Marlowe knocks on Joe Brody’s door. When Brody peers out, Marlowe says he has Geiger’s customer list, knows about the pornography, and wants to cut a deal. Brody lets Marlowe in, tosses him a cigar, and pulls a gun on him. Marlowe warns that Mars wouldn’t take kindly to knowing that Brody has Geiger’s merchandise. Brody lowers the gun.

Marlowe notices a curtain pulled across a doorway and a woman’s shoe pointing out from under it—it’s Agnes, the sexy clerk from Geiger’s store. She gives Marlowe a hateful look; she’s warned Brody about him.

Marlowe points out that by renting out Geiger’s 500 books, Brody can make an enormous amount of money, enough to kill for—so why bother with blackmail, especially when Carmen could testify to seeing Brody kill Geiger? Brody curses Carmen, which confirms to Marlowe that Brody and Agnes have Carmen’s nude photo. Marlowe says he’s a private eye, that he saw the Geiger murder scene, and that he and a witness tailed the book truck to Brody’s place. Marlowe offers to make Brody’s problems go away if Brody gives him the photo.

Brody admits that, though he got paid to stop seeing Carmen, he would have done so anyway: “She's too screwy for a simple guy like me” (62).