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

Carmady stood close to Jean Adrian in the corner of the car. They were alone in it. He said: "That's what you think."
The boy turned red. Carmady moved over and patted his shoulder, said: "Don't mind me, son. I've been up all night with a sick
friend. Here, buy yourself a second breakfast."
"Jeeze, Mister Carmady, I didn't mean--"
The doors opened at nine and they went down the corridor to 914. Carmady took the key and opened the door, put the key on the
inside, held the door, said: "Get some sleep and wake up with your fist in your eye. Take my flask and get a mild toot on. Do you good."
The girl went in through the door, said over her shoulder: "I don't want liquor. Come in a minute. There's something I want to tell you."
He shut the door and followed her in. A bright bar of sunlight lay across the carpet all the way to the davenport. He lit a cigarette and
stared at it.
Jean Adrian sat down and jerked her hat off and rumpled her hair. She was silent a moment, then she said slowly, carefully: "It was
swell of you to go to all that trouble for me. I don't know why you should do it."
Carmady said: "I can think of a couple of reasons, but they didn't keep Targo from getting killed, and that was my fault in a way. Then
in another way it wasn't, I didn't ask him to twist Senator Courtway's neck."
The girl said: "You think you're hard-boiled but you're just a big slob that argues himself into a jam for the first tramp he finds in
trouble. Forget it. Forget Targo and forget me. Neither of us was worth any part of your time, I wanted to tell you that because I'll be going
away as soon as they let me, and I won't be seeing you any more. This is goodbye."
Carmady nodded, stared at the sun on the carpet. The girl went on: "It's a little hard to tell. I'm not looking for sympathy when I say
I'm a tramp. I've smothered in too many hall bedrooms, stripped in too many filthy dressing rooms, missed too many meals, told too
many lies to be anything else. That's why I wouldn't want to have anything to do with you, ever."
Carmady said: "I like the way you tell it. Go on."
She looked at him quickly, looked away again. "I'm not the Gianni girl. You guessed that. But I knew her. We did a cheap sister act
together when they still did sister acts. Ada and Jean Adrian. We made up our names from hers. That flopped, and we went in a road
show and that flopped too. In New Orleans. The going was a little too rough for her. She swallowed bichloride. I kept her photos
because I knew her story. And looking at that thin cold guy and thinking what he could have done for her I got to hate him. She was his
kid all right. Don't ever think she wasn't. I even wrote letters to him, asking for help for her, just a little help, signing her name. But they
didn't get any answer. I got to hate him so much I wanted to do something to him, after she took the bichloride. So I came out here when
I got a stake."
She stopped talking and laced her fingers together tightly, then pulled them apart violently, as if she wanted to hurt herself. She went
on: "I met Targo through Cyrano and Shenvair through him. Shenvair knew the photos. He'd worked once for an agency in Frisco that
was hired to watch Ada. You know all the rest of it."
Carmady said: "It sounds pretty good. I wondered why the touch wasn't made sooner. Do you want me to think you didn't want his
money?"
"No. I'd have taken his money all right. But that wasn't what I wanted most. I said I was a tramp."
Carmady smiled very faintly and said: "You don't know a lot about tramps, angel. You made an illegitimate pass and you got caught.
That's that, but the money wouldn't have done you any good. It would have been dirty money. I know."
She looked up at him, stared at him. He touched the side of his face and winced and said: "I know because that's the kind of money
mine is. My dad made it out of crooked sewerage and paving contracts, out of gambling concessions, appointment pay-offs, even vice, I
daresay. He made it every rotten way there is to make money in city politics. And when it was made and there was nothing left to do but
sit and look at it, he died and left it to me. It hasn't brought me any fun either. I always hope it's going to, but it never does. Because I'm
his pup, his blood, reared in the same gutter. I'm worse than a tramp, angel. I'm a guy that lives on crooked dough and doesn't even do
his own stealing."
He stopped, flicked ash on the carpet, straightened his hat on his head.
"Think that over, and don't run too far, because I have all the time in the world and it wouldn't do you any good. It would be so much
more fun to run away together."
He went a little way towards the door, stood looking down at the sunlight on the carpet, looked back at her quickly and then went on
out.
When the door shut she stood up and went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed just as she was, with her coat on, She stared
at the ceiling. After a long time she smiled. In the middle of the smile she fell asleep.
NEVADA
GAS
ONE
Hugo Candless stood in the middle of the squash court bending his big body at the waist, holding the little black ball delicately
between left thumb and forefinger. He dropped it near the service line and flicked at it with the long-handled racket.
The black ball hit the front wall a little less than halfway up, floated back in a high, lazy curve, skimmed just below the white ceiling
and the lights behind wire protectors. It slid languidly down the back wall, never touching it enough to bounce out.
George Dial made a careless swing at it, whanged the end of his racket against the cement back wall. The ball fell dead.
He said: "That's the story. chief. 12--14. You're just too good for me."
George Dial was tall, dark, handsome, Hollywoodish. He was brown and lean, and had a hard, outdoor look. Everything about him
was hard except his full, soft lips and his large, cowlike eyes.
"Yeah. I always was too good for you," Hugo Candless chortled.
He leaned far back from his thick waist and laughed with his mouth wide open. Sweat glistened on his chest and belly. He was
naked except for blue shorts, *hite wool socks and heavy sneakers with crêpe soles. He had gray hair and a broad moon face with a
small nose and mouth, sharp twinkly eyes.
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