The Way Some People Die by Ross MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page A

he told me cautiously after a while.
    “You know him?”
    “I wouldn’t say I know him. He’s been in here a few times, off and on.”
    “Maybe you know his name.”
    “I should. I thought I did. I guess it slipped my mind,though.” He lit a cigarette and tried to look inscrutable and failed.
    My change from a ten-dollar bill was on the bar between us. I pushed it towards him. “You can tell me what he looks like.”
    “Maybe I can and maybe I can’t.” He squirmed in his cowboy shirt, eying the money wistfully. “I don’t know what the setup is, mister. If this is a deevorce rap or something like that, I wouldn’t want to shoot my mouth off too free.”
    “If divorce comes into it, it’s news to me.” I told him it was a prodigal daughter case. But with Dowser and Tarantine in it, it was growing much bigger than that. I left them out, and tried to forget them myself.
    The bartender was still worried. The bills and silver lay untouched on the black Lucite, nearer him than me. “I got to think about it,” he said in pain. “I mean I’ll try and remember his name for you.”
    With a great appearance of casualness he went to the other end of the bar and took a telephone out from under it. Leaning over the bar and hunching his shoulders around the instrument so I couldn’t see him dial, he made a call. It took him a long time to get his party. When he finally did, he spoke low and close into the mouthpiece.
    He came back briskly and took my empty glass. “Something more to drink, sir?”
    I looked at my wrist watch, nearly midnight. “All right.”
    He set the second glass on the bar beside the money. “Do I take it out of this, sir?”
    “It’s up to you. It’s eating into your profits, isn’t it?”
    “I don’t get you,” he said. But he waited for me to produce another bill.
    I handed him a single from my wallet. “What did your friend tell you on the phone?”
    “My girl friend, you mean?” he asked brightly. “She’s coming over to meet me when I close.”
    “What time do you close?”
    “Two o’clock.”
    “I guess I’ll stick around.”
    He seemed relieved. He flicked a dish towel out from under the bar and began to polish a row of cocktail glasses, humming
Red River Valley
to himself. I moved to the back booth. I sat and wondered if that was as close as I’d get to Galley Lawrence, and watched the coatless boys at the shuffleboard. Red beat blue, which meant that blue paid for the drinks. They were drinking vodka, and they were all of eighteen.
    Shortly after midnight a pair of short fat men came in, ridiculous in ten-gallon hats and jeans. They were very very particular about their drinks, and filled the room with name-dropping accounts of their recent social triumphs, related in high loud tenors. They didn’t interest me.
    A few minutes later a man came in who did. He was tall and graceful in a light flannel suit and an off-white snap-brim hat. His face was incredible. A Greek sculptor could have used him as a model for a Hermes or Apollo. Standing at the door with one hand on the knob, he exchanged a quick glance with the bartender, and looked at me. The tenors at the bar gave him a long slow once-over.
    He ordered a bottle of beer and carried it to my booth. “Mind if I sit down? I know you from somewhere, don’t I?” His voice was beautiful, too, rich and soft and full with deep manly overtones.
    “I don’t place you. But sit down.”
    He removed his hat and exhibited the wavy auburn hair that went with the long dark eyelashes. Everything was soperfect, it made me a little sick. He slid into the leather seat across the table from me.
    “On second thought, maybe I do,” I said. “Haven’t I seen you in pictures?”
    “Not unless you get to look at screen tests. I never got past them.”
    “Why?”
    “Women don’t do the hiring. Men don’t like me. Even the pansies hate me because I won’t give them a tumble. You don’t like me, do you?”
    “Not very much.