Perchance to Dream by Robert B. Parker Read Free Book Online Page A

outside the farmhouse in Rialto." I said, "Empty..."
        
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        And I was behind it wearing handcuffs, but I had a gun. And big brave Lash came out to get me, pushing your wife in front of him.
        She came down the steps. Now I could see the white stiffness of her face. She started toward the car. A bulwark of defense for Canino, in case I could still spit in his eye. Her voice spoke through the lisp of the rain, saying slowly, without any tone: "I can't see a thing, Lash. The windows are misted."
        He grunted something and the girl's body jerked hard, as though he had jammed a gun into her back. She came on again and drew near the lightless car. I could see him behind her now, his hat, a side of his face, the bulk of his shoulder. The girl stopped rigid and screamed. A beautiful thin tearing scream that rocked me like a left hook.
        "I can see him!" she screamed. "Through the window. Behind the wheel, Lash!"
        He fell for it like a bucket of lead. He knocked her roughly to one side and jumped forward, throwing his hand up. Three more spurts of flame cut the darkness. More glass scarred. One bullet went on through and smacked a tree on my side. A ricochet whined off into the distance. But the motor went quietly on.
        He was low down, crouched against the gloom, his face a grayness without form that seemed to come back slowly after the glare of the shots. If it was a revolver he had, it might be empty. It might not. He had fired six times, but he might have reloaded inside the house. I hoped he had. I didn't want him with an empty gun. But it might be an automatic.
        I said: "Finished?"
        He whirled at me. Perhaps it would have been nice to allow him another shot or two, just like a gentleman of the old school. But his gun was still up and I couldn't wait any longer. Not long enough to be a gentleman of the old school. I shot him four times, the Colt straining against my ribs. The gun jumped out of his hands as if it had been kicked. He reached both his hands for his stomach. I could hear them smack hard against his body. He fell like that, straight forward, holding himself together with his broad hands. He fell facedown in the wet gravel. And after that there wasn't a sound from him…
        
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        "You ever see her, Eddie?"
        Mars shook his head. "Not since the night I sprang her from the DA's living room," he said. "I took her home and went to make a drink and when I came back she was gone."
        "So you divorced her."
        "Uh huh."
        "And turned for solace to Vivian Regan."
        "You think so?"
        "I got the impression you and she might be sort of an item," I said.
        "And if we were?"
        "Then you might be sweet enough to find her little sister for her."
        "Those frails are poison, Marlowe. The younger one's sicker than a week-old oyster, and Vivian's the kind of broad that will always drive too fast. She breaks things."
        "But there's all that money," I said.
        "Never mind that maybe I should take offense that I'd chase one of these broads to marry into the mashed potatoes," Mars said. "The thing is, I don't need it. I got enough."
        "Enough doesn't mean anything to guys like you, Eddie."
        Mars' smile vanished, and his face showed suddenly just how hard a guy he was.
        "You don't want to get in my way, soldier, unless you like the idea of breathing through your navel."
        "Lash Canino couldn't do it, Eddie."
        Mars pointed at me with the forefinger of his right hand and then swiveled his wrist and pointed toward the door.
        "You're on your way, soldier," he said. "But while you're leaving think about something. I got no reason to care about what happens to you, and no reason to lie to you; but I'm telling you"-Mars' face broke into a grin-"because I'm sweet, that if people are telling you to stay out of the Carmen Sternwood