THE SIMPLE ART OF MURDER by Raymond Chandler Copyright ...

He got up still swearing and backed away from De Ruse, with a stiff alert grin on his fat face. His right hand shot to his hip holster.
De Ruse spread his hands, said: "Tell it," and sat down in a small chintz-covered slipper chair.
Kuvalick stared at him quietly for a moment, then took his hand away from his gun.
"There's lights," he said, "So I push the buzzer. A tall dark guy opens. I seen him around here a lot. That's Dial. I say to him there's a
guy outside in the lobby wants to see him hushhush, won't give a name."
"That made you a sap," De Ruse commented dryly.
"Not yet, but soon," Kuvalick grinned, and spit a shred of cloth out of his mouth. "I describe you. That makes me a sap. He smiled
kind of funny and asks me to come in a minute. I go in past him and he shuts the door and sticks a gun in my kidney. He says: 'Did you
say he wore all dark clothes?' I say: 'Yes. And what's that gat for?' He says: 'Does he have gray eyes and sort of crinkly black hair and is
he hard around the teeth?' I say: 'Yes, you bastard and what's the gat for?'
"He says: 'For this,' and lets me have it on the back of the head. I go down, groggy, but not out. Then the Candless broad comes out
from a doorway and they tie me up and shove me in the closet and that's that. I hear them fussin' around for a little while and then I hear
silence. That's all until you ring the bell."
De Ruse smiled lazily, pleasantly. His whole body was lax in the chair. His manner had become indolent and unhurried.
"They faded," he said softly. "They got tipped off. I don't think that was very bright."
Kuvalick said: "I'm an old Wells Fargo dick and I can stand a shock. What they been up to?"
"What kind of woman is Mrs. Candless?"
"Dark, a looker, Sex hungry, as the fellow says. Kind of worn and tight. They get a new chauffeur every three months. There's a
couple guys in the Casa she likes too. I guess there's this gigolo that bopped me."
De Ruse looked at his watch, nodded, leaned forward to get up. "I guess it's about time for some law. Got any friends downtown
you'd like to give a snatch story to?"
A voice said: "Not quite yet."
George Dial came quickly into the room from the hallway and stood quietly inside it with a long, thin, silenced automatic in his hand.
His eyes were bright and mad, but his lemoncolored finger was very steady on the trigger of the small gun.
"We didn't fade," he said. "We weren't quite ready. But it might not have been a bad idea--for you two."
Kuvalick's pudgy hand swept for his hip holster.
The small automatic with the black tube on it made two flat dull sounds.
A puff of dust jumped from the front of Kuvalick's coat. His hands jerked sharply away from the sides and his small eyes snapped
very wide open, like seeds bursting from a pod. He fell heavily on his side against the wall, lay quite still on his left side, with his eyes
half open and his back against the wall. His toupee was tipped over rakishly.
De Ruse looked at him swiftly, looked back at Dial. No emotion showed in his face, not even excitement.
He said: "You're a crazy fool, Dial. That kills your last chance. You could have bluffed it out. But that's not your only mistake."
Dial said 'calmly: "No. I see that now. I shouldn't have sent the boys after you. I did that just for the hell of it. That comes of not being
a professional."
De Ruse nodded slightly, looked at Dial almost with friendliness. "Just for the fun of it--who tipped you off the game had gone
smash?"
"Francy--and she took her damn time about it," Dial said savagely. "I'm leaving, so I won't be able to thank her for a while."
"Not ever," De Ruse said. "You won't get out of the state. You won't ever touch a nickel of the big boy's money. Not you or your
sidekicks or your woman. The cops are getting the story--right now."
Dial said: "We'll get clear. We have enough to tour on, Johnny. So long."
Dial's face tightened and his hand jerked up, with the gun in it. De Ruse half closed his eyes, braced himself for the shock. The little
gun didn't go off. There was a rustle behind Dial and a tall dark woman in a gray fur coat slid into the room. A small hat was balanced on
dark hair knotted on the nape of her neck. She was pretty, in a thin, haggard sort of way. The lip rouge on her mouth was as black as
soot; there was no color in her cheeks.
She had a cool lazy voice that didn't match with her taut expression. "Who is Francy?" she asked coldly.
De Ruse opened his eyes wide and his body got stiff in the chair and his right hand began to slide up towards his chest.
"Francy is my girl friend," he said. "Mister Dial has been trying to get her away from mc. But that's all right. He's a handsome lad and
ought to be able to pick his spots."
The tall woman's face suddenly became dark and wild and furious. She grabbed fiercely at Dial's arm, the one that held the gun.'
De Ruse snatched for his shoulder holster, got his .38 loose. But it wasn't his gun that went off. It wasn't the silenced automatic in
Dial's hand. It was a huge frontier Colt with an eight-inch barrel and a boom like an exploding bomb. It went off from the floor, from
beside Kuvalick's right hip, where Kuvalick's plump hand held it.
It went off just once. Dial was thrown back against the wall as if by a giant hand. His head crashed against the wall and instantly his
darkly handsome face was a mask of blood.
He fell laxly down the wall and the little automatic with the black tube on it fell in front of him. The dark woman dived for it, down on
her hands and knees in front of Dial's sprawled body.
She got it, began to bring it up. Her face was convulsed, her lips were drawn back over thin wolfish teeth that shimmered.
Kuvalick's voice said: "I'm a tough guy. I used to be a Wells Fargo dick."
His great cannon slammed again. A shrill scream was torn from the woman's lips. Her body was flung against Dial's. Her eyes
opened and shut, opened and shut. Her face got white and vacant.
"Shoulder shot. She's okay," Kuvalick said, and got up on his feet. He jerked open his coat and patted his chest.
"Bullet-proof vest," he said proudly. "But I thought I'd better lie quiet for a while or he'd popped me in the face."
TWELVE
Francine Ley yawned and stretched out a long green pajamaclad leg and looked at a slim green slipper on her bare foot. She
yawned again, got up and walked nervously across the room to the kidney-shaped desk. She poured a drink, drank it quickly, with a
sharp nervous shudder. Her face was drawn and tired, her eyes hollow; there were dark smudges under her eyes.
She looked at the tiny watch on her wrist. It was almost four o'clock in the morning. Still with her wrist up she whirled at a sound, put
her back to the desk and began to breathe very quickly, pantingly.
De Ruse came in through the red curtains. He stopped and looked at her without expression, then slowly took off his hat and
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