Collected Stories of Raymond Chandler by Raymond Chandler

Author:Raymond Chandler [Chandler, Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Detective, Noir, short Stories
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Published: 2002-10-14T21:00:00+00:00

Five—Soukesian The Psychic

He was a tall man, straight as steel, with the blackest eyes I had ever seen and the palest and finest blond hair I had ever seen. He might have been thirty or sixty. He didn’t look any more like an Armenian than I did. His hair was brushed straight back from as good a profile as John Barrymore had at twenty-eight. A matinee idol, and I expected something furtive and dark and greasy that rubbed its hands.

He wore a black double-breasted business suit cut like nobody’s business, a white shirt, a black tie. He was as neat as a gift book.

I gulped and said: “I don’t want a reading. I know all about this stuff.”

“Yes?” he said delicately. “And what do you know about it?”

“Let it pass,” I said. “I can figure the secretary because she’s a sweet buildup for the shock people get when they see you. The Indian stumps me a bit, but it’s none of my business anyhow. I’m not a bunko squad cop. What I came about is a murder.”

“The Indian happens to be a natural medium,” Soukesian said mildly. “They are much rarer than diamonds and, like diamonds, they are sometimes found in dirty places. That might not interest you either. As to the murder you may inform me. I never read the papers.”

“Come, come,” I said. “Not even to see who’s pulling the big checks at the front office? Oke, here it is.”

And I laid it in front of him, the whole damn story, and about his cards and where they had been found.

He didn’t move a muscle. I don’t mean that he didn’t scream or wave his arms or stamp on the floor or bite his nails. I mean he simply didn’t move at all, not even an eyelid, not even an eye. He just sat there and looked at me, like a stone lion outside the Public Library.

When I was all done he put his finger right down on the spot. “You kept those cards from the police? Why?”

“You tell me. I just did.”

“Obviously the hundred dollars I sent you was not nearly enough.”

“That’s an idea too,” I said. “But I hadn’t really got around to playing with it.”

He moved enough to fold his arms. His black eyes were as shallow as a cafeteria tray or as deep as a hole to China— whichever you like. They didn’t say anything, either way.

He said: “You wouldn’t believe me if I said I only knew this man in the most casual manner—professionally?”

“I’d take it under advisement,” I said.

“I take it you haven’t much faith in me. Perhaps Mr. Paul had. Was anything on those cards besides my name?”

“Yeah,” I said. “And you wouldn’t like it.” This was kindergarten stuff, the kind the cops pull on radio crime dramatizations. He let it go without even looking at it.

“I’m in a sensitive profession,” he said. “Even in this paradise of fakers. Let me see one of those cards.”

“I was kidding you,” I said. “There’s nothing on them but your name.

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