Chapter Text
I sat beside him under the speedboat’s screen, the motor running silently at our backs, the tiller under his arm. I had just finished spilling everything that had ever happened to me into the night air. The Montecito was still on the dark horizon, a shadow perched on an ocean of black glass. Red was just an enormous shape close to me, warm and solid along my side. The smell of tar from his clothes and his face mixed with the sea air. Smudged like that, only one piece of cheek and one violet eye showed under the gold edged mop of his hair.
The boat bounced on the water like a cork, sloshing my empty stomach into the back of my throat. I sounded sick, maybe tearful, when I told him:
“If I go in there and don’t come out, my name’s Marlowe. Philip Marlowe, but no one ever calls me Phil. If I don’t come out, could you put that on a stone somewhere? Marlowe’s got a ‘e’ on the end, Philip with one ‘l.’”
Red watched me over his big shoulder, eyes moving from me to the water and back as a pale searchlight passed from the Montecito far off to leeward. I had talked so much already I couldn’t stop myself now.
“Outside of the city. Somewhere sunny, maybe, just not Purissima Canyon.”
My hands clamped onto my knees and twisted in a grotesque, shaking grip. A bear’s paw moved up my back to smooth across my shoulder blades. His hand rolled up the back of my neck, like a woman’s, and his thumb brushed under the corner of my jaw.
“Sure thing, Phil.”
He rubbed my back again, then withdrew. We talked some more, then he took me to the Montecito .
I met Brunette and his torpedo. I made it back to shore, then to Hollywood, then to my apartment.
Moose came by but didn’t make it.
There were cops buzzing around the place for days. Randall was there the very next morning, jabbed at my hangover with cop talk and then couldn’t be reached at all. Hemingway couldn’t be bothered with me anymore. I didn’t bother with Nulty.
Anne looked after me for a while because she wanted to. Then she didn’t want to anymore, and I looked after myself. It was then that Red showed up in my office.
He stood hunched over, pondering the Rembrant on the calendar. He was clean this time, silky pink skin reddened from days on the water. He wore a grey tweed suit with just enough fray to turn him into a wiry furred bear from behind. There was a crumpled something wrapped in day-glo bright plastic under his arm.
“It’s not as stimulating as a pinup, but it kind of gives the place some class.” I said, stepping through the door next to the calendar.
He smiled briefly, turning to look down at me. Clean, the plain farmer’s face was boyish.
“Yeah, I guess that’s something to say.” He told me, then nodded to the office door. “Are you in today?”
The thing under his arm was a squashed bouquet of flowers. In the crumple there were primarily monkeyflowers, fat and round and yellow, the long red sprigs of coral bells and one or two wimpy blue lilacs, all wrapped in glossy red plastic. They looked like they’d been sat on.
“Come on in.” I opened the office and parked myself behind the desk. He made the chair opposite me squeal as he sat in it.
“I don’t do marital cases.” I told him. “Not even for a cop. If you know where your wife is and want someone to talk to her I can do that. But I won’t be out looking for her if she doesn’t want to be found.”
“Oh, no, that’s not what this is about.” He said, looking surprised. The boyish look went away and he watched me steadily, the same way he had when he held the speedboat above the water.
“Good. If you’re having trouble it will take more than an ugly bouquet to fix things.”
“Oh.” There were deep lines around his mouth as he frowned. The flat bouquet landed on the desk, we both looked at it. His eyes rose to me.
“Well, what would it take?” He asked. “I never had to win somebody over before. They just kind of come to me.”
I couldn’t help a laugh. Of course that’s how it was for him.
“What’s she like?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“I don’t really know yet. I don’t know her too well, just enough to think maybe there’s something there.”
I put my elbows on the desk and tried to look kind.
“I don’t know much about women. Or so they tell me.” I opened my hands to him. “If you want someone to find the one that got away, sure, fine. But that’s all I’ll do. Any more and I might make an impression on her and that won’t do you any good.”
“You’re not that bad.” Red told me, leaning his big chin on his big hand. He brushed the other hand at the bouquet. “I know where she is, it’s not like that. Maybe I need help with the bouquet, I couldn’t tell you.”
He looked around the office, slowly pointing his head towards the window down onto the street.
“You got good taste. And you were with that Annie. I knew her father, she’s got nice taste too. There’s a florist down the block.”
He stood and dropped the squashed bouquet in the bin beside my desk. I didn’t have much time to look hurt before his gentle voice asked:
“What would it cost to get you to show me what makes a good bouquet?”
“You want to go picking flowers with me?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
The phone didn’t ring. The buzzer from the waiting room stayed silent. Outside the purl of traffic and the gonging of the streetcar and then quieter, smooth noise. He had cleaned up and come here to ask very seriously about something. And now he wanted to go to the flower stand.
“Alright, let’s go.”