around the house. But he was wearing it on the bed at the Van Nuys. Maybe he didn’t put it on himself.”
French said: “So?”
I said, “Wouldn’t be a bad place to stash a claim check.”
French said: “You could pin it down with a piece of scotch tape. Quite an idea.”
There was a silence. The orange queen went back to her typing. I looked at my nails. They weren’t as clean as they might be. After the pause French said slowly: “Don’t think for a minute you’re in the clear, Marlowe. Still guessing, how come Dr. Lagardie to mention Cleveland to you?”
“I took the trouble to look him up. A doctor can’t change his name if he wants to go on practicing. The ice pick made you think of Weepy Moyer. Weepy Moyer operated in Cleveland. Sunny Moe Stein operated in Cleveland. It’s true the ice-pick technique was different, but it was an ice pick. You said yourself the boys might have learned. And always with these gangs there’s a doctor somewhere in the background.”
“Pretty wild,” French said. “Pretty loose connection.”
“Would I do myself any good if I tightened it up?”
“Can you?”
“I can try.”
French sighed. “The little Quest girl is okay,” he said. “I talked to her mother back in Kansas. She really did come out here to look for her brother. And she really did hire you to do it. She gives you a good write-up. Up to a point. She really did suspect her brother was mixed up in something wrong. You make any money on the deal?”
“Not much,” I said. “I gave her back the fee. She didn’t have much.”
“That way you don’t have to pay income tax on it,” Beifus said.
French said, “Let’s break this off. The next move is up to the D.A. And if I know Endicott, it will be a week from Tuesday before he decides how to play it.” He made a gesture towards the door.
I stood up. “Will it be all right if I don’t leave town?” I asked.
They didn’t bother to answer that one.
I just stood there and looked at them. The ice-pick wound between my shoulders had a dry sting, and the flesh around the place was stiff. The side of my face and mouth smarted where Maglashan had sideswiped me with his well-used pigskin glove. I was in the deep water. It was dark and unclear and the taste of the salt was in my mouth.
They just sat there and looked back at me. The orange queen was clacking her typewriter. Cop talk was no more treat to her than legs to a dance director. They had the calm weathered faces of healthy men in hard condition. They had the eyes they always have, cloudy and gray like freezing water. The firm set mouth, the hard little wrinkles at the corners of the eyes, the hard hollow meaningless stare, not quite cruel and a thousand miles from kind. The dull ready-made clothes, worn without style, with a sort of contempt; the look of men who are poor and yet proud of their power, watching always for ways to make it felt, to shove it into you and twist it and grin and watch you squirm, ruthless without malice, cruel and yet not always unkind. What would you expect them to be? Civilization had no meaning for them. All they saw of it was the failures, the dirt, the dregs, the aberrations and the disgust.
“What you standing there for?” Beifus asked sharply. “You want us to give you a great big spitty kiss? No snappy comeback, huh? Too bad.” His voice fell away to a dull drone. He frowned and reached a pencil off the desk. With a quick motion of his fingers he snapped it in half and held the two halves out on his palm.
“We’re giving you that much break,” he said thinly, the smile all gone. “Go on out and square things up. What the hell you think we’re turning you loose for? Maglashan bought you a rain check. Use it.”
I put my hand up and rubbed my lip. My mouth had too many teeth in it.
Beifus lowered his eyes to the table, picked up a paper and began to read it. Christy French swung around in his chair and put his feet on the desk and stared out of the open window at the parking lot. The orange queen stopped typing. The room was suddenly full of heavy silence, like a fallen cake.
I went on out, parting the silence as if I was pushing my way through water.
25
The office was empty again. No leggy brunettes, no little girls with slanted glasses, no neat dark men with gangster’s eyes.
I sat down at the desk and watched the light fade. The going-home sounds had died away. Outside the neon signs began to glare at one another across the boulevard. There was something to be done, but I didn’t know what. Whatever it was it would be useless. I tidied up my desk, listening to the scrape of a bucket on the tiling of the corridor. I put my papers away in the drawer, straightened the pen stand, got out a duster and wiped off the glass and then the telephone. It was dark and sleek in the fading light. It wouldn’t ring tonight. Nobody would call me again. Not now, not this time. Perhaps not ever.
I put the duster away folded with the dust in it, leaned back and just sat, not smoking, not even thinking. I was a blank man. I had no face, no meaning, no personality, hardly a name. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t even want a drink. I was the page from yesterday’s calendar crumpled at the bottom of the wastebasket.
I pulled the phone towards me and dialed Mavis Weld’s number. It rang and rang and rang. Nine times. That’s a lot of ringing, Marlowe. I guess there’s nobody home. Nobody home to you. I hung up. Who would you like to call now? You got a friend somewhere that might like to hear your voice? No. Nobody.
Let the telephone ring, please. Let there be somebody to call up and plug me into the human race again. Even a cop. Even a Maglashan. Nobody has to like me. I just want to get off this frozen star.
The telephone rang.
“Amigo,” her voice said. “There is trouble. Bad trouble. She wants to see you. She likes you. She thinks you are an honest man.”
