Sally's in the Alley by Norbert Davis (best color ereader .txt) 📕

HELIOTROPE IS TOO FAR INLAND TO FALL UNDER the restrictions of the coastal dim-out zone, and since the taste of the advertising portion of its population runs toward the more violent shades of neon, it resembles a string of cheap jewelry tucked in against the dark and barren sweep of the Crazy Leg Mountains when approached at night from the floor of the desert. Its main street is four blocks long, paved at the sides but not in the middle, and at close range the signs on the buildings that line it are so blinding that it is hard for the stranger to tell whether he has arrived in a town or at the Fourth of July.

Doan parked the Cadillac in the unpaved section of the street midway between the Double-Eagle Hotel (golden neon eagle flapping its wings in two-four time) and the Bar B Grill (fiendish twenty-foot red flames lapping around a bored blue cow). The combination of colors gave Harriet Hathaway’s healthy face a tinge that reminded him urgently of the cargo he was carrying in the trunk compartment.

“Let’s try that,” he said, indicating the Bar B. “They might really have steaks.”

“I’d like one,” said Harriet.

Doan opened the door for Carstairs, and the three of them crossed the street and went in through the red bordered swing doors. The place was long and low and L-shaped, filled to capacity with a bar and round, blacktopped tables. The only person in sight was the bartender. He had gold front teeth and only one ear.

“Have you any steaks tonight?” Doan asked.

“Sure,” said the bartender.

“Are they good?”

“I dunno, mister. I just cook ‘em. I don’t eat ‘em.”

Doan selected a table, and pulled out a chair for Harriet Hathaway. “We’ll take a chance. Give us a couple of what you think are New York cuts and some French fried potatoes and a salad bowl.”

“Ain’t you gonna have anything to drink first?” the bartender asked. “We don’t make any profit on our food, you know. We can’t run this dive unless we sell liquor.”

Doan looked inquiringly at Harriet. “You?”

“I don’t drink, thank you.”

Doan nodded at the bartender. “I’ll have a triple bourbon in a beer glass.”

“Why?” said the bartender.

Carstairs had collapsed beside the table, and Doan indicated him meaningly.

“I’m only allowed one drink before meals, unless I want an argument.”

The bartender stared. “You mean you let a dog dictate to you?”

“Up-si-daisy,” said Doan.

Carstairs got up instantly. Doan pointed toward the bar, and Carstairs swung his head slowly in the direction.

“Hey!” said the bartender. “Hold it, now! I didn’t mean any offense. I was just making a remark, and I can see that there’s a lot to be said for your point of view.”

“Let’s have a little less conversation and a little more service,” Doan requested.

“Sure. Tell him to lie down again like a nice dog, would you mind?”

“Boom,” said Doan.

Carstairs relaxed his muscles and hit the floor all at once.

“One triple bourbon in a beer glass,” the bartender said, becoming briskly businesslike. “Yes, sir. Coming right up. Two New York cuts, side of fried and grass. On the fire.”

He brought the drink for Doan, making a careful detour around Carstairs, and then went back and began to bustle busily around the hooded grill at the far end of the bar. Doan raised the glass to take a sip of the whiskey in it and then paused, staring at the man who had materialized from somewhere or other and was now standing beside the table smiling at him.

“How do you do?” said the man.

He was small, and he had a round, olive-skinned face with a dimple in each cheek, and his teeth were very white and even under a pencil-line black mustache. His eyes were liquidly dark and sparkling. He wore a brown suit and a brown shirt and tie and had a brown handkerchief peeping artistically out of the breast pocket of his coat.

“All right,” said Doan.

The small man turned his head and looked at Harriet. There was nothing insulting about his look. It was courteously calculating, nothing more.

“Would you like to buy a blonde?” he asked, turning back to Doan.

“A what?” Doan said.

“A blonde.”

“No,” said Doan.

“A brunette?”

“No,” said Doan. “Supposing you go away and sit down somewhere.”

The small man smiled winningly. “You don’t approve of me, perhaps?”

“Not perhaps. Positively.”

“You scorn me?”

“That’s right.”

The small man bowed precisely. “Good evening.” He turned on his heel and walked back to the farthest table in the rear corner of the room and sat down.

Harriet said, “He’s such a handsome little man, but he must be awfully drunk. I mean, who ever heard of buying a blonde or brunette… Oh!”

“Yes,” said Doan.

“You mean he—they—you… Oh!”

“Oh,” Doan agreed.

“Why, that’s terrible! Why, I’m going to call a policeman and have him arrested!”

“It wouldn’t do any good. They’d just have to bail him out or pay his fine.”

“They! You mean, they pay… Oh, that’s horrible! Oh, I don’t believe… Really?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m going to…” Her voice trailed away. She was staring glassy-eyed over Doan’s shoulder. “Oh, there he is! You!”

Doan turned around. A tall man in khaki pants and shirt and leather jacket was halfway between the door and the bar. He had stopped so suddenly that he had one foot still half-raised to take another step. He was wearing black—not dark, but black—glasses, and he had an unkempt, patchy beard about an inch long at its best points. He was watching Harriet Hathaway with the sort of expression the ordinary person reserves for a nest of rattlesnakes.

“That’s the horrible slacker person,” Harriet explained to Doan. “You! Come right over here!”

The tall man put the raised foot carefully in back of the one he was standing on. Harriet got out of her chair.

“Don’t you dare try to avoid me! You come here! I want to speak to you!”

That last did it. The tall man spun like a top and dove for the door. He hit it and was gone with a double whack-whack to mark his passage.

“Oh, he’s not going to get away from me again!” said Harriet, and went right after him.

The doors whack-whacked again, even more emphatically. Carstairs had raised his head and was looking at Doan with an expression of long-suffering annoyance. Doan shrugged and took a big drink of bourbon.

“So you wanna insult my friend, do you?”

Doan looked up slowly. This man was wearing a ten-gallon hat and a blue bandanna and a calfskin vest and brass-studded chaps, and the effect was so startling it was grotesque. His face didn’t match the camouflage. It was a fat, florid face with black, beady chips for eyes. It was blurred just slightly. It looked like a face someone had drawn and then half erased. In other words, it looked like a fifth rate prizefighter’s face.

“So you wanna insult my friend, huh?” he said again.

“Sure,” said Doan, putting his glass down.

The man was as thick as he was wide, and he turned and pointed meaningly toward the back of the room. “That’s my friend, what you insulted.”

“Go away while you’re healthy,” said Doan. “Take him with you.”

The thick man clipped him with a short right. It was an expertly professional blow, coming without any warning at all. Doan had just time to tilt his head a quarter inch, so that the splayed, thick knuckles landed on his cheekbone instead of on the point of his jaw.

The force of the blow knocked him clear out of his chair and flat on the floor. He rolled over and dove, not for the thick man, but for Carstairs. He was just in time. He got a stranglehold on Carstairs’ neck with one arm and jerked his front feet out from under him with the other.

Carstairs sprawled down, half on top of him, making little grunting thick sounds deep in his throat.

“Stop it!” Doan panted, rapping him sharply on the top of the head. “Did I ask for help? Did I? Relax!”

The thick man laughed jeeringly. “Look at this! I hit the guy, so he hits his dog! A screwball!”

Doan got up. “That was a cute trick,” he said amiably. “What would you do if I did this?”

He made a fork out of the first two fingers of his right hand and then flicked the fingers at the thick man’s eyes. Just exactly like Laurel and Hardy. Only Doan meant it. One of his fingers bit the thick man in each of his eyes.

The thick man screamed and slapped both palms against his eyes. Doan stepped back two paces and then forward one and kicked the thick man six inches below his belt. The thick man stopped screaming right in mid-note and doubled up. Doan hit him in the back of his neck with a full-arm swing, and the thick man followed his nose right down to the floor and squirmed there on his stomach.

Doan stepped back three paces this time and then forward two and jumped. He came down heels first, lumberjack style, on the thick man’s back. There was a dull little crack, and then the thick man didn’t squirm any more. He didn’t do anything. He lay where he was.

Doan stepped off him lightly and looked at the back of the room. “And now I want a word with you.”

The small man had lost his neat and glistening smile and the best part of his olive complexion. He looked decidedly ill. He was standing up, flat against the wall, and now he shook a thin clasp knife out of the sleeve of his neat brown suit and opened the blade with a flick of his wrist.

Doan picked up the chair he had fallen out of and walked slowly toward him. The small man threw the knife in a sudden wickering blur. Doan caught it on the bottom of the chair, and it stuck there with a steely thrum. He worked it loose and balanced it in his right hand thoughtfully.

The small man didn’t wait for any decisions. He dove head first through the window behind his table. Doan stared at the window as though he had never seen one before. He took three steps toward it, craning his neck, and then suddenly whipped around and dropped into a crouch, facing the other way.

The bartender was standing at attention, both hands raised over his head. “Oh, no!” he said quickly. “No, sir! I’m neutral, thanks.”

Doan watched him.

“Mister,” said the bartender, “this position ain’t very comfortable, but I ain’t gonna twitch an eyelid until you say I can.”

“All right,” said Doan. “Who was the gent who went out the window?”

“Name of Free-Look Jones. No friend of mine.”

“Where does he live?”

“I dunno.”

“Find