The Little Sister (20 page)

28

I watched her for a minute, biting at the end of my lip. She watched me. I saw no change of expression. Then I started prowling the room with my eyes. I lifted up the dust cover on one of the long tables. Under it was a roulette layout but no wheel. Under the table was nothing.

“Try that chair with the magnolias on it,” she said.

She didn’t look towards it so I had to find it myself. Surprising how long it took me. It was a high-backed wing chair, covered in flowered chintz, the kind of chair that a long time ago was intended to keep the draft off while you sat crouched over a fire of cannel coal.

It was turned away from me. I went over there walking softly, in low gear. It almost faced the wall. Even at that it seemed ridiculous that I hadn’t spotted him on my way back from the bar. He leaned in the corner of the chair with his head tilted back. His carnation was red and white and looked as fresh as though the flower girl had just pinned it into his lapel. His eyes were half open as such eyes usually are. They stared at a point in the corner of the ceiling. The bullet had gone through the outside pocket of his double-breasted jacket. It had been fired by someone who knew where the heart was.

I touched his cheek and it was still warm. I lifted his hand and let it fall. It was quite limp. It felt like the back of somebody’s hand. I reached for the big artery in his neck. No blood moved in him and very little had stained his jacket. I wiped my hands off on my handkerchief and stood for a little longer looking down at his quiet little face. Everything I had done or not done, everything wrong and everything right—all wasted.

I went back and sat down near her and squeezed my kneecaps.

“What did you expect me to do?” she asked. “He killed my brother.”

“Your brother was no angel.”

“He didn’t have to kill him.”

“Somebody had to—and quick.” Her eyes widened suddenly.

I said: “Didn’t you ever wonder why Steelgrave never went after me and why he let you go to the Van Nuys yesterday instead of going himself? Didn’t you ever wonder why a fellow with his resources and experience never tried to get hold of those photographs, no matter what he had to do to get them?”

She didn’t answer.

“How long have you known the photographs existed?” I asked.

“Weeks, nearly two months. I got one in the mail a couple of days after—after that time we had lunch together.”

“After Stein was killed.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Did you think Steelgrave had killed Stein?”

“No. Why should I? Until tonight, that is.”

“What happened after you got the photo?”

“My brother Orrin called me up and said he had lost his job and was broke. He wanted money. He didn’t say anything about the photo. He didn’t have to. There was only one time it could have been taken.”

“How did he get your number?”

“Telephone? How did you?”

“Bought it.”

“Well—” She made a vague movement with her hand. “Why not call the police and get it over with.”

“Wait a minute. Then what? More prints of the photo?”

“One every week. I showed them to him.” She gestured toward the chintzy chair. “He didn’t like it. I didn’t tell him about Orrin.”

“He must have known. His kind find things out.”

“I suppose so.”

“But not where Orrin was hiding out,” I said. “Or he wouldn’t have waited this long. When did you tell Steelgrave?”

She looked away from me. Her fingers kneaded her arm. “Today,” she said in a distant voice.

“Why today?”

Her breath caught in her throat. “Please,” she said. “Don’t ask me a lot of useless questions. Don’t torment me. There’s nothing you can do. I thought there was—when I called Dolores. There isn’t now.”

I said: “All right. There’s something you don’t seem to understand. Steelgrave knew that whoever was behind that photograph wanted money—a lot of money. He knew that sooner or later the blackmailer would have to show himself. That was what Steelgrave was waiting for. He didn’t care anything about the photo itself, except for your sake.”

“He certainly proved that,” she said wearily.

“In his own way,” I said.

Her voice came to me with glacial calm. “He killed my brother. He told me so himself. The gangster showed through then all right. Funny people you meet in Hollywood, don’t you—including me.”

“You were fond of him once,” I said brutally.

Red spots flared on her cheeks.

“I’m not fond of anybody,” she said. “I’m all through being fond of people.” She glanced briefly towards the high-backed chair. “I stopped being fond of him last night. He asked me about you, who you were and so on. I told him. I told him that I would have to admit that I was at the Van Nuys Hotel when that man was lying there dead.”

“You were going to tell the police that?”

“I was going to tell Julius Oppenheimer. He would know how to handle it.”

“If he didn’t one of his dogs would,” I said.

She didn’t smile. I didn’t either.

“If Oppenheimer couldn’t handle it, I’d be through in pictures,” she added without interest “Now I’m through everywhere else as well.”

I got a cigarette out and lit it. I offered her one. She didn’t want one. I wasn’t in any hurry. Time seemed to have lost its grip on me. And almost everything else. I was flat out.

“You’re going too fast for me,” I said, after a moment. “You didn’t know when you went to the Van Nuys that Steelgrave was Weepy Moyer.”

“No.”

“Then what did you go there for?”

“To buy back those photographs.”

“That doesn’t check. The photographs didn’t mean anything to you then. They were just you and him having lunch.”

She stared at me and winked her eyes tight, then opened them wide. “I’m not going to cry,” she said. “I said I didn’t
know
. But when he was in jail that time, I had to know there was something about him that he didn’t care to have known. I knew he had been in some kind of racket, I guess. But not killing people.”

I said: “Uh-huh.” I got up and walked around the high-backed chair again. Her eyes traveled slowly to watch me. I leaned over the dead Steelgrave and felt under his arm on the left side. There was a gun there in the holster. I didn’t touch it. I went back and sat down opposite her again.

“It’s going to cost a lot of money to fix this,” I said.

For the first time she smiled. It was a very small smile, but it was a smile. “I don’t have a lot of money,” she said. “So that’s out.”

“Oppenheimer has. You’re worth millions to him by now.”

“He wouldn’t chance it. Too many people have their knives into the picture business these days. He’ll take his loss and forget it in six months.”

“You said you’d go to him.”

“I said if I got into a jam and hadn’t really done anything, I’d go to him. But I have done something now.”

“How about Ballou? You’re worth a lot to him too.”

“I’m not worth a plugged nickel to anybody. Forget it, Marlowe. You mean well, but I know these people.”

“That puts it up to me,” I said. “That would be why you sent for me.”

“Wonderful,” she said. “You fix it, darling. For free.” Her voice was brittle and shallow again.

I went and sat beside her on the davenport. I took hold of her arm and pulled her hand out of the fur pocket and took hold of that. It was almost ice cold, in spite of the fur.

She turned her head and looked at me squarely. She shook her head a little. “Believe me, darling, I’m not worth it—even to sleep with.”

I turned the hand over and opened the fingers out. They were stiff and resisted. I opened them out one by one. I smoothed the palm of her hand.

“Tell me why you had the gun with you.”

“The gun?”

“Don’t take time to think. Just tell me. Did you mean to kill him?”

“Why not, darling? I thought I meant something to him. I guess I’m a little vain. He fooled me. Nobody means anything to the Steelgraves of this world. And nobody means anything to the Mavis Welds of this world any more.”

She pulled away from me and smiled thinly. “I oughtn’t to have given you that gun. If I killed you I might get clear yet.”

I took it out and held it towards her. She took it and stood up quickly. The gun pointed at me. The small tired smile moved her lips again. Her finger was very firm on the trigger.

“Shoot high,” I said. “I’m wearing my bullet-proof underwear.”

She dropped the gun to her side and for a moment she just stood staring at me. Then she tossed the gun down on the davenport.

“I guess I don’t like the script,” she said. “I don’t like the lines. It just isn’t me, if you know what I mean.”

She laughed and looked down at the floor. The point of her shoe moved back and forth on the carpeting. “We’ve had a nice chat, darling. The phone’s over there at the end of the bar.”

“Thanks, do you remember Dolores’s number?”

“Why Dolores?”

When I didn’t answer she told me. I went along the room to the corner of the bar and dialed. The same routine as before. Good evening, the Chateau Bercy, who is calling Miss Gonzales please. One moment, please, buzz, buzz, and then a sultry voice saying: “Hello?”

“This is Marlowe. Did you really mean to put me on a spot?”

I could almost hear her breath catch. Not quite. You can’t really hear it over the phone. Sometimes you think you can.

“Amigo, but I am glad to hear your voice,” she said, “I am so very very glad.”

“Did you or didn’t you?”

“I—I don’t know. I am very sad to think that I might have. I like you very much.”

“I’m in a little trouble here.”

“Is he—” Long pause. Apartment house phone. Careful. “Is he there?”

“Well—in a way. He is and yet he isn’t.”

I really did hear her breath this time. A long indrawn sigh that was almost a whistle.

“Who else is there?”

“Nobody. Just me and my homework. I want to ask you something. It is deadly important. Tell me the truth. Where did you get that thing you gave me tonight?”

“Why, from him. He gave it to me.”

“When?”

“Early this evening. Why?”

“How early?”

“About six o’clock, I think.”

“
Why
did he give it to you?”

“He asked me to keep it. He always carried one.”

“Asked you to keep it why?”

“He did not say, amigo. He was a man that did things like that. He did not often explain himself.”

“Notice anything unusual about it? About what he gave you?”

“Why—no, I did not.”

“Yes, you did. You noticed that it had been fired and that it smelled of burned powder.”

“But I did not—”

“Yes, you did. Just like that. You wondered about it. You didn’t like to keep it. You didn’t keep it. You gave it back to him. You don’t like them around anyhow.”

There was a long silence. She said at last, “But of course. But why did he want me to have it? I mean, if that was what happened.”

“He didn’t tell you why. He just tried to ditch a gun on you and you weren’t having any. Remember?”

“That is something I have to tell?”

“Si.”

“Will it be safe for me to do that?”

“When did you ever try to be safe?”

She laughed softly. “Amigo, you understand me very well.”

“Goodnight,” I said.

“One moment, you have not told me what happened.”

“I haven’t even telephoned you.”

I hung up and turned.

Mavis Weld was standing in the middle of the floor watching me.

“You have your car here?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Get going.”

“And do what?”

“Just go home. That’s all.”

“You can’t get away with it,” she said softly.

“You’re my client.”

“I can’t let you. I killed him. Why should you be dragged into it?”

“Don’t stall. And when you leave go the back way. Not the way Dolores brought me.”

She stared me straight in the eyes and repeated in a tense voice, “But I killed him.”

“I can’t hear a word you say.”

Her teeth took hold of her lower lip and held it cruelly. She seemed hardly to breathe. She stood rigid. I went over close to her and touched her cheek with a fingertip. I pressed it hard and watched the white spot turn red.

“If you want to know my motive,” I said, “it has nothing to do with you. I owe it to the johns. I haven’t played clean cards in this game. They know. I know. I’m just giving them a chance to use the loud pedal.”

“As if anyone ever had to give them that,” she said, and turned abruptly and walked away. I watched her to the arch and waited for her to look back. She went on through without turning. After a long time I heard a whirring noise. Then the bump of something heavy—the garage door going up. A car started a long way off. It idled down and after another pause the whirring noise again.