“Philip Marlowe. I’m a Los Angeles private detective.”
“Did you notice the number of this place?”
“It didn’t have one that I could see. But it’s right smack behind the Esmeralda Hardware Company.”
“Ambulance call, urgent,” he said into his mike. “Possible suicide in a small house behind the Esmeralda Hardware Store. Man hanging in a privy behind the house.”
He looked up at me. “Do you know his name?”
I shook my head. “But he was the night garage man at the Casa del Poniente.”
He flicked some sheets of a book. “We know him. Has a record for marijuana. Can’t figure how he held the job, but he may be off it now, and his sort of labor is pretty scarce here.”
A tall sergeant with a granite face came into the office, gave me a quick glance and went out. A car started.
The duty officer flicked a key on a small PBX. “Captain, this is Griddell on the desk. A Mr. Philip Marlowe has reported a death in Polton’s Lane. Ambulance moving. Sergeant Green is on his way. I have two patrol cars in the vicinity.”
He listened for a moment, then looked at me. “Captain Alessandro would like to speak to you, Mr. Marlowe: Down the hall, last door on the right, please.”
He was on the mike again before I was through the swinging door.
The last door on the right had two names on it. Captain Alessandro in a plaque fastened to the wood, and Sergeant Green on a removable panel. The door was half open, so I knocked and went in.
The man at the desk was as immaculate as the desk officer. He was studying a card through a magnifying glass, and a tape recorder beside him was telling some dreary story in a crumpled, unhappy voice. The captain was about six feet three inches tall and had thick dark hair and a clear olive skin. His uniform cap was on the desk near him. He looked up, cut off the tape recorder and put down the magnifying glass and the card.
“Have a seat, Mr. Marlowe.”
I sat down. He looked at me for a moment without speaking. He had rather soft brown eyes, but his mouth was not soft.
“I understand you know Major Javonen at the Casa.”
“I’ve met him, Captain. We are not close friends.”
He smiled faintly. “That’s hardly to be expected. He wouldn’t enjoy private detectives asking questions in the hotel. He used to be in the CIC. We still call him Major. This is the politest goddamn town I was ever in. We are a goddamn smooth bunch around here, but we’re police just the same. Now about this Ceferino Chang?”
“So that’s his name. I didn’t know.”
“Yes. We know him. May I ask what you are doing in Esmeralda?”
“I was hired by a Los Angeles attorney named Clyde Umney to meet the Super Chief and follow a certain party until that party came to a stop somewhere. I wasn’t told why, but Mr. Umney said he was acting for a firm of Washington attorneys and he didn’t know why himself. I took the job because there is nothing illegal in following a person, if you don’t interfere with that person. The party ended up in Esmeralda. I went back to Los Angeles and tried to find out what it was all about. I couldn’t, so I took what I thought was a reasonable fee, two hundred and fifty, and absorbed my own expenses. Mr. Umney was not very pleased with me.”
The captain nodded. “That doesn’t explain why you are here or what you have to do with Ceferino Chang. And since you are not now working for Mr. Umney, unless you are working for another attorney you have no privilege.”
“Give me a break, if you can, Captain. I found out that the party I was following was being blackmailed, or there was an attempt at blackmail, by a man named Larry Mitchell. He lives or lived at the Casa. I have been trying to get in touch with him, but the only information I have is from Javonen and this Ceferino Chang. Javonen said he checked out, paid his bill, and a week in advance for his room. Chang told me he left at seven A.M. this morning with nine suitcases. There was something a bit peculiar about Chang’s manner, so I wanted to have another talk with him.”
“How did you know where he lived?”
“He told me. He was a bitter man. He said he lived on a rich man’s property, and he seemed angry that it wasn’t kept up.”
“Not good enough, Marlowe.”
“Okay, I didn’t think it was myself. He was on the weed. I pretended to be a pusher. Once in a while in my business a man has to do a good deal of faking.”
“Better. But there’s something missing. The name of your client—if you have one.”
“Could it be in confidence?”
“Depends. We never disclose the names of blackmail victims, unless they come out in court. But if this party has committed or been indicted for a crime, or has crossed a state line to escape prosecution, then it would be my duty as an officer of the law to report her present whereabouts and the name she is using.”
“Her? So you know already. Why ask me? I don’t know why she ran away. She won’t tell me. All I know is she is in trouble and in fear, and that somehow Mitchell knew enough to make her say uncle.”
He made a smooth gesture with his hand and fished a cigarette out of a drawer. He stuck it in his mouth but didn’t light it.
He gave me another steady look.
“Okay, Marlowe. For now I’ll let it lay. But if you dig anything up, here is where you bring it.”
