'We ran away and when we came back we were already married,' she said. 'It was too late.'
'That wouldn't have bothered a guy like Black-stone,' I said. 'A little thing like marriage? And it sure wouldn't bother Eddie Garcia.'
'I knew you wouldn't believe me,' she said. Her voice was starting to flute upward again. 'No one will. He'll ruin this too… like he ruined everything… and you'll help him.'
The saliva had appeared again at the corner of her mouth, and her voice was into the range where only dogs could hear her. 'Why don't you sit down, Mrs. Valentine,' I said. Her hands came out of her pockets again, and in her right hand was a gun. It wasn't very big. It was silver plated and what I could see of the handle was pearl. It was a cute gun, a gun for a lady to carry, a nice little cute automatic, probably a.25. Maybe hot-loaded. The cruel black eye of the gun never wavered as she pointed it at me. It wouldn't make a very big hole in my forehead. Probably wouldn't even make an exit wound, just ricochet around inside there so the coroner could find it with no trouble when they did the autopsy on me downtown.
She held the gun in both hands, straight out in front of her, her knees bent a little, feet comfortably apart just like someone taught her. Her mouth was open and her tongue moved rapidly back and forth across her lower lip. She was breathing through her nose in little snorts.
'He loves me,' she said, 'And I won't… let… you… spoil…'
Everything moved very slowly. The rain uncoiled with infinite leisure against the window behind me. I could see a stray drop of rainwater meander down the lapel of Muriel's raincoat.
'They've all been trying to spoil it,' I said. 'Haven't they?'
'Yes,' she whispered.
'And you had to kill them?'
'Yes,' again a whisper, the word drawn out into a long hiss.
'Lola,' I said. She nodded slowly. 'Lippy.' Again the nod.
I reached forward slowly and picked up my coffee. 'But not me,' I said. 'I'm trying to help. I know where Larry is.'
She shook her head slowly. Everything was very slow.
'You… won't… spoil… it,' she said.
I dropped my coffee cup. The coffee sloshed out on my pants leg as the cup bounced on my thigh and went to the floor.
'Oops,' I said and bent to pick it up and went out of the chair behind my desk digging the .38 out from under my arm as I went. I hit the floor on my left shoulder. Above me there was a flat snap and then another and two bullets buried in the wall behind my desk chair. I fired one shot straight up to the ceiling, to let her know I had a gun. I had rolled onto my knees now, still down behind the desk, and I waited with the .38 poised at the edge of the desktop. I could hear her fast shallow breathing.
'I don't want to shoot you,' I said and edged around the corner of the desk low. I heard her heels, then the door. I stood and saw my outer office door swing shut. I walked to the window and looked down at Hollywood Boulevard. In maybe a minute I saw her come out into the wet street and turn right and head up Hollywood, walking fast with her head down and her hands still in her raincoat pockets.
Most of the cars on the boulevard had their headlights on in the slate-grey morning. They shone on the wet pavement and blended with the colored neon reflections and the sheen of the roofs of wet cars as I watched her out of sight, moving west toward the Chinese Theater, past the souvenir shops and the places that sold peekaboo underwear.
I turned away and took the empty shell out of the cylinder and put in a fresh one and stored the gun back under my arm. I got some paper towels and cleaned up the spilled coffee and threw the paper cup away. I looked at the bullet holes in the wall and the one in the ceiling. Nothing much I could do about those. Probably just as well to leave them. Be good for my image. I got my trench coat back on and headed out to get my car out of the lot up Cahuenga.
I was in no hurry. I was pretty sure where she'd go. There wasn't anyplace else.
39
I sometimes think that Southern California looks better in the rain than any other time. The rain washes away the dust and glazes the cheapness and poverty and pretense, and freshens the trees and flowers and grass that the sun has blasted. Bel Air under the wet sky was all emerald and scarlet and gold with the rain making the streets glisten.
I told the guy at Clayton Blackstone's gate, 'Marlowe. I'm working for Mr. Blackstone.'
The guard went back inside the shack. Only in Bel Air would it be a shack. In Thousand Oaks it would have been a two-bedroom ranch with a garden. After two or three minutes the guard came out and said, 'Wait here, Eddie'll be down to get you.'
I sat and watched the wipers make their truncated triangle on my windshield. In another maybe three minutes a car pulled up inside the gate, Eddie Garcia got out, the gate opened and Eddie walked over to my car with the collar of his trench coat turned up. He got in beside me.
'Follow the other car,' he said.
We went up the winding driveway with the wet greenery around us and pulled in under the big front entrance. The car ahead stopped and J.D. got out and stared back at me. Garcia got out his side and I got out on mine. Garcia jerked his head and I followed him into the office and he led me through the library to Black-stone's office. Neither one of us said a word.
Blackstone was behind the big desk again, this time wearing a double-breasted blue blazer and white tennis shirt. There was some kind of crest on the breast pocket of the blazer. Standing near the bar, with a drink in her hand, where I had expected her to be, was Muriel. Her cute gun was not in sight. Eddie closed the door behind us when we came into the room and stood a foot or so inside the door, with his back to it. I walked across and took the same chair near Blackstone's desk that I'd sat in before.
'Raining,' Blackstone said absently.
'Even in Bel Air,' I said.
He nodded, staring past me at his daughter.
'You were pretty straight with me, Marlowe, last time you were here.'
I waited.
'But you kept some things back,' he said.
'Never said I didn't.'
He spoke slowly and almost without inflection. Like a man thinking of other things: lost romances, children playing on a beach, things like that. He leaned forward and got a cigar from a box and trimmed it carefully with a knife he took from the middle drawer of the desk. He lit it carefully, turning the end slowly in the flame, and then took a puff, let the smoke out and watched it disperse in the air-conditioned atmosphere. Nobody spoke while this went on. Through the picture window I could see the rain dimpling the surface of the cerulean water in the pool.
'Now, Marlowe, what have you to tell me?'
'Your daughter stopped by my office,' I said. 'Just before she came here.'
'Oh?' He looked at Muriel. Muriel held on to the glass in both hands. It was nearly full; she seemed to have forgotten about drinking from it.
'What was the substance of your discussion?' he said.
'That you were intent on destroying her marriage and I, as your agent, was being employed to the same end.'
Blackstone stared at his daughter. 'Muriel?'
She didn't answer. She was holding her glass against her breast, as if trying to warm the drink.
'She said she would kill me as she had Lola and Lippy,' I said, 'and then she pulled a.25 automatic with a chrome finish and pearl handle grips and began plugging away.'
Blackstone didn't change expressions or move. He gazed at me like a man lost in contemplation.
