I nodded. “But he came down here in his own car. He made the reservation here for you. He’s not liked by the people here, but apparently he is a friend of someone with a lot of influence.”
“An acquaintance on a train or a ship sometimes develops very quickly,” she said.
“So it seems. He even touched you for a loan. Very fast work. And I got the impression you didn’t care for him too well.”
“Well,” she said. “so what? But as a matter of fact I’m crazy about him.” She turned her hand over and looked down at it. “Who hired you, Mr. Marlowe, and for what?”
“A Los Angeles lawyer, acting on instructions from back east.
I was to follow you and check you in somewhere. Which I did. But now you’re getting ready to move out. I’m going to have to start over again.”
“But with me knowing you’re there,” she said shrewdly. “So you’ll have a much harder job of it. You’re a private detective of some sort, I gather.”
I said I was. I had killed my cigarette some time back. I put the ashtray back on the table and stood up.
“Harder for me, but there are lots of others, Miss Mayfield.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are, and all such nice little men. Some of them are even fairly clean.”
“The cops are not looking for you. They’d have had you easily. It was known about your train. I even got a photo of you and a description. But Mitchell can make you do just what he wants. Money isn’t all he’ll want.”
I thought she flushed a little, but the light didn’t strike her face directly. “Perhaps so,” she said. “And perhaps I don’t mind.”
“You mind.”
She stood up suddenly and came near me. “You’re in a business that doesn’t pay fortunes, aren’t you?”
I nodded. We were very close now.
“Then what would it be worth to you to walk out of here and forget you ever saw me?”
“I’d walk out of here for free. As for the rest, I have to make a report.”
“How much?” She said it as if she meant it. “I can afford a substantial retainer. That’s what you call it, I’ve heard. A much nicer word than blackmail.”
“It doesn’t mean the same thing.”
“It could. Believe me, it can mean just that—even with some lawyers and doctors. I happen to know.”
“Tough break, huh?”
“Far from it, shamus. I’m the luckiest girl in the world. I’m alive.”
“I’m on the other side. Don’t give it away.”
“Well, what do you know,” she drawled. “A dick with scruples. Tell it to the seagulls, buster. On me it’s just confetti. Run along now, Mr. PI Marlowe, and make that little old phone call you’re so anxious about. I’m not restraining you.”
She started for the door, but I caught her by the wrist and spun her around. The torn blouse didn’t reveal any startling nakedness, merely some skin and part of a brassiere. You’d see more on the beach, far more, but you wouldn’t see it through a torn blouse.
I must have been leering a little, because she suddenly curled her fingers and tried to claw me.
“I’m no bitch in heat,” she said between tight teeth. “Take your paws off me.”
I got the other wrist and started to pull her closer. She tried to knee me in the groin, but she was already too close. Then she went limp and pulled her head back and closed her eyes. Her lips opened with a sardonic twist to them. It was a cool evening, maybe even cold down by the water. But it wasn’t cold where I was.
After a while she said with a sighing voice that she had to dress for dinner.
I said, “Uh-huh.”
After another pause she said it was a long time since a man had unhooked her brassiere. We did a slow turn in the direction of one of the twin day beds. They had pink and silver covers on them. The little odd things you notice.
Her eyes were open and quizzical. I studied them one at a time because I was too close to see them together. They seemed well matched.
“Honey,” she said softly, “you’re awful sweet, but I just don’t have the time.”
I closed her mouth for her. It seems that a key slid into the door from the outside, but I wasn’t paying too close attention. The lock clicked, the door opened, and Mr. Larry Mitchell walked in.
We broke apart. I turned and he looked at me droopy-eyed, six feet one and tough and wiry.
“I thought to check at the office,” he said, almost absently. “Twelve B was rented this afternoon, very soon after this was occupied. I got faintly curious, because there are a lot of vacancies here at the moment. So I borrowed the other key. And who is this hunk of beef, baby?”
“She told you not to call her ‘baby,’ remember?”
If that meant anything to him, he didn’t show it. He swung a knotted fist gently at his side.
The girl said: “He’s a private eye named Marlowe. Somebody hired him to follow me.”
“Did he have to follow you as close as all that? I seem to be intruding on a beautiful friendship.”
