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

Her voice had a remembered quality, as if he had heard it before.
He sat down opposite her, in the chair where Leopardi had been sitting.
The red-haired girl said: "The drink's on me. I was with him."
Steve said, "Coke with a dash of bitters," to the waiter.
The waiter said: "Madame?"
"Brandy and soda. Light on the brandy, please." The waiter bowed and drifted away. The girl said amusedly: "Coke with a dash of
bitters. That's what I love about Hollywood. You meet so many neurotics."
Steve stared into her eyes and said softly: "I'm an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in
Singapore with a full beard."
"I don't believe a word of it. Have you known the King long?"
"I met him last night. I didn't get along with him."
"I sort of noticed that." She laughed. She had a rich low laugh, too.
"Give me that paper, lady."
"Oh, one of these impatient men. Plenty of time." The handkerchief with the crumpled yellow sheet inside it was clasped tightly in
her gloved hand. Her middle right finger played with an eyebrow. "You're not in pictures, are you?"
"Hell, no."
"Same here, Me, I'm too tall. The beautiful men have to wear stilts in order to clasp me to their bosoms."
The waiter set the drinks down in front of them, made a grace note in the air with his napkin and went away.
Steve said quietly, stubbornly: "Give me that paper, lady."
"I don't like that 'lady' stuff. It sounds like cop to me."
"I don't know your name."
"I don't know yours. Where did you meet Leopardi?" Steve sighed. The music from the little Spanish orchestra had a melancholy
minor sound now and the muffled clicking of gourds dominated it.
Steve listened to it with his head on one side. He said: "The E string is a half-tone flat. Rather cute effect."
The girl stared at him with new interest. "I'd never have noticed that," she said. "And I'm supposed to be a pretty good singer. But you
haven't answered my question."
He said slowly: "Last night I was house dick at the Carlton Hotel. They called me night clerk, but house dick was what I was.
Leopardi stayed there and cut up too rough. I threw him out and got canned."
The girl said: "Ah. I begin to get the idea. He was being the King and you were being--if I might guess--a pretty tough order of house
detective."
"Something like that. Now will you please--"
"You still haven't told me your name."
He reached for his wallet, took one of the brand-new cards out of it and passed it across the table. He sipped his drink while she
read it.
"A nice name," she said slowly. "But not a very good address. And Private investigator is bad. It should have been Investigations,
very small, in the lower left-hand corner."
ù "They'll be small enough," Steve grinned. "Now will you please--"
She reached suddenly across the table and dropped the crumpled ball of paper in his hand.
"Of course I haven't read it--and of course I'd like to. You do give me that much credit, I hope"--she looked at the card again, and
added-- Steve. Yes, and your office should be in a Georgian or very modernistic building in the Sunset Eighties. Suite
Something-or-other. And your clothes should be very jazzy. Very jazzy indeed, Steve. To be inconspicuous in this town is to be a busted
flush."
He grinned at her. His deep-set black eyes had lights in them. She put the card away in her bag, gave her fur piece a yank, and
drank about half of her drink. "I have to go." She signaled the waiter and paid the check. The waiter went away and she stood up.
Steve said sharply: "Sit down."
She stared at him wonderingly. Then she sat down again and leaned against the wall, still staring at him. Steve leaned across the
table, asked "How well do you know Leopardi?"
"Off and on for years. If it's any of your business. Don't go masterful on me, for God's sake. I loathe masterful men. I once sang for
him, but not for long. You can't just sing for Leopardi--if you get what I mean."
"You were having a drink with him."
She nodded slightly and shrugged. "He opens here tomorrow night. He was trying to talk me into singing for him again. I said no,
but I may have to, for a week or two anyway. The man who owns the Club Shalotte also owns my contract--and the radio station where I
work a good deal."
"Jumbo Walters," Steve said. "They say he's tough but square. I never met him, but I'd like to. After all I've got a living to get. Here."
He reached back across the table and dropped the crumpled paper. "The name was--"
"Dolores Chiozza."
Steve repeated it lingeringly. "I like it. I like your singing too. I've heard a lot of it. You don't oversell a song, like most of these
high-money torchers." His eyes glistened.
The girl spread the paper on the table and read it slowly, without expression. Then she said quietly: "Who tore it up?"
"Leopardi, I guess. The pieces were in his wastebasket last night. I put them together, after he was gone. The guy has guts--or else
he gets these things so often they don't register any more."
"Or else he thought it was a gag." She looked across the table levelly, then folded the paper and handed it back.
"Maybe. But if he's the kind of guy I hear he is--one of them is going to be on the level and the guy behind it is going to do more than
just shake him down."
Dolores Chiozza said: "He's the kind of guy you hear he is."
"It wouldn't be hard for a woman to get to him then--would it--a woman with a gun?"
She went on staring at him. "No. And everybody would give her a big hand, if you ask me. If I were you, I'd just forget the whole thing.
If he wants protection--Walters can throw more around him than the police. If he doesn't--who cares? I don't. I'm damn sure I don't."
"You're kind of tough yourself, Miss Chiozza--over some things."
She said nothing. Her face was a little white and more than a little hard.
Steve finished his drink, pushed his chair back and reached for his hat. He stood up. "Thank you very much for the drink, Miss
Chiozza. Now that I've met you I'll look forward all the more to hearing you sing again."
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