Poodle Springs

"Yeah."

"You've known this for a while."

"I've known it since before Lola Faithful got killed," I said.

"You said something to us, maybe Lipshultz wouldn't have gone down," Ohls said.

"Yeah."

Ohls shifted his seat around and put one foot back up on the open drawer. He clasped both hands behind his neck.

"Marlowe of the desert," he said. "Hawkshaw to the stars."

I let that pass. I'd earned what was coming.

"You think that maybe you played it a little too tight this time, cutie? And a guy gets buzzed that didn't have to? Say Lippy deserved it more than some. He didn't deserve it this time, from this guy."

"Nobody deserves it, Bernie."

"Sure, Marlowe, let your heart bleed a little. And while you're at it why don't you explain to me why you held out on us."

"I didn't think he did it," I said.

"You didn't think he did it," Ohls said. "Who appointed you? This is cop business, friend."

"He's a loser, he's a spineless creep, but he's got a nice little girl who loves everything about him."

"Only one?" Ohls said.

I shrugged. "I'll get to that. I still don't know if he did it, but I have to admit he looks more likely every time you turn it around."

"You covered for some guy you barely know because he's got a nice wife."

"They looked happy, Bernie. You don't see too much of that. And I figured if you got him you'd like him for it so much he'd be in Q before the public defender got his briefcase open."

"I don't railroad people, Marlowe."

"Sure you don't, Bernie, and you don't turn down a likely suspect either. This guy had argued with the victim earlier, he's got to have a shaky record. He's got the gumption of a popsicle…" I turned my palms up and spread my hands.

"Bartender says the beef with Lola started when she showed him a picture. You know anything about that?"

"Larry had a file full of nude photos," I said. "I checked the files when I found his office."

"They're not there now," Ohls said. "Nude pictures of who?"

"Women, explicit, kind of stuff worth some money twenty-five years ago."

"Not much of a living in it now," Ohls said. "Unless you want it for blackmail."

I shrugged.

"Okay, Marlowe," Ohls said, "you can tell me everything, from the begi

He put both feet up on his desk and leaned farther back in his chair, his hands laced across his solar plexus.

"Go," he said.

I told him pretty much everything, leaving out the fact that I had a picture of Sondra Lee in the trunk of my car. When I came to the part about Blackstone, Ohls whistled silently to himself. When I was finished he said, "And you still think Larry, Les, whatever the hell his name is, didn't do it?"

"I don't know, Bernie. I'm here. I've told you what I know. You and I both know how long this guy will be around if Clayton Blackstone finds out his daughter's married to a bigamist."

"A little work for fast Eddie," Ohls said.

"Damn little," I said.

"We could charge you with obstructing justice," Ohls said. "Interfering with an officer in the performance of his duty, aiding and abetting the escape of a felon, accessory after the fact of homicide, obtaining motor vehicle information dishonestly, impersonating a police officer and being stupider than three sheep."

"I got an overdue library book, too," I said. "May as well make a clean breast of it."

"Get out of here," Ohls said.

"What about the stenographer?" I said.

"The hell with the stenographer," Ohls said. "If you so much as walk on a posted lawn, Marlowe…" He waved his hand, dismissing me with the back of it. The way a man shoos away a gnat.

I got up and went.

30

Movement is sometimes an adequate substitute for action. I had nothing else to do, and no one else to see, so I drove out to West L.A. looking for Sondra Lee. The blonde receptionist with the long thighs was there again. She told me that Sondra Lee was expected in the next half hour, and I sat on one of the silver tweed couches with no arms that curved along the left wall of the office. On the walls, in silver frames, were fashion shots of their clients, black and white theatrically lit, with the archness that only fashion photographers can capture. Sondra was one of them, in profile, gazing into some ethereal beyond, wearing an enormous black and white hat. Which was much more than she was wearing in the picture I had rolled up in my pocket. Time edged past like a clumsy inchworm. A tall, thin, overdressed woman came in and picked up some messages from the receptionist and went back out. Another woman, raven hair, pale skin, carmine lipstick, came in and spoke to the receptionist and passed on into one of the i

She turned her head with that impersonal friendly look that people get who are used to being recognized.

"Marlowe," I said. "We had a talk at your home the other day about Les Valentine, among other things."

The smile stayed just as impersonal, but it got less friendly.

"And?" she said.

"And we had such fun that I wanted to talk a little longer."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Marlowe, I'm afraid I can't. I have a shoot this afternoon."

I walked across to her, and as I went I took the naked picture of her from my inside pocket and unrolled it. I held it so that she could see and the receptionist couldn't.

"Just a few moments," I said. "I thought you might be able to help me with this picture."

She looked at it, and her faced showed nothing.

"Oh, all right," she said. "We can talk in here."

She led me into a small dressing room with a big mirror ringed with lights. There was a make-up table full of jars and tubes and powders and brushes, a tool in front of it, a daybed against the wall to the right of the door, and a tall director's chair. On the back of the black canvas was written Sandra in white script. She sat in the chair, her long legs carelessly stretched in front of her.

"So you are just another little nasty blackmailer," she said evenly.

"I'm not so little," I said.

"For your information, you roach, I'll give you exactly nothing for those pictures. That's what they're worth. Send them to the magazines, post them in the bus terminal, I don't care. It's thirty years past the time when pictures like that could hurt me."

"So they weren't much good to Larry Victor," I said.

"No more than they are to you, cheapie," she said. She took out a pastel filtered cigarette and put it in her mouth and lit it with a transparent lighter that showed you how much fluid was left.

"But he tried," I said.

"Sure he tried, don't all the scum balls try?"

"And you told him to breeze," I said.

"Tommy did," she said.

"And maybe you put a little something behind it," I said.

Sondra shrugged. "You're lucky Tommy's not here now," she said.