The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

pane in the upper part of it. The bullet from Carmen’s gun had smashed the glass like a blow. It had not made a hole. There was a small hole in the plaster which a keen eye would find quickly enough. I pulled the drapes over the broken pane and took Carmen’s gun out of my pocket. It was a Banker’s Special, .22 caliber, hollow point cartridges. It had a pearl grip, and a small round silver plate set into the butt was engraved: “Carmen from Owen.” She made saps of all of them.
    I put the gun back in my pocket and sat down close to Brody and stared into his bleak brown eyes. A minute passed. The blonde adjusted her face by the aid of a pocket mirror. Brody fumbled around with a cigarette and jerked: “Satisfied?”
    “So far. Why did you put the bite on Mrs. Regan instead of the old man?”
    “Tapped the old man once. About six, seven months ago. I figure maybe he gets sore enough to call in some law.”
    “What made you think Mrs. Regan wouldn’t tell him about it?”
    He considered that with some care, smoking his cigarette and keeping his eyes on my face. Finally he said: “How well you know her?”
    “I’ve met her twice. You must know her a lot better to take a chance on that squeeze with the photo.”
    “She skates around plenty. I figure maybe she has a couple of soft spots she don’t want the old man to know about. I figure she can raise five grand easy.”
    “A little weak,” I said. “But pass it. You’re broke, eh?”
    “I been shaking two nickels together for a month, trying to get them to mate.”
    “What you do for a living?”
    “Insurance. I got desk room in Puss Walgreen’s office, Fulwider Building, Western and Santa Monica.”
    “When you open up, you open up. The books here in your apartment?”
    He snapped his teeth and waved a brown hand. Confidence was oozing back into his manner. “Hell, no. In storage.”
    “You had a man bring them here and then you had a storage outfit come and take them away again right afterwards?”
    “Sure. I don’t want them moved direct from Geiger’s place, do I?”
    “You’re smart, ” I said admiringly. “Anything incriminating in the joint right now?”
    He looked worried again. He shook his head sharply.
    “That’s fine,” I told him. I looked across at Agnes. She had finished fixing her face and was staring at the wall, blank-eyed, hardly listening. Her face had the drowsiness which strain and shock induce, after their first incidence.
    Brody flicked his eyes warily. “Well?”
    “How’d you come by the photo?”
    He scowled. “Listen, you got what you came after, got it plenty cheap. You done a nice neat job. Now go peddle it to your top man. I’m clean. I don’t know nothing about any photo, do I, Agnes?”
    The blonde opened her eyes and looked at him with vague but uncomplimentary speculation. “A half smart guy,” she said with a tired sniff. “That’s all I ever draw. Never once a guy that’s smart all the way around the course. Never once.”
    I grinned at her. “Did I hurt your head much?”
    “You and every other man I ever met.”
    I looked back at Brody. He was pinching his cigarette between his fingers, with a sort of twitch. His hand seemed to be shaking a little. His brown poker face was still smooth.
    “We’ve got to agree on a story,” I said. “For instance, Carmen wasn’t here. That’s very important. She wasn’t here. That was a vision you saw.”
    “Huh!” Brody sneered. “If you say so, pal, and if—” he put his hand out palm up and cupped the fingers and rolled the thumb gently against the index and middle fingers.
    I nodded. “We’ll see. There might be a small contribution. You won’t count it in grands, though. Now where did you get the picture?”
    “A guy slipped it to me.”
    “Uh-huh. A guy you just passed in the street. You wouldn’t know him again. You never saw him before.”
    Brody yawned. “It dropped out of his pocket,” he leered.
    “Uh-huh. Got an alibi for last