Finger Man

  Finger Man

  Raymond Chandler

  ARGUABLY THE GREATEST mystery writer of the twentieth century, Raymond Chandler (1888‐1959)

  brought a literary sensibility to that least likely of places—pulp magazines. Pulps were very clearly and specifically designed to be fast, cheap, action‐filled entertainment for the masses. No literary aspirations or pretensions were welcomed by the hard‐working editors of even the best of them, notably Black Mask and Dime Detective. Still, Dashiell Hammett brought important realism to his pulp stories, and Chandler elevated the form even further.

  Philip Marlowe, the hero of all seven of Chandler’s novels, appears in this printing of “Finger Man,” a novella filled with bad guys and corruption. When the story was first published in the October 1934 issue of Black Mask, the first‐person narrator was unnamed. For its first book appearance, the anonymous shamus in “Finger Man” was given the Marlowe name, as Chandler had become the “hottest” mystery writer in America because of his Marlowe novels. The majority of Chandler’s short fiction was collected in three paperback originals published by Avon in its

  “Murder Mystery Monthly” series, 5 Murderers (1944), Five Sinister Characters (1945), and Finger Man (1946), and his detectives, whether named Carmody, Dalmas, Malvern, Mallory, or unnamed, were transformed into Marlowe. As the detectives evolved from the earliest experiments to the more complex and nuanced hero he envisioned and later compared to a modern‐day knight, the adventures became classics of the American crime story.

  ONE

  He looked towards one of the windows.

  “How well do you know Frank Dorr?” he asked,

  with his eyes away from me.

  GOT AWAY from the Grand Jury

  a little after four, and then

  “I know he’s a big politico, a fixer you

  sneaked up the backstairs to have to see if you want to open a gambling hell

  Fenweather’s

  office. or a bawdy house—or if you want to sell honest

  Fenweather, the D.A., was a merchandise to the city.”

  man with severe, chiseled

  features and the gray temples women love. He

  “Right.” Fenweather spoke sharply, and

  played with a pen on his desk and said: “I think brought his head around towards me. Then he

  they believed you. They might even indict lowered his voice. “Having the goods on Tinnen Manny Tinnen for the Shannon kill this was a surprise to a lot of people. If Frank Dorr afternoon. If they do, then is the time you begin had an interest in getting rid of Shannon who to watch your step.”

  was the head of the Board where Dorr’s

  supposed to get his contracts, it’s close enough

  I rolled a cigarette around in my fingers to make him take chances. And I’m told he and and finally put it in my mouth. “Don’t put any Manny Tinnen had dealings. I’d sort of keep an men on me, Mr. Fenweather. I know the alleys eye on him, if I were you.”

  in this town pretty well, and your men couldn’t

  stay close enough to do me any good.”

  I grinned. “I’m just one guy,” I said.

  “Frank Dorr covers a lot of territory. But I’ll do

  There was nothing there but an old red

  what I can.”

  davenport, two odd chairs, a bit of carpet, and a

  library table with a few old magazines on it. The

  Fenweather stood up and held his hand

  reception room was left open for visitors to

  across the desk. He said: “I’ll be out of town for

  come in and sit down and wait—if I had any

  a couple of days, I’m leaving tonight, if this

  visitors and they felt like waiting.

  indictment comes through. Be careful—and if

  anything should happen to go wrong, see Bernie

  I went across and unlocked the door into

  Ohls, my chief investigator.”

  my private office, lettered “Philip Marlowe. . .

  Investigations.”

  I said: “Sure.”

  Lou Harger was sitting on a wooden

  We shook hands and I went out past a

  chair on the side of the desk away from the

  tired‐looking girl who gave me a tired smile and

  window. He had bright yellow gloves clamped

  wound one of her lax curls up on the back of her

  on the crook of a cane, a green snap‐brim hat

  neck as she looked at me. I got back to my office

  set too far back on his head. Very smooth black

  soon after four‐thirty. I stopped outside the

  hair showed under the hat and grew too low on

  door of the little reception room for a moment,

  the nape of his neck.

  looking at it. Then I opened it and went in, and

  of course there wasn’t anybody there.

  “Hello. I’ve been waiting,” he said, and

  smiled languidly.

  I said: “What kind of play?”

  “ ‘Lo, Lou. How did you get in here?”

  He got a cigarette halfway out and

  ”The door must have been unlocked. Or

  stared down at it. There was a little something

  maybe I had a key that fitted. Do you mind?”

  in his manner I didn’t like.

  I went around the desk and sat down in

  “I’ve been closed up for a month now. I

  the swivel chair. I put my hat down on the desk, wasn’t makin’ the kind of money it takes to stay picked up a bulldog pipe out of an ash tray and open in this town. The Headquarters boys have began to fill it up.

  been putting the pressure on since repeal. They

  have bad dreams when they see themselves

  “It’s all right as long as it’s you,” I said. “I

  trying to live on their pay.”

  just thought I had a better lock.”

  I said: “It doesn’t cost any more to

  He smiled with his full red lips. He was a operate here than anywhere else. And here you

  very good‐looking boy. He said: “Are you still pay it all to one organization. That’s doing business, or will you spend the next something.”

  month in a hotel room drinking liquor with a

  couple of Headquarters boys?”

  Lou Harger jabbed the cigarette in his

  mouth. “Yeah—Frank Dorr,” he snarled. “That

  “I’m still doing business—if there’s any

  fat, bloodsuckin’ sonofabitch!”

  business for me to do.”

  I didn’t say anything. I was way past the

  I lit a pipe, leaned back and stared at his age when it’s fun to swear at people you can’t

  clear olive skin, straight, dark eyebrows.

  hurt. I watched Lou light his cigarette with my

  desk lighter. He went on, through a puff of

  He put his cane on top of the desk and smoke: “It’s a laugh, in a way. Canales bought a clasped his yellow gloves on the glass. He new wheel—from some grafters in the sheriff’s moved his lips in and out.

  office. I know Pina, Canales’ head croupier,

  pretty well. The wheel is one they took away

  “I have a little something for you. Not a

  from me. It’s got bugs—and I know the bugs.”

  hell of a lot. But there’s carfare in it.”

  “And Canales don’t… That sounds just

  I waited.

  like Canales,” I said.

  “I’m making a little play at Las Olindas

  Lou didn’t look at me. “He gets a nice

  tonight,” he said. “At Cana
les’ place.”

  crowd down there,” he said. “He has a small

  dance floor and a five‐piece Mexican band to

  “The white smoke?”

  help the customers relax. They dance a bit and

  then go back for another trimming, instead of

  “Uh‐huh. I think I’m going to be lucky—

  going away disgusted.”

  and I’d like to have a guy with a rod.”

  I said:”What do you do?”

  I took a fresh pack of cigarettes out of a

  top drawer and slid them across the desk. Lou

  “I guess you might call it a system,” he

  picked them up and began to break the pack said softly, and looked at me under his long open.

  lashes.

  I looked away from him, looked around

  I smiled a little more and watched his

  the room. It had a rust‐red carpet, five green yellow gloves moving around on top of the desk, filing cases in a row under an advertising moving too much. I said slowly: “You’re the last calendar, an old costumer in the corner, a few guy in the world to be getting expense money walnut chairs, net curtains over the windows. that way just now. I’m the last guy to be The fringe of the curtains was dirty from standing behind you while you do it. That’s all.”

  blowing about in the draft. There was a bar of

  late sunlight across my desk and it showed up

  Lou said: “Yeah.” He knocked some ash

  the dust.

  off his cigarette down on the glass top, bent his

  head to blow it off. He went on, as if it was a

  “I get it like this,” I said. “You think you

  new subject: “Miss Glenn is going with me.

  have that roulette wheel tamed and you expect She’s a tall redhead, a swell looker. She used to to win enough money so that Canales will be model. She’s nice to people in any kind of a spot mad at you. You’d like to have some protection and she’ll keep Canales from breathing on my along— me. I think it’s screwy.”

  neck. So we’ll make out. I just thought I’d tell

  you.”

  “It’s not screwy at all,” Lou said. “Any

  roulette wheel has a tendency to work in a

  I was silent for a minute, then I said:

  certain rhythm. If you know the wheel very well “You know damn well I just got through telling indeed—”

  the Grand Jury it was Manny Tinnen I saw lean

  out of that car and cut the ropes on Art

  I smiled and shrugged. “Okey, I wouldn’t Shannon’s wrists after they pushed him on the

  know about that. I don’t know enough roulette. roadway, filled with lead.”

  It sounds to me like you’re being a sucker for

  your own racket, but I could be wrong. And

  Lou smiled faintly at me. “That’ll make it

  that’s not the point anyway.”

  easier for the grafters on the big time; the

  fellows who take the contracts and don’t

  “What is?” Lou asked thinly.

  appear in the business. They say Shannon was

  square and kept the Board in line. It was a nasty

  “I’m not much stuck on bodyguarding—

  bump‐off.”

  but maybe that’s not the point either. I take it

  I’m supposed to think this play is on the level.

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk

  Suppose I don’t, and walk out on you, and you about that. I said: “Canales has a noseful of junk get in a box? Or suppose I think everything is a lot of the time. And maybe he doesn’t go for aces, but Canales don’t agree with me and gets redheads.”

  nasty.”

  Lou stood up slowly and lifted his cane

  “That’s why I need a guy with a rod,”

  off the desk. He stared at the tip of one yellow

  Lou said, without moving a muscle except to finger. He had an almost sleepy expression.

  speak.

  Then he moved towards the door, swinging his

  cane.

  I said evenly: “If I’m tough enough for

  the job—and I didn’t know I was—that still isn’t

  “Well, I’ll be seein’ you some time,” he

  what worries me.”

  drawled.

  “Forget it,” Lou said. “It breaks me up

  I let him get his hand on the knob before

  enough to know you’re worried.”

  I said: “Don’t go away sore, Lou. I’ll drop down

  to Las Olindas, if you have to have me. But I

  don’t want any money for it, and for Pete’s sake

  It was a good crowd for a Tuesday but

  don’t pay any more attention to me than you nobody was dancing. Around ten o’clock the have to.”

  little five‐piece band got tired of messing

  around with a rhumba that nobody was paying

  He licked his lips softly and didn’t quite any attention to. The marimba player dropped look at me. “Thanks, keed. I’ll be careful as his sticks and reached under his chair for a glass.

  hell.”

  The rest of the boys lit cigarettes and sat there

  looking bored.

  He went out then and his yellow glove

  disappeared around the edge of the door.

  I leaned sidewise against the bar, which

  was on the same side of the room as the

  I sat still for about five minutes and then orchestra stand. I was turning a small glass of my pipe got too hot. I put it down, looked at my tequila around on the top of the bar. All the strap watch, and got up to switch on a small business was at the center one of the three radio in the corner beyond the end of the desk. roulette tables.

  When the A.C. hum died down the last tinkle of

  a chime came out of the horn, then a voice was

  The bartender leaned beside me, on his

  saying: “KLI now brings you its regular early side of the bar.

  evening broadcast of local news releases. An

  event of importance this afternoon was the

  “The flame‐top gal must be pickin’

  indictment returned late today against Maynard them,” he said.

  J. Tinnen by the Grand Jury. Tinnen is a well‐

  known City Hall lobbyist and man about town.

  I nodded without looking at him. “She’s

  The indictment, a shock to his many friends, was playing with fistfuls now,” I said. “Not even based almost entirely on the testimony—”

  counting it.”

  My telephone rang sharply and a girl’s

  The red‐haired girl was tall. I could see

  cool voice said in my ear: “One moment, please. the burnished copper of her hair between the Mr. Fenweather is calling you.”

  heads of the people behind her. I could see Lou

  Harger’s sleek head beside hers. Everybody

  He came on at once. “Indictment seemed to be playing standing up.

  returned. Take care of the boy.”

  “You don’t play?” the bartender asked

  I said I was just getting it over the radio. me.

  We talked a short moment and then he hung

  up, after saying he had to leave at once to catch

  “Not on Tuesdays. I had some trouble on

  a plane.

  a Tuesday once.”

  I leaned back in my chair again and

  “Yeah? Do you like that stuff straight, or

  listened to the radio without exactly hearing it. I could I smooth it out for you?”

  was thinking what a damn fool Lou Harger was

  and that there wasn’t anything I could do to

  “Smooth it out with what?” I said. “You

  change that.

  got a wood rasp handy?”

  He grinned. I drank a little more of the

 
TWO

  tequila and made a face.

  “Did anybody invent this stuff on

  The croupier in charge smiled a cold,

  purpose?”

  even smile. He was tall, dark, disinterested:

  “The table can’t cover your bet,” he said with

  “I wouldn’t know, mister.”

  calm precision. “Mr. Canales, perhaps—” He

  shrugged neat shoulders.

  “What’s the limit over there?”

  The girl said: “It’s your money,

  “I wouldn’t know that either. How the

  highpockets. Don’t you want it back?”

  boss feels, I guess.”

  Lou Harger licked his lips beside her, put

  The roulette tables were in a row near a hand on her arm, stared at the pile of money

  the far wall. A low railing of gilt metal joined with hot eyes. He said gently: “Wait for their ends and the players were outside the Canales…”

  railing.

  “To hell with Canales! I’m hot—and I

  Some kind of a confused wrangle started want to stay that way”

  at the center table. Half a dozen people at the

  two end tables grabbed their chips up and

  A door opened at the end of the tables

  moved across.