A question of attitude, right, Ron?

  He didn't wait while they untangled the body from the wheelchair and laid it on a stretcher. He needed to find Michelle. Better Wilfie broke the news than have her hear it from a stranger, but first he needed to see what kind of mangled mess she'd be confronted with. Ron might have lost his legs, he remembered sourly, but at least his face had remained intact, and though Wilfie was no coward, he didn't mind admitting that his hands were shaking as he hobbled towards the massive gilt mirror at the end of the hallway.

  "Corporal Baines?"

  He was so absorbed in examining the raw, red mess that was his face that he smelled her perfume before he even saw her. Jasmine, with soft hints of patchouli—and not a trace of disinfectant. And when he looked into the mirror, he saw that, yes, she did come up to about here on his shoulder, and yes again, it was a flying swan, that brooch.

  "You were Lieutenant Tyler's friend—oh, I say, are you all right?"

  "I—"

  When she smiled, Wilfie didn't need 20-20 vision to see there was no grief clouding those heavenly big blue eyes. Only kindness and comfort shined out to him. The trouble was, in the unforgiving glare of the crystal candelabra, the strands of grey in that lovely pile of hair stood out. Hundreds, yes hundreds, of silver, glinting threads that were in keeping with the furrows round her eyes, the lines around her mouth, and no wonder he hadn't paid attention when she cycled round the village. Michelle was old enough to be his bloody mum.

  "I'm ... fine."

  He was. Honest. Because so what that Michelle was older than Ron made out? She cared about him, didn't she? At least it wasn't the fat girl with ginger hair and thighs like tree trunks, and knocking on or not, she was a damned good-looking woman, so stop stuttering, you fool. You're the new Wilfie, remember? Strong, confident, got away with murder? Just calm down, ask her if she'd like a cup of tea, and take it from there.

  Except...

  There was something here that Wilfie couldn't quite put his finger on. Admittedly, he was so confused, so amazed, oh Christ, so bloody happy that his brain was out of focus, but something was still bugging him. Not that he might be ashamed to be seen with an older woman. Not that. Michelle was still a stunner—Shit. A stunner who spoke English...

  "Are you sure you don't want me to call somebody, Corporal? You've gone terribly pale and I'm concerned about your sudden change in breathing."

  Corporal. She addressed him by his rank....

  "You ... You're not Michelle, are you?” The floor was spinning. He could barely gasp the words out.

  "Yes, dear, I'm Mrs. Mitchell.” She nodded supportively. “The hospital administrator, but if you're absolutely certain that you don't need a nurse, I'll be about my duties.” Her smile was sad. “I simply wanted to offer my condolences, I know what good friends you were, and perhaps when you get home you wouldn't mind telling Ron's family how proud we were to have him with us.” She ruffled Wilfie's hair affectionately. “Well, I don't need to tell you how it was, do I?"

  With that she was gone, her long grey skirt swishing round her ankles, the lace at her collar ruffling in the air. At the end of the corridor, she turned to glance over her shoulder. Not a quick glance, either. A direct and lingering look. Exactly like the one Wilfie watched her giving Ron.

  * * * *

  How many hours did he remain, slumped at the top of the marble staircase? Sunshine turned to night. The hospital went quiet. Quiet, Wilfie decided, as the grave.

  This wasn't true. Michelle was real. She'd come to see him, hadn't she? Every bloody day she'd come to see him, and even if it was the fat one with ginger hair and Ron was too kind to say, so what? She'd come to visit, that's the bloody point.

  But a little voice kept whispering. Whispering at him through the silence—

  I made it up, Wilf. I only said those things to cheer you up. To give you something to focus on, when you were feeling so depressed.

  No, no, she's real, Wilfie shouted inside his head. She came to feed the sparrows on the lawn outside my window.

  And that's when he remembered. When they'd stretchered him away to get his leg seen to, he'd been so preoccupied with the pain searing through his ribs that he hadn't paid much attention as they bumped him down the stairs. The stairs, you see. Not one flight, not even two. Which meant there could not have been a lawn outside the window—

  Bollocks. Get a grip. Ron could still have seen her down below, and who cares if he lied about her looks? Michelle was real and the proof was here, right here in Wilfie's pocket. Look! In the letter she had written him herself. He shuffled to the light beneath the mirror. Smelled the disinfectant on the page. The page that was blank, whichever side he turned—

  In the mirror, Wilfie saw an old, old man, and the old man's face wasn't ravaged by either scars or burns, it was disfigured by loneliness and spite. And in the silence that would follow him forever, he could hear the sound of an ungreased wheel spinning slowly at the bottom of the stairs. No matter how loudly Wilfie screamed to drown it out.

  (c)2008 by Marilyn Todd

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Black Mask: SMART-ALECK KILL by Raymond Chandler

  We opened the Black Mask series with a Hammett reprint. We follow up here with Raymond Chandler, who is inextricably associated with his creation Philip Marlowe. Marlowe never appeared in any of Chandler's Black Mask stories, though when several of them were reprinted in paperback, the P.I.'s name was changed to Marlowe. In this story it's Johnny Dalmas, but he's clearly a proto-Marlowe!

  1.

  The doorman of the Kilmarnock was six foot two. He wore a pale blue uniform, and white gloves made his hands look enormous. He opened the door of the Yellow taxi as gently as an old maid stroking a cat.

  Johnny Dalmas got out and turned to the red-haired driver. He said: “Better wait for me around the corner, Joey."

  The driver nodded, tucked a toothpick a little farther back in the corner of his mouth, and swung his cab expertly away from the white-marked loading zone. Dalmas crossed the sunny sidewalk and went into the enormous cool lobby of the Kilmarnock. The carpets were thick, soundless. Bellboys stood with folded arms and the two clerks behind the marble desk looked austere.

  Dalmas went across to the elevator lobby. He got into a paneled car and said: “End of the line, please."

  The penthouse floor had a small quiet lobby with three doors opening off it, one to each wall. Dalmas crossed to one of them and rang the bell.

  Derek Walden opened the door. He was about forty-five, possibly a little more, and had a lot of powdery gray hair and a handsome, dissipated face that was beginning to go pouchy.

  He had on a monogrammed lounging robe and a glass full of whiskey in his hand. He was a little drunk.

  He said thickly, morosely: “Oh, it's you. C'mon in, Dalmas."

  He went back into the apartment, leaving the door open. Dalmas shut it and followed him into a long, high-ceilinged room with a balcony at one end and a line of French windows along the left side. There was a terrace outside.

  Derek Walden sat down in a brown and gold chair against the wall and stretched his legs across a footstool. He swirled the whiskey around in his glass, looking down at it.

  "What's on your mind?” he asked.

  Dalmas stared at him a little grimly. After a moment he said: “I dropped in to tell you I'm giving you back your job."

  Walden drank the whiskey out of his glass and put it down on the corner of a table. He fumbled around for a cigarette, stuck it in his mouth, and forgot to light it.

  "Tha’ so?” His voice was blurred but indifferent.

  Dalmas turned away from him and walked over to one of the windows. It was open and an awning flapped outside. The traffic noise from the boulevard was faint.

  He spoke over his shoulder: “The investigation isn't getting anywhere—because you don't want it to get anywhere. You know why you're being blackmailed. I don't. Eclipse Films is interested because they have a lot of sugar tied up in films you have made."

  "To hell with Eclipse Films,” Walden said, almost quietly.

  Dalmas shook his head and turned around. “Not from my angle. They stand to lose if you get in a jam the publicity hounds can't handle. You took me on because you were asked to. It was a waste of time. You haven't cooperated worth a cent."

  Walden said in an unpleasant tone: “I'm handling this my own way and I'm not gettin’ into any jam. I'll make my own deal—when I can buy something that'll stay bought.... And all you have to do is make the Eclipse people think the situation's bein’ taken care of. That clear?"

  Dalmas came partway back across the room. He stood with one hand on top of a table, beside an ashtray littered with cigarette stubs that had very dark lip rouge on them. He looked down at these absently.

  "That wasn't explained to me, Walden,” he said coldly.

  "I thought you were smart enough to figure it out,” Walden sneered. He leaned sidewise and slopped some more whiskey into his glass. “Have a drink?"

  Dalmas said: “No, thanks."

  Walden found the cigarette in his mouth and threw it on the floor. He drank. “What the hell!” he snorted. “You're a private detective and you're being paid to make a few motions that don't mean anything. It's a clean job—as your racket goes."

  Dalmas said: “That's another crack I could do without hearing,"

  Walden made an abrupt, angry motion. His eyes glittered. The corners of his mouth drew down and his face got sulky. He avoided Dalmas's stare.

  Dalmas said: “I'm not against you, but I never was for you. You're not the kind of guy I could go for, ever. If you had played with me, I'd have done what I could. I still will—but not for your sake. I don't want your money—and you can pull your shadows off my tail any time you like."

  Walden put his feet on the floor. He laid his glass down very carefully on the table at his elbow. The whole expression of his face changed.

  "Shadows? ... I don't get you.” He swallowed. “I'm not having you shadowed."

  Dalmas stared at him. After a moment he nodded. “Okay, then. I'll backtrack on the next one and see if I can make him tell who he's working for ... I'll find out."

  Walden said very quietly: “I wouldn't do that, if I were you. You're—you're monkeying with people that might get nasty ... I know what I'm talking about."

  "That's something I'm not going to let worry me,” Dalmas said evenly. “If it's the people that want your money, they were nasty a long time ago."

  He held his hat out in front of him and looked at it. Walden's face glistened with sweat. His eyes looked sick. He opened his mouth to say something.

  The door buzzer sounded.

  Walden scowled quickly, swore. He stared down the room but did not move.

  "Too damn many people come here without bein’ announced,” he growled. “My Jap boy is off for the day."

  The buzzer sounded again, and Walden started to get up. Dalmas said: “I'll see what it is. I'm on my way anyhow."

  He nodded to Walden, went down the room, and opened the door.

  Two men came in with guns in their hands. One of the guns dug sharply into Dalmas's ribs, and the man who was holding it said urgently: “Back up, and make it snappy. This is one of those stick-ups you read about."

  He was dark and good-looking and cheerful. His face was as clear as a cameo, almost without hardness. He smiled.

  The one behind him was short and sandy-haired. He scowled. The dark one said: “This is Walden's dick, Noddy. Take him over and go through him for a gun."

  The sandy-haired man, Noddy, put a short-barreled revolver against Dalmas's stomach and his partner kicked the door shut, then strolled carelessly down the room toward Walden.

  Noddy took a .38 Colt from under Dalmas's arm, walked around him and tapped his pockets. He put his own gun away and transferred Dalmas's Colt to his business hand.

  "Okay, Ricchio. This one's clean,” he said in a grumbling voice. Dalmas let his arms fall, turned, and went back into the room. He looked thoughtfully at Walden. Walden was leaning forward with his mouth open and an expression of intense concentration on his face. Dalmas looked at the dark stick-up and said softly: “Ricchio?"

  The dark boy glanced at him. “Over there by the table, sweetheart. I'll do all the talkin'."

  Walden made a hoarse sound in his throat. Ricchio stood in front of him, looking down at him pleasantly, his gun dangling from one finger by the trigger guard.

  "You're too slow on the pay-off, Walden. Too damn slow! So we came to tell you about it. Tailed your dick here too. Wasn't that cute?"

  Dalmas said gravely, quietly: “This punk used to be your bodyguard, Walden—if his name is Ricchio."

  Walden nodded silently and licked his lips. Ricchio snarled at Dalmas: “Don't crack wise, dick. I'm tellin’ you again.” He stared with hot eyes, then looked back at Walden, looked at a watch on his wrist.

  "It's eight minutes past three, Walden. I figure a guy with your drag can still get dough out of the bank. We're giving you an hour to raise ten grand. Just an hour. And we're takin’ your shamus along to arrange about delivery."

  Walden nodded again, still silent. He put his hands down on his knees and clutched them until his knuckles whitened.

  Ricchio went on: “We'll play clean. Our racket wouldn't be worth a squashed bug if we didn't. You'll play clean, too. If you don't, your shamus will wake up on a pile of dirt. Only he won't wake up. Get it?"

  Dalmas said contemptuously: “And if he pays up—I suppose you turn me loose to put the finger on you."

  Smoothly, without looking at him, Ricchio said: “There's an answer to that one, too ... Ten grand today, Walden. The other ten the first of the week. Unless we have trouble.... If we do, we'll get paid for our trouble."

  Walden made an aimless, defeated gesture with both hands outspread. “I guess I can arrange it,” he said hurriedly.

  "Swell. We'll be on our way then."

  Ricchio nodded shortly and put his gun away. He took a brown kid glove out of his pocket, put it on his right hand, moved across then took Dalmas's Colt away from the sandy-haired man. He looked it over, slipped it into his side pocket and held it there with the gloved hand.

  "Let's drift,” he said with a jerk of his head. They went out. Derek Walden stared after them bleakly.

  The elevator car was empty except for the operator. They got off at the mezzanine and went across a silent writing room past a stained-glass window with lights behind it to give the effect of sunshine. Ricchio walked half a step behind on Dalmas's left. The sandy-haired man was on his right, crowding him.

  They went down carpeted steps to an arcade of luxury shops, along that, out of the hotel through the side entrance. A small brown sedan was parked across the street. The sandy-haired man slid behind the wheel, stuck his gun under his leg and stepped on the starter. Ricchio and Dalmas got in the back. Ricchio drawled: “East on the boulevard, Noddy. I've got to figure."

  Noddy grunted. “That's a kick,” he growled over his shoulder. “Ridin’ a guy down Wilshire in daylight."

  "Drive the heap, bozo."

  The sandy-haired man grunted again and drove the small sedan away from the curb, slowed a moment later for the boulevard stop. An empty Yellow pulled away from the west curb, swung around in the middle of the block and fell in behind. Noddy made his stop, turned right, and went on. The taxi did the same. Ricchio glanced back at it without interest. There was a lot of traffic on Wilshire.

  Dalmas leaned back against the upholstery and said thought-fully: “Why wouldn't Walden use his telephone while we were coming down?"

  Ricchio smiled at him. He took his hat off and dropped it in his lap, then took his right hand out of his pocket and held it under the hat with the gun in it.

  "He wouldn't want us to get mad at him, dick."

  "So he lets a couple of punks take me for the ride."

  Ricchio said coldly: “It's not that kind of a ride. We need you in our business ... And we ain't punks, see?"

  Dalmas rubbed his jaw with a couple of fingers. He smiled quickly and snapped: “Straight ahead at Robertson?"

  "Yeah. I'm still figuring,” Ricchio said.

  "What a brain!” the sandy-haired man sneered.

  Ricchio grinned tightly and showed even white teeth. The light changed to red half a block ahead. Noddy slid the sedan forward and was first in the line at the intersection. The empty Yellow drifted up on his left. Not quite level. The driver of it had red hair. His cap was balanced on one side of his head and he whistled cheerfully past a toothpick.

  Dalmas drew his feet back against the seat and put his weight on them. He pressed his back hard against the upholstery. The tall traffic light went green and the sedan started forward, then hung a moment for a car that crowded into a fast left turn. The Yellow slipped forward on the left and the red-haired driver leaned over his wheel, yanked it suddenly to the right. There was a grinding, tearing noise. The riveted fender of the taxi plowed over the low-swung fender of the brown sedan, locked over its left front wheel. The two cars jolted to a stop.

  Horn blasts behind the two cars sounded angrily, impatiently.

  Dalmas's right fist crashed against Ricchio's jaw. His left hand closed over the gun in Ricchio's lap. He jerked it loose as Ricchio sagged in the corner. Ricchio's head wobbled. His eyes opened and shut flickeringly. Dalmas slid away from him along the seat and slipped the Colt under his arm.

  Noddy was sitting quite still in the front seat. His right hand moved slowly towards the gun under his thigh. Dalmas opened the door of the sedan and got out, shut the door, took two steps, and opened the door of the taxi. He stood beside the taxi and watched the sandy-haired man.

  Horns of the stalled cars blared furiously. The driver of the Yellow was out in front tugging at the two cars with a great show of energy and with no result at all. His toothpick waggled up and down in his mouth. A motorcycle officer in amber glasses threaded the traffic, looked the situation over wearily, jerked his head at the driver.