Victor's is a bar associated with Philip Marlowe's friendships, memories, and investigative life. Terry Lennox introduced Marlowe to the place and to its gimlets; later, Marlowe returned to raise a glass to Terry, and the bar became the setting for a drink with Bernie Ohls during the investigation of Wilberforce Canning and Nico Peterson.

A Place of Friendship and Remembrance

Terry Lennox brought Marlowe to Victor's, which became a haunt for the two friends. After Terry was believed dead, Marlowe returned there more than once to drink in his honor. The ritual takes on an ironic edge in light of what Marlowe knows: Terry had faked his suicide in Otatoclán and was living in Mexico, though Bernie Ohls did not know the death had been staged. Marlowe misses Terry despite recognizing him as a deeply flawed friend, and Victor's gives that complicated attachment a recurring place and gesture.

The Gimlet and Its Ritual

Marlowe treats Victor's as the one bar that makes a proper gimlet. His preferred version is half gin and half Rose's Lime Juice, served over crushed ice; he rejects the sugar and bitters other bars add. The precise recipe makes the drink part of the place's identity, but it also carries Terry's association: Marlowe orders gimlets for himself and Bernie Ohls when they meet there after the Canning affair has begun to unravel.

Investigations and Personal Connections

At Victor's, Marlowe and Bernie Ohls discuss what Floyd Hanson has told the authorities. Hanson has implicated Bartlett in torturing and killing two Mexican men on Wilberforce Canning's orders, and has identified a lime pit on the grounds of the Cahuilla Club where the bodies were dumped. The bar thus serves as a quiet setting for information about violence elsewhere, while Marlowe's dry exchange with Bernie Ohls turns the discovery of the pit into grim, practical conversation.

Victor's also connects Marlowe to Linda Loring: it was where he first met her, and the bartender, Jake, still remembers her. Marlowe considers whether he might marry Linda, while recalling that she is Terry Lennox's sister-in-law through Sylvia Lennox. The bar therefore gathers more than one strand of Marlowe's personal past: Terry's friendship and concealed survival, Linda's possible return to his life, and the continuing investigation that brings him back into conversation with Bernie Ohls.