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

"Of course you did, darling. Quite right, too. What is a realtor?"

"A real estate man with a carnation. You didn't ask me how badly damaged your car is."

"Stop calling it my car. It's our car. And I don't suppose it's damaged enough to notice. Anyhow we need a sedan for evenings. Have you had lunch?"

"You take it awfully goddamned calmly that I might have been shot."

"Well, I was really thinking about something else. I'm afraid Father will pop in soon and start buying up the town. You know how he is about publicity."

"How right he is! I've been called by name by half a dozen people already -- including an exquisitely pretty blonde policewoman."

"She probably knows judo," Linda said casually.

"Look, I don't get my women by violence."

"Well, perhaps. But I seem to remember being forced into somebody's bedroom."

"Force, my foot. You could hardly wait."

"Ask Tino to give you some lunch. Any more of this conversation and I'll forget I'm arranging my dresses."



5


I found an office finally, as close to a dump as Poodle Springs gets, south of Ramon Drive, upstairs over a filling station. It was the usual two-story fake adobe with make-believe ridge poles sticking out through it at the roof line. There was an outside stairway along the right wall that led to one room with a sink in the corner and a cheap deal desk left over from the previous tenant, a guy who maybe sold insurance, and maybe other stuff. Whatever he sold he didn't make enough to pay the rent and the geezer who owned the building and ran the filling station had booted him out a month ago. Besides the desk there was a squeaky swivel chair and a grey metal file cabinet and a calendar that had a picture on it of a dog tugging down a little girl's bathing suit bottom.

"Darling, this is appalling," Linda said when she saw it.

"You should see some of my clients," I said.

"I could just have someone come in ..."

"This is what I can afford," I said.

Linda nodded. "Well, I'm sure it will do very nicely," she said. "Now let's go out to lunch."

The phone rang. Linda picked it up.

"Philip Marlowe's office," she said. Then she listened, and wrinkled her nose and handed the phone to me. "It must be a client, darling. He sounds appalling."

I said "Yeah" into the mouthpiece, and a voice I'd heard before said, "Marlowe, this is Manny Lipshultz."

"How nice for you," I said.

"Okay, sending a couple of hard boys after you was a mistake. I've made bigger."

I let that slide.