The Black-Eyed Blonde

15

I drove with the window open. The cool night air was soft on my swollen cheek, but not as soft as Clare Cavendish’s fingers had been, earlier, before I’d ruined everything and sent her off into the night, frightened and angry. I couldn’t get her out of my head. It was just as well, since thinking of her meant I didn’t have to think about Nico Peterson’s sister and what was likely to be waiting for me at the reservoir. I also didn’t care to dwell on the fact that I’d made a bad mistake by getting those two Mexicans mad at me. If I hadn’t, if I’d kept cool and found a way around them, maybe I could have prevented them from taking the woman. Unlikely, but not impossible. But that was something to feel guilty about another time, not now.

It wasn’t much of a drive up to Encino, and even though the streets were empty I dawdled along, not at all anxious to get there before I had to. Terry Lennox used to live in Encino, in a big fake English mansion on a couple of acres of choice real estate. That was in the days when his wife was still alive and he was married to her again — they’d got together twice, which must be some kind of definition of double trouble.

I still missed Terry. He was a disaster area all to himself, but he was my friend, and in this world, in my world, that’s a rare thing — I don’t do friendship easily. I wondered where he was now and what he was up to. Last I’d heard of him, he was in Mexico somewhere, spending his late wife’s money. There probably wasn’t too much of it left by now, I thought, Terry being the kind of spender he was. I told myself that one of these days I’d drink a gimlet in his honor again over at Victor’s. It used to be our haunt, Terry’s and mine, and I went there a couple of times and raised a toast to him when I thought he was dead. Terry had us all fooled, for a while.

I was so tired I nearly drove smack into the “No Entry” sign. I turned right and straightaway saw the lights up ahead. There were two patrol cars parked nose to nose at the side of the road, as well as Bernie’s beat-up Chevy and an ambulance with its back doors open and the light pouring out. It was a strange scene, out here in these lonely parts, under the sentinel pines.

I pulled in, and when I got out of the car my lower back nearly seized up, I was so stiff after that drive. I thought longingly of my bed, even without Clare Cavendish in it. I’m getting too old for this kind of work.

Bernie was standing with a guy in a white coat who I thought might be either a medic or one of the coroner’s men. At their feet there was something body-shaped, covered up with a blanket. I had a cigarette going, but I dropped it on the ground and trod on it. After I had gone a few steps I had to backtrack and make sure it was fully out. It would be one thing to burn down West Hollywood, as the old guy on Nico Peterson’s street had warned me I was in danger of doing, but Encino was a different matter. A blaze in Encino would knock a large hole in the funds of half the insurance companies in Los Angeles County and beyond. Terry Lennox’s house — or, rather, his wife’s house — had been worth a hundred grand or more. But I needn’t have worried — the ground was soaked after all that recent rain, and everything smelled sodden and resinous.

Not far from Bernie were three or four cops in uniform and a couple of plainclothes guys in hats, playing the beams of their flashlights over the ground. Pine needles glinted in the light. I had the impression that no one’s heart was in the search. A couple of Mexicans in a car would be long gone across the border by now, and no number of clues would be likely to lead to them.

“What took you so long?” Bernie said.

“I made a few stops to admire the scenery and think poetic thoughts.”

“Sure you did. Come on — what have you been doing since I was at your place?”

“Catching up on my needlepoint,” I said. I looked at the blanket-covered body on the ground. “That her?”

“According to her driver’s license. Identification ain’t going to be easy.” He lifted back a corner of the blanket with the toe of one of those clumpy shoes of his. “Don’t ya think?”

The Mexicans had done a job on her, all right. She had a lot more face than when I’d last seen her; it was swollen like a pumpkin and black and blue all over. The features weren’t all in the right place, either. Plus, a sort of deep second mouth had been carved into her throat, under her chin. That would have been López, with his little knife. For a second I saw Lynn again in my mind, standing by the sink in Peterson’s house with the ice tray in her hands and turning to tell me where to look for the bottles of Canada Dry.

“Who found her?” I asked.

“Couple of kids in a car looking for a quiet place to do some serious necking.”

“How did she die?”

Bernie gave a sort of laugh. “Look at her — what do you think?”

The guy in the white coat spoke: “There’s a deep continuous transverse wound to the anterior triangles of the neck, cutting both venous and arterial structures, not compatible with life.”

I stared at him. He was an old guy; he’d seen it all and seemed tired, like me.

“Sorry,” Bernie said offhandedly, “this is Dr. — What’d you say it was?”

“Torrance.”

“This is Dr. Torrance. Doc, meet Philip Marlowe, ace detective.” He turned to me. “What he means is, her throat was cut. By the time it happened, I’d say it was a mercy.” He put an arm through mine, turned me with him, and we walked off a little ways. “Tell me the truth, Marlowe,” he said quietly. “This dame mean something to you?”

“I met her today — yesterday — for the first time. Why?”

“The doc says these guys had a lot of fun with her. You know what I mean? That was before they started on her with the lit cigarettes and the knuckle-dusters and the knife. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too, Bernie. But it’s no good — you’re not going to get anywhere with this line. I never met her but the once, and we’d barely exchanged a dozen words before the Mexicans burst in.”

“You were having a drink with her.”

I rescued my arm from his. “That wouldn’t have put us in the market for an engagement ring. I have drinks with all kinds of people, all the time. I bet you do, too.”

He stood back and looked at me. “She must have been a fine-looking broad, before the Mexes got at her.”

“Bernie, leave it.” I sighed. “I didn’t know Lynn Peterson, not in the way you’re suggesting.”

“Okay, you didn’t know her. She walks in on you while you’re shaking down her brother’s house—”

“For Christ’s sake, Bernie, I wasn’t ‘shaking it down’!”

“Anyway, she walks in on you, next thing two Mexes come in after her, bop you on the head, and hightail it with her in their evil clutches. Now she’s dead on the side of a lonely road in Encino. If you were me, you think you’d say, ‘It’s fine, Phil, don’t worry about it, toddle off about your business, I’m sure you’re not connected in any way with this unfortunate lady’s murder, even though you were searching for her supposed-to-be-dead brother’? Well, would you?”

I sighed again. It wasn’t just because I’d had my fill of Ohls’s insinuations — I was bone tired. “All right, Bernie,” I said. “I know you’re only doing your job, it’s what they pay you for. But you’re going to waste a whole lot of time, and make yourself annoyed and upset, if you keep on trying to link me with this.”

“You are linked with it,” Bernie almost shouted. “You’re the one who went snooping around looking for this Peterson party, and now his sister is dead. What’s that if not a link?”

“I know she’s dead. You just showed her to me, and Albert Schweitzer over there spelled it out in gory detail. But listen to me, Bernie: it’s got nothing to do with me. You really have to believe that. I’m what they call an innocent bystander.” Bernie snorted. “I am, honest,” I said. “It happens, you know that. You’re at the teller’s window in the bank and two robbers run in behind you and snatch every last dime in the vault and shoot the manager dead before making off with the loot. The fact that you were doing a bit of business there, putting money in your account or taking some out, that doesn’t mean you’re connected to the robbery. Does it?”

Bernie thought it over, biting the side of his thumb. He knew I was right, but in a case like this, all cops hate letting go of the one possible lead they think they have. At last he gave a disgusted snarl and flapped a hand at me as if he were swatting a fly. “Go on,” he said, “get out of here. I’m sick of you, you sanctimonious clown.”

It wasn’t nice, being called names. Sanctimonious I could take, but to be cast in the role of Coco of the red nose and the size twenty shoes, that was another thing. “I’m going home now, Bernie,” I said, keeping my voice nice and quiet, even respectful. “I’ve had a long and difficult day, and I need to lay my sore head down and rest. If I find out anything about Nico Peterson, or his sister, or any of his family or friends, and if I think it would be pertinent to this case, I promise I won’t keep it from you. All right?”

“Go boil your head,” he said. Then he turned away from me and walked back to where Torrance the medic was directing the stowing of Lynn Peterson’s broken body into the back of the ambulance.