Poodle Springs

17

The sun had moved west toward the beach and slanted in lower so that the shadows in the parking lot were long and rakish. The shopping crowd had thinned as housewives went home to start dinner and get it on the table before hubby got his third Manhattan in. The first trickle of the commuter flood was beginning to slow down on Sepulveda, heading north toward West L.A. and the Valley. Victor was browsing through my cigarettes like a goat through clover. I took the pipe out of my coat pocket and packed it and got it going right and leaned back in my seat against the door.

"I didn't kill her," Victor said.

"Say you didn't, for the moment. Say you're a shifty bastard and a bigamist and a compulsive gambler and a pornographer and a gigolo, but say I don't see you for murder. Tell me how she ends up in your office sitting at your desk with a bullet hole in her forehead?"

"That's pretty rough, Marlowe."

"Sure it is, but it's nowhere as rough as it's going to be when you're down in the hall of justice in the back room where the cops sit around with their feet on the railing."

"If they find me," he said.

"Find you? You poor simp, I found you in three days on a skipped IOU. You think the cops can't find you on suspicion of murder one? You think I was the only person to see you argue with that blonde in Reno's? What was her name?"

"I don't know. Lola, Lola something. I hardly knew her."

"What were you arguing about?"

"She was drunk."

"What were you arguing about?"

"I used to date her," Victor said.

"Un huh, but you don't know her last name."

He shrugged. "You know how it is, Marlowe."

"No," I said. "I don't."

"You meet a lot of jillies, you sleep with them, they get to thinking it's more serious than you do."

"But not serious enough to tell you their last name," I said.

"Well, I suppose she said, but, hey, I can't remember every name, huh?" He was making a comeback, the fear was shifting back a little, into the shade. I was going to help him, oh, boy.

"Remember this one, pal, or I'll drive you straight downtown."

"Jesus Christ," he said again. The fear was back. "Don't do that. I can remember, her name was, ah…"

He pretended to be thinking hard.

"Her name was Faithful, Lola Faithful. I think maybe she used to hoof it a little."

"Lola Faithful," I said.

"Yeah, probably a stage name, but that's how she was in the book when I used to be dating her. Honest to God."

"And she was mad because you weren't dating her anymore."

"Yeah," Victor said, "right. She was mad as hell, Marlowe."

"How long you been married to Angel?"

"Three years and, ah, seven months."

"Break up with Lola before that?"

"Sure, hell, what kind of guy you think I am?"

"I don't want to know."

"Yeah," Victor said, "broke up with Lola long time before we got married, Soon as I started going with Angel I tossed her over."

"Uh huh," I said. "So like four years ago you ditched Lola Faithful, and a few days ago she braces you in a bar and starts screaming about it?"

"She carries a torch, Marlowe, not my fault."

I puffed a little on my pipe and squinted at him through the smoke. "I've heard sailors tell better stories to Filipino barmaids," I said.

"Well, if you don't believe me then why the hell are you sitting here with me?"

"Two things, maybe three," I said. "One, you're not the type. You're a con man, a booster, a guy that always has a little grift going; I don't think you've got the iron in your bones that it takes to kill a man."

"You ever kill anybody, tough guy?" Victor said.

"Second," I said, "why would you kill her there in your office and leave her there and not even lock the door? You'd be inviting the coppers to come and get you and say you did it."

"Yeah," he said. "I'm not that stupid."

"We'll see," I said.

"You said maybe three reasons," Victor said. "What's the other one?"

He fished the last cigarette out of my pack and crumpled the pack and threw it out the side window. Then he pushed in the car lighter and waited for it to pop.

"Like I said, I'm a romantic."

Victor turned toward me. "I didn't kill her, Marlowe. You've got to believe that."

"I don't have to," I said. "We'll make it a working hypothesis for the moment. You got a place to coop?"

"How about your place?" Victor said.

"My place is occupied," I said.

"Yeah, but, you know, I wouldn't take up a lot of room."

"Occupied," I said, "by my wife, and myself. You're not invited."

"Christ, Marlowe, I got no place to go the cops wouldn't think of."

"They know about Muriel?" I said.

"No, Jesus, nobody knows about her."

"Go there," I said.

"Muriel's?"

"Why not? She's your wife, she thinks. It's your house."

He shook his head. "It's her house," he said. "Her and her old man's."

"You rather spend the night with your back to the wall in the lock-up?"

Victor was silent. The cigarette was down to a stub between his first two fingers. He took another drag, carefully, not burning his lips.

"How'm I going to get there?" he said.

"I'll drive you."

"All the way to Poodle Springs?"

"I live there," I said. "It's on my way home."

"You live in the Springs?" Victor said.

"Sure," I said. "Look at my jawline, the tilt of my chin."

"Marlowe," he said. "Holy Christ, are you the guy that married Harlan Potter's daughter?"

"She married me," I said.

"For chrissake, you live right down the street from me."

"Small world," I said.