34

I found a furnished apartment in front on Ivar north of the boulevard, in a stucco building built around a courtyard in the days when Hollywood had more screen stars and fewer hookers. My old office in the Cahuenga Building was still empty, so I moved back in. The desk, the two file cabinets, the old calendar remained, the outer office was still empty. Two dead flies lay on the floor just inside the door that still said Philip Marlowe, Investigation. I put a fresh bottle of bourbon in the bottom drawer and rinsed out the two glasses on the sink in the corner, and I was ready for business.

Except there wasn't any business. A cousin to the dead flies in the outer office was buzzing lethargically against the window pane behind my desk. I put my feet up on the desk. The fly paused in his buzzing and looked at the impenetrable transparent space before him. He rubbed his face with his front feet, then buzzed again, but there wasn't much pizzazz in the buzz. It was a losing battle. He rattled for a minute against the window pane, then settled back down to the sill again and stood with his legs spraddled. I got up and carefully opened the window. The fly stayed motionless for a time, then he buzzed once and soared lazily out through the window and into the traffic fumes, three stories above Hollywood Boulevard. And then he was gone. I closed the window and sat back down. No one came in, no one called. No one cared if I got rabies or went to Paris.

At noon I went out and got a ham sandwich and some coffee at a joint on the boulevard and went back to my office to try sitting with my feet on the other corner. I still had my naked pictures of Muffy in the middle drawer of my desk. I still didn't know what to do with them. The negative was locked in the old floor safe behind the inner office door. I still didn't know where Les/Larry was and I didn't have a client.

I heard the outer door open and shut. And then Eddie Garcia came into my office and glanced around once and stepped aside and Clayton Blackstone came in behind him. Eddie went over and leaned blankly against one of the file cabinets. Blackstone sat down in my client chair. He had on a double-breasted grey pinstripe that cost more than my car.

"You've left the desert," he said.

"Word travels fast," I said.

Clayton smiled. "I'm sorry for your marital failure."

"Sure," I said.

"Have you gotten to the bottom of this mess yet?" Blackstone's hands were motionless on the arms of my chair. His nails were buffed. He wore a large diamond on the ring finger of his right hand.

"Maybe it doesn't have a bottom," I said.

"Which means no, I take it," Blackstone said.

"Yeah," I said.

'Tell me what you know."

"Why?"

Garcia laughed, a short barking sound.

Blackstone shook his head without looking at him. He reached inside his suit jacket and came out with a pigskin leather wallet, the long kind that is too big to fit into your pants pocket. He took out five hundred-dollar bills and laid them one beside the other on the desk.

'That's why," he said.

"You wish to employ me?" I said.

Eddie laughed his harsh bark again. "See, Mr. Black-stone, I told you he was a smart guy."

Blackstone nodded.

"Yes," he said. "I wish to employ you. I want you to find out where my son-in-law is. I wish you to bring these two murder investigations to a satisfactory conclusion. I wish my daughter's life to be orderly and pleasant again."

"What if the orderly conclusion is that your son-in-law buttoned both of them?" I said.

Blackstone shrugged.

I looked at the five hundred. "I don't need this much retainer," I said.

"Take your usual retainer, keep the rest as advance against expenses."

I nodded. "Why me?" I said. "Why not buy a couple of cops or maybe a judge or a D.A. and have the whole thing called off?"

"My daughter wants her husband back," Blackstone said. "Your suggestion doesn't lead to that."

"Okay," I said. I leaned over and picked up the hundreds and put them in my wallet. There was nothing in there to crowd them.

"If you wish to reach me, call Eddie. He will put us in touch. He has my complete confidence." He leaned forward again and placed a small white card on my desk. It was blank, except that a phone number was written on it in black ink.

I looked at Eddie. "Mine too," I said.

"My only condition, Marlowe, is that you report everything to me. I am not employing you to gossip to the police."

"You get first look at everything," I said. "But there may be things that I'll have to report. I'm a licensed private investigator. There's only so far I can go for a client."

"As long as I'm first," Blackstone said. "We'll deal with any other eventualities as they arise."

"Dandy," I said.

He got up and turned. Eddie Garcia moved ahead of him and went out the door first. Blackstone followed. Neither of them said good-bye.

35

I was working again. Except for the fact there was money in my wallet I didn't feel much different than not working. I still didn't have any idea what to do to earn my retainer and advance against expenses. For a change of pace I swiveled my chair around and stared out the window at Hollywood Boulevard for a while. The first idea I had was that it was time to change the grease in the fryolator in the coffee shop downstairs. In the L.A. basin to the south, hard-looking thunderheads were building. The towers of downtown L.A. were in a grey overcast that stopped short of Hollywood. Here the sun still shone. But that was temporary. In a while the thunderheads would roll north and bump into the hills and the rain would come hard. I'd seen it before.

I watched the thunderheads move up toward me for a while, and then I swiveled around and got out one of the pictures of Muriel and slid it in a manila envelope. I put one of my cards in with it, and on the card I wrote, "Do you wish to tell me about this picture?" I put the Hollywood Boulevard address on the card, slipped the card in with the picture, sealed and addressed the envelope. Then I got up, went down to the post office and mailed it, special delivery, and went back to the office.

To pass time I bought myself the first drink from the new office bottle. I was finishing the next to last swallow and debating whether to have a second when I heard my outer door open again. Maybe I'd have to hire an assistant. I put the last swallow of bourbon down and got a confident smile on my face and in walked Les Valentine/Larry Victor.

"That was easy," I said.

"Huh?"

"Someone just hired me to find you," I said.

"Who?"

I shook my head.

"I called your office in Poodle Springs, and they said it was disconnected and so I called your wife, I hope you don't mind, and she said you were back here working."

I nodded. Larry looked like he'd been sleeping in bus terminals and washing in the men's room.

"Mind if I sit down?" he said.

I nodded toward the client chair. He sat, brushing his trousers as he did, as if he could put a crease back in them with his hands. He got seated and patted his breast pockets.

"Damn," he said, "I forgot to get some. You got a smoke?"

I slid the pack across the deck, a book of matches slipped inside between the package and the cellophane. He got one out and lit it and took in the smoke as if it were oxygen. He was wearing fawn-colored gabardine slacks and a yellow checked shirt buttoned to the neck and a cream-colored silk tweed sport coat with a pocket display handkerchief the color of a tequila sunrise. Or that's what everything had started out as. Now the clothes were rumpled and there were stains on the shirtfront. The show hankie had been used as a towel and was crumpled in the pocket of the coat so that only a scraggly end hung out. He hadn't shaved in several days and the beard that had emerged was patchy with a spattering of grey. The balding head looked mottled and he needed a haircut.