Free Blue City by Ross MacDonald Page A

circles.”
    “I do—and Mr. Kerch is always at the center of them.”
    “You’re kidding me again.”
    “I never kid when I’m talking about Mr. Kerch.”
    “You sound as if you don’t like him.”
    “Do you?”
    She leaned forward with her elbows on the table, her pointed chin supported on her palms. Her arms were round and slender, covered with a light golden fuzz, which caught the light like a faint phosphorescence. “It turns my stomach when he looks at me,” she said. “When he touches me, I want to go home and take a bath.”
    “Does he go in for touching you a good deal?”
    She lengthened her mouth at the corners in an expression of dull irony. “More or less.”
    “Why don’t you go home and take a bath and stay home?”
    “Who’d pay the water bill? And who the hell do you think you are, an evangelist or something?”
    “I just don’t like to see people playing themselves for a sucker.”
    Our drinks came, and the girl raised her pink cocktail: “Here’s to you, sucker.”
    “Hello, sucker.” My second drink tasted better than my first one.
    “How well do you know Kerch?” she said after a pause.
    “Don’t know him at all.”
    “That’s funny. You were talking as if you knew him.”
    “I don’t have to know him not to like him, if that’s what you mean.”
    “Wait till you get to know him. Then you’ll really not like him.”
    “I wish he’d try to touch me. I’d tear him down and rebuild him.”
    “Don’t try that,” she said soberly. “You’d get hurt.”
    “Don’t tell me he’s a tough boy in addition to all his other virtues.”
    “He’s not tough.” There was a contemptuous snarl in her taut voice. “He’s as soft as jelly—but he’s got tough boys working for him.”
    “Like Garland? He’d make some man a good wife.”
    “You know Garland, do you? It’s true what I said, appearances are deceptive. Garland is a very dangerous boy.”
    “He wouldn’t be so dangerous if somebody took his gun away.”
    “Maybe not. But who’s going to take his gun away? It’s been tried.”
    “So what happened?”
    “So there was business for the morgue. Kerch has Jahnke, too. Rusty makes the slot-machine collections. He hasn’t got much on the ball, but he’s pretty rugged. He used to be a boxer when he was in Pittsburgh.”
    She finished her drink and held up the empty glass. “All this talking makes me thirsty.”
    “I’ll get you a glass of water.”
    She laughed. “You’re the damndest cheapskate I ever sat down with.”
    “How much of a cut do you get on a drink?”
    “Couldn’t we keep this on a glamorous basis?”
    “How glamorous? Champagne?”
    She laughed again. “Thirty cents. Thirty cents a drink. Just like piecework in the rubber factory.”
    “Except that this is cleaner work, I suppose?”
    “In a way, it is. In case you’re wondering, I tried working in the rubber factory. It wasn’t for me. I didn’t like the smell. I didn’t like what it did to my hands. And I don’t like getting pushed around.”
    “You have pretty hands.”
    “Think so?” she said without enthusiasm. “It’s about time you flattered me a little. You make a girl feel she’s losing her grip.”
    I caught the waitress’s eye and ordered two more drinks.
    “You say you don’t like being pushed around, but you work here. Don’t you get pushed around quite a bit?”
    “Yeah,” she said. “That’s why I’m getting out of here. As soon as I can save a little money, I’m shaking the dirt of this town off my feet.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “I don’t care where I go, as long as it’s a long way from here. Maybe Chicago.”
    “What would you do there?”
    “I got a friend in Chicago. You’re kind of a nosy parker, aren’t you?”
    “Not all the time. I like you.”
    She gave me a long, straight look. For a moment her mouth and eyes forgot to be hard.
    “I like anybody who doesn’t like Kerch,” I went on.
    “Oh,” she said.
    “What does