Perchance to Dream

    The bartender moved on down the bar. I turned and looked out at the main room. A tall jasper with a pencil moustache was making thousand-dollar bets at the baccarat table and losing them. He was obviously drunk and his face was very flushed. A silver-blonde lady with a mink stole and a long cigarette holder was tugging at his arm and crying. He paid her no mind. Just kept laying down the big pictures and losing them and taking another one out of the slim ostrich-skin wallet he took from his inside pocket. Finally the blonde swore at him and released his arm and stalked out of the place. The tall thin guy never looked at her, or after her when she left.

    The bartender moved back down the bar toward me.

    "Be easier if he just mailed Mars a check," I said, nodding at the tall drunk losing his money.

    "Ain't that the truth," the bartender said. He nodded past my shoulder. "Mr. Mars will see you now," he said.

    I turned and Eddie Mars was there, a different gray suit and shirt. This time with a sapphire tie pin in a different gray tie.

    "Heard you were asking about me, soldier."

    "Yeah. We need to talk."

    Mars nodded and slid onto the barstool next to me. He waited.

    "I talked with Vivian tonight," I said.

    Mars' face showed nothing.

    "She told me what she knows about Carmen and Bonsentir and Simpson and how you said you'd help her because you love her."

    "She told you a lot, soldier."

    "Yeah. She's in trouble and she knows it," I said. "She's looking for help."

    "So why you telling me this?" Mars said. He took a cigarette out of a silver case and put it in his mouth. The bartender appeared and lit it and moved away.

    "I figure we're both working the same side of the street this time. I want to know what you know."

    Mars smiled.

    "You and me, huh soldier? What a pair."

    "I don't like it, Eddie. And I don't like you. But if you got anything I can use, I'll take it."

    "Fair enough, soldier. Nice to know where we stand."

    "What do you know?" I said.

    "What do I get from telling you?"

    "I tell people you're nice," I said.

    "Yeah?"

    "And I won't be stepping all over you and your boys while I'm looking for Carmen."

    "Stepping on anything of mine will get you a slow ride in a pine box, soldier."

    "One of the things I don't like about you, Eddie," I said. "Inside the hand-tailored suits and the fancy manners you're a goon, just like you were when you started."

    "Calling each other names isn't going to get this deal done, soldier. And it could get you a bad case of bruises."

    "I've had bruises before," I said. "I love bruises. Bruises are my friends. What do you know about Carmen? Remind yourself you're doing this for Vivian."

    "You don't believe it, do you, Marlowe? That a guy like me could go soft for a dame like Vivian Sternwood."

    "I believe you could go soft, Eddie. I don't believe you could go generous. An angle will turn up in here somewhere. Like it did before."

    Mars shook his head.

    "You're hard to like, Marlowe. I'll say that for you."

    I waited.

    "Carmen's with Simpson all right. He took her from the sanitarium. Bonsentir's a high-priced pimp. He runs this clinic for people with sex problems, and then he rents out the juicy ones to a list of very high-priced clients."

    "Like Simpson," I said.

    "Like Simpson," Mars said.

    "He's the one sent her there in the first place," I said.

    Mars shook his head again and took a long drag on his cigarette.

    "Christ," Mars said, "it's not like Carmen was hard. Why go through all that rigmarole of sending her through his pimp?"

    "So she'd be medically certified," I said.

    Mars looked startled.

    "Medically?"

    "Disease free," I said. "Simpson's phobic about venereal diseases."

    "Creep," Mars said.

    "So he gets her committed to a sanitarium where she'll be examined and found healthy and passed on to him."

    "How you know so much about Simpson?"

    "Vivian told me," I said.

    "Funny she didn't tell me."

    "I don't think Vivian tells anybody everything," I said. "I think she's learned not to be too trusting."

    "She can trust me," Mars said.

    "Sure she can, Eddie. I can too, everybody can."

    Mars wasn't listening to me. He was thinking about other things. Things I wouldn't ever get to hear. Maybe he did love her. Maybe I did too.

    "I don't know much about Simpson. But I know you can't take him."

    "I'll take him," I said.

    Mars stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray on the bar.

    "Sure you will, soldier. You keep thinking that."

    "You know where Simpson's got her?" I said.

    He shook his head.

    "Simpson's got places everywhere," Mars said. "You never know which place he's at and no one ever says. He's got three dozen limousines and a fleet of private planes and God knows what all. We're looking into it, but we're not too close yet."

    The man at the baccarat table was out of thousands. He said something loud and nasty to the dealer. Mars didn't turn his head but his eyes shifted over there.

    "You got anything else to add that would help me?" I said.

    "No," Mars said. His eyes stayed on the tall geek with the moustache. "I'm not sure anything will help you, soldier."