A Splash of Blood - John Field
The crime scene of this Raymond Chandler thriller
Is an avenue in Beverly Hills lined with palm trees,
Pink-stucco villas, mansions and cobblestone courtyards.
It's midnight on a warm summer evening in 1949.
Suspect number one is Gino,
A big-assed, pig-eyed, sleazy-hearted gambler
On the skids who needs a lot of dough, fast.
Gino and his lo and behold drop-dead gorgeous wife
Lorraine are sipping martinis in their living room
With Jake and Bernice, a mismatched odd couple
Who live next door. Jake never had a music lesson
When he was a kid, never kicked a soccer ball.
He spent his youth practicing his hands
Against furry little animals he fondled
And then killed. He's suspect number two.
Suspect number three is whoever's hiding behind the curtain.
Bernice's face is as plain as a plastic table cloth,
Her heart as closed as the innermost ring
Of a redwood tree,
Her smile as tight as a hundred year old
Morning Glory seed
And her eyes as empty as two knot holes in a fence.
Why did Jake marry her?
Because she's got the money.
Bernice never lets on that she knows
Jake is in love with Lorraine and why not
Who wouldn't be is the way she reasons it out
Pragmatically because Lorraine is blonder,
Younger, sexier and slimmer than she is.
Buried alive by Lorraine’s perfume,
Jake lights Bernice’s cigarette,
Sizes Gino up and decides
To put his lights out forever.
Gino, meanwhile, has similar plans:
After he bumps Jake off
He’ll divorce Lorraine, marry Bernice
And live with the hag
Until she pays off his gambling debts.
Bernice, as usual, sees through Gino’s plot;
All week she’s been coming apart
With victim-sickness, weeping incessantly
Each time she thinks about
Lorraine’s fantastic curves.
"The things lust drives me to do,” she tells herself,
As with a sigh she lies down on a couch
And blows obscene smoke rings in the air,
Her face lost beneath heavy layers of skin
As she hums an old Irish folk tune so mournfully
Lorraine’s standard poodle Buster whines with pity,
Wishing Bernice would disappear, afraid she’ll stay.
Suddenly the lights go out like electric tablets dissolving
In a glass of inky darkness----shots ring out,
Two bodies fall.
Moments later Lorraine’s butler James
Switches the lights back on again,
Calmly pushes the curtain aside
Behind which he’s been concealing himself
And wipes a splash of blood off Lorraine’s
Beautiful Persian rug.
Then drags Gino and Jake out of the living room
And deposits their bodies in the hall.
“Will that be all, ma’am?” he asks politely.
Lorraine, gift-wrapped like a present
In a scarlet and gold Ralph Lauren gown,
Waves James away and with gentle urgency
Embraces Bernice who nervously fingers
The gat she’s concealing
In a fold of her frumpy dress.
“I didn’t have a plan,” she tells Lorraine,
“It was just something that happened.”
“Hush, my love,” Lorraine coos
As she leads Bernice in a fancy little dance step
Across the floor in the general direction
Of her bedroom.
***
