CHAPTER 35

    

    We were in a brightly lighted clean gray room in the Coast Guard Station in Long Beach. Ohls was there smoking one of his toy cigars and looking as if he'd had a good breakfast. There was also a captain from the Long Beach police, who was tall and thin and had a big Adam's apple and the expression of a man who didn't like his job. Behind a neat gray government-issue desk was a Coast Guard lieutenant commander named Fenton, who had a red face and the upper body of a beer barrel. I sat on a straight chair in front of the commander. Carmen, dressed in a Coast Guard fatigue shirt and dungarees four sizes too big, looked like Mary Pickford on the chair beside me. Ohls was standing near the doorway, and the Long Beach police captain, whose name was Rackley, was leaning on the wall next to Fenton's desk.

    "We don't need her," Ohls said. "We brought Simpson into the Coast Guard brig and he wouldn't shut up. He told us about the Neville Valley water scheme. He told us about chopping up Lola Monforte and four or five others from all over the country. He told us that Dr. Bonsentir was with him in everything and was his, ah, 'mentor' I think he called him, and 'spiritual adviser.' "

    "Where's Bonsentir?" I said.

    Ohls looked at Fenton.

    "Had a Mexican with him," Fenton said. "Built like a gorilla. He put up a fight-trying to protect Bonsentir, I guess. I got a seaman in the hospital and another with a broken arm. The chief in charge of the detail had to shoot him dead."

    "And?"

    "And in the scuffle Bonsentir disappeared."

    "He'll turn up," Ohls said. "We cut off his juice anyway, with Simpson."

    "Can I see Randolph?" Carmen said.

    "Not right now," Ohls said. He looked at me. "We got your statement, Marlowe, and hers. And before Simpson stops talking we may get him for murdering Lincoln."

    I nodded. Carmen was working on her thumb again.

    "Wait a minute," Rackley said. His Adam's apple juggled up and down his thin neck. "Are you turning them loose?"

    "Yeah."

    "Long Beach might have something to say about that," Rackley said.

    "Long Beach would still be tripping over its own handcuffs, if Fenton here hadn't made a courtesy call," Ohls said. "Nothing going on here happened in Long Beach."

    "I resent the crack about the handcuffs," Rackley said.

    "I was kinda hoping you would," Ohls said. "You got any problems letting them walk?" He looked at Fenton.

    "We're going to need her, it comes to trial," Fenton said. "Him too."

    "Look," Ohls said patiently. "This guy goes out by himself onto a boat full of guys with big guns to rescue a nymphomaniac lulu that's sicker than two buzzards. He gets strangled and sapped and damn nears drowns and gets her out and brings her to us. He also solves a noisy dismemberment murder for us and prevents somebody from stealing a lifetime supply of water from some people up north."

    Ohls took a puff on his toy cigar and took it out of his mouth and looked at it for a moment.

    "For this he gets paid… how much you getting for this, Marlowe?"

    "A dollar, and expenses."

    "Tank of gas, maybe?"

    "And two bullets," I said.

    Ohls crossed his arms and stared at Rackley.

    "You think when it comes time to testify we ain't going to find him?"

    "The lieutenant has a point there," I said to Rackley.

    "You think nobody helped him get on and off that yacht?" Rackley said. "Coast Guard found twenty-eight bullet holes in the hull and superstructure."

    "I reload fast," I said.

    "Nobody in Long Beach probably knows this," Ohls said. "But most good cops know when to press and when to leave alone. I like this thing just the way Marlowe told it."

    Rackley got up.

    "Hell," he said. "Like you said there's no Long Beach jurisdiction here."

    He walked past me and Ohls and went out of the room and closed the door hard, but not too hard, behind him.

    "You got any problems, Commander?" Ohls said.

    "Let them walk," Fenton said.

    "The way I figure there won't be a trial anyway," I said. "Simpson's mushier than an old apple, and his lawyers will plead him insane and it will stick."

    We were on our feet now. I shook hands with Fenton.

    

***

    

    "Where we going?" Carmen said. "I'm very sleepy."

    "Home," I said. "Your maid will put you to bed."

    "Not you?" she said and her tongue showed between her lips and she gave me the slow vamp, looking at me with her head turned, from the corners of her eyes.

    "I'm sleepy too," I said. "I'll let the maid do it."

    My car was in the parking lot, next to the black one that belonged to the county, that Ohls drove.

    "Thanks, Bernie," I said.

    Ohls nodded and opened his car door and paused with one foot in, leaning on the top.

    "She's got to go away someplace too," he said.

    "I know."

    "One of us will see to it," he said. "I'd just as soon it be you. But one of us will have to."

    "I'll do it," I said.

    I opened my door and Carmen got in. I closed it after her and went around to the driver's side. Ohls was still halfway in his car, still leaning on the roof.

    "Bonsentir's going to come for you," Ohls said.

    "Yeah," I said.

    "Sooner or later," Ohls said.

    "Good," I said. "He'll think he went headfirst into a Mixmaster."

    Ohls nodded slowly and got in his car and started up and drove away. I watched him go. Then I got in beside Carmen, and cranked the engine, and started out toward Hollywood, with my eyes heavier than sorrow. And the rest of me no better.