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

Anglich on the side of the jaw with the flat of it.
Pete Anglich staggered and the salt taste of blood came under his tongue. He blinked, said thickly: "I'll remember you a long time,
big boy."
The Negro grinned. "Not so long, pal. Not so long."
He hit Pete Anglich again with the gun, then suddenly he jammed it into a side pocket and his two big hands shot out, clamped
themselves on Pete Anglich's throat.
"When they's tough I likes to squeeze 'em," he said almost softly.
Thumbs that felt as big and hard as doorknobs pressed into the arteries on Pete Anglich's neck. The face before him and above
him grew enormous, an enormous shadowy face with a wide grin in the middle of it. It waved in lessening light, an unreal, a fantastic
face.
Pete Anglich hit the face, with puny blows, the blows of a toy balloon. His fists didn't feel anything as they hit the face. The big man
twisted him around and put a knee into his back, and bent him down over the knee.
There was no sound for a while except the thunder of blood threshing in Pete Anglich's head. Then, far away, he seemed to hear a
girl scream thinly. From still farther away the voice of Trimmer Waltz muttered: "Easy now, Rufe. Easy."
A vast blackness shot with hot red filled Pete Anglich's world. The darkness grew silent. Nothing moved in it now, not even blood.
The Negro lowered Pete Anglich's limp body to the floor, stepped back and rubbed his hands together.
"Yeah, I likes to squeeze 'em," he said.
FIVE
The Negro in the checked suit sat on the side of the daybed and picked languidly at a five-stringed banjo. His large face was
solemn and peaceful, a little sad. He plucked the banjo strings slowly, with his bare fingers, his head on one side, a crumpled
cigarette-end sticking barely past his lips at one corner of his mouth.
Low down in his throat he was making a kind of droning sound. He was singing.
A cheap electric clock on the mantel said 11:35. It was a small living room with bright, overstuffed furniture, a red floor lamp with a
cluster of French dolls at its base, a gay carpet with large diamond shapes in it, two curtained windows with a mirror between them.
A door at the back was ajar. A door near it opening into the hall was shut.
Pete Anglich lay on his back on the floor, with his mouth open and his arms outfiung. His breath was a thick snore. His eyes were
shut, and his face in the reddish glow of the lamp looked flushed and feverish.
The Negro put the banjo down out of his immense hands, stood up and yawned and stretched. He walked across the room and
looked at a calendar over the mantel.
"This ain't August," he said disgustedly.
He tore a leaf from the calendar, rolled it into a ball and threw it at Pete Anglich's face. It hit the unconscious man's cheek. He didn't
stir. The Negro spit the cigarette-end into his palm, held his palm out flat, and flicked a fingernail at it, sent it sailing in the same
direction as the paper ball.
He loafed a few steps and leaned down, fingering a bruise on Pete Anglich's temple. He pressed the bruise, grinning softly. Pete
Anglich didn't move.
The Negro straightened and kicked the unconscious man in the ribs thoughtfully, over and over again, not very hard. Pete Anglich
moved a little, gurgled, and rolled his head to one side. The Negro looked pleased, left him, went back to the daybed. He carried his
banjo over to the hail door and leaned it against the wall. There was a gun lying on a newspaper on a small table. He went through a
partly open inner door and came back with a pint bottle of gin, half full. He rubbed the bottle over carefully with a handkerchief, set it on
the mantel.
"About time now, pal," he mused out loud. "When you wake up, maybe you don't feel so good. Maybe need a shot . . . Hey, I gotta
better hunch."
He reached for the bottle again, went down on one big knee, poured gin over Pete Anglich's mouth and chin, slopped it loosely on
the front of his shirt. He stood the bottle on the floor, after wiping it off again, and flicked the glass stopper under the daybed.
"Grab it, white boy," he said softly. "Prints don't never hurt."
He got the newspaper with the gun on it, slid the gun off on the carpet, and moved it with his foot until it lay just out of reach of Pete
Anglich's outfiung hand.
He studied the layout carefully from the door, nodded, picked his banjo up. He opened the door, peeped out, then looked back.
"So long, pal," he said softly. "Time for me to breeze. 'You ain't got a lot of future comin', but what you got you get sudden."
He shut the door, went along the hallway to stairs and down the stairs. Radios made faint sound behind shut doors. The entrance
lobby of the apartment house was empty. The Negro in the checked suit slipped into a pay booth in the dark corner of the lobby, dropped
his nickel and dialed.
A heavy voice said: "Police department."
The Negro put his lips close to the transmitter and got a whine into his voice.
"This the cops? Say, there's been a shootin' scrape in the Calliope Apartments, Two-Forty-Six East Forty-Eight, Apartment Four-B.
Got it? . . . Well, do somethin' about it, flatfoot!"
He hung up quickly, giggling, ran down the front steps of the apartment house and jumped into a small, dirty sedan. He kicked it to
life and drove toward Central Avenue. He was a block from Central Avenue when the red eye of a prowl car swung around from Central
on to East Forty-Eight Street.
The Negro in the sedan chuckled and went on his way. He was singing down in his throat when the prowl car whirred past him.
The instant the door latch clicked Pete Anglich opened his eyes halfway. He turned his head slowly, and a grin of pain came on his
face and stayed on it, but he kept on turning his head until he could see the emptiness of one end of the room and the middle. He tipped
his head far back on the floor, saw the rest of the room.
He rolled toward the gun and took hold of it. It was his own gun. He sat up and snapped the gate open mechanically. His face
stiffened out of the grin. One shell in the gun had been fired. The barrel smelled of powder fumes.
He came to his feet and crept toward the slightly open inner door, keeping his head low. When he reached the door he bent still
lower, and slowly pushed the door wide open. Nothing happened. He looked into a bedroom with twin beds, made up and covered with
59