California is a cheap, gaudy, second-rate imitation of Florida. But then Florida is a cheap, gaudy, second-rate imitation of California, so I guess that’s as fair as you could expect in a society like ours that’s lost all its values.
San Francisco isn’t the biggest city in the United States, but it’s easily the most thin-skinned and defensive. It’s gotten that way because it knows it’s only a shoddy fifth carbon of the city that it once was, when men like me loved it, when men thought of it not as it but as her, a carefree girl with laughing eyes who came strolling out of the fog with a smile of I-don’t-give-a-damn on her lips, and you knew that here was one girl who didn’t take herself too seriously. But the girl had aged as all girls do, and she tried to remain a girl, which she wasn’t. And thus she was not even a woman, not a her at all but an it, neuter as all American cities have become. It gave me no pain to see it, for it was an object, not her any more. She was dead.
Oh, by the way, Chill Warlock wasn’t in San Francisco either, but I got the word that he’d moved southward to try to sell his phony pay-TV stock in Los Angeles, a town that was full of suckers eager to buy it. The phony sells very well in Los Angeles.
There may have been a day, long gone by, when Los Angeles was a nice place to live. The natives tell me that even today, after a rain, the smog lifts and you can see mountains and the city stretching for miles and L.A. is a beautiful place. But every time I’ve been there the smog has been thick and oppressive, burning my eyes and my throat. Still, maybe the smog is a good thing, because it’s the only thing in L.A. that’s not phony.
I caught up with Chill Warlock in a Hollywood television studio where he was being interviewed.
“Mr. Warlock, what are your qualifications as head of a pay-TV company? What TV shows have you ever produced?”
“Well, to that I would say—”
“Why should some poor slob, home from a hard day at the office, have to pay for what he sees on his television screen? Huh?”
“Well, it is our hope—”
“Mr. Warlock, a few years ago there was a proposition on the ballot in California to outlaw pay TV. It was passed by an overwhelming majority. Don’t you feel the public has spoken on this question?”
“Well—”
“Mr. Warlock, do you have a college degree?”
“No.”
“From where? Some correspondence school in St. Louis?”
“But I said—”
“Mr. Warlock, you sound like a dingaling to me, and I’d like to tell you to take a walk. But I see there’s a gentleman in the dock. What’s your name, sir?”
“Trygve McKee is my name. I’d like to ask Mr. Warlock a question. Is it true you’ve tried to peddle pay-TV stock in major cities all over the United States?”
“Well—”
“Is it true this stock is totally worthless?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say—”
“Is it true that your company doesn’t even exist and that it and you are in fact as phony as everything else in this town?”
At that point we were interrupted by a commercial. I could see the beads of perspiration on Chill Warlock’s forehead. I knew I was getting to him. His eyes darted back and forth, looking for an exit to run for. Suddenly he was sprinting away. I vaulted over the dock and ran after him. Now I was in my element. Chill Warlock’s agile tongue couldn’t help him now.
I chased him into the alley outside the studio. I saw that he was stopping and drawing something ugly out of his coat. It looked like a gun. It was, and he was pointing it straight at my head.
“Go ahead, Warlock. Shoot an unarmed man,” I taunted him.
“You think I won’t? Didn’t I beat up a defenseless blonde wisp of a girl? Didn’t I steal her father’s life savings? Didn’t I hire some former F.B.I. men to tap Tim Dugan’s wire and kill him if he got too dangerous? You think I wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man? Do you think society with its corruptive influences has left me with any trace of conventional morality? Do you think I care for anything but my own skin?”
“That’s just it, Chill. If you kill me now, you’ll never escape. They’ll get you for sure. You’re in deep enough trouble already. People don’t just walk off the Alvin Turke Show like that. Al Turke doesn’t forget.”
He was wavering.
“I’ll make you a deal, Chill. We go back in and finish the show. Then we split the loot. I go back to the Flustered Blush with some green gravy and you do whatever you like.”
He considered. “Why should I split with you?”
“Chill, you’ve heard about me. I’m Trig McKee. You’ve killed one of my best friends. You’ve robbed and, indirectly, killed the father of a girl I think a lot of. And you should know that once Trig McKee goes after somebody, he gets him. You don’t just kill off McKee’s buddies, beat up his women, and flaunt your injustices in his face. Not Trig McKee.”
“What are you getting at, McKee?”
“The gist of it is this: it takes a hell of a lot of money to buy me off. You cheated that girl’s father out of three hundred bucks. On the whole racket I’d say you’ve made about fifty thousand. Now, as I figure it, she has a hundred and fifty coming. I want twenty-five grand. The rest is yours. Now let’s go back inside. That commercial should be about over.”
Chill Warlock put away the gun and we went back inside.
Five months later the Flustered Blush was in her customary slip at Fort Lauderdale. It had been a good five months — in all a good twelve — but now it was clear that she was ready at long last.
“Trig, I hate to leave. I feel I should stay. To take care of you.”
“No, honey, the Blush and I can take care of ourselves now. I’m feeling stronger with the L.A. smog out of my lungs, and that smashed finger I got fighting with Chill Warlock is as good as new. Besides, I think you’re ready now, and for you to stay here would be to stagnate. You have a future, kid, a bright one. You and me was good together, but now it’s over.”
She brushed away a tear. “All right, Trig. I guess you’re right. What can I say? Just thank you, I guess.”
She kissed me lightly and got up from her deck chair. She was leaving all right. How many times had the deck of the Blush seen this same bittersweet scene? I sighed inwardly. It was going to rain soon. The clouds told me that, and so did the twinge in my finger; somebody’d slammed a car door on it in Las Vegas. There’s a great town, by the way. You should go there.
I watched her wispy blonde form walk toward the dock. She turned for a moment and waved shyly; then she took a decisive step away from the Blush, toward the great, mean, hungry outside world, and with a loud splash she fell awkwardly into the water.
I shook my head. The poor kid just wasn’t ready yet.
AUTHOR’S DISCLAIMER: John D. MacDonald’s famous character, Travis McGee, is neither a cad nor a scoundrel and bears only superficial resemblances to the hero of this story, which is intended to illustrate how our society has lost its values.
Finessing the King
by Agatha Christie[5]
In which our old friends Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, master and mistress of the International Detective Agency (alias Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives), remember with nostalgia the manners and methods of McCarty. And how many of you remember Isabel Ostrander’s detective McCarty? Ah, tempus fugits, and where are the sleuths of yesteryear?...