Poodle Springs (1991) by Parker Robert B - Philip Marlowe 01

Author:Parker, Robert B - Philip Marlowe 01 [01, Parker, Robert B - Philip Marlowe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-03-15T17:29:50.359000+00:00

"You ever been in love, Marlowe?"

"As we speak," I said.

"Well, wait'll it goes sour," she said. I nodded at Willie and he filled her wine glass.

"When it goes sour, it's like rotting roses. It reeks."

"Lola and Larry?" I said.

"For a while, a while back." She shook her head in a slow, showy sweep. "But he dumped her."

"What was the fight the other day specifically about?" I said.

"She had something she knew," Val said. "She was going to get even, I guess."

She drank.

"A woman spurned," she said heavily. "We were made for love. We can get pretty poisonous when it turns."

She drank again. A little of the wine dribbled from the corner of her mouth. She dabbed at it again with the paper place napkin.

"She had something on him," I said.

"Sure," Val said. "And she was going to make him pay."

"What'd she have?" I said.

"Hell, Marlowe, I don't know. There's always something. Probably something on you if somebody looks hard." She laughed her wheezy laugh again, gestured at me with her wine glass.

"Prosit," she said and laughed some more. The rim of the wine glass was smeared with her lipstick.

"You know Larry too," I said.

She nodded and fished in her purse, taking things out. Compact, lipstick, a crumpled tissue, chewing gum, rosary beads, a nail file.

"You got any quarters, Marlowe?"

I slid a five at Willie.

"Quarters," I said.

He made change and put the quarters in five neat piles of four on the bar in front of me.

"You're a gennleman," Val said and took a pile and walked to the jukebox. In a minute she came back and sat on her bar stool as the first wail of a country song came on about a woman who loved a man and he done her wrong. Mood music.

"What was you asking me?" Val said.

"Did you know Larry very well?" I said, carefully. Drunks are fragile creatures. They need to be carried like a very full glass; tip either way and they spill all over. I knew about drunks. I'd spent half my life talking to drunks in bars like this one. Who'd you see, what'd you hear? Have another drink. Sure, on me, Marlowe, the big spender, the lush's pal, drink up, lush. You're lonely and I'm your pal.

"Sure, I know Larry. Everybody knows Larry. The man with the camera. The man with the pictures."

She finished her wine. Willie poured some more. He was not a boy to miss the main chance, old Willie. She needed another cigarette. I took one out of her pack on the bar and lit it and handed it to her. Maybe I wouldn't have made a good manservant. Maybe I would have made a good gigolo. Maybe I didn't want to think about that. Maybe that hit too close to home.

"I used to pose for Larry, you know."

"I can believe that," I said.

Val nodded and stared at me. "Wasn't that long ago I still looked good with my clothes off."

"I can believe that too," I said.

"Well, I did."

"Larry usually take women's pictures with their clothes off?"

"Sure," Val said.

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