Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler Page B

towards him.
    "Ever see this one before?"
    "Sure. I was just looking at it."
    "I mean, earlier this evening."
    "I believe I did," I said. "Lying around somewhere. Why?"
    "You didn't search the body?"
    "Okey," I said. "Yes, I looked through his pockets. That was in one of them. I'm sorry. Just professional curiosity. I didn't disturb anything. After all he was my client."
    Randall took hold of the embroidered case with both hands and opened it. He sat looking into it. It was empty. The three cigarettes were gone.
    I bit hard on my teeth and kept the tired look on my face. It was not easy.
    "Did you see him smoke a cigarette out of this?"
    "No."
    Randall nodded coolly. "It's empty as you see. But it was in his pocket just the same. There's a little dust in it. I'm going to have it examined under a microscope. I'm not sure, but I have an idea it's marihuana."
    I said: "If he had any of those, I should think he would have smoked a couple tonight. He needed something to cheer him up."
    Randall closed the case carefully and pushed it away.
    "That's all," he said. "And keep your nose clean."
    I went out.
    The fog had cleared off outside and the stars were as bright as artificial stars of chromium on a sky of black velvet. I drove fast. I needed a drink badly and the bars were closed.
    13
    I got up at nine, drank three cups of black coffee, bathed the back of my head with ice-water and read the two morning papers that had been thrown against the apartment door. There was a paragraph and a bit about Moose Malloy, in Part II, but Nulty didn't get his name mentioned. There was nothing about Lindsay Marriott, unless it was on the society page.
    I dressed and ate two soft boiled eggs and drank a fourth cup of coffee and looked myself over in the mirror. I still looked a little shadowy under the eyes. I had the door open to leave when the phone rang.
    It was Nulty. He sounded mean.
    "Marlowe?"
    "Yeah. Did you get him?"
    "Oh sure. We got him." He stopped to snarl. "On the Ventura line, like I said. Boy, did we have fun! Six foot six, built like a coffer dam, on his way to Frisco to see the Fair. He had five quarts of hooch in the front seat of the rent car, and he was drinking out of another one as he rode along, doing a quiet seventy. All we had to go up against him with was two county cops with guns and blackjacks."
    He paused and I turned over a few witty sayings in my mind, but none of them seemed amusing at the moment. Nulty went on:
    "So he done exercises with the cops and when they was tired enough to go to sleep, he pulled one side off their car, threw the radio into the ditch, opened a fresh bottle of hooch, and went to sleep hisself. After a while the boys snapped out of it and bounced blackjacks off his head for about ten minutes before he noticed it. When he began to get sore they got handcuffs on him. It was easy. We got him in the icebox now, drunk driving, drunk in auto, assaulting police officer in performance of duty, two counts, malicious damage to official property, attempted escape from custody, assault less than mayhem, disturbing the peace, and parking on a state highway. Fun, ain't it?"
    "What's the gag?" I asked. "You didn't tell me all that just to gloat."
    "It was the wrong guy," Nulty said savagely. "This bird is named Stoyanoffsky and he lives in Hemet and he just got through working as a sandhog on the San Jack tunnel. Got a wife and four kids. Boy, is she sore. What you doing on Malloy?"
    "Nothing. I have a headache."
    "Any time you get a little free time--"
    "I don't think so," I said. "Thanks just the same. When is the inquest on the nigger coming up?"
    "Why bother?" Nulty sneered, and hung up.
    I drove down to Hollywood Boulevard and put my car in the parking space beside the building and rode up to my floor. I opened the door of the little reception room which I always left unlocked, in case I had a client and the client wanted to wait.
    Miss Anne Riordan looked up from a magazine and smiled at me.
    She was