'A woman spurned,' she said heavily. 'We were made for love. We can get pretty poisonous when it turns.'
She drank again. A little of the wine dribbled from the corner of her mouth. She dabbed at it again with the paper place napkin.
'She had something on him,' I said.
'Sure,' Val said. 'And she was going to make him pay.'
'What'd she have?' I said.
'Hell, Marlowe, I don't know. There's always something. Probably something on you if somebody looks hard.' She laughed her wheezy laugh again, gestured at me with her wine glass.
'Prosit,' she said and laughed some more. The rim of the wine glass was smeared with her lipstick.
'You know Larry too,' I said.
She nodded and fished in her purse, taking things out. Compact, lipstick, a crumpled tissue, chewing gum, rosary beads, a nail file.
'You got any quarters, Marlowe?'
I slid a five at Willie.
'Quarters,' I said.
He made change and put the quarters in five neat piles of four on the bar in front of me.
'You're a gennleman,' Val said and took a pile and walked to the jukebox. In a minute she came back and sat on her bar stool as the first wail of a country song came on about a woman who loved a man and he done her wrong. Mood music.
'What was you asking me?' Val said.
'Did you know Larry very well?' I said, carefully. Drunks are fragile creatures. They need to be carried like a very full glass; tip either way and they spill all over. I knew about drunks. I'd spent half my life talking to drunks in bars like this one. Who'd you see, what'd you hear? Have another drink. Sure, on me, Marlowe, the big spender, the lush's pal, drink up, lush. You're lonely and I'm your pal.
'Sure, I know Larry. Everybody knows Larry. The man with the camera. The man with the pictures.'
She finished her wine. Willie poured some more. He was not a boy to miss the main chance, old Willie. She needed another cigarette. I took one out of her pack on the bar and lit it and handed it to her. Maybe I wouldn't have made a good manservant. Maybe I would have made a good gigolo. Maybe I didn't want to think about that. Maybe that hit too close to home.
'I used to pose for Larry, you know.'
'I can believe that,' I said.
Val nodded and stared at me. 'Wasn't that long ago I still looked good with my clothes off.'
'I can believe that too,' I said.
'Well, I did.'
'Larry usually take women's pictures with their clothes off?'
'Sure,' Val said. 'Larry looked at more nudes than my gynecologist.'
She was pleased as hell to have said that and laughed and wheezed until she got coughing and I had to beat her on the back to get her to stop.
'Wise old Dr. Larry,' she gasped. 'Used to peddle the stuff around the boulevard when it was harder to get. Now he wholesales it, I guess. I don't know. Who cares about dirty pictures anymore. You know?'
'Get 'em on any newsstand,' I said. 'Did he do any legit photography? Fashion stuff?'
Val repressed a belch, touched her fingertips to her lips automatically.
''Scuse me,' she said brightly. The jukebox moaned out another sad country ballad. The old couple in the booth got up and stumbled out, arms around each other's waist, her left hand in his back pocket, her head on his shoulder. Val was still smiling at me.
'Did he ever do fashion stuff?' I said.
'Who?'
'Larry.'
'Oh, yeah, fashion stuff.' She paused a long time. I waited. Time is different for drunks.
'Nooo,' Val said. 'He never did none. He said he did, but I never saw any or knew about anybody he photographed.'
She had trouble with
'Where'd Lola live?' I said.
'Lola?'.
'Yeah.'
'What about her?'
'Where'd she live?'
'Kenmore,' Val said. '222 Kenmore, just below Franklin.'
'She in any trouble lately?'
'Naw, Lola, she was fine. Had some alimony checks coming in every month. Me, I got to go to court to get mine. I'm in court more than the judge, for chrissake.'
'Nobody mad at her or anything?'
Val grinned. Her lipstick had gotten blurred from frequent trips to the rim of her glass.
'Jes' Larry,' Lola said.
'Because of the fight they had.'
'Un huh.'
Val drank some more wine. Some of it dribbled down her chin. She paid it no mind. She was singing along now softly to the mournful music.
'You wanna dance?' she said. 'Used to dance like a swan.'
'They're good dancers,' I said.
'You don't have to,' she said, 'if you don't want.' She was swaying a little to the music.
'As long as it's slow,' I said. I stood and put out my arms. She slid off the stool and wavered a bit, got centered and stepped in close to me. She was wearing enough perfume to stop a charging rhino, and it hadn't come in a little crystal flagon. She put her left hand in mine, and her right lightly behind my left shoulder, and we began to move in the empty barroom to the lonesome country sound.
'Ain't supposed to be dancing in here,' Willie said from behind the bar. But he said it weakly and neither of us paid him any attention. It was dim in the bar and most of the light reflected off the bar mirror and the bright array of bottles in front of it. We danced among the tables and along the booths, down toward the front where a little sunlight filtered through the dirty windows. In addition to the old cooking smell there was the fresh, delusive smell of booze that made the air seem cooler. Val put her head against my shoulder as we danced in a slow circle around the room, and she sang the song that we danced to. She knew the lyrics. She probably knew all the lyrics to all the sad songs, just like she knew just how many four-ounce glasses of white wine you got out of a half- gallon jug. The music stopped. The quarters she'd put in were used up, but still we danced, with her head on my shoulder. She sang a little more of the song and then she was quiet and all the sound was the shuffle of our feet in the empty room. Val started to cry, softly, without moving her head from my shoulder. I didn't say anything. Outside on Sunset somebody was power-shifting a car with dual exhausts and the snarling pitch changes bored through our silence. I danced Val gently past a table and four chairs and as I did she suddenly went limp on me.
I spread my feet and bent my knees and slid both my arms around her under hers and edged her to a booth. She was as limp as an overcooked noodle, her legs splayed and dragging. I bowed my back and heaved her into the booth and arranged her with as much dignity as she had left. Behind the bar Willie watched without comment.
'No need to help,' I said. 'She can't weigh more than a two-door Buick. I'll be fine.'
'Drunks are heavy,' Willie said.
I got out another twenty; they were getting scarce in my wallet. I walked over to the bar and gave it to Willie.
'When she comes around,' I said, 'put her in a cab.'
'When she comes around,' Willie said, 'she's going to want to drink another gallon of white wine, until she
