to investigate an attempt to blackmail one of your clients.”
I got up with my empty glass and went over and put it down on the desk. As I bent down I heard a soft whirring noise. I went around behind the desk and yanked upon a drawer. A wire recorder slid out on a hinged shelf. The motor was running and the fine steel wire was moving steadily from one spool to the other. I looked across at Ballou.
“You can shut it off and take the record with you,” he said. “You can’t blame me for using it.”
I moved the switch over to rewind and the wire reversed direction and picked up speed until the wire was winding so fast I couldn’t see it. It made a sort of high keening noise, like a couple of pansies fighting for a piece of silk. The wire came loose and the machine stopped. I took the spool off and dropped it into my pocket.
“You might have another one,” I said. “I’ll have to chance that.”
“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you, Marlowe?”
“I only wish I was.”
“Press that button on the end of the desk, will you?” I pressed it. The black glass doors opened and a dark girl came in with a stenographer’s notebook.
Without looking at her Ballou began to dictate. “Letter to Mr. Philip Marlowe, with his address. Dear Mr. Marlowe: This agency herewith employs you to investigate an attempt to blackmail one of its clients, particulars of which have been given to you verbally. Your fee is to be one hundred dollars a day with a retainer of five hundred dollars, receipt of which you acknowledge on the copy of this letter. Blah, blah, blah. That’s all, Eileen. Right away please.”
I gave the girl my address and she went out.
I took the wire spool out of my pocket and put it back in the drawer.
Ballou crossed his knees and danced the shiny tip of his shoe up and down staring at it. He ran his hand through crisp dark hair.
“One of these days,” he said, “I’m going to make the mistake which a man in my business dreads above all other mistakes. I’m going to find myself doing business with a man I can trust and I’m going to be just too damn smart to trust him. Here you’d better keep this.” He held out the two pieces of the photograph.
Five minutes later I left. The glass doors opened when I was three feet from them. I went past the two secretaries and down the corridor past the open door of Spink’s Office. There was no sound in there, but I could smell his cigar smoke. In the reception room exactly the same people seemed to be sitting around in the chintzy chairs. Miss Helen Grady gave me her Saturday-night smile. Miss Vane beamed at me.
I had been forty minutes with the boss. That made me as gaudy as a chiropractor’s chart.
19
The studio cop at the semicircular glassed-in desk put down his telephone and scribbled on a pad. He tore off the sheet and pushed it through the narrow slit not more than three quarters of an inch wide where the glass did not quite meet the top of his desk. His voice coming through the speaking device set into the glass panel had a metallic ring.
“Straight through to the end of the corridor,” he said, “you’ll find a drinking fountain in the middle of the patio. George Wilson will pick up there.”
I said: “Thanks. Is this bullet-proof glass?”
“Sure. Why?”
“I just wondered,” I said. “I never heard of anybody shooting his way into the picture business.”
Behind me somebody snickered. I turned to look at a girl in slacks with a red carnation behind her ear. She was grinning.
“Oh brother, if a gun was all it took.”
I went over to an olive-green door that didn’t have any handle. It made a buzzing sound and let me push it open. Beyond was an olive-green corridor with bare walls and a door at the far end. A rat trap. If you got into that and anything was wrong, they could still stop you. The far door made the same buzz and click. I wondered how the cop knew I was at it. So I looked up and found his eyes staring at me in a tilted mirror. As I touched the door the mirror went blank. They thought of everything.
Outside in the hot midday sun flowers rioted in a small patio with tiled walks and a pool in the middle and a marble seat. The drinking fountain was beside the marble seat. An elderly and beautifully dressed man was lounging on the marble seat watching three tan-colored boxers root up some tea-rose begonias. There was an expression of intense but quiet satisfaction on his face. He didn’t glance at me as I came up. One of the boxers, the biggest one, came over and made a wet on the marble seat beside his pants leg. He leaned down and patted the dog’s hard short-haired head.
“You Mr. Wilson?” I asked.
He looked up at me vaguely. The middle-sized boxer trotted up and sniffed and wet after the first one.
“Wilson?” He had a lazy voice with a touch of drawl to it. “Oh no. My name’s not Wilson. Should it be?”
“Sorry.” I went over to the drinking fountain and hit myself in the face with a stream of water. While I was wiping it off with a handkerchief the smallest boxer did his duty on the marble bench.
The man whose name was not Wilson said lovingly, “Always do it in the exact same order. Fascinates me.”
“Do what?” I asked.
“Pee,” he said. “Question of seniority it seems. Very orderly. First Maisie. She’s the mother. Then Mac. Year older than Jock, the baby. Always the same. Even in my office.”
“In your office?” I said, and nobody ever looked stupider saying anything.
