Perchance to Dream Read online

  The bell was soft, a lilting little chime deep somewhere in the house. Out of sight, maybe around the corner, I could hear dimly the sound of a sprinkler clicking in slow cadence as it arched back and forth. There was a trumpet vine curling up around the support pillars on the rustic porch. I waited, listening for footsteps and heard none, and then the door opened and a pale man with thin shoulders and very slick black hair combed straight back stood there.

  "Marlowe," I said. "To see Dr. Bonsentir."

  I handed him my card. The quiet one, name, address, profession. The one with the crossed sabers I saved for impressing other clients. The guy in the white coat ushered me into a hallway that was dark and cool. There were Navaho rugs strewn on the polished wide board floors. Framed on the walls were a variety of important-looking medical documents, some plaques honoring various civic achievements and a head shot of Dr. Bonsentir himself with a lot of uplighting, and some artful air brushing. A small brass plaque under the photograph said OUR FOUNDER, DR. CLAUDE BONSENTIR.

  The servant left me there to admire Dr. Claude and returned in maybe two minutes.

  "This way, sir," he said with the faint hint of an accent, though I couldn't identify it.

  I followed him through a door to the right. We went through a room that was probably a library, with books in shelves along all of the paneled walls and a vast stone fireplace against the far end of the room. There were drapes on all the windows in some sort of turquoise coloration that reached the floor and gathered in an overabundant pile at the baseboard. Beyond the library was an office, smaller than the library but done in the same motif and complete with a slightly scaled-down version of the same fieldstone fireplace on the near end wall where it could share the same chimney shaft. In here the turquoise drapes were drawn and the room was dim. In front of the windows was a desk that could have been a basketball court for midgets. And behind it was Claude Bonsentir.

  He was a dark lean jasper with longish black hair parted in the exact middle of his head. He wore a pencil moustache, and his dark eyes were deeply recessed so that he seemed to be peering out at you from far inside someplace. He was wearing a dark suit with a wide white pinstripe. There was a big gold watch chain draped across his vest, and some sort of key hung from it. He sat with his hands tented before him, elbows on the desk. His nails were manicured and gleamed with recent buffing. He tapped his fingertips gently against his lower lip. On the desk before him, set at precise square to him, was my card. There was nothing else on the desk top except an onyx pen and pencil set. He stared down at my card. I stood in front of his desk. He continued to stare down at my card. I waited.

  Across the room there were two leather chairs with brass studding along the seams, and squarish arms. I went over and got one and dragged it to his desk and sat in it across from him. He raised his eyes slowly and peered out at me from the deep sockets.

  I waited. He gazed.

  I said, "You want to check my teeth?"

  Bonsentir did not smile, nor did his gaze waver.

  "You are a private detective," he said. He had one of those Hollywood elocution voices which has no real accent but sounds nearly British, especially if you haven't heard a real one. He sounded like a guy that recited bad poems on the radio.

  "When I'm not polishing my yacht," I said.

  Bonsentir did some more gazing. I waited. As my eyes got accustomed to the dimness I could see that the walls were ornamented with some sort of Indian metal-work. Turquoise and stones I couldn't recognize set in patterns on a large silver shield. There were six or seven of these around the office. Over the fireplace was a big oil painting of Bonsentir, wearing a white robe and looking profound.

  "I am a serious man, Mr. Marlowe. I have the well-being of many people in my purview. I devote my time to thinking about them. I have no time left over to be amusing."

  "You're doing okay," I said.

  He raised an eyebrow. "You find me amusing," he said.

  "Enthralling," I said. "I was wondering if you could tell me the whereabouts of Carmen Sternwood?"

  Bonsentir leaned back slowly in his chair and opened his mouth wide enough so he could tap his lower teeth with his thumbs. He worked the gaze on me some more. I think it was supposed to make me melt into a puddle on the floor near his desk.

  "Why do you ask?" Bonsentir said.

  "I've been employed to ask," I said.

  "By whom?"

  "By he who employed me," I said.

  "He?"

  "He or she," I said.

  "May I have this person's name?" Bonsentir said.

  "Why?" I said.

  Bonsentir dropped his hands to the desk top and let them lie flat. He leaned forward slightly.

  "You are very annoying, Mr. Marlowe."

  "I've heard that," I said. "I have often resolved to improve."

  Bonsentir kept his new pose.

  "I'm afraid the well-being of my patient requires me to turn aside all unauthorized inquiries, Mr. Marlowe. I greatly respect each patient's right to privacy."

  "She's here then?" I said.

  "I cannot comment on any of your questions, I'm afraid."

  "I heard she wasn't here," I said. "I heard that she's gone and that her sister, Vivian Regan, has asked a hard customer named Eddie Mars to find her."

  "Do you represent Mrs. Regan?"

  "No. I represent her butler."

  "Her butler?" Bonsentir came as close as he probably could to laughing. It made his pencil moustache wiggle slightly. "My dear Mr. Marlowe, I'm very dreadfully afraid that Mrs. Regan's butler has very little standing here."

  "Doctor, there's a couple of ways we can go with this," I said. "You could cooperate by either showing me Carmen Sternwood alive and well, or explaining to me where she is, and helping me find her; or I can come up here with a couple of tough L. A. County deputies and stomp all over your jonquils and interrogate your staff and probably set your patients back five years. Cops are kind of direct sometimes."

  "I assure you, Marlowe, that would be a mistake," Bonsentir said. "I am not without knowledge of my legal rights, and I am not without influence."

  "But you seem to be without Carmen Sternwood," I said.

  "It is time for you to leave, Marlowe."

  Bonsentir pressed a button under the rim of his desk and the door to his office opened and two guys in white came in. One of them was a blond beachboy. His hair almost white, his skin where he bulged out of his white T-shirt, a golden tan. I could have taken him with a swizzle stick.

  The other guy was trouble. He was Mexican, with opaque black eyes that were all Indian and thick black hair that he had pulled back and tied in a pigtail. His arms were unnaturally long and his legs seemed short, and bowed; too small to support the massive upper half of him.

  "My orderlies will show you out now."

  I could see that they would. I stood up.

  "I'm going to find Carmen Sternwood," I said to Bonsentir. "You better hope I find her here."

  "Mr. Marlowe, you are a little man doing a little man's pallid job. Don't waste your time trying to threaten me. It is time now for you to go."

  The two orderlies stood beside me, looking at Bonsentir. I could smell whatever the Mexican had eaten for lunch. I looked at Bonsentir and shrugged and headed for the door. The orderlies followed me out and to my car and stood in the driveway watching me until I was out of sight. When I reached Sunset I headed east toward downtown L. A. Scaring Dr. Bonsentir out of his wits hadn't been too effective. Time to try a different approach.

  CHAPTER 5

  Captain Gregory of the Missing Persons Bureau shifted his heavy body in his swivel chair and looked at me as carefully as he did everything else.

  "How you been, Marlowe?" he said.

  He had a thick bulldog pipe in his hands and was packing tobacco into the bowl from a canister on his desk.

  "Nobody's hit me with a sap this month," I said.

  "Surprising," Gregory said.

  "Month's not
over yet," I said.

  Gregory had the pipe packed the way he wanted it. He put it in his mouth and lit it with a kitchen match, moving the match carefully over the surface of the tobacco to make sure it was evenly lit. He drew in a big draught of smoke and blew the match out with it. Behind him through his office window I could see the hall of justice maybe half a mile away.

  "Never found Rusty Regan, I guess," Gregory said.

  "Never laid eyes on him," I said.

  Gregory got the pipe settled in the corner of his mouth and leaned a little further back in the chair and folded his hands over his stomach.

  "Whaddya need?" he said.

  "You remember Carmen Sternwood?" I said.

  "The General's daughter," Gregory said without emotion, "the nympho."

  "She was in a sanitarium," I said, "being treated, and she disappeared."

  "Resthaven," Gregory said. "The butler called us."

  "You looked into it?"

  "I gave them a call," Gregory said.

  "And?"

  "And they say the butler is misinformed and there's no problem, and I ask to speak to her, and they say she's not well enough to speak to anyone, and I suggest we send a nurse over from the county health association to take a look at her, and they say that will not be acceptable and they hang up."

  "Who'd you talk to?" I said.

  "Guy in charge, Bonsentir."

  "And you left it?" I said. "Just like that?"

  "I called the sister, what's her name?"

  "Vivian," I said.

  "Right. The frail that's been toe dancing around town with Eddie Mars. I call her and she says nothing to worry about. That she is not looking for her sister and feels that the butler was out of line calling us."

  Gregory moved his hands from his stomach to lace them behind his head. He took in some smoke and blew it out easily around the pipestem in his mouth.

  "And?" I said.

  "And nothing. I got enough people that are actually missing to keep most of us pretty busy down here."

  I couldn't see the sky outside Gregory's window. All I could see was a part of the hall of justice. As I stared out at it, a cloud must have floated past the sun, because a shadow fell on the building and then, almost as soon as it fell, it disappeared, and the hall was in sunshine again. Gregory sat in heavy silence while I observed this phenomenon. He was in no hurry. He had forever. Something would turn up.

  I got a cigarette out and got it going and blew a little smoke at the window.

  "Something wrong here," I said. "I know that most coppers aren't looking for a bigger caseload. But most coppers don't let some quack tell them to take the breeze either."

  "What's your interest in this?" Gregory said.

  "I'm looking for Carmen," I said.

  "Got a client?"

  "Norris," I said. "The butler."

  "I figured Vivian fired him."

  "I figure she can't," I said. "I figure the General left things that way."

  "In the will," Gregory said.

  "Sure."

  Gregory nodded. He took the pipe out of his mouth and looked at the bowl and nodded again and put the pipe back in his mouth.

  "Lot of different people are cops," Gregory said. "Some of them are better, some worse." He puffed some more smoke. "A lot of them are worse. But mostly, better or worse, when they do things that you don't expect them to do it's coming from above."

  "Bonsentir's connected," I said.

  Gregory shrugged. He took the pipe out of his mouth again, leaned forward slowly, and spat carefully into his wastebasket. Then he sat back slowly and just as carefully put the pipe back in his mouth.

  "Bonsentir is a dead issue, Marlowe. He's fenced off, wrapped up. You can't get close enough to see him clearly."

  "And if Carmen Sternwood is missing?" I said.

  Gregory shrugged a slow shrug.

  "Or in trouble?" I said.

  "Marlowe, you're a big boy. I try to help because last time we did business you played it pretty straight for a peeper, and Ohls in the sheriff's department says you're jake. But don't sit in my office and talk fairy tales we're both too old to believe in. If I tell you Claude Bonsentir has got juice, you can believe it. I'm not going to say this again, and outside this office I'll deny I said it. But you go up against Bonsentir you're a dead man, and I can't help you and Ohls can't help you."

  I stood up.

  "Nice talking to you, Captain," I said. "If Bonsentir calls, tell him I'm home filing the front sight on my machine gun."

  Gregory didn't speak. He sat perfectly still, with a narrow blue ribbon of smoke wavering up from his pipe. I turned and went out and closed the door gently.

  CHAPTER 6

  I still had my office that year in the Cahuenga Building. I was in it with the windows open and the hot Santa Ana wind pushing the grit around on my desk top. I had the office bottle of rye out and was having myself a midday bracer while I let my feet dangle. I was pretty sure Carmen was missing from Bonsentir's sanitarium. And I was very sure that everyone I talked with knew it, and didn't want me to find her. What I couldn't figure was why. Bonsentir might want to cover up some incompetence and I figured a guy like Bonsentir had a lot of things under the covers up there that he might not want the cops to start looking into. But why would Vivian cover it up? And what kind of clout did Bonsentir have that a good cop like Gregory would walk away from it and tell me to do the same? It was one thing to buy off the local health inspector. Or the local precinct captain, for that matter, but when a downtown cop like Gregory said it was locked up, that meant real juice and a lot of it way up the line.

  It meant that people whom Gregory would call "Sir" were on the payroll, and how much would that cost? How could Bonsentir have that kind of money? It made me tired to think about it, so I bought myself a second drink. Maybe it wasn't money. A guy like Bonsentir would know where there were bodies buried. That was how he flourished. I knew doctors like Bonsentir with the smooth faces and the radio voices. They had big sanitariums off somewhere, out of sight, where wealthy people could store their embarrassments: the dipsomaniac nephew, the nymphomaniac sister, the aging mother who liked to show her underwear, the eccentric brother-in-law who kept stealing things from Woolworth's. The wives of movie stars went to sanitariums like Resthaven, the sons of politicians went there. They were quiet.

  Dr. Bonsentir had needles and pills and he used them. No one complained at Resthaven. Everyone smiled their gooney smiles and wandered about like sleepwalkers, and if they dreamed, who knew it, and who cared what they dreamed? Ah yes, good Doctor Bonsentir, I know you well.

  I knew Dr. Bonsentir so well that I thought it best to toast him, so I poured out a last small splash of rye into the water glass I was using and sipped it in his honor. While I was doing this I heard the door to my outer office open and close. There was silence then as if someone were standing out there trying to make up his mind. Or maybe as if someone were admiring my collection of ten-year-old National Geographies. Then the door opened and in came Vivian Sternwood in a polka-dot dress, big blue dots on a white background. Her hat and gloves were white and her big purse was the color of her dots.

  "Care for a drink?" I said. "I was just toasting that great healer, Claude Bonsentir."

  "You're drunk," she said.

  "Probably not," I said. "But it's not to say I won't be."

  I got up and went to the sink in the corner and got the other water glass I kept for company. I rinsed it, brought it back and poured a finger of rye into each glass.

  I handed a glass to Vivian and while we stood I raised mine.

  "I give you the Hippocrates of the quick needle, Dr. Bonsentir."

  Vivian's eyes were bright with anger, but she drank a little rye.

  "Are you going to ask me to sit down, Marlowe?"

  "Certainly," I said. "Have a chair. Maybe we can have another toast, seated is okay, to the elusive Carmen Sternwood, whom no one seems able to find but everybody says isn't missing."


  "I know my sister is missing, Mr. Marlowe. I don't need some piece of drunken sarcasm from the likes of you." "Who do you need it from," I said, "if not from me?"

  "What I need from you is understanding. You must have some idea of what it is like to try and protect Carmen?"

  "I have an idea what it's like to try to protect the rest of the world from Carmen," I said.

  Vivian's face was dramatically hurt.

  "I was hoping for better from you, Marlowe. I was hoping that the something that sparked between us before hasn't gone away completely."

  I laughed and drank a little more of my rye.

  "What went between us, Mrs. Regan, was you showing me your legs and trying to get me to do whatever you said because I'd seen your legs."

  "And nothing more?"

  I shrugged. Maybe there had been something more. I was after all getting drunk in the middle of the day.

  "I don't know," I said. "Was there?"

  "Yes," she said.

  I wanted to believe her. Up close her eyes were nearly coal black and full of heat. She was wearing a lilac scent, an expensive one. And her wide mouth was soft looking with a full lower lip that seemed specifically meant to be nibbled on. I nodded and didn't say anything.

  "I'm not as tough as I look, Marlowe," she said.

  "If you were as tough as you look," I said, "you'd probably have to be licensed."

  "I'm nowhere near as tough as you are," she said. "Oh, I know the smart mouth and the dark handsome looks and all of that. Just a lovable gumshoe. But I know what's inside that. I know that inside it's all iron and ice."

  She leaned forward toward me, showing me a white lace bra and a good deal of breast as well. "But I'm betting that there's something else in there too."

  "Don't bet your life on it, lady," I said. "I appreciate you showing me what you've got. But don't bet everything that you can melt the iron and ice."