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

planned. Things just as far-fetched, just as unscrupulous, have been done before in Hollywood, often. I just didn't expect it to lead to
hurting people, to killing. I'm--I'm just not enough of a heel to go on with it, Waltz. Not any further. You'd better put your gun up and leave."
Waltz shook his head; smiled a peculiar strained smile. He stepped back from Pete Anglich and held the Savage a little to one side.
"The cards are dealt," he said coldly. "You'll play'em. Get going."
Vidaury sighed, sagged a little. Suddenly he was a lonely, forlorn man, no longer young.
"No," he said softly. "I'm through. The last flicker of a not-so-good reputation. It's my show, after all. Always the ham, but still my
show. Put the gun up, Waltz. Take the air.
Waltz's face got cold and hard and expressionless. His eyes became the expressionless eyes of the killer. He moved the Savage a
little more.
"Get--your--hat, Vidaury," he said very clearly.
"Sorry," Vidaury said, and fired.
Waltz's gun flamed at the same instant, the two explosions blended. Vidaury staggered to his left and half turned, then straightened
his body again.
He looked steadily at Waltz. "Beginner's luck," he said, and waited.
Pete Anglich had his Colt out now, but he didn't need it. Waltz fell slowly on his side. His cheek and the side of his bigveined nose
pressed the nap of the rug. He moved his left arm a little, tried to throw it over his back. He gurgled, then was still.
Pete Anglich kicked the Savage away from Waltz's sprawled body.
Vidaury asked draggingly: "Is he dead?"
Pete Anglich grunted, didn't answer. He looked at the girl. She was standing up with her back against the telephone table, the back
of her hand to her mouth in the conventional attitude of startled horror. So conventional it looked silly.
Pete Anglich looked at Vidaury. He said sourly: "Beginner's luck--yeah. But suppose you'd missed him? He was bluffing. Just
wanted you in a little deeper, so you wouldn't squawk. As a matter of fact, I'm his alibi on a kill."
Vidaury said: "Sorry m sorry." He sat down suddenly, leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
"God, but he's handsome!" Token Ware said reverently. "And brave."
Vidaury put his hand to his left shoulder, pressed it hard against his body. Blood oozed slowly between his fingers. Token Ware let
out a stifled screech.
Pete Anglich looked down the room. The little Jap in the white coat had crept into the end of it, stood silently, a small huddled figure
against the wall. Pete Anglich looked at Vidaury again. Very slowly, as though unwillingly, he said: "Miss Ware has folks in 'Frisco. You
can send her home, with a little present. That's natural--and open. She turned Waltz up to me. That's how I came into it. I told him you
were wise and he came here to shut you up. Tough-guy stuff. The coppers will laugh at it, but they'll laugh in their cuffs. After all, they're
getting publicity too. The phony angle is out. Check?"
Vidaury opened his eyes, said faintly, "You're--you're very decent about it. I won't forget." His head lolled.
"He's fainted," the girl cried.
"So he has," Pete Anglich said. "Give him a nice big kiss and he'll snap out of it . . . And you'll have something to remember all your
life."
He ground his teeth, went to the phone, and lifted it.
SMART-ALECK
KILL
ONE
The doorman of the Kilmarnock was six foot two. He wore a pale blue uniform, and white gloves made his hands look enormous.
He opened the door of the Yellow taxi as gently as an old maid stroking a cat.
Johnny Dalmas got out and turned to the red-haired driver. He said: "Better wait for me around the corner, Joey."
The driver nodded, tucked a toothpick a little farther back in the corner of his mouth, and swung his cab expertly away from the
white-marked loading zone. Dalmas crossed the sunny sidewalk and went into the enormous cool lobby of the Kilmarnock. The carpets
were thick, soundless. Bellboys stood with folded arms and the two clerks behind the marble desk looked austere.
Dalmas went across to the elevator lobby. He got into a paneled car and said: "End of the line, please."
The penthouse floor had a small quiet lobby with three doors opening off it, one to each wall. Dalmas crossed to one of them and
rang the bell.
Derek Walden opened the door. He was about forty-five, possibly a little more, and had a lot of powdery gray hair and a handsome,
dissipated face that was beginning to go pouchy. He had on a monogrammed lounging robe and a glass full of whiskey in his hand. He
was a little drunk.
He said thickly, morosely: "Oh, it's you. C'mon in, Dalmas."
He went back into the apartment, leaving the door open. Dalmas shut it and followed him into a long, high-ceilinged room with a
balcony at one end and a line of french windows along the left side. There was a terrace outside.
Derek Walden sat down in a brown and gold chair against the wall and stretched his legs across a foot stool. He swirled the
whiskey around in his glass, looking down at it.
"What's on your mind?" he asked.
Dalmas stared at him a little grimly. After a moment he said: "I dropped in to tell you I'm giving you back your job."
Walden drank the whiskey out of his glass and put it down on the corner of a table. He fumbled around for a cigarette, stuck it in his
mouth and forgot to light it.
"Tha' so?" His voice was blurred but indifferent.
Dalmas turned away from him and walked over to one of the windows. It was open and an awning flapped outside. The traffic noise
from the boulevard was faint.
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