Boldt by Ted Lewis Read Free Book Online Page A

girls, called Agnes and Marcia Garner. The two girls appear to be waitresses inside of Clark’s which of course they’re not: they’re pulling for Moses and they do a beautiful act.
    They’re two girls like you’ve never seen, they both look as though they took liberal arts at college; as though they were voted the two most likely to marry the president of the local Chamber of Commerce; the two most likely to be Young Mothers of the Year; the two most likely to be chosen by Seventeen to model this year’s fashions; they’d make Natalie Wood look like Yvonne De Carlo alongside of them. But when they go to work, that’s something else entirely. I’d like to see anybody try and stay away from the two of them and succeed. They operate like you’ve never seen. They can take the pants off you and have Moses take over at sucking your dick so that you’d never know it. When you finally tumble, it’s too late because by that time there’s Moses’s two other little helpers, Arnold and Chris, and there’s no way you could lift yourself up off your back, or your face, whichever the case may be. After that, no use making any kind of complaint because for that you need witnesses, and inside of Clark’s, witnesses you’re just not going to get.
    In spite of all this, Moses runs a flourishing business, mainly because he lays off his regulars because his regulars are important to him. They come back and they come back, and mostly anybody who’s anybody in this city is from time to time seen talking to Moses. Christ knows why because for all his independence, Moses can’t do anything for them. He can’t do anything for Florian, for example, and he can’t do anything for Florian’s wife, but they love to be there, they love to be sitting at the high stools with Moses, being insiders to his private scene, watching how it works out with whoever he’s got his eye on. Sometimes, if they’re inside enough, they can watch how it works out in the end. A lot of money comes down to Clark’s from time to time, and the rest of the time Moses relies on the steady custom of hustlers and grifters and entrepreneurs that make Clark’s a full house from 11 A.M. to 11 A.M. day after day.
    So Murdock and me go through the door and into the part of Clark’s that counts. It’s pretty much alive and our presence doesn’t slow it down any. The hustlers don’t stop hustling and the grifters don’t stop grifting and the games keep going. Moses and his little gang are perched up on the two-foot-high area at the far end of the room. Murdock and me don’t make for that area but instead we move toward the curved bar. There are no vacant stools but Murdock moves in front of me and stands behind two small-time fags, saying to them, “Those high stools, you know, they’re not too good for your balls. Could easy get them busted on those narrow seats.”
    They both turn and give Murdock the face but they’re not going to be consistent and they slide off and slide away leaving Murdock and me to take their places. Murdock dusts his seat off before he sits down.
    â€œI can’t take talcum powder on a dark suit,” he says. “It’s hell to get off.”
    â€œYeah,” I say, “especially talcum powder that’s mobile.”
    So we’re sat down and it’s the usual thing about us trying to get served, being cops, while all the free spenders are pushing it over the counter. There are three people behind the bar, all like Moses, one a queen of spades with silver hair and the other two young guys who look as though they’d sway from the smoke of your cigarette. But they’re all very good at studiously ignoring a couple of pigs who only want a couple of small drinks to wash the company down with. So in the end Murdock demonstrates how pissed off we both are by picking up the glass jug that holds the