A voice I had heard before said sharply: “Shut up, you little bitch. I’ll be out in a second.”
The Gonzales came back through the archway humming. Her glass was empty. She went to the bar again. “But you are not drinking,” she cried, looking at my glass.
“I ate dinner. I only have a two-quart stomach anyway. I understand a little Spanish.”
She tossed her head. “You are shocked?” Her eyes rolled. Her shoulders did a fan dance.
“I’m pretty hard to shock.”
“But you heard what I said? Madre de Dios. I’m so terribly sorry.”
“I’ll bet,” I said.
She finished making herself another highball.
“Yes. I am so sorry,” she sighed. “That is, I think I am. Sometimes I am not sure. Sometimes I do not give a good goddamn. It is so confusing. All my friends tell me I am far too outspoken. I do shock you, don’t I?” She was on the arm of my chair again.
“No. But if I wanted to be shocked I’d know right where to come.” She reached her glass behind her indolently and leaned towards me.
“But I do not live here,” she said. “I live at the Chateau Bercy.”
“Alone?”
She slapped me delicately across the tip of my nose. The next thing I knew I had her in my lap and she was trying to bite a piece off my tongue. “You are a very sweet son-of-a-bitch,” she said. Her mouth was as hot as ever a mouth was. Her lips burned like dry ice. Her tongue was driving hard against my teeth. Her eyes looked enormous and black and the whites showed under them.
“I am so tired,” she whispered into my mouth. “I am so worn, so incredibly tired.”
I felt her hand in my breast pocket. I shoved her off hard, but she had my wallet. She danced away with it laughing, flicked it open and went through it with fingers that darted like little snakes.
“So glad you two got acquainted,” a voice off to one side said coolly. Mavis Weld stood in the archway.
Her hair was fluffed out carelessly and she hadn’t bothered with make-up. She wore a hostess gown and very little else. Her legs ended in little green and silver slippers. Her eyes were empty, her lips contemptuous. But she was the same girl all right, dark glasses on or off.
The Gonzales gave her a quick darting glance, closed my wallet and tossed it. I caught it and put it away. She strolled to a table and picked up a black bag with a long strap, hooked it over her shoulder and moved towards the door.
Mavis Weld didn’t move, didn’t look at her. She looked at me. But there was no emotion of any kind in her face. The Gonzales opened the door and glanced outside and almost closed it and turned.
“The name is Philip Marlowe,” she said to Mavis Weld. “Nice don’t you think?”
“I didn’t know you bothered to ask them their names,” Mavis Weld said. “You so seldom know them long enough.”
“I see,” the Gonzales answered gently. She turned and smiled at me faintly. “Such a charming way to call a girl a whore, don’t you think?”
Mavis Weld said nothing. Her face had no expression.
“At least,” the Gonzales said smoothly as she pulled the door open again, “I haven’t been sleeping with any gunmen lately.”
“Are you sure you can remember?” Mavis Weld asked her in exactly the same tone. “Open the door, honey. This is the day we put the garbage out.”
The Gonzales looked back at her slowly, levelly, and with a knife in her eyes. Then she made a faint sound with her lips and teeth and yanked the door wide. It closed behind her with a jarring smash. The noise didn’t even flicker the steady dark-blue glare in Mavis Weld’s eyes.
“Now suppose you do the same—but more quietly,” she said.
I got out a handkerchief and scrubbed the lipstick over my face. It looked exactly the color of blood, fresh blood. “That could happen to anybody,” I said. “I wasn’t petting her. She was petting me.”
She marched to the door and heaved it open. “On your way, dreamboat. Make with the feet.”
“I came here on business, Miss Weld.”
“Yes. I can imagine. Out. I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. And if I did, this wouldn’t be either the day or the hour.”
“Never the time and place and the loved one all together,” I said.
“What’s that?” She tried to throw me out with the point of her chin, but even she wasn’t that good.
“Browning. The poet, not the automatic. I feel sure you’d prefer the automatic.”
“Look little man, do I have to call the manager to bounce you downstairs like a basketball?”
I went over and pushed the door shut. She held on to the last moment. She didn’t quite kick me, but it cost her an effort not to. I tried to ease her away from the door without appearing to. She didn’t ease worth a darn. She stood her ground, one hand still reaching for the doorknob, her eyes full of dark-blue rage.
“If you’re going to stand that close to me,” I said, “maybe you’d better put some clothes on.”
She took her hand back and swung it hard. The slap sounded like Miss Gonzales slamming the door, but it stung. And it reminded me of the sore place on the back of my head.
