The Collected Raymond Chandler

by Raymond Chandler

“I see. Well, that’s all. Remember what I told you last night. Don’t try getting ideas about this case. All we want from you is silence. Otherwise—”

  He paused. I yawned into the mouthpiece.

  “I heard that,” he snapped. “Perhaps you think I’m not in a position to make that stick. I am. One false move out of you and you’ll be locked up as a material witness.”

  “You mean the papers are not to get the case?”

  “They’ll get the murder—but they won’t know what’s behind it.”

  “Neither do you,” I said.

  “I’ve warned you twice now,” he said. “The third time is out.”

  “You’re doing a lot of talking,” I said, “for a guy that holds cards.”

  I got the phone hung in my face for that. Okey, the hell with him, let him work at it.

  I walked around the office a little to cool off, bought myself a short drink, looked at my watch again and didn’t see what time it was, and sat down at the desk once more.

  Jules Amthor, Psychic Consultant. Consultations by Appointment Only. Give him enough time and pay him enough money and he’ll cure anything from a jaded husband to a grasshopper plague. He would be an expert in frustrated love affairs, women who slept alone and didn’t like it, wandering boys and girls who didn’t write home, sell the property now or hold it for another year, will this part hurt me with my public or make me seem more versatile? Men would sneak in on him too, big strong guys that roared like lions around their offices and were all cold mush under their vests. But mostly it would be women, fat women that panted and thin women that burned, old women that dreamed and young women that thought they might have Electra complexes, women of all sizes, shapes and ages, but with one thing in common—money. No Thursdays at the County Hospital for Mr. Jules Amthor. Cash on the line for him. Rich bitches who had to be dunned for their milk bills would pay him right now.

  A fakeloo artist, a hoopla spreader, and a lad who had his card rolled up inside sticks of tea, found on a dead man.

  This was going to be good. I reached for the phone and asked the O-operator for the Stillwood Heights number.

  CHAPTER 15

  A woman’s voice answered, a dry, husky-sounding foreign voice: “ ’Allo.”

  “May I talk to Mr. Amthor?”

  “Ah no. I regret. I am ver-ry sor-ry. Amthor never speaks upon the telephone. I am hees secretary. Weel I take the message?”

  “What’s the address out there? I want to see him.”

  “Ah, you weesh to consult Amthor professionally? He weel be ver-ry pleased. But he ees ver-ry beesy. When you weesh to see him?”

  “Right away. Sometime today.”

  “Ah,” the voice regretted, “that cannot be. The next week per’aps. I weel look at the book.”

  “Look,” I said, “never mind the book. You ’ave the pencil?”

  “But certainly I ’ave the pencil. I—”

  “Take this down. My name is Philip Marlowe. My address is 615 Cahuenga Building, Hollywood. That’s on Hollywood Boulevard near Ivar. My phone number is Glenview 7537.” I spelled the hard ones and waited.

  “Yes, Meester Marlowe. I ’ave that.”

  “I want to see Mr. Amthor about a man named Marriott.” I spelled that too. “It is very urgent. It is a matter of life and death. I want to see him fast. F-a-s-t—fast. Sudden, in other words. Am I clear?”

  “You talk ver-ry strange,” the foreign voice said.

  “No.” I took hold of the phone standard and shook it. “I feel fine. I always talk like that. This is a very queer business. Mr. Amthor will positively want to see me. I’m a private detective. But I don’t want to go to the police until I’ve seen him.”

  “Ah,” the voice got as cool as a cafeteria dinner. “You are of the police, no?”

  “Listen,” I said. “I am of the police, no. I am a private detective. Confidential. But it is very urgent just the same. You call me back, no? You ’ave the telephone number, yes?”

  “Si. I ’ave the telephone number. Meester Marriott—he ees sick?”

  “Well, he’s not up and around,” I said. “So you know him?”

  “But no. You say a matter of life and death. Amthor he cure many people—”

  “This is one time he flops,” I said. “I’ll be waiting for a call.”

  I hung up and lunged for the office bottle. I felt as if I had been through a meat grinder. Ten minutes passed. The phone rang. The voice said:

  “Amthor he weel see you at six o’clock.”

  “That’s fine. What’s the address?”

  “He weel send a car.”

  “I have a car of my own. Just give me—”

  “He weel send a car,” the voice said coldly, and the phone clicked in my ear.

  I looked at my watch once more. It was more than time for lunch. My stomach burned from the last drink. I wasn’t hungry. I lit a cigarette. It tasted like a plumber’s handkerchief. I nodded across the office at Mr. Rembrandt, then I reached for my hat and went out. I was halfway to the elevator before the thought hit me. It hit me without any reason or sense, like a dropped brick. I stopped and leaned against the marbled wall and pushed my hat around on my head and suddenly I laughed.

  A girl passing me on the way from the elevators back to her work turned and gave me one of those looks which are supposed to make your spine feel like a run in a stocking. I waved my hand at her and went back to my office and grabbed the phone. I called up a man I knew who worked on the Lot Books of a title company.

  “Can you find a property by the address alone?” I asked him.

  “Sure. We have a cross-index. What is it?”

  “1644 West 54th Place. I’d like to know a little something about the condition of the title.”

  “I’d better call you back. What’s that number?”

  He called back in about three minutes.

  “Get your pencil out,” he said. “It’s Lot 8 of Block 11 of Caraday’s Addition to the Maplewood Tract Number 4. The owner of record, subject to certain things, is Jessie Pierce Florian, widow.”

  “Yeah. What things?”

  “Second half taxes, two ten-year street improvement bonds, one storm drain assessment bond also ten year, none of these delinquent, also a first trust deed of $2600.”

  “You mean one of those things where they can sell you out on ten minutes’ notice?”

  “Not quite that quick, but a lot quicker than a mortgage. There’s nothing unusual about it except the amount. It’s high for that neighborhood, unless it’s a new house.”

  “It’s a very old house and in bad repair,” I said. “I’d say fifteen hundred would buy the place.”

  “Then it’s distinctly unusual, because the refinancing was done only four years ago.”

  “Okey, who holds it? Some investment company?”

  “No. An individual. Man named Lindsay Marriott, a single man. Okey?”

  I forget what I said to him or what thanks I made. They probably sounded like words. I sat there, just staring at the wall.

  My stomach suddenly felt fine. I was hungry. I went down to the Mansion House Coffee Shop and ate lunch and got my car out of the parking lot next to my building.

  I drove south and east, towards West 54th Place. I didn’t carry any liquor with me this time.

  CHAPTER 16

  The block looked just as it had looked the day before. The street was empty except for an ice truck, two Fords in driveways, and a swirl of dust going around a corner. I drove slowly past No. 1644 and parked farther along and studied the houses on either side of mine. I walked back and stopped in front of it, looking at the tough palm tree and the drab unwatered scrap of lawn. The house seemed empty, but probably wasn’t. It just had that look. The lonely rocker on the front porch stood just where it had stood yesterday. There was a throw-away paper on the walk. I picked it up and slapped it against my leg and then I saw the curtain move next door, in the near front window.

  Old Nosey again. I yawned and ti
lted my hat down. A sharp nose almost flattened itself against the inside of the glass. White hair above it, and eyes that were just eyes from where I stood. I strolled along the sidewalk and the eyes watched me. I turned in towards her house. I climbed the wooden steps and rang the bell.

  The door snapped open as if it had been on a spring. She was a tall old bird with a chin like a rabbit. Seen from close her eyes were as sharp as lights on still water. I took my hat off.

  “Are you the lady who called the police about Mrs. Florian?”

  She stared at me coolly and missed nothing about me, probably not even the mole on my right shoulder blade.

  “I ain’t sayin’ I am, young man, and I ain’t sayin’ I ain’t. Who are you?” It was a high twangy voice, made for talking over an eight party line.

  “I’m a detective.”

  “Land’s sakes. Why didn’t you say so? What’s she done now? I ain’t seen a thing and I ain’t missed a minute. Henry done all the goin’ to the store for me. Ain’t been a sound out of there.”

  She snapped the screen door unhooked and drew me in. The hall smelled of furniture oil. It had a lot of dark furniture that had once been in good style. Stuff with inlaid panels and scollops at the corners. We went into a front room that had cotton lace antimacassars pinned on everything you could stick a pin into.

  “Say, didn’t I see you before?” she asked suddenly, a note of suspicion crawling around in her voice. “Sure enough I did. You was the man that—”

  “That’s right. And I’m still a detective. Who’s Henry?”

  “Oh, he’s just a little colored boy that does errands for me. Well, what you want, young man?” She patted a clean red and white apron and gave me the beady eye. She clicked her store teeth a couple of times for practice.

  “Did the officers come here yesterday after they went to Mrs. Florian’s house?”

  “What officers?”

  “The uniformed officers,” I said patiently.

  “Yes, they was here a minute. They didn’t know nothing.”

  “Describe the big man to me—the one that had a gun and made you call up.”

  She described him with complete accuracy. It was Malloy all right.

  “What kind of car did he drive?”

  “A little car. He couldn’t hardly get into it.”

  “That’s all you can say? This man’s a murderer!”

  Her mouth gaped, but her eyes were pleased. “Land’s sakes, I wish I could tell you, young man. But I never knew much about cars. Murder, eh? Folks ain’t safe a minute in this town. When I come here twenty-two years ago we didn’t lock our doors hardly. Now it’s gangsters and crooked police and politicians fightin’ each other with machine guns, so I’ve heard. Scandalous is what it is, young man.”

  “Yeah. What do you know about Mrs. Florian?”

  The small mouth puckered. “She ain’t neighborly. Plays her radio loud late nights. Sings. She don’t talk to anybody.” She leaned forward a little. “I’m not positive, but my opinion is she drinks liquor.”

  “She have many visitors?”

  “She don’t have no visitors at all.”

  “You’d know, of course, Mrs.—”

  “Mrs. Morrison. Land’s sakes, yes. What else have I got to do but look out of the windows?”

  “I bet it’s fun. Mrs. Florian has lived here a long time?”

  “About ten years, I reckon. Had a husband once. Looked like a bad one to me. He died.” She paused and thought. “I guess he died natural,” she added. “I never heard different.”

  “Left her money?”

  Her eyes receded and her chin followed them. She sniffed hard. “You been drinkin’ liquor,” she said coldly.

  “I just had a tooth out. The dentist gave it to me.”

  “I don’t hold with it.”

  “It’s bad stuff, except for medicine,” I said.

  “I don’t hold with it for medicine neither.”

  “I think you’re right,” I said. “Did he leave her money? Her husband?”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Her mouth was the size of a prune and as smooth. I had lost out.

  “Has anybody at all been there since the officers?”

  “Ain’t seen.”

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. Morrison. I won’t trouble you any more now. You’ve been very kind and helpful.”

  I walked out of the room and opened the door. She followed me and cleared her throat and clicked her teeth a couple more times.

  “What number should I call?” she asked, relenting a little.

  “University 4-5000. Ask for Lieutenant Nulty. What does she live on—relief?”

  “This ain’t a relief neighborhood,” she said coldly.

  “I bet that side piece was the admiration of Sioux Falls once,” I said, gazing at a carved sideboard that was in the hall because the dining room was too small for it. It had curved ends, thin carved legs, was inlaid all over, and had a painted basket of fruit on the front.

  “Mason City,” she said softly. “Yessir, we had a nice home once, me and George. Best there was.”

  I opened the screen door and stepped through it and thanked her again. She was smiling now. Her smile was as sharp as her eyes.

  “Gets a registered letter first of every month,” she said suddenly.

  I turned and waited. She leaned towards me. “I see the mailman go up to the door and get her to sign. First day of every month. Dresses up then and goes out. Don’t come home till all hours. Sings half the night. Times I could have called the police it was so loud.”

  I patted the thin malicious arm.

  “You’re one in a thousand, Mrs. Morrison,” I said. I put my hat on, tipped it to her and left. Halfway down the walk I thought of something and swung back. She was still standing inside the screen door, with the house door open behind her. I went back up on the steps.

  “Tomorrow’s the first,” I said. “First of April. April Fool’s Day. Be sure to notice whether she gets her registered letter, will you, Mrs. Morrison?”

  The eyes gleamed at me. She began to laugh—a high-pitched old woman’s laugh. “April Fool’s Day,” she tittered. “Maybe she won’t get it.”

  I left her laughing. The sound was like a hen having hiccups.

  CHAPTER 17

  Nobody answered my ring or knock next door. I tried again. The screen door wasn’t hooked. I tried the house door. It was unlocked. I stepped inside.

  Nothing was changed, not even the smell of gin. There were still no bodies on the floor. A dirty glass stood on the small table beside the chair where Mrs. Florian had sat yesterday. The radio was turned off. I went over to the davenport and felt down behind the cushions. The same dead soldier and another one with him now.

  I called out. No answer. Then I thought I heard a long slow unhappy breathing that was half groaning. I went through the arch and sneaked into the little hallway. The bedroom door was partly open and the groaning sound came from behind it. I stuck my head in and looked.

  Mrs. Florian was in bed. She was lying flat on her back with a cotton comforter pulled up to her chin. One of the little fluffballs on the comforter was almost in her mouth. Her long yellow face was slack, half dead. Her dirty hair straggled on the pillow. Her eyes opened slowly and at me with no expression. The room had a sickening smell of sleep, liquor and dirty clothes. A sixty-nine cent alarm clock ticked on the peeling gray-white paint of the bureau. It ticked loud enough to shake the walls. Above it a mirror showed a distorted view of the woman’s face. The trunk from which she had taken the photos was still open.

  I said: “Good afternoon, Mrs. Florian. Are you sick?”

  She worked her lips together slowly, rubbed one over the other, then slid a tongue out and moistened them and worked her jaws. Her voice came from her mouth sounding like a worn-out phonograph record. Her eyes showed recognition now, but not pleasure.

  “You get him?”

  “The Moose?”

  “Sure.”

  “Not
yet. Soon, I hope.”

  She screwed her eyes up and then snapped them open as if trying to get rid of a film over them.

  “You ought to keep your house locked up,” I said. “He might come back.”

  “You think I’m scared of the Moose, huh?”

  “You acted like it when I was talking to you yesterday.”

  She thought about that. Thinking was weary work. “Got any liquor?”

  “No, I didn’t bring any today, Mrs. Florian. I was a little low on cash.”

  “Gin’s cheap. It hits.”

  “I might go out for some in a little while. So you’re not afraid of Malloy?”

  “Why would I be?”

  “Okey, you’re not. What are you afraid of?”

  Light snapped into her eyes, held for a moment, and faded out again. “Aw beat it. You coppers give me an ache in the fanny.”

  I said nothing. I leaned against the door frame and put a cigarette in my mouth and tried to jerk it up far enough to hit my nose with it. This is harder than it looks.

  “Coppers,” she said slowly, as if talking to herself, “will never catch that boy. He’s good and he’s got dough and he’s got friends. You’re wasting your time, copper.”

  “Just the routine,” I said. “It was practically a self-defense anyway. Where would he be?”

  She snickered and wiped her mouth on the cotton comforter.

  “Soap now,” she said. “Soft stuff. Copper-smart. You guys still think it gets you something.”

  “I liked the Moose,” I said.

  Interest flickered in her eyes. “You known him?”

  “I was with him yesterday—when he killed the nigger over on Central.”

  She opened her mouth wide and laughed her head off without making any more sound than you would make cracking a breadstick. Tears ran out of her eyes and down her face.

  “A big strong guy,” I said. “Soft-hearted in spots too. Wanted his Velma pretty bad.”

  The eyes veiled. “Thought it was her folks was looking for her,” she said softly.

  “They are. But she’s dead, you said. Nothing there. Where did she die?”

  “Dalhart, Texas. Got a cold and went to the chest and off she went.”