Free The Grifters by Jim Thompson Page B

to the doorman, and went on through the lobby to the grille and cocktail lounge.
    It was well into the noon-hour now. Many of the tables were occupied, and waiters in smart white pea jackets were hurrying in and out of the kitchen with trays of delicately smelling food. One of them brought Moira an outsize menu. She studied it, hesitating over the filet mignon sandwich with stuffed mushrooms (6.75).
    She was hungry. Breakfast had consisted of her usual unsweetened grapefruit and black coffee. But she needed a drink more than she needed food: two or three strong, reassuring drinks. And she could allow herself only so many calories a day.
    Closing the menu, she handed it back to the waiter. "Just a drink now, Allen," she smiled. "I'll eat later on."
    "Certainly, Mrs. Langtry. A martini, perhaps? Gibson?"
    "Mmm, no. Something with a little more character, I believe. A sidecar, say, with bourbon instead of brandy. And, Allen, no Triple Sec, please."
    "Emphatically!" The waiter wrote on his pad. "We always use Cointreau in a sidecar. Now, would you like the rim of the glass sugared or plain?"
    "Plain. About an ounce and a half of bourbon to an ounce of Cointreau, and a twist of lime peel instead of lemon."
    "Right away, Mrs. Langtry."
    "And, Allen…"
    "Yes, Mrs. Langtry?"
    "I want that served in a champagne glass. A thoroughly chilled glass, please."
    "Certainly."
    Moira watched him as he hurried away, her carefully composed features concealing an incipient snicker. Now, wasn't that something, she thought. No wonder the world was going to hell when a grown man pranced around in a monkey suit, brown-nosing dames who made a big deal out of ordering a belt of booze! Where had it all started? she wondered. Where the beginning of this detour which had sidetracked civilization into mixing drinks with one hand and stirring up bombs with the other?
    She thought about it, not thinking in those words, of course. Simply feeling that the times were out of joint with themselves, and that the most emphasis was put on the least-worthwhile pursuits.
    What it all boiled down to really was everybody giving everybody else a hard time for no good reason whatever. And the hell of it was that there seemed to be no way of getting on the right track. You couldn't be yourself anymore. If a woman ordered a straight double-shot with a beer chaser in a place like this, they'd probably throw her out. Ditto, if she asked for a hamburger with raw onions.
    You just couldn't march to your own music. Nowadays, you couldn't even hear it.. – She could no longer hear it. It was lost, the music which each person had inside himself, and which put him in step with things as they should be. Lost along with the big, bluff man, the joking introspective man, who had taught her how to listen for it.
    Cole Langley (Lindsey, Lonsdale). Cole "The Farmer" Langley .
    Her drink came, and she took a quick sip of it. Then, with a touch of desperation, she half-emptied the glass. That helped. She could think of Cole without wanting to break up.
    She and The Farmer had lived together for ten years, ten of the most wonderful years of her life. It had been a kind of camping-out- living, the kind that most people would turn up their noses at, but it was that way by choice not necessity. With Cole, it seemed the only possible way to live.
    They always traveled by chair-car in those days. They wore whatever they felt like wearing, usually overalls or khakis for him and gingham for her. When it was possible to obtain, Cole would have a two-quart jar of corn whiskey in a paper sack. Instead of eating in diners, they carried a huge lunch wrapped in newspapers. And every time the train stopped, Cole would hop off and buy gobs of candy and cold drinks and cookies and everything else he could lay hands on.
    They couldn't begin to eat so much themselves, naturally. Cole gloried in abundance, but he was a rather finicky eater and a very light drinker. The food and the booze were to pass around,