'Lippy and Lola were shot with a.25,' I said.
Blackstone nodded slowly, but he wasn't looking at me. He was gazing across the room at his daughter. He stood, finally. I could see that he was wearing white slacks and white loafers. He walked across the room and stood maybe three feet in front of his daughter.
'There is nothing, Muffy, that I cannot buy or frighten. Nothing so broken that I cannot fix it.'
She didn't look at him.
'Tell me about this,' Blackstone said. 'About the gun and Lola and Lippy. Tell me about what Mr. Marlowe has said.'
'Lola had a bad picture of me,' Muriel said; her voice was childish. 'The kind I used to pose for a long time ago.'
Blackstone nodded. 'You're not doing that anymore, are you, Muffy?' he said.
She shook her head, still staring at the floor, her glass still clutched to her chest.
'She said she would show it to all the people at the Springs and tell people that Les took it, and…' She shook her head without looking up.
'And?' Blackstone said.
Muriel didn't move.
'And she arranged to meet Lola at Larry's office and when she got the picture she shot her,' I said. 'And took the picture and cleaned out Larry's files and left.'
'Didn't she know there'd be other pictures?' Black-stone said.
'She's not playing with all the dots on her dice,' I said. 'She didn't know that it would implicate Larry and lead people to Les either.'
We were talking.about her as if she were a jade ornament.
'What about Lippy?' he said to Muriel. 'I didn't even know you knew him.'
'He hired Mr. Marlowe to find Les, to harass him over money. He owed Mr. Lipshultz money.'
Blackstone looked at me once, hard. I shrugged.
'Did you know that Mr. Lipshultz worked for me, Muffy?'
'Not until Mr. Marlowe said.'
'Even so, why didn't you just come to me? I could have given you money. I've done it before.'
She stared at the floor.
'Why, Muffy?'
'I was ashamed,' she said. 'I didn't want you to know Les was in debt from gambling. So I went out to talk with Mr. Lipshultz.'
'Did Lippy know your daughter?' I said.
'No. He didn't know I had one. I kept business very separate from family.' He turned back to his daughter. 'What happened, Muffy?'
'I asked him not to bother Les and me, and he said business was business and his boss would nail his hide to the club door if he lost an IOU for that much. And I said I didn't have the money but there were other ways I could pay.'
'Jesus,' Blackstone said softly.
His daughter didn't speak.
'And so Lippy gets a smile like Br'er Bear,' I said, 'and he tells the shooters to hit the road and pours out a Scotch and says, 'How do you like the view of the desert here, sweetie,' and…' I shot an imaginary gun, dropping my thumb on my extended forefinger.
'He would have… ruined… it,' Muriel said. I'd heard that sound before.
Blackstone stood and looked down at his daughter for a long moment. Then he turned and walked back behind his desk and sank into the chair. He picked up his cigar and puffed on it to see that it was still going and leaned back and stared silently across the room at his daughter. But when he spoke it was to me.
'I had Eddie chase Larry Victor down,' he said. 'See what was cooking.' He paused, looking at his cigar. 'You know he's got a wife.'
'Yeah,' I said. 'I've known it all along.'
'And didn't see any need to tell me that even when you took my five hundred dollars.'
'Until I had the lay of it,' I said, 'I thought it would only hurt.'
'What are you saying,' Muriel said. 'What… are… you… talking about?'
'He had another wife, Muffy,' Blackstone said. 'The guy you killed two people for had another wife.'
'What… do… you… mean… another… wife?'
'He's married to another woman at the same time he's married to you, Muffy,' Blackstone said. 'He's a bigamist.'
The silence in the room imploded, getting denser and denser like a collapsing star. Against the door Eddie Garcia looked as if he might be asleep, except that his eyes moved languidly from time to time.
'That's… not… true,' Muriel said in her lilting whisper. 'It's not… true.'
Blackstone was looking at me now.
'Where do you stand, Marlowe?'
'She killed two people,' I said. 'I can't lindy off into the sunset on that.'
'And I can't let her go down for it,' he said.
Muriel straightened at the bar and half turned and, using both hands, put the drink down carefully on the bar.
'I won't stand here and listen to lies,' she said. Her voice was in its lower register.
Blackstone shook his head. 'No, Muffy,' he said. 'You're too shaky now, you need to calm down for a while.'
'You sit there and make up lies,' she said. Her voice was still deep but her breath was coming short and she spoke in basso profundo gasps. 'You want to… ruin my marriage.' She was moving slowly across the room, her hands back in her pockets. Eddie stood in the doorway as if he were observing the Big Dipper. 'You won't let anyone… have me. Never. You… ruin it.'
'Muffy,' Blackstone said. There was more sharpness in his voice.
She turned suddenly. Her hands came out of her pockets, the gun in her right. She clasped her left hand over the right and dropped into her shooter's stance and put two bullets into Blackstone's forehead. I was half turned in my seat when the side of her head spurted blood and the heavy thump of Garcia's big magnum sounded and Muriel spun halfway round and fell facedown on the floor.
I checked both of them in the resonant silence that followed the gunfire, smelling the cordite in the room. They were both dead. Garcia was still holding his gun, standing by the door. 'Half a.second,' he said. 'I was half a second late.'
I nodded.
'Ten years ago,' Garcia said softly. 'Ten years ago I could have saved him.'
'Cops will pour it on you, Eddie, if they make you for this,' I said.
'They won't find me, Marlowe.'
'Still pretty fair shooting,' I said. 'She had the jump.'
'Half second,' Garcia said again, 'half second slow.' Then he opened the door and closed it and was gone.
I went slowly to Blackstone's desk and picked up the phone and dialed a number I knew a lot better than I wanted to.
40
The cops turned me loose in the middle of the afternoon. They didn't want to, but there was nothing to hold me for, except being a lousy detective, and they had their own problems with that. As I drove down the coast highway toward Venice I tried to sort out how bad a detective I'd been. By the time I reached Santa Monica I had decided I couldn't sort it out and might as well think I'd been a good detective for all the difference it made.
