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

thickly: "Scramola, umpchay."
Carmady shut the door calmly and leaned against it and started to get his cigarette case from his vest pocket, inside his open blue
raincoat. He didn't look at the curly-haired man at all.
The curly-haired man lunged his free right hand up suddenly, snapped it under his coat, out again. A blue steel gun shone dully
against his light suit. The glass in his left hand slopped liquor.
"None of that!" he snarled.
Carmady brought the cigarette case out very slowly, showed it in his hand, opened it and put a cigarette between his lips. The blue
gun was very close to him, not very steady. The hand holding the glass shook in a sort of jerky rhythm.
Carmady said loosely: "You ought to be looking for trouble."
The sweatered man got off the rubbing table. Then he stood very still and looked at the gun. The curly-haired man said: "We like
trouble. Frisk him, Mike."
The sweatered man said: "I don't want any part of it, Shenvair. For Pete's sake, take it easy. You're lit like a ferry boat."
Carmady said: "It's okey to frisk me. I'm not rodded."
"Nix," the sweatered man said. "This guy is the Duke's bodyguard. Deal me out."
The curly-haired man said: 'Sure, I'm drunk," and giggled.
"You're a friend of the Duke?" the sweatered man asked.
"I've got some information for him," Carmady said.
"About what?"
Carmady didn't say anything. "Okey," the sweatered man said. He shrugged bitterly.
"Know what, Mike?" the curly-haired man said suddenly and violently. "I think this Sonofabitch wants my job. Hell, yes." He punched
Carmady with the muzzle of the gun. "You ain't a shamus, are you, mister?"
"Maybe," Carmady said: "And keep your iron next to your own belly."
The curly-haired man turned his head a little and grinned back over his shoulder.
"What d'you know about that, Mike? He's a shamus. Sure he wants my job. Sure he does."
"Put the heater up, you fool," the sweatered man said disgustedly.
The curly-haired man turned a little more. "I'm his protection, ain't I?" he complained.
Carmady knocked the gun aside almost casually, with the hand that held his cigarette case. The curly-haired man snapped his
head around again. Carmady slid close to him, sank a stiff punch in his stomach, holding the gun away with his forearm. The
curly-haired man gagged, sprayed liquor down the front of Carmady's raincoat. His glass shattered on the floor. The blue gun left his
hand and went over in a corner. The sweatered man went after it.
The noise of the shower had stopped unnoticed and the blond fighter came out toweling himself vigorously. He stared
openmouthed at the tableau.
Carmady said: "I don't need this any more."
He heaved the curly-haired man away from him and laced his jaw with a hard right as he went back. The curly-haired man
staggered across the room, hit the wall, slid down it and sat on the floor.
The sweatered man snatched the gun up and stood rigid, watching Carmady.
Carmady got out a handkerchief and wiped the front of his coat, while Targo shut his large well-shaped mouth slowly and began to
move the towel back and forth across his chest. After a moment he said: "Just who the hell may you be?"
Carmady said: "I used to be a private dick. Carmady's the name. I think you need help."
Targo's face got a little redder than the shower had left it. "Why?"
"I heard you were supposed to throw it, and I think you tried to. But Werra was too lousy. You couldn't help yourself. That means
you're in a jam."
Targo said very slowly: "People get their teeth kicked in for saying things like that."
The room was very still for a moment. The drunk sat up on the floor and blinked, tried to get his feet under him, and gave it up.
Carmady added quietly: "Benny Cyrano is a friend of mine. He's your backer, isn't he?"
The sweatered man laughed harshly. Then he broke the gun and slid the shells out of it, dropped the gun on the floor. He went to
the door, went out, slammed the door shut.
Targo looked at the shut door, looked back at Carmady. He said very slowly: "What did you hear?"
"Your friend Jean Adrian lives in my hotel, on my floor. She got sapped by a hood this afternoon. I happened by and saw the hood
running away, picked her up. She told me a little of what it was all about."
Targo had put on his underwear and socks and shoes. He reached into a locker for a black satin shirt, put that on. He said: "She
didn't tell me."
"She wouldn't--before the fight."
Targo nodded slightly. Then he said: "If you know Benny, you may be all right. I've been getting threats. Maybe it's a lot of birdseed
and maybe it's some Spring Street punter's idea of how to make himself a little easy dough. I fought my fight the way I wanted to. Now
you can take the air, mister."
He put on high-waisted black trousers and knotted a white tie on his black shirt. He got a white serge coat trimmed with black braid
out of the locker, put that on. A black and white handkerchief flared from the pocket in three points.
Carmady stared at the clothes, moved a little towards the door and looked down at the drunk.
"Okey," he said. "I see you've got a bodyguard. It was just an idea I had. Excuse it, please."
He went out, closed the door gently, and went back up the ramp to the lobby, out to the street. He walked through the rain around the
corner of the building to a big graveled parking lot.
The lights of a car blinked at him and his coupe slid along the wet gravel and pulled up. Tony Acosta was at the wheel.
Carmady got in at the right side and said: "Let's go out to Cyrano's and have a drink, Tony."
"Jeeze, that's swell. Miss Adrian's in the floor show there. You know, the blonde I told you about."
Carmady said: "I saw Targo. I kind of liked him--but I didn't like his clothes."
FOUR
Gus Neishacker was a two-hundred-pound fashion plate with very red cheeks and thin, exquisitely penciled eyebrows--eyebrows
from a Chinese vase. There was a red carnation in the lapel of his wide-shouldered dinner jacket and he kept sniffing at it while he
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