“Would you know her again—without the glasses?” I asked carefully.
He pretended to think. Then shook his head, no.
“What was that license number again, Flackie?” I caught him off guard.
“Which one?” he said.
I leaned across the desk and dropped some cigarette ash on his gun. I did some more staring into his eyes. But I knew he was licked now. He seemed to know too. He reached for his gun, blew off the ash and put it back in the drawer of his desk.
“Go on. Beat it,” he said between his teeth. “Tell the cops I frisked the stiff. So what? Maybe I lose a job. Maybe I get tossed in the fishbowl. So what? When I come out I’m solid. Little Flackie don’t have to worry about coffee and crullers. Don’t think for a minute those dark cheaters fool little Flackie. I’ve seen too many movies to miss that lovely puss. And if you ask me that babe’ll be around for a long time. She’s a comer—and who knows—” he leered at me triumphantly—”she’d need a bodyguard one of these days. A guy to have around, watch things, keep her out of jams. Somebody that knows the ropes and ain’t unreasonable about dough. . . What’s the matter?”
I had put my head on one side and was leaning forward. I was listening. “I thought I heard a church bell,” I said.
“There ain’t any church around here,” he said contemptuously. “It’s that platinum brain of yours getting cracks in it.”
“Just one bell,” I said. “Very slow. Tolling is the word, I believe.”
Flack listened with me. “I don’t hear anything,” he said sharply.
“Oh you wouldn’t hear it,” I said. “You’d be the one guy in the whole world who wouldn’t hear it.”
He just sat there and stared at me with his nasty little eyes half closed and his nasty little mustache shining. One of his hands twitched on the desk, an aimless movement.
I left him to his thoughts, which were probably as small, ugly and frightened as the man himself.
12
The apartment house was over on Doheny Drive, just down the hill from the Strip. It was really two buildings, one behind the other, loosely connected by a floored patio with a fountain, and a room built over the arch. There were mailboxes and bells in the imitation marble foyer. Three out of the sixteen had no names over them. The names that I read meant nothing to me. The job needed a little more work. I tried the front door, found it unlocked, and the job still needed more work.
Outside stood two Cadillacs, a Lincoln Continental and a Packard Clipper. Neither of the Cadillacs had the right color or license. Across the way a guy in riding breeches was sprawled with his legs over the door of a low-cut Lancia. He was smoking and looking up at the pale stars which know enough to keep their distance from Hollywood. I walked up the steep hill to the boulevard and a block east and smothered myself in an outdoor sweat-box phone booth. I dialed a man named Peoria Smith, who was so-called because he stuttered—another little mystery I hadn’t had time to work out.
“Mavis Weld,” I said. “Phone number. This is Marlowe.”
“S-s-s-ure,” he said. “M-M-Mavis Weld huh? You want h-h-her ph-ph-phone number?”
“How much?”
“Be-b-b-be ten b-b-b-bucks,” he said.
“Just forget I called,” I said.
“W-W-Wait a minute! I ain’t supposed to give out with them b-b-babes’ phone numbers. An assistant prop man is taking a hell of a chance.”
I waited and breathed back my own breath.
“The address goes with it naturally,” Peoria whined, forgetting to stutter.
“Five bucks,” I said. “I’ve got the address already. And don’t haggle. If you think you’re the only studio grifter in the business of selling unlisted telephone numbers—”
“Hold it,” he said wearily, and went to get his little red book. A left-handed stutterer. He only stuttered when he wasn’t excited. He came back and gave it to me. A Crestview number of course. If you don’t have a Crestview number in Hollywood you’re a bum.
I opened up the steel-and-glass cell to let in some air while I dialed again. After two rings a drawling sexy voice answered. I pulled the door shut.
“Ye-e-es,” the voice cooed.
“Miss Weld, please.”
“And who is calling Miss Weld if you please?”
“I have some stills Whitey wants me to deliver tonight.”
“Whitey? And who is Whitey, amigo?”
“The head still-photographer at the studio,” I said. “Don’t you know that much? I’ll come up if you’ll tell me which apartment. I’m only a couple of blocks away.”
“Miss Weld is taking a bath.” She laughed. I guess it was a silvery tinkle where she was. It sounded like somebody putting away saucepans where I was. “But of course bring up the photographs. I am sure she is dying to see them. The apartment number is fourteen.”
“Will you be there too?”
“But of course. But naturally. Why do you ask that?”
