chapter 21

Next morning I got up late on account of the big fee I had earned the night before. I drank an extra cup of coffee, smoked an extra cigarette, ate an extra slice of Canadian bacon, and for the three hundredth time I swore I would never again use an electric razor. That made the day normal. I hit the office about ten, picked up some odds¹ and ends of mail, slit² the envelopes and let the stuff lie on the desk. I opened the windows wide to let out the smell of dust and dinginess³ that collected in the night and hung in the still air, in the corners of the room, in the slats of the venetian blinds. A dead moth⁴ was spreadeagled on a corner of the desk. On the window sill a bee with tattered⁵ wings was crawling along the woodwork, buzzing in a tired remote sort of way, as if she knew it wasn't any use, she was finished, she had flown too many missions and would never get back to the hive again. I knew it was going to be one of those crazy days. Everyone has them. Days when nobody rolls in, but the loose wheels, the dingoes who park their brains with their gum, the squirrels who can't find their nuts, the mechanics who always have a gear wheel left over. The first was a big blond roughneck named Kuissenen or something Finnish like that. He jammed his massive bottom in the customer's chair and planted two wide horny hands on my desk and said he was a power-shovel operator, that he lived in Culver City, and the goddarn woman who lived next door to him was trying to poison his dog. Every morning before he let the dog out for a run in the back yard he had to search the place from fence to fence for meatballs thrown over the potato vine from next door. He'd found nine of them so far and they were loaded with a greenish powder he knew was an arsenic⁶ weed killer⁷. "How much to watch out and catch her at it?" He stared at me as unblinkingly as a fish in a tank. "Why not do it yourself?" "I got to work for a living, mister. I'm losing four twentyfive an hour just coming up here to ask." "Try the police?" "I try the police. They might get around to it some time next year. Right now they're busy sucking up to MGM." "S.P.C.A.? The Tailwaggers?" "What's them?" I told him about the Tailwaggers. He was far from interested. He knew about the S.P.C.A. The S.P.C.A. could take a running jump. They couldn't see nothing smaller than a horse. "It says on the door you're an investigator," he said truculently⁸. "Okay, go the hell out and investigate. Fifty bucks⁹ if you catch her." "Sorry," I said. "I'm tied up. Spending a couple of weeks hiding in a gopher hole in your back yard would be out of my line anyway—even for fifty bucks." He stood up glowering¹⁰. "Big shot," he said. "Don't need the dough¹¹, huh? Can't be bothered saving the life of a itty-bitty dog. Nuts to you, big shot." "I've got troubles too, Mr. Kuissenen." "I'll twist her goddam neck if I catch her," he said, and I didn't doubt he could have done it. He could have twisted the hind¹² leg off of an elephant. "That's what makes it I want somebody else. Just because the little tike barks when a car goes by the house. Sour-faced old bitch." He started for the door. "Are you sure it's the dog she's trying to poison?" I asked his back. "Sure I'm sure." He was halfway¹³ to the door before the nickel dropped. He swung around fast then. "Say that again, buster." I just shook my head. I didn't want to fight him. He might hit me on the head with my desk. He snorted and went out, almost taking the door with him. The next cookie in the dish was a woman, not old, not young, not clean, not too dirty, obviously poor, shabby, querulous and stupid. The girl she roomed with—in her set any woman who works out is a girl—was taking money out of her purse. A dollar here, four bits there, but it added up. She figured she was out close to twenty dollars in all. She couldn't afford it. She couldn't afford to move either. She couldn't afford a detective. She thought I ought to be willing to throw a scare into the roommate just on the telephone like, not mentioning any names It took her twenty minutes or more to tell me this. She kneaded her bag incessantly¹⁴ while telling it. "Anybody you know could do that," I said. "Yeah, but you bein' a dick and all." "I don't have a license¹⁵ to threaten people I know nothing about." "I'm goin' to tell her I been in to see you. I don't have to say it's her. Just that you're workin' on it." "I wouldn't if I were you. If you mention my name she may call me up. If she does that, I'll tell her the facts." She stood up and slammed her shabby bag against her stomach. "You're no gentleman," she said shrilly¹⁶. "Where does it say I have to be?" She went out mumbling¹⁷. After lunch I had Mr. Simpson W. Edelweiss. He had a card to prove it. He was manager of a sewing machine agency. He was a small tired-looking man about forty-eight to fifty, small hands and feet, wearing a brown suit with sleeves too long, and a stiff white collaf behind a purple tie with black diamonds on it. He sat on the edge of the chair without fidgeting and looked at me out of sad black eyes. His hair was black too and thick and rough without a sign of gray in it that I could see. He had a clipped mustache with a reddish tone. He could have passed for thirty-five if you didn't look at the backs of his hands. "Call me Simp," he said. "Everybody else does. I got it coming! I'm a Jewish man married to a Gentile woman, twenty-four years of age, beautiful. She run away a couple of times before," He got out a photo of her and showed it to me. She might have been beautiful to him. To me she was a big sloppy-looking cow of a woman with a weak mouth. "What's your trouble, Mr. Edelweiss? I don't do divorce business." I tried to give him back the photo. He waved it away. "The client is always mister to me," I added. "Until he has told me a few dozen lies anyway." He smiled. "Lies I got no use for. It's not a divorce matter. I just want Mabel back again. But she don't come back until I find her. Maybe it's a kind of game with her." He told me about her, patiently, without rancor¹⁸. She drank, she played around, she wasn't a very good wife by his standards, but he could have been brought up too strict. She had a heart as big as a house, he said, and he loved her. He didn't kid himself he was any dreamboat, just a steady worker bringing home the pay check. They had a joint¹⁹ bank account. She had drawn²⁰ it all out, but he was prepared for that. He had a pretty good idea who she had lit out with, and if he was right the man would clean her out and leave her stranded²¹. "Name of Kerrigan," he said, "Monroe Kerrigan. I don't aim to knock the Catholics. There is plenty of bad Jews too. This Kerrigan is a barber when he works. I ain't knocking barbers either. But a lot of them are drifters and horse players. Not real steady." "Won't you hear from her when she is cleaned out?" "She gets awful ashamed. She might hurt herself." "It's a Missing Persons job, Mr. Edelweiss. You should go down and make a report." "No. I'm not knocking the police, but I don't want it that way. Mabel would be humiliated²²." The world seemed to be full of people Mr. Edelweiss was not knocking. He put some money on the desk. "Two hundred dollars," he said. "Down payment. I'd rather do it my way." "It will happen again," I said. "Sure." He shrugged²³ and spread his hands gently. "But twenty-four years old and me almost fifty. How could it be different? She'll settle down after a while. Trouble is, no kids. She can't have kids. A Jew likes 'to have a family. So Mabel knows that. She's humiliated." "You're a very forgiving man, Mr. Edelweiss." "Well I ain't a Christian," he said. "And I'm not knocking Christians²⁴, you understand. But with me it's real. I don't just say it. I do it. Oh, I almost forgot the most important." He got out a picture postcard and pushed it across the desk after the money, "From Honolulu she sends it. Money goes fast in Honolulu. One of my uncles had a jewelry²⁵ business there. Retired²⁶ now. Lives in Seattle." I picked the photd up again. "I'll have to farm this one out," I told him. "And I'll have to have this copied." "I could hear you saying that, Mr. Marlowe, before I got here. So I come prepared." He took out an envelope and it contained five more prints. "I got Kerrigan too, but only a snapshot." He went into another pocket and gave me another envelope. I looked at Kerrigan. He had a smooth dishonest face that did not surprise me. Three copies of Kerrigan. Mr. Simpson W. Edelweiss gave me another card which had on it his name, his residence, his telephone number. He said he hoped it would not cost too much but that he would respond at once to any demand for further funds and he hoped to hear from me. "Two hundred ought to pretty near do it if she's still in Honolulu," I said. "What I need now is a detailed²⁷ physical description of both parties that I can put into a telegram. Height, weight, age, coloring, any noticeable scars or other identifying marks, what clothes she was wearing and had with her, and how much money was in the account she cleaned out. If you've been through this before, Mr. Edelweiss, you will know what I want." "I got a peculiar²⁸ feeling about this Kerrigan. Uneasy." I spent another half hour milking him and writing things down. Then he stood up quietly, shook hands quietly, bowed and left the office quietly. "Tell Mabel everything is fine," he said as he went out. It turned out to be routine, I sent a wire to an agency in Honolulu and followed it with an airmail containing the photos and whatever information I had left out of the wire. They found her working as a chambermaid's helper in a luxury hotel, scrubbing bathtubs and bathroom floors and so on. Kerrigan had done just what Mr. Edelweiss expected, cleaned her out while she was asleep and skipped, leaving her stuck with the hotel bill. She pawned²⁹ a ring which Kerrigan couldn't have taken without violence, and got enough out-of it to pay the hotel but not enough to buy her way home. So Edelweiss hopped³⁰ a plane and went after her. He was too good for her. I sent him a bill for twenty dollars and the cost of a long telegram. The Honolulu agency grabbed the two hundred. With a portrait of Madison in my office safe I could afford to be underpriced. So passed a day in the life of a P.I. Not exactly a typical day but not totally untypical either. What makes a man stay with it nobody knows. You don't get rich, you don't often have much fun. Sometimes you get beaten up or shot at or tossed into the jailhouse. Once in a long while you get dead. Every other month you decide to give it up and find some sensible occupation while you can still walk without shaking your head. Then the door buzzer³¹ rings and you open the inner door to the waiting room and there stands a new face with a new problem, a new load of grief, and a small piece of money. "Come in, Mr. Thingummy. What can I do for you?" There must be a reason. Three days later in the shank of the afternoon Eileen Wade³² called me up, and asked me to come around to the house for a drink the next evening. They were having a few friends in for cocktails³³. Roger would like to see me and thank me adequately. And would I please send in a bill? "You don't owe me anything, Mrs. Wade. What little I did I got paid for." "I must have looked very silly acting³⁴ Victorian about it," she said. "A kiss doesn't seem to mean much nowadays. You will come, won't you?" "I guess so. Against my better judgment³⁵." "Roger is quite well again. He's working." "Good." "You sound very solemn today. I guess you take life pretty seriously." "Now and then. Why?" She laughed very gently and said goodbye and hung up. I sat there for a while taking life seriously. Then I tried to think of something funny so that I could have a great big laugh. Neither way worked, so I got Terry Lennox's letter of farewell out of the safe and reread it. It reminded me that I had never gone to Victor's for that gimlet he asked me to drink for him. It was just about the right time of day for the bar to be quiet, the way he would have liked it himself, if he had been around to go with me. I thought of him with a vague sadness and with a puckering³⁶ bitterness too. When I got to Victor's I almost kept going. Almost, but not quite. I had too much of his money. He had made a fool of me but he had paid well for the privilege.

1 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

2 slit   

n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂

参考例句：

• The coat has been slit in two places.这件外衣有两处裂开了。
• He began to slit open each envelope.他开始裁开每个信封。

3 dinginess   

n.暗淡，肮脏

参考例句：

• Mary was appalled by the dinginess of the house. 玛丽被那肮脏的房子吓坏了。 来自辞典例句
• She hated dinginess as much as her mother had hated it. 她同母亲一样，对贫困寒酸的日子深恶痛绝。 来自辞典例句

4 moth   

n.蛾，蛀虫

参考例句：

• A moth was fluttering round the lamp.有一只蛾子扑打着翅膀绕着灯飞。
• The sweater is moth-eaten.毛衣让蛀虫咬坏了。

5 tattered   

adj.破旧的，衣衫破的

参考例句：

• Her tattered clothes in no way detracted from her beauty.她的破衣烂衫丝毫没有影响她的美貌。
• Their tattered clothing and broken furniture indicated their poverty.他们褴褛的衣服和破烂的家具显出他们的贫穷。

6 arsenic   

n.砒霜，砷；adj.砷的

参考例句：

• His wife poisoned him with arsenic.他的妻子用砒霜把他毒死了。
• Arsenic is a poison.砒霜是毒药。

7 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。

8 truculently   

参考例句：

• She said it almost truculently but she was weeping with fright. 她的语气简直有点粗暴，不过她却因为恐惧而哭哭啼啼。 来自教父部分
• They strive for security by truculently asserting their own interests. 他们通过拼命维护自身利益来争取安全保障。 来自互联网

9 bucks   

n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃

参考例句：

• They cost ten bucks. 这些值十元钱。
• They are hunting for bucks. 他们正在猎雄兔。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 glowering   

v.怒视( glower的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The boy would not go, but stood at the door glowering at his father. 那男孩不肯走，他站在门口对他父亲怒目而视。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Then he withdrew to a corner and sat glowering at his wife. 然后他溜到一个角落外，坐在那怒视着他的妻子。 来自辞典例句

11 dough   

n.生面团；钱，现款

参考例句：

• She formed the dough into squares.她把生面团捏成四方块。
• The baker is kneading dough.那位面包师在揉面。

12 hind   

adj.后面的，后部的

参考例句：

• The animal is able to stand up on its hind limbs.这种动物能够用后肢站立。
• Don't hind her in her studies.不要在学业上扯她后腿。

13 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。

14 incessantly   

ad.不停地

参考例句：

• The machines roar incessantly during the hours of daylight. 机器在白天隆隆地响个不停。
• It rained incessantly for the whole two weeks. 雨不间断地下了整整两个星期。

15 license   

n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许

参考例句：

• The foreign guest has a license on the person.这个外国客人随身携带执照。
• The driver was arrested for having false license plates on his car.司机由于使用假车牌而被捕。

16 shrilly   

尖声的； 光亮的，耀眼的

参考例句：

• The librarian threw back his head and laughed shrilly. 图书管理员把头往后面一仰，尖着嗓子哈哈大笑。
• He half rose in his seat, whistling shrilly between his teeth, waving his hand. 他从车座上半欠起身子，低声打了一个尖锐的唿哨，一面挥挥手。

17 mumbling   

含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I could hear him mumbling to himself. 我听到他在喃喃自语。
• He was still mumbling something about hospitals at the end of the party when he slipped on a piece of ice and broke his left leg. 宴会结束时，他仍在咕哝着医院里的事。说着说着，他在一块冰上滑倒，跌断了左腿。

18 rancor   

n.深仇，积怨

参考例句：

• I have no rancor against him.我对他无怨无仇。
• Their rancor dated from a political dogfight between them.他们的积怨来自于他们之间在政治上的狗咬狗。

19 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。

20 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

21 stranded   

a.搁浅的，进退两难的

参考例句：

• He was stranded in a strange city without money. 他流落在一个陌生的城市里， 身无分文，一筹莫展。
• I was stranded in the strange town without money or friends. 我困在那陌生的城市，既没有钱，又没有朋友。

22 humiliated   

感到羞愧的

参考例句：

• Parents are humiliated if their children behave badly when guests are present. 子女在客人面前举止失当，父母也失体面。
• He was ashamed and bitterly humiliated. 他感到羞耻，丢尽了面子。

23 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》

24 Christians   

n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Christians of all denominations attended the conference. 基督教所有教派的人都出席了这次会议。
• His novel about Jesus caused a furore among Christians. 他关于耶稣的小说激起了基督教徒的公愤。

25 jewelry   

n.（jewllery）（总称）珠宝

参考例句：

• The burglars walked off with all my jewelry.夜盗偷走了我的全部珠宝。
• Jewelry and lace are mostly feminine belongings.珠宝和花边多数是女性用品。

26 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

27 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

28 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。

29 pawned   

v.典当，抵押( pawn的过去式和过去分词 )；以（某事物）担保

参考例句：

• He pawned his gold watch to pay the rent. 他抵当了金表用以交租。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She has redeemed her pawned jewellery. 她赎回了当掉的珠宝。 来自《简明英汉词典》

30 hopped   

跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花

参考例句：

• He hopped onto a car and wanted to drive to town. 他跳上汽车想开向市区。
• He hopped into a car and drove to town. 他跳进汽车，向市区开去。

31 buzzer   

n.蜂鸣器；汽笛

参考例句：

• The buzzer went off at eight o'clock.蜂鸣器在8点钟时响了。
• Press the buzzer when you want to talk.你想讲话的时候就按蜂鸣器。

32 wade   

v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉

参考例句：

• We had to wade through the river to the opposite bank.我们只好涉水过河到对岸。
• We cannot but wade across the river.我们只好趟水过去。

33 cocktails   

n.鸡尾酒( cocktail的名词复数 )；餐前开胃菜；混合物

参考例句：

• Come about 4 o'clock. We'll have cocktails and grill steaks. 请四点钟左右来，我们喝鸡尾酒，吃烤牛排。 来自辞典例句
• Cocktails were a nasty American habit. 喝鸡尾酒是讨厌的美国习惯。 来自辞典例句

34 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

35 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

36 puckering   

v.（使某物）起褶子或皱纹( pucker的现在分词 )；小褶纹；小褶皱

参考例句：

• Puckering her lips, she replied, "You really are being silly! 苏小姐努嘴道：“你真不爽气！ 来自汉英文学 - 围城
• Astringent: Mouth-puckering sensation; the result of tannin being present in the wine. 麻辣：由于丹宁在葡萄酒中的作用而使喉间受到强烈刺激的感觉。 来自互联网