The Big Sleep: Chapter 18

"He's outside in my heap," Ohls said. "Handcuffed. Marlowe put the arm on him for you. Here's his gun." Ohls took the boy's automatic out of his pocket and laid it on a corner of Wilde's desk. Cronjager looked at the gun but didn't reach for it.

Wilde chuckled. He was leaning back and puffing from his dappled cigar without letting go of it. He bent forward to sip from his coffee cup.

"There's a couple more deaths involved," Ohls said, pinching the soft flesh at the end of his chin.

Cronjager stiffened visibly. His surly eyes became points of steely light.

Ohls said: "You heard about a cruiser being recovered from the Asteroid Belt this morning with a dead cyborg in it?"

Cronjager said: "No," and kept on looking nasty.

"The dead cyborg in the cruiser was chauffeur to a rich family," Ohls said. "The family was being blackmailed on account of one of the daughters. Mr Wilde recommended Marlowe to the family through me. Marlowe played it kind of close to the chest."

"I love private dicks that play murders close to the chest," Cronjager said. "You don't have to be so goddamned coy about it."

"Yeah," Ohls said. "I don't have to be so goddamned coy about it. It's not so goddamned often I get a chance to be coy with a city copper. I spend most of my time telling them where to put their feet so that they won't break an ankle."

Cronjager whitened around the corners of his sharp nose. His breath made a soft hissing noise in the quiet room. He said very quietly: "You haven't had to tell any of my men where to put their feet, smart guy."

"We'll see about that," Ohls said. "This cyborg I spoke of that's breathed vacuum in the Belt shot a guy last night in your territory. A guy named Geiger who ran a dirty media racket in a store downtown. Geiger was living with the punk I got outside in my cruiser. I mean living with him, if you get the idea."

Cronjager was staring at him levelly now. "That sounds like it might grow up to be a dirty story," he said.

"It's my experience most police stories are," Ohls growled and turned to me, eyebrows bristling. "You're on the air, Marlowe. Give it to him."

I gave it to him.

I left out two things, not knowing just why, at the moment, I left out one of them. I left out Carmen's visit to Brody's apartment and Eddie Mars's visit to Geiger's in the afternoon. I told the rest of it just as it happened.

Cronjager never took his eyes off my face and no expression of any kind crossed his as I talked. At the end of it he was perfectly silent for a long minute. Wilde was silent, sipping his coffee, puffing gently at his dappled cigar. Ohls stared at one of his thumbs.

Cronjager leaned slowly back in his chair and crossed one ankle over his knee and rubbed the ankle-bone with his thin nervous hand. His lean face wore a harsh frown. He said with deadly politeness:

"So all you did was not report a murder that happened last night and then spent today foxing around so that this kid of Geiger's could commit a second murder this evening."

"That's all," I said, "I was in a pretty tough spot. I guess I did wrong, but I wanted to protect my client and I hadn't any reason to think the boy would go gunning for Brody."

"That kind of thinking is police business, Marlowe. If Geiger's death had been reported last night, the books could never have been moved from the store to Brody's apartment. The kid wouldn't have been led to Brody and wouldn't have killed him. Say Brody was living on borrowed time. His kind usually are. But a life is a life."

"Right," I said. "Tell that to your coppers next time they shoot down some scared petty larceny crook running away up an alley with a stolen chip."

Wilde put both his hands down on the desk with a solid smack. "That's enough of that," he snapped. "What makes you so sure, Marlowe, that this Taylor boy shot Geiger? Even if the gun that killed Geiger was found on Taylor's body or in the cruiser, it doesn't absolutely follow that he was the killer. The gun might have been planted - say by Brody, the actual killer."

"It's physically possible," I said, "but psychologically impossible. It assumes too much coincidence and too much that's out of character for Brody and his girl, and out of character for what he was trying to do. I talked to Brody for a long time. He was a crook, but not a killer type. He had two guns, but he wasn't wearing either of them. He was trying to find a way to cut in on Geiger's racket, which naturally he knew all about from the girl. He says he was watching Geiger off and on to see if he had any tough backers. I believe him. To suppose he killed Geiger in order to get his books, then scrammed with the pornographic holograms Geiger had just taken of Carmen Sternwood, then planted the gun on Owen Taylor and pushed Taylor into an asteroid, is to suppose a hell of a lot too much. Taylor had the motive, jealous rage, and the opportunity to kill Geiger. He was out in one of the family craft without permission. He killed Geiger right in front of the girl, which Brody would never have done, even if he had been a killer. I can't see anyone with a purely commercial interest in Geiger doing that. But Taylor would have done it. The porno hologram business is just what would have made him do it."

Part 1

Part 3