Playback raymond chandler pdf

Crime fiction master Raymond Chandler's final novel featuring Philip Marlowe, the "quintessential urban private eye" Los Angeles Times. In noir master Raymond Chandler's Playback, Philip Marlowe is hired by an influential lawyer he's never heard of to tail a gorgeous redhead, but then decides he'd rather help out the redhead. Get Free Playback Raymond Chandler Playback Raymond Chandler When people should go to the books stores, search foundation by shop, shelf by shelf, it is really problematic.

This is why we allow the books compilations in this website. Raymond Chandler: free download. Ebooks library. Download books for free. Find books. The Long Goodbye - fadedpage. Playback novel - Wikipedia. Playback is a novel by Raymond Chandler featuring the private detective Philip Marlowe. Chandler died the following year; Playback is his last completed novel. Plot summary. At the beginning of some 18 months after the Raymond Chandler - Wikipedia. In , at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression.

His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in in Black Mask, a popular pulp magazine. Stalking the tawdry neon wilderness of forties and fifties Los Angeles, Raymond Chandlers hard-drinking, wise-cracking Phillip Marlowe is one of the worlds most famous fictional detectives.

Download Play-Back - Raymond Chandler carte pdf. Verifica mai sus daca Play-Back - Raymond Chandler este disponibila in varianta pdf, ebook sau alt format digital. De asemenea, daca ati citit cartea Play-Back - Raymond Chandler, cateva pareri despre ea ar fi foarte utile. V-am lasat deschisa sectiunea comentarii in acest sens. Read Free Playback Raymond Chandler. Read Free Playback Raymond Chandler starting the playback raymond chandler to retrieve every daylight is customary for many people.

However, there are nevertheless many people who as well as don't. Raymond Chandler - epubBooks. Raymond Thornton Chandler was a British-American novelist and screenwriter. At age forty-four, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. Please tell us about any errors you have found in this book, or in the information on this page about this book. Please enter a suggested description.

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It was the worst kind of luck that you should have recognized me. But that's all it is-bad luck. If you do, it's liable to blow up in your face. There was a brief silence. I could see them in my imagination, staring at each other. His smile might be getting a little nervous, but not much. You want publicity? I can arrange it for you. He laughed. You've changed your name twice. If your story got printed out here-and it's a pretty good story, honey-I guess you'd have to change your name again-and start traveling a little more.

Gets kind of tiresome, doesn't it? How much do you want? I realize it will only be a down payment. I walked around it before I came in. Doors closed, windows shut, blinds drawn, car ports empty.

I can check with the office, if you're nervous. I've got friends around here-people you need to know, people who can make life pleasant for you. Socially this is a tough town to break into. And it's a damn dull town if you're on the outside looking in. We don't get on and he won't have me around home. But he's still my old man and he's still the real thing, even if he does pay me to stay away. She didn't answer him.

Her steps went away. I heard her in the kitchen making the usual sounds connected with getting ice out of a tray of cubes.

The water ran, the steps came back. Say about seven-thirty this evening at The Glass Room. I'll pick you up. Nice place for dinner. Exclusive, if that means anything any more. Belongs to the Beach Club. They don't have a table unless they know you. I'm among friends there. Oh yes-and that reminds me. Until my monthly check comes in, you could let me have a couple of dollars.

I did mention money after all. There was a hint of invitation in it. I could imagine the slow smile of pleasure on his face. Then I guess from the silence that he had grabbed her and she had let him. Finally her voice was a little muffled, saying: "That's enough, Larry. Be nice now and run along. I'll be ready at seven-thirty. In a moment the door opened and he said something I didn't catch. I got up and went to the window and took a careful look through the slats of the blind.

A floodlight was turned on in one of the tall trees. Under it I saw him stroll off up the slope and disappear. I went back to the heater panel and for a while I heard nothing and wasn't sure what I was listening for. But I knew soon enough. There was quick movement back and forth, the sound of drawers being pulled open, the snap of a lock, the bump of a lifted lid against something. I screwed the long frosted bulbs back into the heater and replaced the grille and put the stethoscope back in my suitcase.

The evening was getting chilly. I slipped my jacket on and stood in the middle of the floor. It was getting dark and no light on. I just stood there and thought it over. I could go to the phone and make a report and by that time she could be on her way in another cab to another train or plane to another destination.

She could go anywhere she liked, but there would always be a dick to meet the train if it meant enough to the big important people back in Washington. There would always be a Larry Mitchell or a reporter with a good memory.. There would always be the little oddness to be noticed and there would always be somebody to notice it. You can't run away from yourself.

I was doing a cheap sneaky job for people I didn't like, but-that's what you hire out for, chum. They pay the bills, you dig the dirt. Only this time I could taste it. She didn't look like a tramp and she didn't look like a crook. Which meant only that she could be both with more success than if she had. I opened the door and went along to the next and pushed the little buzzer. Nothing moved inside. There was no sound of steps. Then came the click of a chain set in the groove and the door opened a couple of inches on light and emptiness.

The voice said from behind the door: "Who is it? More silence. Then the door opened to the limit of the chain and her face edged into the opening and shadowed eyes stared out at me. They were just pools in the dark. The floodlight set high in the tree glinted on them obliquely. I was having a nap and voices woke me. The voices spoke words. I was intrigued. King-pardon me, Miss Mayfield-but I'm not sure you'd want me to. She didn't move and her eyes didn't waver.

I shook a cigarette out of a pack and tried to push up the top of my Zippo with my thumb and rotate the wheel. You should be able to do it one-handed. You can too, but it's an awkward process. I made it at last and got the cigarette going, yawned, and blew smoke out through my nose. Maybe I could be talked out of it. How lucky can a girl get?

I think I've been played for a sucker, but I'm not sure. She wasn't gone long. The chain came out of the groove inside and the door came open. I went in slowly and she stepped back and away from me. And shut the door, please. The walls here are as thin as a hoofer's wallet. I'm in the hide-and-seek business. My name is Philip Marlowe. You've seen me before. She leaned against the arm of a chair. We waited between trains, you and I. I was interested in you. I was interested in what went on between you and Mr.

Mitchell-that's his name, isn't it? I didn't hear anything and I didn't see much because I was outside the coffee shop. The other thing that interested me was how you changed after your talk with him. I watched you work at it. It was very deliberate. You made yourself over into just another flip hardboiled modern cutie.

Which goes with something else. I looked at it. I've lived with them all my life. I teethed on an old Derringer, single-shot, the kind the riverboat gamblers used to carry. As I got older I graduated to a lightweight sporting rifle, then a. I once made a bull at nine hundred yards with open sights.

In case you don't know, the whole target looks the size of a postage stamp at nine hundred yards. She smiled faintly and transferred the gun to her left hand. With her right she grabbed the edge of her blouse at the collar line and with a quick decisive motion tore it to the waist. I do a beautiful bruise. I crossed my legs and leaned back and lifted the green glass ash tray from the table beside the chair and balanced it on my knee and held the cigarette I was smoking between the first and second fingers of my right hand.

I'd be sitting here like this, quite comfortable and relaxed. She tossed the gun into her suitcase and laughed. It sounded like a genuine laugh with real amusement in it. She dropped into a chair and leaned forward with her chin cupped in a hand, the elbow propped on her knee, her face taut and drained, her dark red hair framing it too luxuriantly, so that her face looked smaller than it should have.

Or is it the other way around-what I can do for you in return for you not doing anything at all? What was she in Washington, D. Why did she change her name somewhere along the way and have the initials taken off her bag? Odds and ends like that are what you could tell me. You probably won't. The porter took the initials off my things. I told him I had had a very unhappy marriage and was divorced and had been given the right to resume my unmarried name.

Which is Elizabeth or Betty Mayfield. That could all be true, couldn't it? She leaned back and relaxed. Her eyes stayed watchful. He was on the train. I nodded. He made the reservation here for you. He's not liked by the people here, but apparently he is a friend of someone with a lot of influence. He even touched you for a loan. Very fast work. And I got the impression you didn't care for him too well.

But as a matter of fact I'm crazy about him. Marlowe, and for what? I was to follow you and check you in somewhere. Which I did. But now you're getting ready to move out. I'm going to have to start over again. You're a private detective of some sort, I gather. I said I was. I had killed my cigarette some time back. I put the ash tray back on the table and stood up. Some of them are even fairly clean.

They'd have had you easily. It was known about your train. I even got a photo of you and a description. But Mitchell can make you do just what he wants. Money isn't all he'll want. I thought she flushed a little, but the light didn't strike her face directly. She stood up suddenly and came near me. That's what you call it, I've heard. A much nicer word than blackmail. Believe me, it can mean just that-even with some lawyers and doctors.

I happen to know. Tell it to the seagulls, buster. On me it's just confetti. Run along now, Mr. PI Marlowe, and make that little old phone call you're so anxious about. I'm not restraining you. She started for the door, but I caught her by the wrist and spun her around. The torn blouse didn't reveal any startling nakedness, merely some skin and part of a brassiere.

You'd see more on the beach, far more, but you wouldn't see it through a torn blouse. I got the other wrist and started to pull her closer. She tried to knee me in the groin, but she was already too close. Then she went limp and pulled her head back and closed her eyes. Her lips opened with a sardonic twist to them.

It was a cool evening, maybe even cold down by the water. But it wasn't cold where I was. After another pause she said it was a long time since a man had unhooked her brassiere. We did a slow turn in the direction of one of the twin day beds. They had pink and silver covers on them. The little odd things you notice. Her eyes were open and quizzical. I studied them one at a time because I was too close to see them together. They seemed well matched. I closed her mouth for her.

It seems that a key slid into the door from the outside, but I wasn't paying too close attention. The lock clicked, the door opened, and Mr. Larry Mitchell walked in. I got faintly curious, because there are a lot of vacancies here at the moment.

So I borrowed the other key. And who is this hunk of beef, baby? I seem to be intruding on a beautiful friendship. She jerked away from me and grabbed the gun out of her suitcase.

His color was high and his eyes too bright. You won't need the gun, honey. He poked at me with a straight right, very fast and well sprung. I stepped inside it, fast, cool and clever. But the right wasn't his meal ticket. He was a lefty too. I ought to have noticed that at the Union Station in L. Trained observer, never miss a detail.

I missed him with a right hook and he didn't miss with his left. It snapped my head back. I went off balance just long enough for him to lunge sideways and lift the gun out of the girl's hand. It seemed to dance through the air and nestle in his left hand.

I really could. That costs seventy-five. I lunged for him, gun and all. Only panic could have made him shoot and he was on his home field and nothing to panic about. But it may be that the girl wasn't so sure. Dimly at the extreme edge of vision I saw her reach for the whiskey bottle on the table.

I caught Mitchell on the side of the neck. His mouth yapped. He hit me somewhere, but it wasn't important. Mine was the better punch, but it didn't win the wrist watch, because at that moment an army mule kicked me square on the back of my brain.

I went zooming out over a dark sea and exploded in a sheet of flame. The first sensation was that if anybody spoke harshly to me I should burst out crying. The second, that the room was too small for my head. The front of the head was a long way from the back, the sides were an enormous distance apart, in spite of which a dull throbbing beat from temple to temple.

Distance means nothing nowadays. The third sensation was that somewhere not far off an insistent whining noise went on. The fourth and last was that ice water was running down my back. The cover of a day bed proved that I had been lying on my face, if I still had one. I rolled over gently and sat up and a rattling noise ended in a thump. What rattled and thumped was a knotted towel full of melting ice cubes. Somebody who loved me very much had put them on the back of my head.

Somebody who loved me less had bashed in the back of my skull. It could have been the same person. People have moods. I got up on my feet and lunged for my hip. The wallet was there in the left pocket, but the flap was unbuttoned. I went through it. Nothing was gone. It had yielded its information, but that was no secret any more. My suitcase stood open on the stand at the foot of the day bed.

So I was home in my own quarters. I reached a mirror and looked at the face. It seemed familiar. I went to the door and opened it. The whining noise was louder. Right in front of me was a fattish man leaning against the railing.

He was a middle-sized fat man and the fat didn't look flabby. He wore glasses and large ears under a dull gray felt hat. The collar of his topcoat was turned up. His hands were in the pockets of his coat. The hair that showed at the sides of his head was battleship gray.

He looked durable. Most fat men do. The light from the open door behind me bounced back from his glasses. He had a small pipe in his mouth, the kind they call a toy bulldog. I was still foggy but something about him bothered me.

I went along the porch to the whining noise. The door of 12C was wide open and the lights were on and the noise was a vacuum cleaner being operated by a woman in a green uniform. I went in and looked the place over. The woman switched off the vacuum and stared at me. She checked out. Half an hour ago. I reached back and shut the door.

I followed the black snake of the vacuum cord over to the wall and yanked the plug out. The woman in the green uniform stared at me angrily. I went over and handed her a dollar bill. She looked less angry. Marlowe," she sounded as if she meant it. We couldn't very well-". He opened a wallet and extracted a card. He struggled to his feet and handed it to me. He got up on his feet much more rapidly this time. He looked down at his fist. Suddenly a gun appeared in his hand.

His hand shook and his face turned red. Then he put the gun back in the shoulder holster and wobbled towards the door. Or you could call the office. A pretty nice guy. He made a pass at me once. And by the time you have, fifteen other guys have been smooching your girl. She glows every time she looks at you.

I went out and left them smiling at each other. Like most small towns, Esmeralda had one main Street from which in both directions its commercial establishments flowed gently for a short block or so and then with hardly a change of mood became streets with houses where people lived. But unlike most small California towns it had no false fronts, no cheesy billboards, no drive-in hamburger joints, no cigar counters or pool-rooms, and no street corner toughs to hang around in front of them.

The stores on Grand Street were either old and narrow but not tawdry or else well modernized with plate glass and stainless steel fronts and neon lighting in clear crisp colors.

Not everybody in Esmeralda was prosperous, not everybody was happy, not everybody drove a Cadillac, a Jaguar or a Riley, but the percentage of obviously prosperous living was very high, and the stores that sold luxury goods were as neat and expensive-looking as those in Beverly Hills and far less flashy. There was another small difference too. In Esmeralda what was old was also clean and sometimes quaint. In other small towns what is old is just shabby.

I parked midway of the block and the telephone office was right in front of me. It was closed of course, but the entrance was set back and in the alcove which deliberately sacrificed money space to style were two dark green phone booths, like sentry boxes. Across the way was a pale buff taxi, parked diagonally to the curb in slots painted red. A gray-haired man sat in it reading the paper. I crossed to him. I walked away from him and looked in at a store window.

There was a checked brown and beige sport shirt in the window which reminded me of Larry Mitchell. Walnut brogues, imported tweeds, ties, two or three, and matching shirts for them set out with plenty of room to breathe. Over the store the name of a man who was once a famous athlete. The name was in script, carved and painted in relief against a redwood background. A telephone jangled and the cabdriver got out of the taxi and went across the sidewalk to answer it.

He talked, hung up, got in his cab and backed out of the slot. When he was gone, the street was utterly empty for a minute. Then a couple of cars went by, then a good-looking well dressed colored boy and his prettied up cutie came strolling the block looking in at the windows and chattering. A Mexican in a green bellhop's uniform drove up in somebody's Chrysler New Yorker -it could be his for all I knew-went into the drugstore and came out with a carton of cigarettes.

He drove back towards the hotel. Another beige cab with the name Esmeralda Cab Company tooled around the corner and drifted into the red slot. A big bruiser with thick glasses got out and checked on the wall phone, then got back into his cab and pulled a magazine out from behind his rear-view mirror. I strolled over to him and he was it. He was coatless and had his sleeves rolled up past the elbows, although this was no Bikini suit weather. I might as well have kicked the curbing.

Number 12C. A tallish girl with reddish hair and a nice shape. Her name's Betty Mayfield but she probably didn't tell you that. Quaint, isn't it? We had a little argument. All my fault. I'd like to tell her I'm sorry. Could be she don't want you to know where she went. Could be you were lucky at that. They can drop the arm on you for shacking up in a hotel in this town.

I'll admit it has to be pretty flagrant. He read it and handed it back. But it's against the company rules. I'm not driving this hack just to build muscle. He'd be pretty sore if I was on the chisel. Not that I don't like money.

The phone on the wall jangled. He slid out of the cab and went over to it in about three long strides. I just stood planted, gnawing my lip. He talked and came back and stepped into the cab and was sitting behind the wheel all in one motion. I'm kind of behind schedule. Just got back from Del Mar, the seven forty-seven to L.

Most people from here go that way. I looked at my watch again. Time and distance checked. It was all of twelve miles to Del Mar. It would take almost an hour to ferry someone to Del Mar and drop him or her off at the railroad station and turn around and come back. He had told me in his own way. There was no point in telling me at all unless it meant something.

I watched him out of sight and then crossed the street to the booths outside the telephone company's office. I left the booth door open and dropped my dime and dialed the big 0. Clyde Umney. My name is Marlowe and I'm calling from Esmeralda , a pay phone.