Poodle Springs

"Hey, Marlowe, no need to talk like that. Hell, we've been through a lot together."

"Yeah," I said. "Remember what I told you."

I turned and went. Behind me I heard Victor say, "Marlowe? For chrissake, Marlowe."

I kept going.

I heard Angel say, "Good-bye, Mr. Marlowe. Thank you."

I waved without looking back. Then I was in my car and out on Wilcox Ave.

41

It was too late to go back to the office and too early to go back to my furnished apartment and count the walls. Maybe later. I'd set up a chess problem, have a couple of drinks, smoke my pipe. But not yet. If I started now the evening would be too long.

So I cruised slowly around Hollywood looking at the hustlers and pimps, the tourists and hookers, the people from Plainfield, New Jersey, looking for stars, the prom queens from Shakopee, Mi

I found a spot to park across the street and got out and went into the bar at the Roosevelt. I had a double vodka gimlet and sat at the end of the bar to drink.it. The after-office crowd was begi

Too bad, Marlowe. Too bad there wasn't any other way.

I drank the rest of my gimlet and got up and went out, and drove home.

My apartment had the musty, closed-up smell that they get when nothing human is in them all day. I left the hall door open and went and threw up a couple of windows in the living room to let the air blow through. The clouds were broken now and off to the west colored with the sun as it began to set. I left the windows and door open and went to the kitchen to make a drink. I put ice and soda in a glass with a shot of Scotch and carried it back to the living room. Linda was there. She had come in and closed the door. Beside her on the floor was a small overnight case. She wore a little pink suit and a silly pink hat the size of a throw rug and white gloves and shoes. Her overnight case was pink with white trim and had her initials on it. L.M.

"In town for long?" I said.

She didn't answer, only looked at me, and her eyes were enormous and simultaneously dark and luminous.

"This is a community property state," I said. "Did you come to carry off half my ammunition?"

"I came to make love with you," she said.

"I thought we were getting divorced," I said.

"Yes," she said, "we are. But it doesn't cover making love."

"You seem awfully sure of yourself," I said. "Overnight case and all. What if I said no?"

Linda smiled and shook her head. I felt as if I might disappear into her eyes if I looked at them too long.

"You're right," I said. "I probably won't say no."

She smiled a little wider, still silent, still with eternity lurking behind her eyes. She reached up and unpi

"I need to know what all this means to us," I said.

She nodded slowly.

"It means," she said, and her voice was almost detached, as if in tune with an orchestra playing out of earshot, "that we love each other too much to give each other up. We can end the marriage, but we ca

"Oh," I said, "I see. That's what it means."

"Yes."

"Well, it makes sense to me," I said.

Linda unbuttoned the suit jacket and took it off, and unzipped her skirt and slid out of it. She took off her undergarments and let them drop to the floor and stood up straight and smiled at me some more.

"Do you wish to have me ravage you here on the living room floor or would you prefer to retire to the bedroom?" I said. I seemed disco

"What's your preference?" I heard myself say.

"I think both," I heard Linda say. And later, much later in the darkness, with the world put far aside, I heard one of us say, "forever?" and the other, I don't know which, our voices had merged by then, answered, "forever."