I looked away. Then I was aware of the hissing noise very sudden and sharp. It startled me into looking at her again. She sat there naked, propped on her hands, her mouth open a little, her face like scraped bone. The hissing noise came tearing out of her mouth as if she had nothing to do with it. There was something behind her eyes, blank as they were, that I had never seen in a woman's eyes…
She had left finally, but she didn't forget that I'd rejected her.
"You've seen her," Vivian said. "She's not right. Maybe, if she were drinking exotic things and mixing them, and thought it would be giggly fun…"
Vivian let the sentence hang.
"Yes," I said.
"And the next day remember nothing," Vivian said.
We were quiet.
"I don't know," I said. "Probably too hard a job, the simple physical labor of dismemberment, for a small girl to do alone. She might have been an accessory, though. No way to know."
"You have to find her, Marlowe."
"Yeah? Maybe if somebody would tell me something, I might just do that."
"Tell you what?"
"Where she might be. How she got to Bonsentir. What the connection is with Randolph Simpson. Why you wanted me out of the thing and told me Eddie Mars was taking care of everything. What the hell you're doing with Eddie Mars anyway. Things like that."
She held my gaze angrily for a minute and then her face began to crumble. She started to cry. With the tears running down her face she said, "Hold me, damn you, Marlowe. Put your arms around me."
I moved over onto the couch and put my arms around her. She arched up into my arms and buried her face against my chest and sobbed. Her body shook with every sob as if the sound was forced out of her against her will. After maybe five minutes that seemed no longer than the Thirty Years War she began to calm down. The sobs spaced out more and finally stopped. She lay still in my arms, her face against my chest, her arms locked around my neck, her body pressed against me hard. Finally she lifted her face and kissed me. There was no contrivance this time. I kissed her back. She opened her mouth.
Without taking her lips from mine she murmured "yes, yes."
I didn't hear anyone say "no."
***
When it was over, we lay still, half dressed and breathless together on her couch, which was a little narrow for two people, one of whom weighed 190.
"I wonder sometimes," Vivian said, "why it had to be me. Why I have to take care of this childish pervert."
"I guess because there isn't anyone else," I said.
Vivian lay with her head in the crook of my arm.
"She was always… twisted. When we were little girls in polka-dot dresses, she was always, somehow, corrupt, as if she were born with something nasty infesting her soul."
"Ever try to get her cured?" I said.
Vivian's head stirred on my arm. She held the fingers of that arm in her right hand and pressed them occasionally against her cheek as she talked.
"I've taken her to Europe, sanitariums, private hospitals, the best analysts. She remains a depraved child. Maybe it's my mother's blood, or the mix of it with the Sternwoods'. My mother died when we were very young. My father would never speak of her."
"So you finally gave up on Carmen and tried to find somewhere to keep her out of trouble."
"I need a life, Marlowe. I need a chance to love someone, to get free of her."
"So you shipped her off to Dr. Bonsentir, and his needles, and his pills, and his security."
"Yes," Vivian said. "I'm not ashamed of that. Resthaven is well regarded, and Dr. Bonsentir is a specialist in sexually related personality disorders."
"I'll bet he is," I said. "How'd you find him?"
She said something I couldn't hear.
"I didn't get that," I said.
"Randolph Simpson," she said in a voice that came out too loud because she was forcing it.
"Ah yes," I said. "The old family friend."
"My father knew him. When my father was younger he did some business with his family."
"The first time I asked, you said you didn't know him."
"He requires anonymity," Vivian said.
"I'll bet he does," I said.
"In truth he frightens me. He told me to tell no one he'd helped me with Carmen, and when you asked I was afraid."
"You think Carmen's with him?"
"I don't know." I could hear her breath go in shakily and come out the same way. "I guess I don't want to know."
"So where's Mars come in?"
"I asked Eddie to see if he could find out where Carmen was."
"And he agreed?"
"Yes. He helped me with Carmen before. He knows about her."
"What's he get out of it?"
"Nothing. It's just a favor to me."
"Guys like Mars don't do favors," I said. "He gets something."
"Maybe you wouldn't understand," Vivian said. "But Eddie Mars loves me."
"I might understand that, but I'm not sure I understand it in a gee like Eddie."
"I know. I know what Eddie is, but he is capable of love, Marlowe, and he loves me."
"How about you?" I said.
"Do I love him?"
"Un huh."
"No, I don't suppose I do. But it would be easy to. Eddie's a powerful man. He has money. He has influence. He's tough and things don't scare him."
"And he's crooked as a con man's smile," I said.
"Maybe, but if you've been alone and a woman and frightened, power and influence and money and tough looks like it might be enough."
"What about me?" I said.
She paused, rubbing the back of my hand against her cheek.
"You're different, Marlowe."
I had nothing to add to that. I took a cigarette from her lacquered box and lit it and passed it to her and took another and lit it for myself. We lay quietly smoking.
"You think she's with Simpson?" I said.
She took in some smoke. When she let it out it drifted up and hung wispily above us as we lay on our backs.
"I don't know," she said. "I'm afraid that she could be."
"Tell me about him," I said.
Again the slow inhale and the smoke drifting lazily up.
"He's the… oddest man I know. He plays golf, for instance, on his own golf course, just him and his partner, and the bodyguards."
"The boys in the dark suits," I said. "I've met several of them."
"They surround him wherever he goes."
"Swell," I said.
"He's been married, but he's not married now, and he likes girls, but never for very long. And they always have to be brought to his home. And, ah, they, ah, all have to have a medical examination."
"See how easy I am," I said. "Um."
"You think Simpson got you to send Carmen to Bonsentir so Bonsentir could hand her along?"
"I don't know," Vivian said. "I'm afraid to know. I kept hoping maybe Eddie would somehow take care of it."
"He's tight with Bonsentir?"
"Simpson? Yes. He's more than that-he's, ah, he's dependent on him, I think."
"Dependent?"
"He's his doctor, but more than that he seems to be like a confessor, some sort of priest, as well as physician."
"And Eddie wouldn't talk to me about any of this when I asked him because you'd told him it was hush-hush."
"Yes. If Randolph's confidence is violated he is very unpredictable. It's not even that he's cruel, though he probably is. It's that he is so rich, so indescribably wealthy, that he does whatever he will, without thought, simply because he can."
"I'm glad for him," I said. "I'll settle for just ordinary riches, like yours. Shall we fly off to Tahiti and build a fairy-tale castle?"
"I wish we could," Vivian said. "It would be very attractive to think about it."
"You don't know who might be tailing me in a black Buick sedan, do you?"
Her whole body stiffened.
"My God," she said. "What if it's Ran
dolph?"
"I'll take care of Randolph," I said. "He'll think he was in an avalanche."
"Maybe it's not Randolph," she said.
"Maybe not," I said. "Maybe it's Eddie. Or maybe it's the cops, though they don't usually do tail jobs in Buicks. Or maybe kindly Dr. Claude is having me followed. Or maybe it's a member of the Philip Marlowe Fan Club trying to get up her courage to ask for my autograph."
"Will you take care of me, Marlowe?"
"Sure thing," I said. "And I'll find Carmen too. I was tired of chess puzzles anyway."
CHAPTER 17
The Cypress Club was hopping. A doorman that was dressed like an admiral in the Yugoslavian navy opened the doors for me and I went into the hushed tension of the gambling club. I shook my head at the hat check girl and kept my hat on my head. In the main room there were people gathered under lowered lights around the tables. Everyone looked as if they were watching surgery. No one talked loudly, the bored voices of the dealers droned their dealer patter, the sound of chips and the whir of the roulette wheel was as loud as any human voice. It was never clear to me why people gambled since they seemed to enjoy it so little.
I drifted into the bar and ordered a Bacardi cocktail.
"Eddie around?" I said to the bartender.
"Don't know no Eddie, pal."
"Sure you don't," I said. "You never heard of Eddie Mars. He doesn't own this clip joint. You don't know who owns it. You just work here."
"If it turned out that I did know this Eddie guy, who should I say was asking?"
"Marlowe," I said.
The bartender polished the bartop vigorously.
"I see anybody might know this Eddie, I'll make mention of your name."
"That'd be dandy," I said.
The bartender moved on down the bar. I turned and looked out at the main room. A tall jasper with a pencil moustache was making thousand-dollar bets at the baccarat table and losing them. He was obviously drunk and his face was very flushed. A silver-blonde lady with a mink stole and a long cigarette holder was tugging at his arm and crying. He paid her no mind. Just kept laying down the big pictures and losing them and taking another one out of the slim ostrich-skin wallet he took from his inside pocket. Finally the blonde swore at him and released his arm and stalked out of the place. The tall thin guy never looked at her, or after her when she left.
The bartender moved back down the bar toward me.
"Be easier if he just mailed Mars a check," I said, nodding at the tall drunk losing his money.
"Ain't that the truth," the bartender said. He nodded past my shoulder. "Mr. Mars will see you now," he said.
I turned and Eddie Mars was there, a different gray suit and shirt. This time with a sapphire tie pin in a different gray tie.
"Heard you were asking about me, soldier."
"Yeah. We need to talk."
Mars nodded and slid onto the barstool next to me. He waited.
"I talked with Vivian tonight," I said.
Mars' face showed nothing.
"She told me what she knows about Carmen and Bonsentir and Simpson and how you said you'd help her because you love her."
"She told you a lot, soldier."
"Yeah. She's in trouble and she knows it," I said. "She's looking for help."
"So why you telling me this?" Mars said. He took a cigarette out of a silver case and put it in his mouth. The bartender appeared and lit it and moved away.
"I figure we're both working the same side of the street this time. I want to know what you know."
Mars smiled.
"You and me, huh soldier? What a pair."
"I don't like it, Eddie. And I don't like you. But if you got anything I can use, I'll take it."
"Fair enough, soldier. Nice to know where we stand."
"What do you know?" I said.
"What do I get from telling you?"
"I tell people you're nice," I said.
"Yeah?"
"And I won't be stepping all over you and your boys while I'm looking for Carmen."
"Stepping on anything of mine will get you a slow ride in a pine box, soldier."
"One of the things I don't like about you, Eddie," I said. "Inside the hand-tailored suits and the fancy manners you're a goon, just like you were when you started."
"Calling each other names isn't going to get this deal done, soldier. And it could get you a bad case of bruises."
"I've had bruises before," I said. "I love bruises. Bruises are my friends. What do you know about Carmen? Remind yourself you're doing this for Vivian."
"You don't believe it, do you, Marlowe? That a guy like me could go soft for a dame like Vivian Sternwood."
"I believe you could go soft, Eddie. I don't believe you could go generous. An angle will turn up in here somewhere. Like it did before."
Mars shook his head.
"You're hard to like, Marlowe. I'll say that for you."
I waited.
"Carmen's with Simpson all right. He took her from the sanitarium. Bonsentir's a high-priced pimp. He runs this clinic for people with sex problems, and then he rents out the juicy ones to a list of very high-priced clients."
"Like Simpson," I said.
"Like Simpson," Mars said.
"He's the one sent her there in the first place," I said.
Mars shook his head again and took a long drag on his cigarette.
"Christ," Mars said, "it's not like Carmen was hard. Why go through all that rigmarole of sending her through his pimp?"
"So she'd be medically certified," I said.
Mars looked startled.
"Medically?"
"Disease free," I said. "Simpson's phobic about venereal diseases."
"Creep," Mars said.
"So he gets her committed to a sanitarium where she'll be examined and found healthy and passed on to him."
"How you know so much about Simpson?"
"Vivian told me," I said.
"Funny she didn't tell me."
"I don't think Vivian tells anybody everything," I said. "I think she's learned not to be too trusting."
"She can trust me," Mars said.
"Sure she can, Eddie. I can too, everybody can."
Mars wasn't listening to me. He was thinking about other things. Things I wouldn't ever get to hear. Maybe he did love her. Maybe I did too.
"I don't know much about Simpson. But I know you can't take him."
"I'll take him," I said.
Mars stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray on the bar.
"Sure you will, soldier. You keep thinking that."
"You know where Simpson's got her?" I said.
He shook his head.
"Simpson's got places everywhere," Mars said. "You never know which place he's at and no one ever says. He's got three dozen limousines and a fleet of private planes and God knows what all. We're looking into it, but we're not too close yet."
The man at the baccarat table was out of thousands. He said something loud and nasty to the dealer. Mars didn't turn his head but his eyes shifted over there.
"You got anything else to add that would help me?" I said.
"No," Mars said. His eyes stayed on the tall geek with the moustache. "I'm not sure anything will help you, soldier."
The tall geek said something even nastier. Mars nodded slightly and the pasty-faced blond gunsel that I'd met before appeared out of the shadows and stood next to the tall drunk. He murmured something into the drunk's ear and the drunk turned and tried to shove him away. The blond guy made a movement and the tall drunk doubled up suddenly with a look of shock on his face. The blond guy straightened him up gently with one hand on each shoulder and turned him slowly toward the door. He draped one arm over the drunk's shoulder and began to walk him toward the door. As they passed I got a look at the drunk's face. He looked sick.
"Hard running a dignified place," Mars said sadly.
"Ain't it the truth," I said. "You let me know if anything shows?"
Mars
turned and looked at me with no visible feeling.
"Like you said, soldier, we aren't friends. You do your peekaboo work. I'll try to run a nice club. And we won't get in each other's way. Okay?"
"Ain't love grand," I said and got up and got out of there.
CHAPTER 18
When I got to the Hobart Arms, I noticed the black Buick was parked across the street. The motor was off this time, and it seemed to be empty. I parked a couple of spaces past it and walked back toward my building along Franklin. As I went up the steps a figure detached from the shadow of the shrubs and pointed a gun at me. Another figure appeared behind me.
"Hold it right there, pally," a voice said. It was a flat voice with very little in it that was human. A flashlight beam hit me in the eyes.
I held it right there. Behind me I felt the press of a gun barrel against my spine, in the small of my back. I could hear its owner's breath in my ear. Feel it on my neck. There was no one on the street, nobody in sight.
"Got a message for you, pally," the flat voice said. He was out of sight behind the brightness of the flashlight.
"Who's your voice coach?" I said. "You sound like a bad movie."
"Don't look for Carmen Sternwood anymore," the flat voice said. "Don't pay any attention to Randolph Simpson. Don't go near Dr. Bonsentir."
"Okay if I eat a pitted prune now and then?" I said.
The voice went on as if it were a recording.
"This is the only warning you'll get. You don't behave and the next one will be fatal."
"Anything else?" I said.
"Yeah," the voice said, "one other thing."
From behind the blinding light a fist appeared. I caught the glint of brass knuckles for a moment before they exploded against my jaw. I staggered back against the gunman behind me. Bright lights exploded in front of my eyes. I kicked the flat voice in the general area of the stomach and heard him gasp and then something erupted against the side of my head and the lights coalesced into a brilliant starburst and then blackness into which I slid as peacefully as a drunken seal.
I was drifting through a black sea and above me in the light I could see Carmen and Vivian dancing with a man I didn't know while Claude Bonsentir played the violin. I tried to swim upward toward them but the sea was thick and cold and I wasn't making any progress.
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