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

She lay with her eyes closed, the lids fluttering.
The blonde swiveled her hips across the room to a desk by the window, poured herself a full half-glass of Scotch in a water glass
and gurgled it down before Steve could get to her. She choked violently, dropped the glass and went down on her hands and knees.
Steve said grimly: "That's the one that kicks you in the face, sister."
The girl crouched, shaking her head. She gagged once, lifted the carmine nails to paw at her mouth. She tried to get up, and her
foot skidded out from under her and she fell down on her side and went fast asleep.
Steve sighed, went over and shut the window and fastened it. He rolled the black-haired girl over and straightened her on the bed
and got the bedclothes from under her, tucked a pillow under her head. He picked the blonde bodily off the floor and dumped her on the
bed and covered both girls to the chin. He opened the transom, switched off the ceiling light and unlocked the door. He relocked it from
the outside, with a master key on a chain.
"Hotel business," he said under his breath. "Phooey."
The corridor was empty now. One lighted door still stood open. Its number was 815, two doors from the room the girls were in.
Trombone music came from it softly--but not softly enough for 1:25 AM.
Steve Grayce turned into the room, crowded the door shut with his shoulder and went along past the bathroom. King Leopardi was
alone in the room.
The bandleader was sprawled out in an easy chair, with a tall misted glass at his elbow. He swung the trombone in a tight circle as
he played it and the lights danced in the horn.
Steve lit a cigarette, blew a plume of smoke and stared through it at Leopardi with a queer, half-admiring, half-contemptuous
expression.
He said softly: "Lights out, yellow-pants. You play a sweet trumpet and your trombone don't hurt either. But we can't use it here. I
already told you that once. Lay off. Put that thing away."
Leopardi smiled nastily and blew a stuttering raspberry that sounded like a devil laughing.
"Says you," he sneered. "Leopardi does what he likes, where he likes, when he likes. Nobody's stopped him yet, gum-shoe. Take
the air."
Steve hunched his shoulders and went close to the tall dark man. He said patiently: "Put that bazooka down, big-stuff. People are
trying to sleep. They're funny that way. You're a great guy on a band shell. Everywhere else you're just a guy with a lot of jack and a
personal reputation that stinks from here to Miami and back. I've got a job to do and I'm doing it. Blow that thing again and I'll wrap it
around your neck."
Leopardi lowered the trombone and took a long drink from the glass at his elbow. His eyes glinted nastily. He lifted the trombone to
his lips again, filled his lungs with air and blew a blast that rocked the walls. Then he stood up very suddenly and smoothly and
smashed the instrument down on Steve's head.
"I never did like house peepers," he sneered. "They smell like public toilets."
Steve took a short step back and shook his head. He leered, slid forward on one foot and smacked Leopardi open-handed. The
blow looked light, but Leopardi reeled all the way across the room and sprawled at the foot of the bed, sitting on the floor, his right arm
draped in an open suitcase.
For a moment neither man moved. Then Steve kicked the trombone away from him and squashed his cigarette in a glass tray. His
black eyes were empty but his mouth grinned whitely.
"If you want trouble," he said, "I come from where they make it."
Leopardi smiled, thinly, tautly, and his right hand came up out of the suitcase with a gun in it. His thumb snicked the safety catch. He
held the gun steady, pointing.
"Make some with this," he said, and fired.
The bitter roar of the gun seemed a tremendous sound in the closed room. The bureau mirror splintered and glass flew. A sliver cut
Steve's cheek like a razor blade. Blood oozed in a small narrow line on his skin.
He left his feet in a dive. His right shoulder crushed against Leopardi's bare chest and his left hand brushed the gun away from
him, under the bed. He rolled swiftly to his right and came up on his knees spinning.
He said thickly, harshly: "You picked the wrong gee, brother."
He swarmed on Leopardi and dragged him to his feet by his hair, by main strength. Leopardi yelled and hit him twice on the jaw
and Steve grinned and kept his left hand twisted in the bandleader's long sleek black hair. He turned his hand and the head twisted with
it and Leopardi's third punch landed on Steve's shoulder. Steve took hold of the wrist behind the punch and twisted that and the
bandleader went down on his knees yowling. Steve lifted him by the hair again, let go of his wrist and punched him three times in the
stomach, short terrific jabs. He let go of the hair then as he sank the fourth punch almost to his wrist.
Leopardi sagged blindly to his knees and vomited.
Steve stepped away from him and went into the bathroom and got a towel off the rack. He threw it at Leopardi, jerk‡d the open
suitcase onto the bed and started throwing things into it.
Leopardi wiped his face and got to his feet still gagging. He swayed, braced himself on the end of the bureau. He was white as a
sheet.
Steve Grayce said: "Get dressed, Leopardi. Or go out the way you are. It's all one to me.
Leopardi stumbled into the bathroom, pawing the wall like a blind man
TWO
Millar stood very still behind the desk as the elevator opened. His face was white and scared and his cropped black mustache was
a smudge across his upper lip. Leopardi came out of the elevator first, a muffler around his neck, a lightweight coat tossed over his arm,
a hat tilted on his head. He walked stiffly, bent forward a little, his eyes vacant. His face had a greenish pallor.
Steve Grayce stepped out behind him carrying a suitcase, and Carl, the night porter, came last with two more suitcases and two
instrument cases in black leather. Steve marched over to the desk and said harshly: "Mr. Leopardi's bill--if any. He's checking out."
Millar goggled at him across the marble desk. "I--I don't think, Steve--"
"O.K. I thought not."
Leopardi smiled very thinly and unpleasantly and walked out through the brass-edged swing doors the porter held open for him.
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