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It was hot for May, that Thursday afternoon, when a couple of movie stars came to see me. They were already in the waiting room when I arrived, sitting on the faded red settee like they were waiting for the bus, leaving plenty of space empty between them. I recognized one of them from the papers, the one in the flashy chartreuse shirt who'd just been in Fools for Scandal with Carole Lombard. A real up and comer, he looked different now with his hair curling unfashionably around his face. The other, in a black suit and striped tie, looked familiar in the way that so many actors do, with his slicked back dark hair, sunglasses and blooming five o'clock shadow. I didn't wonder what they were doing in my waiting room, because they would soon tell me.
"Mr Marlowe?" It was striped tie who addressed me, already standing with hat in hand.
"The one and only," I replied.
I unlocked the door to my office and they followed me in. My hat went on the hat stand, as did my coat. They kept theirs in hand and waited for me to gesture towards the three hard chairs on the customer side of the desk before sitting.
I sat down in my squeaky swivel chair and lit a cigarette as I waited for them to spill.
"We have a matter needing absolute discretion. Jacob Tierney said you were the man for the job."
Tierney was a director, mostly B-movies. He'd needed help getting proof that an actress's husband had a bit on the side. Didn't want the husband getting any of his wife's money in the divorce. Even paid the bill; decent guy.
"Suppose I shouldn't open the windows, then," I said, and watched as they flinched in unison.
"We're being blackmailed," said striped tie bluntly, stopped there.
"Both of you," I said, just a second before the penny dropped. Absolute discretion. I crushed out my cigarette and reached for my pipe.
"There are…pictures."
I looked up from my pipe. Storrie, the name came back to me. Connor Storrie, originally from Texas, rising star. Didn't look like a fairy. Neither of them did.
"What kind of pictures?" I asked, though I could guess. I should've probably kicked them out. It'd been a minute since I had a job, though, so I let them stay.
They looked at each other, maybe for the first time since they'd got into my office. I could smell the hesitation. "Intimate ones," the one who wasn't Storrie said.
I let that lie, lit my pipe with a match. "You know the guy?"
Again with the look. Then Storrie slipped one hand into his jacket and pulled out a cigarette. I slid the matches across the desk.
"Yeah, I know him," Storrie said on an exhale, dropping the dead match into the ashtray. "Someone I used to—anyway. He likes a little blackjack, a little roulette. Spends a lot of time on the Rex, off Santa Monica."
"I know it." The Rex was a gambling ship, three miles off shore. If this guy was in debt to Tony Cornero, it was more than enough motivation to try to get some cash off a vulnerable pansy or two. "So, what. You want the pictures. How do you know he hasn't got copies in a safe deposit box somewhere."
Storrie smiled, and it wasn't pretty. "He's not that smart."
I thought about it, while sucking on my pipe. Easy money, but. Homos.
"Two fifty up front." The one in the shades pushed them up onto his head and fixed me with a look that said he was serious.
I thought about it but not for very long. "I'll get you the pictures and the negatives. What you do with them after is no business of mine. What's the name of this photographer."
"Owen Taylor. He has his studio on the corner of Sunset and Laurel Canyon."
I wrote that down. Then I looked at Storrie. "And how do I get a hold of you?"
"You can call me," the other man said. He gave me his number, a Hollywood one, and his name. "François Arnaud," he said, making eye contact like he wanted to hit me. I remembered his name too, from the papers. He was in the same picture as Storrie. Might've been how they met. Film business was full of fairies.
Arnaud pulled a checkbook out of his pocket at the same time as Storrie did.
"I only need to get paid once," I said, leaning back in my chair.
They looked at each other, silently fighting the way a husband and wife might when they had company. It was strange to see between two men. Then they started arguing in French.
"You can have your little queer fight somewhere that isn't my office," I interrupted. "Split it in half, I don't care. Pay me, and get out."
They wrote two checks, still giving each other dirty looks, and scrammed. I got the office bottle out, poured myself a drink and opened up the phone book. Taylor was in the book, so I wrote down the address, lit a cigarette.
It wouldn't take more than a quarter of an hour to get there from my office, and I wanted to wait until it was nice and quiet and dark before paying Taylor's studio a visit. If the pictures weren't there, his house would be next.
I took the checks to the bank and asked the teller for a little spending money before heading over to my usual restaurant on Cahuenga to buy myself an eighty-five cent dinner and a dry martini in the adjoining cocktail bar.
They had the papers so I had a look to see what they were saying about my new clients. There was a picture of Arnaud—Frank Arnold, it said this time—with a dame, another Frenchie by the name of Sophie Nélisse. I wondered if she knew what her man was doing with his money and with his co-star. None of my business, of course.
It was a short drive over to Taylor's studio. It was in a long building with a pharmacy, bakery, market and dry cleaners. Sandwiched in the middle was the studio. I drove around the back, parked in the lot and switched off the engine. All the businesses were closed at this time of night, and it was dark in the alley.
When I got to the third door from the end I stopped. It was too dark to see much. I tried the door very gently. Locked. I took out my pen knife, tried it in the key hole, without much hope. The lock gave with a noiseless release, a silent sigh. The room I came into was pitch black. I eased the door shut behind me. When I found the light switch, the light flickered, turned red. A dark room, with trays on a long bench, portraits of some hopeful starlet hanging by clothes pins from a string above them.
The office was just past the dark room, small enough that it was a bit of a squeeze to get around the desk to the drawers on the business side. They were locked, too, but I've had to get into a few desk drawers in my time. Soon the first lock clicked. I sifted through invoices and some cash, but there were no pictures. Second drawer, same deal. Bottom drawer, with its compartments for stationery was the winner.
There were dozens of pictures. Men, women, in all sorts of compromising positions. It seemed that Taylor wasn't just blackmailing Storrie and Arnaud. I weighed the pictures in my hands, but there was no point in taking the others. None of the people in the pictures would be glad to know I'd seen them, even if I could track them down. I laid the stack out on the desk and slid them across one at a time until I found what I had come for. There were three in total, and for Storrie at least, utterly damning.
The pictures had clearly been taken through a window; a corner of curtain obscured the left side of the frame. In the middle, however, was Storrie, sitting on a couch, with a man on his knees in front of him. I could tell, having seen him earlier today, that that man was Arnaud. But his face wasn't visible. It wasn't visible because he was giving Storrie a blowjob.
Across the three pictures, Storrie went from having his eyes closed, to having them open in startled terror, presumably because the flashbomb had gone off. But Arnaud's face stayed hidden.
The negatives weren't with the pictures but they were in the drawer on the other side of the desk. Evidently, Taylor was just as stupid as Storrie had suggested.
I found an envelope, slid the damning evidence in and sealed it. I closed the drawers and left the way I had come.
There was a phone booth in front of the pharmacy. I dialed Arnaud, and didn't have to wait long before he picked up. He was a little out of breath as he said "Yes?"
"Marlowe," I said. "I've got them."
"You work fast," he replied, after a little pause. "Can you bring them round here?"
I didn't want these pictures in my hands any longer than necessary. I wrote down his address when he gave it to me, and hung up.
It was a ten minute drive to Dorrington, a street of low bungalows lined with new ficus trees. Arnaud's place was in the middle of the block, a dark wood-clad building with a peaked roof and not much vegetation to protect it from peeping photographers. A light was on in the front, shining through drawn curtains. The windows were shut tight.
The door was already ajar as I made my way up the walk, envelope under my arm. Arnaud looked around the edge of the door, glancing into the street as he waved me in. He gestured towards the living room, to the left of the door. Storrie was there, sitting on the couch in the pictures. He was still wearing the chartreuse shirt, but he'd lost the gold tie. He was smoking and I could see a little tremble in the ash at the tip of his cigarette.
Behind me, Arnaud locked the door, twice. It was stifling in the house, despite the fan on the table in the corner, blowing the hot air left, and then right again.
Arnaud came into the room, and held out a hand for the envelope. He unsealed it, slid the pictures halfway out and looked. He looked for what felt like a long time, until Storrie impatiently reached out for the envelope. When he got his hands on it, Storrie pulled the pictures out and looked through all three before crumpling them in his hands, tearing.
"Connor!"
"I told you, no one would know it was you, you didn't have to—"
"Yes I did," Arnaud said, his hands folding around Storrie's, stilling them. Arnaud sat down on the couch, too close, uncurled Storrie's fingers one by one, put the mess of pictures on the coffee table. "It's over, baby."
Storrie tucked his face into the side of Arnaud's neck. I looked away, took in the rest of the room. It was all dark wood walls and green leather furniture. A bookcase on the far wall was full of hardback books in front of which there were a couple of pictures in frames. It looked like a man's room, but looks could be deceiving.
There was a sound from the couch, something intimate. I didn't look.
"Mr Marlowe," Storrie said. "Thank you."
"Don't mention it."
"We're very grateful," Arnaud said, like I hadn't fleeced the pair of them.
"Keep away from windows," I advised. "That photographer is going to come looking for replacements."
I left them there in the hot house, standing over the fireplace watching the pictures melt and curl, arms around each other's waists.
I hoped I wouldn't see them again. It was not to be.
Two weeks later, I found myself in front of Musso and Frank's looking for an errant husband. The wife had said he liked to come to the restaurant on Fridays, have some lunch, possibly with his secretary. It was busy when I went in, every booth occupied and most of the counter seats too.
I saw Arnaud first, in the booth nearest the phone, laughing. He looked different like that, like any other movie star. I ducked my head, but he'd already seen me. I could have left. Instead, I went when he gestured at me to come closer.
"Mr Marlowe," he said, standing and holding out his hand. I looked at it, then shook it.
"You've met Connor, but this is Sophie Nélisse, and Hudson Williams. Folks, this is Philip Marlowe. He…helped us out, with our little problem. Why don't you join us?"
I looked the table over, saw them already shifting to make space at the end for me. Williams was familiar, but probably because he looked like he should be in the pictures. He was dressed in a grey flannel suit that was too warm for the weather. The woman I recognized from the picture in the paper; she looked even prettier in person, in a blue dress with buttons down the front, and a little matching hat set on the side of her head. I wondered again if she knew.
I didn't have to wonder for long. As soon as I hung my hat on the hook at the end of the booth, she leaned forward and stage whispered her gratitude. So much for the poor girl angle.
"Yeah, thanks," Williams said, reaching across a table covered with half the menu of entrées to offer his hand. We shook, and I contemplated just how many people were in on the secret.
"I was going to call you, actually," Arnaud said, leaning in. I made an effort not to lean away. "We're having a bit of trouble with Owen."
"The photographer. You've kept the curtains closed?"
"Tight," he replied. "But he keeps trying. I see him, sometimes, following us around, even when we're not together. Fresh footprints in the flower beds every morning, that kind of thing."
I chewed on this for a minute. Taylor must've been getting a lot out of them to keep the pictures quiet, given all his other marks. That, and his debts with Cornero must be substantial.
"I'll pass," I said. "I don't have a license to threaten people I know nothing about."
"Please," Nélisse said, reaching out her hand to me. Her eyes were big and maybe a little wet, mouth a pretty moue. They made a good couple, her and Arnaud, with their footlight looks. Too bad his attention was taken up by someone else.
We were interrupted by the waiter who wanted to know if I wanted a drink. I should have declined, got up and walked out. Against my better judgment, I got him to bring me a gin gimlet. To hell with it.
"All right," I said, when I got tired of all of them staring at me. "Suppose I had a conversation with Taylor. That's twenty-five dollars a day plus expenses."
They all relaxed, slumping against the back of the booth like I'd offered them an eleventh hour pardon instead of my usual day rate.
"Thank you," Storrie said, eyes bright, mouth loose. "It's playing hell with François. I'd like to—to spare him any more grief, if I can."
The look he and Arnaud exchanged should be illegal. I kept my eyes on my drink. It should have been none of my business, except I had made it mine. I finished my drink, and got out. I'd forgotten all about the husband and his secretary, and about having lunch myself.
It was almost two o'clock when I parked behind the photography studio. I went round the front this time, and found a sign on the door. On vacation. I tried the door, just for laughs, but it was locked. The phone book in the drugstore gave me Taylor's home address in Silver Lake.
I took the route through Los Feliz, windows down on the car. Taylor lived in one of the newfangled garden apartments, with grass lawn all around the buildings. I kept my hat tipped down as I made my way to the door, past the pillared portico and into the hallway. No one poked their head out to see who I was. I knocked and rang the buzzer, but no one answered.
If Taylor was turning up like a bad penny everywhere Storrie and Arnaud were, all I had to do was wait him out, most easily at the house in West Hollywood.
I went back to my office and checked my messages, and the mail. There was a gusty wind blowing in at the windows and the soot from the oil burners of the hotel next door was down-drafted into the room and rolling across the top of the desk. There was a letter from Tierney, thanking me for my services. Apparently the secret was more open than I'd imagined.
I took myself out to a counter for a late lunch, checked the papers. There was nothing new about my clients, but there was a profile of Williams, who it seemed was going to be in the next Curtiz picture with Olivia de Havilland. I lingered over my coffee, in no hurry to get back to the office and the layer of soot.
I thought about the case. There was a lot about it I didn't want to think about, but kept catching anyway like flies on flypaper, buzzing in that fatal way. I didn't care to think about what two men can get up to together.
It was an easy job, otherwise. If they were right, I'd talk to Taylor tonight, and be done with Storrie and Arnaud by morning. It was a cheerful thought.
I took a couple of magazines with me when I headed over to Arnaud's place as the sun set. I parked two houses down and across the street, watched the curtain twitch in the bungalow at number 9005. I lit a cigarette and settled in.
Over the course of the next couple hours, there were a couple of dog walkers, some kids running towards Doheny, but no suspicious characters with a camera.
An hour later, I'd finished with the magazines and the coffee was making itself known. I made a calculation, decided to risk knocking on Arnaud's door to use his bathroom. Everything was still quiet as I made my way up the path, no cars or people moving. I checked my watch: just past 10 pm.
Arnaud took his time coming to the door, and I had time to wonder if I was interrupting something when the bolt slid back and the door opened, Arnaud staying hidden behind it. I could see why when he shut it again. He was bare-chested, in striped pyjama bottoms, his hair mussed like someone had been running their fingers through it backwards.
"Is everything alright?" he asked.
"Just needed the gents," I said, gesturing into the house, away from him.
"All the way down the hallway, opposite the sunroom," he replied.
The living room and dining room were both dark, though the radio glowed with the sound of a dance band. On the right, there was a light and the door was ajar. The blind was drawn, but a breeze was making it bounce against the frame. I didn't want to look, but movement caught my eye and I saw Storrie, barechested as well, in the bed. There wasn't a bowl of cherries, but his mouth looked like there ought've been.
He looked like he lived there. Maybe he did.
I found the toilet, made the return trip up the hall to find the bedroom door wide open, both Storrie and Arnaud standing at the end of the bed, looking towards the window.
"We heard something," Storrie murmured.
I took the long way around them to get to the window. The shade wasn't knocking against the frame anymore. I took a hold of the bottom of it to peek behind, when a camera lens popped into the room, a modern one without the bellows. I didn't even have time to get a hand up before it went off, a click like a gun cocking. It was gone again before I could grab it.
I left Storrie and Arnaud behind and hurried out the front door in time to see a light colored coupé peel away from the curb and squeal up the street.
I went back in the house, where the two men had moved to the living room, wearing dressing gowns. The radio was still playing softly, an uptempo number incongruous with the situation.
"What are we going to do?" Storrie asked, biting at his thumbnail.
I took a pack of cigarettes out of my jacket, shook one out, and after a moment's consideration, held the pack out to Storrie. He took one, handed it to Arnaud. Then he took one for himself.
We smoked in silence for a minute as I collected my thoughts. Taylor had his picture, and I was in it. I was in the soup with them. It wasn't as damning as the last set but he was acting like he had nothing to lose. I said as much to the pair on the couch, and their matching expressions got grimmer.
"So, what can we do?"
"We wait him out. It won't be long before he gets in touch with what he wants."
"You want us to give him more money?" Storrie spat out. Arnaud slid a hand down his back. I looked at the radio.
"That's not the game. But we need him to show his hand, and so we wait." I gave Storrie my card. "Let me know when he calls."
Arnaud showed me out, double locking the door behind me. It was a bit late for that but if it made him feel better, he was entitled to it.
I didn't even get through my mail the next day before the phone rang.
"He wants ten grand or he's going to the papers."
Ten grand would let me put my feet up for a year and a half. With all the other pictures in his collection, Taylor still needed ten grand. I thought about this for a minute. The net curtains billowed beside me. Maybe it was more than just money. Maybe it was jealousy too.
"Okey," I said. "Where does he want to meet?"
"We can't afford it," Arnaud said after a muffled conversation on his end. "Neither the money nor the pictures coming out."
I couldn't afford it either, and said so. "I'll meet with him. And we'll see. So, where?"
"The Rex, tonight, eight o'clock."
It was an unusual choice. Maybe he figured on being safer in a crowd where money was changing hands anyway. He had to know he was getting to the end of his rope, and that it was looking more and more like a noose.
"What's Taylor look like?" I asked.
"Little shorter than I am, maybe five ten. Blond—"
There was a bit of clattering, and Storrie's voice came on the line. "Brown eyes," he said. "Not too big. He's slim, likes to wear flashy suits and dark ties. Quiet, though."
I said I would go, and we left it there. I hung the phone up carefully. Taylor was a desperate character. I knocked out my pipe, gave it some fresh tobacco, and checked the filing cabinet drawer where I kept my gun. It was a short barreled Police 38, with its own holster. They wouldn't let me on the boat with it, but it made me feel better looking at it anyway.
I filled the day with the husband and his secretary, and a few bits of mail that asked me my opinion on similar topics. No one came into the waiting room, and no one wrote me any checks.
When the time came, I had a regular dinner, drank a brandy to sit on its chest and hold it down, and made for Santa Barbara.
The trip out to the Rex didn't do anything for my digestion, but I made it my business to appreciate the sun setting into the ocean, the clouds above it pink like the inside of a mouth.
The boat was hopping, the way it was always was, a floating den of crime and iniquity. The chattering of the roulette wheels was the percussion to the cymbal crashes of the laughter. I had a little stroll around the perimeter of the boat, found some couples canoodling, a few men smoking while staring out to sea, thinking about remortgaging their houses. I didn't see anyone who looked like Taylor.
I was about to start on another tour when I saw Sophie Nélisse getting off the taxi, decked out to the nines in a black evening gown, green gems glittering in the pendant around her neck and in her earrings, a mink on her shoulders. Following her off the launch was Arnaud, looking sharp in a tuxedo, Storrie and Williams, matching, behind him. I muttered some impolite words under my breath, got a scandalized look from a passing woman for my trouble.
A scrum formed around the four of them. I stayed back. It wasn't long before Cornero's hired muscle, a pair of goons that weren't improved by their suits, elbowed their way into the crowd and provided an escort. They disappeared into the gaming hall. I followed them, thinking of the "and expenses" part of our deal.
I found them at the blackjack tables, the lady and Storrie holding cards while Williams and Arnaud stood behind them, conspicuously scanning the hall. I let Arnaud see me. He gave me a nod, and kept it up. I made my way over to them.
"What are you doing here?" I kept my voice low, just under the racket of the crowd and their money-losing pursuits.
"Having a little fun," Arnaud returned with a smile that cost him at least five bucks.
"I said I'd take care of it."
"He's behind you," Arnaud interrupted. "By the palm near the door."
I turned and looked. Taylor was watching the party of four, but he paid no attention to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Arnaud give him a little wave. That got him in motion. We met halfway, him still craning to see past to where Arnaud and the others were. I put a hand on his forearm.
"Let's take this outside."
"Who are you?" He was only resisting a little, not making it too obvious. I got us both to the promenade deck, where we could have a little stroll and a conversation. I kept hold of his arm in case he got any ideas.
"Who the fuck are you?"
"Philip Marlowe, private dick." I pulled a card out of my pocket, handed it to him.
"So you're fucking him too, are you?"
I wanted to give it to him right in the kisser. I settled for dragging him a little quicker to the end of the promenade, which was temporarily free of couples looking for a little privacy. That was good, because I needed some.
Problem was, I hadn't yet decided how to handle him. I kept it simple. "Hand over the pictures, and no one gets hurt."
Taylor laughed at me. It was not a nice laugh. It sounded like he needed a jacket to hug himself.
"You're the patsy they got to come and toss my studio, huh, shamus. I could go to the cops."
"No, you couldn't. You'd have to explain your dirty pictures, and that wouldn't end well for you."
"I need the money, shamus. You don't understand."
"You're right, I don't understand making a buck off your own kind like this."
Taylor's face got ugly, and he spat on the deck next to my shoe. "Soon as he made it big, he left me. I don't owe him anything. He's got the money now, he can afford it."
"With a personality like yours, I'm not surprised he cut you loose."
Sometimes my big mouth gets me in trouble. This was one of those times. Taylor bent down and came up with a knife out of his boot. I put my hand out, and it went right in, that soft spot between your thumb and pointer finger. I yelled. I couldn't help it.
"Hah!" He yanked it back and blood slithered its way down my sleeve, dripped to puddle on the floor between us.
My heart was beating in my hand, in my ears. I could still hear over it, the sound of feet running. Taylor lunged at me again, knife out, and I danced back away from him. A babble of voices broke over us, men shouting, a woman, high and shrill.
Taylor lunged at me again, and I got him by the wrist, twisting him to bang his hand against the railing. He dropped the knife, and it disappeared into the ocean. He wailed, and I punched him right in the eye. Then arms were pulling me back, though not before I saw Taylor's head hit the wall. He crumpled.
"Marlowe, you're bleeding—" It was Storrie, his handkerchief out to wrap round my hand. He took my wrist in a tight grip, winding the fabric snug.
The goons were bent over Taylor, grabbing him by the ankles and shoulders. "A little swim should cool him off."
I tried to twist out of Storrie's grip, but he held on. Taylor went over the side of the boat.
"You fucking idiots," I growled at Cornero's men. We all looked over the side. Taylor was floating face down, moving only as much as the waves rocked him.
Beside me, Nélisse grabbed the lifesaver ring and threw it in after him. It splashed into the water next to Taylor, but he made no move to grab it.
"Man overboard!"
"Man overboard!"
They took turns yelling it, but it was too late. By the time they fished Taylor out, he was thoroughly drowned.
Cornero made an appearance as they were getting Taylor onto the ship for the medic to look at. He looked grim, and escorted us personally onto the next water taxi, letting no one on board onto the Rex. I gave him my card as I got on, and he grinned at me.
"Okay, Mr. PI, okay. Why don't I give you a call in the morning, and we can discuss this unfortunate accident. You can get your hand looked at in the meantime."
"Do you need me to call the coroner for you, Mr. Cornero?"
"Wise guy," he said, that grin going fixed. He patted me on the shoulder, not gently. I stumbled onto the taxi, and Williams caught me. There was just enough room for three of us, so Nélisse settled on Arnaud's knee, Storrie on Williams's. I got a seat to myself. My cigarettes were in my right jacket pocket, and as soon as Storrie noticed my fumbling, he pulled them out and gave me one. My right hand was none too steady as I took it so he lit it for me too. His hand wasn't much better, but maybe it was the rocking of the boat.
"I don't have my checkbook on me," Arnaud murmured, leaning in closer.
"I haven't got the pictures yet," I replied. "You can pay me when I've finished the job."
The cigarette made me feel a little better, less like I could fall over sitting down. I felt less good when the taxi docked, and I had to stand again. I let Williams give me a hand up onto the dock, ignored the way sweat was prickling all along the back of my neck. I needed more than a single drink.
"Here," he said, pulling out his handkerchief and handing it to me. "You're dripping."
The cloth went round my hand once, but stopped there. It was swollen, and as Williams had noted, still bleeding. I wasn't going to be able to drive like this.
"François, we should take him to Dr Myers." It was Nélisse who took my good arm, tucking her hand in the crook of the elbow.
I thought about what still needed to be done tonight. It would probably be easier if I wasn't getting blood on the upholstery.
"Sure," I said. "Put it on the expense account."
We joined the crowd at the taxi rank. The four of them looked pale. I supposed they'd never seen anyone die before.
"Do you know of anywhere else he might have stashed the pictures?" I asked Storrie, as the next cab pulled up.
He thought about it for a moment. "His parents live in Burbank, Sparks street. Maybe with them?"
I was going to have to do the corny routine of giving them the bad news, won't you sit down, I'm afraid something has happened. Wouldn't save them any grief.
Myers didn't seem surprised to find me at his door in Hollywood in the company of Nélisse and Arnaud. Maybe they brought injured detectives to him regularly. He took me into his office, stitched me up over his blotter, gave me a shot of something that made my hand feel very far away. He gave me some pills for later that I pocketed.
Two cabs came to pick us up, one for me, one for the other two.
"We're very sorry," Arnaud said, gesturing at my hand. "We didn't know he would—"
"Part of the job," I replied, one foot in the car. I got in, and asked the driver to stop at the next phone booth. I called the coroner's office, told them they had some work to do on the Rex. Then I looked up the Taylors in Burbank.
I thought about the case on the drive. Storrie knowing the address for the Taylors suggested he'd been there before. It might be that the Taylors knew about their son's inclinations. Not that it mattered now.
The cab pulled up in front of a squat bungalow with a porch in front. Two chairs sat empty on it. The curtains glowed, despite the hour. I asked the driver to wait. Arnaud had given him plenty of money to do so.
It was Mr Taylor that opened the door, an older version of his son. He took my card, read it twice and sighed. "This is about Owen, is it. You'd better come in."
Mrs Taylor was short and plump and just as resigned as her husband to see me. I took off my hat and suggested they sit down. They did and I joined them. On the mantel there were a couple of pictures of a young Taylor, dressed in a baseball uniform, in a suit with his hair combed back.
"We've given him all we can afford, Mr Marlowe."
"Listen, I'm not here about that. There's been an accident."
Mrs Taylor covered her mouth with her hand. Mr Taylor closed his eyes. When he opened them again they were brimming with tears. "My boy. He's—"
"I'm afraid so," I said.
"Clive," Mrs Taylor said. "Owen. He's not—oh no. Oh no, Owen."
But Mr Taylor was in no position to answer his wife, tears spilling over his fingers where they were pressed against his face. They seemed like decent people. Abruptly, I hated Cornero and the whole lot of them.
"Mrs Taylor," I said, as gently as I could. "Did Owen leave anything with you? An envelope, maybe?"
She looked at me and frowned. "How do you know about that?"
There was no way to be kind about this. "Owen was blackmailing my clients for gambling money. He took some… intimate pictures. He might have told you to send them to the papers, if anything happened?"
"Yes, that's right," she said. "He said, send the envelope to the Times, but he told me not to look. Intimate pictures? Blackmail? My Owen?"
Beside her, Mr Taylor was collecting himself, wiping at his face with a checked handkerchief. He shook his head, reached out to take his wife's hand. "Gracie… You know he would do anything for the chance to throw the dice again. He's just… lost."
I rolled the dice. "Mrs Taylor, would you give me that envelope?"
"He asked me…" she said, looking lost.
"If those pictures get out, lives will be ruined."
Mr Taylor nodded, wiped at his face again. "Gracie, we can't let the last thing Owen does be this. It's not right, and it's not fair to—to his memory. I won't remember him like this. You'll give the pictures back to the people in them?"
"My clients, yes. The other ones I'll destroy."
"We'll burn them together," Mrs Taylor said suddenly. "Right here, in the fireplace."
She got the envelope, and I pulled out the ones that weren't of Arnaud and Storrie. I put them upside down in the grate and took out my lighter. They watched from the sofa, me from beside the fire, as the cellulose curled, became ash. When it was done, both of them were crying silently. It was as if they had cremated their child in the living room.
I took the envelope and left them sitting there, staring at the window. The cops would be by soon to tell them not a lot more. I got back in the cab feeling about twenty years older. My hand hurt, but so did my chest. You never know how your children will turn out.
I asked the cabbie to take me to Arnaud's place in West Hollywood. It was late, but I figured they'd still be awake, after everything that just happened.
The lights were on in the front of the house, and when Storrie opened the door, I could hear the radio playing quietly. The four of them were there in the living room, but the men had undone their ties and the top button of their shirts. Nélisse was barefoot on the Persian rug. There was a half-full bottle of scotch on the coffee table, and four glasses that held healthy slugs.
I handed the envelope to Storrie. I'd looked in the cab, and had seen that while I was in the picture, I was unrecognizably out of focus. Storrie and Arnaud, with their naked chests and arms around each other, were not. Storrie didn't open the envelope but passed it straight to Arnaud, who didn't open it either.
"Can I get you a drink?"
"Thanks."
The radio made the only sound, besides the welcome glug of the whiskey in the glass. I took it, and swallowed half in one go. It seemed to be the thing the rest of the party needed to take their own glasses. There was no toast, just the quiet warbling of some singer that made the atmosphere all the stranger.
Then Storrie laughed, just the once. "We're free."
"You should burn the pictures," Williams said.
"Yes!" Nélisse bounced on the cushions, and clapped her hands.
They didn't look at them, just put the envelope in the fireplace and with Williams' lighter set it alight. Then there was a toast, one I took no part in, but one which made them all laugh. Arnaud even kissed Storrie's temple when it was done. I looked away.
It was altogether a different mood than the house in Burbank.
I finished my whiskey. "I'll take that check now," I said.
Arnaud went immediately for the secretary in the corner by the window. He folded down the front, got out a pen. "How much?"
"Fifty dollars and fifty cents," I said.
He wrote it out and handed it to me. I put it in my pocket, next to the pills.
"I'll call you a cab," he said, as Storrie poured everyone more of the scotch. "Thank you again for everything."
"I'll wait outside."
I stood on the front step to light a cigarette. The spindly ficus trees cast long shadows on the sidewalk. From inside I could hear the music more clearly. They must have turned it up.
I thought about Taylor, and about Storrie and Arnaud. They were part of a whole world I had only briefly had a part in. It sure seemed to be gay.
Someone laughed inside. They had opened the windows.
I hoped that I'd never see them again, except in the pictures.