The Big Sleep (14 page)

“Let ’em try,” he said. “I ain’t so brittle.”

“Agnes must have something I didn’t notice.”

“She’s a grifter, shamus. I’m a grifter. We’re all grifters. So we sell each other out for a nickel. Okey. See can you make me.” He reached for another of my cigarettes, placed it neatly between his lips and lit it with a match the way I do myself, missing twice on his thumbnail and then using his foot. He puffed evenly and stared at me level-eyed, a funny little hard guy I could have thrown from home plate to second base. A small man in a big man’s world. There was something I liked about him.

“I haven’t pulled anything in here,” he said steadily. “I come in talking two C’s. That’s still the price. I come because I thought I’d get a take it or leave it, one right gee to another. Now you’re waving cops at me. You oughta be ashamed of yourself.”

I said: “You’ll get the two hundred—for that information. I have to get the money myself first.”

He stood up and nodded and pulled his worn little Irish tweed coat tight around his chest. “That’s okey. After dark is better anyway. It’s a leery job—buckin’ guys like Eddie Mars. But a guy has to eat. The book’s been pretty dull lately. I think the big boys have told Puss Walgreen to move on. Suppose you come over there to the office, Fulwider Building, Western and Santa Monica, four-twenty-eight at the back. You bring the money, I’ll take you to Agnes.”

“Can’t you tell me yourself? I’ve seen Agnes.”

“I promised her,” he said simply. He buttoned his overcoat, cocked his hat jauntily, nodded again and strolled to the door. He went out. His steps died along the hall.

I went down to the bank and deposited my five-hundred-dollar check and drew out two hundred in currency. I went upstairs again and sat in my chair thinking about Harry Jones and his story. It seemed a little too pat. It had the austere simplicity of fiction rather than the tangled woof of fact. Captain Gregory ought to have been able to find Mona Mars, if she was that close to his beat. Supposing, that is, he had tried.

I thought about it most of the day. Nobody came into the office. Nobody called me on the phone. It kept on raining.

TWENTY-SIX

At seven the rain had stopped for a breathing spell, but the gutters were still flooded. On Santa Monica the water was level with the sidewalk and a thin film of it washed over the top of the curbing. A traffic cop in shining black rubber from boots to cap sloshed through the flood on his way from the shelter of a sodden awning. My rubber heels slithered on the sidewalk as I turned into the narrow lobby of the Fulwider Building. A single drop light burned far back, beyond an open, once gilt elevator. There was a tarnished and well-missed spittoon on a gnawed rubber mat. A case of false teeth hung on the mustard-colored wall like a fuse box in a screen porch. I shook the rain off my hat and looked at the building directory beside the case of teeth. Numbers with names and numbers without names. Plenty of vacancies or plenty of tenants who wished to remain anonymous. Painless dentists, shyster detective agencies, small sick businesses that had crawled there to die, mail order schools that would teach you how to become a railroad clerk or a radio technician or a screen writer—if the postal inspectors didn’t catch up with them first. A nasty building. A building in which the smell of stale cigar butts would be the cleanest odor.

An old man dozed in the elevator, on a ramshackle stool, with a burst-out cushion under him. His mouth was open, his veined temples glistened in the weak light. He wore a blue uniform coat that fitted him the way a stall fits a horse. Under that gray trousers with frayed cuffs, white cotton socks and black kid shoes, one of which was slit across a bunion. On the stool he slept miserably, waiting for a customer. I went past him softly, the clandestine air of the building prompting me, found the fire door and pulled it open. The fire stairs hadn’t been swept in a month. Bums had slept on them, eaten on them, left crusts and fragments of greasy newspaper, matches, a gutted imitation-leather pocketbook. In a shadowy angle against the scribbled wall a pouched ring of pale rubber had fallen and had not been disturbed. A very nice building.

I came out at the fourth floor sniffing for air. The hallway had the same dirty spittoon and frayed mat, the same mustard walls, the same memories of low tide. I went down the line and turned a corner. The name: “L. D. Walgreen—Insurance,” showed on a dark pebbled glass door, on a second dark door, on a third behind which there was a light. One of the dark doors said: “Entrance.”

A glass transom was open above the lighted door. Through it the sharp bird-like voice of Harry Jones spoke, saying:

“Canino? . . . Yeah, I’ve seen you around somewhere. Sure.”

I froze. The other voice spoke. It had a heavy purr, like a small dynamo behind a brick wall. It said: “I thought you would.” There was a vaguely sinister note in that voice.

A chair scraped on linoleum, steps sounded, the transom above me squeaked shut. A shadow melted from behind the pebbled glass.

I went back to the first of the three doors marked with the name Walgreen. I tried it cautiously. It was locked. It moved in a loose frame, an old door fitted many years past, made of half-seasoned wood and shrunken now. I reached my wallet out and slipped the thick hard window of celluloid from over my driver’s license. A burglar’s tool the law had forgotten to proscribe. I put my gloves on, leaned softly and lovingly against the door and pushed the knob hard away from the frame. I pushed the celluloid plate into the wide crack and felt for the slope of the spring lock. There was a dry click, like a small icicle breaking. I hung there motionless, like a lazy fish in the water. Nothing happened inside. I turned the knob and pushed the door back into darkness. I shut it behind me as carefully as I had opened it.

The lighted oblong of an uncurtained window faced me, cut by the angle of a desk. On the desk a hooded typewriter took form, then the metal knob of a communicating door. This was unlocked. I passed into the second of the three offices. Rain rattled suddenly against the closed window. Under its noise I crossed the room. A tight fan of light spread from an inch opening of the door into the lighted office. Everything very convenient. I walked like a cat on a mantel and reached the hinged side of the door, put an eye to the crack and saw nothing but light against the angle of the wood.

The purring voice was now saying quite pleasantly: “Sure, a guy could sit on his fanny and crab what another guy done if he knows what it’s all about. So you go to see this peeper. Well, that was your mistake. Eddie don’t like it. The peeper told Eddie some guy in a gray Plymouth was tailing him. Eddie naturally wants to know who and why, see.”

Harry Jones laughed lightly. “What makes it his business?”

“That don’t get you no place.”

“You know why I went to the peeper. I already told you. Account of Joe Brody’s girl. She has to blow and she’s shatting on her uppers. She figures the peeper can get her some dough. I don’t have any.”

The purring voice said gently: “Dough for what? Peepers don’t give that stuff out to punks.”

“He could raise it. He knows rich people.” Harry Jones laughed, a brave little laugh.

“Don’t fuss with me, little man.” The purring voice had an edge, like sand in the bearings.

“Okey, okey. You know the dope on Brody’s bump-off. That screwy kid done it all right, but the night it happened this Marlowe was right there in the room.”

“That’s known, little man. He told it to the law.”

“Yeah—here’s what isn’t. Brody was trying to peddle a nudist photo of the young Sternwood girl. Marlowe got wise to him. While they were arguing about it the young Sternwood girl dropped around herself—with a gat. She took a shot at Brody. She lets one fly and breaks a window. Only the peeper didn’t tell the coppers about that. And Agnes didn’t neither. She figures it’s railroad fare for her not to.”

“This ain’t got anything to do with Eddie?”

“Show me how.”

“Where’s this Agnes at?”

“Nothing doing.”

“You tell me, little man. Here, or in the back room where the boys pitch dimes against the wall.”

“She’s my girl now, Canino. I don’t put my girl in the middle for anybody.”

A silence followed. I listened to the rain lashing the windows. The smell of cigarette smoke came through the crack of the door. I wanted to cough. I bit hard on a handkerchief.

The purring voice said, still gentle: “From what I hear this blonde broad was just a shill for Geiger. I’ll talk it over with Eddie. How much you tap the peeper for?”

“Two centuries.”

“Get it?”

Harry Jones laughed again. “I’m seeing him tomorrow. I have hopes.”

“Where’s Agnes?”

“Listen—”

“Where’s Agnes?”

Silence.

“Look at it, little man.”

I didn’t move. I wasn’t wearing a gun. I didn’t have to see through the crack of the door to know that a gun was what the purring voice was inviting Harry Jones to look at. But I didn’t think Mr. Canino would do anything with his gun beyond showing it. I waited.

“I’m looking at it,” Harry Jones said, his voice squeezed tight as if it could hardly get past his teeth. “And I don’t see anything I didn’t see before. Go ahead and blast and see what it gets you.”

“A Chicago overcoat is what it would get
you,
little man.” Silence.

“Where’s Agnes?”

Harry Jones sighed. “Okey,” he said wearily. “She’s in an apartment house at 28 Court Street, up on Bunker Hill. Apartment 301. I guess I’m yellow all right. Why should I front for that twist?”

“No reason. You got good sense. You and me’ll go out and talk to her. All I want is to find out is she dummying up on you, kid. If it’s the way you say it is, everything is jakeloo. You can put the bite on the peeper and be on your way. No hard feelings?”

“No,” Harry Jones said. “No hard feelings, Canino.”

“Fine. Let’s dip the bill. Got a glass?” The purring voice was now as false as an usherette’s eyelashes and as slippery as a watermelon seed. A drawer was pulled open. Something jarred on wood. A chair squeaked. A scuffing sound on the floor. “This is bond stuff,” the purring voice said.

There was a gurgling sound. “Moths in your ermine, as the ladies say.”

Harry Jones said softly: “Success.”

I heard a sharp cough. Then a violent retching. There was a small thud on the floor, as if a thick glass had fallen. My fingers curled against my raincoat.

The purring voice said gently: “You ain’t sick from just one drink, are you, pal?”

Harry Jones didn’t answer. There was labored breathing for a short moment. Then thick silence folded down. Then a chair scraped.

“So long, little man,” said Mr. Canino.

Steps, a click, the wedge of light died at my feet, a door opened and closed quietly. The steps faded, leisurely and assured.

I stirred around the edge of the door and pulled it wide and looked into blackness relieved by the dim shine of a window. The corner of a desk glittered faintly. A hunched shape took form in a chair behind it. In the close air there was a heavy clogged smell, almost a perfume. I went across to the corridor door and listened. I heard the distant clang of the elevator.

I found the light switch and light glowed in a dusty glass bowl hanging from the ceiling by three brass chains. Harry Jones looked at me across the desk, his eyes wide open, his face frozen in a tight spasm, the skin bluish. His small dark head was tilted to one side. He sat upright against the back of the chair.

A street-car bell clanged at an almost infinite distance and the sound came buffeted by innumerable walls. A brown half pint of whiskey stood on the desk with the cap off. Harry Jones’ glass glinted against a castor of the desk. The second glass was gone.

I breathed shallowly, from the top of my lungs, and bent above the bottle. Behind the charred smell of the bourbon another odor lurked, faintly, the odor of bitter almonds. Harry Jones dying had vomited on his coat. That made it cyanide.

I walked around him carefully and lifted a phone book from a hook on the wooden frame of the window. I let it fall again, reached the telephone as far as it would go from the little dead man. I dialed information. The voice answered.

“Can you give me the phone number of Apartment 301, 28 Court Street?”

“One moment, please.” The voice came to me borne on the smell of bitter almonds. A silence. “The number is Wentworth two-five-two-eight. It is listed under Glendower Apartments.”

I thanked the voice and dialed the number. The bell rang three times, then the line opened. A radio blared along the wire and was muted. A burly male voice said: “Hello.”

“Is Agnes there?”

“No Agnes here, buddy. What number you want?”

“Wentworth two-five-two-eight.”

“Right number, wrong gal. Ain’t that a shame?” The voice cackled.

I hung up and reached for the phone book again and looked up the Wentworth Apartments. I dialed the manager’s number. I had a blurred vision of Mr. Canino driving fast through rain to another appointment with death.

“Glendower Apartments. Mr. Schiff speaking.”

“This is Wallis, Police Identification Bureau. Is there a girl named Agnes Lozelle registered in your place?”

“Who did you say you were?”

I told him again.

“If you give me your number, I’ll—”

“Cut the comedy,” I said sharply, “I’m in a hurry. Is there or isn’t there?”

“No. There isn’t.”The voice was as stiff as a breadstick.

“Is there a tall blonde with green eyes registered in the flop?”

“Say, this isn’t any flop—”

“Oh, can it,
can it!
” I rapped at him in a police voice. “You want me to send the vice squad over there and shake the joint down? I know all about Bunker Hill apartment houses, mister. Especially the ones that have phone numbers listed for each apartment.”

“Hey, take it easy, officer. I’ll co-operate. There’s a couple of blondes here, sure. Where isn’t there? I hadn’t noticed their eyes much. Would yours be alone?”

“Alone, or with a little chap about five feet three, a hundred and ten, sharp black eyes, wears a double-breasted dark gray suit and Irish tweed overcoat, gray hat. My information is Apartment 301, but all I get there is the big razzoo.”

“Oh, she ain’t there. There’s a couple of car salesmen living in three-o-one.”

“Thanks, I’ll drop around.”

“Make it quiet, won’t you? Come to my place, direct?”

“Much obliged, Mr. Schiff.” I hung up.

I wiped sweat off my face. I walked to the far corner of the office and stood with my face to the wall, patted it with a hand. I turned around slowly and looked across at little Harry Jones grimacing in his chair.

“Well, you fooled him, Harry,” I said out loud, in a voice that sounded queer to me. “You lied to him and you drank your cyanide like a little gentleman. You died like a poisoned rat, Harry, but you’re no rat to me.”

I had to search him. It was a nasty job. His pockets yielded nothing about Agnes, nothing that I wanted at all. I didn’t think they would, but I had to be sure. Mr. Canino might be back. Mr. Canino would be the kind of self-confident gentleman who would not mind returning to the scene of his crime.

I put the light out and started to open the door. The phone bell rang jarringly down on the baseboard. I listened to it, my jaw muscles drawn into a knot, aching. Then I shut the door and put the light on again and went across to it.

“Yeah?”

A woman’s voice. Her voice. “Is Harry around?”

“Not for a minute, Agnes.”

She waited a while on that. Then she said slowly: “Who’s talking?”

“Marlowe, the guy that’s trouble to you.”

“Where is he?” sharply.

“I came over to give him two hundred bucks in return for certain information. The offer holds. I have the money. Where are you?”

“Didn’t he tell you?”

“No.”

“Perhaps you’d better ask him. Where is he?”

“I can’t ask him. Do you know a man named Canino?”

Her gasp came as clearly as though she had been beside me.

“Do you want the two C’s or not?” I asked.

“I—I want it pretty bad, mister.”

“All right then. Tell me where to bring it.”

“I—I—” Her voice trailed off and came back with a panic rush. “Where’s Harry?”