Poodle Springs

38

It was still raining the next morning, the kind of steady rain under solid clouds that makes you think it will never stop. I shook the water off my trench coat and hung it in the corner of my office. I had coffee in a paper cup that I had bought downstairs and, after my coat was put away, I sat down at my desk to sip it. I was wearing my .38 in a shoulder holster. Eddie Garcia had been talking pretty tough and, besides, if it kept raining I might have to shoot my way on board an ark.

The coffee was too hot for more than a shallow sip, and after one I put it on the corner of my desk where I could reach it when it cooled. My outer door opened and closed. There was a brief clack of heels and then Muffy Blackstone came in out of the rain. She was wearing a scarlet raincoat and matching rain hat. Over her shoulder was a large black purse and her feet were protected by shiny black high-heeled boots. Her hands were plunged into the pockets of the coat. She took one of them out to close my inner door behind her, then she marched around in front of my desk and stared down at me.

"Good weather for ducks," I said pleasantly.

She kept staring. I nodded at the coffee on the corner of my desk. A small tassel of stream drifted up from it.

"Care for a sip?" I said. "I don't have another cup, but I brushed my teeth good this morning."

She took her hands out of her pockets and opened her big shoulder purse and took out the manila envelope I'd mailed her.

She tossed it on my desk without a word. I reached out, took it, took the picture out. I looked at the picture and then carefully at her, turning my head sideways at one point to compare her face with that in the picture.

"Yep," I said finally, "that's you."

"Where did you get it?" she said. Her face was very tight but her voice was surprisingly lilting.

"Lola Faithful had it hidden," I said. "I found it in the checked-baggage room at Union Station."

"Why did you send it to me?" she said. The lilt in her voice was more pronounced. It wasn't calmness, I realized, it was the sing-song of hysteria.

"I have been walking around the edges of this case since I started. I thought maybe if I couldn't get in I could get someone to come out."

"You are… trying…" Her voice began to go on her.

It would rise in a fluty way and then fail and she'd start again in the lower registers. "You… are trying… to ruin… my marriage," she trilled.

I shook my head. "No, I'm trying to find your husband, and I'm trying to find out who killed Lola Faithful and Lippy," I said. "And so far I'm not doing a hell of a job at it."

"Who… To whom have you… shown this… picture?

"I have not shown it to your father," I said.

"You leave my father out of this, you filthy…" The words came in a rush and she had no finish for them. She couldn't think of anything filthy enough to fit me.

"I thought you liked having your picture passed around," I said. "How come you're throwing a wing-ding?"

"What do you know?" she said, and her voice was no longer lilting. It had sunk into her chest. There was a little bubble of saliva at the left corner of her mouth. She was still standing in front of the desk, her feet wide apart, her hands back in the pockets of her raincoat. She wore bright red lipstick and a lot of stuff on her eyes, but her face was pale, nearly chalky, as if she'd never seen the desert.

"I know you met Les when he was taking pictures out of an office down on Highland Ave. I know you liked posing nude, liked having the picture distributed, wanted it to be seen. I know you've had a life full of dope and booze and a string of wrong guys, and I know your old man has bailed you out of every one."

"Or sent Eddie," she said. The bubble of saliva was still there.

I waited. She gnawed a little on her lower lip, enough to smear the thick lipstick. She licked the corners of her mouth with the tip of her tongue. First the right, then the left. The saliva bubble disappeared.

"You working for my father?" she said.

"He hired me to find Larry for you, and bring him back."

"Don't call him that," she said, her voice still in her chest. "Don't call him Larry."

"Sure," I said.

"He doesn't want you to bring him back to me. He just wants you to find him so Eddie can kill him."

"Why would he do that?" I said.

"Because he won't let anyone have me. He'll never let me go. He finds a way, always."

"How come he let you marry Les?" I said.

"We ran away and when we came back we were already married," she said. "It was too late."

"That wouldn't have bothered a guy like Black-stone," I said. "A little thing like marriage? And it sure wouldn't bother Eddie Garcia."

"I knew you wouldn't believe me," she said. Her voice was starting to flute upward again. "No one will. He'll ruin this too… like he ruined everything… and you'll help him."

The saliva had appeared again at the corner of her mouth, and her voice was into the range where only dogs could hear her. "Why don't you sit down, Mrs. Valentine," I said. Her hands came out of her pockets again, and in her right hand was a gun. It wasn't very big. It was silver plated and what I could see of the handle was pearl. It was a cute gun, a gun for a lady to carry, a nice little cute automatic, probably a.25. Maybe hot-loaded. The cruel black eye of the gun never wavered as she pointed it at me. It wouldn't make a very big hole in my forehead. Probably wouldn't even make an exit wound, just ricochet around inside there so the coroner could find it with no trouble when they did the autopsy on me downtown.

She held the gun in both hands, straight out in front of her, her knees bent a little, feet comfortably apart just like someone taught her. Her mouth was open and her tongue moved rapidly back and forth across her lower lip. She was breathing through her nose in little snorts.

"He loves me," she said, "And I won't… let… you… spoil…"

Everything moved very slowly. The rain uncoiled with infinite leisure against the window behind me. I could see a stray drop of rainwater meander down the lapel of Muriel's raincoat.

"They've all been trying to spoil it," I said. "Haven't they?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"And you had to kill them?"

"Yes," again a whisper, the word drawn out into a long hiss.

"Lola," I said. She nodded slowly. "Lippy." Again the nod.

I reached forward slowly and picked up my coffee. "But not me," I said. "I'm trying to help. I know where Larry is."

She shook her head slowly. Everything was very slow.

"You… won't… spoil… it," she said.

I dropped my coffee cup. The coffee sloshed out on my pants leg as the cup bounced on my thigh and went to the floor.

"Oops," I said and bent to pick it up and went out of the chair behind my desk digging the .38 out from under my arm as I went. I hit the floor on my left shoulder. Above me there was a flat snap and then another and two bullets buried in the wall behind my desk chair. I fired one shot straight up to the ceiling, to let her know I had a gun. I had rolled onto my knees now, still down behind the desk, and I waited with the .38 poised at the edge of the desktop. I could hear her fast shallow breathing.

"I don't want to shoot you," I said and edged around the corner of the desk low. I heard her heels, then the door. I stood and saw my outer office door swing shut. I walked to the window and looked down at Hollywood Boulevard. In maybe a minute I saw her come out into the wet street and turn right and head up Hollywood, walking fast with her head down and her hands still in her raincoat pockets.

Most of the cars on the boulevard had their headlights on in the slate-grey morning. They shone on the wet pavement and blended with the colored neon reflections and the sheen of the roofs of wet cars as I watched her out of sight, moving west toward the Chinese Theater, past the souvenir shops and the places that sold peekaboo underwear.

I turned away and took the empty shell out of the cylinder and put in a fresh one and stored the gun back under my arm. I got some paper towels and cleaned up the spilled coffee and threw the paper cup away. I looked at the bullet holes in the wall and the one in the ceiling. Nothing much I could do about those. Probably just as well to leave them. Be good for my image. I got my trench coat back on and headed out to get my car out of the lot up Cahuenga.

I was in no hurry. I was pretty sure where she'd go. There wasn't anyplace else.