chapter 6

It's a long drag back from Tijuana and one of the dullest drives in the state. Tijuana is nothing; all they want there is the buck¹. The kid who sidles over to your car and looks at you with big wistful eyes and says, "One dime², please, mister," will try to sell you his sister in the next sentence. Tijuana is not Mexico. No border town is anything but a border town, just as no waterfront is anything but a waterfront. San Diego? One of the most beautiful harbors in the world and nothing in it but navy and a few fishing boats. At night it is fairyland. The swell³ is as gentle as an old lady singing hymns⁴. But Marlowe has to get home and count the spoons. The road north is as monotonous⁵ as a sailor's chantey. You go through a town, down a hill, along a stretch of beach, through a town, down a hill, along a stretch of beach. It was two o'clock when I got back and they were waiting for me in a dark sedan with no police tags, no red light, only the double antenna⁶, and not only police cars have those. I was halfway⁷ up the steps before they came out of it and yelled at me, the usual couple in the usual suits, with the usual stony⁸ leisure of movement, as if the world was waiting hushed and silent for them to tell it what to do. "Your name Marlowe? We want to talk to you." He let me see the glint of a badge. For all I caught of it he might have been Pest Control. He was gray blond and looked sticky. His partner was tall, good-looking, neat, and had a precise nastiness about him, a goon with an education. They had watching and waiting eyes, patient and careful eyes, cool disdainful eyes, cops' eyes. They get them at the passing-out parade at the police school. "Sergeant⁹ Green, Central Homicide. This is Detective Dayton." I went on up and unlocked the door. You don't shake hands with big city cops. That close is too close. They sat in the living room. I opened the windows and the breeze whispered. Green did the talking. "Man named Terry Lennox. Know him, huh?" "We have a drink together once in a while. He lives in Encino, married money. I've never been where he lives." "Once in a while," Green said. "How often would that be?" "It's a vague expression. I meant it that way. It could be once a week or once in two months." "Met his wife?" "Once, very briefly¹⁰, before they were married." "You saw him last when and where?" I took a pipe off the end table and filled it. Green leaned forward close to me. The tall lad sat farther back holding a ballpoint poised¹¹ over a red-edged pad. "This is where I say, 'What's this all about?' and you say, 'We ask the questions.'" "So you just answer them, huh?" I lit the pipe. The tobacco was a little too moist. It took me some time to light it properly and three matches. "I got time," Green said, "but I already used up a lot of it waiting around. So snap it up, mister. We know who you are, And you know we ain't here to work up an appetite." "I was just thinking," I said. "We used to go to Victor's fairly often, and not so often to The Green Lantern and The Bull and Bear—that's the place down at the end of the Strip that tries to look like an English inn—" "Quit stalling." "Who's dead?" I asked. Detective Dayton spoke¹² up. He had a hard, mature, don't-try-to-fool-with-me voice. "Just answer the questions, Marlowe. We are conducting a routine investigation¹³. That's all you need to know." Maybe I was tired and irritable¹⁴. Maybe I felt a little guilty. I could learn to hate this guy without even knowing him. I could just look at him across the width of a cafeteria and want to kick his teeth in. "Shove it, Jack," I said. "Keep that guff for the juvenile¹⁵ bureau. It's a horse laugh even to them." Green chuckled¹⁶. Nothing changed in Dayton's face that you could put a finger on-but he suddenly looked ten years older and twenty years nastier. The breath going through his nose whistled faintly. "He passed the bar examination," Green said. "You can't fool around with Dayton." I got up slowly and went over to the bookshelves. I took down the bound copy of the California Penal¹⁷ Code. I held it out to Dayton. "Would you kindly¹⁸ find me the section that says I have to answer the questions?" He was holding himself very still. He was going to slug me and we both knew it. But he was going to wait for the break. Which meant that he didn't trust Green to back him up if he got out of line. He said: "Every citizen has to co-operate with the police. In all ways, even by physical action, and especially by answering any questions of a non-incriminating nature the police think it necessary to ask." His voice saying this was hard and bright and smooth. "It works out that way," I said. "Mostly by a process of direct or indirect intimidation¹⁹. In law no such obligation exists. Nobody has to tell the police anything, any time, anywhere." "Aw shut up," Green said impatiently. "You're crawfishing and you know it. Sit down. Lennox's wife has been murdered. In a guest house at their place in Encino. Lennox has skipped out. Anyway he can't be found. So we're looking for a suspect in a murder case. That satisfy you?" I threw the book in a chair and went back to the couch across the table from Green. "So why come to me?" I asked. "I've never been near the house. I told you that." Green patted his thighs²⁰, up and down, up and down. He grinned at me quietly. Dayton was motionless in the chair. His eyes ate me. "On account of your phone number was written on a pad in his room during the past twenty-four hours," Green said. "It's a date pad and yesterday was torn off but you could see the impression on today's page. We don't know when he called you up. We don't know where he went or why or when. But we got to ask, natch." "Why in the guest house?" I asked, not expecting him to answer, but he did. He blushed a little. "Seems she went there pretty often. At night. Had visitors. The help can see down through the trees where the lights show. Cars come and go, sometimes late, sometimes very late. Too much is enough, huh? Don't kid yourself. Lennox is our boy. He went down that way about one in the A.M. The butler happened to see. He come back alone, maybe twenty minutes later. After that nothing. The lights stayed on. This morning no Lennox. The butler goes down by the guest house. The dame²¹ is as naked as a mermaid²² on the bed and let me tell you he don't recognize her by her face. She practically ain't got one. Beat to pieces with a bronze statuette of a monkey." "Terry Lennox wouldn't do anything like that," I said. "Sure she cheated on him. Old stuff. She always had. They'd been divorced and remarried. I don't suppose it made him happy but why should he go crazy over it now?" "Nobody knows that answer," Green said patiently. "It happens all the time. Men and women both. A guy takes it and takes it and takes it. Then he don't. He probably don't know why himself, why at that particular instant he goes berserk. Only he does, and somebody's dead. So we got business to do. So we ask you one simple question. So quit horsing around or we take you in." "He's not going to tell you, Sergeant," Dayton said acidly. "He read that law book. Like a lot of people that read a law book he thinks the law is in it." "You make the notes," Green said, "and leave your brains alone. If you're real good we'll let you sing 'Mother Machree' at the police smoker²³." "The hell with you, Sarge, if I may say so with proper respect for your rank." "Let's you and him fight," I said to Green. "I'll catch him when he drops." Dayton laid his note pad and ball-point aside very carefully. He stood up with a bright gleam in his eyes. He walked over and stood in front of me. "On your feet, bright boy. Just because I went to college don't make me take any guff from a nit like you." I started to get up. I was still off balance when he hit me. He hooked me with a neat left and crossed it. Bellsrang, but not for dinner. I sat down hard and shook my head. Dayton was still there. He was smiling now. "Let's try again," he said. "You weren't set that time. It wasn't really kosher." I looked at Green. He was looking at his thumb as if studying a hangnail. I didn't move or speak, waiting for him to look up. If I stood up again, Dayton would slug me again. He might slug me again anyhow. But if I stood up and he slugged me, I would take him to pieces, because the blows proved he was strictly²⁴ a boxer²⁵. He put them in the right place but it would take a lot of them to wear me down. Green said almost absently: "Smart work, Billy boy. You gave the man exactly what he wanted. Clam²⁶ juice." Then he looked up and said mildly: "Once more, for the record, Marlowe. Last time you saw Terry Lennox, where and how and what was talked about, and where did you come from just now. Yes—or no?" Dayton was standing²⁷ loosely, nicely balanced. There was a soft sweet sheen in his eyes. "How about the other guy?" I asked, ignoring him. "What other guy was that?" "In the hay, in the guest house. No clothes on. You're not saying she had to go down there to play solitaire," "That comes later—when we get the husband." "Fine. If it's not too much trouble when you already have a patsy." "You don't talk, we take you in, Marlowe." "As a material witness?" "As a material my foot. As a suspect. Suspicion of accessory after the fact of murder. Helping²⁸ a suspect escape. My guess is you took the guy somewhere. And rightnow a guess is all I need. The skipper is tough these days. He knows the rule book but he gets absent-minded. This could be a misery²⁹ for you. One way or another we get a statement from you. The harder it is to get, the surer we are we need it." "That's a lot of crap to him," Dayton said. "He knows the book." "It's a lot of crap to everybody," Green said calmly. "But it still works. Come on, Marlowe. I'm blowing the whistle on you." "Okay," I said. "Blow it. Terry Lennox was my friend. I've got a reasonable amount of sentiment invested in him. Enough not to spoil it just because a cop says come through, You've got a case against him, maybe far more than I hear from you. Motive³⁰, opportunity, and the fact that he skipped out. The motive is old stuff, long neutralized³¹, almost part of the deal. I don't admire that kind of deal, but that's the kind of guy he is—a little weak and very gentle. The rest of it means nothing except that if he knew she was dead he knew he was a sitting duck for you. At the inquest if they have one and if they call me, I'll have to answer questions. I don't have to answer yours. I can see you're a nice guy, Green. Just as I can see your partner is just another goddam badge flasher with a power complex. If you want to get me in a real jam, let him hit me again. I'll break his goddam pencil for him." Green stood up and looked at me sadly. Dayton hadn't moved. He was a one-shot tough guy. He had to have time out to pat his back. "I'll use the phone," Green said. "But I know what answer I'll get. You're a sick chicken, Marlowe. A very sick chicken. Get the hell outa my way." This last to Dayton. Dayton turned and went back and picked up his pad. Green crossed to the phone and lifted it slowly, his plain face creased³² with the long slow thankless grind. That's the trouble with cops. You're all set to hate their guts³³ and then you meet one that goes human on you. The Captain said to bring me in, and rough. They put handcuffs on me. They didn't search the house, which seemed careless of them. Possibly they figured I would be too experienced to have anything there that could be dangerous to me. In which they were wrong. Because if they had made any kind of job of it they would have found Terry Lennox's car keys. And when the car was found, as it would be sooner or later, they would fit the keys to it and know he had been in my company. Actually, as it turned out, that meant nothing. The car was never found by any police. It was stolen sometime in the night, driven most probably to El Paso, fitted with new keys and forged papers, and put on the market eventually in Mexico City. The procedure is routine. Mostly the money comes back in the form of heroin³⁴. Part of the good-neighbor policy, as the hoodlums see it.

1 buck   

n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃

参考例句：

• The boy bent curiously to the skeleton of the buck.这个男孩好奇地弯下身去看鹿的骸骨。
• The female deer attracts the buck with high-pitched sounds.雌鹿以尖声吸引雄鹿。

2 dime   

n.（指美国、加拿大的钱币）一角

参考例句：

• A dime is a tenth of a dollar.一角银币是十分之一美元。
• The liberty torch is on the back of the dime.自由火炬在一角硬币的反面。

3 swell   

vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强

参考例句：

• The waves had taken on a deep swell.海浪汹涌。
• His injured wrist began to swell.他那受伤的手腕开始肿了。

4 hymns   

n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌( hymn的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• At first, they played the hymns and marches familiar to them. 起初他们只吹奏自己熟悉的赞美诗和进行曲。 来自英汉非文学 - 百科语料821
• I like singing hymns. 我喜欢唱圣歌。 来自辞典例句

5 monotonous   

adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的

参考例句：

• She thought life in the small town was monotonous.她觉得小镇上的生活单调而乏味。
• His articles are fixed in form and monotonous in content.他的文章千篇一律，一个调调儿。

6 antenna   

n.触角，触须；天线

参考例句：

• The workman fixed the antenna to the roof of the house.工人把天线固定在房顶上。
• In our village, there is an antenna on every roof for receiving TV signals.在我们村里，每家房顶上都有天线接收电视信号。

7 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。

8 stony   

adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的

参考例句：

• The ground is too dry and stony.这块地太干，而且布满了石头。
• He listened to her story with a stony expression.他带着冷漠的表情听她讲经历。

9 sergeant   

n.警官，中士

参考例句：

• His elder brother is a sergeant.他哥哥是个警官。
• How many stripes are there on the sleeve of a sergeant?陆军中士的袖子上有多少条纹？

10 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

11 poised   

a.摆好姿势不动的

参考例句：

• The hawk poised in mid-air ready to swoop. 老鹰在半空中盘旋，准备俯冲。
• Tina was tense, her hand poised over the telephone. 蒂娜心情紧张，手悬在电话机上。

12 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

13 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

14 irritable   

adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的

参考例句：

• He gets irritable when he's got toothache.他牙一疼就很容易发脾气。
• Our teacher is an irritable old lady.She gets angry easily.我们的老师是位脾气急躁的老太太。她很容易生气。

15 juvenile   

n.青少年，少年读物；adj.青少年的，幼稚的

参考例句：

• For a grown man he acted in a very juvenile manner.身为成年人，他的行为举止显得十分幼稚。
• Juvenile crime is increasing at a terrifying rate.青少年犯罪正在以惊人的速度增长。

16 chuckled   

轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She chuckled at the memory. 想起这件事她就暗自发笑。
• She chuckled softly to herself as she remembered his astonished look. 想起他那惊讶的表情，她就轻轻地暗自发笑。

17 penal   

adj.刑罚的；刑法上的

参考例句：

• I hope you're familiar with penal code.我希望你们熟悉本州法律规则。
• He underwent nineteen years of penal servitude for theft.他因犯了大窃案受过十九年的苦刑。

18 kindly   

adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
• A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。

19 intimidation   

n.恐吓，威胁

参考例句：

• The Opposition alleged voter intimidation by the army.反对党声称投票者受到军方的恐吓。
• The gang silenced witnesses by intimidation.恶帮用恐吓的手段使得证人不敢说话。

20 thighs   

n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿

参考例句：

• He's gone to London for skin grafts on his thighs. 他去伦敦做大腿植皮手术了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The water came up to the fisherman's thighs. 水没到了渔夫的大腿。 来自《简明英汉词典》

21 dame   

n.女士

参考例句：

• The dame tell of her experience as a wife and mother.这位年长妇女讲了她作妻子和母亲的经验。
• If you stick around,you'll have to marry that dame.如果再逗留多一会，你就要跟那个夫人结婚。

22 mermaid   

n.美人鱼

参考例句：

• How popular would that girl be with the only mermaid mom!和人鱼妈妈在一起，那个女孩会有多受欢迎！
• The little mermaid wasn't happy because she didn't want to wait.小美人鱼不太高兴，因为她等不及了。

23 smoker   

n.吸烟者，吸烟车厢，吸烟室

参考例句：

• His wife dislikes him to be a smoker.他妻子不喜欢他当烟民。
• He is a moderate smoker.他是一个有节制的烟民。

24 strictly   

adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地

参考例句：

• His doctor is dieting him strictly.他的医生严格规定他的饮食。
• The guests were seated strictly in order of precedence.客人严格按照地位高低就座。

25 boxer   

n.制箱者，拳击手

参考例句：

• The boxer gave his opponent a punch on the nose.这个拳击手朝他对手的鼻子上猛击一拳。
• He moved lightly on his toes like a boxer.他像拳击手一样踮着脚轻盈移动。

26 clam   

n.蛤，蛤肉

参考例句：

• Yup!I also like clam soup and sea cucumbers.对呀！我还喜欢蛤仔汤和海参。
• The barnacle and the clam are two examples of filter feeders.藤壶和蛤类是滤过觅食者的两种例子。

27 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

28 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

29 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

30 motive   

n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的

参考例句：

• The police could not find a motive for the murder.警察不能找到谋杀的动机。
• He had some motive in telling this fable.他讲这寓言故事是有用意的。

31 neutralized   

v.使失效( neutralize的过去式和过去分词 )；抵消；中和；使（一个国家）中立化

参考例句：

• Acidity in soil can be neutralized by spreading lime on it. 土壤的酸性可以通过在它上面撒石灰来中和。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This strategy effectively neutralized what the Conservatives had hoped would be a vote-winner. 这一策略有效地冲淡了保守党希望在选举中获胜的心态。 来自《简明英汉词典》

32 creased   

（使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的过去式和过去分词 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹； 皱皱巴巴

参考例句：

• You've creased my newspaper. 你把我的报纸弄皱了。
• The bullet merely creased his shoulder. 子弹只不过擦破了他肩部的皮肤。

33 guts   

v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠

参考例句：

• I'll only cook fish if the guts have been removed. 鱼若已收拾干净，我只需烧一下即可。
• Barbara hasn't got the guts to leave her mother. 巴巴拉没有勇气离开她妈妈。 来自《简明英汉词典》

34 heroin   

n.海洛因

参考例句：

• Customs have made their biggest ever seizure of heroin.海关查获了有史以来最大的一批海洛因。
• Heroin has been smuggled out by sea.海洛因已从海上偷运出境。