Trouble Is My Business

On the fourth floor of Marlowe’s apartment building, he encounters a woman standing by the elevator. She is dressed exactly as described by the dead man. Intrigued, Marlowe warns the woman not to exit the building because the police are looking for her. She tries to bluff her way through the encounter, but the detective talks her into going to his apartment to talks things over.

Once inside, the woman pulls a gun on him, expecting that Marlowe will try to blackmail her as Waldo did. She says, “I was going to buy something he stole from me, of course. Something that’s valuable in the ordinary way too. Almost fifteen thousand dollars. The man I loved gave it to me. He’s dead” (174). Marlowe explains what happened to Waldo in the bar across the street, and the woman begins to trust him. As they continue their conversation, someone knocks on the apartment door. The woman hides in the closet while Marlowe answers.

The visitor is the drunk from the bar. He points a gun at Marlowe and forces him back inside the flat. The man explains that he’s come to tie up loose ends. Both the bartender and Marlowe need to be eliminated because they can identify him. The man is an ex-convict named Al Tessilore, who was betrayed by Waldo and sent to prison. When he saw Waldo walk into the bar, he wanted to take revenge.

Just as Al is about to shoot Marlowe, the woman emerges from the closet and jabs her gun into his back. The killer is taken by surprise long enough for Marlowe to get the drop on him. The detective cuffs Al and tells the woman he’s grateful that she saved his life. He agrees to keep her name out of the investigation when the police arrive and hides her distinctive hat and jacket in his dresser before allowing her to flee.

When Marlowe calls the station house, he gets Copernik on the line and tells him to come and pick up his murderer at the P.I.’s flat. The detective wants to take credit for the collar without notifying his partner, Ybarra, so he arrives alone. Copernik sizes up the situation and guesses that Marlowe had help subduing Al. Wanting to protect Lola’s identity, Marlowe says that a kid he knows came by to borrow money and was hiding in the closet when Al arrived. Copernik accepts the excuse and then concocts a story with Marlowe that will allow Copernik to receive all the glory for catching the killer. Marlowe shakes hands on the deal and says, “He came over and held out his hand. I shook it. It was as clammy as a dead fish. Clammy hands and the people who own them make me sick” (185).

When Marlowe goes down to the station house to give his statement, Ybarra realizes that he’s been cut out of credit for the collar by his partner but says nothing. Copernik will get a feature story in the morning edition of the city’s newspaper.

As Marlowe returns home, he’s accosted outside his building by the woman he met earlier. She’s driving a Cadillac coupe and urges him to take a ride with her. A few blocks away, she stops the car and explains her dilemma. Her name is Lola Barsaly. She went to see Waldo at his flat about a pearl necklace with a silver propeller clasp that she wanted to recover for sentimental reasons. These were given to her by a pilot whom she loved and lost in a plane crash. The pilot told her that the pearls were worth fifteen thousand dollars. Waldo stole them and offered to sell them back to Lola for five thousand dollars. Marlowe says that no pearls were found on Waldo’s body.

The detective suggests that the necklace might still be in the flat that Waldo rents in the same building where Marlowe lives. He agrees to go back and check if the necklace is there while Lola waits in the car. Inside Waldo’s flat, Marlowe doesn’t find the missing pearls, but he does find the corpse of a man who was apparently killed by Waldo. Marlowe also finds a set of car keys that may match the Packard parked on the same side street where Lola is waiting. He sends Lola home and unlocks the Packard. Inside, he finds the name and address of the car’s owner, “Eugénie Kolchenko, 5315 Arvieda Street, West Los Angeles” (193). Marlowe decides to return the car to her personally.

Marlowe parks the Packard and knocks at Eugénie’s door. He’s greeted by a Russian woman whom he describes as “A long, lean, hungry brunette, with rouged cheekbones, thick black hair parted in the middle, a mouth made for three-decker sandwiches, coral-and-gold pajamas, sandals—and gilded toenails” (193). She seems nervous when Marlowe announces that he’s retrieved her car. Before she can send him away, a male companion emerges from a back room to deal with the situation. He’s wearing a bathrobe with an ill-concealed gun in the pocket.

Marlowe explains about the dead man in Waldo’s apartment but leaves Lola and her pearls out of the story. He simply says that he went to search for some papers on a blackmail job and found the body. The man with the gun admits that he sent an emissary to meet with Waldo and retrieve some incriminating receipts that might be used against him in an upcoming divorce suit. Marlowe promises to fix the situation with the police and leave the man out of the story for $500.

The man agrees to the deal and discloses that his name is Frank C. Barsaly. Marlowe secretly realizes that Frank is Lola’s husband, and he is planning to divorce her for Eugénie. Waldo was blackmailing both Frank and Lola for completely different reasons. Marlowe says, “The answer was a long time coming. When it came I didn’t get as much kick out of it as I thought I would. All at once it was too logical” (201).

By the time Marlowe returns to his flat, the time is 3 A.M. Inside, he finds Copernik and Ybarra waiting for him. In his absence, they’ve searched his apartment and found the hat and bolero jacket belonging to Lola. They’ve also searched Waldo’s getaway car and found Lola’s missing pearl necklace. Marlowe speculates that the pearls must be worth a fortune, but Ybarra contradicts him. The policeman says they are very good fakes. Ybarra believes that Waldo must have pawned the original necklace and substituted the imitation. As Marlowe continues to deflect questions to avoid incriminating Lola, Copernik grows impatient and takes a swing at the P.I. to make him disclose what he knows about the mystery woman. Marlowe lays out the entire story, including Waldo’s dual blackmail scheme. In exchange for the information, Marlowe asks only for Lola’s clothing and necklace as well as the omission of the Barsaly name in the papers.

Copernik wants to shoot Marlowe on the pretext of resisting arrest in order to conceal his own lies until Ybarra stops him by saying, “I don’t think you will […] I think you’ll give him a clean bill of health and anything else he wants. He’s giving you a lesson in police work” (208). Ybarra points out that if Lola is brought in for questioning, she’ll prove that Copernik lied about apprehending a killer in Marlowe’s apartment. His reputation will be ruined, and nobody on the force will trust him. Copernik eventually falls in line with Ybarra’s plan. Marlowe promises to give the $500 that Frank owes him to the Police Relief Fund. Ybarra suggests that Marlowe should deliver the missing pearls personally to Lola.

After the police leave, Marlowe phones Lola to tell her that he’s recovered a cheap imitation strand of pearls made with her propeller clasp. He says that Waldo pawned the originals. The detective also reassures her that her name will stay out of the papers. She agrees to meet him the following afternoon at the Club Esquire bar to retrieve the clasp.

The next morning, Marlowe goes to an expensive jewelry store to have a copy made of the necklace. The jeweler informs him that it would take three months to get an exact copy because of the quality of the blown glass, which is imported from Bohemia. This confirms Marlowe’s theory that Waldo wouldn’t have had time to substitute a fake. It means that the pilot who originally gave the necklace to Lola was lying about its value. The pearls are only worth $100. Marlowe seeks out a cheap jeweler who can do a rush job. The jeweler assures him that he can make a shoddy copy using the propeller clasp within a few hours, which will cost $20.

Marlowe collects the necklace and meets Lola at the Club Esquire at 4 P.M. She confides that her husband wants a divorce. Marlowe doesn’t mention that he already knows about the affair between Frank and Eugénie. Instead, he shows Lola the cheap imitation necklace and says that Waldo must have pawned the original. She says they don’t look like her pearls, but she will keep the propeller clasp.

After they part, Marlowe drives down to the ocean. He takes the pearls that were part of Lola’s original necklace and drops them into the ocean as a way of protecting her romantic illusions about her dead pilot. He says, “I flipped her pearls out into the water one by one at the floating seagulls. They made little splashes and the seagulls rose off the water and swooped at the splashes” (214).