice guy, but you play too rough. If you really want to help the Sternwood family — leave 'em alone.'
'I think you're right, Captain.'
'How do you feel?'
'Swell,' I said. 'I was standing on various pieces of carpet most of the night, being balled out. Before that I got soaked to the skin and beaten up. I'm in perfect condition.'
'What the hell did you expect, brother?'
'Nothing else.' I stood up and grinned at him and started for the door. When I had almost reached it he cleared his throat suddenly and said in a harsh voice: 'I'm wasting my breath, huh? You still think you find Regan.'
I turned around and looked him straight in eyes 'No, I don't think I can find Regan. I'm not even going to try. Does that suit you?'
He nodded slowly. Then he shrugged. 'I don't know what the hell I even said that for. Good luck, Marlowe. Drop around any time.'
'Thanks, Captain.'
I went down out of the City Hall and got my car from the parking lot and drove home to the Hobart Arms. I lay down on the bed with my coat off and stared at the ceiling and listened to the traffic sounds on the street outside and watched the sun move slowly across a corner of the ceiling. I tried to go to sleep, but sleep didn't come. I got up and took a drink, although it was the wrong time of day, and lay down again. I still couldn't go to sleep. My brain ticked like a clock. I sat up on the side of the bed and stuffed a pipe and said out loud:
'That old buzzard knows something.'
The pipe tasted as bitter as lye. I put it aside and lay down again. My mind drifted through waves of false memory, in which I seemed to do the same thing over and over again, go to the same places, meet the same people, say the same words to them, over and and over again, and yet each time it seemed real, like something
