He passed his horny hand over his face and made it look like the face of a man who wouldn't know.

"He braced me in front of the office of a real estate man named Thorson. Said he was in trouble."

The sergeant stared at me expressionlessly. "Being in trouble belongs with being a man named Lipshultz. Stay away from him. Some of that trouble might rub off on you."

I stood up. "Thanks, Sergeant. I just wanted to check with you."

"You checked in. I'm looking forward to the day you check out."

I went out and closed the door. The pretty policewoman gave me a nice smile. I stopped at the desk and stared at her for a moment without speaking.

"I guess no cop ever liked a private eye," I said.

"You look all right to me, Mr. Marlowe."

"You look more than all right to me. My wife likes me part of the time too."

She leaned her elbows on the desk and clasped her hands under her chin. "What does she do the rest of the time?"

"She wishes I had ten million dollars. Then we could afford a couple more Fleetwood Cadillacs."

I grinned at her fascinatingly and went out of the cop house and climbed into our lonely Fleetwood. I struck out for the mansion.

4

At the end of the main drag the road swings to the left. To get to our place you keep straight on with nothing on the left but a hill and an occasional street on the right. A couple of tourist cars passed me going to see the palms in the State Park-as if they couldn't see all the palms they needed in Poodle Springs itself. A big Buick Roadmaster was behind me taking it easy. At a stretch of road that seemed empty it suddenly put on speed, flashed past and turned in ahead of me. I wondered what I had done wrong. Two men jumped out of the car, both were very sportsclothesy, and trotted back to where I had braked to a stop. A couple of guns flashed into their busy hands. I moved my hand on the indicator enough to shift the pointer to Low. I reached for the glove compartment, but there wasn't time. They were beside the Fleetwood.