Scene from “Farewell my Dumpty”

Two cracks opened up in the darkness, and straight away I wished they hadn’t. The light hurt. I just lay there wishing the light would go away, wishing those cracks would close, but I was too dumb to make it happen. Even though there was a voice in my head repeating, “Close your eyes”, I couldn’t do one damn thing about it.

Slowly, painfully, the light began to mean something. I made out the half-closed drapes at the window, the fog from the Bay condensing into lines on the outside of the glass. My head was pounding. What the hell had happened last night? What the hell had happened to last night?

The pounding wouldn’t stop. I reached up with one hand and rubbed my forehead. Still the pounding wouldn’t stop. It sounded like it was coming from somewhere else, somewhere outside my head, somewhere I couldn’t rub better. It was. Someone was hammering at the door to my apartment.

I stood up suddenly, and my head swam. My head was a better swimmer than I am – normally I can do the breast-stroke, but today my head was doing the Australian Crawl good enough to make the Olympics. I looked down. I was still in my suit, my shoes. My mouth tasted sour, like the night before prohibition. Meanwhile someone was knocking on my door like he wanted to take the whole wall out.

I forced my eyes open, caught a glimpse of my reflection in glass of a cheap, framed eight-by-ten, and didn’t like what I saw.

“Yeah, who is it?” I called. Or rather I croaked – not my normal manly baritone. “Whaddya want?”

“Police. Open up!”

I unlocked the door and was still turning the handle, when a shoulder pushed it wide open and the handle was wrenched out of my hand. The shoulder was attached to a big lug with a face like the Hoover Dam, half-hidden by a grey fedora. The big lug put four fingers against my chest and pushed. I pushed back.

“What’s the big idea?” I said, my usual charm now rolling away westward, like that morning fog from the bay. The lug reached inside his coat. He was packing. I thought of squaring up, trying to get a couple of punches in before he could pull out his rod, but I can’t reach that high.

“Easy does it, Hutz,” said someone behind him.

The someone was dressed in a sober, dark suit and the same kind of fedora as the lug’s, but built for a smaller head. I recognized Lieutenant Franklin from the 4^th Precinct. He recognized me too, but maybe not the state I was in this morning. He was smiling. It made me think of a barracuda.

“Lighten up, Marlowe,” he said. “We just want to talk. We hope you want to talk too, so we can get out of your apartment quickly. Otherwise we could leave now. With you. We can talk downtown, only that won’t be so quick.”

“Oh I can talk all you want,” I said. “But I don’t think I have that much to say, Lieutenant. Not unless you keep your German Shepherd on a leash!”

I jerked my head at Hutz.

“Why you… “ he said, and made a grab for me. Lieutenant Franklin grabbed his arm. It’s amazing what strength rank can give to a man’s grip.

“I have more patience than Sergeant Hutz, but it could easily run out if I don’t get answers. Where were you between the hours of ten last night and six this morning?”

“Here, I guess. Unless I sleepwalk.”

“Anyone corroborate that?”

“Sure. The cat. I fed him at midnight.”

“Wise guy!” said Hutz. “Let me jog his memory, Lieutenant.”

Franklin ignored him, and I could see the lug was seething like a toothmug full of Alka-Seltzer.

“Look, Marlowe,” said Franklin. “I’ll level with you. You know I got no time for private dicks, but okay, you got a clean record. Up to now. And I guess you want to keep your license. Well, we know you’re working on the Dumpty case.”

“What of it?” My right hand slipped into my pocket and closed round the roll of twenties I knew was there. Twenty-five of them. Mrs Dumpty had put them into my hand yesterday evening. The memory was clearer – the memory of thick, blonde hair, an expensive string of pearls, legs that seemed to reach to Baja California as she lounged in her Chesterfield. It had been a pay-off. Many thanks for my efforts, and for my diligence, but my services in tracing her husband would no longer be needed.

“Where have you got to in the case? Any leads?” asked Franklin.

“Now, Lieutenant, you know I don’t discuss clients’ business,” I said. I could see that the big squarehead sergeant was balling his fists, so I went on. “But as it turns out, the Dumptys are no longer my clients. I was paid off by Mrs Dumpty yesterday evening. Early. That’s all of it. No leads, no nothing. Sorry boys, you’ve had a wasted journey. Now if that’s all…”

“Not so fast, Marlowe. Hubert H Dumpty was found this morning, at the bottom of the harbour wall.”

I tried not to look surprised. The Big H, as he liked people to call him, was into some… unorthodox… business deals. Franklin watched my eyes.

“Anyone can fall off a harbour wall,” I said.

“Maybe. But this guy had some help. From a couple of thirty-eight slugs. You carry a thirty-eight, don’t you, Marlowe?”

“You know I do, Lieutenant. And you know you could have a look at it too. If you had a warrant. But you know and I know that you can’t put me at the harbour, and no judge is going to grant you a warrant on the basis of what you don’t have. You’ll just have to take my word that it hasn’t been fired in more than a month.”

Franklin tensed and then relaxed. Maybe if he had been a storekeeper and I’d been a plumber I’d have liked him. He was that kind of a guy. But he was a bull, and bulls only think one way.

“Okay Marlowe, you’re off the hook for now,” he said. “But keep your nose clean. And stay off the Dumpty case if you know what’s good for you.”

I held the door open for them. Hutz crunched my toes with his wingtips on the way out. Ten minutes later I thought of a witty rejoinder.

As I made coffee and shaved, I thought about the last time I had seen The Big H. He was very much alive, with a brunette on his arm – a brunette with the same good looks as her brother, Toni Carboni, but with a better figure. I laughed. The bulls would never figure this one out. Hell, they could call up Canada and get a squad of Mounties down and they still wouldn’t figure it out.

I cleaned my teeth. I had to go see someone. Someone blonde, with long legs. Someone who wore expensive pearls…