Cars glistened and a man in a brown smock got up off a stool and came forward.
"Is my boy friend still blotto?" Vivian asked him carelessly.
"I'm afraid he is, miss.
I put a rug over him and run the windows up.
He's okey, I guess.
Just kind of resting."
We went over to a big Cadillac and the man in the smock pulled the rear door open.
On the wide back seat, loosely arranged, covered to the chin with a plaid robe, a man lay snoring with his mouth open.
He seemed to be a big blond man who would hold a lot of liquor.
"Meet Mr. Larry Cobb," Vivian said. "Mister Cobb — Mister Marlowe."
"Mr. Cobb was my escort," she said. "Such a nice escort, Mr. Cobb.
So attentive.
You should see him sober.
I should see him sober.
Somebody should him sober.
I mean, just for the record.
So it could become a part of history, that brief flashing moment, soon buried in time, but never forgotten — when Larry Cobb was sober."
"Yeah," I said.
"I've even thought of marrying him," she went on a high strained voice, as if the shock of the stickip was just beginning to get to her. "At odd times when nothing pleasant would come into my mind.
We all have those spells.
Lots of money, you know.
A yacht, a place on Long Island, a place at Newport, a place at Bermuda, places dotted here and there all ever the world probably — just a good Scotch bottle apart.
And to Mr. Cobb a bottle of Scotch is not very far."
"Yeah," I said. "Does he have a driver to take him home?"
"Don't say 'yeah.'
It's common." She looked at me with arched eyebrows.
The man in the smock was chewing his lower lip hard. "Oh, undoubtedly a whole platoon of drivers.
They probably do squads right in front of the garage every morning, buttons shining, harness gleaming, white gloves immaculate — a sort of West Point elegance about them."
"Well, where the hell is this driver?" I asked.
"He drove hisself tonight," the man in the smock said, almost apologetically. "I could call his home and have somebody come down for him."
Vivian turned around and smiled at him as if he had just presented her with a diamond tiara.
"That would be lovely," she said. "Would you do that?
I really wouldn't want Mr. Cobb to die like that — with his mouth open.
Someone might think he had died of thirst."
The man in the smock said: "Not if they sniffed him, miss."
She opened her bag and grabbed a handful of paper money and pushed it at him.
"You'll take care of him, I'm sure."
"Jeeze," the man said, pop-eyed. "I sure will, miss."
"Regan is the name," she said sweetly. "Mrs. Regan.
You'll probably see me again.
Haven't been here long, have you?"
"No'm. His hands were doing frantic things with the fistful of money he was holding.
"You'll get to love it here," she said. She took hold of my arm. "Let's ride in your car, Marlowe."
"It's outside on the street."
"Quite all right with me, Marlowe. I love a nice walk in the fog.
You meet such interesting people."
"Oh, nuts," I said.
She held on to my arm and began to shake.
She held me hard all the way to the car.
She had stopped shaking by the time we reached it.