The Simple Art of Murder

by Raymond Chandler

  Dalmas looked back towards the frame on the desk. He said: “Johnny Sutro oughtn’t to leave his mug around in a broad’s apartment that way. Somebody might think he was cheating.”

  The blonde walked stiff-legged across the room and slammed the photo into the drawer of the desk. She slammed the drawer shut, and leaned her hips against the desk.

  “You’re all wet, shamus. That’s not anybody called Sutro. Get on out, will you, for gawd’s sake?”

  Dalmas laughed unpleasantly. “I saw you at Sutro’s house this afternoon. You were so drunk you don’t remember.”

  The blonde made a movement as though she were going to jump at him. Then she stopped, rigid. A key turned in the room door. It opened and a man came in. He stood just inside the door and pushed it shut very slowly. His right hand was in the pocket of a light tweed overcoat. He was dark-skinned, high-shouldered, angular, with a sharp nose and chin.

  Dalmas looked at him quietly and said: “Good evening, Councilman Sutro.”

  The man looked past Dalmas at the girl. He took no notice of Dalmas. The girl said shakily: “This guy says he’s a dick. He’s giving me a third about some gun he says I had. Throw him out, will you?”

  Sutro said: “A dick, eh?”

  He walked past Dalmas without looking at him. The blonde backed away from him and fell into a chair. Her face got a pasty look and her eyes were scared. Sutro looked down at her for a moment, then turned around and took a small automatic out of his pocket. He held it loosely, pointed down at the floor.

  He said: “I haven’t a lot of time.”

  Dalmas said: “I was just going.” He moved near the door. Sutro said sharply: “Let’s have the story first.”

  Dalmas said: “Sure.”

  He moved lithely, without haste, and threw the door wide open. The gun jerked up in Sutro’s hand. Dalmas said: “Don’t be a sap. You’re not starting anything here and you know it.”

  The two men stared at each other. After a moment or two Sutro put the gun back into his pocket and licked his thin lips. Dalmas said: “Miss Dalton had a gun once that killed a man—recently. But she hasn’t had it for a long time. That’s all I wanted to know.”

  Sutro nodded slowly. There was a peculiar expression in his eyes.

  “Miss Dalton is a friend of my wife’s. I wouldn’t want her to be bothered,” he said coldly.

  “That’s right. You wouldn’t,” Dalmas said “But a legitimate dick has a right to ask legitimate questions. I didn’t break in here.”

  Sutro eyed him slowly: “Okey, but take it easy on my friends. I draw water in this town and I could hang a sign on you.”

  Dalmas nodded. He went quietly out of the door and shut it. He listened a moment. There was no sound inside that he could hear. He shrugged and went on down the hall, down three steps and across a small lobby that had no switchboard. Outside the apartment house he looked along the street. It was an apartment-house district and there were cars parked up and down the street. He went towards the lights of the taxi that was waiting for him.

  Joey, the red-haired driver, was standing on the edge of the curb in front of his hack. He was smoking a cigarette, staring across the street, apparently at a big, dark coupe that was parked with its left side to the curb. As Dalmas came up to him he threw his cigarette away and came to meet him.

  He spoke quickly: “Listen, boss. I got a look at the guy in that Cad—”

  Pale flame broke in bitter streaks from above the door of the coupe. A gun racketed between the buildings that faced each other across the street. Joey fell against Dalmas. The coupe jerked into sudden motion. Dalmas went down sidewise, on to one knee, with the driver clinging to him. He tried to reach his gun, couldn’t make it. The coupe went around the corner with a squeal of rubber, and Joey fell down Dalmas’ side and rolled over on his back on the sidewalk. He beat his hands up and down on the cement and a hoarse, anguished sound came from deep inside him.

  Tires screeched again and Dalmas flung up to his feet, swept his hand to his left armpit. He relaxed as a small car skidded to a stop and Denny fell out of it, charged across the intervening space towards him.

  Dalmas bent over the driver. Light from the lanterns beside the entrance to the apartment house showed blood on the front of Joey’s whipcord jacket, blood that was seeping out through the material. Joey’s eyes opened and shut like the eyes of a dying bird.

  Denny said: “No use to follow that bus. Too fast.”

  “Get on a phone and call an ambulance,” Dalmas said quickly. “The kid’s got a bellyful . . . Then take a plant on the blonde.”

  The big man hurried back to his car, jumped into it and tore off around the corner. A window went open somewhere and a man yelled down. Some cars stopped.

  Dalmas bent down over Joey and muttered: “Take it easy, oldtimer . . . Easy, boy . . . easy.”

  SEVEN

  The homicide lieutenant’s name was Weinkassel. He had thin, blond hair, icy blue eyes and a lot of pockmarks. He sat in a swivel chair with his feet on the edge of a pulled-out drawer and a telephone scooped close to his elbow. The room smelled of dust and cigar butts.

  A man named Lonergan, a bulky dick with gray hair and a gray mustache, stood near an open window, looking out of it morosely.

  Weinkassel chewed on a match, stared at Dalmas, who was across the desk from him. He said: “Better talk a bit. The hack driver can’t. You’ve had luck in this town and you wouldn’t want to run it into the ground.”

  Lonergan said: “He’s hard. He won’t talk.” He didn’t turn around when he said it.

  “A little less of your crap would go farther, Lonnie,” Weinkassel said in a dead voice.

  Dalmas smiled faintly and rubbed the palm of his hand against the side of the desk. It made a squeaking sound.

  “What would I talk about?” he asked. “It was dark and I didn’t get a flash of the man behind the gun. The car was a Cadillac coupe, without lights. I’ve told you this already, Lieutenant.”

  “It don’t listen,” Weinkassel grumbled. “There’s something screwy about it. You gotta have some kind of a hunch who it could be. It’s a cinch the gun was for you.”

  Dalmas said: “Why? The hack driver was hit and I wasn’t. Those lads get around a lot. One of them might be in wrong with some tough boys.”

  “Like you,” Lonergan said. He went on staring out of the window.

  Weinkassel frowned at Lonergan’s back and said patiently: “The car was outside while you was still inside. The hack driver was outside. If the guy with the gun had wanted him, he didn’t have to wait for you to come out.”

  Dalmas spread his hands and shrugged. “You boys think I know who it was?”

  “Not exactly. We think you could give us some names to check on, though. Who’d you go to see in them apartments?”

  Dalmas didn’t say anything for a moment. Lonergan turned away from the window, sat on the end of the desk and swung his legs. There was a cynical grin on his flat face.

  “Come through, baby,” he said cheerfully.

  Dalmas tilted his chair back and put his hands into his pockets. He stared at Weinkassel speculatively, ignored the gray-haired dick as though he didn’t exist.

  He said slowly: “I was there on business for a client. You can’t make me talk about that.”

  Weinkassel shrugged and stared at him coldly. Then he took the chewed match out of his mouth, looked at the flattened end of it, tossed it away.

  “I might have a hunch your business had something to do with the shootin’,” he said grimly. “That way the hush-hush would be out. Wouldn’t it?”

  “Maybe,” Dalmas said. “If that’s the way it’s going to work out. But I ought to have a chance to talk to my client.”

  Weinkassel said: “Okey. You can have till the morning. Then you put your papers on the desk, see.”

  Dalmas nodded and stood up. “Fair enough, Lieutenant.”

  “Hush-hush is all a shamus knows,” Lonergan said roughly.

>   Dalmas nodded to Weinkassel and went out of the office. He walked down a bleak corridor and up steps to the lobby floor. Outside the City Hall he went down a long flight of concrete steps and across Spring Street to where a blue Packard roadster, not very new, was parked. He got into it and drove around the corner, then though the Second Street tunnel, dropped over a block and drove out west. He watched in the mirror as he drove.

  At Alvarado he went into a drugstore and called his hotel. The clerk gave him a number to call. He called it and heard Denny’s heavy voice at the other end of the line. Denny said urgently: “Where you been? I’ve got that broad out here at my place. She’s drunk. Come on out and we’ll get her to tell us what you want to know.”

  Dalmas stared out through the glass of the phone booth without seeing anything. After a pause he said slowly: “The blonde? How come?”

  “It’s a story, boy. Come on out and I’ll give it to you. Fourteen-fifty-four South Livesay. Know where that is?”

  “I’ve got a map. I’ll find it,” Dalmas said in the same tone.

  Denny told him just how to find it, at some length. At the end of the explanation he said: “Make it fast. She’s asleep now, but she might wake up and start yellin’ murder.”

  Dalmas said: “Where you live it probably wouldn’t matter much . . . I’ll be right out, Denny.”

  He hung up and went out to his car. He got a pint bottle of bourbon out of the car pocket and took a long drink. Then he started up and drove towards Fox Hills. Twice on the way he stopped and sat still in the car, thinking. But each time he went on again.

  EIGHT

  The road turned off Pico into a scattered subdivision that spread itself out over rolling hills between two golf courses. It followed the edge of one of the golf courses, separated from it by a high wire fence. There were bungalows here and there dotted about the slopes. After a while the road dipped into a hollow and there was a single bungalow in the hollow, right across the street from the golf course.

  Dalmas drove past it and parked under a giant eucalyptus that etched deep shadow on the moonlit surface of the road. He got out and walked back, turned up a cement path to the bungalow. It was wide and low and had cottage windows across the front. Bushes grew halfway up the screens. There was faint light inside and the sound of a radio, turned low, came through the open windows.

  A shadow moved across the screens and the front door came open. Dalmas went into a living room built across the front of the house. One small bulb burned in a lamp and the luminous dial of the radio glowed. A little moonlight came into the room.

  Denny had his coat off and his sleeves rolled up on his big arms.

  He said: “The broad’s still asleep. I’ll wake her up when I’ve told you how I got her here.”

  Dalmas said: “Sure you weren’t tailed?”

  “Not a chance.” Denny spread a big hand.

  Dalmas sat down in a wicker chair in the corner, between the radio and the end of the line of windows. He put his hat on the floor, pulled out the bottle of bourbon and regarded it with a dissatisfied air.

  “Buy us a real drink, Denny. I’m tired as hell. Didn’t get any dinner.”

  Denny said: “I’ve got some Three-Star Martel. Be right up.”

  He went out of the room and light went on in the back part of the house. Dalmas put the bottle on the floor beside his hat and rubbed two fingers across his forehead. His head ached. After a little while the light went out in the back and Denny came back with two tall glasses.

  The brandy tasted clean and hard. Denny sat down in another wicker chair. He looked very big and dark in the half-lit room. He began to talk slowly, in his gruff voice.

  “It sounds goofy, but it worked. After the cops stopped milling around I parked in the alley and went in the back way. I knew which apartment the broad had but I hadn’t seen her. I thought I’d make some kind of a stall and see how she was makin’ out. I knocked on her door, but she wouldn’t answer. I could hear her movin’ around inside, and in a minute I could hear a telephone bein’ dialed. I went back along the hall and tried the service door. It opened and I went in. It fastened with one of them screw bolts that get out of line and don’t fasten when you think they do.”

  Dalmas nodded, said: “I get the idea, Denny.”

  The big man drank out of his glass and rubbed the edge of it up and down on his lower lip. He went on.

  “She was phoning a guy named Gayn Donner. Know him?”

  “I’ve heard of him,” Dalmas said. “So she has that kind of connections.”

  “She was callin’ him by name and she sounded mad,” Denny said. “That’s how I knew. Donner has that place on Mariposa Canyon Drive—the Mariposa Club. You hear his band over the air—Hank Munn and his boys.”

  Dalmas said: “I’ve heard it, Denny.”

  “Okey. When she hung up I went in on her. She looked snowed, weaved around funny, didn’t seem to know much what was going on. I looked around and there was a photo of John Sutro, the Councilman, in a desk there. I used that for a stall. I said that Sutro wanted her to duck out for a while and that I was one of his boys and she was to come along. She fell for it. Screwy. She wanted some liquor. I said I had some in the car. She got her little hat and coat.”

  Dalmas said softly: “It was that easy, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Denny said. He finished his drink and put the glass somewhere. “I bottle-fed her in the car to keep her quiet and we came out here. She went to sleep and that’s that. What do you figure? Tough downtown?”

  “Tough enough,” Dalmas said. “I didn’t fool the boys much.”

  “Anything on the Walden kill?”

  Dalmas shook his head slowly.

  “I guess the Jap didn’t get home yet, Denny.”

  “Want to talk to the broad?”

  The radio was playing a waltz. Dalmas listened to it for a moment before he answered. Then he said in a tired voice: “I guess that’s what I came out here for.”

  Denny got up and went out of the room. There was the sound of a door opening and muffled voices.

  Dalmas took his gun out from under his arm and put it down in the chair beside his leg.

  The blonde staggered a little too much as she came in. She stared around, giggled, made vague motions with her long hands. She blinked at Dalmas, stood swaying a moment, then slid down into the chair Denny had been sitting in. The big man kept near her and leaned against a library table that stood by the inside wall.

  She said drunkenly: “My old pal the dick. Hey, hey, stranger! How about buyin’ a lady a drink?”

  Dalmas stared at her without expression. He said slowly: “Got any new ideas about that gun? You know, the one we were talking about when Johnny Sutro crashed in . . . The filed gun . . . The gun that killed Derek Walden.”

  Denny stiffened, then made a sudden motion towards his hip. Dalmas brought his Colt up and came to his feet with it. Denny looked at it and became still, relaxed. The girl had not moved at all, but the drunkenness dropped away from her like a dead leaf. Her face was suddenly tense and bitter.

  Dalmas said evenly: “Keep the hands in sight, Denny, and everything’ll be jake . . . Now suppose you two cheap crossers tell me what I’m here for.”

  The big man said thickly: “For gawd’s sake! What’s eatin’ you? You scared me when you said ‘Walden’ to the girl.”

  Dalmas grinned. “That’s all right, Denny. Maybe she never heard of him. Let’s get this ironed out in a hurry. I have an idea I’m here for trouble.”

  “You’re crazy as hell!” the big man snarled.

  Dalmas moved the gun slightly. He put his back against the end wall of the room, leaned over and turned the radio off with his left hand. Then he spoke bitterly: “You sold out, Denny. That’s easy. You’re too big for a tail and I’ve spotted you following me around half a dozen times lately. When you horned in on the deal tonight I was pretty sure . . . And when you told me that funny story about how you got baby out here I was damn sure . . . Hell
’s sake, do you think a guy that’s stayed alive as long as I have would believe that one? Come on, Denny, be a sport and tell me who you’re working for . . . I might let you take a powder . . . Who you working for? Donner? Sutro? Or somebody I don’t know? And why the plant out here in the woods?”

  The girl shot to her feet suddenly and sprang at him. He threw her off with his free hand and she sprawled on the floor. She yelled: “Get him, you big punk? Get him!”

  Denny didn’t move. “Shut up, snow-bird!” Dalmas snapped. “Nobody’s getting anybody. This is just a talk between friends. Get up on your feet and stop throwing curves!”

  The blonde stood up slowly.

  Denny’s face had a stony, immovable look in the dimness. His voice came with a dull rasp. He said: “I sold out. It was lousy. Okey, that’s that. I got fed up with watchin’ a bunch of extra girls trying to pinch each other’s lipstick . . . You can take a plug at me, if you feel like it.”

  He still didn’t move. Dalmas nodded slowly and said again: “Who is it, Denny? Who you working for?”

  Denny said: “I don’t know. I call a number, get orders, and report that way. I get dough in the mail. I tried to break the twist here, but no luck . . . I don’t think you’re on the spot and I don’t know a damn thing about that shootin’ in the street.”

  Dalmas stared at him. He said slowly: “You wouldn’t be stalling—to keep me here—would you, Denny?”

  The big man raised his head slowly. The room suddenly seemed to get very still. A car had stopped outside. The faint throbbing of its motor died.

  A red spotlight hit the top of the screens.

  It was blinding. Dalmas slid down on one knee, shifted his position sidewise very quickly, silently. Denny’s harsh voice in the silence said: “Cops, for gawd’s sake!”

  The red light dissolved the wire mesh of the screens into a rosy glow, threw a great splash of vivid color on the oiled finish of the inside wall. The girl made a choked sound and her face was a red mask for an instant before she sank down out of the fan of light. Dalmas looked into the light, his head low behind the sill of the end window. The leaves of the bushes were black spearpoints in the red glare.