The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler Page A

be special delivery. I went out to get it, only it wasn’t.
    A fat man in sky-blue pants was closing the door with that beautiful leisure only fat men ever achieve. He wasn’t alone, but I looked at him first. He was a large man and wide. Not young nor handsome, but he looked durable. Above the sky-blue gabardine slacks he wore a two-tone leisure jacket which would have been revolting on a zebra. The neck of his canary-yellow shirt was open wide, which it had to be if his neck was going to get out. He was hatless and his large head was decorated with a reasonable amount of pale salmon-colored hair. His nose had been broken but well set and it hadn’t been a collector’s item in the first place.
    The creature with him was a weedy number with red eyes and sniffles. Age about twenty, five feet nine, thin as a broom straw. His nose twitched and his mouth twitched and his hands twitched and he looked very unhappy.
    The big man smiled genially. “Mr. Marlowe, no doubt?”
    I said: “Who else?”
    “It’s a little late for a business call,” the big man said and hid half the office by spreading out his hands. “I hope you don’t mind. Or do you already have all the business you can handle?”
    “Don’t kid me. My nerves are frayed,” I said. “Who’s the junky?”
    “Come along, Alfred,” the big man said to his companion. “And stop acting girlish.”
    “In a pig’s valise,” Alfred told him.
    The big man turned to me placidly. “Why do all these punks keep saying that? It isn’t funny. It isn’t witty. It doesn’t mean anything. Quite a problem, this Alfred. I got him off the stuff, you know, temporarily at least. Say ‘how do you do’ to Mr. Marlowe, Alfred.”
    “Screw him,” Alfred said.
    The big man sighed. “My name’s Toad,” he said. “Joseph P. Toad.”
    I didn’t say anything.
    “Go ahead and laugh,” the big man said. “I’m used to it. Had the name all my life.” He came towards me with his hand out. I took it. The big man smiled pleasantly into my eyes. “O.K. Alfred,” he said without looking back.
    Alfred made what seemed to be a very slight and unimportant movement at the end of which a heavy automatic was pointing at me.
    “Careful, Alfred,” the big man said, holding my hand with a grip that would have bent a girder. “Not yet.”
    “In a pig’s valise,” Alfred said. The gun pointed at my chest. His finger tightened around the trigger. I watched it tighten. I knew at precisely what moment that tightening would release the hammer. It didn’t seem to make any difference. This was happening somewhere else in a cheesy program picture. It wasn’t happening to me.
    The hammer of the automatic clicked dryly on nothing. Alfred lowered the gun with a grunt of annoyance and it disappeared whence it had come. He started to twitch again. There was nothing nervous about his movements with the gun. I wondered just what junk he was off of.
    The big man let go of my hand, the genial smile still over his large healthy face.
    He patted a pocket. “I got the magazine,” he said. “Alfred ain’t reliable lately. The little bastard might have shot you.”
    Alfred sat down in a chair and tilted it against the wall and breathed through his mouth.
    I let my heels down on the floor again.
    “I bet he scared you,” Joseph P. Toad said.
    I tasted salt on my tongue.
    “You ain’t so tough,” Toad said, poking me in the stomach with a fat finger.
    I stepped away from the finger and watched his eyes.
    “What does it cost?” he asked almost gently.
    “Let’s go into my parlor,” I said.
    I turned my back on him and walked through the door into the other office. It was hard work but I made it. I sweated all the way. I went around behind the desk and stood there waiting. Mr. Toad followed me in placidly. The junky came twitching in behind him.
    “You don’t have a comic book around, do you?” Toad asked. “Keeps him quiet.”
    “Sit down,” I said. “I’ll look.”
    He