Perchance to Dream

    My car was in the parking lot, next to the black one that belonged to the county, that Ohls drove.

    "Thanks, Bernie," I said.

    Ohls nodded and opened his car door and paused with one foot in, leaning on the top.

    "She's got to go away someplace too," he said.

    "I know."

    "One of us will see to it," he said. "I'd just as soon it be you. But one of us will have to."

    "I'll do it," I said.

    I opened my door and Carmen got in. I closed it after her and went around to the driver's side. Ohls was still halfway in his car, still leaning on the roof.

    "Bonsentir's going to come for you," Ohls said.

    "Yeah," I said.

    "Sooner or later," Ohls said.

    "Good," I said. "He'll think he went headfirst into a Mixmaster."

    Ohls nodded slowly and got in his car and started up and drove away. I watched him go. Then I got in beside Carmen, and cranked the engine, and started out toward Hollywood, with my eyes heavier than sorrow. And the rest of me no better.

CHAPTER 36

    "So you did it," Vivian Regan said.

    I was sitting in her enormous living room in the middle of the morning with my feet up on a hassock. I put my head back against the big leather wing chair I was sitting in and let my eyes close. My clothes had dried on me and I looked like something that had washed up in a storm drain. I felt worse.

    "I was sure they'd kill you," Vivian said.

    "Wrong," I said.

    "Yes, I was. And I'm awfully glad I was."

    "Yeah."

    The stillness in the house seemed essential, part of the substance of the house, integrated with the floor joists and ceiling rafters, impregnating the plaster. Vivian sat with her legs tucked up under her on the vast overstuffed lavender silk couch across from me. She had on some sort of black silk lounging pajamas and a string of pearls, the kind you keep in the vault, and wear paste.

    "Will you help me with Carmen?" she said.

    "I'll find her a place and see that she is admitted and that she stays," I said.

    "Will she have to go to trial?"

    "I don't think so. I doubt there'll be a trial. I think this will all be discreetly arranged and she and Simpson will both be judged insane and put into custodial care."

    Vivian shivered and hugged herself.

    "Insane," she said. "It's such an awful word."

    I didn't say anything. Vivian stood and walked over and stood behind me and massaged my neck and shoulders.

    "What about us, Marlowe? We had something the other night."

    I nodded.

    "There'd be room here for you, you know."

    "For a while," I said.

    "You don't think it would last?"

    "You're scared now. You're alone. You've got Carmen to worry over again. You don't know where Bonsentir is. Someone like me looks pretty good now. But how would I look next year? How would I look at the polo matches? Do I get my own monogrammed blazer? Do I take elocution lessons so I can sound like a phony Englishman and fit in with the clubhouse crowd at Del Mar?"

    "You simply are a bastard, aren't you, Marlowe."

    "I'm a detective, lady. I told you that before. I don't play at it. I work at it. I belong where I am, in a lousy apartment on Franklin, in a crummy office on Cahuenga. I pay my own way, and do what I will do, and don't accept insults. It isn't much. But it's mine. Whatever brains and guts and muscle I was dealt, it belongs to me, and I use it in my work. And what money I have I earned."

    She was crying. I felt a little like crying myself.

    She said, "Do you want to kiss me goodbye?"

    I said, "I want to kiss you goodbye," and dragged myself to my feet and put my arms around her and she pressed against me and opened her mouth and we kissed for a long time.

    Then we broke and she said, "Don't come back. I couldn't stand it again," and turned and left the room fast. I stood and tried to get my breathing calm.

    While I was doing that, Norris came into the room.

    "Mrs. Regan asked me to show you out, sir."

    "On my way," I said.

    "I'm very grateful, sir, that Miss Carmen is back."

    "We'll see to a proper place for her, Norris."

    "Yes, sir, the General would approve of that, sir."

    I said, "Norris, do you have champagne?"

    "Yes, sir."

    "Chilled?" I said.

    "Of course, sir."

    "Bring it with some brandy," I said, "and two glasses, to the greenhouse, please."

    Norris smiled. "Yes, sir," he said.

    The greenhouse was as I remembered it. Stifling, thick with moisture, overgrown with thick fleshy plants. In the center, just as it had been, was the wheelchair on the red Turkish rug on the flagstones under the domed roof. The lap robe was folded and hung over the back. There were two wicker chairs set near the wheelchair. Drops of water fell from the glass roof and splattered occasionally on the hexagonal flagstones. I sat in one of the wicker chairs and took out a cigarette and lit it and exhaled slowly. Norris came through the jungle pushing a tea wagon with a bottle of French champagne in a silver ice bucket, which was already densely beaded, and a bottle of fine French brandy.

    "The champagne as cold as Valley Forge," I said to Norris, "and about a third of a glass of brandy beneath it."