Captain Gregory gazed sadly at me across his desk and slowly shook his head.
“You got a better chance of getting a search warrant for the White House,” Gregory said. “I told you Bonsentir was wired. Simpson’s who he’s wired to.”
“Just because he’s got a hundred million dollars?”
“Just because of that,” Gregory said. “I know it shouldn’t be that way, and you know it shouldn’t be that way, but you and I both been around too long to think it won’t be that way here in the good old USA.”
“Even though I have reason to believe that there’s a missing girl there, maybe a kidnap victim?”
“You got the word of one wappy old dame in a sanitarium who spends her time reading stuff would make me blush.”
“And Mrs. Rudnick’s denial that she’d ever heard of the Sternwoods?”
“Maybe she hasn’t. Maybe she doesn’t know everyone her boss knows. Maybe Vivian knows him and he don’t know her. Just because she knows him don’t mean he’s got her sister.”
“Be a pretty fair-sized coincidence,” I said. “The old lady in Resthaven tells me Carmen’s with a guy named Simpson, and Vivian knows a guy named Simpson.”
“Sure,” Gregory said. “I don’t like coincidence either. In the cop business you learn to doubt it. But it happens. And even if you and me and the mayor all saw her there, you still don’t get a search warrant in this county to go through Randolph Simpson’s house.”
“He buy a piece of you too, Captain?” I said.
Gregory shifted comfortably in his chair and fumbled in his coat for pipe and tobacco.
“Sure,” he said. “I’m just a dumb crooked copper. Everybody buys me. I got it coming in in grocery sacks. Which is why I’m driving a ten-year-old heap and living in a house too small and take the old lady out, maybe once a month, for an enchilada and a small beer.”
“Forget I said that,” I said.
“I try and stay reasonably honest, Marlowe. And I try to do my job. But I got a kid to put through college and I got retirement pay to think about. I do what I can.”
“Sure,” I said.
“You’re not going to leave this alone, are you, Marlowe?”
“It’s how I make my living, Captain. People hire me to do stuff that the cops don’t or won’t do. It doesn’t help my career to leave things unfinished. All I got to sell is that I’ll stick to something, that I’ll take it to the end, you know?”
Gregory nodded. He had the pipe filled and was lighting it as carefully as he always did everything. As if it were the most important thing he would do that day, maybe ever.
“Where I can help you, son, I will. But don’t look for much.”
“I never have, Captain.”
Gregory nodded again, and took in a lot of pipe smoke and let it out in a slow reflective cloud that hung in the air between us. He put up a thick hand and waved it gently to dispel the smoke.
“You got any next of kin?” he said.
“No,” I said. “Anything you care to tell me about Simpson except how rich he is?”
“Nope,” Gregory said. “You know more than you ought to now.”
“Thanks for the encouragement, Captain. I hope you enjoy your pension.”
“Hit the road, Marlowe,” Gregory said. “I’m tired of talking with you.”
“Sorry to disturb your nap,” I said and turned and left the office.
Outside the heat shimmered up off the pavement like a mirage. The tar on the streets was soft from it. I drove back out Sunset to Hollywood with the top down and the hot wind in my face.