The shortest
distance between two points is from a blonde to a bed.
—Raymond Chandler
She was a blonde
with chestnut eyes
wearing a street dress of pale green wool.
She was a .25
caliber purse gun
with an engraved butt inlaid with silver
and ivory. The
detective followed her
into a paneled room. They sat close
to one another
on a rose davenport.
He noticed the Scotch on a tabouret
and a cigar box
near a chromium
smoking stand. “Ruin me, baby,”
her voice was
lisping smoke from a long
cigarette. His heart flickered like a blue
neon sign outside
a seedy joint. He saw
no reason to search for clues that night.
He wished he spent
the night looking
for clues. The blonde held a pistol
snug against the
detective’s gut,
and two thugs guarded the
door.
One was a frowsy
fat fellow
with the features of a slug—a slug
that wore a derby
and a cheap suit
two sizes too small. The other resembled
a streetlamp in
his black suit with no meat
underneath, not to mention the moths
flying around
his fedora. The detective
took a fist to the chin, a knee to the groin,
a glass ashtray
to the temple and a floor
lamp across the neck. He passed out
before the blonde’s
flunkies had their turn
with him. When the detective
cracked
an eyelid, he
was using a curb for a pillow
and traffic whizzed past his mangled mug.
He was limp as
a handkerchief. His mind
was a scratchpad and he couldn’t read
his own writing.
He checked his pockets,
found his gun and the bottle of Scotch
he swiped earlier
were missing. He stumbled
inside a nightclub called The Boogaloo,
and took a swig
of whatever the bartender
splashed in front of him. On the bandstand
stood a lapis-lazuli
blue evening gown
with a fresh gardenia in her hair.
She had a putty-face,
but as she sang
As Time Goes By, her voice dripped
like molasses
off a silver spoon.
After her number, she sat next to him
at the bar. They
talked about women
and love and head wounds. “Honey,
don’t dangle nothin’ you
can’t risk
gettin’ caught in a bear
trap.”
She was a woman
built like a phone
booth, all steel and glass, no smooth edges,
and at 3:00 A.
M. when the streets are deserted
you can hear a ringing coming from inside.
