The Little Sister

“Love?” He dropped the word slowly off the end of his tongue, tasting it to the last. A bitter little smile stayed after the word, like powder smell in the air after a gun is fired. He shrugged and pushed a desk cigarette box from behind a filing tray and over to my side of the desk.

“Not love then,” I said. “I’m trying to read your mind. Here you are a guy with a Sorbonne degree and a cheap little practice in a cheap and nasty little town. I know it well. So what are you doing here? What are you doing with people like Clausen? What was the rap, Doctor? Narcotics, abortions, or were you by any chance a medic for the gang boys in some hot Eastern city?”

“As for instance?” he smiled thinly.

“As for instance Cleveland.”

“A very wild suggestion, my friend.” His voice was like ice now.

“Wild as all hell,” I said. “But a fellow like me with very limited brains tends to try to fit the things he knows into a pattern. It’s often wrong, but it’s an occupational disease with me. It goes like this, if you want to listen.”

“I am listening.” He picked the knife up again and pricked lightly at the blotter on his desk.

“You knew Clausen. Clausen was killed very skillfully with an ice pick, killed while I was in the house, upstairs talking to a grifter named Hicks. Hicks moved out fast taking a page of the register with him, the page that had Orrin Quest’s name on it. Later that afternoon Hicks was killed with an ice pick in L.A. His room had been searched. There was a woman there who had come to buy something from him. She didn’t get it. I had more time to search. I did get it. Presumption A: Clausen and Hicks killed by same man, not necessarily for same reason. Hicks killed because he muscled in on another guy’s racket and muscled the other guy out. Clausen killed because he was a babbling drunk and might know who would be likely to kill Hicks. Any good so far?”

“Not the slightest interest to me,” Dr. Lagardie said.

“But you are listening. Sheer good manners, I suppose. Okay. Now what did I find? A photo of a movie queen and an ex-Cleveland gangster, maybe, now a Hollywood restaurant owner, etc., having lunch on a particular day. Day when this ex-Cleveland gangster was supposed to be in hock at the County Jail, also day when ex-Cleveland gangster’s onetime sidekick was shot dead on Franklin Avenue in Los Angeles. Why was he in hock? Tip-off that he was who he was, and say what you like against the L.A. cops they do try to run back-East hot shots out of town. Who gave them the tip? The guy they pinched gave it to them himself, because his ex-partner was being troublesome and had to be rubbed out, and being in jail was a first-class alibi when it happened.”

“All fantastic,” Dr. Lagardie smiled wearily. “Utterly fantastic.”

“Sure. It gets worse. Cops couldn’t prove anything on ex-gangster. Cleveland police not interested. The L.A. cops turn him loose. But they wouldn’t have turned him loose if they’d seen that photo. Photo therefore strong blackmail material, first against ex-Cleveland character, if he really is the guy; secondly against movie queen for being seen around with him in public. A good man could make a fortune out of that photo. Hicks not good enough. Paragraph. Presumption B: Orrin Quest, the boy I’m trying to find, took that photo. Taken with Contax or Leica, without flashbulb, without subjects knowing they were being photographed. Quest had a Leica and liked to do things like that. In this case of course he had a more commercial motive. Question, how did he get a chance to take photo? Answer, the movie queen was his sister. She would let him come up and speak to her. He was out of work, needed money. Likely enough she gave him some and made it a condition he stay away from her. She wants no part of her family. Is it still utterly fantastic, Doctor?”

He stared at me moodily. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “It begins to have possibilities. But why are you telling this rather dangerous story to me?”

He reached a cigarette out of the box and tossed me one casually. I caught it and looked it over. Egyptian, oval and fat, a little rich for my blood. I didn’t light it, just sat holding it between my fingers, watching his dark unhappy eyes. He lit his own cigarette and puffed nervously.

“I’ll tie you in on it now,” I said. “You knew Clausen. Professionally, you said. I showed him I was a dick. He tried at once to call you up: He was too drunk to talk to you. I caught the number and later told you he was dead. Why? If you were on the level, you would call the cops. You didn’t. Why? You knew Clausen, you could have known some of his roomers. No proof either way. Paragraph. Presumption C: you knew Hicks or Orrin Quest or both. The L.A. cops couldn’t or didn’t establish identity of ex-Cleveland character—let’s give him his new name, call him Steelgrave. But somebody had to be able to—if that photo was worth killing people over. Did you ever practice medicine in Cleveland, Doctor?”

“Certainly not.” His voice seemed to come from far off. His eyes were remote too. His lips opened barely enough to admit his cigarette. He was very still.

I said: “They have a whole roomful of directories over at the telephone office. From all over the country. I checked you up.”

“A suite in a downtown office building,” I said. “And now this—an almost furtive practice in a little beach town. You’d have liked to change your name—but you couldn’t and keep your license. Somebody had to mastermind this deal, Doctor. Clausen was a bum, Hicks a stupid lout, Orrin Quest a nasty-minded creep. But they could be used. You couldn’t go up against Steelgrave directly. You wouldn’t have stayed alive long enough to brush your teeth. You had to work through pawns—expendable pawns. Well—are we getting anywhere?”

He smiled faintly and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Presumption D, Mr. Marlowe,” he almost whispered. “You are an unmitigated idiot.”

I grinned and reached for a match to light his fat Egyptian cigarette.

“Added to all the rest,” I said, “Orrin’s sister calls me up and tells me he is in your house. There are a lot weak arguments taken one at a time, I admit. But they do seem to sort of focus on you.” I puffed peacefully on the cigarette.

He watched me. His face seemed to fluctuate and become vague, to move far off and come back. I felt a tightness in my chest. My mind had slowed to a turtle’s gallop.

“What’s going on here?” I heard myself mumble.

I put my hands on the arms of the chair and pushed myself up. “Been dumb, haven’t I?” I said, with the cigarette still in my mouth and me still smoking it. Dumb was hardly the word. Have to coin a new word.

I was out of the chair and my feet were stuck in two barrels of cement. When I spoke my voice seemed to come through cotton wool.