The Collected Raymond Chandler

by Raymond Chandler

  “Who are you?” the man asked, staring me down.

  I held out my card. Olive fingers took the card. The dog quietly backed out from between my legs, edged around the front end of the car, and faded silently into the distance.

  “Marlowe,” the man said. “Marlowe, eh? What’s this? A detective? What do you want?”

  “Want to see Mrs. Morny.”

  He looked me up and down, brilliant black eyes sweeping slowly and the silky fringes of long eyelashes following them.

  “Weren’t you told she was not in?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t believe it. Are you Mr. Morny?”

  “No.”

  “That’s Mr. Vannier,” the chauffeur said behind my back, in the drawled, over-polite voice of deliberate insolence. “Mr. Vannier’s a friend of the family. He comes here quite a lot.”

  Vannier looked past my shoulder, his eyes furious. The chauffeur came around the car and spit the cigarette stub out of his mouth with casual contempt.

  “I told the shamus the boss wasn’t here, Mr. Vannier.”

  “I see.”

  “I told him Mrs. Morny and you was here. Did I do wrong?”

  Vannier said: “You could have minded your own business.”

  The chauffeur said: “I wonder why the hell I didn’t think of that.”

  Vannier said: “Get out before I break your dirty little neck for you.”

  The chauffeur eyed him quietly and then went back into the gloom of the garage and started to whistle. Vannier moved his hot angry eyes over to me and snapped:

  “You were told Mrs. Morny was not in, but it didn’t take. Is that it? In other words the information failed to satisfy you.”

  “If we have to have other words,” I said, “those might do.”

  “I see. Could you bring yourself to say what point you wish to discuss with Mrs. Morny?”

  “I’d prefer to explain that to Mrs. Morny herself.”

  “The implication is that she doesn’t care to see you.”

  Behind the car the chauffeur said: “Watch his right, Jack. It might have a knife in it.”

  Vannier’s olive skin turned the color of dried seaweed. He turned on his heel and rapped at me in a stifled voice: “Follow me.”

  He went along the brick path under the tunnel of roses and through a white gate at the end. Beyond was a walled-in garden containing flower-beds crammed with showy annuals, a badminton court, a nice stretch of greensward, and a small tiled pool glittering angrily in the sun. Beside the pool there was a flagged space set with blue and white garden furniture, low tables with composition tops, reclining chairs with footrests and enormous cushions, and over all a blue and white umbrella as big as a small tent.

  A long-limbed languorous type of showgirl blond lay at her ease in one of the chairs, with her feet raised on a padded rest and a tall misted glass at her elbow, near a silver ice bucket and a Scotch bottle. She looked at us lazily as we came over the grass. From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away. Her mouth was too wide, her eyes were too blue, her makeup was too vivid, the thin arch of her eyebrows was almost fantastic in its curve and spread, and the mascara was so thick on her eyelashes that they looked like miniature iron railings.

  She wore white duck slacks, blue and white open-toed sandals over bare feet and crimson lake toenails, a white silk blouse and a necklace of green stones that were not square cut emeralds. Her hair was as artificial as a night club lobby.

  On the chair beside her there was a white straw garden hat with a brim the size of a spare tire and a white satin chin strap. On the brim of the hat lay a pair of green sun glasses with lenses the size of doughnuts.

  Vannier marched over to her and snapped out: “You’ve got to can that nasty little red-eyed driver of yours, but quick. Otherwise I’m liable to break his neck any minute. I can’t go near him without getting insulted.”

  The blond coughed lightly, flicked a handkerchief around without doing anything with it, and said:

  “Sit down and rest your sex appeal. Who’s your friend?”

  Vannier looked for my card, found he was holding it in his hand and threw it on her lap. She picked it up languidly, ran her eyes over it, ran them over me, sighed and tapped her teeth with her fingernails.

  “Big, isn’t he? Too much for you to handle, I guess.”

  Vannier looked at me nastily. “All right, get it over with, whatever it is.”

  “Do I talk to her?” I asked. “Or do I talk to you and have you put it in English?”

  The blond laughed. A silvery ripple of laughter that held the unspoiled naturalness of a bubble dance. A small tongue played roguishly along her lips.

  Vannier sat down and lit a gold-tipped cigarette and I stood there looking at them.

  I said: “I’m looking for a friend of yours, Mrs. Morny. I understand that she shared an apartment with you about a year ago. Her name is Linda Conquest.”

  Vannier flicked his eyes up, down, up, down. He turned his head and looked across the pool. The cocker spaniel named Heathcliff sat over there looking at us with the white of one eye.

  Vannier snapped his fingers. “Here, Heathcliff! Here, Heathcliff! Come here, sir!”

  The blond said: “Shut up. The dog hates your guts. Give your vanity a rest, for heavens sake.”

  Vannier snapped: “Don’t talk like that to me.”

  The blond giggled and petted his face with her eyes.

  I said: “I’m looking for a girl named Linda Conquest, Mrs. Morny.”

  The blond looked at me and said: “So you said. I was just thinking. I don’t think I’ve seen her in six months. She got married.”

  “You haven’t seen her in six months?”

  “That’s what I said, big boy. What do you want to know for?”

  “Just a private enquiry I’m making.”

  “About what?”

  “About a confidential matter,” I said.

  “Just think,” the blond said brightly. “He’s making a private enquiry about a confidential matter. You hear that, Lou? Busting in on total strangers that don’t want to see him is quite all right, though, isn’t it, Lou? On account of he’s making a private enquiry about a confidential matter.”

  “Then you don’t know where she is, Mrs. Morny?”

  “Didn’t I say so?” Her voice rose a couple of notches.

  “No. You said you didn’t think you had seen her in six months. Not quite the same thing.”

  “Who told you I shared an apartment with her?” the blond snapped.

  “I never reveal a source of information, Mrs. Morny.”

  “Sweetheart, you’re fussy enough to be a dance director. I should tell you everything, you should tell me nothing.”

  “The position is quite different,” I said. “I’m a hired hand obeying instructions. The lady has no reason to hide out, has she?”

  “Who’s looking for her?”

  “Her folks.”

  “Guess again. She doesn’t have any folks.”

  “You must know her pretty well, if you know that,” I said.

  “Maybe I did once. That don’t prove I do now.”

  “Okay,” I said. “The answer is you know, but you won’t tell.”

  “The answer,” Vannier said suddenly, “is that you’re not wanted here and the sooner you get out, the better we like it.”

  I kept on looking at Mrs. Morny. She winked at me and said to Vannier: “Don’t get so hostile, darling. You have a lot of charm, but you have small bones. You’re not built for the rough work. That right, big boy?”

  I said: “I hadn’t thought about it, Mrs. Morny. Do you think Mr. Morny could help me—or would?”

  She shook her head. “How would I know? You could try. If he don’t like you, he has guys around that can bounce you.”

  “I think you could tell me yourself, if you wanted to.”

  “How are you going to make me wa
nt to?” Her eyes were inviting.

  “With all these people around,” I said, “how can I?”

  “That’s a thought,” she said, and sipped from her glass, watching me over it.

  Vannier stood up very slowly. His face was white. He put his hand inside his shirt and said slowly, between his teeth: “Get out, mugg. While you can still walk.”

  I looked at him in surprise. “Where’s your refinement?” I asked him. “And don’t tell me you wear a gun with your garden clothes.”

  The blond laughed, showing a fine strong set of teeth. Vannier thrust his hand under his left arm inside the shirt and set his lips. His black eyes were sharp and blank at the same time, like a snake’s eyes.

  “You heard me,” he said, almost softly. “And don’t write me off too quick. I’d plug you as soon as I’d strike a match. And fix it afterwards.”

  I looked at the blond. Her eyes were bright and her mouth looked sensual and eager, watching us.

  I turned and walked away across the grass. About halfway across it I looked back at them. Vannier stood in exactly the same position, his hand inside his shirt. The blond’s eyes were still wide and her lips parted, but the shadow of the umbrella had dimmed her expression and at that distance it might have been either fear or pleased anticipation.

  I went on over the grass, through the white gate and along the brick path under the rose arbor. I reached the end of it, turned, walked quietly back to the gate and took another look at them. I didn’t know what there would be to see or what I cared about it when I saw it.

  What I saw was Vannier practically sprawled on top of the blond, kissing her.

  I shook my head and went back along the walk.

  The red-eyed chauffeur was still at work on the Cadillac. He had finished the wash job and was wiping off the glass and nickel with a large chamois. I went around and stood beside him.

  “How you come out?” he asked me out of the side of his mouth.

  “Badly. They tramped all over me,” I said.

  He nodded and went on making the hissing noise of a groom rubbing down a horse.

  “You better watch your step. The guy’s heeled,” I said. “Or pretends to be.”

  The chauffeur laughed shortly. “Under that suit? Nix.”

  “Who is this guy Vannier? What does he do?”

  The chauffeur straightened up, put the chamois over the sill of a window and wiped his hands on the towel that was now stuck in his waistband.

  “Women, my guess would be,” he said.

  “Isn’t it a bit dangerous—playing with this particular woman?”

  “I’d say it was,” he agreed. “Different guys got different ideas of danger. It would scare me.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “Sherman Oaks. She goes over there. She’ll go once too often.”

  “Ever run across a girl named Linda Conquest? Tall, dark, handsome, used to be a singer with a band?”

  “For two bucks, Jack, you expect a lot of service.”

  “I could build it up to five.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know the party. Not by that name. All kinds of dames come here, mostly pretty flashy. I don’t get introduced.” He grinned.

  I got my wallet out and put three ones in his little damp paw. I added a business card.

  “I like small close-built men,” I said. “They never seem to be afraid of anything. Come and see me some time.”

  “I might at that, Jack. Thanks. Linda Conquest, huh? I’ll keep my ear flaps off.”

  “So long,” I said. “The name?”

  “They call me Shifty. I never knew why.”

  “So long, Shifty.”

  “So long. Gat under his arm—in them clothes? Not a chance.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He made the motion. I’m not hired to gunfight with strangers.”

  “Hell, that shirt he’s wearing only got two buttons at the top. I noticed. Take him a week to pull a rod from under that.” But he sounded faintly worried.

  “I guess he was just bluffing,” I agreed. “If you hear mention of Linda Conquest, I’ll be glad to talk business with you.”

  “Okay, Jack.”

  I went back along the black driveway. He stood there scratching his chin.

  CHAPTER 6

  I drove along the block looking for a place to park so that I could run up to the office for a moment before going on downtown.

  A chauffeur-driven Packard edged out from the curb in front of a cigar store about thirty feet from the entrance to my building. I slid into the space, locked the car and stepped out. It was only then that I noticed the car in front of which I had parked was a familiar-looking sand-colored coupé. It didn’t have to be the same one. There were thousands of them. Nobody was in it. Nobody was near it that wore a cocoa straw hat with a brown and yellow band.

  I went around to the street side and looked at the steering post. No license holder. I wrote the license plate number down on the back of an envelope, just in case, and went on into my building. He wasn’t in the lobby, or in the corridor upstairs.

  I went into the office, looked on the floor for mail, didn’t find any, bought myself a short drink out of the office bottle and left. I didn’t have any time to spare to get downtown before three o’clock.

  The sand-colored coupé was still parked, still empty. I got into mine and started up and moved out into the traffic stream.

  I was below Sunset on Vine before he picked me up. I kept on going, grinning, and wondering where he had hid. Perhaps in the car parked behind his own. I hadn’t thought of that.

  I drove south to Third and all the way downtown on Third. The sand-colored coupé kept half a block behind me all the way. I moved over to Seventh and Grand, parked near Seventh and Olive, stopped to buy cigarettes I didn’t need, and then walked east along Seventh without looking behind me. At Spring I went into the Hotel Metropole, strolled over to the big horseshoe cigar counter to light one of my cigarettes and then sat down in one of the old brown leather chairs in the lobby.

  A blond man in a brown suit, dark glasses and the now familiar hat came into the lobby and moved unobtrusively among the potted palms and the stucco arches to the cigar counter. He bought a package of cigarettes and broke it open standing there, using the time to lean his back against the counter and give the lobby the benefit of his eagle eye.

  He picked up his change and went over and sat down with his back to a pillar. He tipped his hat down over his dark glasses and seemed to go to sleep with an unlighted cigarette between his lips.

  I got up and wandered over and dropped into the chair beside him. I looked at him sideways. He didn’t move. Seen at close quarters his face seemed young and pink and plump and the blond beard on his chin was very carelessly shaved. Behind the dark glasses his eyelashes flicked up and down rapidly. A hand on his knee tightened and pulled the cloth into wrinkles. There was a wart on his cheek just below the right eyelid.

  I struck a match and held the flame to his cigarette. “Light?”

  “Oh—thanks,” he said, very surprised. He drew breath in until the cigarette tip glowed. I shook the match out, tossed it into the sand jar at my elbow and waited. He looked at me sideways several times before he spoke.

  “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

  “Over on Dresden Avenue in Pasadena. This morning.”

  I could see his cheeks get pinker than they had been. He sighed.

  “I must be lousy,” he said.

  “Boy, you stink,” I agreed.

  “Maybe it’s the hat,” he said.

  “The hat helps,” I said. “But you don’t really need it.”

  “It’s a pretty tough dollar in this town,” he said sadly. “You can’t do it on foot, you ruin yourself with taxi fares if you use taxis, and if you use your own car, it’s always where you can’t get to it fast enough. You have to stay too close.”

  “But you don’t have to climb in a guy’s pocket,” I said. “Did you wa
nt something with me or are you just practising?”

  “I figured I’d find out if you were smart enough to be worth talking to.”

  “I’m very smart,” I said. “It would be a shame not to talk to me.”

  He looked carefully around back of his chair and on both sides of where we were sitting and then drew a small, pigskin wallet out. He handed me a nice fresh card from it. It read: George Anson Phillips. Confidential Investigations. 212 Senger Building, 1924 North Wilcox Avenue, Hollywood. A Glenview telephone number. In the upper left hand corner there was an open eye with an eyebrow arched in surprise and very long eyelashes.

  “You cant do that,” I said, pointing to the eye. “That’s the Pinkertons’. You’ll be stealing their business.”

  “Oh hell,” he said, “what little I get wouldn’t bother them.”

  I snapped the card on my fingernail and bit down hard on my teeth and slipped the card into my pocket.

  “You want one of mine—or have you completed your file on me?”

  “Oh, I know all about you,” he said. “I was a deputy at Ventura the time you were working on the Gregson case.”

  Gregson was a con man from Oklahoma City who was followed all over the United States for two years by one of his victims until he got so jittery that he shot up a service station attendant who mistook him for an acquaintance. It seemed a long time ago to me.

  I said: “Go on from there.”

  “I remembered your name when I saw it on your registration this A.M. So when I lost you on the way into town I just looked you up. I was going to come in and talk, but it would have been a violation of confidence. This way I kind of can’t help myself.”

  Another screwball. That made three in one day, not counting Mrs. Murdock, who might turn out to be a screwball too.

  I waited while he took his dark glasses off and polished them and put them on again and gave the neighborhood the once over again. Then he said:

  “I figured we could maybe make a deal. Pool our resources, as they say. I saw the guy go into your office, so I figured he had hired you.”

  “You knew who he was?”

  “I’m working on him,” he said, and his voice sounded flat and discouraged. “And where I am getting is no place at all.”