“It wasn’t because it was wide open. It was because it was tolerant. That’s the real spirit of San Francisco. People didn’t mind your business because they had business of their own to mind. That was the attitude of the city, the attitude of the people in it. The waterfront was crowded with shipping. There was a big trade with the Orient. No one had time to bother with petty things. It was only the big things that people thought about.
“Nowadays things aren’t like that. San Francisco’s getting petty. You hear sirens screaming and police cars tearing through the streets. You tag along to see if it’s a riot, and find a bunch of cops are picking up a streetwalker for soliciting on the wrong side of the street.
“You go up to one of the big hotels, get in with the bunch that’s in the know, and find a poker game in one of the rooms. They aren’t playing for gold pieces the way they used to. They’re playing for chips, and after you’ve won all the chips, some piker pays off with an I.O.U. You go down to the waterfront, and the old spice, the old tang, the old romance are gone, and—”
I said, “Your glass is empty, Ranigan — here, waiter.”
The waiter filled up the glasses. Ranigan tasted it and said, “Nice stuff.”
“You used to run the old Mermaid’s Roost, didn’t you?” I asked.
“I sure did. Those were the days. What’d you say your name was?”
“Lam. Donald Lam.”
“Oh, yes. Well, I’ll tell you, Lam. If you want to give people the right kind of perspective, give ’em work and give ’em money. Then’s when they work hard and play hard. They try to make their money out of business instead of out of chiselling each other. In those days money was flowing in a steady stream. All a man had to do was to get himself a bucket, throw it in the stream, and drag out a bunch of cash. Nowadays there ain’t anything like that. Money ain’t circulating. You feel there ain’t over a thousand dollars in the whole damn city, and everyone is walking around in circles trying to find the fellow that has that thousand. As soon as they find out who it is, they jump on him and take it away from him. Now I remember back in the Mermaid’s Roost—”
“You have a real memory,” I said. “By the way, someone was telling me about a girl you had working for you who was lucky enough to inherit a million dollars.”
He straightened up with surprise. “A million dollars? Working for me?”
“Uh-huh. She was a hostess, there at the Mermaid’s Roost. Girl by the name of Sellar.”
“Sellar!” he said, squinting his eyebrows together. “Shucks, I had a girl by the name of Sellar who was hostess, but she never fell heir to no million bucks — not that I ever heard tell of. Sellar — Sellar. That’s right. That was Amelia’s last name. That’s who it was. Amelia Sellar.”
“She may have got the money after she left you,” I said.
“Well, she might have,” he said.
“Where is she now? Do you know?”
“Nope.”
“Any idea where I can find out?”
“No. Those girls drift around and get scattered. I had about the best-looking bunch of legs there was in the city. You take it nowadays, and women don’t have pretty legs. They have fashionable legs, but they ain’t what you’d call pretty. They ain’t the kind of legs a man will spend money over. A woman falls for that slender, streamlined stuff, but it takes real legs to start a man on a spending spree, legs that have curves and class. Now I can remember back in—”
“Don’t you keep up with any of your old entertainers?” I asked.
“Shucks, no,” he said. “Mostly they were a wild bunch. They came and they went. I saw one of ’em the other day though, girl by the name of Myrtle. She was with me way back in nineteen-twenty. Just a kid she was then, eighteen or nineteen, and believe me, she doesn’t look a day older now.”
“Where was she?” I asked.
“Taking tickets in a picture show. She certainly is class, Myrtle is. I looked at her a couple of times, and I said, ‘Say, your face is familiar. Ain’t your mother’s name Myrtle?’
“She placed me then and said, ‘I’m Myrtle,’ and I like to fell over backward. She’s married now. Got a kid ten years old, she told me. Of course, they arrange the lights in those little ticket booths so the girls look pretty, but I’m telling you, Mr. — what’d you say your name was?”
“Lam. Donald Lam.”
“That’s right. Well, I’m telling you, Lam, that girl didn’t look a day older than she did when she was working for me, and say, talking about legs — there was the girl that had legs. Say, Mister, if I could get a dozen girls like Myrtle and open up a place — but it wouldn’t do no good. The coin just ain’t in circulation. The business ain’t here. It’s just like I told you. People are putting in all their time trying to get some of the other fellow’s dough away from him. There just ain’t any stream of circulating cash where you can throw in a bucket and pull out the dough.”
“Where did you say this picture show was?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s up on Market Street, four or five doors below the Twin Peaks Hotel.”
“What,” I asked, “does she look like?”
“Pretty as a picture,” he said. “Her hair used to be a lighter shade of red than it is now. She’s got it this kind of a dark brown colour they’re using so much, but she’s got that peaches-and-cream complexion, and her eyes are clear blue. God, how that girl could look innocent! And legs! Say, I’m telling you, Mister — what’d you say your name was?”
“Lam. Donald Lam.”
“That’s right. I keep forgetting. It’s an odd name, too. Somehow I don’t seem to remember names quite as well as I used to. But shucks, you don’t have the personalities to go with them any more. Why, I can remember back here when San Francisco was just full of men who had personality sticking out all over ’em. Why—”
I looked at my watch. “I’ve got a train to catch,” I said. “It was a real pleasure meeting you. You’ll pardon me if I run away — here, waiter. The check please... Don’t let me hurry you, Mr. Ranigan. Just sit and finish that champagne. I’m sorry I have to run, but that’s the way it is, you know.”
“Sure,” he said. “That’s the way things are now. If you want to make a dollar, you’ve got to keep on the run every minute trying to grab it before the other fellow gets it. Things didn’t used to be that way. It used to be there was plenty of money for everybody. Nobody begrudged the other fellow what he was making, and when you made anything, you could put it in your pocket. That ain’t the way things are now what with government agents coming around and snooping over your books trying to gouge the last penny out of you. Say, we had no sales tax, no income tax, no payroll tax — why, it was a pleasure doing business, and if a government man had ever come in the door and said he wanted to look over our books, he’d have gone out on a stretcher. In those days they used to say, ‘What do you think this is? Russia? Get the hell out of here.’ And believe me, buddy, the government kept out. Maybe that was why business was so good. Why, I remember one year—”
I shook hands with him and hurried out. I looked back at the door. He was talking to the waiter, telling him over his fourth glass of champagne how good the city used to be.
It was a slack time at the I pushed a twenty-dollar bill through the arch-shaped opening in the glass and placed my lips as close as possible to the round hole.
The girl who sat on the stool by the change machine put shapely fingers on a series of levers and smiled at me with wide, innocent blue eyes. She looked to be somewhere in the late twenties. “How many please?” she asked. “One?”