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.

***