Nevada Gas by Raymond Chandler

First published: 1935

Type of plot: Mystery and detective

Time of work: The 1930's

Locale: Los Angeles

Principal Characters:

• Johnny DeRuse, a gambler
• Hugo Candless, a wealthy and powerful Los Angeles attorney
• Naomi Candless, Hugo's wife
• George Dial, one of Hugo's employees
• Francine Ley, George Dial's girlfriend
• Mops Parisi, a mobster
• Zapparty, a Reno gangster
• Charles "Chuck" Legrand, a mobster
• Nicky, a friend of Johnny DeRuse
• Kuvalick, a house detective

The Story

Hugo Candless, a wealthy and powerful Los Angeles attorney, is playing squash with an employee, George Dial, at the Delmar Club. He goes outside to board what he thinks is his limousine. As his cigar smoke fills the passenger compartment, he reaches for the window handle and finds that there is none. There are no door handles or communication tube either, and as the limousine follows an unfamiliar course into the hills, the odor of almonds fills the passenger compartment. Candless is being killed with cyanide gas, the kind used to execute criminals in Nevada.

Meanwhile, George Dial visits his girlfriend, Francine Ley. He tells her to leave her other boyfriend, a gambler named Johnny DeRuse, for him, but Francine points out that George does not have enough money. George tells Francine not to worry: He has information about Hugo Candless that can get him some money. Candless double-crossed a Reno gangster, Zapparty, whose half brother was on trial for murder. The lawyer took twenty-five thousand dollars to defend the gangster's relative but instead made a deal on another case with the district attorney and allowed Zapparty's half brother to go to prison and be executed.

While George and Francine are talking and drinking, they are watched by Johnny DeRuse, who has come in quietly. After a time, Johnny bangs the door to make it appear that he has just entered, strides past the couple, and goes into Francine's bedroom, where he begins packing his suitcase. He also straps a small pistol to his leg. As Johnny packs, George departs. Johnny tells Francine that he is leaving her because he saw a mobster, Mops Parisi, who could give him trouble because Johnny once called the police when he knew that Parisi had arranged a kidnaping. Francine says that the real reason he is leaving is that he knows that he is losing her to George, who, in spite of appearances, is a tougher man than he.

As Johnny leaves Francine's apartment, he is accosted by two men who hold him at gunpoint, take the gun that Johnny has kept in a shoulder holster, and lead him into the limousine in which Hugo Candless died. However, the two men, one of whom is called Chuck, overlook the gun that Johnny has concealed on his leg, and, using this weapon, Johnny kills Chuck and shoots a hole in the thick glass. The car crashes, Johnny shoots and kills the driver, and searches the pockets of both men. He finds matches from the Club Egypt in one man's pocket, and the same kind of matches and a hotel key for room 809 at the Hotel Metropole in Chuck's pocket. Johnny drives the car back to town, parks it, and takes a cab back to Francine's apartment. He notes the license number of the limousine: SA6.

Johnny calls a friend at a newspaper to find out the name under which the car is registered and learns that it is Candless. Next, he calls Naomi Candless, who tells him that Candless is out of town but that she knows he left the Delmar Club earlier. Johnny then calls the Hotel Metropole and asks for Charles LeGrand in room 809. He is told that LeGrand is in 609. Driving to the Delmar Club, Johnny learns from the doorman there that Candless's limousine, license number 5A6, picked him up that afternoon, but his regular driver was not at the wheel. Johnny goes to Candless's apartment and visits the garage, where he sees Candless's limousine, license number SA6, and where the garage man tells him that the car has not been out all day. He also tells Johnny that Candless's chauffeur lives at the Hotel Metropole. Johnny goes there and finds the chauffeur in room 809, shot to death.

When Francine Ley returns to her apartment, Johnny is waiting for her. He explains that someone replaced Candless's car with an identical but deadly model, killed Candless's chauffeur and then Candless, and then tried to use the same execution method on him. Johnny tells Francine that he suspects her of setting him up because the men who tried to kill him knew where to pick him up that afternoon. Francine explains that George Dial knew that Candless had double-crossed Zapparty. Johnny tells her that Zapparty is the owner of the Club Egypt.

At the Club Egypt, Francine, Johnny, and his friend Nicky create a disturbance over a rigged roulette table in order to see Zapparty, whom they find in his office along with Mops Parisi. As Johnny talks to the two about the deadly limousine, a hand holding a gun appears in a secret panel and Johnny and his friends must now submit to Zapparty. Zapparty orders the person in the panel to go back to work downstairs. Zapparty and Parisi pistol-whip Johnny, but Johnny draws his leg gun and fatally shoots Parisi. Francine gets Zapparty's gun, and Johnny apologizes for not having trusted her.

Johnny sends Francine home in his car while Zapparty leads him and Nicky, in the murder car, to a deserted house, where Candless's body is hidden. Zapparty confesses that he and Parisi planned the kidnaping and murder of Candless as revenge for Zapparty's half brother's conviction and subsequent hanging. Candless's regular chauffeur was supposed to switch the cars and drive the murder car, but he got too drunk and had to be killed and replaced. Johnny still wants to know who set him up.

Johnny goes to Candless's apartment, sees George Dial's car outside, and asks for the help of the house detective, Kuvalick, in getting in to see George. When Kuvalick does not return from Mrs. Candless's apartment, Johnny breaks in and finds Kuvalick tied up. He had described Johnny to George Dial, and Dial has slugged him. Just then, Dial comes into the room with a gun in his hand. Kuvalick goes for his gun, and Dial shoots him. He confirms Johnny's theory that George and Mrs. Candless set up Candless and that George had also set the killers onto Johnny "for the hell of it." Johnny asks who told George that Johnny had escaped, and George tells him that Francine did but that she took too long to do it. Mrs. Candless appears and asks jealously who Francine is. She begins to struggle with Dial but Kuvalick, who wears a bulletproof vest, shoots them both to death.

Johnny returns to Francine's apartment and tells her the story, thanking her for her help. He falls asleep, murmuring about quitting the kind of life they lead. Francine soothes him to sleep and then looks at him for a long time.

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