Collected Stories, page 114
He turned his hand and emptied the powder on to the floor.
"I never saw snuff that colour," Waldman said. He took the emptied box. The writing on the smashed cover was blurred with dirt. It could be read, but not quickly.
"It's snuff all right," Joe Pettigrew said. "It's not poison. At least not the kind you're thinking of. I don't want it any more. What's the rest of your analysis, Lieutenant?"
Waldman moved back and away from him, but he didn't sit down again.
"The other objection to the idea of murder is that there was no point in it--if it was Green that strangled your wife. Until you mentioned it, I hadn't thought of anything else. That makes you a reasonably sharp man, Mr. Pettigrew. If the finger marks on her throat--which are very clear and will be clearer still--come from your hands, there's no more to say."
"They didn't," Joe Pettigrew said. He held his hands out, palms up. "You ought to be able to tell. Porter Green's hands are twice as big as mine."
"If that is so, Mr. Pettigrew," and Waldman's voice began to rise in tone and volume as he spoke, "and your wife was already dead and you shot Porter Green, not only was it silly of you to run away and make an anonymous telephone call, because even if this could have been a deliberate murder on your part, no jury would convict you of as much as manslaughter--you had a perfect defense--self-defense..." Waldman was now speaking very loudly and clearly, although not shouting, and Rehder was watching him with a reluctant admiration. "If you had simply picked up the telephone and called the police and said you shot him because you heard a scream and had come downstairs with a gun and this man was half naked and had blood all over his face from the scratches and he had rushed at you and you..." Waldman's voice faded--"shot at him, by pure instinct. Anybody would believe that," he ended quietly.
"I didn't see the scratches until after I shot him," Joe Pettigrew said.
A dead silence fell into the room. Waldman stood with his mouth open, the final words hanging on his lips. Rehder laughed. He reached his hand back again and took the gun from his hip holster.
"I was ashamed," Joe Pettigrew said. "Ashamed to look at his face. Ashamed for him. You wouldn't understand. You hadn't lived with her."
Waldman stood silent, his chin down, his eyes brooding. He moved forward. "I'm afraid that's all, Mr. Pettigrew," he said quietly. "It's been interesting, and a little painful. Now we'll go where we have to go."
Joe Pettigrew laughed sharply. Just for a moment Waldman masked Rehder with his body. Joe Pettigrew went sideways out of the chair and seemed to twist in mid-air like a dropped cat. He was in the doorway.
Rehder yelled at him to stop. Then, too quickly, he fired. The shot knocked Joe Pettigrew clear across the hall. He hit the far wall, flopped his arms and half turned. He sat down with his back against the wall and his mouth and eyes open.
"Some boy," Rehder said, walking stiff legged out past Waldman. "Betcha he did them both in, Lieutenant".
He bent down, then straightened and turned putting his gun away. "No ambulance," he said tersely. "Not that I meant it that way. You made it tough for me." Waldman stood in the doorway. He lit another cigarette. His hand shook a little. He looked at it waving the match out.
"Ever occur to you that he might be perfectly innocent after all?"
"Not a chance, Lieutenant. Not a shadow. I've seen too many."
"Too many of something," Waldman said distantly. His dark eyes were cold and angry. "You saw me frisk him. You knew he was not armed. How far could he have run? So you killed him because you like to show off. For no other reason."
He went past Rehder into the hall and bent down over Joe Pettigrew He put a hand inside his jacket and felt his heart. He straightened and turned.
Rehder was sweating. His eyes were narrow and his whole face looked unnatural. He still had the gun in his hand.
"I didn't see you frisk him," he said thickly.
"So you think I'm a damn fool," Waldman said coldly. "Even if you're not lying--and you are lying."
"You rank me," Rehder said with a harsh rustle in his voice. "But you can't call me a liar, bud." He lifted the gun a little. Waldman's lip curled with contempt. He didn't say anything. After a moment, slowly, Rehder swung the gate of his gun out and blew through the barrel, and then put the gun away. "I made a mistake," he said, in a strained voice. "You tell it any way you like. And you better get you another partner. Yeah--I shot too quick. And the guy could of been innocent like you say. Crazy, anyway. Most they'd have done would be to commit him. Say a year, nine months. And he comes out to a happy life without Gladys. I spoiled all that."
Waldman said almost gently, "Crazy in a sense, no doubt. But he meant to kill both of them. The whole set-up points to that. We both know it. And he didn't get out through the floor furnace."
"Huh." Rehder's eyes jumped and his mouth fell open.
"I was watching him when I told him about it. That, Max, was the only thing we told him that really surprised him."
"He had to. Wasn't any other way."
Waldman nodded, then shrugged. "Say we haven't found any other way--and we don't have to now. I'll call in."
He went past Rehder into the living-room and sat down at the telephone.
The front door bell rang. Rehder looked down at Joe Pettigrew and then at the door. He stepped softly along the hall. He stepped to the door and opened it about six inches, holding it that way. He looked out at a tall angular wasted-looking man who wore a top hat and an opera cloak, although Rehder didn't know exactly what an opera cloak was. The man was pale and had deep-set black eyes. He took the hat off and bowed a little.
"Mr. Pettigrew?"
"He's busy. Who wants him?"
"I left him a small sample of a new kind of snuff this morning. I wondered if he liked it."
"He don't want no snuff," Rehder said. Funny-looking bird. Where did they dig them up? Better test that powder for coke, maybe.
"Well, if he does, he knows where to reach me," Professor Bingo said politely. "Good afternoon to you." He touched the brim of the hat, and turned away. He walked slowly, with great dignity. When he had taken three steps Rehder said in his harsh cop voice, which he didn't use as much as he had once: "Come here a minute, Doc. We might want to talk to you about that snuff. It don't look like no snuff to me."
Professor Bingo stopped and turned. His arms were under his opera cloak now. "And just who are you?" he asked Rehder with detached insolence.
"Police officer. There's been a homicide in this house. It could be that snuff..."
Professor Bingo smiled. "My business is with Mr. Pettigrew, officer."
"You come back here!" Rehder barked, jerking the door wide. Professor Bingo looked into the hall. He pursed his lips. Otherwise he didn't move.
"Why, that looks like Mr. Pettigrew on the floor," he said. "Is he ill?"
"Worse. He's dead. And like I said--you come back here."
Professor Bingo took a hand out from under his cloak. There was no weapon in it. Rehder had made a motion towards his hip. He relaxed and let his hand drop.
"Dead, eh?" Professor Bingo smiled almost gaily. "Well you mustn't let that disturb you, officer. I presume someone shot him as he tried to escape?"
"Come here, you!" Rehder started down the steps.
Professor Bingo waved a long white left hand. "Poor Mr. Pettigrew, he has really been dead for all of ten years. He just didn't know it, officer."
Rehder was at the bottom of the steps now. His hand was itching to go for his gun again. Something in Professor Bingo's eyes made him feel cold all over.
"I imagine you had quite a problem in there," Professor Bingo said politely. "Quite a problem. But it's very simple really."
His right hand came delicately out from under his cloak. His thumb and forefinger were pressed together. They went up towards his face.
Professor Bingo took a pinch of snuff.
THE PENCIL
Introductory Note
This is the first Marlowe short story in twenty years and was written especially for England. I have persistently refused to write short stories, because I think books are my natural element, but was persuaded to do this because people for whom I have a high regard seemed to want me to do it, and I have always wanted to write a story about the technique of the Syndicate's murders.
Raymond Chandler, 1959.
1
He was a slightly fat man with a dishonest smile that pulled the corners of his mouth out half an inch leaving the thick lips tight and his eyes bleak. For a fattish man he had a slow walk. Most fat men are brisk and light on their feet. He wore a grey herringbone suit and a hand-painted tie with part of a diving girl visible on it. His shirt was clean, which comforted me, and his brown loafers, as wrong as the tie for his suit, shone from a recent polishing.
He sidled past me as I held the door between the waiting room and my thinking parlor. Once inside, he took a quick look around. I'd have placed him as a mobster, second grade, if I had been asked. For once I was right. If he carried a gun, it was inside his pants. His coat was too tight to hide the bulge of an under-arm holster.
He sat down carefully and I sat opposite and we looked at each other. His face had a sort of foxy eagerness. He was sweating a little. The expression on my face was meant to be interested but not clubby. I reached for a pipe and the leather humidor in which I kept my Pearce's tobacco. I pushed cigarettes at him.
"I don't smoke." He had a rusty voice. I didn't like it any more than I liked his clothes, or his face. While I filled the pipe he reached inside his coat, prowled in a pocket, came out with a bill, glanced at it and dropped it across the desk in front of me. It was a nice bill and clean and new. One thousand dollars.
"Ever save a guy's life?"
"Once in a while, maybe."
"Save mine."
"What goes?"
"I heard you leveled with the customers, Marlowe."
"That's why I stay poor."
"I still got two friends. You make it three and you'll be out of the red. You got five grand coming if you pry me loose."
"From what?"
"You're talkative as hell this morning. Don't you pipe who I am?"
"Nope."
"Never been east, huh?"
"Sure--but I wasn't in your set."
"What set would that be?"
I was getting tired of it. "Stop being so goddam cagey or pick up your grand and be missing."
"I'm Ikky Rosenstein. I'll be missing but good unless you can figure some out. Guess."
"I've already guessed. You tell me and tell me quick. I don't have all day to watch you feeding me with an eye-dropper."
"I ran out on the Outfit. The high boys don't go for that. To them it means you got info you figure you can peddle, or you got independent ideas, or you lost your moxie. Me, I lost my moxie. I had it up to here." He touched his Adam's apple with the forefinger of a stretched hand. "I done bad things. I scared and hurt guys. I never killed nobody. That's nothing to the Outfit. I'm out of line. So they pick up the pencil and they draw a line. I got the word. The operators are on the way. I made a bad mistake. I tried to hole up in Vegas. I figured they'd never expect me to lie up in their own joint. They out-figured me. What I did's been done before, but I didn't know it. When I took the plane to L.A. there must have been somebody on it. They know where I live."
"Move."
"No good now I'm covered." I knew he was right.
"Why haven't they taken care of you already?"
"They don't do it that way. Always specialists. Don't you know how it works?"
"More or less. A guy with a nice hardware store in Buffalo. A guy with a small dairy in K.C. Always a good front. They report back to New York or somewhere. When they mount the plane west or wherever they're going, they have guns in their briefcases. They're quiet and well-dressed and they don't sit together. They could be a couple of lawyers or income tax sharpies--anything at all that's well-mannered and inconspicuous. All sorts of people carry briefcases. Including women."
"Correct as hell. And when they land they'll be steered to me, but not from the airfield. They got ways. If I go to the cops, somebody will know about me. They could have a couple Mafia boys right on the City Council for all I know It's been done. The cops will give me twenty-four hours to leave town. No use. Mexico? Worse than here. Canada? Better but still no good. Connections there too."
"Australia?"
"Can't get a passport. I been here twenty-five years--illegal. They can't deport me unless they can prove a crime on me. The Outfit would see they didn't. Suppose I got tossed into the freezer. I'm out on a writ in twenty-four hours. And my nice friends got a car waiting to take me home--only not home."
I had my pipe lit and going well. I frowned down at the grand note. I could use it very nicely. My checking account could kiss the sidewalk without stooping.
"Let's stop horsing," I said. "Suppose--just suppose--I could figure an out for you. What's your next move?"
"I know a place--if I could get there without bein' tailed. I'd leave my car here and take a rent car. I'd turn it in just short of the county line and buy a secondhand job. Halfway to where I'm going I trade it on a new last's model, a leftover. This is just the right time of year. Good discount, new models out soon. Not to save money--less show off. Where I'd go is a good-sized place but still pretty clean."
"Uh-huh," I said. "Wichita, last I heard. But it may have changed."
He scowled at me. "Get smart, Marlowe, but not too damn smart."
"I'll get as smart as I want to. Don't try to make rules for me. If I take this on, there aren't any rules. I take it for this grand and the rest if I bring it off. Don't cross me. I might leak information. If I get knocked off, put just one red rose on my grave. I don't like cut flowers. I like to see them growing. But I could take one, because you're such a sweet character. When's the plane in?"
"Sometime today. It's nine hours from New York. Probably come in about 5.30 PM."
"Might come by San Diego and switch or by San Francisco and switch. A lot of planes from Dago and Frisco. I need a helper."
"Goddam you, Marlowe--"
"Hold it. I know a girl. Daughter of a chief of police who got broken for honesty. She wouldn't leak under torture."
"You got no right to risk her," Ikky said angrily.
I was so astonished my jaw hung halfway to my waist. I closed it slowly and swallowed.
"Good God, the man's got a heart."
"Women ain't built for the rough stuff," he said grudgingly.
I picked up the thousand-dollar note and snapped it. "Sorry. No receipt," I said. "I can't have my name in your pocket. And there won't be any rough stuff if I'm lucky. They'd have me outclassed. There's only one way to work it. Now give me your address and all the dope you can think of, names, descriptions of any operators you have ever seen in the flesh."
He did. He was a pretty good observer. Trouble was the Outfit would know what he had seen. The operators would be strangers to him.
He got up silently and put his hand out. I had to shake it, but what he had said about women made it easier. His hand was moist. Mine would have been in his spot. He nodded and went out silently.
2
It was a quiet street in Bay City, if there are any quiet streets in this beatnik generation when you can't get through a meal without some male or female stomach singer belching out a kind of love that is as old-fashioned as a bustle or some Hammond organ jazzing it up in the customer's soup.
The little one-story house was as neat as a fresh pinafore. The front lawn was cut lovingly and very green. The smooth composition driveway was free of grease spots from standing cars, and the hedge that bordered it looked as though the barber came every day.
The white door had a knocker with a tiger's head, a go-to-hell window and a dingus that let someone inside talk to someone outside without even opening the little window.
I'd have given a mortgage on my left leg to live in a house like that. I didn't think I ever would.
The bell chimed inside and after a while she opened the door in a pale blue sports shirt and white shorts that were short enough to be friendly. She had gray-blue eyes, dark red hair and fine bones in her face. There was usually a trace of bitterness in the gray-blue eyes. She couldn't forget that her father's life had been destroyed by the crooked power of a gambling ship mobster, that her mother had died too. She was able to suppress the bitterness when she wrote nonsense about young love for the shiny magazines, but this wasn't her life. She didn't really have a life. She had an existence without much pain and enough oil money to make it safe. But in a tight spot she was as cool and resourceful as a good cop. Her name was Anne Riordan.
She stood to one side and I passed her pretty close. But I have rules too. She shut the door and parked herself on a davenport and went through the cigarette routine, and here was one doll who had the strength to light her own cigarette.
I stood looking around. There were a few changes, not many.
"I need your help," I said.
"That's the only time I ever see you."
"I've got a client who is an ex-hood; used to be a troubleshooter for the Outfit, the Syndicate, the big mob, or whatever name you want to use for it. You know damn well it exists and is as rich as Rockefeller. You can't beat it because not enough people want to, especially the million-a-year lawyers that work for it, and the bar associations that seem more anxious to protect other lawyers than their own country."
"My God, are you running for office somewhere? I never knew you to sound so pure."
She moved her legs around, not provocatively--she wasn't the type--but it made it difficult for me to think straight just the same.
"Stop moving your legs around," I said. "Or else put a pair of slacks on."
"Damn you, Marlowe. Can't you think of anything else?"
"I'll try. I like to think that I know at least one pretty and charming female who doesn't have round heels." I swallowed and went on. "The man's name is Ikky Rosenstein. He's not beautiful and he's not anything that I like--except one. He got mad when I said I needed a girl helper. He said women were not made for the rough stuff. That's why I took the job. To a real mobster, a woman means no more than a sack of flour. They use women in the usual way, but if it's advisable to get rid of them, they do it without a second thought."
