The Collected Raymond Chandler

by Raymond Chandler

  “I love it,” I said. “But what is the satisfaction in it for Hench?”

  “Well, you know how a drunk is. Anyway he gives him the business. Well it ain’t Hench’s gun, you see, but he can’t make a suicide out of it. There wouldn’t be any satisfaction for him in that. So Hench takes the gun away and puts it under his pillow and takes his own gun out and ditches it. He won’t tell us where. Probably passes it to some tough guy in the neighborhood. Then he finds the girl and they eat.”

  “That was a lovely touch,” I said. “Putting the gun under his pillow. I’d never in the world have thought of that.”

  Breeze leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. Spangler, the big part of the entertainment over, swung around in his chair and picked up a couple of bank pens and threw one at the cushion.

  “Look at it this way,” Breeze said. “What was the effect of that stunt? Look how Hench did it. He was drunk, but he was smart. He found that gun and showed it before Phillips was found dead. First we get the idea that a gun is under Hench’s pillow that killed a guy—been fired anyway—and then we get the stiff. We believed Hench’s story. It seemed reasonable. Why would we think any man would be such a sap as to do what Hench did? It doesn’t make any sense. So we believed somebody put the gun under Hench’s pillow and took Hench’s gun away and ditched it. And suppose Hench ditched the death gun instead of his own, would he have been any better off? Things being what they were we would be bound to suspect him. And that way he wouldn’t have started our minds thinking any particular way about him. The way he did he got us thinking he was a harmless drunk that went out and left his door open and somebody ditched a gun on him.”

  He waited, with his mouth a little open and the cigar in front of it, held up by a hard freckled hand and his pale blue eyes full of dim satisfaction.

  “Well,” I said, “if he was going to confess anyway, it wouldn’t have made very much difference. Will he cop a plea?”

  “Sure. I think so. I figure Palermo could get him off with manslaughter. Naturally I’m not sure.”

  “Why would Palermo want to get him off with anything?”

  “He kind of likes Hench. And Palermo is a guy we can’t push around.”

  I said: “I see.” I stood up. Spangler looked at me sideways along glistening eyes. “What about the girl?”

  “Won’t say a word. She’s smart. We can’t do anything to her. Nice neat little job all around. You wouldn’t kick, would you? Whatever your business is, it’s still your business. Get me?”

  “And the girl is a tall blond,” I said. “Not of the freshest, but still a tall blond. Although only one. Maybe Palermo doesn’t mind.”

  “Hell, I never thought of that,” Breeze said. He thought about it and shook it off. “Nothing in that, Marlowe. Not enough class.”

  “Cleaned up and sober, you never can tell,” I said. “Class is a thing that has a way of dissolving rapidly in alcohol. That all you want with me?”

  “Guess so.” He slanted the cigar up and aimed it at my eye. “Not that I wouldn’t like to hear your story. But I don’t figure I have an absolute right to insist on it the way things are.”

  “That’s white of you, Breeze,” I said. “And you too, Spangler. A lot of the good things in life to both of you.”

  They watched me go out, both with their mouths a little open.

  I rode down to the big marble lobby and went and got my car out of the official parking lot.

  CHAPTER 24

  Mr. Pietro Palermo was sitting in a room which, except for a mahogany roll-top desk, a sacred triptych in gilt frames and a large ebony and ivory crucifixion, looked exactly like a Victorian parlor. It contained a horseshoe sofa and chairs with carved mahogany frames and antimacassars of fine lace. There was an ormolu clock on the gray green marble mantel, a grandfather clock ticking lazily in the corner, and some wax flowers under a glass dome on an oval table with a marble top and curved elegant legs. The carpet was thick and full of gentle sprays of flowers. There was even a cabinet for bric-a-brac and there was plenty of bric-a-brac in it, little cups in fine china, little figurines in glass and porcelain, odds and ends of ivory and dark rosewood, painted saucers, an early American set of swan salt cellars, stuff like that.

  Long lace curtains hung across the windows, but the room faced south and there was plenty of light. Across the street I could see the windows of the apartment where George Anson Phillips had been killed. The street between was sunny and silent.

  The tall Italian with the dark skin and the handsome head of iron gray hair read my card and said:

  “I got business in twelve minutes. What you want, Meester Marlowe?”

  “I’m the man that found the dead man across the street yesterday. He was a friend of mine.”

  His cold black eyes looked me over silently. “That’sa not what you tell Luke.”

  “Luke?”

  “He manage the joint for me.”

  “I don’t talk much to strangers, Mr. Palermo.”

  “That’sa good. You talk to me, huh?”

  “You’re a man of standing, an important man. I can talk to you. You saw me yesterday. You described me to the police. Very accurately, they said.”

  “Si. I see much,” he said without emotion.

  “You saw a tall blond woman come out of there yesterday.”

  He studied me. “Not yesterday. Wasa two three days ago. I tell the coppers yesterday.” He snapped his long dark fingers. “The coppers, bah!”

  “Did you see any strangers yesterday, Mr. Palermo?”

  “Is back way in and out,” he said. “Is stair from second floor also.” He looked at his wrist watch.

  “Nothing there then,” I said. “This morning you saw Hench.”

  He lifted his eyes and ran them lazily over my face. “The coppers tell you that, huh?”

  “They told me you got Hench to confess. They said he was a friend of yours. How good a friend they didn’t know, of course.”

  “Hench make the confess, huh?” He smiled, a sudden brilliant smile.

  “Only Hench didn’t do the killing,” I said.

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “That’sa interesting. Go on, Meester Marlowe.”

  “The confession is a lot of baloney. You got him to make it for some reason of your own.”

  He stood up and went to the door and called out: “Tony.”

  He sat down again. A short tough-looking wop came into the room, looked at me and sat down against the wall in a straight chair.

  “Tony, thees man a Meester Marlowe. Look, take the card.”

  Tony came to get the card and sat down with it. “You look at thees man very good, Tony. Not forget him, huh?”

  Tony said: “Leave it to me, Mr. Palermo.”

  Palermo said: “Was a friend to you, huh? A good friend, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’sa bad. Yeah. That’sa bad. I tell you something. A man’s friend is a man’s friend. So I tell you. But you don’ tell anybody else. Not the damn coppers, huh?”

  “No.”

  “That’sa promise, Meester Marlowe. That’sa something not to forget. You not forget?”

  “I won’t forget.”

  “Tony, he not forget you. Get the idea?”

  “I gave you my word. What you tell me is between us here.”

  “That’sa fine. Okay. I come of large family. Many sisters and brothers. One brother very bad. Almost so bad as Tony.”

  Tony grinned.

  “Okay, thees brother live very quiet. Across the street. Gotta move. Okay, the coppers fill the joint up. Not so good. Ask too many questions. Not good for business, not good for thees bad brother. You get the idea?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I get the idea.”

  “Okay, thees Hench no good, but poor guy, drunk, no job. Pay no rent, but I got lotsa money. So I say, Look, Hench, you make the confess. You sick man. Two three weeks sick. You go into court. I have a lawyer for you. You
say to hell with the confess. I was drunk. The damn coppers are stuck. The judge he turn you loose and you come back to me and I take care of you. Okay? So Hench say okay, make the confess. That’sa all.”

  I said: “And after two or three weeks the bad brother is a long way from here and the trail is cold and the cops will likely just write the Phillips killing off as unsolved. Is that it?”

  “Si.” He smiled again. A brilliant warm smile, like the kiss of death.

  “That takes care of Hench, Mr. Palermo,” I said. “But it doesn’t help me much about my friend.”

  He shook his head and looked at his watch again. I stood up. Tony stood up. He wasn’t going to do anything, but it’s better to be standing up. You move faster.

  “The trouble with you birds,” I said, “is you make mystery of nothing. You have to give the password before you bite a piece of bread. If I went down to headquarters and told the boys everything you have told me, they would laugh in my face. And I would be laughing with them.”

  “Tony don’t laugh much,” Palermo said.

  “The earth is full of people who don’t laugh much, Mr. Palermo,” I said. “You ought to know. You put a lot of them where they are.”

  “Is my business,” he said, shrugging enormously.

  “I’ll keep my promise,” I said. “But in case you should get to doubting that, don’t try to make any business for yourself out of me. Because in my part of town I’m a pretty good man and if the business got made out of Tony instead, it would be strictly on the house. No profit.”

  Palermo laughed. “That’sa good,” he said. “Tony. One funeral—on the house. Okay.”

  He stood up and held his hand out, a fine strong warm hand.

  CHAPTER 25

  In the lobby of the Belfont Building, in the single elevator that had light in it, on the piece of folded burlap, the same watery-eyed relic sat motionless, giving his imitation of the forgotten man. I got in with him and said. “Six.”

  The elevator lurched into motion and pounded its way upstairs. It stopped at six, I got out, and the old man leaned out of the car to spit and said in a dull voice:

  “What’s cookin?”

  I turned around all in one piece, like a dummy on a revolving platform. I stared at him.

  He said: “You got a gray suit on today.”

  “So I have,” I said. “Yes.”

  “Looks nice,” he said. “I like the blue you was wearing yesterday too.”

  “Go on,” I said. “Give out.”

  “You rode up to eight,” he said. “Twice. Second time was late. You got back on at six. Shortly after that the boys in blue came bustlin’ in.”

  “Any of them up there now?”

  He shook his head. His face was like a vacant lot. “I ain’t told them anything,” he said. “Too late to mention it now. They’d eat my ass off.”

  I said: “Why?”

  “Why I ain’t told them? The hell with them. You talked to me civil. Damn few people do that. Hell, I know you didn’t have nothing to do with that killing.”

  “I played you wrong,” I said. “Very wrong.” I got a card out and gave it to him. He fished a pair of metal-framed glasses out of his pocket, perched them on his nose and held the card a foot away from them. He read it slowly, moving his lips, looked at me over the glasses, handed me back the card.

  “Better keep it,” he said. “Case I get careless and drop it. Mighty interestin’ life yours, I guess.”

  “Yes and no. What was the name?”

  “Grandy. Just call me Pop. Who killed him?”

  “I don’t know. Did you notice anybody going up there or coming down—anybody that seemed out of place in this building, or strange to you?”

  “I don’t notice much,” he said. “I just happened to notice you.”

  “A tall blond, for instance, or a tall slender man with sideburns, about thirty-five years old.”

  “Nope.”

  “Everybody going up or down about then would ride in your car.”

  He nodded his worn head. “Less they used the fire stairs. They come out in the alley, bar-lock door. Party would have to come in this way, but there’s stairs back of the elevator to the second floor. From there they can get to the fire stairs. Nothing to it.”

  I nodded. “Mr. Grandy, could you use a five dollar bill—not as a bribe in any sense, but as a token of esteem from a sincere friend?”

  “Son, I could use a five dollar bill so rough Abe Lincoln’s whiskers would be all lathered up with sweat.”

  I gave him one. I looked at it before I passed it over. It was Lincoln on the five, all right.

  He tucked it small and put it away deep in his pocket. “That’s right nice of you,” he said. “I hope to hell you didn’t think I was fishin.”

  I shook my head and went along the corridor, reading the names again. Dr. E. J. Blaskowitz, Chiropractic Physician. Dalton and Rees, Typewriting Service. L. Pridview, Public Accountant. Four blank doors. Moss Mailing Company. Two more blank doors. H. R. Teager, Dental Laboratories. In the same relative position as the Morningstar office two floors above, but the rooms were cut up differently. Teager had only one door and there was more wall space in between his door and the next one.

  The knob didn’t turn. I knocked. There was no answer. I knocked harder, with the same result. I went back to the elevator. It was still at the sixth floor. Pop Grandy watched me come as if he had never seen me before.

  “Know anything about H. R. Teager?” I asked him.

  He thought. “Heavy-set, oldish, sloppy clothes, dirty fingernails, like mine. Come to think I didn’t see him in today.”

  “Do you think the super would let me into his office to look around?”

  “Pretty nosey, the super is. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  He turned his head very slowly and looked up the side of the car. Over his head on a big metal ring a key was hanging. A pass-key. Pop Grandy turned his head back to normal position, stood up off his stool and said: “Right now I gotta go to the can.”

  He went. When the door had closed behind him I took the key off the cage wall and went back along to the office of H. R. Teager, unlocked it and went in.

  Inside was a small windowless anteroom on the furnishings of which a great deal of expense had been spared. Two chairs, a smoking stand from a cut rate drugstore, a standing lamp from the basement of some borax emporium, a flat stained wood table with some old picture magazines on it. The door closed behind me on the door closer and the place went dark except for what little light came through the pebbled glass panel. I pulled the chain switch of the lamp and went over to the inner door in a wall that cut across the room. It was marked: H. R. Teager. Private. It was not locked.

  Inside it there was a square office with two uncurtained east windows and very dusty sills. There was a swivel chair and two straight chairs, both plain hard stained wood, and there was a squarish flat-topped desk. There was nothing on the top of it except an old blotter and a cheap pen set and a round glass ash tray with cigar ash in it. The drawers of the desk contained some dusty paper linings, a few wire clips, rubber bands, worn down pencils, pens, rusty pen points, used blotters, four uncancelled two-cent stamps, and some printed letterheads, envelopes and bill forms.

  The wire paper basket was full of junk. I almost wasted ten minutes going through it rather carefully. At the end of that time I knew what I was pretty sure of already: that H. R. Teager carried on a small business as a dental technician doing laboratory work for a number of dentists in unprosperous sections of the city, the kind of dentists who have shabby offices on second floor walk-ups over stores, who lack both the skill and the equipment to do their own laboratory work, and who like to send it out to men like themselves, rather than to the big efficient hard-boiled laboratories who wouldn’t give them any credit.

  I did find one thing. Teager’s home address at 1354B Toberman Street on the receipted part of a gas bill.

  I straightened up, dumped the stuff back
into the basket and went over to the wooden door marked Laboratory. It had a new Yale lock on it and the pass-key didn’t fit it. That was that. I switched off the lamp in the outer office and left.

  The elevator was downstairs again. I rang for it and when it came up I sidled in around Pop Grandy, hiding the key, and hung it up over his head. The ring tinkled against the cage. He grinned.

  “He’s gone,” I said. “Must have left last night. Must have been carrying a lot of stuff. His desk is cleaned out.”

  Pop Grandy nodded. “Carried two suitcases. I wouldn’t notice that, though. Most always does carry a suitcase. I figure he picks up and delivers his work.”

  “Work such as what?” I asked as the car growled down. Just to be saying something.

  “Such as makin’ teeth that don’t fit,” Pop Grandy said. “For poor old bastards like me.”

  “You wouldn’t notice,” I said, as the doors struggled open on the lobby. “You wouldn’t notice the color of a hummingbird’s eye at fifty feet. Not much you wouldn’t.”

  He grinned. “What’s he done?”

  “I’m going over to his house and find out,” I said. “I think most likely he’s taken a cruise to nowhere.”

  “I’d shift places with him,” Pop Grandy said. “Even if he only got to Frisco and got pinched there, I’d shift places with him.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Toberman Street. A wide dusty street, off Pico. No. 1354B was an upstairs flat, south, in a yellow and white frame building. The entrance door was on the porch, beside another marked 1352B. The entrances to the downstairs flats were at right angles, facing each other across the width of the porch. I kept on ringing the bell, even after I was sure that nobody would answer it. In a neighborhood like that there is always an expert window-peeker.