| 21 | |
| I didn’t go near the Sternwood family. I went back to the office and sat in my swivel chair and tried to catch up on my foot-dangling. There was a gusty wind blowing in at the windows and the soot from the oil burners of the hotel next door was down-drafted into the room and rolling across the top of the desk like tumbleweed drifting across a vacant lot. I was thinking about going out to lunch and that life was pretty flat and that it would probably be just as flat if I took a drink and that taking a drink all alone at that time of day wouldn’t be any fun anyway. I was thinking this when Norris called up. In his carefully polite manner he said that General Sternwood was not feeling very well and that certain items in the newspaper had been read to him and he assumed that my investigation was now completed. | Nisam prišao ni blizu Sternwoodovoj obitelji. Vratio sam se u svoj ured, sjeo u okretnu stolicu i pokušao nadoknaditi svo ono mlataranje nogama. Olujni je vjetar u zapu-sima udarao u prozore, a čađa se iz uljnih ložišta susjednog hotela sijevala u sobu i zatim valjala preko površine pisaćeg stola poput lopti sasušenog korova nošenih vjetrom preko neizgrađenih parcela. Razmišljao sam o odlasku na ručak, i o tome kako je život prilično siv, i kako bi vjerojatno ostao isto tako siv kad bih popio piće, i kako popiti piće sasvim sam u ovo doba dana i tako nije neko veliko veselje. Sve sam to mislio kad je nazvao Norris. Na svoj pažljivo pristojan način rekao mi je kako se general Sternwood ne osjeća baš dobro, i kako su mu bili pročitani neki članci iz novina, pa da je pretpostavio da je moja istraga sada završena. |
| “Yes, as regards Geiger,” I said. “I didn’t shoot him, you know.” | — Da, što se tiče Geigera — rekoh. — Ja ga nisam u-pucao, znate. |
| “The General didn’t suppose you did, Mr. Marlowe.” | — General ne pretpostavlja da jeste, mister Marlowe. |
| “Does the General know anything about those photographs Mrs. Regan was worrying about?” | — Zna li general išta o tim fotografijama o kojima brine gospođa Regan? |
| “No, sir. Decidedly not.” | — Ne, sir. Decidirano ne. |
| “Did you know what the General gave me?” | — Znate li što mi je general dao? |
| “Yes, sir. Three notes and a card, I believe.” | — Da, sir. Tri priznanice i posjetnicu, mislim. |
| “Right. I’ll return them. As to the photos I think I’d better just destroy them.” | — Ispravno. Njih ću vratiti. Što se tiče fotografija, mislim da je bolje da ih naprosto uništim. |
| “Very good, sir. Mrs. Regan tried to reach you a number of times last night—” | — Vrlo dobro, sir. Gospođa Regan je pokušala doprijeti do vas mnogo puta prošle noći ... |
| “I was out getting drunk,” I said. | — Bio sam vani i opijao se — rekoh. |
| “Yes. Very necessary, sir, I’m sure. The General has instructed me to send you a check for five hundred dollars. Will that be satisfactory?” | — Da. Siguran sam da vam je bilo vrlo potrebno, sir. General me uputio da vam pošaljem ček na pet stotina dolara. Hoće li to biti zadovoljavajuće? |
| “More than generous,” I said. | — Više no velikodušno — rekoh. |
| “And I presume we may now consider the incident closed?” | — I pretpostavljani da sada dosje slučaja možemo smatrati zatvorenim. |
| “Oh sure. Tight as a vault with a busted time lock.” | — O, sigurno. Čvrsto poput trezora s raznesenom tempiranom bravom. |
| “Thank you, sir. I am sure we all appreciate it. When the General is feeling a little better—possibly tomorrow—he would like to thank you in person.” | — Hvala, sir. Siguran da ćemo svi to znati cijeniti. Kad se general bude osjećao malo bolje, možda sutra, bit će mu drago da vam osobno zahvali. |
| “Fine,” I said. “I’ll come out and drink some more of his brandy, maybe with champagne.” | — Fino — rekoh. — Dovući ću se i popiti još malo njegova brendvja, možda sa šampanjcem. |
| “I shall see that some is properly iced,” the old boy said, almost with a smirk in his voice. | — Pobrinut ću se da pokoja boca bude dolično stavljena u led — reklo je staro momče, gotovo s glupavim smiješkom u glasu. |
| That was that. We said goodbye and hung up. The coffee shop smell from next door came in at the windows with the soot but failed to make me hungry. So I got out my office bottle and took the drink and let my self-respect ride its own race. | I to je bilo to. Rekli smo si zbogom i spustili slušalice. Kroz prozore je sa čađom ušao i miris kafeterije iz susjedstva, no nije mu uspjelo da me ogladni. I tako sam izvadio svoju uredsku bocu i popio piće, a svoje samopoštovanje ostavio da se utrkuje samo sa sobom. |
| I counted it up on my fingers. Rusty Regan had run away from a lot of money and a handsome wife to go wandering with a vague blonde who was more or less married to a racketeer named Eddie Mars. He had gone suddenly without goodbyes and there might be any number of reasons for that. The General had been too proud, or, at the first interview he gave me, too careful, to tell me the Missing Persons Bureau had the matter in hand. The Missing Persons people were dead on their feet on it and evidently didn’t think it worth bothering over. Regan had done what he had done and that was his business. I agreed with Captain Gregory that Eddie Mars would have been very unlikely to involve himself in a double murder just because another man had gone to town with the blonde he was not even living with. It might have annoyed him, but business is business, and you have to hold your teeth clamped around Hollywood to keep from chewing on stray blondes. If there had been a lot of money involved, that would be different. But fifteen grand wouldn’t be a lot of money to Eddie Mars. He was no two-bit chiseler like Brody. | Počeo sam nabrajati na prste. Rusty Regan je pobjegao od hrpe novaca i zgodne žene da bi otišao lunjati s mut- nom plavušom koja je više-manje udana za gangstera imenom Eddie Mars. On je otišao naglo, bez pozdravljanja, i iza toga može stajati po volji velik broj razloga. General je bio previše ponosan, ili, za vrijeme prvog razgovora kojim me počastio, suviše oprezan, da bi mi rekao da Ured za nestale osobe ima stvar u svojim rukama. Narod iz tog ureda stoji mrtav na živim nogama i očito ne misli da je to vrijedno gnjavaže. Regan je učinio što je učinio, i to je njegova stvar. Složio sam se s kapetanom Gregorvjem da je vrlo nevjerojatno da bi se Eddie Mars upetljao u dvostruko u-morstvo samo zato što je drugi muškarac otišao u grad s plavušom s kojom on čak i ne živi. To ga je moglo zagnja-viti, no posao je posao, a oko Hoolywooda treba zašarafiti zube ako ne želite žvakati odlutale blondinke. Da je tu bila upletena neka silna lova, stvar bi drukčije stajala. Ali petnaest somova nisu za Eddija Marsa nikakva silna lova. Nije on nikakav petparački mućkaroš poput Brodvja. |
| Geiger was dead and Carmen would have to find some other shady character to drink exotic blends of hooch with. I didn’t suppose she would have any trouble. All she would have to do would be to stand on the corner for five minutes and look coy. I hoped that the next grifter who dropped the hook on her would play her a little more smoothly, a little more for the long haul rather than the quick touch. | Geiger je mrtav, i Carmen će morati naći neku drugu mračnu ličnost da s njom pije egzotične mješavine cuge. Ne mislim da će s tim imati mnogo muke. Sve Što treba učiniti, bit će da stane pet minuta na ugao i drži se stidljivo. Nadao sam se da će sljedeći žmukler koji joj dobaci udicu igrati malo nježnije, malo više na duge pruge, a malo manje na brzaka. |
| Mrs. Regan knew Eddie Mars well enough to borrow money from him. That was natural, if she played roulette and was a good loser. Any gambling house owner would lend a good client money in a pinch. Apart from this they had an added bond of interest in Regan. He was her husband and he had gone off with Eddie Mars’ wife. | Gospođa Regan je poznavala Eddija Marsa dovoljno dobro da bi od njega posuđivala novac. To je bilo prirodno, ako je igrala na ruletu i bila solidan gubitnik. Svaki bi vlasnik kockarnice posudio novac dobrom klijentu u stisci. Povrh toga, bila je među njima i dodatna veza zbog zajedničkog zanimanja za Regana. On je bio njen muž, a otišao je sa ženom Eddija Marsa. |
| Carol Lundgren, the boy killer with the limited vocabulary, was out of circulation for a long, long time, even if they didn’t strap him in a chair over a bucket of acid. They wouldn’t, because he would take a plea and save the county money. They all do when they don’t have the price of a big lawyer. Agnes Lozelle was in custody as a material witness. They wouldn’t need her for that, if Carol took a plea, and if he pleaded guilty on arraignment, they would turn her loose. They wouldn’t want to open up any angles on Geiger’s business, apart from which they had nothing on her. | Carol Lundgren, klinjo-ubojica siromašnog rječnika, dugo će, dugo biti izvan opticaja, čak i ako ga ne zavežu u stolicu nad kantom kiseline. Neće ga, jer će zamoliti pomilovanje i tako državi uštedjeti pare. Svi to oni rade kad nemaju u džepu honorar velikog advokata. Agnes Lozelle je u pritvoru kao glavni svjedok. Neće im biti potrebna ako Carol zamoli pomilovanje, a ako ovaj sporazumno prizna krivicu, pustit će je iz krletke. Nije im do toga da bacaju novo svjetlo na Geigerove poslove, a ako se to izuzme, ionako ne bi imali ništa od nje. |
| That left me. I had concealed a murder and suppressed evidence for twenty-four hours, but I was still at large and had a five-hundred-dollar check coming. The smart thing for me to do was to take another drink and forget the whole mess. | Ostajem dakle još samo ja. Zatajio sam umorstvo i prikrivao dokaze dvadeset četiri sata, no još sam na friškom zraku, s čekom na pet stotina dolara koji upravo stiže. Najpametnija bi stvar za mene bila popiti još jedno piće i zaboraviti svu tu mutljažu. |
| That being the obviously smart thing to do, I called Eddie Mars and told him I was coming down to Las Olindas that evening to talk to him. That was how smart I was. | Budući da je to očito bila najpametnija stvar koja se mogla učiniti, nazvao sam Eddija Marsa i rekao mu da ću se večeras spustiti do Las Olindasa da popričam s njim. To da se vidi kako sam pametan bio. |
| I got down there about nine, under a hard high October moon that lost itself in the top layers of a beach fog. The Cypress Club was at the far end of the town, a rambling frame mansion that had once been the summer residence of a rich man named De Cazens, and later had been a hotel. It was now a big dark outwardly shabby place in a thick grove of wind-twisted Monterey cypresses, which gave it its name. It had enormous scrolled porches, turrets all over the place, stained-glass trims around the big windows, big empty stables at the back, a general air of nostalgic decay. Eddie Mars had left the outside much as he had found it, instead of making it over to look like an MGM set. I left my car on a street with sputtering arc lights and walked into the grounds along a damp gravel path to the main entrance. A doorman in a double-breasted guard’s coat let me into a huge dim silent lobby from which a white oak staircase curved majestically up to the darkness of an upper floor. I checked my hat and coat and waited, listening to music and confused voices behind heavy double doors. They seemed a long way off, and not quite of the same world as the building itself. Then the slim pasty-faced blond man who had been with Eddie Mars and the pug at Geiger’s place came through a door under the staircase, smiled at me bleakly and took me back with him along a carpeted hall to the boss’s office. | Stigao sam dolje oko devet, pod visokim škrtim listopadskim mjesecom koji se gubio u gornjim slojevima magle što se vukla okolo. Cvpress Club je bio na drugom kraju grada, slobodno postavljena drvenjara što je nekoć bila ljetna rezidencija bogatuna imenom De Cazens, da bi poslije postala hotel. Bila je to relika i tamna, izvana otrcana kuća, smještena u gaju monterejskih čempresa po kojima je i dobila ime. Bila je sva posuta tornjićima, imala goleme portale pune zavijutaka, vitrajima uokvirene velike prozore, velike prazne konjušnice u pozadini i opću atmosferu nostalgičnog truljenja. Eddie Mars je vanjštinu, ostavio Uglavnom onako kako ju je zatekao, umjesto da je prekraja u nešto nalik na kulisu MGM-a. Ostavio sam auto na ulici u treperavom lučnom svjetlu i ušetao na posjed a zatim duž mokre pošljunčane staze do glavnog ulaza. Portir u stražarskom kaputiću s dva reda dugmadi propustio me je u golem sumračan i tihi hol, iz kojeg se bijelo hrastovo stepenište veličanstveno izvijalo dižući se u mrak gornjega kata. Predao sam šešir i kaput i pričekao, osluškujući glazbu i zbrkane glasove iza masivnih dvostrukih vrata. Činilo se da dolaze iz velike daljine i da ne pripadaju istom svijetu kojem pripada sama kuća. Tada je kroz vrata ispod stepeništa ušao mršav bljedolik plav muškarac koji je bio s Eddijem Marsom i zvijezdom ringa u Geigerovoj jazbini, nasmiješio mi se beskrvno i poveo me natrag duž sagom pokrivenog hodnika do gazdina ureda. |
| This was a square room with a deep old bay window and a stone fireplace in which a fire of juniper logs burned lazily. It was wainscoted in walnut and had a frieze of faded damask above the paneling. The ceiling was high and remote. There was a smell of cold sea. | Bila je to četvrtasta soba s dubokim zatvorenim balkonom i kamenim kaminom u kojem je lijeno plamtjela vatra iz ariševih klada. Bila je obložena orahovinom, a iznad obloge su bile platnene tapete od izblijedjela damasta. Strop je bio visok i dalek. Osjećao se miris hladnoga mora. |
| Eddie Mars’ dark sheenless desk didn’t belong in the room, but neither did anything made after 1900. His carpet had a Florida suntan. There was a bar-top radio in the corner and a Sèvres china tea set on a copper tray beside a samovar. I wondered who that was for. There was a door in the corner that had a time lock on it. | Matirani pisaći stol Eddija Marsa nije pristajao u sobu, no nije pristajalo ni išta drugo stvoreno poslije 1900. godine. Sag se, sudeći po boji, sunčao na Floridi. U kutu na baru bio je radio i čajni servis od porculana iz Sevresa na bakrenom pladnju pokraj samovara. Pitao sam se za koga je to. U kutu su bila i vrata s tempiranom bravom. |
| Eddie Mars grinned at me sociably and shook hands and moved his chin at the vault. “I’m a pushover for a heist mob here except for that thing,” he said cheerfully. “The local johns drop in every morning and watch me open it. I have an arrangement with them.” | Eddie Mars mi se nacerio druželjubivo, rukovao se sa mnom i zabacio bradu prema trezoru. — Bio bih igrarija za drparošku rulju da nema ovoga — rekao je veselo. — Lokalni cajoši skoknu svako jutro i paze dok otvaram. Imam sporazum s njima. |
