2016年12月

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And they don't want to. They'd blast a confession out of you so quickly you wouldn't even have time to tell them your full name. And you'd be sitting on your fanny up in San Quentin with a life sentence three weeks from Tuesday." "I tell you before I am not a Mexican. I am Chileno from Vi.a del Mar near Valparaiso." "The knife, Candy. I know all that. You're free. You've got money saved. You've probably got eight brothers and sisters back home . Be smart and go back where you came from. This job here is dead." "Lots of jobs," he said quietly. Then he reached out and dropped the knife into my hand. "For you I do this." I dropped the knife into my pocket. He glanced up towards the balcony. "La se.ora—what do we do now?" "Nothing. We do nothing at all. The se.ora is very tired. She has been living under a great strain. She doesn't want to be disturbed." "We've got to call the police," Spencer said grittily. "Why?" "Oh my God, Marlowe—we have to." "Tomorrow. Pick up your pile of unfinished novel and let's go." "We've got to call the police. There is such a thing as law." "We don't have to do anything of the sort. We haven't enough evidence to swat a fly with. Let the law enforcement people do their own dirty work. Let the lawyers work it out. They write the laws for other lawyers to dissect in front of other lawyers called judges so that other judges can say the first judges were wrong and the Supreme Court can say the second lot were wrong. Sure there's such a thing as law. We're up to our necks in it. About all it does is make business for lawyers.

How long do you think the big-shot mobsters would last if the lawyers didn't show them how to operate?" Spencer said angrily: "That has nothing to do with it. A man was killed in this house. He happened to be an author and a very successful and important one, but that has nothing to do with it either. He was a man and you and I know who killed him. There's." "Tomorrow." "You're just as bad as she is if you let her get away with it. I'm beginning to wonder about you a little, Marlowe online marketing solution. You could have saved his life if you had been on your toes. In a sense you let her get away with it. And for all I know this whole performance this afternoon has been just that—a performance." "That's right. A disguised love scene. You could see Eileen is crazy about me. When things quiet down we may get married. She ought to be pretty well fixed.

 I haven't made a buck out of the Wade family yet. I'm getting impatient." He took his glasses off and polished them. He wiped perspiration from the hollows under his eyes, replaced the glasses and looked at the floor. "I'm sorry," he said. "I've taken a pretty stiff punch this afternoon. It was bad enough to know Roger had killed himself. But this other version makes me feel degraded—just knowing about it." He looked up at me. "Can I trust you?" "To do what?" "The right thing — whatever it is." He reached down and picked up the pile of yellow script and tucked it under his arm. "No, forget it. I guess you know what you are doing, I'm a pretty good publisher dermes vs medilasebut this is out of my line. I guess what I really am is just a goddam stuffed shirt.

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On account of Lennox checked out before it could get moving. Like I said —very convenient —for Harlan Potter and his family ." I straightened up and gave him a hard stare. "You calling the whole thing a fix?" He twisted his mouth sardonically. "Could just be Lennox had some help committing suicide. Resisting arrest a little. Mexican cops have very itchy trigger fingers. If you want to lay a little bet, I'll give you nice odds that nobody gets to count the bullet holes." "I think you're wrong," I said. "I knew Terry Lennox pretty well. He wrote himself off a long time ago. If they brought him back alive, he would have let them have it their way. He'd have copped a manslaughter plea." Lonnie Morgan shook his head. I knew what he was going to say and he said it. "Not a chance. If he had shot her or cracked her skull, maybe yes. But there was too much brutality.

 Her face was beaten to a pulp. Second degree murder would be the best he could get, and even that would raise a stink." I said: "You could be right." He looked at me again. "You say you knew the guy. Do you go for the setup?" "I'm tired. I'm not in a thinking mood tonight." There was a long pause. Then Lonnie Morgan said quietly: "If I was a real bright guy instead of a hack newspaperman, I'd think maybe he didn't kill her at all." "It's a thought." He stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit it by scratching a match on the dashboard. He smoked silently with a fixed frown on his thin face.

 We reached Laurel Canyon and I told him where to turn off the boulevard and where to turn into my street. His car churned up the hill and stopped at the foot of my redwood steps. I got out. "Thanks for the ride, Morgan. Care for a drink?" "I'll take a rain check. I ." "I've got lots of time to be alone. Too damn much." "You've got a friend to say goodbye to," he said. "He must have been that if you let them toss you into the can on his account." "Who said I did that?" He smiled faintly. "Just because I can't print it don't mean I didn't know it, chum. So long. See you around." I shut the car door and he turned and drove off down the hill. When his tail lights vanished around the corner I climbed the steps, picked up newspapers, and let myself into the empty house. I put all the lamps on and opened all the windows. The place was stuffy. I made some coffee and drank it and took the five Cnotes out of the toffee can. They were rolled tight and pushed down into the coffee at the side. I  with a cup of coffee in my hand, turned the TV on, turned it off, sat, stood, and sat again.

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