Читать книгу The Simple Art of Murder - Raymond Chandler - Страница 12

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Pete Marcus, the big, sandy-haired dick, sat sidewise at a small littered desk in a bare office in which there were two such desks, faced to opposite walls. The other desk was neat and tidy, had a green blotter with an onyx pen set, a small brass calendar and an abalone shell for an ash tray.

A round straw cushion that looked something like a target was propped on end in a straight chair by the window. Pete Marcus had a handful of bank pens in his left hand and he was flipping them at the cushion, like a Mexican knife thrower. He was doing it absently, without much skill.

The door opened and Delaguerra came in. He shut the door and leaned against it, looking woodenly at Marcus. The sandy-haired man creaked his chair around and tilted it back against the desk, scratched his chin with a broad thumbnail.

“Hi, Spanish. Nice trip? The Chief’s yappin’ for you.”

Delaguerra grunted, stuck a cigarette between his smooth brown lips.

“Were you in Marr’s office when those photos were found, Pete?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t find them. The Commish did. Why?”

“Did you see him find them?”

Marcus stared a moment, then said quietly, guardedly: “He found them all right, Sam. He didn’t plant them—if that’s what you mean.”

Delaguerra nodded, shrugged. “Anything on the slugs?”

“Yeah. Not thirty-twos—twenty-fives. A damn vest-pocket rod. Copper-nickel slugs. An automatic, though, and we didn’t find any shells.”

“Imlay remembered those,” Delaguerra said evenly, “but he left without the photos he killed for.”

Marcus lowered his feet to the floor and leaned forward, looking up past his tawny eyebrows.

“That could be. They give him a motive, but with the gun in Marr’s hand they kind of knock a premeditation angle.”

“Good headwork, Pete.” Delaguerra walked over to the small window, stood looking out of it. After a moment Marcus said dully: “You don’t see me doin’ any work, do you, Spanish?”

Delaguerra turned slowly, went over and stood close to Marcus, looking down at him.

“Don’t be sore, kid. You’re my partner, and I’m tagged as Marr’s line into Headquarters. You’re getting some of that. You’re sitting still and I was hiked up to Puma Lake for no good reason except to have a deer carcass planted in the back of my car and have a game warden nick me with it.”

Marcus stood up very slowly, knotting his fists at his sides. His heavy gray eyes opened very wide. His big nose was white at the nostrils.

“Nobody here’d go that far, Sam.”

Delaguerra shook his head. “I don’t think so either. But they could take a hint to send me up there. And somebody outside the department could do the rest.”

Pete Marcus sat down again. He picked up one of the pointed bank pens and flipped it viciously at the round straw cushion. The point stuck, quivered, broke, and the pen rattled to the floor.

“Listen,” he said thickly, not looking up, “this is a job to me. That’s all it is. A living. I don’t have any ideals about this police work like you have. Say the word and I’ll heave the goddamn badge in the old boy’s puss.”

Delaguerra bent down, punched him in the ribs. “Skip it, copper. I’ve got ideas. Go on home and get drunk.”

He opened the door and went out quickly, walked along a marble-faced corridor to a place where it widened into an alcove with three doors. The middle one said: CHIEF OF DETECTIVES. ENTER. Delaguerra went into a small reception room with a plain railing across it. A police stenographer behind the railing looked up, then jerked his head at an inner door. Delaguerra opened a gate in the railing and knocked at the inner door, then went in.

Two men were in the big office. Chief of Detectives Tod McKim sat behind a heavy desk, looked at Delaguerra hard-eyed as he came in. He was a big, loose man who had gone saggy. He had a long, petulantly melancholy face. One of his eyes was not quite straight in his head.

The man who sat in a round-backed chair at the end of the desk was dandyishly dressed, wore spats. A pearl-gray hat and gray gloves and an ebony cane lay beside him on another chair. He had a shock of soft white hair and a handsome dissipated face kept pink by constant massaging. He smiled at Delaguerra, looked vaguely amused and ironical, smoked a cigarette in a long amber holder.

Delaguerra sat down opposite McKim. Then he looked at the white-haired man briefly and said: “Good evening, Commissioner.”

Commissioner Drew nodded offhandedly, didn’t speak.

McKim leaned forward and clasped blunt, nail-chewed fingers on the shiny desk top. He said quietly: “Took your time reporting back. Find anything?”

Delaguerra stared at him, a level expressionless stare.

“I wasn’t meant to—except maybe a doe carcass in the back of my car.”

Nothing changed in McKim’s face. Not a muscle of it moved. Drew dragged a pink and polished fingernail across the front of his throat and made a tearing sound with his tongue and teeth.

“That’s no crack to be makin’ at your boss, lad.”

Delaguerra kept on looking at McKim, waited. McKim spoke slowly, sadly: “You’ve got a good record, Delaguerra. Your grandfather was one of the best sheriffs this county ever had. You’ve blown a lot of dirt on it today. You’re charged with violating game laws, interfering with a Toluca County officer in the performance of his duty, and resisting arrest. Got anything to say to all that?”

Delaguerra said tonelessly: “Is there a tag out for me?”

McKim shook his head very slowly. “It’s a department charge. There’s no formal complaint. Lack of evidence, I guess.” He smiled dryly, without humor.

Delaguerra said quietly: “In that case I guess you’ll want my badge.”

McKim nodded, silent. Drew said: “You’re a little quick on the trigger. Just a shade fast on the snap-up.”

Delaguerra took his badge out, rubbed it on his sleeve, looked at it, pushed it across the smooth wood of the desk.

“Okey, Chief,” he said very softly. “My blood is Spanish, pure Spanish. Not nigger-Mex and not Yaqui-Mex. My grandfather would have handled a situation like this with fewer words and more powder smoke, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s funny. I’ve been deliberately framed into this spot because I was a close friend of Donegan Marr once. You know and I know that never counted for anything on the job. The Commissioner and his political backers may not feel so sure.”

Drew stood up suddenly. “By God, you’ll not talk like that to me,” he yelped.

Delaguerra smiled slowly. He said nothing, didn’t look towards Drew at all. Drew sat down again, scowling, breathing hard.

After a moment McKim scooped the badge into the middle drawer of his desk and got to his feet.

“You’re suspended for a board, Delaguerra. Keep in touch with me.” He went out of the room quickly, by the inner door, without looking back.

Delaguerra pushed his chair back and straightened his hat on his head. Drew cleared his throat, assumed a conciliatory smile and said: “Maybe I was a little hasty myself. The Irish in me. Have no hard feelings. The lesson you’re learning is something we’ve all had to learn. Might I give you a word of advice?”

Delaguerra stood up, smiled at him, a small dry smile that moved the corners of his mouth and left the rest of his face wooden.

“I know what it is, Commissioner. Lay off the Marr case.”

Drew laughed, good-humored again. “Not exactly. There isn’t any Marr case. Imlay has admitted the shooting through his attorney, claiming self-defense. He’s to surrender in the morning. No, my advice was something else. Go back to Toluca County and tell the warden you’re sorry. I think that’s all that’s needed. You might try it and see.”

Delaguerra moved quietly to the corridor and opened it. Then he looked back with a sudden flashing grin that showed all his white teeth.

“I know a crook when I see one, Commissioner. He’s been paid for his trouble already.”

He went out. Drew watched the door close shut with a faint whoosh, a dry click. His face was stiff with rage. His pink skin had turned a doughy gray. His hand shook furiously, holding the amber holder, and ash fell on the knee of his immaculate knife-edged trousers.

“By God,” he said rigidly, in the silence, “you may be a damn-smooth Spaniard. You may be smooth as plate glass—but you’re a hell of a lot easier to poke a hole through!”

He rose, awkward with anger, brushed the ashes from his trousers carefully and reached a hand out for hat and cane. The manicured fingers of the hand were trembling.