Willy Boy did a funny turn just before his on-loan limousine pulled away. He got out, broke the malacca cane over his knee, and planted the pieces in Ray’s lawn, like small, brittle trees. I rolled a cigarette around in my fingers and grinned. It was a Hollywood touch, and in the ephemeral light of Sunday morning it seemed fitting.
Nixon was the last to leave. Cissy came out on the stoop to hand him his hat, and he took it, ducking his head. Then Ray linked hands with his wife and they watched the youngster slouch out to the shabby Ford with the strange, old-man walk he affected.
They were still standing there when I pulled out to follow him.
Nixon turned left on the Pacific Coast Highway, heading south. I hung back, giving him plenty of room. He hadn’t gone more than half a mile before slamming the Ford into the rear bumper of a Dodge beach wagon.
I pulled over to the shoulder, slipped my gun into my pocket, and got out. The radios of both cars were on full volume. Nixon was standing by his crumpled fender, more interested in the broadcast than the damage. The driver of the Dodge leaned out his door, his mouth open. Both men were staring out at the purple-gray Pacific, transfixed.
“What gives?” I said.
Then I heard the bulletin and realized what had made Beach-wagon slam on his brakes.
“Them Jap bastards,” Nixon said, grinning happily.
“They’ll be heading this way now,” Beach-wagon said excitedly. “The whole yellow fleet.”
Maybe I should have left it like that. Just driven away, gone back to tell Ray that he had a few hundred more reasons to hate the sea. What did a twenty-five-grand grift mean now that the bombs had started falling?
Old habits die hard. I offered Nixon a ride.
He shook his head, as if coming out of a dream. “Thanks, no. I’ll just make a phone call.”
“You’ll take a ride and smile about it,” I said, sticking my gun in his ribs. Beach-wagon was too busy searching the horizon for the coming invasion to notice.
I pushed Nicky behind the wheel and got into the back seat.
“Just go where you were going,” I said.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I caressed his ear with the barrel. “You’re cute,” I said. “But you’re not that cute. The two of you were in it together. You’re the mechanic. You set him up.”
“Mister, you’ve got it all wrong. I’m a lawyer. I’d never break the law.”
I laughed all the way to the Waterfront Hotel. That was where Nicky and his partner were going to split up the cash. The boy confessed readily after I promised not to bring the cops into it.
“Bring in the Bay City cops?” I said. “Willy Boy was right. I oughta sell you to Sam Goldwyn. Now drive.”
In the hotel lobby the early risers were huddled around a radio. Nobody paid us any mind. One man with one gun wasn’t anything to get excited about, not that morning.
The elevator didn’t respond to the call button so we took the stairs. Three flights. That made me irritable. I pushed Nixon into the room ahead of me.
“Sorry, Mr. Farnum,” he said.
The one-armed man was sitting on a narrow bed, puffing a new cheroot. The twenty-five grand was already divided into two piles on the pillow. He looked at me with eyes as black as spent bullets.
“Ah, nuts,” he said. “We’ll make it a three-way split.”
I grinned and said, “Nicky is going to join the Navy, but what’ll we do with you?”
Farnum blinked at the gun. He said, “How’d you cop us?”
“It’s an old grift,” I said. “You polished it up a little, but it’s still an old grift. The kid here is the mechanic, he fixes the deck. You call the shots and you called it mighty cute. Willy Boy is the one with all the dough, so he was the pigeon. For three weeks you let him win, and fixed it so the others thought he must be cheating somehow. That takes the attention off of you and the kid. You just had to get Willy Boy in the right mood to bet wildly. So you fed him what looks like a winning hand, and then insulted his pride. He stayed in to prove he wasn’t cheating. The I.O.U. was a beautiful touch. It convinced everybody but me.”
Farnum blinked again. I almost fell for it, blinking along with him as his left hand went under the pillow. I squeezed off a shot, perforating a brass bedpost, and an ugly black revolver skittered to the floor.
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “If you still had the right arm I’d be dead.”
Farnum shrugged. He’d made his move and it hadn’t worked and now he was waiting for it to be over.
“How’d you lose it?” I asked. “At a card game by any chance?”
The dark, insect eyes glistened. I dragged the revolver back with my toe, got it into my pocket, and made Nicky stuff the twenty-five grand in a pillowcase.
“I’ll bet you were one hell of a mechanic in your prime,” I said, backing to the door. “I’ll bet you made Nicky look silly. You taught him the tricks and with your coaching he’s good enough to fool sailors, maybe, but he’ll never be a tenth as good as you were. Spill it, Farnum. I’ve already promised the little shyster here there’ll be no cops involved. Tell me who caught you and took off your arm.”
He looked at his empty sleeve, his face a gray mask, and said, “Lepke took it. He never caught me; he just did it for kicks. And I pray the little squint screams when they turn on the juice.”
I said, “They always scream,” and left with the pillowcase over my shoulder.
I was having a party in my office when the chauffeur arrived. Me and a bottle and Betty Grable. The bottle was in the file cabinet, under “C” for cheap Scotch, and Betty was smiling at me from a calendar.
“Next time try knocking,” I said to the chauffeur. “You can take your gloves off. I don’t mind.”
“Mr. Wilder sent me up for the money,” he said stiffly. Maybe he wanted to throw me a salute. There was a lot of it in the air, suddenly.
I leaned back in my chair and peered out the window, over the ledge. I was surprised. There was a different battleship in the street below.
“Is that Willy Boy in the limousine?”
The chauffeur nodded. “He and Mr. Sanders are discussing business. They want their money, sir.”
He held out his hand.
I stood up and opened the window. It was a fine December day and the smog was light upon the city. I picked up the pillowcase and emptied it out the window.
“You better hurry,” I said to the chauffeur. “It’s snowing.”
* * *
* * *
Flaubert once exclaimed that he was Madame Bovary (how embarrassing for his friends—and hers!), but Chandler was very firm in maintaining that he was not Marlowe, and so it should come as no surprise that the author and the detective, both of whom resided in the Los Angeles area, crossed paths at least once.
Although Marlowe is fairly coy here about not dropping any last names, the astute reader will know that Chandler and his wife Cissy were in residence at 449 San Vicente Boulevard in early December of 1941, when “The Empty Sleeve” takes place. Less certain is the true identity of the young poker player Marlowe identifies as Nixon. Can he be any relation to the future politician and trickster? Marlowe doesn’t say.
And that is the great legacy Raymond Chandler left to those authors who choose to write about crime: the freedom not to say, not to have to spell out the solution to every puzzle. For Chandler the real mystery was Marlowe and what made him tick. That’s why millions of readers have felt comfortable slipping into his shoes and walking the mean and beautiful streets of that compelling hallucination called Southern California.
If you have any questions about Chandler’s genius, or who was cheating at cards on a certain night in December, feel free to take them up with Marlowe. He leaves the door to the outer office unlocked, for your convenience.
W.R.Philbrick
DEALER’S CHOICE
* * *
* * *
SARA PARETSKY
1942
&nbs
p; SHE WAS WAITING in the outer office when I came in, sitting with a stillness that made you think she’d been planted there for a decade or two and could make it to the twenty-first century if she had to. She didn’t move when I came in except to flick a glance at me under the veil of the little red hat that had built a nest in her shiny black hair. She was all in red; she’d taken the May’s company’s advertisers to heart and was wearing victory red. But I doubted if she’d ever seen the inside of May’s. This was the kind of shantung number that some sales clerk acting like the undertaker for George V pulled from a back room and whispered to madam that it might suit if madam would condescend to try it on. The shoes and gloves and bag were black.
“Mr. Marlowe?” Her voice was soft and husky with a hint of a lisp behind it.
I acknowledged the fact.
She got to her feet. Perched on top of her boxy four-inch heels she just about cleared my armpit.
“I’ve been hoping to see you, Mr. Marlowe. Hoping to interest you in taking a case for me. If you have the time, that is.”
She made it sound as though her problem, whatever it was, was just a bit on the dull side, and that if I didn’t have time for it the two of us could forget it and move on to something more interesting. I grunted and unlocked the inner door. The muffled tapping on the rug behind me let me know she was following me in.
The April sunshine was picking up the dust motes dancing on the edge of my desk. I dumped the morning paper onto the blotter and reached into my desk drawer for my pipe. My visitor settled herself in the other chair with the same composure she’d shown in the outer office. Whatever little problem she had didn’t make her twitch or catch her heels in her rosy silk stockings.
While I was busy with my pipe she leaned forward in her chair, looking at the paper; something on the front page had caught her eye. Maybe the Red Army bashing the Krauts along the Caspian, or the U.S. carving a few inches out of Milne Bay. Or Ichuro Kimura eluding the U.S. Army right here at home, or maybe the lady whose twin daughters were celebrating their first birthday without ever having seen their daddy. He was interned by the Japs in Chungking.
When she caught me watching her she settled back in her chair. “Do you think the war will end soon, Mr. Marlowe?”
“Sure,” I said, tamping the tobacco in. “Out of the trenches by Christmas.” We’d missed Easter by a day already.
The girl nodded slightly to herself, as if I’d confirmed her opinion of the war. Or maybe me. The bright sunlight let me see her eyes now, despite the little veil. The irises were large and dark, looking black against the clear whites. She was watching me calmly enough but those eyes gave her away—they could light up the whole Trojan backfield if she wanted to use them that way. But something in her manner and that hint of a lisp made me think they didn’t play much football where she came from.
“I need some help with a man,” she finally said.
“You look as though you do just fine without help.” I struck a match against the side of the desk.
She ignored me. “He’s holding some of my brother’s markers.”
“Your brother lose them in fair play?”
She gave a shrug that moved like a whisper through the shantung. “I wouldn’t know, Mr. Marlowe. All I know is that my brother staked a—an item that didn’t belong to him. My brother has gone into hiding, since he knows he can’t pay up and he’s afraid they’ll break his legs, or whatever it is they do when you can’t pay your gambling losses.”
“Then I don’t see you have a problem. All you have to do is keep supplying your brother with food and water and everyone will be happy. Your gambler will go after easier prey by and by. What’s his name?”
I thought I saw a faint blush, but it was such a phantom wave of color I couldn’t be sure. It made me think she knew where her brother was all right.
“Dominick Bognavich. And if it were just my brother I wouldn’t mind, not so much I mean, since he was gambling and he has to take his chances. But they’re threatening my mother. And that’s where I need your help. I thought perhaps you could explain to Mr. Bognavich—get him to see that—he should leave my mother alone.”
I busied myself with my pipe again. “Your brother shouldn’t bet with Bognavich unless he can stake the San Joaquin Valley. I believe that’s all Dominick doesn’t own at this point. What did your brother put up?”
She watched me consideringly. I knew that look. It was the kind I used when I wondered if a chinook would accept my bait.
“A ring,” she finally said. “An old diamond and sapphire ring that had been in Mother’s family for a hundred years. My brother knows he’ll get it when she’s dead, and she could die tomorrow—I don’t know—she’s very ill and in a nursing home. So he anticipated events.”
Anticipated events. I like that. It showed a certain thoughtfulness with the language and the people. “And what about your brother. I mean, does he have a name, or do we do this whole thing incognito.”
She studied me again. “No, I can see you need his name. It’s—uh—Richard.”
“Is that his first or his last name? And do you have the same last name or should I call you something else?”
“You can call me Miss Felstein. Naomi Felstein. And that would be Richard’s last name, too.”
“And your mother is Mrs. Felstein, and your father is Mr. Felstein.”
“Was.” She gave a tight little smile, the first I’d seen and not any real sample of what she could do if she were in the mood. “He’s been dead for some years now.”
“And what is it you want me to do for you, Miss Felstein? Shoot Dominick Bognavich? He’s got a lot of backups and I might run out of bullets before he ran out of people to send after me.”
One black-gloved finger traced a circle on the arm of the chair. “Maybe you could see Mr. Bognavich and explain to him. About my brother not owning the ring, I mean. Or—or maybe you could talk my brother into coming out of hiding. He won’t listen to me.”
Sure I could talk to Bognavich. He and I were good pals, sure we were, and my words carried a lot of weight with him, about as much as maggots listening to protests from a dead body. I didn’t like it, any of it. I didn’t believe her story and I didn’t believe in her brother. I was pretty sure she didn’t have a brother, or if she did Bognavich had never heard of him. But it was the day after Easter and I’d been too savvy to let myself get suckered by the Easter bunny, so I owed the rubes one.
I gave her my usual rate, twenty-five dollars a day and expenses, and told her I’d need some up-front money. She opened the little black bag without a word and lifted ten twenties from a stash in the zipper compartment with the ease of a dealer sliding off queens to send you over the top in twenty-one.
She gave another ghostly smile. “I’ll wait for you here. In case you have no success with Mr. Bognavich and want me to take you to my brother.”
“I’ll call you, Miss Felstein.”
That seemed to confuse her a little. “I may—I don’t—”
“I’d rather you didn’t wait in my office. I’ll call you.”
Reluctantly she wrote a number on a piece of paper and handed it to me. Her script was bold and dark, the writing of a risk taker. Oh, yeah, her brother lost some big ones to Dominick Bognavich all right.
A guy like Bognavich doesn’t start his rounds until the regular working stiffs are heading home for a drink. If I was lucky I’d make it to his place before he went to bed for the day. But when I’d wound my way up Laurel Canyon to Ventura, where Bognavich had a modest mansion on a cul-de-sac, I found he’d become the kind of guy who doesn’t make rounds any time of day.
He was slumped against the door leading from the garage to the house. He looked as though he’d felt tired getting out of the car and decided to sit down for a minute to catch his breath but had fallen asleep instead. It was just that he had taken the kind of nap where six small-caliber bullets give you a permanent hangover.
I felt his face and wrists. He’d been
dead a while; if I had a look around without calling the cops it wasn’t going to halt the wheels of justice any. The door behind him was unlocked, an invitation for fools to go dancing in and chase the angels out. I listened for a while but didn’t hear anything, not even Dominick’s blood congealing on the floor.
The kitchen was a white-tiled affair that looked like the morgue after a good scrubdown. I gave it a quick once-over, but Bognavich wasn’t the kind of guy who hid his secrets in the granulated sugar. I passed on through to the main part of the house.
The gambler had employed a hell of a housekeeper. She’d left sofa cushions torn apart with their stuffing spread all over the pale gold on the living room floor. White tufts clung to my trouser legs like cottontails. Marlowe the Easter bunny hunting for eggs the other kids hadn’t been able to find.
Bognavich’s study was where he’d kept his papers. He’d been a gambler, not a reader, and most of the books dealt with the finer points of cards and horses. They lay every which way, their backs breaking, loose pages lying nearby like pups trying to get close enough to suckle their dam.
I did the best I could with the papers and the ledger. There were I.O.U.’s for the asking if I’d been inclined to go hustling for bread, but nothing that looked like a Felstein. I didn’t feel like lingering for a detailed search. Whoever had put those six holes into Dominick might be happy for the cops to find an unwelcome peeper fingering the gambler’s papers. I gave the rest of the house a quick tour, admired Bognavich’s taste in silk pajamas, and slid back through the kitchen.
He was still sitting where I’d left him. He seemed to sigh as I passed. I patted him on the shoulder and went back to the Chrysler. Miss Felstein could have put six rounds into Bognavich without wrinkling her silk dress, let alone her smooth little forehead. It was the kind of shooting a dame might do—six bullets where one or two would do the job. Wasteful, with a war on.
Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe Page 15