chapter 33

A week went by and I heard nothing from the Wades². The weather was hot and sticky and the acid sting of the smog had crept as far west as Beverly Hills. From the top of Mulholland Drive you could see it leveled out all over the city like a ground mist. When you were in it you could taste it and smell it and it made your eyes smart. Everybody was griping about it. In Pasadena, where the stuffy³ millionaires holed up after Beverly Hills was spoiled for them by the movie crowd, the city fathers screamed with rage. Everything was the fault of the smog. If the canary wouldn't sing, if the milkman was late, if the Pekinese had fleas⁴, if an old coot in a starched⁵ collar had a heart' attack on the way to church, that was the smog. Where I lived it was usually clear in the early morning and nearly always at night. Once in a while a whole day would be clear, nobody quite knew why. It was on a day like that—it happened to be a Thursday—that Roger Wade¹ called me up. "How are you? This is Wade." He sounded fine. "Fine, and you?" "Sober, I'm afraid. Scratching a hard buck⁶. We ought to have a talk. And I think I owe you some dough⁷." "Nope." "Well, how about lunch today? Could you make it here somewhere around one?" "I guess so. How's Candy?" "Candy?" He sounded puzzled. He must have blacked out plenty that night. "Oh, he helped you put me to bed that night." "Yeah. He's a helpful little guy—in spots. And Mrs. Wade?" "She's fine too. She's in town shopping today." We hung up and I sat and rocked in my swivel chair. I ought to have asked him how the book was going. Maybe you always ought to ask a writer how the book is going. And then again maybe he gets damned tired of that question. I had another call in a little while, a strange voice. "This is Roy Ashterfelt. George Peters told me to call you up, Marlowe." "Oh yes, thanks. You're the fellow that knew Terry Lennox in New York. Called himself Marston then." "That's right. He was sure on the sauce. But it's the same guy all right. You couldn't very well mistake him. Out here I saw him in Chasen's one night with his wife. I was with a client. The client knew them. Can't tell you the client's name, I'm afraid." "I understand. It's not very important now, I guess. What was his first name?" "Wait a minute while I bite my thumb. Oh yeah, Paul. Paul Marston. And there was one thing more, if it interests you. He was wearing a British Army service badge. Their version of the ruptured⁸ duck." "I see. What happened to him?" "I don't know. I came west. Next time I saw him he was here too— married to Harlan Potter's somewhat wild daughter. But you know all that." "They're both dead now. But thanks for telling me." "Not at all. Glad to help. Does it mean anything to you?" "Not a thing," I said, and I was a liar⁹. "I never asked him about himself. He told me once he had been brought up in an orphanage¹⁰. Isn't it just possible you made a mistake?" "With that white hair and that scarred face, brother? Not a chance. I won't say I never forget a face, but not that one." "Did he see you?" "If he did, he didn't let on. Hardly expect him to in the circumstances. Anyhow he might not have remembered me. Like I said, he was always pretty well lit back in New York." I thanked him some more and he said it was a pleasure and we hung up. I thought about it for a while. The noise of the traffic outside the building on the boulevard made an unmusical obbligato to my thinking. It was too loud. In summer in hot weather everything is too loud. I got up and shut the lower part of the window and called Detective-Sergeant¹¹ Green at Homicide. He was obliging enough to be in. "Look," I said, after the preliminaries, "I heard something about Terry Lennox that puzzles me. A fellow I know used to know him in New York under another name. You check his war record?" "You guys never learn," Green said harshly. "You just never learn to stay on your own side of the street. That matter is closed, locked up, weighted with lead and dropped in the ocean. Get it?" "I spent part of an afternoon with Harlan Potter last week at his daughter's house in Idle Valley. Want to check?" "Doing what?" he asked sourly. "Supposing I believe you." "Talking things over. I was invited. He likes me. Incidentally; he told me the girl was shot with a Mauser P.P.K. 7.65 mm. That news to you?" "Go on." "Her own gun, chum. Makes a little difference, maybe. But don't get me wrong. I'm not looking into any dark corners. This is a personal matter. Where did he get that wound?" Green was silent. I heard a door close in the background. Then he said quietly, "Probably in a knife fight south of the border." "Aw hell, Green, you had his prints. You sent them to Washington like always. You got a report back — like always. All I asked was something about his service record." "Who said he had one," "Well, Mendy Menendez for one. Seems Lennox saved his life one time and that's how he got the wound. He was captured by the Germans and they gave him the face he had." "Menendez, huh? You believe that son of a bitch? You got a hole in your own head. Lennox didn't have any war record. Didn't have any record of any kind under any name. You satisfied?" "If you say so," I said. "But I don't see why Menendez would bother to come up here and tell me a yarn¹² and warn me to keep my nose clean on account of Lennox was a pal¹³ of him and Randy Starr in Vegas and they didn't want anybody fooling around. After all Lennox was already dead." "Who knows what a hoodlum figures?" Green asked bitterly. "Or why? Maybe Lennox was in a racket with them before he married all that money, and got respectable. He was a floor manager at Starr's place in Vegas for a while. That's where he met the girL A' smile and a bow and a dinner jacket Xeep the customers happy and keep an eye on the house players. I guess he had class for the job." "He had charm," I said. "They don't use it in police business. Much obliged, Sergeant. How is Captain Gregorius these days?" "Retirement¹⁴ leave. Don't you read the papers?" "Not the crime news, Sergeant. Too sordid¹⁵." I started to say goodbye but he chopped me off. "What did Mr. Money want with you?" "We just had a cup of tea together. A social call. He said he might put some business my way. He also hinted—just hinted, not in so many words —that any cop that looked cross-eyed at me would be facing a grimy future." "He don't run the police department," Green said. "He admits it. Doesn't even buy commissioners¹⁶ or D.A.'s, he said. They just kind of curl up in his lap when he's having a doze¹⁷." "Go to hell," Green said, and hung up in my ear. A difficult thing, being a cop. You never know whose stomach it's safe to jump up and down on.

1 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。

2 wades   

（从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• A lumi wields a golden morningstar with trained ease as it wades into melee. 光民熟练地挥舞钉头锤加入战团。

3 stuffy   

adj.不透气的，闷热的

参考例句：

• It's really hot and stuffy in here.这里实在太热太闷了。
• It was so stuffy in the tent that we could sense the air was heavy with moisture.帐篷里很闷热，我们感到空气都是潮的。

4 fleas   

n.跳蚤( flea的名词复数 )；爱财如命；没好气地（拒绝某人的要求）

参考例句：

• The dog has fleas. 这条狗有跳蚤。
• Nothing must be done hastily but killing of fleas. 除非要捉跳蚤，做事不可匆忙。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 starched   

adj.浆硬的，硬挺的，拘泥刻板的v.把（衣服、床单等）浆一浆( starch的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• My clothes are not starched enough. 我的衣服浆得不够硬。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The ruffles on his white shirt were starched and clean. 白衬衫的褶边浆过了，很干净。 来自辞典例句

6 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。

7 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。

8 ruptured   

v.（使）破裂( rupture的过去式和过去分词 )；（使体内组织等）断裂；使（友好关系）破裂；使绝交

参考例句：

• They reported that the pipeline had ruptured. 他们报告说管道已经破裂了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The wall through Berlin was finally ruptured, prefiguring the reunification of Germany. 柏林墙终于倒塌了，预示着德国的重新统一。 来自辞典例句

9 liar   

n.说谎的人

参考例句：

• I know you for a thief and a liar!我算认识你了，一个又偷又骗的家伙！
• She was wrongly labelled a liar.她被错误地扣上说谎者的帽子。

10 orphanage   

n.孤儿院

参考例句：

• They dispensed new clothes to the children in the orphanage.他们把新衣服发给孤儿院的小孩们。
• They gave the proceeds of the sale to the orphanage.他们把销售的收入给了这家孤儿院。

11 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？

12 yarn   

n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事

参考例句：

• I stopped to have a yarn with him.我停下来跟他聊天。
• The basic structural unit of yarn is the fiber.纤维是纱的基本结构单元。

13 pal   

n.朋友，伙伴，同志；vi.结为友

参考例句：

• He is a pal of mine.他是我的一个朋友。
• Listen,pal,I don't want you talking to my sister any more.听着，小子，我不让你再和我妹妹说话了。

14 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

15 sordid   

adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的

参考例句：

• He depicts the sordid and vulgar sides of life exclusively.他只描写人生肮脏和庸俗的一面。
• They lived in a sordid apartment.他们住在肮脏的公寓房子里。

16 commissioners   

n.专员( commissioner的名词复数 )；长官；委员；政府部门的长官

参考例句：

• The Commissioners of Inland Revenue control British national taxes. 国家税收委员管理英国全国的税收。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The SEC has five commissioners who are appointed by the president. 证券交易委员会有５名委员，是由总统任命的。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件

17 doze   

v.打瞌睡；n.打盹，假寐

参考例句：

• He likes to have a doze after lunch.他喜欢午饭后打个盹。
• While the adults doze,the young play.大人们在打瞌睡，而孩子们在玩耍。