"Robert B. Parker - Poodle Springs (v1.1)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Parker Robert B)

"Oh, I'm sure," Linda said.

Tino came in a little while with two more drinks on a tray. He took away the empty glasses and was gone as silently as he'd come. Except when he served you it was as if he didn't exist. High up a prairie hawk moved in slow circles, riding the wind's currents, its spread wings nearly motionless.

"Why would you do this, darling? Work for this man Lipshultz?"

"It's my profession," I said.

"Even though you don't need the money?"

I sighed. "You don't need the money. I do. I don't have any put aside."

"But a man like Lipshultz?"

"In my business you don't get all well-bred upper-class people who have good manners and live in safe neighborhoods," I said. "In my kind of work Lipshultz is well above average."

"Then why not get into another business?" Linda said.

"I like my work," I said.

"I'm sure Daddy would . . ."

I cut her off. "Sure he could, and I could get a grey flannel suit and be the boss's son-in-law, except I'm kind of old to be the boss's son-in-law."

Linda looked away.

"Look," I said, "Mrs. Marlowe. I'm just a lug. There are things I can do. I can shoot, I can keep my word, I can walk into dark narrow places. So I do them. I find work that fits what I do, and who I am. Manny Lipshultz is in trouble, he can pay, he's not hiring me to do something illegal, or even immoral. He's in trouble and he needs help and that's what I do and he's got money and I need some. Would you be happier if I took Mrs. Valentine's money to help her husband welch on his debt?"

"I'd rather we stopped talking about this and went in and had dinner and then retired to our room and . . ." She shrugged her shoulders in a way that didn't mean I don't know.

"You're very demanding, Mrs. Marlowe."

"Yes," she said, "I am."

We went in and left the glasses where they were. What the hell. Tino would pick them up. Didn't want the help getting bored.



8


There were 55 Valentines in the L.A. phone book. One was a Lester and one was a Leslie. Lester lived in Encino and was a Division Manager for Pacific Bell; Leslie had a place on Hope Street and was a retail florist. I called information. They hadn't any other Les Valentines listed.

I had no office in L.A. anymore. I had to make the calls from a phone booth on the corner of Cahuenga and Hollywood Boulevard across from the old office. I called a local modeling agency and the Chamber of Commerce in San Benedict. They were both civil to me, which is a high average in L.A.

It was January and cool in L.A. Across the valley, the highest peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains were snowcapped. In Hollywood people pretended it was winter and wore furs along the boulevard, and producers wore argyle sweaters under tweed jackets on their way to lunch at Musso and Frank's. I was clean-shaven, smelling of bay rum and back in town for the first time in a month. Fast, tough, and on a case.

I got in the Olds, went south a block to Sunset and then headed west.