Росс Макдональд - Blue City

“I’m learning fast.”

“You can’t learn too fast.”

“Do you serve glasses with your beer? I’ll have one.”

“Olive or maraschino?”

“Just dip your thumb in it when you pour it.”

“Pour it yourself.”

I picked up my bottle and glass and sat down at a table against the wall. An old man with a glass of beer in front of him was facing me at the next table. There was a shag of beard on his face, shading from pure white on his cheeks and upper lip to iron gray on his flabby neck. When I had poured my beer and raised my glass to my lips, he raised his glass and winked at me.

I smiled back before I drank, and regretted it a minute later when he got up and moved towards my table. A shapeless brown overcoat hung about his body, and he walked like a sack of rags. He slumped into the other chair, rested his moth-eaten arms on the table, and leaned towards me with a sweet, dirty smile, which showed no teeth. He smelled of beer and age.

“It didn’t used to be like this,” he said. “But after all, life begins at sixty-five.”

“Are you sixty-five?”

“Sixty-six. Yeah, I know I look older, but those strokes I had take it out of a man. The first one gave me a hell of a jolt, but it didn’t hurt me any except that it slowed me down. But the second one was a dandy. I still can’t use my left hand, probably never will be able to again.”

“You’ve got funny reasons for saying that life begins at sixty-five.”

“Sweet Cæsar, those aren’t my reasons! It’s for different reasons entirely that my life began at sixty-five. That was when I qualified.”

“Qualified for what? Voting?”

“Qualified for the old-age pension, son. Ever since then I’ve been my own boss. No more getting pushed around, no more licking asses, not for me! Nobody can take that pension away from me.”

“It’s a great thing,” I said.

“It’s a wonderful thing. It’s the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me in my life.”

He finished his beer and I ordered him another.

“Who was your boss before you got the pension?”

“Can you imagine what they did to me?” the old man said. “And that was when I couldn’t walk yet after my second stroke. They put me out in the county poorhouse, with nobody to look after me except my chums out there. They said all the hospitals were full. I still have some of the bedsores I got then. And then they weren’t going to give me my old-age pension, even after I qualified.”

“What was the matter?”

“You see, son, I couldn’t prove my age. You’d think if they took one look at me they could see how old I am, but that wasn’t good enough. I was born on a farm and my daddy never registered my birth, so I couldn’t get a birth certificate. I would’ve been up the creek without a paddle, if it hadn’t been for Mr. Allister. He got my case investigated and people to swear to me, and everything turned out jake. Now I got me a little place of my own under the stairs at the warehouse, and nobody can say boo to me.”

Two men came in and sat down at a table near us. One was short and broad. He wore a limp cloth cap and a decayed leather windbreaker. The other was tall and very thin, his face a vague triangle with the apex pointed down. He took a mouth organ out of the pocket of his shiny blue suit coat and blew a few dreamy notes. His companion drummed on the table with cracked dirty knuckles and looked stonily ahead.

“Who is this Allister?” I asked the old man.

“You don’t know who Mr. Allister is? You haven’t been around here long, have you? Mr. Allister is the Mayor of this town.”

“And he helped you with your pension? He must be a pretty good egg.”

“Mr. Allister is the finest man in this town.”

“Things have changed around here,” I said. “It used to be that J.D. Weather was the man to go to when you needed help like that. He used to have a line-up at his office every morning.”

“J.D. Weather got killed before I had my second stroke. Let me see, that was two years ago this coming June. You used to live in this town, eh?”

“J.D. Weather got killed?”

“Yeah, about two years ago. Excuse me.”

“Wait a minute. How did he get killed?” I put my hand on his arm, which felt like a bone wrapped in rags.

“He just plain got killed,” the old man said impatiently. “Somebody shot him and he died.”

“For Christ’s sake! Who shot him?”

“You got to let me go, son. I been drinking beer.”

I let go of his arm and he shuffled away to the men’s room. The blonde and the redhead and their joint property in imitation llama had drifted away to other bars. The short man and the tall man finished their draught beers and wandered into the men’s room. Now the room was deserted except for the bartender, who was wiping glasses and paying no attention to me. The ugly, empty room was one of a long series of lonely bars in towns I didn’t know. If J.D. Weather was dead, this town was going to be as lonely as the rest.

There was a low growl of men’s voices from the lavatory. I couldn’t make out any words but there was unpleasantness in the sound, which was emphasized a minute later by a muffled thud. I glanced at the bartender, but he was busy with his glasses.

Then somebody sobbed in the men’s room. I got up and walked through the door. The old man was sitting on the dirty tile floor with his back to the wall. A bead of blood had fallen from one of his nostrils onto his white mustache. The tall mouth organist and his companion stood in the center of the small room, watching me. The old man’s hat was on the floor near their feet.

The old man was crying. “They took my money,” he sobbed. “Make them give me back my money.”

“We ain’t got his money,” the short man said. “He called me a dirty name, so I gave him a slap.”

“The lousy, bullying bastards!” the old man said. “They took my sixteen dollars.”

“You shut up,” said the tall man, taking a step towards him.

“Leave him alone,” I said. “And give him back his money.”

The tall man stayed where he was.

“Oh, yeah?” the short man said. His eyes were bright blue, as hard and glistening as glass eyes. “You and who else is going to make me?”

“I’m getting tired waiting,” I said. “Give him back his money.”

“He didn’t have no money,” the short man said. “C’mon, Swainie, let’s get the hell out of here.”

I braced my heel on the doorjamb and swung as I moved into him. He ducked his jaw quickly, but my fist caught the bridge of his nose. He moved in on me and clinched me around the waist with his round head under my right arm. “Get him from behind, Swainie,” he said.

Before Swainie could circle me I backed into the closed door. I worked on the short man’s arms but couldn’t break his hold. Swainie came within range and I caught him on the ear with a backhanded left. The old man got to his feet and grabbed Swainie from behind with his one good arm. Swainie slammed him back against the wall, and the old man sat down on the floor again.

Meanwhile I had found the short man’s belt. He was as squat and heavy as a sack of coal, but I strained him off the floor as Swainie came in again. When his legs were higher than his head, he let go of my waist. Then I threw him at Swainie.

One of his heavy work boots struck Swainie in the face and Swainie fell backwards onto the floor. The short man landed sprawling, rolled once to the far wall, and whirled like a terrier on his hands and knees. Before his hands were off the floor I hit him with an uppercut that had traveled three feet through the air. His head snapped back against the wall and he lay down on the floor, his open eyes looking more than ever like glass eyes. I was starting to breathe hard.