Poodle Springs

Hatchet Face was smoking a white clay pipe with a stem about a foot long, the kind you see in old Dutch paintings. He looked at me the way a wolf looks at the lamb chop and put the stem in his mouth and puffed.

"If you meet people bowling ten pins in the mountains," I said, "don't drink anything they offer."

Hatchet Face didn't change expression. Maybe he couldn't.

Garcia said, "Guy's name is Marlowe, Mr. Blackstone. He thinks he's tough, and he thinks he's fu

Blackstone's voice sounded like someone pouring sand out of a fu

"I don't think he's either," he said. There was nothing there for me; I let it pass.

"We found him in that house on Kenmore," Garcia said. "He was tossing it."

Blackstone nodded. He still had the long stem in his mouth, the bowl cradled in his right hand.

"Why?" he said.

"Says he's a PI. Got a California license, had a gun."

"What else?"

"Didn't want to say. Said he wanted to talk with you. I figured you might want to talk with him."

Blackstone nodded, once. It was an approval nod. Garcia didn't look like he cared whether Blackstone approved. On the other hand, Blackstone didn't look like he cared if Garcia cared. These weren't people who wore their hearts on their sleeves. Blackstone shifted his stare to me. His eyes were very pale blue, almost grey.

"What else?" he said in his sandy whisper.

"I was told a woman named Lola lived there," I said. "She popped up in a case I was working on."

"And?"

"And I thought I'd look over her house, see what it told me."

Blackstone waited. I waited. Eddie Garcia waited. You had the sense from Eddie that he could wait forever.

"And?"

"And what's your interest?" I said.

Blackstone looked from me to Garcia and back.

"Perhaps I should have Eddie teach you some ma

"Perhaps you should stop trying to scare me to death and share a little information. Maybe we're not adversaries."

"Adversaries." Blackstone made a sound which he probably thought was a laugh. "An intellectual peeper."

"My wife reads aloud to me sometimes," I said.

Blackstone made his sound again. "With a wife that can read," he said. "You know that Lola Faithful is dead?"

"Yeah, shot in the head with a small-caliber gun at close range, in a photographer's office on Western Ave."

"So what's that got to do with you?" Blackstone said.

"I found the body."

Blackstone leaned back a little in his chair. He pushed his lower lip out maybe half a millimeter.

"You," he said.

"Yeah, and that made me sort of wonder about who shot her."

"Have you a theory?"

"Nothing as strong as a theory," I said.

Blackstone stared at me for a moment, then he looked at Garcia, then back at me.

"I too would like to know who murdered her," he said.

"I had a sense you might be interested," I said. "About the time your boys threw down on me in Lola's house. And I figure you don't know much about it or why would you have a couple of guys staking the place out. And I figure it's important as hell to you or why would one of the guys be your top boy."

"What else do you figure?" Blackstone whispered.

"It's what I don't figure that matters. I don't figure whether you're interested in who killed Lola because of Lola, or because of who killed her."

Again Blackstone looked at me with his expressionless gaze. Again he glanced at Garcia, which was probably as close as he got to indecision.

"I don't know Lola Faithful," he said.

"So it's who killed her that you're worried about," I said.

"Cops like the photographer," he said.

"Cops like the obvious," I said. "Usually they're right."

"You like him?" Blackstone said.

"No."

"Why not?"

"He doesn't seem the type."

"That's all?" Blackstone said.

"Yep."

"You ever a cop?"

"Yeah," I said. "Now I'm not. Cops can't decide that someone doesn't seem the type. They've seen too many axe murderers that look like choirboys. They don't have time to think if someone's the type. They have to throw everything in the hopper and take what sifts through."

"You seem a romantic, Mr. Marlowe."

"And you don't, Mr. Blackstone."

"Not often," Blackstone said.

"Did you know, I know your daughter?" I said.

Blackstone didn't say anything. It was what he did instead of showing surprise.

"I didn't know that," he said.

"She's married to the photographer," I said.

There was no sound in the room, except the nearly inaudible sigh of breath that Blackstone let out through his nose. It was only one sigh. Then silence. It was a risk telling him. He might not know the co

"Mr. Marlowe," he said, "maybe you and I should have a drink."

22

I was sitting in one of the green leather chairs.

"Les owed a guy money," I said. I had a big Scotch and soda with Scotch from a curved crystal decanter and soda from a siphon. Blackstone had the same. Garcia had nothing; he lounged against the wall near the bar as if time had stopped and would start only when he said so. He didn't listen or not listen. He simply existed over there by the bar in total relaxation.

"And the guy hired me to locate Les for him."

"Who's the guy?" Blackstone said.

I shook my head. "Client's got a right to be anonymous," I said.

"Where the hell do you think you are, Marlowe?" Blackstone said. "In court someplace?"

"Guy in my business hasn't got much to sell: a little muscle, a little guts, some privacy." I crossed one leg over the other and rested my drink on the top knee. "If I'm going to be in this business I can't go around spilling my guts to every loonigan I meet."

"I'm hardly a loonigan, Marlowe."

"Sure," I said, "you're a citizen and a half. Pillar of the community, or what there is of it out here. Bet you're on the board at a lot of important places."

Blackstone nodded.

"Which is why," I said, "you have Eddie Garcia walking behind you everywhere you go."

"A man makes enemies, Marlowe."

"And Eddie takes care of them," I said.

"Whenever necessary," he said.

"Sure," I said.

Across the room Garcia never moved. We could have been discussing the price of aldermen for all the difference it seemed to make to him.

"Anyway," I sipped a little Scotch; it seemed to seep into my mouth and spread gently. You could probably spend my weekly earnings for a bottle of this stuff. "It seemed simple enough."

"Only it wasn't," Blackstone said.

"No," I said. "I started with his wife, your daughter. She said he was on location doing stills for a movie production. While I was there I noticed a fashion photo of a model I recognized with Les's name on it."

"You checked the movie company," Blackstone said. "They never heard of him. You checked the model. She never heard of him."

"Eddie's been busy," I said.

Blackstone merely nibbled at his drink.

"So I went back and searched his house."

Blackstone said, "My daughter's house."

"Probably your house," I said. "I'll bet old Les didn't buy it."

"I gave it to her," Blackstone said.

I nodded. "In his drawer I found a parking ticket. I ran that back, found the address and found a photographer named Larry Victor in the building at the address. I braced him. He said he knew Les but that Les was out of town. I followed him to a bar, watched him have a fight with Lola Faithful. I lost Larry, went back to search his office."