He stopped and drew in his breath. His face glistened a little as if with sweat. He leaned forward from his hips.
“We got to have you,” he repeated. “We got to have sharpers with private licenses hiding information and dodging around corners and stirring up dust for us to breathe in. We got to have you suppressing evidence and framing set-ups that wouldn’t fool a sick baby. You wouldn’t mind me calling you a goddamn cheap double-crossing keyhole peeper, would you, baby?”
“You want me to mind?” I asked him.
He straightened up. “I’d love it,” he said. “In spades redoubled.”
“Some of what you say is true,” I said. “Not all. Any private eye wants to play ball with the police. Sometimes it’s a little hard to find out who’s making the rules of the ball game. Sometimes he doesn’t trust the police, and with cause. Sometimes he just gets in a jam without meaning to and has to play his hand out the way it’s dealt. He’d usually rather have a new deal. He’d like to keep on earning a living.”
“Your license is dead,” French said. “As of now. That problem won’t bother you any more.”
“It’s dead when the commission that gave it to me says so. Not before.”
Beifus said quietly, “Let’s get on with it, Christy. This could wait.”
“I’m getting on with it,” French said. “My way. This bird hasn’t cracked wise yet. I’m waiting for him to crack wise. The bright repartee. Don’t tell me you’re all out of the quick stuff, Marlowe.”
“Just what is it you want me to say?” I asked him.
“Guess,” he said.
“You’re a man eater tonight,” I said. “You want to break me in half. But you want an excuse. And you want me to give it to you?”
“That might help,” he said between his teeth.
“What would you have done in my place?” I asked him.
“I couldn’t imagine myself getting that low.”
He licked at the point of his upper lip. His right hand was hanging loose at his side. He was clenching and unclenching the fingers without knowing it.
“Take it easy, Christy,” Beifus said. “Lay off.”
French didn’t move. Beifus came over and stepped between us. French said, “Get out of there, Fred.”
French doubled his fist and slugged him hard on the point of the jaw. Beifus stumbled back and knocked me out of the way. His knees wobbled. He bent forward and coughed. He shook his head slowly in a bent-over position. After a while he straightened up with a grunt. He turned and looked at me. He grinned.
“It’s a new kind of third degree,” he said. “The cops beat hell out of each other and the suspect cracks up from the agony of watching.”
His hand went up and felt the angle of his jaw. It already showed swelling. His mouth grinned but his eyes were still a little vague. French stood rooted and silent.
Beifus got out a pack of cigarettes and shook one loose and held the pack out to French. French looked at the cigarette, looked at Beifus.
“Seventeen years of it,” he said. “Even my wife hates me.”
He lifted his open hand and slapped Beifus across the cheek with it lightly. Beifus kept on grinning.
French said: “Was it you I hit, Fred?”
Beifus said: “Nobody hit me, Christy. Nobody that I can remember.”
French said: “Take the cuffs off him and take him out to the car. He’s under arrest. Cuff him to the rail if you think it’s necessary.”
“Okay.” Beifus went around behind me. The cuffs came loose. “Come along, baby,” Beifus said.
I stared hard at French. He looked at me as if I was the wallpaper. His eyes didn’t seem to see me at all.
I went out under the archway and out of the house.
30
I never knew his name, but he was rather short and thin for a cop, which was what he must have been, partly because he was there, and partly because when he leaned across the table to reach a card I could see the leather underarm holster and the butt end of a police .38.
He didn’t speak much, but when he did he had a nice voice, a soft-water voice. And he had a smile that warmed the whole room.
“Wonderful casting,” I said, looking at him across the cards.
We were playing double Canfield. Or he was. I was just there, watching him, watching his small and very neat and very clean hands go out across the table and touch a card and lift it delicately and put it somewhere else. When he did this he pursed his lips a little and whistled without tune, a low soft whistle, like a very young engine that is not yet sure of itself.
He smiled and put a red nine on a black ten.
“What do you do in your spare time?” I asked him.
“I play the piano a good deal,” he said. “I have a seven-foot Steinway. Mozart and Bach mostly. I’m a bit old- fashioned. Most people find it dull stuff. I don’t.”
