CHAPTER 6

    

    I still had my office that year in the Cahuenga Building. I was in it with the windows open and the hot Santa Ana wind pushing the grit around on my desk top. I had the office bottle of rye out and was having myself a midday bracer while I let my feet dangle. I was pretty sure Carmen was missing from Bonsentir's sanitarium. And I was very sure that everyone I talked with knew it, and didn't want me to find her. What I couldn't figure was why. Bonsentir might want to cover up some incompetence and I figured a guy like Bonsentir had a lot of things under the covers up there that he might not want the cops to start looking into. But why would Vivian cover it up? And what kind of clout did Bonsentir have that a good cop like Gregory would walk away from it and tell me to do the same? It was one thing to buy off the local health inspector. Or the local precinct captain, for that matter, but when a downtown cop like Gregory said it was locked up, that meant real juice and a lot of it way up the line.

    It meant that people whom Gregory would call "Sir" were on the payroll, and how much would that cost? How could Bonsentir have that kind of money? It made me tired to think about it, so I bought myself a second drink. Maybe it wasn't money. A guy like Bonsentir would know where there were bodies buried. That was how he flourished. I knew doctors like Bonsentir with the smooth faces and the radio voices. They had big sanitariums off somewhere, out of sight, where wealthy people could store their embarrassments: the dipsomaniac nephew, the nymphomaniac sister, the aging mother who liked to show her underwear, the eccentric brother-in-law who kept stealing things from Woolworth's. The wives of movie stars went to sanitariums like Resthaven, the sons of politicians went there. They were quiet.

    Dr. Bonsentir had needles and pills and he used them. No one complained at Resthaven. Everyone smiled their gooney smiles and wandered about like sleepwalkers, and if they dreamed, who knew it, and who cared what they dreamed? Ah yes, good Doctor Bonsentir, I know you well.

    I knew Dr. Bonsentir so well that I thought it best to toast him, so I poured out a last small splash of rye into the water glass I was using and sipped it in his honor. While I was doing this I heard the door to my outer office open and close. There was silence then as if someone were standing out there trying to make up his mind. Or maybe as if someone were admiring my collection of ten-year-old National Geographies. Then the door opened and in came Vivian Sternwood in a polka-dot dress, big blue dots on a white background. Her hat and gloves were white and her big purse was the color of her dots.

    "Care for a drink?" I said. "I was just toasting that great healer, Claude Bonsentir."

    "You're drunk," she said.

    "Probably not," I said. "But it's not to say I won't be."

    I got up and went to the sink in the corner and got the other water glass I kept for company. I rinsed it, brought it back and poured a finger of rye into each glass.

    I handed a glass to Vivian and while we stood I raised mine.

    "I give you the Hippocrates of the quick needle, Dr. Bonsentir."

    Vivian's eyes were bright with anger, but she drank a little rye.

    "Are you going to ask me to sit down, Marlowe?"

    "Certainly," I said. "Have a chair. Maybe we can have another toast, seated is okay, to the elusive Carmen Sternwood, whom no one seems able to find but everybody says isn't missing."

    "I know my sister is missing, Mr. Marlowe. I don't need some piece of drunken sarcasm from the likes of you." "Who do you need it from," I said, "if not from me?"

    "What I need from you is understanding. You must have some idea of what it is like to try and protect Carmen?"

    "I have an idea what it's like to try to protect the rest of the world from Carmen," I said.

    Vivian's face was dramatically hurt.

    "I was hoping for better from you, Marlowe. I was hoping that the something that sparked between us before hasn't gone away completely."

    I laughed and drank a little more of my rye.

    "What went between us, Mrs. Regan, was you showing me your legs and trying to get me to do whatever you said because I'd seen your legs."

    "And nothing more?"

    I shrugged. Maybe there had been something more. I was after all getting drunk in the middle of the day.

    "I don't know," I said. "Was there?"

    "Yes," she said.

    I wanted to believe her. Up close her eyes were nearly coal black and full of heat. She was wearing a lilac scent, an expensive one. And her wide mouth was soft looking with a full lower lip that seemed specifically meant to be nibbled on. I nodded and didn't say anything.

    "I'm not as tough as I look, Marlowe," she said.

    "If you were as tough as you look," I said, "you'd probably have to be licensed."

    "I'm nowhere near as tough as you are," she said. "Oh, I know the smart mouth and the dark handsome looks and all of that. Just a lovable gumshoe. But I know what's inside that. I know that inside it's all iron and ice."

    She leaned forward toward me, showing me a white lace bra and a good deal of breast as well. "But I'm betting that there's something else in there too."

    "Don't bet your life on it, lady," I said. "I appreciate you showing me what you've got. But don't bet everything that you can melt the iron and ice."

    She got up slowly and walked around the desk and sat quite carefully on my lap. She put her arms around my neck and leaned her face close to me. I could feel the heat of her breath on my face.

    "Let's see," she said and pressed her mouth against mine, open. We explored that for a while, and when we finally broke, both of us were breathing harder than we had been. Vivian looked into my eyes from very close, so close that her eyes blurred as I'm sure mine must have to her.

    "Maybe just a little melting?" she said.

    "You found Carmen yet?" I said.

    She stiffened and then stood up and walked back around the desk to her chair.

    "Damn you," she said. "Goddamn you, Marlowe. Don't you change? Can't you ever change?"

    Her voice shook a little and she had to look down and breathe a bit to get her composure. When she finally spoke her voice was a little hoarse.

    "I know she's all right, Marlowe. I don't know where she is, but I know that Dr. Bonsentir knows and it's all right."

    "That doesn't make any sense," I said.

    "Please," she said. "You want to hear me beg, okay, listen. Please leave this alone. I know you don't care about money. But I'll pay you twice what Norris is paying, three times. If you will please just leave this alone."

    "Have you spoken to Norris?" I said.

    She shook her head.

    "I cannot speak to Norris as I can speak to you."

    "Why not," I said. "You could show him your legs…" I finished it off with a hand flip.

    "He's the butler, for God's sake, Marlowe. Do you enjoy humiliating me?"

    "I'm not humiliating you," I said. "You're doing that yourself. I'm just after the truth."

    "Truth," she said and laughed without even a hint of humor. "What the hell is the truth? And what difference does it ever make? You're like so many men. You have these things you think are so important. Truth. My Word. Honor. Right. Pride." She shook her head and laughed again. A laugh more painful than any scream. "You probably believe in love, for God's sake."

    "What I believe in right now, Mrs. Regan, is finding Carmen."

    "Why? In the name of God, why do you care? What difference can she ever make?"

    "It's what I do for a living," I said. "Somebody hired me to do it."

    "You will cause more trouble than you understand," Vivian said.

    I didn't have anything to say to that, so I let it pass. We looked at each other for a while. Then Vivian sighed and stood up.

    "I'm sorry, Marlowe," she said.

    "Sure," I said. "I'm sorry too."

    She turned and headed for the door. She opened it and turned for a moment and looked back as if she were going to say something. Then she shook her head and turned away.

    "Vivian," I said.

    She paused and looked back.

    "I enjoyed the kiss," I said.

    She stared at me for a moment and then shook her head again.

    "That's the hell of it," she said. "I did too."

    Then she turned and closed the door behind her. I sat and looked at it and sipped the rest of the rye. She must have left the outside door open. Because I didn't hear it close.