Poodle Springs

11

We had our first open house of the winter season, or Linda did. I tried to stay out of the way. And failed. At 5:30 when the first guests arrived I was there wearing a white jacket that Linda loved and I didn't. As people came in Linda acted as if they were more welcome than a cool shower in August. I knew for a fact she despised at least one in three. My average was higher and it grew as the night wore on.

There were probably two hundred people. Tino tended bar, beautiful in a tuxedo that fit him the way clothes only fit Asian houseboys. The caterer's people moved balletically among the throngs, bearing silver trays of champagne and edible doodads. I leaned on the bar, nursing a Scotch.

"So you're the new hubby," a woman said to me.

"I prefer 'current heartthrob'" I said.

"Of course you do," the woman said. "My name's Mousy Fairchild. Linda and I have known each other for nearly ever, for a couple of very young women."

The thing I noticed first about her was that she smelled of rain-washed flowers, and the second that her pale violet silk gown clung to her like the skin clings to a grape. Her hair was blonder than God had ever intended, and her skin was darkly and evenly tanned which made her perfect teeth seem even whiter when she smiled. Her lips were touched with the same color as her dress and the lower lip was quite full and looked as if it was designed to be nibbled on.

"Would you like something besides the fizzy grape juice?" I said.

"Oh, you are a dear. Yes, I'll have a vodka martini on the rocks with a twist," she said. "Shaken first."

I looked at Tino. He was already mixing the martini. Tino was a boy who wasted no time not listening.

"Be a dear," Mousy said, "make it a double."

Tino smiled as if never had he enjoyed such a pleasure and added more vodka to the shaker.

"Do you have a cigarette?" she said.

I produced a pack and shook one loose.

"My God," she said. "A Camel? If I smoke that I may faint."

She took it and leaned toward me while I held a match for her. When it was lit she stayed leaning toward me and sucked in the smoke while she looked at me from her half-lowered eyes, while the smoke drifted between us.

"Beautiful," I said. "I've practiced that look for hours in my mirror and I can't seem to get it like that."

"Bastard," she said, and straightened up. "If I faint will you blow into my mouth?"

"No," I said. I treated myself to one of my cigarettes.

"Well," Mousy said, "you are different. Did you know Linda's first husband?"

"Yes."

"Boring man. Took himself so unutterably seriously. Do you take yourself seriously?"

"Thursdays," I said, "when I go for my pedicure."

Mousy smiled and took a significant guzzle of her martini. She reached out with her left hand and squeezed my arm.

"My," she said, "don't we have biceps."

I let that slide. All the answers I could think of sounded a little silly, including yes and no.

"Do detectives have fights, Mr. Marlowe?" she said.

"Sometimes," I said. "Usually we put the criminal in his place with a well-polished phrase."

"Are you carrying a gun?"

I shook my head. "I didn't know you'd be here," I said.

A leathery specimen with short grey hair came over and put a hand on her elbow. Her smile was all light and no heat as she turned toward him.

"Mr. Marlowe," she said, "this is my husband, Morton Fairchild."

Morton nodded at me without interest.

"Pleased," he said, and steered his wife away from the bar and toward the dance floor.

"I don't think that man liked me," I said to Tino.

"It is not that, Mr. Marlowe," Tino said. "I do not think that he wishes his wife to be near both a man and a bar."

"You don't miss much, do you, Tino?"

"No, Mr. Marlowe, only those things I am supposed to miss."

Linda appeared with a guest.

"Darling," she said, "I'd love to have you meet Cord Havoc. Cord, this is my husband, Philip Marlowe."

"By God, Marlowe, I'm glad to meet you," Havoc said. He put out a big square hand. I shook it firmly. I knew who he was all right. I'd seen him in three or four bad movies. He was a dreamboat, six feet tall, even features, a strong jaw, pale blue eyes set wide apart. His teeth were perfectly even. His clothes fit him the way Tino's tux fitted him.

"I'm damned glad, Marlowe, that this little girl has finally found the right guy. Broke my heart and a lot of others when she did, but damn it's good to see her happy."

I smiled at him becomingly. While I was smiling he held his glass out toward Tino without even looking at him and Tino filled it with bourbon. Havoc took a good third of it at a swallow.

"Cord's new picture will be opening next week," Linda said.

"Gangster show," Havoc said, and took in another third of his drink. "Probably seem pretty tame to you, Marlowe."

"Sure would," I said. "Normally this time of the afternoon I strangle an alligator."

Havoc put his head back and laughed loudly. Then he finished his drink.

"Atta boy, Phil." He held his now empty glass out and Tino hit it again. "You can thank me, boy. All the time before she met you I was looking out for her." He laughed again, with the tossing head movement that he'd used before.

"Cord, you know you weren't looking out for me," Linda said. "You were attempting to get me into bed."

Cord's muzzle was in his drink. He took it out and gave me a little elbow and said, "Can you blame me, Phil?"

As he spoke his eyes swept the room. He was not a boy who wanted to miss a chance. Before I had a chance to say whether I blamed him, he spotted someone.

"Hey, Manny," he shouted and burst off across the dining room toward a weasly-looking little bald guy with a deep tan and an open shirt, with the collar carefully out over the lapels of his cream and plaid camel jacket.

"Must have been hard," I said to Linda, "not to tumble in the hay with him."

"Mostly," Linda said, "when he tumbles into the hay, he passes out."

She leaned over and kissed me lightly on the lips.

"Right out in public?" I said.

"I want everyone to know who belongs to whom, here," she said.

"Mostly it matters that you and I know," I said.

She smiled and patted my cheek. "We do, darling, don't we."

I nodded and she swept off to greet a new guest as if they had risen from the dead. Mousy Fairchild seemed to have shaken off her husband for a moment and swept past me with a tall dark guy in a good suit. She stopped, ordered another martini from Tino and said, "Meet the lucky man," to the dark guy in the good suit.

"Mr. Marlowe," she said to me, "this is Mr. Steele."

Steele put out his hand. His eyes were steady and blank, his face was healthy looking and smooth. He was a man who looked like he could move quickly and you better move quickly too. We shook hands. Mousy's husband trudged over and retrieved her.

I said, "Used to be a guy named Steele, Arnie Steele, ran the rackets in San Berdoo and Riverside."

"Is that so?" Steele said. "Understand you're a private cop."

"When I'm not passing canapes," I said, "and cleaning up after bridge parties."

"Nice little deal," Steele said, "marrying into all that dough."

"Peachy," I said. "I heard this Steele guy got out of the rackets, maybe four, five years ago. Bought himself a place in the desert."

"Knew when to get out, huh?" Steele said.

"Uh huh," I said.

The weasly little bald guy with the deep tan and the open shirt came over to Steele.

"Arnie," he said, "excuse me, but I'd like you to meet somebody. Cord Havoc, the movie star, biggest thing in the country this year. We're thinking of putting something together you might be interested in."

Steele nodded without expression as the weasel edged him away from me with his shoulder. As he left Steele glanced at me over the weasel's head.

"Stay loose, Shoo-Fly," he said.

I nodded. Tino stepped over and refreshed my drink with a lovely little economical flourish. When I turned back from the bar I was nose to nose and elsewhere with a piece of blonde business in a frantic decolletage who was drunker than two billy goats. Her eyes were very large and very blue.

"Are you in pictures, Mr. Marlowe?"

"I couldn't make it," I said. "They went for the horse instead."

"Somebody said you was in pictursh," she said. The s's were all slushy. She leaned against me and the push-'em-up underwire bra jammed into my rib cage.

"I'm in pictures," she said.

"I knew you were," I said.

"I'm an actress." The s's were increasingly difficult for her. "I'm in a lot of pirate things. I play a wench. You know? I wear low dresses and bend over in front of the camera a lot. Director says to me do your dip, now, Cherry. Like everybody knows about me."

"Now I do too," I said. She was not leaning into me out of passion, she was leaning for support.

"Did you come with someone?" I said.

"Sure, Mr. Steele brought me. I'd never come to some swell's house like this, unless Mr. Steele or somebody brought me."

"Aw, I bet you get to go everywhere," I said.

She smiled at me and hiccupped and began to slide to the floor. I got her under the arms and dragged her back upright, got my left arm around her back and my right under her knees and hoisted her up in my arms just as all strength left her and she went limp.

Tino came around the bar.

"Sir?"

"Tell Mr. Steele I'd like to see him, Tino." Tino nodded and glided across the room, moving through the crowd without any apparent effort, bumping into no one. I saw him speak to Steele, who turned and glanced at me. His face didn't change but he nodded once, looked at the front door and jerked his head toward me.

A languid blond man with longish hair reassembled himself away from the wall where he'd been leaning and came over to me. "I'll take her," he said.

"She's dead weight," I said. "Can you handle her?" He grinned and put out his arms. I transferred her and he ambled away, out the front door and into the darkness. In maybe two minutes he was back.

"In the car," he said, "back seat, on her side. Lay her on her back and she snores."

"Thanks," I said. He nodded and went back to his post by the front door. Steele never glanced at him or me again.

"The lady is all right, Mr. Marlowe?"

"Sleeping it off in the car, Tino."

"The lady may be more fortunate than you, sir."

"Think of the excitement she's missing," I said.

"Yes, sir," Tino said.