"Evening, Cronjager.
Meet Phil Marlowe, a private eye who's in a jam." Ohls grinned.
Cronjager looked at me without nodding.
He looked me over as if he was looking at a photograph.
Then he nodded his chin about an inch.
Wilde said: "Sit down, Marlowe. I'll try to handle Captain Cronjager, but you know how it is. This is a big city now."
I sat down and lit a cigarette.
Ohls looked at Cronjager and asked:
"What did you get on the Randall Place killing?"
The hatchet-faced man pulled one of his fingers until the knuckle cracked. He spoke without looking up.
"A stiff, two slugs in him.
Two guns that hadn't been fired.
Down on the street we got a blonde trying to start a car that didn't belong to her.
Hers was right next to it, the same model.
She acted rattled so the boys brought her in and she spilled.
She was in there when this guy Brody got it.
Claims she didn't see the killer."
"That all?" Ohls asked.
Cronjager raised his eyebrows a little.
"Only happened about an hour ago.
What did you expect — moving pictures of the killing?"
"Maybe a description of the killer," Ohls said.
"A tall guy in a leather jerkin — if you call that a description."
"He's outside in my heap," Ohls said. "Handcuffed.
Marlowe put the arm on him for you.
Here's his gun." Ohls took the boy's automatic out of his pocket and laid it on a corner of Wilde's desk.
Cronjager looked at the gun but didn't reach for it.
Wilde chuckled. He was leaning back and puffing his dappled cigar without letting go of it.
He bent forward to sip from his coffee cup. He took a silk handkerchief from the breast pocket of the dinner jacket he was wearing and touched his lips with it and tucked it away again.
"There's a couple more deaths involved," Ohls said, pinching the soft flesh at the end of his chin.
Cronjager stiffened visibly.
His surly eyes became points of steely light.
Ohls said:
"You heard about a car being lifted out of the Pacific Ocean off Lido pier this a.m. with a dead guy in it?"
Cronjager said: "No," and kept on looking nasty.
"The dead guy in the car was chauffeur to a rich family," Ohls said. "The family was being blackmailed on account of one of the daughters.
Mr. Wilde recommended Marlowe to the family, through me.
Marlowe played it kind of close to the vest."
"I love private dicks that play murders close to the vest," Cronjager snarled. "You don't have to be so goddamned coy about it."
"Yeah," Ohls said. "I don't have to be so goddamned coy about it.
It's not so goddamned often I get a chance to be coy with a city copper.
I spend most of my time telling them where to put their feet so they won't break an ankle."
Cronjager whitened around the corners of his sharp nose.
His breath made a soft hissing sound in the quiet room.
He said very quietly:
"You haven't had to tell any of my men where to put their feet, smart guy."
"We'll see about that," Ohls said. "This chauffeur I spoke of that's drowned off Lido shot a guy last night in your territory.
A guy named Geiger who ran a dirty book racket in a store on Hollywood Boulevard.
Geiger was living with the punk I got outside in my car.
I mean living with him, if you get the idea."