Perchance to Dream (6 page)

    He was low down, crouched against the gloom, his face a grayness without form that seemed to come back slowly after the glare of the shots. If it was a revolver he had, it might be empty. It might not. He had fired six times, but he might have reloaded inside the house. I hoped he had. I didn't want him with an empty gun. But it might be an automatic.

    I said: "Finished?"

    He whirled at me. Perhaps it would have been nice to allow him another shot or two, just like a gentleman of the old school. But his gun was still up and I couldn't wait any longer. Not long enough to be a gentleman of the old school. I shot him four times, the Colt straining against my ribs. The gun jumped out of his hands as if it had been kicked. He reached both his hands for his stomach. I could hear them smack hard against his body. He fell like that, straight forward, holding himself together with his broad hands. He fell facedown in the wet gravel. And after that there wasn't a sound from him…

    

    

    "You ever see her, Eddie?"

    Mars shook his head. "Not since the night I sprang her from the DA's living room," he said. "I took her home and went to make a drink and when I came back she was gone."

    "So you divorced her."

    "Uh huh."

    "And turned for solace to Vivian Regan."

    "You think so?"

    "I got the impression you and she might be sort of an item," I said.

    "And if we were?"

    "Then you might be sweet enough to find her little sister for her."

    "Those frails are poison, Marlowe. The younger one's sicker than a week-old oyster, and Vivian's the kind of broad that will always drive too fast. She breaks things."

    "But there's all that money," I said.

    "Never mind that maybe I should take offense that I'd chase one of these broads to marry into the mashed potatoes," Mars said. "The thing is, I don't need it. I got enough."

    "Enough doesn't mean anything to guys like you, Eddie."

    Mars' smile vanished, and his face showed suddenly just how hard a guy he was.

    "You don't want to get in my way, soldier, unless you like the idea of breathing through your navel."

    "Lash Canino couldn't do it, Eddie."

    Mars pointed at me with the forefinger of his right hand and then swiveled his wrist and pointed toward the door.

    "You're on your way, soldier," he said. "But while you're leaving think about something. I got no reason to care about what happens to you, and no reason to lie to you; but I'm telling you"-Mars' face broke into a grin-"because I'm sweet, that if people are telling you to stay out of the Carmen Sternwood deal, and to stay away from that sanitarium where they stashed her, then do it. You'll regret it if you don't."

    The grin had disappeared by the time he finished.

    I moved toward the door.

    "See you around," I said. "If somebody hasn't scared me to death in the meantime."

    I closed the door and left, and drove back to Hollywood knowing every bit as much as I'd known when I drove down.

    Which was nothing at all.

    

    

    The canyon where Resthaven nestled ran back along the hill for a ways, and the road on which Resthaven fronted followed the canyon and looped up and behind the sanitarium before it trailed back out onto Coldwater again. I parked my car on Coldwater Canyon under an olive tree. The morning was bright and still. It would be a hot day, but it wasn't hot yet and everything still looked unwilted. There was dust on the leaves of the olive tree, and the small black fruit that had fallen from the tree crunched underfoot when I got out of the car. The traffic on Coldwater Canyon Drive was heading both ways over the hill to work. I walked around behind Resthaven and up the side loop that put me on the canyon, looking down at the sanitarium. In Beverly Hills Oriental servants were squeezing orange juice and people in silk robes were eating soft-boiled eggs in little egg cups and glancing through the morning paper. But here, behind the screen of scrub growth along the rim of the canyon, I couldn't see the L. A. basin. I could have been in Fargo or Bellows Falls except for the heat and the dryness. I looked down at Resthaven Sanitarium.

    It was a large sweep of green lawn which ended at the foot of the canyon wall on which I stood. The wall formed a natural barrier. The other end of the lawn abutted the central house and an eight-foot-high brick wall ran from either end of the house to the foot of the canyon. There were shrubs along the walls, and flowering jacaranda which made it look ornamental, but it would take an agile patient to get over it. There was a pool with red stone terracing around it, and near the canyon wall, a croquet lawn where several men and women played a morning round. The players were dressed variously. Some in what seemed to be a hospital uniform of black linen pajamas and sandals, but two of the men were in suits and ties, and one woman was in evening dress.

    The beachboy I'd seen earlier was lounging on a chaise near the pool, watching the patients and working on his tan. The Mexican was nowhere in sight, nor was Dr. Bonsentir. I squatted on my haunches at the rim of the canyon, hidden by some scrub oak, and observed. The croquet proceeded languidly, and as the sun got higher and burned away the last wisp of night coolness, the beachboy shifted his chaise into the shade of a big beach umbrella. He was reading the paper and periodically glancing at his charges. After a while he lay back in the chaise and, with the paper draped over his face, lay perfectly still. There wouldn't be a better time. I went over the rim of the canyon.

    It was nearly vertical but scattered with scrub pine and oak and juniper and I was able to slide down from handhold to handhold and drop into the croquet lawn without collecting more dirt than would grow an acre of spinach. If the players thought there was anything odd about someone sliding down the canyon into their game they didn't do anything to suggest it. In fact they paid me no attention as they went about tapping the wooden balls with their mallets and with subdued pleasure sending their opponent's ball away from the wicket. The beachboy never stirred.

    There was something odd about this croquet game. It took me a minute to realize what it was as I shook the stones and assorted gravel out of my shirt. No one spoke. The game proceeded in complete silence except for the click of the ball and the occasional pleased chuckle. The woman in the evening gown played in long gloves and high slingstrap silver slippers. One of the men had on a pale tan suit with a thin cream pinstripe in it. He wore a cream-colored linen vest and light tan shoes. His bright green silk tie was tied in a wide Windsor knot. They were all doped to the eyeballs and were playing their game to a tune I couldn't hear.

    Walking softly on the grass, I went past the sleeping attendant and in through a back door into the same long low ranch-style main building that I'd been in before. It was cool inside, and dim. I was in a game room. There were two billiards tables and a Ping-Pong table. Along one wall there were card tables set up and across the back wall was a low counter with stools where maybe milk and cookies was served, or maybe opium and a flagon of ether.

    To the left a long corridor ran down the back side of the long house. I went down that way. The left-hand wall was punctuated with doors and each door led into a patient's room. The first one was empty. In the second room was a wispy old lady wearing a flowered nightdress with a lace collar. Her gray hair framed her face in soft permanent waves. There was the hint of a beautiful youth about her. It whispered in the way she held her head and the repose of her small body in the chair. She had a large picture book open on her lap and she was looking at it intently through gold-rimmed wire glasses. I stepped quietly into the room. On the half-open door was a small plate that said MRS. NORMAN SWAYZE.

    "Good morning, Mrs. Swayze," I said.

    She looked up from her book and smiled at me.

    "Hi," she said.

    "I'm Dr. Marlowe," I said. "How are you feeling this morning?"

    I closed the door quietly behind me as I spoke.

    "Oh, I'm perfectly fine, doctor," she said. "This morning I was looking out the window trying to see my house, but I don't think I can see it. Can you?"

    "Where do you live, Mrs. Swayze?"

    She pointed toward the window.

    "Over there," she said brightly, "somewhere."

    I nodded and glanced out the window.

    "No," I said. "I don't see your house either."

    "I look," she said. "I look all the time, but I never seem able to find it."

    As I got closer I could see that her book was a high-class, well-printed four-color collection of some of the filthiest pornographic photographs I had ever seen. It was the kind of expensive smut that Arthur Gwynne Geiger had peddled out of his shop on Hollywood Boulevard near Las Palmas. But that was a while ago now, before I killed Lash Canino.

    The old lady had lost interest in me and was studying her book again, licking her thumb periodically to turn a page. Hunched over the big book in her small lap, she looked like a gentle sparrow. On the bureau against the wall, and piled on the nightstand beside her bed, were other books just like the one she had, well bound, well produced, and filthier than a Tijuana latrine.

    She looked up and saw me looking at the books.

    "Would you like to read one of my books?" she said. "I love books like this. Do you?"

    I shook my head. "No, ma'am," I said. "Not exactly."

    "Well, I do," she said firmly. "And the doctor gets them for me anytime I want them."

    "Dr. Bonsentir?" I said.

    "Yes-well, not himself always, sometimes one of the young men gets them for me."

    "Mrs. Swayze," I said, "do you know Carmen Sternwood?"

    She let the book rest open in her lap. There were two women and a man in a double-truck full-color spread. I tried not to notice.

    "Carmen?" she said. She had straightened and her forehead wrinkled slightly as she tried to pull the raveled threads of her aging mind together.

    "Carmen Sternwood," I said. "Young woman, smallish, nice figure, light brown hair. Her thumbs were sort of odd-looking."

    Mrs. Swayze smiled. It was the thumbs.

    "Of course. Carmen. She lives here too. Yes. She often comes in to read my books. Sometimes we read them together."

    "Have you seen her lately?" I said.

    Mrs. Swayze's face tightened a little. It made her cheeks pinch and redden.

    "I think she went off with Mr. Simpson. I think she's visiting him."

    "Really?" I said. "Do you know Mr. Simpson's full name?"

    Mrs. Swayze's eyes got very wide and she looked a little frightened.

    "Me? I don't know. I don't know anyone's first name. I don't remember very much anymore. I can't even remember where my house is. I look and I look and I can't see it."

    "Do you know where Mr. Simpson's house is?"

    She shook her head vigorously, and pointed again, vaguely, toward the window.

    "Over there," she said, "I imagine."

    "Do you know why she went to visit Mr. Simpson?" I said.

    Mrs. Swayze smiled secretively and winked at me.

    "A lot of the young girls here go to visit Mr. Simpson."

    "Do they usually come back?"

    "I don't know," she said. Her tone suggested that the question was idiotic.

    Then her eyes shifted past me and she said, "Hi, sweetie."

    I turned. Sweetie was the Mexican, on crepe-soled shoes, who had opened the door behind me. I should have smelled him. He was rank as a goat. His small eyes fixed on me and never left.

    "I've been talking with Dr. Marlowe," Mrs. Swayze said. "He tried to see my house for me but he says he can't."

    The Mexican's eyes never wavered.

    "Si, Seriora Swayze," he said. Then he raised a forefinger and curled it toward him and gestured me toward the hall. I turned to Mrs. Swayze and bowed slightly.

    "If I see your house," I said, "I'll let you know."

    As I said it I slipped my gun out from under my arm and held it down against my leg, where the Mexican couldn't see it. Then I straightened and turned to leave.

    "Thank you, doctor," Mrs. Swayze said. She was bent back over her book, fully engrossed again, wetting her thumb to turn the next page.

    The Mexican backed out of the room ahead of me and as I reached the hall and stepped away from the door he whistled a punch with his left hand that caught me on the side of the jaw and slammed me back against the wall. It was like being hit by a bowling ball. I banged into the wall, my legs felt rubbery and I slid a little downward, trying to brace against the wall with my back as I slid. There was no expression on the Mexican's face as he stepped in to me and rammed his forearm up under my chin, and pinned me back against the wall. His breath was sour in my face as he came in against me and I saw his eyes suddenly widen as I jammed the muzzle of the Colt into his belly under his rib cage.

    "Back up," I said hoarsely, "your breath is wilting my suit."

    The Mexican stepped back carefully and stood with his hands a little away from his sides, his small eyes still steady on me.

    "Now," I said, "you and I are going to walk down this corridor and into the front hall and out the front door. And you're going to do it backwards."

    He made no motion, he said nothing. I could feel the tension in him, like a trigger waiting to be pulled. I hoped he could feel the same thing in me. Especially because I had a trigger to pull.