"They've all been trying to spoil it," I said. "Haven't they?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"And you had to kill them?"

"Yes," again a whisper, the word drawn out into a long hiss.

"Lola," I said. She nodded slowly. "Lippy." Again the nod.

I reached forward slowly and picked up my coffee. "But not me," I said. "I'm trying to help. I know where Larry is."

She shook her head slowly. Everything was very slow.

"You… won't… spoil… it," she said.

I dropped my coffee cup. The coffee sloshed out on my pants leg as the cup bounced on my thigh and went to the floor.

"Oops," I said and bent to pick it up and went out of the chair behind my desk digging the .38 out from under my arm as I went. I hit the floor on my left shoulder. Above me there was a flat snap and then another and two bullets buried in the wall behind my desk chair. I fired one shot straight up to the ceiling, to let her know I had a gun. I had rolled onto my knees now, still down behind the desk, and I waited with the .38 poised at the edge of the desktop. I could hear her fast shallow breathing.

"I don't want to shoot you," I said and edged around the corner of the desk low. I heard her heels, then the door. I stood and saw my outer office door swing shut. I walked to the window and looked down at Hollywood Boulevard. In maybe a minute I saw her come out into the wet street and turn right and head up Hollywood, walking fast with her head down and her hands still in her raincoat pockets.

Most of the cars on the boulevard had their headlights on in the slate-grey morning. They shone on the wet pavement and blended with the colored neon reflections and the sheen of the roofs of wet cars as I watched her out of sight, moving west toward the Chinese Theater, past the souvenir shops and the places that sold peekaboo underwear.

I turned away and took the empty shell out of the cylinder and put in a fresh one and stored the gun back under my arm. I got some paper towels and cleaned up the spilled coffee and threw the paper cup away. I looked at the bullet holes in the wall and the one in the ceiling. Nothing much I could do about those. Probably just as well to leave them. Be good for my image. I got my trench coat back on and headed out to get my car out of the lot up Cahuenga.

I was in no hurry. I was pretty sure where she'd go. There wasn't anyplace else.

39

I sometimes think that Southern California looks better in the rain than any other time. The rain washes away the dust and glazes the cheapness and poverty and pretense, and freshens the trees and flowers and grass that the sun has blasted. Bel Air under the wet sky was all emerald and scarlet and gold with the rain making the streets glisten.

I told the guy at Clayton Blackstone's gate, "Marlowe. I'm working for Mr. Blackstone."

The guard went back inside the shack. Only in Bel Air would it be a shack. In Thousand Oaks it would have been a two-bedroom ranch with a garden. After two or three minutes the guard came out and said, "Wait here, Eddie'll be down to get you."

I sat and watched the wipers make their truncated triangle on my windshield. In another maybe three minutes a car pulled up inside the gate, Eddie Garcia got out, the gate opened and Eddie walked over to my car with the collar of his trench coat turned up. He got in beside me.

"Follow the other car," he said.

We went up the winding driveway with the wet greenery around us and pulled in under the big front entrance. The car ahead stopped and J.D. got out and stared back at me. Garcia got out his side and I got out on mine. Garcia jerked his head and I followed him into the office and he led me through the library to Black-stone's office. Neither one of us said a word.

Blackstone was behind the big desk again, this time wearing a double-breasted blue blazer and white tennis shirt. There was some kind of crest on the breast pocket of the blazer. Standing near the bar, with a drink in her hand, where I had expected her to be, was Muriel. Her cute gun was not in sight. Eddie closed the door behind us when we came into the room and stood a foot or so inside the door, with his back to it. I walked across and took the same chair near Blackstone's desk that I'd sat in before.

"Raining," Blackstone said absently.

"Even in Bel Air," I said.

He nodded, staring past me at his daughter.

"You were pretty straight with me, Marlowe, last time you were here."

I waited.

"But you kept some things back," he said.

"Never said I didn't."

He spoke slowly and almost without inflection. Like a man thinking of other things: lost romances, children playing on a beach, things like that. He leaned forward and got a cigar from a box and trimmed it carefully with a knife he took from the middle drawer of the desk. He lit it carefully, turning the end slowly in the flame, and then took a puff, let the smoke out and watched it disperse in the air-conditioned atmosphere. Nobody spoke while this went on. Through the picture window I could see the rain dimpling the surface of the cerulean water in the pool.

"Now, Marlowe, what have you to tell me?"

"Your daughter stopped by my office," I said. "Just before she came here."

"Oh?" He looked at Muriel. Muriel held on to the glass in both hands. It was nearly full; she seemed to have forgotten about drinking from it.

"What was the substance of your discussion?" he said.

"That you were intent on destroying her marriage and I, as your agent, was being employed to the same end."

Blackstone stared at his daughter. "Muriel?"

She didn't answer. She was holding her glass against her breast, as if trying to warm the drink.

"She said she would kill me as she had Lola and Lippy," I said, "and then she pulled a.25 automatic with a chrome finish and pearl handle grips and began plugging away."

Blackstone didn't change expressions or move. He gazed at me like a man lost in contemplation.

"Lippy and Lola were shot with a.25," I said.

Blackstone nodded slowly, but he wasn't looking at me. He was gazing across the room at his daughter. He stood, finally. I could see that he was wearing white slacks and white loafers. He walked across the room and stood maybe three feet in front of his daughter.

"There is nothing, Muffy, that I cannot buy or frighten. Nothing so broken that I cannot fix it."

She didn't look at him.

"Tell me about this," Blackstone said. "About the gun and Lola and Lippy. Tell me about what Mr. Marlowe has said."

"Lola had a bad picture of me," Muriel said; her voice was childish. "The kind I used to pose for a long time ago."

Blackstone nodded. "You're not doing that anymore, are you, Muffy?" he said.

She shook her head, still staring at the floor, her glass still clutched to her chest.

"She said she would show it to all the people at the Springs and tell people that Les took it, and…" She shook her head without looking up.

"And?" Blackstone said.

Muriel didn't move.

"And she arranged to meet Lola at Larry's office and when she got the picture she shot her," I said. "And took the picture and cleaned out Larry's files and left."

"Didn't she know there'd be other pictures?" Black-stone said.

"She's not playing with all the dots on her dice," I said. "She didn't know that it would implicate Larry and lead people to Les either."

We were talking.about her as if she were a jade ornament.

"What about Lippy?" he said to Muriel. "I didn't even know you knew him."

"He hired Mr. Marlowe to find Les, to harass him over money. He owed Mr. Lipshultz money."

Blackstone looked at me once, hard. I shrugged.

"Did you know that Mr. Lipshultz worked for me, Muffy?"

"Not until Mr. Marlowe said."