Free The Ivory Grin by Ross MacDonald Page A

renewing their youth for the thousandth time, asphalt-eyed whores working for a living on drunken workingmen, a few fugitives from the upper half of town drowning one self to let another self be born. Behind the bar a hefty Greek in an apron dispensed fuel, aphrodisiac, opiate, with a constant melancholy smile.
    I ordered a short rye and took it standing, keeping an eye on Heiss in the bar mirror. He was leaning far over the table towards the dark-eyed woman, and she was registering pleasant shock.
    The booth behind him was vacated, and I crossed to it before the table was cleared. The room was surging with noise. A juke box bawled above the babel of tongues at the bar. An electric shuffleboard beside the liquor counter at the front gave out machine-gun bursts of sound at intervals. I propped myself in the corner of the seat with my ear pressed to the plyboard. A yard away, Heiss was saying:
    “I been thinking about you all day, dreaming about those great big beautiful eyes. I been dreaming about those great big beautiful etcetera, too, sitting and dreaming about ’em. You know what an etcetera is, Flossie?”
    “I can guess.” She laughed, like somebody gargling syrup. “You’re a great kidder. Incidently, my name isn’t Flossie.”
    “Florie, then, what does it matter? If you were the onlygirl in the world, which is what you pradically are as far as I’m concerned, what does it matter? You’re the girl for me. But I bet you’ve got plenty of boy friends.” I guessed that Max had been drinking all day, and had reached the point where anything he said sounded like poetry set to music.
    “I bet I have, not. Anyways, it’s no business of yours, Mr. Desmond. I hardly know you.” But she knew the game.
    “Come on over on this side and get to know me better, kid. Florie. Sweet name for a sweet kid. Did anybody ever tell you you got a mouth like a flower, Florie?”
    “You certny got a line, Mr. Desmond.”
    “Aw, call me Julian. And come on over. I warn you it isn’t safe. When I get close up to a great big beautiful etcetera, I want to take a bite out of it, I warn you.”
    “You hungry or something?” I heard the rustle and creak of the girl’s movement into the near seat. “Incidently, Julian, I’m kind of hungry. I could eat something.”
    “
I’m
going to eat
you.”
Max’s voice was muffled. “I guess I better fatten you up first, huh? You want a steak, and something to drink? After that, who knows?
Quien sabe
, isn’t that how you say it?”
    “I only talk American,” she answered him severely. Having established that, she relaxed again: “A steak will be swell, Julian. You’re a real fun guy.”
    Heiss hailed the waitress. She crossed the room, a lank henna-head mincing on tender feet. “What’ll it be?”
    “A steak for the little lady. I’ve already dined myself.”
    “Let’s see, you’re drinking sherry.”
    “Very dry sherry,” said Desmond-Heiss.
    “Sure, very dry.” She turned her head to one side and threw the line away: “Maybe you take it in powder form.”
    “An Alexander for me,” the girl said.
    “Sure, kiddie, have yourself a time.” But there was an undertonein his voice, the no-expense-account blues. “Nothing’s too good for Florie.”
    A woman came in from the street and walked quickly along the row of booths. Her wide-shouldered black coat swung out behind with the energy of her movement and showed the white uniform underneath. She didn’t see me but I saw her and straightened up in my seat. She stopped beside Heiss and Florie, her blue eyes glittering in her cold porcelain face.
    “Hello, Mrs. Benning. You want to see me?” Florie’s voice was small and tinny.
    “You didn’t finish your work. You can come and finish it now.”
    “I did do my work, Mrs. Benning. Everything you said.”
    “Are you contradicting me?”
    “No, but it’s Saturday night. I got a right to my Saturday nights. When do I get a chance to have some fun?”
    “Fun is one