Title:Trouble Is My Business
Author(s): Raymond Chandler
Publisher(s): Vintage Books
Pages: 224
Year: 1988
Format: EPUB
Language: English
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Dorr half turned his head and tried to talk over his shoulder to me. I couldn’t see enough of his face to get any expression, but he didn’t seem scared. He said: “This won’t get you anything. I could have you knocked off easy enough, if that was what I wanted. Now where are you? You can’t shoot anybody without getting in a worse jam than if you did what I asked you to. It looks like a stalemate to me.”
I thought that over for a moment while Beasley looked at me quite pleasantly, as though it was all just routine to him. There was nothing pleasant about the other man. I listened hard, but the rest of the house seemed to be quite silent.
Dorr edged forward from the gun and said: “Well?”
I said: “I’m going out. I have a gun and it looks like a gun that I could hit somebody with, if I have to. I don’t want to very much, and if you’ll have Beasley throw my keys over and the other one turn back the gun he took from me, I’ll forget about the snatch.”
Dorr moved his arms in the lazy beginning of a shrug. “Then what?”
“Figure out your deal a little closer,” I said. “If you get enough protection behind me, I might throw in with you . . . And if you’re as tough as you think you are, a few hours won’t cut any ice one way or the other.”
“It’s an idea,” Dorr said and chuckled. Then to Beasley: “Keep your rod to yourself and give him his keys. Also his gun—the one you got today.”
Beasley sighed and very carefully inserted a hand into his pants. He tossed my leather keycase across the room near the end of the desk. The man with the twisted mouth put his hand up, edged it inside his side pocket and I eased down behind Dorr’s back, while he did it. He came out with my gun, let it fall to the floor and kicked it away from him.
I came out from behind Dorr’s back, got my keys and the gun up from the floor, moved sidewise towards the door of the room. Dorr watched with an empty stare that meant nothing. Beasley followed me around with his body and stepped away from the door as I neared it. The other man had trouble holding himself quiet.
I got to the door and reversed a key that was in it. Dorr said dreamily: “You’re just like one of those rubber balls on the end of an elastic. The farther you get away, the suddener you’ll bounce back.”
I said: “The elastic might be a little rotten,” and went through the door, turned the key in it and braced myself for shots that didn’t come. As a bluff, mine was thinner than the gold on a week-end wedding ring. It worked because Dorr let it, and that was all.
I got out of the house, got the Marmon started and wrangled it around and sent it skidding past the shoulder of the hill and so on down to the highway. There was no sound of anything coming after me.
When I reached the concrete highway bridge it was a little past two o’clock, and I drove with one hand for a while and wiped the sweat off the back of my neck.