Chapter 17: Rest in Peace
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Geiger's bedroom didn't seem to have been touched. I opened the door, not locked now, of the bedroom across the hall from it. There was a dim flickering light in the room and a smell of sandalwood. Two cones of incense ash stood side by side on a small brass tray on the bureau. The light came from the two tall black candles in the quarter-metre high candlesticks. They were standing on two straight-backed chairs, one on either side of the bed. Geiger lay on the bed. The two missing strips of tapestry made a X over the middle of his body, hiding the blood-smeared front of his coat. Below the cross his black-pajama'd legs lay stiff and straight. His feet were in the slippers with thick white felt soles. Above the cross his arms were crossed at the wrists and his hands lay flat against his shoulders, palms downs, fingers close together and stretched out evenly. His mouth was closed and his Charlie Chan moustache was as unreal as a cybernetic hairpiece. His broad nose was pinched and white. His eyes were almost closed, but not entirely. The faint glitter of his prosthetic eye caught the light and winked at me. I didn't touch him. I didn't go very near him. He would be as cold as Titan ice and as stiff as a board. The black candles guttered in the draught from the open door. Drops of black wax crawled down their sides. The air of the room was poisonous and unreal. I went out and shut the door again and went back to the living-room. The boy hadn't moved. I stood still, listening for sirens. It was all a question of how soon Agnes talked and what she said. If she talked about Geiger, the police would be here any minute. But she might not talk for hours. She might even have got away. I looked down at the boy. "Want to sit up, son?" He closed his eyes and pretended to go to sleep. I went over to the desk and called up Bernie Ohls's office. He had left to go home. I called his home. He was there. "This is Marlowe," I said. "Did your boys find a gun on Owen Taylor this morning?" I could hear him clearing his throat and then I could hear him trying to keep the surprise out of his voice. "That would come under the heading of police business," he said. "If they did, it had three empty shells in it." "How the hell did you know that?" Ohls asked quietly. "Come over to 7244 Lunar Terrace. I'll show you where the slugs went." "Just like that, huh?" "Just like that." Ohls said: "Look out of the window and you'll see me coming around the corner. I though you acted a little cagey on that one." "Cagey is no word for it," I said.
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Part 2