Free Blue City by Ross MacDonald

passion crackled between them like electricity. Their stamping was as violent and real as love or hate. They left the floor with wet faces, walking stately together.
    Somebody close behind me was saying: “I didn’t think Kerch’d be able to keep his slot-machine racket after Allister got in.”
    “He had a lot of you bastards fooled,” a brash salesman’s voice cut in. “I could’ve told you what’d happen, and it happened.”
    “You mean nothing happened.”
    “Absolutely. What’d you expect to happen? It’s always the same when these wild-eyed reformers get in. I seen it happen when I was a kid in Cleveland. But what the hell are you kickin’ about?”
    “Who’s kickin’! I always said a wide-open town was good for business. Which is why I didn’t come out for Allister.”
    “You might as well next time. Looks as if he’s going to be with us a long time.”
    The orchestra began to play dance music. “C’mon, Bert,” a woman whined. “We didn’t come here to talk politics. Let’s dance before it gets too crowded.”
    “Absolutely, Marge. Absolutely.”
    I saw them step onto the dance floor, a florid man in Harris tweeds, with his thick arm around the waist of a fading blonde.
    “He knows his way around,” the other man said behind me. “Bert’s a good head.”
    “He’s too fat,” a woman said. “You’re not too fat.”
    One of the unattached girls sat down opposite me at my table. Her thick brown hair swung forward and brushed her white shoulders. Her face was solemn and young, with steady somber eyes and a still mouth too garishly painted.
    “A nice boy like you,” she recited, “shouldn’t be sitting all by his lonesome.”
    “A nice girl like you shouldn’t be wasting her time on a guy like me.”
    “Why, what’s the matter with you? I think you’re kind of cute.”
    “You flatter me.”
    “Sure. Now that I’ve flattered you, you can buy me a drink.”
    I said: “The approach abrupt. Do I look well heeled?”
    “Appearances are so deceptive.”
    “In your case, for example. You’ve got your face made up to suit this joint. Protective coloration, they call it in biology.”
    “Kid me some more,” she said flatly. “You can if you buy me a drink. Biology is a very interesting subject.”
    “I like my biology experimental. Not cut and dried.”
    “You’re not flattering me. I’ll go away unless you buy me a drink.”
    “And take all the beauty out of my life? Just when my heart was opening up like a flower?”
    “To hell with you!” she said suddenly and fiercely. She stood up and flung back her hair. Her slender body looked a little incongruous in a low-cut gown.
    “Sit down again,” I said. “What are you drinking?”
    She sat down again. “Scarlett O’Hara.”
    “Are you on the staff of this enterprise?”
    “Now, what would make you think that?” she said bitterly. “I come out here every night because I like it.”
    “You should be studying biology in school.”
    “I tried that. It didn’t pay well. They expected to get it for free.”
    The waitress came over, and I ordered our drinks.
    “Well,” the girl said. “You certainly made me work for it.”
    “I’m not as well heeled as my appearance deceived you into not thinking I was.”
    “How you twist the language. You remind me of my grandfather.”
    “I’m not really that old. It’s just the hard life I’ve led.”
    She raised her thin eyebrows. Her eyes were soft and young, but there was a hard glaze over them. “Quite a line you’ve got. I never saw you here before, did I?”
    “Never been here before. Think of what I’ve been missing.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “John. What’s yours?”
    “Carla.” So this was Kaufman’s granddaughter.
    “What’s the name of your boss?”
    “Kerch. Mr. Kerch is
so
lovely to work for.”
    “Everywhere I go,” I said, “people tell me the most wonderful things about Mr. Kerch.”
    “You must run in some awful peculiar