Blue City

by Ross Macdonald

  “Maybe you are, though.”

  She kicked her legs restlessly over the arm, then succumbed to the seriousness of her thoughts: “It’s not much fun doing anything for yourself. I spend about an hour a day fixing my nails, and another hour on my hair, but I just do it to put in time. There’s no real kick in it. I used to hate the dirty work around Grandfather’s flat, but there was some kind of kick in it that I don’t get when I clean up this dump. Sometimes I sit on my tail for three or four hours without lifting a finger. Maybe I’m just plain lazy.”

  “Maybe you are. Or maybe you’re lonely.”

  “You’re a serious-minded son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

  “Not particularly. That’s just the way you affect me. I don’t think you live the way you should.”

  “Now, Johnny.” She spoke lightly but with an undertone of resentment. “You’re not going to start harping on that again?”

  “I mean you shouldn’t live by yourself like this. You said you like doing things for other people. Why don’t you give yourself a chance to?”

  “That’s true. I’d rather do up another girl’s hair than do my own.” She gave me a quizzical look that was a half smile. “You don’t mean I should start living with somebody? I get plenty of that kind of offers.”

  “Maybe I don’t know what I mean.”

  “Half the women in these flats have got men supporting them. But it’s no damn good, not for the women anyway. Practically every one of them turns into a lush. All except Francie and a couple of others. They go soft, and get fussy and worried, like a hen without any chicks. Then they start drinking in the afternoon, and pretty soon they’re drinking in the forenoon. Like Mrs. Williams across the hall. You know what she has for breakfast every morning? Three slugs of rye. Every two or three months her man doesn’t show up for a week or so, and she drinks so hard she gets the d. t.’s. They make me mad, the way they throw themselves away, but I can’t tell them anything.”

  “You’re not even throwing yourself away,” I said. “You’re sitting and waiting and letting your best years go by. Waiting for nothing.”

  She drew in her legs and sat up with them under her. “I know it, but you don’t have to say it. Half the time I’m so blue I can’t even listen to music on the record player. It doesn’t do any good to tell me things like that. It only makes things worse.”

  “Why the hell don’t you snap out of it?”

  Her mouth twisted into an ugly shape. “Why the hell don’t you mind your own business?”

  My own temper flared up to meet hers, but subsided almost immediately. Already a shadow of regret had softened her face, and her teeth plucked at her lower lip.

  “I didn’t tell you that Joe Sault’s dead, did I?”

  “You know you didn’t. Why are you telling me now?” Her eyes and voice were as calm as could be, but I got the impression that perhaps she was watching herself, guarding against an emotion she didn’t want to admit.

  “I’m not sure. It could be the thing you needed to start you off on a fresh track. You know, a new page in the book.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference to me at all.” The flatness of her tone illustrated her meaning. “I haven’t had anything to do with him for nearly two years. I told you last night how I felt about him.”

  “Still, I think you’re better off with him dead.”

  “Did you kill him?” In her voice there was the suppressed excitement of a woman who thinks she has guessed the answer to a question, and finds it somehow flattering to herself.

  “No,” I said emphatically. “Kerch beat him to death.”

  “Oh.” Conflicting emotions made a delicate shadow play in her eyes.

  “I never thought I’d feel sorry for Joey, but I did.”

  “I don’t,” she said, too readily. “Does Francie know?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “It’s going to jolt her. She was always fond of him. God knows why. He was her youngest brother, and she practically brought him up.” She was silent for a while, her eyes unfocused in thought. “That wasn’t true, what I said about not being sorry for him. I am sorry. It’s funny. I thought I hated him so much.” She added irrelevantly: “You don’t like me a little bit, do you?”

  “I like you. I think we could understand each other. I’ve felt kind of lonely and unsettled, the same way you do, ever since my family broke up. I could never get close to my mother. She was all right and she did what she could, but I couldn’t talk to her. It really didn’t bother me much when she died.”

  “It broke me up when my mother died,” she said. “I guess I never got over it. But she was different. I could talk to her about anything. The things that Grandfather said never seemed to make any real sense to me. He’s supposed to be pretty clever, but he gets all tangled up in words. He’s got his head in the clouds, he reminds me of Allister. Since my mother died I haven’t really had anybody I could talk to—or that I wanted to talk to.”

  “Do you know Allister pretty well?”

  “I told you I knew him.” She seemed unwilling to tell me any more. “How old were you when your mother died?”

  “I was seventeen, but I’d been running around pretty much on my own for a long time before that. She left me enough money to go to college for a couple of years, but that didn’t mean much to me. I went to three different colleges, and I never felt I belonged to anything, then or after. My last couple of years in the army were pretty good, though. I got to be a sergeant, and our platoon made a sharp team. But most of them got knocked off at Malmédy, in the Battle of the Bulge. I guess you’ve heard about that.”

  “Naturally. You must think I’m a complete stupe.”

  “I don’t think you’re half as stupid as you try to pretend to be. But you need somebody to snap you out of it.”

  “Aren’t you wonderful?” she said with a smile. “You’re sitting here with the cops looking for you, tired out and beaten up, and all you think about is how I should run my life. Aren’t you worried about yourself?”

  “Not particularly. I’m too far gone to worry about.”

  “Oh no. You’re not.” Her bare legs uncoiled from under her and brought her across to me in two running steps. “We’ve got to do something. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

  She kissed my cheek in a warm, flurried way. My arms went around her legs as she stood in front of me, and my fingers pressed the cool skin behind her knees.

  “Don’t,” she said, and pushed her hands downward against my shoulders.

  I didn’t believe she meant it. My embrace moved up her thighs.

  “Don’t,” she said. “Please.”

  The strain in her voice made me look up at her face. The angry embarrassment I saw there seemed more than half genuine. I let go of her, and she stepped back precipitately into the middle of the room.

  “You mustn’t,” she said with relief. “I couldn’t let you make love to me in the morning. We’ve got to think of what to do.”

  “I haven’t any ideas. Have you?”

  “You’re the one who should snap out of it. Wait a minute—”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Hush! There’s somebody coming up the back steps.”

  chapter 18

  I listened, and heard the quick footsteps on the boards of the back porch. The girl went to the kitchen door, opened it slightly, and peered through.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s Allister.”

  “Allister!” I got up and moved towards the hall. “I better get out of here.”

  “Wait, he’s not after you. He’s always coming here.”

  “To see you?”

  “Don’t be silly. I suppose I might as well tell you, he comes to see Francie Sontag. He supports Francie.”

  The footsteps had ascended another flight of steps, and could no longer be heard.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? You talked as if Allister was a saintly character.”

  “I did n
ot. Anyway, I don’t hold it against a man if he keeps a woman. He can’t marry her, because his wife won’t give him a divorce. And he doesn’t run around with other women. I feel sorry for him, the way he has to sneak up the back way to see her.”

  “It doesn’t seem to be much of a secret.”

  “Not around here, but we don’t try to make anything of it. It’s just that if it got around among the respectable people”—she gave the phrase an ironic twist—“it would finish him in politics.”

  “Wait a minute.” I was remembering the man’s voice in Francie Sontag’s apartment, the man’s gray coat on the arm of her chesterfield. “Was Allister with her last night?”

  “How should I know?”

  “I heard a man in her apartment—”

  “It could have been Joe Sault. He sleeps there sometimes. Slept, I mean.”

  “No, it wasn’t his voice.”

  “It was probably Allister’s then. She doesn’t mess around with anybody else—she hasn’t for a couple of years.”

  My mind put two and two together and got a five-figure number. “What’s Francie Sontag’s phone number?”

  “Two-three-seven-four-eight. Why? I can go and get him if you want to talk to him.”

  “Do you think I can trust him not to call the police?”

  “If you can convince him you were framed. I’ve seen him help more than one fellow out of a bad spot.”

  “Go and get him, then,” I said. “I’ll take another chance.”

  “Another chance?”

  “It’d take too long to explain. Ask him to come down, but don’t tell Francie I’m here.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  As she was leaving I said: “You don’t have a razor, do you?”

  “Not the kind you use. It’s a little round one. I’ll show you.”

  “Mind if I try shaving with it? My story’ll sound better if I’ve got a clean face.”

  “Come in here.” She led me through the disordered bedroom into a small bathroom that opened off it. She rummaged in the cupboard above the sink, handed me a toy-like safety razor, and laughed at the look on my face.

  “You haven’t any shaving soap?”

  “I just use ordinary soap. I’m sorry.”

  While she went upstairs I took off my coat and shirt, washed, and shaved painfully. I felt better then. The engines of my body started to reverse themselves again, shifting from the defensive to the offensive. I began to outline the tongue-lashing I intended to give Allister, and to wonder again where Kerch was.

  The hall door opened when I was putting on my coat, and the two of them came into the apartment.

  “I don’t like this, Carla,” Allister was saying. “Who is it that wants to see me? You know I don’t like anybody to see me here.”

  “It can’t be helped this time,” she said.

  I crossed the bedroom and stepped into the living-room.

  He stood up when he saw me. “My God, man, how did you get here?”

  “Car, bicycle, truck, and foot.”

  “What on earth has been happening? Francie was just telling me about your phone call. It was you, wasn’t it?”

  “You’re damn right it was, but it’s a little late for you to be hearing about it. Sault is dead and buried.”

  “Sault!” Allister said incredulously. “Did you say Joe Sault?”

  “Sault’s dead, and Floraine Weather’s dead. And every cop in town is looking for me.”

  “I know that. I just came from the police station.”

  “If you had come when I phoned you, you could have fixed Kerch for good. But maybe you don’t want to fix him?”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions, Weather. I didn’t get your message until five minutes ago.”

  “Maybe it was convenient for you not to get the message.”

  Allister went pale and his whole body trembled with rage, but he kept his voice steady. “Can you listen to reason, Weather? I was out for hours, walking the streets. She told me about it as soon as she got in touch with me. Surely I haven’t given you any reason to believe that I’ve been working with Kerch.”

  “You’ve got a chance to prove it now. Whistle your cops off my trail—”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t the power. I’ll do what I can.”

  “All right, here’s something you can do. Kerch committed murder at the Wildwood Inn last night. Twice. Garland and Rusty Jahnke helped him. If I hit them as hard as I think I did, they’re still out at the Wildwood. You know where that is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Garland and Rusty are on the floor in the back kitchen. Are there any cops you can trust at all?”

  “There’s Hanson. He’s a good man. And maybe two or three others.”

  “Take them, then, and round up Kerch’s accomplices. There’s plenty of evidence against them in that kitchen, and Sault’s buried in the back yard. That’s something you can do if Kerch hasn’t got you hogtied.”

  “I’ll do it. Are you going to stay here?”

  “I haven’t decided. But for God’s sake, don’t tell the police I’m here! For Carla’s sake, at least.”

  “He wouldn’t do that,” Carla said. “You’ve got him all wrong.”

  “I promise you I’ll be discreet. Good luck.”

  “Good luck to you.”

  “You see?” Carla said when the door had closed behind him. “I told you you could trust Allister.”

  “He hasn’t done anything yet. I’m waiting for him to produce. You notice he didn’t say anything about rounding up Kerch.”

  “I think he’s afraid of him.”

  “Why should everybody be afraid of Kerch? I’m not.”

  “I know you’re not.” She put both her hands on my upper arm and squeezed hard. “I think you’re wonderful; I really mean it this time. You never stop fighting, do you?”

  “Like hell I’m wonderful!” But she made me feel that way. “Kerch is a nasty sort of organism, but he’s the kind of thing that decent people brush off and forget about. How he ever got this town by the tail, I can’t figure out.”

  “He’s evil,” she said with intensity. “There’s nothing he wouldn’t do. That’s why decent people like Allister can’t cope with him. He plays a game without any rules at all.”

  “I’ve forgotten most of the rules myself. I wouldn’t mind playing another rubber with Kerch.” A desperate plan was forming in my mind. If I could get Kerch by himself, now that Garland and Rusty were out of the picture, if I could get him by himself in the back room of the Cathay Club …

  “From what you said last night,” I said, “I got the idea that Kerch liked you. Is that right?”

  “I don’t think he likes anybody. He wants to make love to me, if that’s what you mean—his idea of making love.”

  “Would he come if you called him, do you think?”

  “Here?” An undercurrent of panic changed her face.

  “No, not here—the Cathay Club. Would he come out there if you asked him to?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to try, either. I can’t bear him.”

  “You wouldn’t have to bear him. I’ll get there before he does and meet him there, instead of you. He doesn’t know there’s any connection between you and me. I’ll show him stranger love-making than he ever dreamed of.”

  “You said you couldn’t go on the streets. How would you get out there?”

  “Have you got a car I can borrow? I should be able to make it in a car.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got an old coupé.” Then her voice recovered its strength, as if she had made a decision that released energy inside her. “I’ll drive you. You can ride in the trunk compartment.”

  “You’d be taking a chance—”

  “I’m not afraid to take a chance. I’ll bring the car around, and you can slip out the back door.”

  “There’s no chance that he’d be out at the club now?”

  “He never goes out there in the morning. I’ll make sure, though.”
<
br />   She went to the phone in the hall and rang the Cathay Club. Nobody answered, which suited me. Then, she called the Palace Hotel and asked for Kerch’s suite. I stood behind her and saw that the hand which held the receiver was trembling.

  “Go away,” she said impatiently. “I can’t talk to him with you right here.”

  I stepped into the living-room and closed the door. I couldn’t hear what she said, but I could follow the intonations of her voice. It moved from a teasing coyness through soft persuasion and unexpected delight, ending on a note of gentle anticipation. She had done what I wanted her to do, and done it beautifully, but my feelings were mixed. Women had so many emotional strata, you were always breaking through a layer you thought you knew and finding yourself in an atmosphere that was hard to breathe, a situation that was quite new and a little frightening.

  When she came back into the room, I saw how much the conversation had taken out of her. She was pale again, and breathing quickly. Her mouth had lost its firm line. I walked towards her and put my arms around her. Her body rested hard against me from breast to knee, but her mouth made no response to my kiss. Her eyes were open and perfectly calm and cool. Suddenly she closed them and gave me the sweet and terrible gift of her tongue. A slip-stream wind blew away time and space. We were lost and holding to each other in a new element as powerful and wild as a breaking wave carrying us in to shore. We swayed and almost fell.

  “We mustn’t,” she said. “It makes me so weak I can’t even stand.”

  “You make me feel strong. You’re like the other half of my body.”

  “That’s a crazy thing to say.”

  “It’s not so crazy. You know the story that every pair of lovers was originally one person.”

  “Uh-uh. Aren’t I ignorant?”

  “Anyway, that’s the story. The people in the world are really just halves of people. Everybody is looking for his other half. When he finds it, it’s love. The whole person. We’re like that.”