"If I can kill the nude-photo angle, of course," I added soothingly.
She giggled.
That gave me a nasty feeling.
If she had screeched or wept or even nosedived to the floor in a dead faint, that would have been all right.
She just giggled.
It was suddenly a lot of fun.
She had had her photo taken as Isis and somebody had swiped it and somebody had bumped Geiger off in front of her and she was drunker than a Legion convention, and it was suddenly a lot of nice clean fun. So she giggled. Very cute.
The giggles got louder and ran around the corners of the room like rats behind the wainscoting.
She started to go hysterical.
I slid off the desk and stepped up close to her and gave her a smack on the side of the face.
"Just like last night," I said. "We're a scream together.
Reilly and Sternwood, two stooges in search of a comedian."
The giggles stopped dead, but she didn't mind the slap any more than last night.
Probably all her boy friends got around to slapping her sooner or later.
I could understand how they might.
I sat down on the end of the black desk again.
"Your name isn't Reilly," she said seriously. "It's Philip Marlowe.
You're a private detective.
Viv told me.
She showed me your card." She smoothed the cheek I had slapped. She smiled at me, as if I was nice to be with.
"Well, you do remember," I said. "And you came back to look for that photo and you couldn't get into the house. Didn't you?"
Her chin ducked down and up.
She worked the smile. I was having the eye put on me.
I was being brought into camp.
I was going to yell
"Yippee!" in a minute and ask her to go to Yuma.
"The photo's gone," I said. "I looked last night, before I took you home.
Probably Brody took it with him.
You're not kidding me about Brody?"
She shook her head earnestly.
"It's a pushover," I said. "You don't have to give it another thought.
Don't tell a soul you were here, last night or today.
Not even Vivian.
Just forget you were here.
Leave it to Reilly."
"Your name isn't — " she began, and then stopped and shook her head vigorously in agreement with what I had said or with what she had just thought of.
Her eyes became narrow and almost black and as shallow as enamel on a cafeteria tray.
She had had an idea.
"I have to go home now," she said, as if we had been having a cup of tea.
"Sure."
I didn't move.
She gave me another cute glance and went on towards the front door.
She had her hand on the knob when we both heard a car coming.
She looked at me with questions in her eyes.
I shrugged.
The car stopped, right in front of the house.
Terror twisted her face.
There were steps and the bell rang.
Carmen stared back at me over her shoulder, her hand clutching the door knob, almost drooling with fear.
The bell kept on ringing.