Blue City

by Ross Macdonald

  The outside screen door was locked, as it always had been, with a simple hook. I slit the screen with Sault’s spring knife and let myself into the house. The inner door had never had a key.

  There was a dim night light burning in the newel post at the head of the front stairs, enough to give me my bearings. I unslung my boots, left them on the top step, and went down the back stairs to the kitchen. Nineteen steps, with a ninety-nine degree turn at the tenth step and a closed door at the bottom, which my fingers anticipated. I caught myself wondering if the refrigerator was still in the same corner of the kitchen.

  The swinging door between the kitchen and the dining-room was standing open. I found it with my hands and went through on tiptoe. The only noise I made came from my heart, which pounded in my ears like rapid surf.

  The sliding doors which separated the front room from the dining-room were imperfectly closed. A wafer of light came through between them and made a bright band across the dining-room table. I could hear low voices in the next room.

  I took the automatic out of my pocket and pushed off the safety, holding it between thumb and forefinger so that it wouldn’t click. Walking heel and toe I crossed the carpet to the doors and peered through. All I could see was an empty section of floor, part of an armchair with nobody in it, a shadowy curtain. But I could hear what the voices were saying. They must be in the chesterfield to the right of the door, I thought.

  “I can’t see why you’re so scared of this boy Weather,” Sault said. “He tried some rough stuff on me, but it didn’t take me long to get rid of him. He slunk away like a yellow dog with his tail between his legs.”

  “You’re a man,” Mrs. Weather said softly. “You know how to handle people like that—”

  “O.K., so what you want me to do for you? Run him out of town? I can do that.”

  She continued her own train of thought: “It isn’t that I’m so much afraid of anything he’ll do to me directly. He threatened me last night—”

  “He did, did he? Why the hell didn’t you call me up? I wouldn’t’ve let him get away so easy.”

  “I did call you. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all night. I told you that.”

  “Yeah. You know the boy to come to when you want something done, eh, Floraine?”

  “You’re sweet, Joey. I feel ever so much better, now that you’re here.”

  For a while there was nothing but silence, broken finally by the slow ending of a kiss.

  “You’re hot stuff, baby,” Sault said throatily. “It’s about time you decided to give me another break.”

  “Don’t, Joey. You take my breath away. I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “Don’t look so gorgeous then. How can I sit here and not do anything with you looking so gorgeous?”

  “Listen to me, Joey.” Her voice was quick and cool again. “John Weather threatened my life, but it’s not him I’m afraid of. I don’t think he’s got the guts to do anything. He’s a wild talker, though, and I’m afraid he can make trouble. His father had some good friends in this town, and he’ll go to them and talk about me.”

  “So what? Talking won’t hurt you. Nobody’s got anything on you.”

  “Maybe not,” she said uncertainly. After a pause: “Joey, you said you wanted me to give you another break?”

  “You know I go for you. It wasn’t any fun for me when you cut me off.”

  “I had to, darling. Don’t you see? Everybody in town was watching me after the old man died. I couldn’t afford to take any chances.”

  “But now you can afford to take chances? I don’t get it.”

  Her voice had risen a full octave when she spoke again: “I’ve got to take a chance. A big chance. I can’t go on like this any longer.”

  “Looks to me as if you’re sitting pretty.”

  “Sitting pretty?” She laughed shallowly. “I’m sitting pretty on the rim of a volcano. I’ve never told anybody, Joey. Not even you.”

  “This Weather guy,” Sault said slowly. “He got something on you?”

  “Not yet. I’m afraid he will.”

  “What’s he going to get on you, baby? Tell your Uncle Joey.”

  “He won’t get anything if you’ll help me. If you’ll help me, we’ll both be sitting pretty for the rest of our lives.”

  “You know I’ll help you, baby. Help you do what?”

  “You’ve got a gun, haven’t you?”

  “Sure. Not with me, but I can get one.” A little whine threaded the masculine assurance of his voice. “I don’t like working with guns, Floraine. I can get away with most things in this town, but not murder.”

  “You can get away with murder, too. I’m asking you to take a chance, Joey, but I’m offering you the big break of your life. We’ll both be in it together, and we’ll work together from now on. Everything I’ve got, I’ll split with you fifty-fifty.”

  “For wiping out this John Weather? I’ll do it.”

  “Not John Weather, Joey. If you do what I want you to do, he can never touch me. I want you to kill Kerch.”

  “Kerch?” Surprise and terror plucked simultaneously at his vocal cords, and turned the harsh syllable into a squawk.

  “You’ve got to kill Roger Kerch,” she said evenly.

  “But I thought you and Kerch was like that? My God, Floraine!”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “Me? Afraid?” His voice cracked. “You know I’m not afraid. I’m just surprised, that’s all. I always heard that you and Kerch were—you know, pretty good friends.” The way he said it, “friends” was as obscene as any four-letter word.

  “Somebody’s been kidding you. I can’t stand him.”

  “He’s got something on you, eh?”

  “That’s right, Joey. For the last two years, ever since he came here, I haven’t had a moment’s peace. Will you help me?” The range and complexity of her voice fascinated me. It had purred like a cat in passion, cut like whips in scorn, teetered on the edge of hysteria, sunk low in maternal solicitude. Now she was a little girl again, appealing to his masculine strength. “Will you help me, Joey?” she repeated.

  He answered her with difficulty: “I can’t kill him, Floraine. He keeps Garland and Rusty with him all the time. If I did, I got no protection for that kind of a rap. He’s in solid with the cops.”

  “He won’t be when he’s dead, Joey. He’ll be nothing but cold meat when you step into his shoes. You take over the Cathay Club and the machines, and the cops’ll know which side their bread is buttered on. They follow the graft, and you’ll be the man that’s handing it out.”

  “You want me to take over the club and the machines?” His voice was incredulous. “Jesus!”

  “You’re the only man I’d trust,” she said earnestly. “If you’ll work with me, we can go places. You’re too big a man to spend your life in the small time. I can see that, even if you can’t.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he admitted. “I been marking time, waiting for a break.”

  “This is the break you’ve been waiting for. You can be top man in this town. Will you do it?”

  “I’ll do it,” he said in a shy voice. “By Jesus Christ, I’ll do it!”

  “I knew I could depend on you.”

  There was another pause, ending in a long female sigh. “I love you, Joey.”

  “You know how I feel about you, baby.”

  “Can you get a gun today?”

  “Yeah. But I was thinking. What about Rusty and Garland? When one of them isn’t with him, the other one is.”

  “Leave Rusty to me,” she said. “I’ve seen the way he looks at me. I’ll give you a clear field. There’s one other thing you’ve got to do.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “You’ve seen the safe in Kerch’s office at the club?”

  “Yeah.”

  “There’s an envelope in it with my name on it. He showed it to me once. You’ve got to get it.”

  “Christ, I can’t do that. I’ve never cra
cked a safe.”

  “But you don’t have to crack it. I own the club. When Kerch is dead, I’ve got a right to open that safe. We can get a locksmith to drill it open. But you’ve got to get that envelope before anybody else gets it.”

  “I’ll get it,” he said. “What’s he got on you, Floraine?”

  “I can’t tell you now.”

  “You don’t trust me, eh? I thought we were working together now. Tell me what he’s got on you, Floraine.”

  “I’ll tell you when he’s dead.”

  “It might take a while. I got to make plans, especially when I’m working in the dark like this.”

  “It’s got to be today. You said today.”

  “The hell I did. It could take a week for me to get a chance at him. I’ve got to think about a getaway, too.”

  “I said I’d take care of Rusty and give you a clear field. If I do that, there’s nothing to stop you.”

  “Christ, Floraine, you got to give me time—” The unfinished sentence was punctuated by a sharply indrawn breath.

  “What’s the matter?” she whispered.

  I thought he had heard my breathing, and I raised my gun and waited. But it wasn’t me that had taken the wind out of his words. None of the three of us had heard the front door open or anyone come in. But the door had opened and someone had come in. It was Kerch’s voice I heard next, speaking from the direction of the hallway:

  “I sent Garland to bring you in, Sault. What a charming excuse you have for not having come. You might as well frisk him, Garland, though I suspect he hasn’t the courage to carry a gun. Please don’t feel that it’s necessary to cover your breasts, my dear Floraine. Garland isn’t interested, Rusty won’t molest you so long as I’m here, and the sight of them continues to give me a certain aesthetic pleasure.”

  She said one word: “Toad!”

  “You women,” Kerch said pleasantly. “You women are always eager to be deluded by such nonessentials as personal beauty. Joe’s here, for example. He’s quite a nice-looking youngster, but he’s got the heart of a little slinking rat. Isn’t that right, Joey?”

  Joey said: “Floraine—Mrs. Weather here—just called me up down at Malteoni’s, and I came over here to see what was bothering her. We just kind of got playing around, you know how it is—”

  “Toads are hard to kill,” Kerch said sententiously. “He’s not carrying anything, is he, Garland?”

  “No. John Weather took his knife off him before he left town.”

  “See what a frail reed you’ve been leading on, Floraine? I really can’t commend your choice of partners.”

  “He doesn’t look like a toad,” she said.

  “As I do, of course? But then you didn’t choose me as a partner. I chose you. At any rate, there are uglier things than toads. I predict that when we’ve finished with Joey, he won’t be able to compete even with me in loveliness.”

  “I wasn’t going to do it,” Joey said in a hushed voice. “I was just pumping her so I could give you the word. Christ, I wouldn’t try anything on you, Mr. Kerch, we always got along great!”

  “That seems to be finished, doesn’t it, Joey? Quite as finished as you will shortly be. Help him to stand up, Rusty, think we’ll go out to the Wildwood.”

  “Take your hands off me,” Joey yelled. “You do anything to me and I’ll tear your setup wide open.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Joey.”

  “You know what I mean. I know enough to pin murder on you, Kerch. If they can’t get you for murder, they can get you for accessory.”

  “I always knew you killed Jerry Weather,” Floraine said. “Now I’ve got something on you, Kerch.”

  “Nobody’s got anything on me at all,” Kerch said. “Bring him along, Rusty. We want to get out to the Wildwood before it’s light.”

  “If you do anything to me, I’ll sing,” Sault said.

  I saw him led, struggling feebly, across the narrow section of the room that was visible through the crack. Rusty had his arm and Garland walked behind him in a death march.

  “You won’t sing,” Kerch said, “if what we do to you shuts you up for good. Come along, Floraine. You’ll need a coat.”

  “You can’t do without me,” she said. “You’re crazy if you think you can.”

  “Perfectly true, my dear. I can’t do without you. But I can certainly do without Joey Sault. Come along.”

  chapter 13

  I stood where I was while Floraine got her coat and Kerch turned out the light in the front room. The front door closed behind them, and their footsteps receded on the walk. Kerch had been the last to leave, and I had missed my chance to shoot him. The thought of shooting him then hadn’t even occurred to me. New questions were rising in my mind like bubbles in a stirred drink, and the death of Kerch wouldn’t answer any of them. Besides, Floraine wanted him dead, which gave me a reason for wanting him kept alive. For a while, listening to Sault and Floraine, I had begun to believe that Floraine had killed my father and that Kerch knew of it, but what she and Sault said at the end made me doubt it again. Suspicion wavered but continually swung back to Kerch, like a compass needle to the north.

  If only I could get Kerch alone, I thought as I pulled on my boots. Such smooth talkers were nearly always gnawed by internal weaknesses and fears. And I remembered what Carla had said about him. As soft as jelly. If I could get my hands on him. My bootlace broke, and I swore at it and tied it in the dark at the top of the stairs.

  I remembered vaguely where the Wildwood was; it was a roadhouse that my father had owned, six or seven miles north of the city. Too far to walk, and it might be dangerous to take a cab. But Floraine should have a car.

  I went down the hall to the master bedroom which my mother had shared with my father before she left him. When I turned on the light I saw that it was Floraine’s now. Frilled curtains at the windows, mules under the chenille-covered bed, which I noticed hadn’t been slept in, a dressing-table with a triple mirror, a heavy odor of perfume, which grew heavier when I approached the dressing-table. There was a Corde purse on it, thrown carelessly among an array of bottles and jars. I unzipped the purse and found her car keys where I had hoped they’d be.

  Just before I turned out the light, a picture on the wall above the bed caught my eye. It was a still life, crowded with brilliantly colored tropical flowers. My heart beat once and the picture wasn’t a still life after all, and the flowers weren’t flowers. They were hands and faces and other parts of human bodies, male and female. Another heartbeat, and they were flowers again. I turned out the light and left the house, thinking that my father’s last sexual fling had carried him a hell of a long way—a hell of a long way down.

  The keys fitted the Packard roadster that I found in the garage. I backed it out slowly and headed north at a speed that wouldn’t be worth a policeman’s second glance. About five miles out of town I came to a gas station that contained a light and a man moving in front of it. I turned in and parked by the pumps. I didn’t need gas, and he’d be able to tell me exactly where the Wildwood was. I didn’t want to get there before I expected to.

  A thin man in grease-stained dungarees came out of the station yawning, his face still caked with sleep.

  “You want gas?”

  “Not just now. Maybe you can tell me where the Wildwood is?”

  “Yeah, but somebody gave you the wrong dope, brother. It’s been closed up since gas-rationing, and ain’t never been opened yet. I wish to hell they’d open it again—it used to make business for me.”

  “A friend of mine told me he lives out past there. We’re going fishing.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Piscator,” I said. “Peter Piscator.”

  “Funny, I thought I knew everybody that lives out in that direction. But I never heard of this guy Piscator.”

  “He’s a recluse. Now where’s the Wildwood?”

  “Second road to your left. Go down a mile and you’ll see it on the right-hand side
. I hope you find your friend O.K. If you don’t, come back here and I’ll see if I can find him in the phone book.” He was treating me with the respect my Packard deserved, but I’d have preferred a car that was less easily remembered.

  I thanked him and drove away. When I left the concrete at the second turning to the left, I drove even more slowly than before, with my eyes straining ahead past the white fan of the headlights. It was a gravel road with woods on both sides, and completely deserted. It was too late even for parking couples. I could see Kerch’s point in taking Sault to this godforsaken neck of the woods. I switched off the lights and drove by the faint light of the stars.

  My mileage had increased six tenths of a mile since leaving the main road when I came to a dirt lane leading into the woods. I went up it a hundred yards or so, past the first turning, and parked in the ditch after turning the car around. A weather-beaten sign nailed to a tree said: “Five Hundred yards to Wildwood Inn—Steaks and Cocktails—Never a Cover Charge.”

  After a quarter of a mile of cautious walking in the ditch I saw ahead of me a black car parked under a tree against the fence. I took out my gun and approached it as noiselessly as I could. I didn’t need the gun: the car was empty. The engine was warm, though, and it looked like the car I had seen Garland driving on Fenton Boulevard.

  I had scarcely left it when I saw a dim yellow light shining through the trees on the right side of the road. I slipped through the wire fence and circled the light, staying in the cover of the woods. It was light, second-growth timber, easy to make my way through, and the damp spring earth muffled my footfalls. My eyes were becoming adjusted to darkness, and I could make out the main outlines of the building I was circling, a long, low building with its length parallel to the road, fronted by a gravel square for drive-ins. A short wing surmounted by a wide chimney jutted out the back at the rear end, and that was where the light was coming from. A shadow moved across the cracked, yellow blind, and I thought I recognized the shape of Kerch’s shapeless body.