============== Title: Big Man By: Jessica Harris Pairing: Philip Marlowe and Red, the ex-cop, from Farewell my Lovely, by Raymond Chandler Rating: Soft R? PG-ish? Archive? Sure. Notes: Parts of the brief scene on the gambling boat with the hand-holding is lifted right from the text, w/ a few minor tense alterations to make it fit ... Chandler's stuff is just *so* *slashy*. Everybody should read it and marvel... Disclaimer: All of these characters and even a few of these words belong to Raymond Chandler. Feedback: I grovel. lumpj@hotmail.com ============================ Big Man by: Jessica Harris ==================== It never rains when you want it to. Some mornings you wake up with a taste like death in your mouth and stale memories crowding your mind and the angry sound of traffic coming in your windows, and there's nothing you want more than a great rain. A rain to wash everything clean. To wash the whole damn city down into the ocean. On those days it never rains. On those days the sun stays high and brutal overhead and the city stinks of sweat and cheap perfume and desperation. I was sweating already by the time I climbed the stairs to my office that July morning. But then so was Lieutenant Randall. And he hadn't just climbed four stories either - there were at least half a dozen cigarette butts at his feet where he was waiting, propped against my door. His face wore an impatient expression and a sheen of oily sweat. "Marlowe," he said, "Tell me, which is it - you don't want to come to work 'cause this place is a dive, or you work out of a dive 'cause you can't be bothered to come to work?" He added another cigarette to the pile at his feet. "Well, I wouldn't want a slick exterior to intimidate fine clientele like you," I said as I unlocked the door. He just sneered, and followed me in. Threw his hat on my desk, gave the chair a disdainful look before he sat in it. "You just here to critique the decor, or did you want something?" I asked. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a photo. It wasn't pretty. Crime scene photos never are, but this one was worse than most - a broken body against a background of rocks, its face nothing more than raw red meat, unrecognisable. There was a card in an evidence bag clipped to one corner of the photo. It was one of mine, barely readable through stains of something thick and reddish-brown. "We found your card in the stiff's pocket," said Randall. "You wanna talk, Marlowe? Everyone's clammed up real tight on this one. We couldn't even get a name on the guy. A couple of kids found him under the docks down near Bay City. Looks to have been a great big guy. Red hair." I sat down, lit a cigarette. Hands steady as a rock. Cool as a cucumber, that was me. "He used to be a cop," I said. "But he wouldn't play the Bay City sheriff's dirty games. Ended up out on his ear, working one of the fishing boats. He helped me out on a case once, a few months back. Went by the moniker of Red. I never knew his real name." Randall nodded, made a note. "This case of yours, you think it made someone want him dead?" "No. Not the case itself, anyway. But I'd check out the gambling boats. He knew a couple of ways off and on them that their own security goons didn't. That kind of thing can make you a popular guy. Or a dead one." "Funny that he still had your card," mused Randall casually. His eyes watched me, not casual at all. "I owed him one," I said. "Maybe he was planning to collect." Maybe," said Randall, heaving himself out of the chair. "You'll be hearing from us again, so don't go planning any long Mexican vacations." He grinned at me with his yellow teeth. Then he left. I could still smell his cigarettes from the hall. They like to leave you like that. Make you twitch a little, feel some fear. Not just the cops, either. Big men everywhere do it. The men with money or power or both behind them who like to make other men feel the weight of it. Maybe that's why I liked Red from the start. He was one of the biggest men I'd ever set eyes on, six and half feet of solid bone and muscle, but he didn't try to use it the way most men would have. There was no swagger to him. He spoke as soft as a child or a woman, and he'd quit being a cop rather than play heavy for the Bay City businessmen. I closed up the office once Randall left, then went downstairs and stared into a cup of coffee for a while. My card had still been in Red's pocket. And the wharf- rats had eaten his eyes, those long-lashed violet eyes that sat so oddly in his plain farm-boy face. * * * I'd first run into Red when I was trying to get to Brunette, the man who ran the gambling boats. One of Brunette's tuxedoed goons had tossed me off the water-taxi, and I was trying to catch my breath when an oddly soft voice had suddenly spoken right behind me. "Need to get on board?" It said. "Twenty-five bucks and I can show you a way." That had been Red. I'd walked away from him at first, seeing only a roughneck with four inches and thirty pounds on me, sticking his nose where it didn't belong. But he'd followed. "Not got the dough?" he'd said gently. "I could do it for fifteen, if you got a reason. You a flatfoot?" By the light of the bingo tent I'd seen his strange eyes then. And somehow I'd ended up out on his boat, ended up telling him more than I ever meant to about the case as, lights low, we'd cut through the waves towards the great illuminated bulk of the gambling havens. There was something about the way he listened. The way he listened, and those eyes. Brunette was one of the biggest of the big men in that part of the world, and part of me had known I was crazy to try this, sneaking aboard a boat where he was the law and a handy salt-water graveyard was just a stumble off the deck away. Maybe I thought that if I told Red everything, it wouldn't all go to waste, even if I did end up washing in on the morning tide. As Red led me through the maze of barrels and cases and oil-slick halls and ladders that lay deep beneath the surface glitter of the ship, I'd tried to offer him more money. "Handle the body as if it was your own," I'd said. Trying to believe I was joking. "Put your dough away," he'd said. "You paid me for the trip back. I think you're scared." He took hold of my hand. His was strong, hard, warm and slightly sticky. "I *know* you're scared," he whispered. Then he'd let it go. "I'll stick around for an hour. If it's longer than that, I'll be waiting for you back at the wharf." And he had been. He'd been leaning against the rail in the shadows when I strolled off the water-taxi, still in one piece, not even a dent in my hat. "Got a smoke, Mister?" he'd called out. I walked over and propped myself beside him, holding out my cigarettes. "Well?" he'd said softly, bringing his mouth down close to my ear. "Well," I said, "I'm still alive." "Good," he whispered. And there in the darkness he took my hand again. We went back to his boat. It had a little cabin that smelt of tar and soap and man, and a narrow seaman's bunk that didn't look like it could hold him alone, let alone the two of us. He closed the door and put his hand flat against my chest and moved me back against the wall. Then he moved in until he was pressed up against me. His skin tasted like sea-salt. He was gentle, for such a big man. Somehow that bed managed to hold us both after all, and he was careful, holding his weight up on his elbows as we settled on it. "Hey," I said to him, "I'm no hothouse flower here. I can take what you have to give." "This *is* what I have to give," he said in his soft voice, and stroked me with one big hand, making my heart pound like all the fear earlier had not. And I've never been a small man, but later when I fell asleep I was cradled in his arms like a child. He had to take the boat out early the next morning, and it wasn't even dawn yet when he shook me softly awake and handed me a cup of coffee. I was still half-asleep when I staggered out onto the dock, but not too asleep to hand him one of my cards. "Thanks," I said. "You're a good man, Red. Look me up if you come down to LA." He nodded and took the card, held my hand in his again for a moment. "So long," he said, and sketched a mock salute. "I'll be seeing you." And now he never would. Brunette. It had to have been Brunette. Another big man on my list who I'd have to take down.