I turned the car and slid down a slope with a high bluff on one side, interrurban tracks to the right, a low straggle of light far off beyond the tracks, and then very far off a glitter of pier lights and a haze in the sky over a city.
That way the fog was almost gone.
The road crossed the tracks where they turned to run under the bluff, then reached a paved strip of waterfront highway that bordered an open and uncluttered beach.
Cars were parked along the sidewalk, facing out to sea, dark.
The lights of the beach club were a few hundred yards away.
I braked the car against the curb and switched the headlights off and sat with my hands on the wheel.
Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form itself on the edge of consciousness.
"Move closer," she said almost thickly.
I moved out from under the wheel into the middle of the seat.
She turned her body a little away from me as if to peer out of the window.
Then she let herself fall backwards, without a sound, into my arms. Her head almost struck the wheel.
Her eyes were closed, her face was dim.
Then I saw that her eyes opened and flickered, the shine of them visible even in the darkness.
"Hold me close, you beast," she said.
I put my arms around her loosely at first.
Her hair had a harsh feeling against my face.
I tightened my arms and lifted her up. I brought her face slowly up to my face.
Her eyelids were flickering rapidly, like moth wings.
I kissed her tightly and quickly.
Then a long slow clinging kiss.
Her lips opened under mine. Her body began to shake in my arms.
"Killer," she said softly, her breath going into my mouth.
I strained her against me until the shivering of her body was almost shaking mine. I kept on kissing her.
After a long time she pulled her head away enough to say:
"Where do you live?"
"Hobart Arms. Franklin near Kenmore."
"I've never seen it."
"Want to?"
"Yes," she breathed.
"What has Eddie Mars got on you?"
Her body stiffened in my arms and her breath made a harsh sound.
Her head pulled back until her eyes, wide open, ringed with white, were staring at me.
"So that's the way it is," she said in a soft dull voice.
"That's the way it is.
Kissing is nice, but your father didn't hire me to sleep with you."
"You son of a bitch," she said calmly, without moving.
I laughed in her face. "Don't think I'm an icicle," I said.
"I'm not blind or without sense.
I have warm blood like the next guy.
You're easy to take — too damned easy.
What has Eddie Mars got on you?"
"If you say that again, I'll scream."
"Go ahead and scream."
She jerked away and pulled herself upright, far back in the corner of the car.
"Men have been shot for little things like that, Marlowe."
"Men have been shot for practically nothing.
The first time we met I told you I was a detective.
Get it through your lovely head.
I work at it, lady. I don't play at it."
She fumbled in her bag and got a handkerchief out and bit on it, her head turned away from me. The tearing sound of the handkerchief came to me.