chapter 11

She wore brownish speckled tweeds, a mannish shirt and tie, handcarved walking shoes. Her stockings were just as sheer as the day before, but she wasn't showing as much of her legs. Her black hair was glossy¹ under a brown Robin² Hood³ hat that might have cost fifty dollars and looked as if you could have made it with one hand out of a desk blotter. "Well, you do get up," she said, wrinkling her nose at the faded red settee, the two odd semi-easy chairs, the net curtains that needed laundering⁴ and the boy's size library table with the venerable magazines on it to give the place a professional touch. "I was beginning to think perhaps you worked in bed, like Marcel Proust." "Who's he?" I put a cigarette in my mouth and stared at her. She looked a little pale and strained, but she looked like a girl who could function under a strain. "A French writer, a connoisseur⁵ in degenerates⁶. You wouldn't know him." "Tut, tut," I said. "Come into my boudoir." She stood up and said: "We didn't get along very well yesterday. Perhaps I was rude." "We were both rude," I said. I unlocked the communicating door and held it for her. We went into the rest of my suite⁷, which contained a rust-red carpet, not very young, five green filing cases, three of them full of California climate, an advertising⁸ calendar showing the Quints rolling around on a sky-blue floor, in pink dresses, with seal-brown hair and sharp black eyes as large as mammoth⁹ prunes¹⁰. There were three near-walnut chairs, the usual desk with the usual blotter, pen set, ashtray¹¹ and telephone, and the usual squeaky swivel chair behind it. "You don't put on much of a front," she said, sitting down at the customer's side of the desk. I went over to the mail slot and picked up six envelopes, two letters and four pieces of advertising matter. I hung my hat on the telephone and sat down. "Neither do the Pinkertons," I said. "You can't make much money at this trade, if you're honest. If you have a front, you're making money--or expect to." "Oh--are you honest?" she asked and opened her bag. She picked a cigarette out of a French enamel¹² case, lit it with a pocket lighter¹³, dropped case and lighter back into the bag and left the bag open. "Painfully." "How did you get into this slimy kind of business then?" "How did you come to marry a bootlegger?" "My God, let's not start quarreling again. I've been trying to get you on the phone all morning. Here and at your apartment." "About Owen?" Her face tightened¹⁴ sharply. Her voice was soft. "Poor Owen," she said. "So you know about that." "A D.A.'s man took me down to Lido. He thought I might know something about it. But he knew much more than I did. He knew Owen wanted to marry your sister--once."She puffed¹⁵ silently at her cigarette and considered me with steady black eyes. "Perhaps it wouldn't have been a bad idea," she said quietly. "He was in love with her. We don't find much of that in our circle." "He had a police record." She shrugged¹⁶. She said negligently¹⁷: "He didn't know the right people. That's all a police record means in this rotten crime-ridden country." "I wouldn't go that far." She peeled her right glove off and bit her index finger at the first joint¹⁸, looking at me with steady eyes. "I didn't come to see you about Owen. Do you feel yet that you can tell me what my father wanted to see you about?" "Not without his permission." "Was it about Carmen?" "I can't even say that." I finished filling a pipe and put a match to it. She watched the smoke for a moment. Then her hand went into her open bag and came out with a thick white envelope. She tossed it across the desk. "You'd better look at it anyway," she said. I picked it up. The address was typewritten to Mrs. Vivian Regan, 3765 Alta Brea Crescent, West Hollywood. Delivery had been by messenger service and the office stamp showed 8.35 a.m. as the time out. I opened the envelope and drew out the shiny 4?by 3?photo that was all there was inside. It was Carmen sitting in Geiger's high-backed teakwood chair on the dais, in her earrings¹⁹ and her birthday suit. Her eyes looked even a little crazier than as I remembered them. The back of the photo was blank. I put it back in the envelope. "How much do they want?" I asked. "Five thousand--for the negative and the rest of the prints. The deal has to be closed tonight, or they give the stuff to some scandal sheet." "The demand came how?" "A woman telephoned me, about half an hour after this thing was delivered." "There's nothing in the scandal sheet angle. Juries convict without leaving the box on that stuff nowadays. What else is there?" "Does there have to be something else?" "Yes." She stared at me, a little puzzled. "There is. The woman said there was a police jam connected with it and I'd better lay it on the line fast, or I'd be talking to my little sister through a wire screen." "Better," I said. "What kind of jam?" "I don't know." "Where is Carmen now?" "She's at home. She was sick last night. She's still in bed, I think." "Did she go out last night?" "No. I was out, but the servants say she wasn't. I was down at Las Olindas, playing roulette at Eddie Mars' Cypress²⁰ Club. I lost my shirt." "So you like roulette. You would." She crossed her legs and lit another cigarette. "Yes. I like roulette. All Sternwoods like losing games, like roulette and marrying men that walk out on them and riding steeplechases at fifty-eight years old and being rolled on by a jumper and crippled for life. The Sternwoods have money. All it has bought them is a rain check." "What was Owen doing last night with your car?" "Nobody knows. He took it without permission. We always let him take a car on his night off, but last nightwasn't his night off." She made a wry²¹ mouth. "Do you think--" "He knew about this nude²² photo? How would I be able to say? I don't rule him out. Can you get five thousand in cash right away?" "Not unless I tell Dad--or borrow it. I could probably borrow it from Eddie Mars. He ought to be generous with me, heaven knows." "Better try that. You may need it in a hurry." She leaned back and hung an arm over the back of the chair. "How about telling the police?" "It's a good idea. But you won't do it." "Won't I?" "No. You have to protect your father and your sister. You don't know what the police might turn up. It might be something they couldn't sit on. Though they usually try in blackmail²³ cases." "Can you do anything?" "I think I can. But I can't tell you why or how." "I like you," she said suddenly. "You believe in miracles. Would you have a drink in the office?" I unlocked my deep drawer and got out my office bottle and two pony²⁴ glasses. I filled them and we drank. She snapped her bag shut and pushed the chair back. "I'll get the five grand," she said. "I've been a good customer of Eddie Mars. There's another reason why he should be nice to me, which you may not know." She gave me one of those smiles the lips have forgotten before they reach the eyes. "Eddie's blonde wife is the lady Rusty²⁵ ran away with." I didn't say anything. She stared tightly at me and added: "That doesn't interest you?" "It ought to make it easier to find him--if I was looking for him. You don't think he's in this mess, do you?" She pushed her empty glass at me. "Give me another drink. You're the hardest guy to get anything out of. You don't even move your ears." I filled the little glass. "You've got all you wanted out of me--a pretty good idea I'm not looking for your husband." She put the drink down very quickly. It made her gasp²⁶--or gave her an opportunity to gasp. She let a breath out slowly. "Rusty was no crook²⁷. If he had been, it wouldn't have been for nickles. He carried fifteen thousand dollars, in bills. He called it his mad money. He had it when I married him and he had it when he left me. No--Rusty's not in on any cheap blackmail racket." She reached for the envelope and stood up. "I'll keep in touch with you," I said. "If you want to leave me a message, the phone girl at my apartment house will take care of it." We walked over to the door. Tapping the white envelope against her knuckles²⁸, she said: "You still feel you can't tell me what Dad--" "I'd have to see him first." She took the photo out and stood looking at it, just inside the door. "She has a beautiful little body, hasn't she?" "Uh-huh." She leaned a little towards me. "You ought to see mine," she said gravely. "Can it be arranged?" She laughed suddenly and sharply and went halfway²⁹ through the door, then turned her head to say coolly: "You're as cold-blooded a beast as I ever met, Marlowe. Or can I call you Phil?" "Sure." "You can can me Vivian.""Thanks, Mrs. Regan." "Oh, go to hell, Marlowe." She went on out and didn't look back. I let the door shut and stood with my hand on it, staring at the hand. My face felt a little hot. I went back to the desk and put the whiskey away and rinsed³⁰ out the two pony glasses and put them away. I took my hat off the phone and called the D.A.'s office and asked for Bernie Ohls. He was back in his cubbyhole. "Well, I let the old man alone," he said. "The butler said he or one of the girls would tell him. This Owen Taylor lived over the garage and I went through his stuff. Parents at Dubuque, Iowa. I wired the Chief of Police there to find out what they want done. The Sternwood family will pay for it." "Suicide?" I asked. "No can tell. He didn't leave any notes. He had no leave to take the car. Everybody was home last night but Mrs. Regan. She was down at Las Olindas with a playboy named Larry Cobb. I checked on that. I know a lad on one of the tables." "You ought to stop some of that flash gambling," I said. "With the syndicate we got in this county? Be your age, Marlow. That sap mark on the boy's head bothers me. Sure you can't help me on this?" I liked his putting it that way. It let me say no without actually lying. We said good-by and I left the office, bought all three afternoon papers and rode a taxi down to the Hall of Justice to get my car out of the lot. There was nothing in any of the papers about Geiger. I took another look at his blue notebook, but the code was just as stubborn as it had been the night before.

1 glossy   

adj.平滑的；有光泽的

参考例句：

• I like these glossy spots.我喜欢这些闪闪发光的花点。
• She had glossy black hair.她长着乌黑发亮的头发。

2 robin   

n.知更鸟，红襟鸟

参考例句：

• The robin is the messenger of spring.知更鸟是报春的使者。
• We knew spring was coming as we had seen a robin.我们看见了一只知更鸟，知道春天要到了。

3 hood   

n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖

参考例句：

• She is wearing a red cloak with a hood.她穿着一件红色带兜帽的披风。
• The car hood was dented in.汽车的发动机罩已凹了进去。

4 laundering   

n.洗涤（衣等），洗烫（衣等）；洗（钱）v.洗（衣服等），洗烫（衣服等）( launder的现在分词 )；洗（黑钱）（把非法收入改头换面，变为貌似合法的收入）

参考例句：

• Separate the white clothes from the dark clothes before laundering. 洗衣前应当把浅色衣服和深色衣服分开。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He was charged with laundering money. 他被指控洗钱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 connoisseur   

n.鉴赏家，行家，内行

参考例句：

• Only the real connoisseur could tell the difference between these two wines.只有真正的内行才能指出这两种酒的区别。
• We are looking for a connoisseur of French champagne.我们想找一位法国香槟酒品酒专家。

6 degenerates   

衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Liberty often degenerates into lawlessness. 自由常常变质为无法无天。
• Her health degenerates rapidly. 她的健康状况迅速恶化。

7 suite   

n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员

参考例句：

• She has a suite of rooms in the hotel.她在那家旅馆有一套房间。
• That is a nice suite of furniture.那套家具很不错。

8 advertising   

n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的

参考例句：

• Can you give me any advice on getting into advertising? 你能指点我如何涉足广告业吗?
• The advertising campaign is aimed primarily at young people. 这个广告宣传运动主要是针对年轻人的。

9 mammoth   

n.长毛象；adj.长毛象似的，巨大的

参考例句：

• You can only undertake mammoth changes if the finances are there.资金到位的情况下方可进行重大变革。
• Building the new railroad will be a mammoth job.修建那条新铁路将是一项巨大工程。

10 prunes   

n.西梅脯，西梅干( prune的名词复数 )v.修剪（树木等）( prune的第三人称单数 )；精简某事物，除去某事物多余的部分

参考例句：

• Dried fruits such as prunes, pears, and peaches, are stewed. 梅干、梨脯、桃脯等干果，都是炖过的。 来自辞典例句
• We had stewed prunes for breakfast. 我们早饭吃炖梅干。 来自辞典例句

11 ashtray   

n.烟灰缸

参考例句：

• He knocked out his pipe in the big glass ashtray.他在大玻璃烟灰缸里磕净烟斗。
• She threw the cigarette butt into the ashtray.她把烟头扔进烟灰缸。

12 enamel   

n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质

参考例句：

• I chipped the enamel on my front tooth when I fell over.我跌倒时门牙的珐琅质碰碎了。
• He collected coloured enamel bowls from Yugoslavia.他藏有来自南斯拉夫的彩色搪瓷碗。

13 lighter   

n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级

参考例句：

• The portrait was touched up so as to make it lighter.这张画经过润色，色调明朗了一些。
• The lighter works off the car battery.引燃器利用汽车蓄电池打火。

14 tightened   

收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧

参考例句：

• The rope holding the boat suddenly tightened and broke. 系船的绳子突然绷断了。
• His index finger tightened on the trigger but then relaxed again. 他的食指扣住扳机，然后又松开了。

15 puffed   

adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧

参考例句：

• He lit a cigarette and puffed at it furiously. 他点燃了一支香烟，狂吸了几口。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He felt grown-up, puffed up with self-importance. 他觉得长大了，便自以为了不起。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 shrugged   

vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Sam shrugged and said nothing. 萨姆耸耸肩膀，什么也没说。
• She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. 她耸耸肩，装出一副无所谓的样子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 negligently   

参考例句：

• Losses caused intentionally or negligently by the lessee shall be borne by the lessee. 如因承租人的故意或过失造成损失的，由承租人负担。 来自经济法规部分
• Did the other person act negligently? 他人的行为是否有过失？ 来自口语例句

18 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

19 earrings   

n.耳环( earring的名词复数 )；耳坠子

参考例句：

• a pair of earrings 一对耳环
• These earrings snap on with special fastener. 这付耳环是用特制的按扣扣上去的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

20 cypress   

n.柏树

参考例句：

• The towering pine and cypress trees defy frost and snow.松柏参天傲霜雪。
• The pine and the cypress remain green all the year round.苍松翠柏，常绿不凋。

21 wry   

adj.讽刺的；扭曲的

参考例句：

• He made a wry face and attempted to wash the taste away with coffee.他做了个鬼脸，打算用咖啡把那怪味地冲下去。
• Bethune released Tung's horse and made a wry mouth.白求恩放开了董的马，噘了噘嘴。

22 nude   

adj.裸体的；n.裸体者，裸体艺术品

参考例句：

• It's a painting of the Duchess of Alba in the nude.这是一幅阿尔巴公爵夫人的裸体肖像画。
• She doesn't like nude swimming.她不喜欢裸泳。

23 blackmail   

n.讹诈，敲诈，勒索，胁迫，恫吓

参考例句：

• She demanded ＄1000 blackmail from him.她向他敲诈了1000美元。
• The journalist used blackmail to make the lawyer give him the documents.记者讹诈那名律师交给他文件。

24 pony   

adj.小型的；n.小马

参考例句：

• His father gave him a pony as a Christmas present.他父亲给了他一匹小马驹作为圣诞礼物。
• They made him pony up the money he owed.他们逼他还债。

25 rusty   

adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的

参考例句：

• The lock on the door is rusty and won't open.门上的锁锈住了。
• I haven't practiced my French for months and it's getting rusty.几个月不用，我的法语又荒疏了。

26 gasp   

n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说

参考例句：

• She gave a gasp of surprise.她吃惊得大口喘气。
• The enemy are at their last gasp.敌人在做垂死的挣扎。

27 crook   

v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处)

参考例句：

• He demanded an apology from me for calling him a crook.我骂他骗子，他要我向他认错。
• She was cradling a small parcel in the crook of her elbow.她用手臂挎着一个小包裹。

28 knuckles   

n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝

参考例句：

• He gripped the wheel until his knuckles whitened. 他紧紧握住方向盘，握得指关节都变白了。
• Her thin hands were twisted by swollen knuckles. 她那双纤手因肿大的指关节而变了形。 来自《简明英汉词典》

29 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。

30 rinsed   

v.漂洗( rinse的过去式和过去分词 )；冲洗；用清水漂洗掉（肥皂泡等）；（用清水）冲掉

参考例句：

• She rinsed out the sea water from her swimming-costume. 她把游泳衣里的海水冲洗掉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The clothes have been rinsed three times. 衣服已经洗了三和。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》