Trouble Is My Business

Detective Philip Marlowe works as a private investigator in 1934 Los Angeles. He has been hired by a millionaire named Jeeter to protect his adopted son, Gerald. Gerald has been dating an attractive gold digger named Harriet Huntress. She is associated with a gambler, Marty Estel, to whom Gerald owes $50,000. Marlowe’s job is to see if Harriet will accept a bribe to leave Gerald alone.

As Marlowe begins working the case, he first calls on a forgery expert named Arbogast, who has been investigating Gerald’s gambling notes to see if they are legitimate. Much to Marlowe’s surprise, he finds Arbogast shot dead in his office. After wiping away traces of his own fingerprints, Marlowe leaves the crime scene. 

The detective then goes to call on Harriet at her apartment. When Harriet invites Marlowe in, he says of her:

She wore a street dress of pale green wool and a small cockeyed hat that hung on her ear like a butterfly. Her eyes were wide-set and there was thinking room between them. Their color was lapis-lazuli blue and the color of her hair was dusky red, like a fire under control but still dangerous (15).

Harriet offers Marlowe a glass of expensive Scotch.